Now What? Chapter 6
"So, how am I supposed to get paid now?' Johnny Dimes demands.
"Sarah Cutler has an estate," Kate says. "You can file a claim. But no one is getting paid anything while there's an open murder investigation."
"Which makes it in your best interest to tell Detective Beckett everything you know," Rick points out.
"What fraud were you investigating for Sarah?" Kate questions.
"Sarah was adopted at birth. Recently, a woman calling herself Gloria Chambers shows up, claiming to be Sarah's birth mother. Sarah had her doubts and wanted me to check her out."
"Why not just run DNA?" Rick wonders.
"I don't know," Dimes admits. "Maybe Sarah didn't want to show her hand in case Chambers was the real thing."
"You said, 'claimed,'" Kate notes. "So Gloria Chambers isn't Sarah Cutler's mother?"
Dimes shakes his head. "Not even close. She's a serial grifter. Up until Sarah, she specialized in marrying men for their money."
"But with Sarah, she decided to branch out," Rick assumes.
"That's right," Johnny confirms.
"I'll need everything you have on Gloria Chambers or whoever she is,' Kate says, handing Dimes a card. "You can email the file here. And in both our interests, Mr. Dimes, the sooner the better." Kate pulls out her phone. "Espo, find Gloria Chambers and bring her in."
"Sarah was meeting Johnny Dimes," Kate says as she drives back to the 12th Precinct. "I wonder why she marked the meetings as 'M.'"
"'M' for mother," Rick guesses, "but if Sarah found out the truth, she might have decided on a less than traditional spelling." He pops the lid off the plastic tub on his lap holding Lauren's manuscript and starts skimming the text. "Hey, you know, this isn't bad. I should be able to get through it by the time the boys drag in Faux Mama."
"Sometimes I forget how fast you read," Kate says.
"Well, it's even easier when it's something worth reading, and I struggled hard enough to find a publisher for 'In a Hail of Bullets.' I know how Lauren feels, wondering if she'll spend the rest of her life behind a counter instead of a keyboard. If the rest of this is as good, Paula should be able to do something with it."
"Right now, we need to do something with Gloria Chambers."
Rick grins. "With your exceptional interrogatory skills, I have no doubt you will get to the heart of her felonious and possibly murderous ways."
As Kate and Rick get off the elevator at the 12th, she glances around the bullpen. "Looks like Espo and Ryan aren't back yet." Kate points at the manuscript Rick is carrying. "I'm going to put what we have so far on the murderboard, while you work on that."
"Yeah," Rick responds, "there might be something more here than I thought."
"What do you mean, Castle?"
"Maybe nothing. If you extract a confession from Gloria, it won't matter, at least not to the case."
"Castle, right now, the case is what matters. We don't have time for games."
"I'm not playing one," Rick mutters at Kate's rapidly retreating back. "I never have been."
As Rick finishes the last page of Lauren's script, the elevator doors open. Ryan and Esposito stride out, holding a cuffed Gloria Chambers. "Yo, Beckett," Esposito calls across the bullpen, "look who we caught trying to buy a ticket to the Bahamas at JFK."
Rick grins. "Gloria.'
The older woman lets out a deep sigh. "Everything in New York reminded me of Sarah. I needed to distance myself from the agonizing truth that she's dead. If denial is a crime, I plead guilty."
"It must be agonizing to know that you won't be able to get any money out of her," Rick says.
"And how do you plead on murder?" Kate questions and nods at the detectives flanking her suspect. "Put her in One."
Staring across the table at Gloria, Kate zips open her leather folder, pulling out a freshly printed file. "Gloria Chambers, aka Charlene Sullers, you have been a very busy woman."
"And not in a good way," Rick adds. "Yours is a real rags to riches story. The only problem is the riches never seem to be yours."
Kate holds up a document. "Fraud in Florida, embezzlement in North Carolina."
Gloria draws herself up in her chair. "I served my time for those… misunderstandings."
"I suspect the judge understood very well," Rick offers.
"And then you latched onto your next meal ticket, Constantine Pirelli," Kate continues. "After him, it was Ernesto Cruz."
"I hear they're very anxious for you to come back – with their money," Rick says.
Gloria's eyes blaze. "I was married to those men. It was our money. I can tell you I earned every penny."
"There's a word for that," Rick says, "and what it describes isn't legal either – except in Nevada. But even in that state's pleasure palaces, there are rules."
"And you couldn't give the money back even if you wanted to, could you, Gloria?" Kate questions. "Every time, you blew it all and had to look for your next ticket. You found your latest one in Sarah Cutler."
"You heard an interview in which she mentioned being adopted, did a little research, and then showed up as the long-lost mother," Rick asserts.
Gloria shrugs. "Sarah might have been under the impression that I was her mother."
"Actually, she wasn't," Kate says. "She hired a PI to find out who you really are. After she confronted you with the truth, you killed her."
"I didn't kill her," Gloria insists. "In my own way, I was fond of Sarah."
"So fond of her that you tried to flee the country before she even has a funeral," Rick accuses.
Gloria shakes her head. "I didn't kill her. But I couldn't do anything more hanging around either. And if you bother to check, you'll find I have a solid alibi. So if I were you, I'd look into the other man in her life."
"What other man?" Kate demands.
"The one that gave her two-carat Arthur Klien earrings just the other day."
"Does this other man have a name?" Kate inquires.
"Sarah didn't tell me his name, but whoever it was, they must have just split up because he was trying to win her over."
Kate rolls her eyes. "So you're going to point us toward a mysterious stranger?"
"It's the truth!" Gloria argues.
"Coming from a professional liar," Kate returns.
"I told you I have a solid alibi. I was nowhere near that godforsaken soap set when Sarah died. I was doing something useful with my time."
Rick smirks. "Let me guess. Reading to the blind?"
Gloria smiles. "Close. I was donating – to the ponies."
Kate slams her landline's receiver into its cradle. "Damn! Gloria's on video during the kill zone – at off-track betting."
"Kate, she was not the only suspect," Rick points out.
"Right, we have a mystery earrings guy. Great!" Kate retorts.
"I was talking about someone else. Lauren's screenplay is about horses, and if you remember what Peter Donnelly said about Reese's screenplay…."
"Castle, I don't have time to worry about your fencing match with Donnelly about which writers work harder. I need to find out if Gloria was right about Sarah having a breakup."
"But Beckett…."
"If you're worried about your output as an author, go home and write a couple of chapters or something. I need to track the buyer of a pair of Arthur Klein earrings."
"Fine. But you might want to check out Ballard's on 43rd in Midtown. The last time Gina the shopaholic got anything Arthur Klein, that's where she bought it. Through closing elevator doors, Rick murmurs. "See you later Beckett. I do have some writing to do."