Chapter 206: 206. It's my party
At the morgue, Perlmutter is his usual fussy, snide and unhelpful self.
“Just give me cause of death, a proper time estimate and the weapon,” Beckett snaps, after two full minutes of circumlocutions undiluted by pleasantry or indeed civility.
Perlmutter harrumphs. “This is not an episode of NCIS, Detective,” he says irritably.
“I know that. If it was I’d get something useful without having to fight for it.” In the background, Castle emits a very curious noise. It sounds like a quack. She has considerable trouble maintaining a straight face.
“This man was stabbed eleven times with an extremely sharp knife. He has defensive wounds on his hands and arms. The fatal wound severed his jugular vein, causing him to bleed to death. The other wounds were inflicted both pre and post mortem.” Perlmutter pauses. “The assailant had no extensive knowledge of anatomy,” he adds contemptuously.
And you do? Beckett thinks, extremely unfairly. Perlmutter is just fine at anatomy and indeed pathology. It’s the drawing of sensible conclusions further than his findings and the social skills to interact with the rest of the human race at which he is utterly hopeless. Luckily, drawing conclusions is her job.
“How do you deduce that?” she enquires.
“He stabbed at the ribs from above. That, as any anatomically aware person would know, is not the most efficient way to proceed. Such a blow would be much more likely to be effective if delivered upwards from below.”
“I knew that,” Castle says happily. Perlmutter glares at his broad back as Castle peers at an interesting exhibit, and tuts. Castle whips his fingers away from the scalpels.
“I had not, regrettably, considered you to be a suspect,” Perlmutter snipes. “I’m sure I shall have that pleasure in future, however.”
“Have you two quite finished?” Beckett inquires icily. “What’s my time window?”
“Three to five a.m.”
“Weapon?”
“A very sharp knife.”
“Details, Perlmutter!” she snaps. “Broad blade, narrow, serrated, what? Anything useful you can tell me about it?”
“Broad, not serrated. Eight inch, I think.” He pauses again.
“And? Stop dragging this out.”
“There’ll be a shard missing from it,” Perlmutter says sulkily.
“What?”
“When it hit the bone, a small piece of metal lodged there. Some flaw in the metal, no doubt.” Perlmutter’s glance at Castle indicates that he feels Castle to be a flaw in the metal (and mettle) of the NYPD.
“Send me the picture. And get that shard to CSU for testing.”
“Kitchen knife?” Castle surmises.
“Guess so. A chopping knife, for preference. A big one.” She turns back to Perlmutter. “Anything else you can tell me?” Her tone says she doesn’t think so. “Tox, bruising, diseases?”
“Nothing relevant,” Perlmutter says in a very final fashion. “Now let me get on with the rest of my work. That oversize brute whom you claim to know from Central Park is whining for his results almost as loudly as you.”
Beckett turns back from her exit slowly and menacingly and pins Perlmutter to the wall with the force of her expression.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she grates, “but I thought my job – and that of Detective O’Leary – was to solve murders. I also thought that the city employed you to provide us with assistance in the form of medical evidence; not to fund your complaining. I suggest you get on with your actual job, before someone decides to audit your performance.” She stalks out.
Perlmutter’s pathetic gobblings can be heard all the way down the corridor as they leave.
“Right, we’ve got a narrower window, and a weapon.”
“I still think this is a lover’s quarrel,” Castle muses.
“Okay, what’s your theory?”
“That sort of violence only happens where there are really strong feelings. Either love or hate, and who’s going to go behind the bleachers with someone they hate?”
“Someone who’s so furious they’re not thinking,” Beckett says cynically.
“Or someone who thinks there’s a chance to kiss and make up. Tony said that Chef and Bruno were having an affair…” he trails that lure hopefully across her path.
“Yeah, but surely Chef couldn’t be so dumb as to think Bruno would want to see him if he’d just fired him? I mean, that’s just – dumb.”
“Depends. If someone else told him that Bruno wanted to mend fences… and Chef regretted firing him…”
“This sounds like high school,” Beckett says tartly. “Becca tells Sophie that John wants to make up.”
“Yeah, it does a bit. But Chef wasn’t that old, and most of the staff were even younger. High school might not be so far off the mark.”
Beckett mutters sceptically, but doesn’t actively disagree.
The news is not as good back at the Twelfth. The techs are still struggling with the phone and the warrant is still outstanding. It’s going nowhere – at least until Ryan has an idea.
“Why don’t we just ask John for Chef’s number, and then get those records from the phone company? ‘Stead of having a warrant for a name that might be one of several, an easy one for a specific number?”
Beckett nearly wails at her own stupidity. So simple: why hadn’t any of them thought of that earlier?
“Good idea. Let’s do it.”
The boys scoot off to re-interview John. Beckett regards her murder board dyspeptically. It’s not much improved from earlier. She foresees a long and tedious re-interviewing of all the staff now that they have narrowed down the period for which alibis are required. Of course, that does mean that they also have a much narrower window for which they need to review street camera footage, which is now waiting for Ryan to return. Small blessings.
A lot of tedious work is done over the next few days. It’s proving ridiculously difficult to chase all the loose ends and obscure trails. They’ve found the knife, but Bruno’s still missing, somewhere in the wind, and without him and his fingers they can’t even try to match the partial print that CSU lifted from the handle. It’s got to be Bruno’s, because if nothing else (and there is quite a lot of nothing else) they’ve managed to eliminate most of the others. In fact, if they could only find Bruno, everything would fall into place.
And then suddenly, Bruno still not found, it’s the day of Martha’s party. Montgomery had insisted, late on Friday night, that since the trail is no longer hot, they don’t come in on the days that the team’s off-shift, and so Beckett, sitting fretfully at home on Saturday morning, has nothing to take her mind off the coming evening. Castle, apologetically, had pointed out that he needs to be on hand for the party planners’ inevitable last-minute queries. So she doesn’t even have him to distract her.
Instead, she goes out for a long run, follows up with quality time with her yoga mat and the most difficult asanas she knows, and then a very long, hot bath with a book, until she’s as wrinkled as a raisin and has to spend some considerable period of quality time with her moisturiser. It would probably have helped if she could have had more coffee, but even her legendary tolerance of caffeine has been exceeded and she doesn’t want her hands to be shaking. It might prompt accusations of being scared or ruffled by the occasion.
However. She counts off the positives on each finger. Her friends and team will be there. Her dad will be there. Most importantly, Castle will be there.
She can do this.
To help her do this, though, she’s scoured her closet and then the stores for a knock-them-dead dress. Nothing like dropped-jaw admiration on Castle’s face (and others, but she only cares about one man’s reaction) to give her confidence.
By the time she’s dressed from her skin to her light wrap, carefully; applied her make-up, likewise carefully; and slipped her feet into a pair of shoes that both flatter and put her eyes almost on a level with Castle’s, she’s donned the armour she needs.
She only hopes it’ll be enough.
Castle had informed Beckett that he was going to pick her up and escort her to the party, no matter what happens. It’s not that he thinks she’d bail on him: she had, after all, stated that she was going in front of the assembled gang and she’ll never renege on that commitment – but he thinks that it’s entirely possible that she’ll need reassurance.
At least, he thinks that she might need reassurance right up until she opens the door, at which point all thought leaves his head without so much as a fare-thee-well. Well. One thought sticks around: the one that simply says bedroom. Now. She is not allowed to wear that… that… that sliver of sin.
It’s black. It’s short. It has small slits in the sides of the skirt. It has a middling-to-low neckline and backline. It is not indecent. It merely goes straight to his groin.
About that point he closes his mouth and swallows very hard. Swallowing hard does nothing to relieve any other areas which might also be very hard.
“Shall we go?” he manages, an octave and noticeably increased vibrato removed from his usual tones.
“Okay,” and when she says it he realises how tense she is. He steps inside and simply clasps her in, letting her lean on his absolute certainty that it will all turn out right.
“Last step, love,” he breathes. “Last step.”
Her arms close around him. “I can do this,” she whispers, and he hears the promise implicit in her words: not to him, but to herself.
The party is in full and noisy swing. All notions of being fashionably late, dear to the hearts of actors everywhere in normal circumstances, were abruptly removed from their minds by the careful dissemination of some very interesting information. Somehow, no-one at all knows how (unless you happened to be one Richard Castle, who always knows a guy), the gossip has spread that Dottie and David Carriblane, and their cultured circle of funders, will be attending. No-one can afford to miss that. Who knows who might be spotted? Besides which, Martha Rodgers is the hot new director, and who knows who she might spot for whatever she takes on next?
Miss this party, and you might as well quit acting now, because you’re not one of the in-crowd.
In one corner, far away from any possibility of being contaminated by culture, Esposito is scowling at the world. He’d been inveigled here under false pretences. Castle had told him that Ryan, Beckett, Castle, O’Leary and O’Leary’s partner Pete, and Jim Beckett, would all be here. He can’t see a single freakin’ one of ‘em. He can’t see any friggin’ thing past all the glam and glitz. At least the beer bucket’s within reach, and he’ll admit the beer is good. He should know. He’s three bottles down already. He scowls more blackly, unaware that several actors are observing and imitating him.
He observes a ripple in the jam-packed crowd and, (though he wouldn’t admit it under torture) hopes like hell that it’s someone he can talk to. It’s coming from the front door, which is positive.
From a different direction, Ryan fights his way through a crowd of actors. Esposito watches dyspeptically as a number of them (not all female) flirt with him. It’s disgusting. Cops should display a decent dignity, not wink at actors who’re giving them the eye. And that snake-hipped walk is just not cool. He ignores with magnificent (and scowling) indifference that it is Ryan’s normal cop stride, and that Ryan is not winking at anyone but him.
Ryan spots Esposito and makes straight for him.
“Beer,” he says. “for God’s sake, beer!”
“What’s wrong, bro?”
“Ah,” follows after Ryan. He’s – she’s? – he’s? – Espo eventually lands on it’s, out of desperation – bright. Scarlet wide pants, unsettlingly silky. Violet shirt, ditto, displaying too much stomach. Patent black shoes – with a heel. He’s both revolted and hypnotised.
“You shouldn’t try to hide from me, sweetie.”
Ryan cringes. Esposito snickers. It lasts three milliseconds until Ryan wraps him in a hug and – oh fuck what are you doing bro? – makes as if he’s kissing him!
“You pair are just so darn cute,” arrives from the ceiling. It’s O’Leary, holding the hand of a smaller (that is, normal sized) man.
The omnisexual fashion plate slithers off, muttering.
“Is he gone, bro? Tell me he’s gone?” Ryan weebles frantically, hiding behind the mountain. “Is he gone?”
“What the fuck just happened?”
“He wouldn’t leave me alone,” Ryan wails. “I couldn’t get rid of him so I thought the best thing to do was pretend I was into you. If Beckett had been here I’d have” –
“What would you have?” Beckett’s cool tones reach the group rather before she does, trailing Castle and Jim, whom they’d picked up on the way. The boys’ jaws drop in tandem as they register her attire.
“I’d have hugged you instead,” Ryan blurts out, rather before his brain catches up with his mouth. Esposito appears vindicated. Beckett appears confused. Castle raises an eyebrow. O’Leary sniggers in tandem with Jim.
“You’d have hugged Beckett?” Castle asks. There is a very tiny stress line in his voice.
“Not if he wanted to keep his balls,” Beckett mutters. Castle relaxes.
“But Beckett, he was harassing me.”
“Welcome to a woman’s world,” she says very tartly. Ryan blushes. Castle snickers. Jim raises a very parental eyebrow, which Beckett entirely ignores.
“Now, butterfly,” O’Leary drawls, “that’s not fair.”
“Oh? Remember those guys we went sparring with, back when?”
O’Leary outright guffaws. “Sure I do. That’s why it’s not fair. You mopped the floor with them.”
“And Ryan could have mopped the floor with that guy,” she points out, and then pauses. “It was a guy, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Castle says.
“This is all your fault, bro,” Ryan grouses. “You invited me to this party.”
At which opportune moment Martha makes her entrance, in highly dramatic style.
“Darlings!” she carols, at a pitch and volume which would have reached the back of the Met, unamplified, and shattered every wine glass in that institution along the way. “You’re here!” Unwillingly, but they are indeed all here. “Help yourselves to food and drinks.”
And then she notices O’Leary. Quite how she has overlooked a mobile mountain, Castle has no idea. His mother looks up, and up, and further up. “Oh my,” she says, faintly.
“Hi, I’m Colm O’Leary. This is Pete Kasman, my partner.
“Friends of Richard’s?”
“Yaas,” O’Leary drawls more slowly. Beckett almost expects him to add mam to the end of it.
“Oh,” she says.
“We came to see your production,” Pete puts in. “Colm thought it was really interesting. He’s done a bit of am-dram” –
“You have?” Martha’s eyes light up. “What have you done?” She slices O’Leary (Colm? Really?) out of the group and bears him off. The remaining gang breathes a sigh of relief.
Beckett, somewhat shielded from the general hubbub of the noisy party by the boys, her father, Pete and Castle; watches O’Leary being borne away and raises an eyebrow.
“What’d I miss?”
“Waal,” Pete drawls, “he said he liked her play…”
“And you didn’t?” Beckett asks, watching his face wrinkle.
“I prefer football, y’know.”
Shortly Pete has been absorbed into the gang. He, Jim, Espo and Ryan have seized on the chance not to become involved with theatrical types and are deep in discussion of the merits of various football teams. Lanie slides up, only a little late, and joins in. Beckett pretends to listen. Castle doesn’t even pretend.
She is recalled to reality when a snatch of conversation makes it past her ears to her brain.
“You were a choirboy, Ryan?”
Ryan colours up, and then clearly decides that offence is the best form of defence.
“Not the only one. Espo here was too.”
Beckett nearly falls over with the shock. Castle goggles. Lanie giggles.
“”You were a choirboy, Espo? You?”
“When I was ten,” he growls, scowling. Lanie outright sniggers.
“So both of you can sing?” Castle asks. “I can sing too,” he continues, and abruptly stops the rest of that sentence, undoubtedly containing the words and I know you can, Beckett, very short indeed as he is punched by her fulminating glare.
“And so can Colm here, darlings,” arrives again, once more at theatre-pitched volume and clarity. “How lovely. Everyone,” Martha announces to the room, “We’ve acquired the evening’s entertainment. We’ve got a barbershop quartet.”
Beckett, Lanie, Jim and Pete glance at each other and promptly dissolve in gales of hysterical laughter. Ryan and Espo are hunting frantically for the door, but O’Leary’s mountainous form is blocking their line of retreat.
“Mother,” Castle says firmly, “I didn’t invite my friends so you could turn this into a rehearsal for America’s Got Talent 2009. Leave us be.”
“Oh, pish, Richard. It’ll be fun. We’ll all join in.”
“How much have you had to drink?”
“Not nearly enough,” Espo mutters, and drains another bottle. Ryan hides behind Castle, until Esposito extracts him.
“Not cool, bro. C’mon, let’s get a drink. Jim, wanna soda, and what about the game last weekend?”
Jim, Pete, Espo and Ryan, who is clinging to the other two men for safety, wander off, basely leaving Castle and O’Leary to deal with Martha. Lanie looks at the developing issue, looks around, spots a rather attractive man and takes off. Castle looks only marginally down at Beckett, ignoring both the almost un-ignorable mass of O’Leary and his mother, speaking softly.
“You okay?”
“So far.” Under the camouflage, there’s a hint of strain.
“Come and meet the Carriblanes. They’re quite normal, for theatre types.” He puts a hand on her waist, preparatory to steering her away.
“Darlings, don’t run off,” Martha declaims. Beckett stiffens under his hand. “I wanted to talk to you.” Now Beckett’s like marble. Castle looks around for help, and finds O’Leary’s gaze. Subtly, O’Leary ranges himself next to Beckett. It conceals Castle’s hand firmly in contact with her rigid spine.
“Did you?” Beckett says, and leaves it at that. It’s not exactly inviting.
“Of course I do. We’ve got lots to talk about. After all, you’re taking such a big place in my son’s life.”
Oh fuck no. Her heart sinks. She doesn’t want to talk to Martha for very long. She especially doesn’t want to talk lots. In fact, she doesn’t want to talk at all. And Martha is, from her heightened emotional state, likely already well on her way to tipsy, which means that her almost invisible filters will be completely absent.
“I don’t think so,” she says quietly. “I think we should just enjoy the party.” She steps back.
Martha steps forward and clamps a hand around her wrist. Beckett snaps her hand down and breaks the grip.
“What are you doing, Mother?” Castle asks brusquely. “Beckett’s said she doesn’t want to talk. I don’t think this is the time or the place.”
“Naw,” O’Leary agrees. “I don’t either.” He moves very slightly to be in front of Beckett. “Didn’t you say you were going to introduce me to Humphrey?”
“Humphrey?” Martha says, distracted for a second, which is all that’s required.
“Sure. I wanna meet him. You said he started in amateur productions.” O’Leary keeps talking in his hayseed drawl, as Beckett and Castle slip backwards and O’Leary steers Martha forward.
“C’n we find somewhere out of the crowd?” Beckett asks.
“Sure,” Castle says. Beckett looks considerably less than happy, and when she slides fingers into his waiting hand they’re chilled.
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