Unexpected Appearance Chapter 3

Paula Haas checks her lipstick in her compact mirror before leaning on the doorbell at Rick's loft.

Sleepily, Rick grabs his robe and drags himself toward the blaring sound. "Yes, yes, I'm coming." He rubs his eyes as he opens the door. "Paula, what are you doing here? In my experience, you avail yourself of the opportunity to stay abed at this hour as often as you can. With Alexis at a study sleepover and Mother at a yoga retreat, I was hoping to avail myself of the same."

Paula barges in and plants a kiss on Rick's mouth. "You're not going to believe this! You're just not going to believe this! I can't even believe it."

Rick rakes back his sleep-mussed hair. "Believe what?'

Paula shakes her head. "I can't tell you."

The author stares down at her. "This is a dream, right, or more like a nightmare, that my book agent showed up at my loft at 7 am not to tell me something."

"Listen, I just got a call from England. It's the middle of the day there. And it's not official yet, but you're at the top of the list."

"The top of the list for what?"

"I can't give you any further details."

Rick trudges toward the kitchen. "While you're not telling me, you want some coffee? I set the timer last night. It should be ready. We could sit down while you avoid further discussion."

"Look, I can tell you this," Paula offers as Rick hands her a mug. "It's a major relaunch of a major franchise, a three-book deal, and they want you."

Rick sinks into a chair at the table. "I've found my new character. Heat Wave comes out in less than a week. The launch party, which you arranged, is Monday night. Why would I want to interrupt the flow to take over someone else's creation?"

Paula leans across the table. "What if I told you that creation is a certain British Agent?"

"You mean?"

The hyper woman presses her palm to Rick's mouth. "Don't jinx it!"

A sudden vision materializes in front of Rick's eyes. In the public library, a tall figure is handing a ten-year-old Ricky Rodgers a copy of Casino Royale, the book that put him on the road to writing spy stories."

"Wow! That's amazing. But I…"

Paula blocks his words again. "I don't want to hear it. You wouldn't believe your possible payday. And I wouldn't have any trouble paying my bills either. Just…."

Rick's phone rings from across the room. He answers it and listens for a moment. "All right, I'll be there as soon as I can. That was Beckett. There's a body. I've got to go," he tells Paula.

"All right, Rick," she agrees, "but don't get too caught up with all this NYPD stuff. I should hear more from England very soon. You could have better things to do."

Rick ushers Paula out the door and steps into the shower. As he closes his eyes under the spray, the image of the tall figure is back, only clearer now. His hair is dark, not white, but it's the same man who materialized at the 12th in Gray's place. What the hell was a CIA agent doing giving a ten-year-old kid a copy of Casino Royale? He wonders if he's just imagining that it was the same guy, but he doesn't think so. He shoves the thought aside. He has a murder to investigate, and he's already going to be late on the scene. He can't afford to add distraction to tardiness.

Rick arrives just in time to see an open manhole and Perlmutter's assistant zipping up a body bag. "What happened?"

"Woman stumbled into the sewer, and the alligators got her," Esposito replies.

"Not much left," Ryan adds. "With all the toxics down there, they must have mutated. Had her in half with one bite."

Kate rolls her eyes. "Very funny, guys. But Castle, if you're going to sleep this late, you'll miss a few mini-dramas."

"Wait a minute," Rick interrupts. "Wasn't that a line from The Big Chill? And I didn't sleep late. My agent showed up and – never mind. Who's the victim?"

"We don't know," Kate explains. "Female in her early thirties, no purse or ID."

"Cause of death appears to be blunt force trauma," Perlmutter says, pointedly directing his words toward Kate, not Rick. "She took a nasty blow to the back of the head." He points at the sidewalk. "We found traces of blood spatter over there."

"Well, then it couldn't have been a robbery," Kate asserts. "A robber wouldn't have bothered dragging her body that far just to hide it."

"From the degree of decomposition, I'd estimate she's been dead about two days," Perlmutter adds.

"Any chance you can narrow that down for us?" Ryan inquires.

"Any chance I can get her to my lab first?" Perlmutter snaps. He turns his attention back to Beckett. "I should be able to give you a tighter window, maybe six to seven hours."

"All right, thank you," Kate says.

"You know, Beckett," Castle remarks after Perlmutter climbs into the ME van. "You're the only one at a crime scene Perlmutter speaks to without growling. I think he's got a little crush on you."

"Actually, he's been trying to convince me to go out with his brother Edgar."

"You could try, Beckett," Ryan suggests. "Edgar might be a nice guy."

"Edgar is Perlmutter's twin," Kate clarifies, "his identical twin."

"Two identical Perlmutters," Rick muses. "The universe has a strange sense of humor."

"But there's nothing funny about murder," Kate says. "Let's check the area for possible weapons and start the canvass."

Perlmutter snaps the official photos of the woman on his autopsy table. "Detective Beckett, while your people were rifling through garbage cans, did they find her purse?"

"No purse, no murder weapon," Kate replies.

"Nothing came back on her fingerprints either. So we have ourselves a Jane Doe," Perlmutter announces. "But I can tell you this. She's an immigrant, probably from Eastern Europe. She had two stainless steel crowns. Dentists don't use those here anymore, but they do in the former Soviet bloc.

"Two days and no one's stepped forward to report her missing," Rick notes grimly. "Not much to go on."

Perlmutter holds up an evidence bag. "There was this. I found it scrunched in her pocket."

"It looks like a candy wrapper," Kate says. "But it's got some kind of printing on it."

Rick eyes the text through the plastic. "It's got diacritical marks. They're accent marks used to represent sounds alien to Latin. This is Czech."

"And how would you know that, Castle?" Perlmutter demands.

"Inserting the marks to write dialogue for characters from that part of the world is a pain on a standard keyboard. I had to do a lot of it for Storm Watch. Not a forgettable experience. If Ms. Doe was fond of native candy, maybe that's why she needed her crowns. And even in the melting pot of New York City, there can't be that many stores that would cater to a taste for this specific treat. Someone at one of them should recognize her."

"Good idea, Castle," Kate says. "Perlmutter, I'll need copies of your photos."

"Just the headshots," Castle adds.

"Castle, I read Storm Watch," Kate says as they walk back to her unit.

"Of course, you did, Beckett. I know you read all my books to feel closer to your mother. What about it?"

"I only recall a couple of lines of Czech dialogue in there. How did you recognize it so quickly?"

A CIA lesson on Eastern European languages flashes through his brain. "As I said, they were a pain in the ass to type. That kind of annoyance is memorable." Unbidden, his memory of the man from the library returns. He forces it to the back of his mind. "I'm in the mood to sweeten the memory. Let's go find some Czech candy."