Papa Jack Chapter 25
Still slightly taken aback by the spaciousness of Richard's loft, Kate follows him to his office. While a late-model laptop sits on his desk, a large screen monitor holds the outline for one of his books. "That looks a lot like what goes up on the murder board in the bullpen," Kate notes.
"Except that it's fiction – well, mostly fiction. As you know, I'm big into research," Richard explains. "Which brings us to our current task. I have my own network, so I can use the large screen to display what's on my laptop so we can both see it. We could start with Google, but Yahoo is often better for business information. The comments left about various companies can be surprisingly enlightening."
"You use that stuff to research your books?" Kate queries.
"My books and my life. I told you I didn't grow up with money. So when I finally got some, I decided I had to be smart. That didn't mean being a miser. I like my toys, and I enjoy helping people out. But I'd seen people, including other writers, get taken. And my father drilled into me that it can be a tough world out there."
"Is that why you knew how to take down a guy with a knife in your ribs?"
"Dad made sure I had the appropriate instruction to take care of myself. Actually," Richard's voice drops to a husky whisper, "I never had to use any of it for actual self-defense until the incident at the Garden. But it gave me a leg up for writing fight scenes."
"How did your father know about self-defense?" Kate asks. "Isn't he a translator or something?"
"I guess he, um, had his share of adventures before I was born, and he settled into his current job. But if we're going to continue with our present adventure, we'd better get to work." Richard pulls up a chair for Kate so she can see the screen, before dropping into his desk chair. Keys click under the rapid movement of his fingers. "This is Yahoo Finance. WH Enterprises. Hmm, it's privately held, so there's almost no public information here. But that name's got to be a DBA, which means that to do any banking, the company would have to follow the rules and advertise the actual ownership in some publication, even if it was an obscure one."
Kate's fingernails curl into her palms. "So, how are we supposed to find something like that?"
"The free search engines won't do it, but Lexis Nexis put their databases online in 1997 – for a fee. Fortunately, I have a subscription. If anything at all was printed about WH enterprises, we should be able to find it. It'll take me a minute to switch over. OK, here we go. WH Enterprises. According to this very minimal announcement, WH Enterprises started doing business under that name in 1999. But the actual ownership is… oh God! Beckett, WH Enterprises is owned by William H. Bracken!"
"And 1999 would have been during the time he was DA of Manhattan," Kate realizes. "What the hell was he doing?"
Richard shakes his head. "I don't know. The DBA notice is all that's here. It doesn't state the nature of his business."
Kate shoves her hair back from her face. "Let's think about this. We have a crooked DA who wants to run for Congress. He's gathering a war chest, maybe from the kidnappings of crime family members. But maybe the money isn't enough."
"Or maybe he's a greedy, unprincipled bastard," Richard suggests. "Here, look at the timeline." He starts entering dates that appear along a line on the big screen. "This is when Bob Armen got killed. From what Pulgatti told us, John Raglan was involved in kidnapping the mob figures. McCallister and other cops were probably involved as well. Next, as DA, Bracken forces Pulgatti to take a plea. Then he announces his run for Congress. With a sufficiently financed campaign, he wins his race by a decent margin. He gets on the Foreign Relations Committee and starts taking junkets to Afghanistan. Fast forward to 1999. He puts out his DBA announcement for WH Enterprises, and your mother is investigating Pulgatti's case. She's killed in the same alley where Bob Armen was shot – a professional stabbing disguised to look amateurish. No doubt, the hitter was expensive. The money had to come from somewhere. And the most likely answer is?"
"Bracken must have used his trips to Afghanistan and WH Enterprises to organize and fund a drug-dealing organization." Kate's front teeth come down hard on her bottom lip. "He could have met a mercenary with the skills to kill my mother in Afghanistan, too. And now, he's using robbery homicides to fund or expand his drug buys. It all fits, but unless John Doe starts talking, we can't prove any of it."
"How about someone at WH Enterprises?" Richard questions. "The pigment was sent there. That's a direct connection to John Doe. There could be someone on site who would give under questioning."
Kate starts pacing the small office. "The pigment isn't nearly enough for an arrest or even a warrant, Castle. We could check the place out, but it might show what little hand we have. Still, there might be another way. An organization with a ship and regular imports from Afghanistan couldn't just use a few pushers on the street to sell its drugs. It would need a major dealer network. My mother was working with a group called Clean Up Washington Heights. They wanted to get the drugs off the street up there. I was still in high school, and she didn't tell me that much about it except that they were fighting someone big."
"Did she give you a name?" Richard asks.
"No, but I bet my TO, Mike Royce, would know someone who knows. He was tight with a lot of the detectives on the street."
"Is he still a cop?" Richard asks. "He wasn't in uniform at your shield thing."
"No. Mike told me he'd arrested too many guys just to see them skip bail and get away. When he had his twenty in, he put in his papers and became a bounty hunter so he could put them where they belonged. But he could still point us in the right direction."
"Does he have an office or something?"
"I don't know. But I can call him and set up a meeting. Remy's would be perfect." Kate flashes a quick smile. "He always loved a great burger."
A wide grin almost splits Royce's face at the sight of Kate Beckett sliding into the booth across from him. "This is better than watching all the brass sitting at a ceremony trying to look worth their salaries." He glances toward Richard. "I saw you there, but we didn't get a chance to meet. You're Castle, right? I've heard a lot about you."
"Same here. So Beckett says you'd know someone who can tell us who was running a major drug network in the 1990s.
"I don't have to send you to anyone else for that," Mike declares. "Pretty much every cop with his ears open back then knew it was Vulcan Simmons. Narcotics arrested him a couple of times, but the DA back then, Bracken, wouldn't press charges. Claimed there wasn't enough evidence. Bunch of bull! But after that, Simmons kind of dropped off the radar."
"You mean someone else took over?" Kate asks.
"Not that I heard. He just got better at covering his tracks, used more lower-level dealers to take the heat. As far as I know, he's still in charge. His cover is an auto body repair shop. That's where he hangs out."
Kate nods. "Then I'll have to see who else turns up there."
"And if anyone is wearing a certain ring?" Richard questions, signaling the waitress to come to the booth.
A smile tugs at Kate's lips. "Exactly."