Unexpected Appearance Chapter 43
"Hey guys, how about a trip down to the Chick'n Lick'n truck on me?" Rick proposes to Ryan and Esposito.
Ryan shrugs. "Might as well. Still waiting for most of the video to come in from around the Simmons murder scene."
"The truck better not be out of the jalapeño salsa. That chicken needs some flavor," Esposito declares.
"Bro, you're the only one around here who even asks for that stuff," Ryan asserts. "Let's go before they run out of those little drummies."
Rick and Kate quickly usher the detective partners into the elevator. "So what's the occasion, Castle?" Ryan asks as they make the short walk to the food truck. "Another one of those Storm graphic novels coming out?"
"Actually," Kate says, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. "Castle and I needed to talk to you guys outside the precinct."
"The walls have ears," Rick adds.
Kate points to a portable picnic table set up for customers. "Let's get our food and settle in there."
"So what's the big reveal?" Esposito asks, generously pouring salsa over a grilled half-chicken.
"Your computers and landlines are being monitored by IA," Kate says.
The Hispanic detective snorts. "Every cop knows that."
Ryan dips a mini-drumstick in ranch dressing. "They're paranoid about porn."
"It's not about porn," Kate explains. "Marcus Donovan, the IA captain, is dirty. He's watching out for searches or calls about anything or anyone that links to Bracken or a Russian named Nicholas Kasparov. We think Kasparov sent a hitter named Igor Petrov after Simmons. The sadistic bloodletting is his MO."
"After that lieutenant from IA framed Ike, I've never trusted anyone over there," Esposito declares. "But where are you guys getting your info on the Russians?"
"Confidential source," Kate replies, "but a trustworthy one." She pulls a photo from inside her jacket. "This is Petrov. If he shows up on the video, let me know, but go through all the usual procedures to identify Simmons' killer and track him. We have to make sure Donovan doesn't detect the real direction of your investigation. So make it look like you're concentrating on finding a killer with a signature matching what was done to Simmons. Run a search on similar murders. And guys, Petrov was one of the phony cops who helped Lockwood escape. If we do get a line on him, he could lead us to the whole nest of rats."
"Which means we scrub every frame of video from anywhere around Simmons' shop during the kill zone," Ryan figures, "but not on a computer Donovan can check. There are a couple of old-style video players in tech we can use."
"Right," Kate agrees. "Castle and I will be working on the rest of the case out of Donovan's reach. If you need to talk to me, use your personal phone to call Castle's phone so IA can't listen in."
"Right," Esposito says, "but I'm going to need more salsa."
"We need to dig more into Donovan, find out when he came into Bracken's orbit," Kate says as Rick sets her up with a spare laptop he connects to his network.
"He and Montgomery are about the same age. Donovan has even less hair," Rick points out. "Donovan may have started in the department around the same time or even earlier. So he would have been around when Bracken was at the D.A.'s office."
"A lot of cops were around when Bracken was at the DA's office, Castle, and I'd like to think that most of them were honest," Kate confides. "I can check Donovan's length of service in his official bio. That's public record. But I'm more interested in picking up details about what he was doing back then, things that wouldn't turn up in NYPD reports."
"You mean like hints from muckraking reporters on the Metro beat?" Rick inquires.
"Exactly."
"Then, have I got a search engine for you! It's subscription, so you'll have to use my login, but if any blurbs like that showed up in the press, you can find them."
"Great, Castle, and what are you going to do?"
"There are some sites that track the histories of the crime families. Remember that Pulgatti told us that because of the kidnappings, the five families had a truce at the time Bob Armen was killed? I want to look up the history of that truce and what the families had to say about it later. They aren't about to admit to their own crimes but they'd be jubilant about anything they can hang on the cops – or a DA. I want to see what they had to say about both. Want some fresh coffee before we start digging?"
Kate shakes her head. "To go after a bastard like Donovan, I don't need caffeine."
"Hey, Castle!" Kate calls, her eyes still on her screen, "I think I've got something. This is from a reporter 19 years ago. He says he got a tip from some people playing tourist in Little Italy that they saw cops dump a guy on the sidewalk and just drive away. They even snapped a photo, but it was too blurry to identify the cops or the guy who was dumped."
"Did the dumpee say anything?" Rick asks.
"According to this, nothing. He just got up and walked away as if nothing happened. The reporter canvassed the neighborhood and found a guy who saw the cop car when he was making a delivery. But here's the thing. The delivery guy said that one of the cops was tall and bald. Raglan went bald, but he wasn't tall. McCallister had plenty of hair."
"But complete cueballs like Donovan can lose their hair quite young," Rick says. "When I was in school, the University President's son was in my English class. He was only nineteen but he and his father were a very shiny matched set. If that was Donovan, he would have been in on the scam. So maybe after Bracken diverted the profits, he went to work for him to keep his pockets full. You should keep looking. If he's been crooked all this time, other clues must have popped up. Ooh, and I might have something."
"What?"
"This is a series of articles about relationships between the five families. It backs up the story that there was a truce during a series of kidnappings affecting all of them. So, Pulgatti was telling the truth about that. And listen to this, Beckett. The families were so disgusted with the situation that they offered a bounty to whoever could tell them who was behind it. They were never confirmed, but there were rumors that several would-be snitches ended up dead. Eventually, the kidnappings stopped, apparently on their own. Coincidentally, that was around the same time Bracken was elected to Congress."
"So, Bracken moved up in the world but kept Donovan on the payroll as eyes and ears in the NYPD," Kate speculates.
"Or when the golden goose was taking flight to DC, Donovan volunteered to protect his ongoing New York operations," Rick offers. "Either way, for decades, the NYPD's had a dirty cop sucking up its secrets and transmitting them to a murderous drug kingpin who's been working with the Russians."
"We need to find out how the boys are doing tracking Petrov," Kate says. "Can you call Ryan's personal cell? Do you need the number?"
"Nah, I have it. I use it to invite him to be fleeced on poker nights."
Kate rolls her eyes. "I should have known."