Papa Jack Chapter 104

"My place or yours?" Richard asks as his car approaches lower Manhattan.

Kate runs her hand up his thigh. "Yours has a bigger shower."

"Yes, yes, it does," Richard agrees. "Is that what you want? A shower?"

"To start, and only if it's for two."

Richard increases his pressure on the accelerator. "A truly excellent number. Um. You like jazz. What do you think of Sinatra's 'I've Got You Under My Skin?'"

"It's a standard. I like it. Why?"

A grin spreads across Richard's face. "I've got an idea."

Richard groans as the alarm on Kate's phone goes off. "What time do you have to meet your father?"

"He has to be in court at nine, so we settled on seven-thirty. We'll be at Blick's Diner, a 24-hour breakfast place a lot of shift workers like. It's only two blocks from the courthouse, so we should have enough time to talk."

"Yeah, I know Blick's. I go there at 2 a.m. sometimes when I hit a rough spot writing a chapter. Bacon and cheese omelets to die for and lattes as big as your head."

"Dad's never gotten into lattes. As far back as I can remember, he's liked his coffee black. That could be because with their schedules, he and Mom had a hard time remembering who was supposed to buy milk. But they figured it out together. They always figured everything out together."

"It sounds like in the short time they had, they had a wonderful marriage," Richard says. "I haven't met too many married folks like that."

"Neither have I," Kate admits. "But if I ever get married, that's the kind of marriage I want. I hope your Dad and Martha get one like that, too."

"Just not with the murder contracted out by a psychopathic politician part," Richard says.

Kate squeezes his hand. "Yeah, not that part."

Spotting her father already sitting in front of a mug of black coffee, Kate smiles to herself. "Hi, Dad. I know you're busy with your suit. Thanks for meeting me."

"I always have time for you, Katie. What's going on?" Jim inquires.

"Castle's father is getting married, and I just closed three cases."

"Congratulations to Castle's father and to you. Three cases that fast after you're back on the street. That's quite a feather in your cap."

"Maybe, Dad, but I feel like I'm barely making a dent in what needs to be done. There are so many cases that are just sitting there with no one even looking at them. And so many of the kind of clients Mom used to try to help out are stuck on Rikers with no one fighting for them."

Jim gazes across the table at his daughter. "You don't just look like your mother. You think like her. You want justice for all the little guys out there who can't get it for themselves. So you're not satisfied by what you're doing as a detective in the NYPD?"

"I think what the NYPD does is important and necessary, but cops concentrate on grabbing the guilty, not helping the innocent. That leaves a big hole in the system."

"And you want to fill it. How?"

"That's why I wanted to talk to you, Dad," Kate confides. "I was hoping you'd have an idea."

"Actually, it was your mother who had an idea. She was going to tie up with a foundation, Step Up, Step In, that was forming just before she was killed. Johanna called it SUSI. The idea was to help the wrongly convicted, even lowlifes like that guy Pulgatti, and also aid the accused with complicated cases and no money to defend themselves."

"So what happened to SUSI?" Kate asks.

"You know what a wreck I was after your mother was killed. I didn't pay much attention to anything except what was in a bottle. I lost touch with the people working on SUSI. But it's still around. I've heard about a few cases it's been active in. Do you remember Gary Brown? He was the black man who the crazy lady in Central Park accused of trying to mug her and kill her dog when she was too slow picking up her pet's poop. SUSI got involved with getting him out of Rikers and into court. Once the case got there, it didn't take long to dispose of it."

"Yeah, I remember reading about that case," Kate says. "The whole thing was caught on a tourist's video camera. If the cops had bothered to check the tape, or Brown had a lawyer who looked at the footage, it would have been clear that Brown never even got near the supposed victim. So it was SUSI that helped Brown?"

"Yes. And the word around the courthouse is that SUSI just got a pretty large grant from Smithson Cartwright Industries."

"Cartwright. Wasn't he the billionaire who was framed for murder and sat in prison for ten years until he was finally cleared by DNA and the deathbed confession by the real killer?"

"That's him. His daughter always believed he was innocent. She worked hard to keep his company from collapsing so it would be there for him when he was finally exonerated. She also tied up with SUSI. Its people pushed the DNA analysis through and sat with the dying murderer in the hospital until he told the truth about what happened. So Cartwright has decided to do what he can to help continue SUSI's work."

"It sounds like great work, Dad. But I'm not a lawyer. What could I do at SUSI?"

"Lawyers need investigators, Katie. I doubt that they could find a better one than you. And if you want to go to law school, it's not too late. I was talking to a woman the other day who got admitted to the bar at 65. She has a disabled son and always had trouble finding decent legal advocacy for him. So she decided she'd have to do it herself."

"That's amazing, Dad. And SUSI sounds amazing, too. Do you know anyone there? Maybe someone who worked with Mom?"

"Katie, many of the people your mother trusted the most were also murdered."

"The other killings written off as random by Bracken's dirty cops," Kate realizes.

"Yes," Jim confirms, "but there is a lawyer named Dierdre McDonald who went to college and law school with Johanna. They were sorority sisters, and I guess you might say soul sisters. They looked at the law the same way. Johanna and Dierdre had lunch every so often when they could both find the time. I heard that Dierdre went to work for SUSI. You could try talking to her."

"Thanks, Dad. I will."

"And Katie, whatever you decide to do, with the NYPD or with SUSI, I love you, and I'm proud of you."

Kate smiles across the table. "You too, Dad."

As she's leaving the diner, Kate pulls her cell phone out of her purse. "Castle, are you in the middle of something?"

"Just finishing up."

"So, can you look up a lawyer named Dierdre McDonald? She was a friend of my mother's and involved with the Step Up Step In Foundation, SUSI. I want to know what cases she's been working on lately and how I can reach her."

"Sounds like an interesting lady," Richard considers. "I'll see what I can find."

"Great! Thanks. I've finished my breakfast with Dad. He's the one who mentioned Dierdre. See you soon."

"Looking forward to it." Richard puts down his phone, his gaze flicking back to his computer screen. "All right, Dierdre McDonald. Tell me your story."