Now What? Chapter 13

"Eddie, your brother is dead because a murderer killed him," Kate declares. "And if we're going to nail him, I have to know exactly what happened next. So you dumped the car?"

Eddie nods. "Stephen said if we left it in the ghetto, the cops would think it was a carjacking gone wrong."

"Which was exactly what they did think," Rick notes.

Kate side-eyes Rick but goes on. "And then what happened?"

"We tossed the bloody clothes in a dumpster. Then I went to see Joe at his fundraiser for the halfway house and told him what happened. He said we couldn't leave Lila in the trunk like that and went to get her out. But by the time Joe got there, the cops had already arrested that black guy. So Joe went to that dumpster and got Stephen's bloody clothes as insurance."

"That must be what Joe said he was mailing to the DA," Rick figures. "And according to Dawn Craig, the mail gets checked on the outside and then goes to Karnacki. Someone must have seen that package before it reached the inner sanctum."

"We need to interview whoever checks the mail," Kate decides.

Security Officer Melman strokes the stubble sprouting on his jaw. "A package with bloody clothes. If something was wet, we would never have let it through. It could have had acid or something on it. But there were some designer men's clothes with brown stains on them that could have been blood. I remember thinking they'd be worth a few months' salary if they were in better shape."

"And what did you do with them?"

"I checked them against the guide from the feds on what to look for as red flags of airborne substances and ran a chemical sniffer over them. They came up OK, so I sealed the package in plastic, put my stamp on it, and stuck it on Mr. Karnacki's desk with the other mail we checked."

"Was Mr. Karnacki there when you put it on his desk?" Kate queries.

"Yeah, he was there. He took a look at the package and shoved it in a file drawer."

"Did he look upset?" Rick asks.

Melman scratches his head. "Mr. Karnacki's always pretty intense, but yeah, when he saw that package, he might have been more intense than usual. As I was leaving, I saw him reaching for a bottle of whiskey he had in his desk."

"Do you keep a log of packages you check and where they come from?" Kate queries.

"Uh-huh. The public health people require it in case something makes it past us. We do it by hand, but we post scans online in case of an emergency. I can give you the URL."

Kate favors Melman with a smile. "I'd very much appreciate that."

Melman writes out an online address and hands it to Kate. "You'll have to register to access it, but as a cop, you can use your badge number as ID. You shouldn't have much trouble getting in."

Kate widens her smile. "Thanks. You may have just helped to nail a murderer."

Gazing at the floor, Melman shuffles his feet. "We're all into serving justice together, right?"

Kate nods. "And you're doing a great job."

Rick looks over Kate's shoulder as she pages through scans of the DA's Office's security log. "I think some of those guys were in the john during penmanship class. But what's that? Isn't it the back address of Joe McUsic's halfway house?"

"It is," Kate confirms. "McUsic was telling the truth in his letter to Karnacki."

"And Karnacki was lying through his teeth to us and Montgomery," Rick says.

Kate sends the scanned image to the printer and pushes out of her seat. "The captain needs to see that now."

Montgomery walks through the door of the DA's inner office as Karnacki is pouring three fingers of whiskey into a glass. Karnacki scowls at the captain. "How the hell did you get in here?"

Montgomery taps the badge on his belt. "Used my key to the city."

Karnacki shakes his head. "Ha! You want a drink? I just got my hands on this brilliant bottle of 1875 Saint Miriam."

"Discovered by Richard Castle and Detective Beckett in a tunnel beneath the Old Haunt and claimed by New York to raise funds to improve the city's underground structure. I know that Castle wrote a fat check to get one. How did you get yours, Lou?" Montgomery questions.

"Just a little behind-the-scenes maneuvering. You know how it goes, Roy."

"I know how it's supposed to go, Lou. You're supposed to be standing up for the people and putting the ones who break the law in prison. But that's not what you did for that bottle or, in the Addison case, is it Lou? I need the package. You know the one. Joe McUsic sent it to you to prove Otis Williams didn't kill Lila. Her coked-up brother shot her. But you couldn't let that get out, could you, Lou? You get too much campaign money from the Addisons. You were willing to let an innocent man go to prison to cover for a murderer."

The bottle and glass jump as Karnacki pounds his desk. "Aw, come on, Roy! You gonna sing Kumbaya for Otis Williams? The man's got a rap sheet as long as your arm: theft, aggravated assault, attempted murder. That's just the stuff we got him on."

"But he didn't kill Lila Addison, Lou. Look, when I was a rookie cop, this office was a sewer. When the chief rat moved on, I thought the muck had drained, that this office would be protecting the city again. I was willing to do anything I could to support you because I thought you would do that. And for years, it seemed that was what you were doing. But you lost your way, Lou. You started worrying more about yourself than the law you were supposed to enforce. I can't let that go."

"Roy, I've done a lot of good for this city. Putting Otis Williams away again would just be keeping more scum off the street. And I can do even more."

"How? By getting elected mayor? Bob Weldon's not perfect. I've seen him be fool enough to draw to an inside straight. But he's never stepped on anyone to get ahead."

"Roy, think of how many bad guys I've put away. Think of how much I can still do for this city. But it takes money to get there, and the Addisons are keeping the war chest well stocked. That's how the game is played. You know that. Look, as mayor, I can make you police commissioner. Think about how much you could do for the NYPD, for the city, from a position like that."

Montgomery flips his tie over to reveal a microphone. "No, Lou. You're not going to get the chance."

"Castle, you've been distracted all morning," Kate says as Rick fiddles with the paper clips on her desk. "What's going on in that weird writer's mind of yours?"

"Beckett, we both heard Montgomery's recording of Karnacki admitting that he knew he was prosecuting the wrong man."

"Right. So?"

"Montgomery talked about the DA's office being a sewer around the time he was a rookie. And after Karnacki was here before, he was muttering about crooked DAs."

"What are you getting at, Castle?"

"I looked up who was DA when Montgomery was a rookie. It was William H. Bracken."

"The William H. Bracken who is on all those environmental crusader ads?"

"Yeah, same guy. And Beckett, he would have been DA around the same time Raglan was talking about before Lockwood killed him. If he was crooked, do you think there's a connection?"

"It's possible, Castle. But if you start looking for skeletons in politicians' closets, you'd have enough for every medical school in the country."

"Yeah, you're probably right. But have you ever seen Montgomery insert himself into a case like that before?"

"No," Kate admits.

Rick puts another link into his paper clip chain. "Yeah. Something besides the Addison case is going on, and it's been brewing for a long time."