Now What? Chapter 15
Rick stares at the murderboard. "Beckett, shouldn't we be looking into the other Nicks? Ralph didn't say what his retaliation was, but if it pissed someone off enough, the body could have been retribution, especially since we don't know who it was."
"Castle, do you really think someone was stabbed over pizza?" Kate asks.
"We've seen people murdered over a lot less. And Ralph said the body in the oven would put him out of business."
"He may be right, but not just because of losing customers. The health department isn't about to allow the operation of a pizza oven contaminated by a corpse," Kate considers.
"And I doubt there's a provision in his business insurance covering it," Rick says. "So, which Nick has the strongest motive to destroy the competition?"
"We should…." Kate's cell dings a text. "Lanie's got something. Maybe it will point us toward one of the Nicks."
"Even with hydrating the fingers, the body was too badly burned to get any prints," Lanie announces. "But I was able to find this." She pulls back the sheet on the body. "You see where the shin bone should be? Those are titanium plates. They have serial numbers. I ran them through the surgical database and got an ID."
Lanie hands Kate a file. She studies the DMV photo inside. "Gordon Burns?"
"Gordon Burns?" Rick repeats.
Lanie's head wags back and forth. "If you've got a bad joke, Castle, get it out of your system."
Rick gazes over Kate's shoulder at the file. "There's nothing funny about losing Gordon Burns. He was a reporter for The Ledger, one of the best journalists I've ever read. His stories used to be the first thing I'd look for when I opened the paper."
"Did you find anything on the body, Lanie?" Kate asks.
"His wallet and a melted cell phone clip but no phone."
"There wasn't one at the crime scene either," Kate recalls, picking up the wallet to examine it. "Credit cards, license, all melted." She pulls out a creased photo of a woman. "But this is only a little charred." She holds it up. "Mother? Girlfriend?"
"He was listed as divorced with no next of kin," Lanie says.
"He was a war correspondent, an investigative reporter. I can see the mob or a terrorist taking revenge. But why would someone like that stick him in a pizza oven?" Rick wonders. "They would want their victim to be identified as a warning."
"Maybe his editor knows," Kate suggests. "I'll put the boys on the Nicks while we go to The Ledger."
Editor Walt Shaw waves Rick and Kate to chairs in the crowded space in front of his desk. "It's like a punch to the gut that Gordon's dead. We were friends. When I got the editor job here, he was my first hire."
"With the kind of stories he wrote, he must have had a lot of people gunning for him," Rick guesses.
"In his prime, yes," Shaw agrees. "But not for years now. He's been out of the game for quite a while."
"Why is that?" Kate asks.
Shaw sinks back in his chair. "His kid was killed in an accident. She was ten. After that, he finally gave in to his love affair with the bottle."
Breath catches in Kate's chest as she recalls her father's reaction to her mother's death. Rick throws her a sympathetic look and continues the questioning. "Mr. Shaw, Burns is still listed as a Ledger employee. What was he doing for the paper?"
"I gave him enough assignments for him to pay his rent and keep his health insurance. He did an occasional human interest story for the lifestyle section. It was a waste of his talent, but it was all either one of us could manage."
"Was he working on anything recently?" Rick asks.
"Just a puff piece I'd assigned him last week."
"About what?" Rick queries.
"The pizza wars, the authentic, terrific, amazing Nicks all fighting over whose pizza was best. As far as I'm concerned, none of them holds a candle to Stephanos, but you don't have to cross the bridge to get to them. The lion's share of our readers work in Manhattan and can't go that far to grab lunch. So the story would have a certain appeal."
Rick and Kate exchange glances.
It wasn't Afghanistan," Shaw continues, " but Gordon was Gordon. He called a few days ago and said the story was bigger than we thought."
Kate leans in. "Bigger, how?"
Shaw shrugs. "He didn't say. But it's pizza wars. I mean, how big could it be?"
"Big enough to kill for," Rick says.
"We need everything the boys have so far on the Nicks," Kate says, aggressively punching her way through city traffic.
"We'll have to get there in one piece, Beckett," Rick reminds her. "We can't let Gordon's story die now."
"You were really into him, weren't you, Castle?"
"The places I had Derrick Storm travel fictitiously, Burns really went. I admired his style a lot, but I really admired his guts. Maybe he lost them for a while, but it looks like he got them back enough to be murdered over it. Now we have to catch the bastard who did it."
"We will, Castle."
"You could use the gumball," Rick suggests.
"Except that I'd have to justify it to Montgomery, and right now, that's the last thing he needs."
"True enough," Rick agrees.
Ryan lays out paperwork on the table in the conference room. "All of Carbone's employees alibied out. But we did find a bunch of stuff on the other Nicks."
Kate surveys the files. "Criminal complaints?"
"Yeah, dozens of them filed back and forth between all the Nicks going back years," Esposito says.
"Bricks through windows, slashed delivery truck tires, flaming bags of poo," Ryan adds.
Kate shakes her head. "Sounds like frat pranks, not something that would escalate to murder."
"That's what they're all like," Esposito says.
"Burns was murdered over more than flaming bags of poo," Rick insists. "There has to be something else."
"If there is, it isn't on record," Ryan says.
"Yeah, of course not," Rick agrees. "If it had already been on record, Burns' story would have been just a puff piece. The investigative reporter was back, and he found a story worth investigating. He must have had notes or something. Beckett, we should check out his place."
At the sight of the slightly ajar door of Gordon Burns' apartment, Esposito draws his gun. "It's been kicked open."
Ryan and Beckett both raise their weapons as the detectives proceed inside with Rick behind them. "This place has been trashed," Rick observes as the others clear the space.
"All clear," Esposito declares. "I'm going to check with the neighbors, see if any of them heard anything."
Kate nods her agreement as Rick examines the desk and nightstand. "These drawers are all empty. If there were any notes, they're gone." Using his handkerchief, he picks up a framed photograph of Gordon Burns and a little girl. "This must be his daughter. Beckett, I've seen her before. Burns put out a book of his photo essays from Afghanistan. While I was standing in line to get him to sign it, she was next to him, coloring. She was using her crayons to tell a story. I remember thinking, like father, like daughter. And I could see the love and pride in his eyes when he looked at her."
"That's how you look at Alexis," Kate says.
"Beckett, I think that may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"Well, don't get used to it," Kate warns. "We have too much work to do."
"Of course, Detective Beckett. Getting back to work."