Papa Jack Chapter 8
Detective French takes a seat opposite Richard at a metal table. To Richard, the room looks like every room where an interrogation takes place on cop shows. It feels like it, too. It's warmer than the rest of the 12th Precinct, no doubt for sweating suspects. The paint is dingy, and he's sure the mirror on the wall is transparent on the other side. Detective French clicks his pen over a yellow pad. "Castle, is that your real name?"
"It's the name I write under," Richard replies. "My legal name is Richard Hunt. However, that moniker wouldn't do much to draw in contributions for the victims of Katrina. So I was at the Garden as Richard Castle. Detective, I'm sure you know that if no intent of fraud is involved, a person can use any name they like."
"So, Mr. Hunt, then, you tell stories for a living?"
"That's what writers do, Detective. Some of us are lucky enough to make a living at it. But I didn't make up what I told your fellow officers. That man had a knife at my side. Your conscientious Officer Beckett collected it as evidence. I'm sure that when the lab checks the fingerprints on it, they will find they belong to the man she arrested for attacking me – and it won't find any of mine."
"We are checking on that," Detective French responds, "but our lab has to check on lots of fingerprints. It may take a while. And I'm more interested in the rest of what you told Officer Beckett about your attacker being a rogue foreign agent who might have planted a bomb. Frankly, that sounds like something you'd dream up for one of your books."
"The possibility of a bomb was speculation on my part. I believe I made that clear to Officer Beckett as well as everyone in the NYPD I've talked to up to now. The part about the rogue agent was not. He was a member of a group that kidnapped me. The incident was only reported as a small accidental fire at a warehouse near Pier 86 about six years ago. Intelligence operations don't usually make the papers. But you can look up whatever information was released. And while you're at it, how about having an explosives dog sniff my attacker? If he did plant a bomb or was around one, the smell of explosives should still be on him."
"And how would you know that, Mr. Hunt?" French demands.
"Writer, remember? Writers research. I do a lot of it, and there's nothing secret about dogs sniffing out explosives. It's not even that interesting compared to other methods of detection. Did you know that bees can smell TNT? Scientists are looking into using them to detect land mines because they are too small to set them off."
French rolls his eyes. "I doubt anyone would appreciate a swarm of bees in Madison Square Garden, Mr. Hunt."
"And I doubt anyone planted landmines there. But would it really hurt to have a dog sniff the man who attacked me? If it's negative, maybe I'm whistling in the wind. But if it's positive, your bomb squad has a hell of a lot of work on its hands." A knock sounds from the other side of the mirror. "Someone wants your attention, Detective," Richard notes.
Grunting, French pushes out of his chair and leaves the room.
"He's right!" Captain Montgomery declares to the detective.
"Right about what?" French questions.
"About the dog. Frank Mahoney is running the operation for the BDU. He sent someone over with a dog. He detected explosives on the suspect. They've evacuated the Garden while the squad and all their dogs look for bombs. And he's right about the fingerprints, too. The only ones on that knife belong to the man the writer in there claims attacked him. So far, his story is tracking 100%."
"What about the crap about being abducted by rogue foreign agents?" French presses.
"Homeland Security doesn't know anything about it, but if the CIA was involved, they wouldn't. And the CIA has designated any inquiries about rogue agents as classified: need to know. Their liaison said they'd look into it, but we're not going to get anything out of them. The man whose prints are on the knife is shut down tight. We're not going to get anything out of him either. So right now, our priority is finding out as much as we can from Castle, Hunt, or whatever he calls himself. He's our only link with whoever is behind the bombing."
"How about the FBI? Don't they want in on this?" French queries.
"They've already got people at the Garden, and they'll be sending someone to talk to this guy. But while we have him, we need to get as much as we can from him."
French shrugs. "I'll see what I can do."
Montgomery shakes his close-cropped head. "You've already pissed him off. That'll only slow things down, and we can't afford to wait. He first told his story to Officer Beckett, and from what I heard from the cops who brought him in, he seemed to like her. I want her to talk to him."
"Sir, Beckett's still pretty green. She doesn't know how to conduct an interrogation."
"You're not green, but you don't seem to be doing too well. Beckett has a knack for pulling information out of people. What she's learned before resulted in a couple of major busts, and she's on the fast track to detective. I'm giving her a shot."
A smile lights Richard's eyes as Kate enters the room. "Officer Beckett, nice to see a friendly face."
Kate drops into a chair. "How friendly I am will depend on how much you can tell me, Mr. Castle – or do you prefer Hunt?"
"I'll answer to either one, but you can go with Richard. It covers both."
"All right, Richard, let's start at the beginning. You said you recognized the voice of the man who attacked you. Tell me all about the first time you heard it."
Richard rubs his hand over his darkly stubbled jaw. "I would love to do that, Officer Beckett, but there are some things that I believe would not be in, um, the national interest to say. Still, I will give you as many details as I can. My then-girlfriend Veronica and I were leaving a party at Pizzoni's Pizza Palace, where we were celebrating our high school graduation. It was raining, so I told her to stay undercover while I got a cab."
"Very considerate," Beckett comments.
"Thank you, Officer Beckett, but I had an element of self-interest. Dates who feel like drowned rats don't tend to be that friendly. Anyway, I was trying to get a cab when I smelled honey and heard a woman's voice. Then there was nothing. When I woke up, I could still smell honey. I was tied up and blindfolded. I heard the woman calling someone, telling him that I was dead if he didn't come. I heard other voices, too, including the man who attacked me.
"Who did she call?"
Richard squirms a little in his seat. " She called him a jackal. She never said his name. When he showed up, she talked about sticky fingers from baklava and claimed that the man had killed her husband. And they mentioned a cell.
"The honey was from baklava?" Beckett inquires.
"That's what she implied. Anyway, there was this gas and an explosion, and I was dragged out of there."
"Where were you dragged?"
"It was dark, but I think under the pier. My blindfold was off, but I still couldn't see much. I was there until the sun came up. Then I went home."
"How about the guy who got you out? Do you know who that was?"
"He told me that he was an agent on our side. He also said the whole episode was classified and not to tell anyone but that the good guys would round up all the bad guys. When the news reported that a fire on Pier 86 was started by some squatters, It confirmed for me that the government had covered up what happened. So I kept my mouth shut but wove what little bits and pieces I could into my writing. After that, I'd pretty much put the whole thing out of my mind. But I guess the good guys missed someone – maybe more than just one."
Kate nods. "Richard, you could be right."