Finding the Fit Chapter 16
The Candelas' landline rings just as Kate and Castle walk in. After a moment, the tech points at Theresa to answer it. The altered voice sounds again through the speaker. "In 42 hours, you will put the money in a blue backpack, model number 32387, from Camping Mart. You'll receive another call instructing you on where to make the drop." The call ends.
"Check our monitor at the ISP," Sorenson orders. "Where did that call originate?"
"The call wasn't over VOIP this time," the tech reports after a few minutes. "It came from a burner. We have no way to trace it."
Sorenson's fist pounds his thigh. "Damn! How did they know?"
Rick signals Kate into the kitchen. "Beckett," he whispers, "someone here has to be tipping the kidnapper off. Why else would they have switched to a burner?"
"Maybe they just didn't want to call the same way twice," Kate suggests.
"It's got to be more than that," Rick insists. "The amount of the ransom, the window, everything points to someone on the inside."
"The only people with all of that information are the Candelas. We can't go pointing a finger at the parents on what is essentially your hunch," Kate says. "Sorenson will never buy it."
"I doubt he'd buy anything from me, Beckett. I get to hang around with you while he doesn't. That's got to burn."
"Castle, are you saying he's jealous?"
"I'm saying I've watched the way he looked at you when we came in – and the way he looked at me. Those looks were longing and unfriendly, respectively. I reiterate. He wants you back. Maybe he sees me as some kind of an obstacle. He sure as hell isn't going to let anything that comes from me affect his view of the case."
"Castle, you haven't completely convinced me either," Kate points out.
"Fine. I need to check Angela's room."
"What are you looking for?" Kate questions.
"I'll know," Rick responds, "when I find it – or don't find it."
Kate shrugs. "Go ahead, but I don't see how it will make a difference."
With a writer's observational skills enhanced by CIA training, Rick painstakingly scrutinizes Angela's bedroom. Several large and expensively framed photographs of Angela grace the walls. In each, she holds a stuffed rabbit. The Candelas had apparently tried to make up for the lack of personal attention with an overabundance of toys, particularly stuffed animals. Rick carefully searches among them for the blue bunny in the photos. It's not there. He returns to the living room, scanning the area in front of the TV where Angela would have been. No bunny there either, or anywhere else in the room. He checks the other rooms in the house, including the bathroom, where several toys lie in a brightly colored wood box near a potty chair. Still no bunny. The only place it could be is with Angela.
Compassionate Hearts hadn't been able to afford many toys for the children, but Miss Lula tried her best to make sure that each of the youngest ones had something that gave them comfort. For some, it was a blanket, tattered from endless washings. For others, it was a stuffed something. Rick remembers one little girl, Alexis, who had been totally attached to a sock monkey she called Monkey-Bunkey. When one of the arms had come off, she was inconsolable until Miss Lula sewed it back on. When Alexis was lucky enough to be adopted, the only thing she cared about taking to her new home was Monkey-Bunkey. Rick can imagine that Angela feels the same way about her blue bunny and would have left peacefully with the bunny in her arms. The kidnapper knew the child well enough to take the rabbit along.
"Beckett, take a look," Castle hisses, as Kate stands on the outer perimeter of agents gathered in the living room command post. He motions her toward the toddler's room and points to the toy in the photos. "It's not here. It's not in the house anywhere. The kidnapper took it when she took Angela."
"She, Castle?"
"How many guys would have fit through that window with a two-year-old girl carrying a stuffed rabbit?"
"There are plenty of small men, Castle. Mr. Delmonico who owns the pasta food truck that comes to the 12th on Thursdays, for one."
"Mr. Delmonico wouldn't have known about the window, the Candelas' finances, or Alfred's negligence. For sure, he wouldn't have known about the bunny. He wouldn't have known to switch from VOIP to a burner, either. There's just one person who would have known all of that besides Theresa and maybe Alfred."
"Theresa's sister Nina. Except for," Kate adds, "the intercept on the VOIP."
"That's true," Castle acknowledges. "But the FBI wasn't monitoring Theresa's cell calls out. She went into her bedroom to talk to Nina several times about the money. She could have easily let her know then."
Kate presses her fingertips to her lips. "I need an address for Nina."
In the small fenced-in play area attached to the building housing Nina Vasquez's apartment, and clutching her bunny, Angela Candela bounces aboard a plastic pony attached to a thick metal spring. Flanked by Ryan and Esposito, with Rick close behind, Kate enters through a gate. "Ms. Vasquez?" she addresses the woman who is attentively watching Angela.
Nina turns and immediately spies the badge around Kate's neck. "I haven't done anything wrong. The baby is my niece. I'm just watching her for my sister."
"Do you always take the children you watch out through a window?" Castle queries.
"Ryan, take Angela," Kate instructs.
"And don't forget the bunny," Rick urges.
"I know," Ryan says. "I spend enough time with my sister's kids to understand lovies."
The little girl giggles as the slight detective, bouncing like the pony, picks her and the bunny up.
"Nina Vasquez," Kate says, pulling out her cuffs, "you're under arrest."
Nina interrupts as Kate begins to give her the Miranda warning. "Under arrest for what? My sister asked me to watch Angela for a while. She's her mother. She had every right to do that."
"Not when it was an attempt to mislead both the FBI and the NYPD, as well as deprive Alfred Candela of his parental rights," Kate replies.
Nina spits on the ground. "Some parent! He couldn't be bothered to watch his own daughter."
"For which you call Children's Protective Services. You don't fake a kidnapping," Kate retorts. "As I was saying, you have the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney."
"So," Rick summarizes as he and Kate finally return to the 12th Precinct. "Theresa didn't feel that Alfred was carrying his weight as a father, a point on which I'd have to agree. But she was afraid that if she divorced him, he'd get custody of Angela because he could stay home with her, and she'd be forced to pay alimony and child support. She figured that she'd get the ransom, then accuse Alfred of negligence and have the child and the cash. But with Theresa in prison and Alfred clearly unable to keep track of his daughter, what's going to happen to Angela?"
"Right now, that's up to the social workers, Castle, but it will be adjacent to the case against Theresa, so I'll stay advised."
"Beckett, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep me advised as well. I'll even buy you lunch the next time Mr. Delmonico comes around."
"I do love his linguini," Kate considers. "Deal!"