Now What? Chapter 3
Reese Harmon sniffles loudly and dabs at her eyes with a tissue. "I don't know much about how the cast and crew felt about Sarah. I spent most of my time in her office typing her rewrites into the scripts and dealing with her correspondence."
"Did her correspondence involve letters from unhappy fans?" Castle asks.
"Yes and some of them were more than unhappy. They were really pissed off. There was one who went by FoxCanLover, who swore that the axe would fall on Sarah."
"FoxCan?" Castle inquires.
"It's a shipper name. Fans put the names of two characters who have a thing together. It's like if you two were characters having a thing, you'd be Caskett, and your fans would be Casketts."
Kate flinches. "That name's a little grim, isn't it?"
Rick's gaze flicks down at her. "I kind of like it."
Does this FoxCanLover have a real name?" Kate inquires.
Reese slips off the bed. "I have everything we have on her in Sarah's office."
Rick and Kate follow Reese back across the studio. Reese pulls open a drawer in her desk and takes out a file. "FoxCanLover's real name is Carrie Edwards. She won a set visit from a literacy charity Sarah supported."
"A literacy charity," Rick repeats. "I support a couple of those. I remember a silent auction. I won a first edition of Agatha Christie's 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.' It went for only $6,000, almost a steal."
"I believe Carrie Edwards only put out a thousand dollars for her set visit. I wasn't there but Sarah told me about it," Reese explains. "Carrie was behaving herself until she saw Sarah. Then she got in her face and started yelling, 'You ruined everything!'"
"Does your file have any threatening letters from Carrie?" Kate asks.
"She didn't send anything through the mail, but she did write some pretty awful things on her blog. I can show you." Reese wakes up the computer on her desk.
Kate regards the screen. "'Axe murderer! What goes around comes around. JUST WAIT FOR WHAT'S COMING YOUR WAY!' Definitely a threat."
"And in caps for emphasis," Rick adds.
"I'll have the unis bring Carrie in for questioning," Kate decides. "But Ms. Harmon, let's go back to the cast and crew for a moment. You worked here at all hours with Sarah, didn't you?"
"I did. Sometimes until midnight if she was doing a major rewrite."
"And you never saw her arguing with anyone who would normally be around the set?"
"I stayed back here working while Sarah was on the set a lot in case the actors had questions about their lines or the direction of a scene. If someone had a problem with her, they could have taken it up there, but I wouldn't have heard any arguments."
"From her time of death, Sarah was working late last night," Rick recalls. "Why weren't you here with her?"
"As I told you, I usually stay, but last night Sarah wouldn't let me."
"Why?" Kate asks.
"One of Sarah's passions besides literacy, was helping young writers like me. She got me a slot in the network fellowship program. We had a mixer last night, and she insisted that I go. She was supposed to come later, but she never showed up." Reese grabs a tissue from a box on her desk as tears begin to leak from her eyes again. "I guess now I know why."
"I'm very sorry for your loss, Ms. Harmon," Kate says handing Reese her card. "Please let me know if you think of anything else that might help our investigation."
Reese sniffles. "I will."
"Castle," Kate says as she and Rick leave Reese in Sarah Cutler's office, "I'm going to check with the boys about their interviews. Find your mother. Take her somewhere you can pump her for whatever she's found out. I'll meet you at the precinct later."
"All right," Castle agrees. "Mother's been wanting to try out that new place, the Organic Garden. Hopefully, something we can use will sprout."
Martha contentedly sips a glass of organic red wine. "No artificial chemicals, just what Mother Earth has to offer. This is lovely, Richard."
"For what they're charging for it, it should be," Rick grumbles. "So tell me. What did you hear on the set that wasn't so lovely? Kate and I already heard about some crazy fan who had it in for her, but who was closer to home?"
"If you want closer to home, you can start with the producer, Vince Powers, who was also her husband. But rumor has it that he wasn't home anymore. Sarah suspected he had an affair and tossed him out."
"Who did he have an affair with?"
"No one seemed to be sure, but Mandy Bronson is at the top of the list. She's been known to use assets other than her acting talent, what little there is of it, to get her way on the show."
"Hmm, what else did you find out?" Rick queries.
"That even minus some hair and plus a few pounds, Lance Hastings is still one hell of a man."
"Wasn't he your love interest on the show?"
"On screen and, hoo, hoo, off. But he may be one of those soaps actors that casting agents are starting to look at for roles outside daytime dramas. There's been some buzz about that for a while."
"So he might have wanted to break free of Temptation Lane?"
"If it would be for a better-respected role, he deserves it."
"Anything else?" Rick asks.
"Everyone was pretty nervous about cancelation until Sarah wrote the show out of the ratings hole, but without Sarah, they're nervous again."
"So most of the cast and crew would have had a motive to want Sarah alive?"
"If they wanted to make rent, yes."
"Good to know, Mother, thanks."
"Once you've been on a soap, you're a member of the family, Richard. I was glad to be able to offer some consolation – especially to Lance Hastings."
"Mother, I'm sure you were."
Carrie Edwards gazes around Interrogation One. "This doesn't look at all like the interview room Detective Davis uses."
"That's because Detective Davis isn't real," Kate reminds her. "He's a character on Temptation Lane and his interview room is a set. But I can assure you, Ms. Edwards, that this one is very real. Do you know why you're here?"
"The officers who brought me in said you wanted to talk to me about a murder, but I don't know about any murders except for Ashley Conrad. Sarah Cutler should never have done that."
"Ashley Conrad was a fictional character. Her murder wasn't real either," Kate reminds the fan.
"The actress who played her is still very much alive and preparing for a revival of 'Arsenic and Old Lace,'" Castle interjects. "Sarah Cutler, however, is quite dead."
"Sarah Cutler is really dead?" Carrie queries.
"Someone put an axe in her back, just like you threatened to do in your blog," Kate adds.
"She deserved it!" Carrie declares.
"So you admit to killing her?" Kate presses.
Carrie throws out her hands. "What? No! I didn't kill her. What I wrote on my blog was about a mail-in campaign. My followers are supposed to send axes to the show as a protest."
"Where were you last night between seven and eleven pm?" Kate questions.
"At home, chatting with other FoxCons. I can prove it. Mary and Dennis were home."
"Your roommates?" Kate asks.
"No, my parents. And my posts were timestamped."
Kate nods. "All right we'll check that out."
Kate looks up from her computer. "Carrie was telling the truth. She and the other FoxCons were busily extolling their ships' virtues during the kill zone."
"We do have a more conventional suspect," Castle says. "Mother was very helpful. Sarah had a cheating spouse, none other than producer Vince Powers."
Kate's chair skitters back as she springs to her feet. "Let's go!"