125. Chapter 125

Chapter 125

After seeing Captain Dohrman off, Beckett returned to find her family.

"Did he have as much trouble leaving here as you had leaving the twelfth?" Castle asked, seeing the serious look on her face.

"Gates, Ryan, Chief Dawson, and I gave him sort of an honor guard out to his car, and I saw him take the same look back at the fifteenth that I did leaving the twelfth yesterday. When we looked out of our car windows, he and I were seeing our departures through entirely different lenses, though. My future is moving forward. Watching him leave was more like honoring one of our wounded warriors. The battle he's going to have ahead of him in the next year or two is going to be as tough as when I got shot; but instead of getting progressively better, it's only going to get worse. And it won't be easy on his family either, especially his wife, to see it happening. They seem to be good people, and he's certainly been a source of pride for the department. Life just isn't fair."

"I know." He ran a comforting hand along her arm.

"We saw to it that he left with the department's respect, though. The Chief of Police escorted him to his car and opened the door for him as respectfully as Darrell and Michael do for you. And all of us gave him a formal salute as he was about to leave. He smiled like it pleased him, and he gave one back as they pulled away."

"I think about half of you is heart, Captain Beckett, even if you have to hide some of it at work. I'm guessing it probably isn't okay for me to give the new captain a comfort hug out here in the middle of things."

"Probably not, but it would be nice." She sighed, looking resigned. "I think Captain Beckett needs to do some actual work."

"Do you want me to bring in the box from the car for your office?"

"Yeah. I suspect that if I go to my office, the stragglers here will start moving back to their own jobs. And I do need to get myself organized."

The couple had been alone until then, but the rest of the family converged on them, saying that they needed to get back to work or school. There were hugs and congratulations before they all drifted away, Martha returning Jamie to his father.

"Jamie and I will be right back." Castle promised.

"You can leave him here, Rick. You can't juggle the box and the boy."

"We'll work it out. Trust us."

"Okay boys, do your thing. I'll be waiting," she answered with a smile. "You know where to find me." She stopped and spoke to a few people on her way to her office and was there when her men returned.

Castle had Jamie perched on one arm when he got in the elevator, but they came back with Jamie walking beside him, looking proud of himself as he carried a box about half the size of a shoe box. "I helped, Mommy," he said, presenting her with the box that held small office supplies with a big bag of M&M's on top. Castle placed the larger box on her desk as Beckett thanked her son for his help…and for bringing her candy. Then Castle moved a couple of things around in the larger box, unwrapped the little dish she'd always kept candy in on her desk at the twelfth, and handed it to her. She tore the top of the M&M's bag open, poured candy into the dish, and stored the remainder of the treats in a desk drawer; and then she let Jamie take a handful of the candies. As she picked him up and sat him in her lap, Castle took a larger handful and sat in one of the chairs across from her desk. Jamie contentedly leaned against her, eating the M&Ms one by one.

"We should probably let you get to work," Castle said, hating to leave. "I know you have things to do."

"Yeah. As nice as this is, I do need to get busy," she answered, and dropped a kiss on her son's head. Jamie looked up at her and smiled, getting a besotted smile from his mother in return.

"Before he melts you into a little Mommy puddle again, we should go." Castle stood and took their little boy, and she stood to meet him as he leaned in for the kiss she could always expect from him. Going back for one more quick peck on the lips, he smiled. "Impress them, Captain Beckett," he said. "See you at home." Turning back when he reached the door, he whispered something to Jamie, and her little boy blew her a kiss. Then Castle said, "We're proud of you," and walked away.

Beckett watched them leave with a smile on her face, then she took the garment bag with her other clothes to the ladies' room and went into the larger stall to change out of her dress uniform. Someone else came in and was washing her hands when another third woman entered the room and asked, "Did you see Captain Beckett? I was on duty."

"She seemed okay," the first woman answered cautiously. "She has a lot of commendations to her credit.

"Somebody said she looks like a model," the new voice said, making it sound like a question.

"She definitely does, but she didn't flaunt it. She seemed pretty down to earth. I'm more interested in how she runs the precinct. I liked Captain Dohrman. I feel bad for him."

"The whole place will probably go to hell in a handbasket. She's probably used to getting by on her looks. If she looks that good, she probably slept her way through the academy and up the ranks."

By then, Beckett had her uniform in the garment bag and walked out of the stall with it over her arm. Standing behind the shorter, brunette woman who was still talking, she asked calmly, "Is that how you got through the academy, officer? Is that why you're so quick to judge someone you've never met?"

Turning quickly, the woman spat, "Who the hell are you? This isn't your conversation, and you don't get to talk about me like that. I worked hard to get through the academy."

"Then why is it okay for you to talk that way about someone you've never met?" Looking down at her name tag, Beckett added, "Officer Patton, is it? Doesn't the new captain deserve the same respect you think you do?"

The blonde woman who had been caught off guard by the other officer's accusations looked decidedly uncomfortable.'

Officer Patton still had her hackles up. "I repeat. Who the hell are you to…"

"Captain Kate Beckett," Beckett interrupted, "and I'd advise you to get that attitude under control. As for whose conversation it was, it belonged to everybody in the room because nobody could miss it. And I'd say I should have a place in a conversation about me. Every woman here had to work as hard as you say you did to get through the academy. It's hard enough for all of us to make it up through the ranks when some of the men want to believe the things you just said…with no knowledge of the facts. Since I don't know you yet, I'll let it pass this time, but don't expect that to happen again. I won't tolerate it, toward me or anybody else here. One factor is that it eats away at morale. It makes people around you uncomfortable...worried about when you'll turn on them. But what's more important is that it probably follows you into the community you're supposed to serve, and it makes all of us look bad. I won't have that." Then she left.

The blonde woman left Patton behind in a flash. "I'm sorry you had to hear that, Captain," she said, looking worried as she caught up with Beckett as soon as they left the restroom. "Patton has a hard time dealing with other people getting awards or promotions or being praised. It's almost like a personal insult for her to see anybody, especially other women, looking better than she does about anything…whatever that involves."

"Don't worry, Officer…" Beckett again checked the name tag, "Prinz. I know all of that came to you, not the other way around."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

Beckett shook her hand. "It's good to meet you. How long have you been here?"

"Six months. Patton and I came in at the same time."

"Any ideas where you'd like to end up eventually?"

"I want your job one of these days," she said with a mischievous little grin.

Beckett laughed and said, "Good luck, then, Prinz. It takes a good while, so I should have a few years to find another one."

Prinz smiled, looked relieved, and walked away when Beckett headed back toward her office. The new captain hung the bag that contained her uniform on the freestanding coat rack Dohrman had left her, looked at her desk, and sighed. Then she took a folder from the bottom of the box Castle had brought her, took out her check lists from her time at the fifty-first, and started organizing her priorities.

She stayed home most of the weekend but spent Saturday afternoon getting her office in a better condition to work efficiently the following week, and she called in on Sunday to be sure nothing needed her attention.

During the week, she began the same hands on system of running the precinct that she had used at the fifty-first. She was visiting the different units, asking questions about cases, and praising where it was due. One of the robbery detectives seemed to be annoyed by the questions, asking if she was there because she didn't trust them to do their jobs.

"The closure rate here is good. Why would I think you can't do your jobs. No offense intended," she answered. "But I'm new here, and I need to be aware of the active cases. As a detective, I was in homicide, but our cases sometimes overlapped with robbery, or narcotics, or elsewhere. If I'm aware of what's going on, I'm likely to spot those things and put the parties together to discuss it. And if a question comes up, I'll have answers. You'll find that I like having answers. This is for my own edification, and it's likely to continue. And, aside from that, I need to meet people and know who I'm working with…Detective Coulter." Acknowledging the others on his team by name, she smiled at them and said, "Don't expect me to be able to walk in and do that again tomorrow, by the way; but I'll get there before long."

All of them smiled, the man's attitude then eased, and he talked her through what they had on their case. She asked a few questions, thanked Coulter's team, and moved to another group, saying, "You know who I am, but I'm at a disadvantage. They introduced themselves, had a moment or two of small talk; and having watched the exchange that had just happened, they easily took her through their own work. The meetings repeated themselves around the room; and she returned to her office with both a better idea of what was going on in the precinct and a little intelligence on staff interactions, both of which would prove valuable at one time or another.

xxxxx

By Friday night, she had done a lot of communicating and absorbed a lot of information…and she was exhausted. When she walked in the door, Rick was looking a little frazzled himself.

"Hey, Babe," she greeted him. "I get the feeling it's going to be take-out night. I don't want to cook any more than it looks like you do."

"Choose from any menu that makes you happy," Castle answered without a hint of disagreement, and followed with a welcome home kiss.

"Mommy!"

"Does pizza sound good for supper, Munchkin?" she asked.

The answer was "Pizza!" repeated several times as he bounced up and down, actually leaving the floor and jumping on his own for the first time, surprising all three of them.

"Look at you!" Kate exclaimed. "You jumped all by yourself."

"Was it fun?" Castle asked with his proud dad smile, and of course, his son had to try it again.

Kate ordered pizza while Jamie, demonstrating his father's penchant for focusing intently on something new and interesting, practiced his new found skill. He didn't quite leave the floor every time, and he fell a few other times when he did manage to be slightly airborne; but he kept getting up to try again.

Castle laughed and said, "He has his mother's determination."

"And his father's interest in all things new and exciting," Kate answered. "He left the ground under his own steam, and it probably felt a little bit like flying."

They stood leaning against the kitchen counter, Castle's arm around his wife, as they watched and alternately laughed, smiled, and decided whether to go to Jamie's rescue or let him pick himself up and keep going. By the time the pizza was delivered, all three were willing to sit down at the table and eat quietly.

xxxxx

A few days later, Beckett was returning from lunch at a little café a couple of blocks from the precinct when a flurry of raised voices and action across the street caught her attention. Officer Patton had a young man who looked about fourteen or fifteen years old shoved against the wall of a building, and both of them were shouting angrily. Jogging across the street, Beckett stepped in to mediate.

"What's going on?" she asked her officer.

"He's refusing to cooperate," Patton responded angrily.

"'Cause she stopped me and shoved me into a wall for no reason," the teen shouted back. "All I did was walk around the corner, and she was after me."

"He shoved something in his pocket. He hid it as soon as he saw me."

"I didn't even see her until she was grabbing me and asking me what's in my pocket," he protested.

"Yeah, right. Everybody knows that side of this block is full of drugs, and..."

"Both of you take a deep breath and settle down," Beckett ordered. "I'm Kate Beckett, and I'm with the police, too. What's your name?" she asked, looking at the teenager. "I like to know who I'm talking to," she added calmly.

"Can you tell her to let go?" he asked.

Beckett asked Patton, "Has he done anything more violent than raise his voice?"

"No," Patton answered, looking put upon, and Beckett motioned to a disgusted Patton to release her grip on him.

The boy adjusted his shirt in a huff, glared at Patton resentfully, and mumbled toward Beckett, "Jamal Keaton."

"What happened, Jamal? What were you doing when you came around the corner?"

"I just left home, and I was going to walk around the neighborhood to see if I could find a summer job. School's out in three weeks, and I need one. My mama made cookies this morning, and she gave me some to take with me. I was putting them in my pocket and the police here came up yelling at me, all in my face and wanting to know what was in my pocket and what I was trying to hide from her. It's none of her business. Cookies ain't illegal."

"Did he do anything threatening toward you, Officer?"

"He yelled that it was none of my business, and he didn't answer me," she said defensively.

"And that's when you restrained him?"

"That's right. He put a plastic bag that looked like drugs in his pocket as soon as he saw me," Patton insisted. "Cookies are round. From where I was, it looked more like weed."

"My mama don't have a lot of time. She makes bar cookies 'cause it's faster. She put some in a plastic bag and handed them to me before I left. I didn't even see the police. I was just putting them in my pocket. I was going to some of the restaurants to see if they were hiring, and I didn't figure I should be taking food into restaurants. That's all. I looked up when I heard her yelling at me. That's the first time I saw her."

"Then show us the cookies so we know you're right," Beckett requested.

Jamal wasn't happy about it, but he pulled the bag from his pocket, a snack sized Zip-Loc bag with four flat chocolate chip bar cookies. He pulled out his pocket, turning it wrong side out. "See? Nothin' else there. Ain't everybody on my street doin' drugs. The ones that are, they just make us all look bad. I can't help where I live."

"Satisfied, Officer Patton?" Beckett asked.

"Yes," she conceded darkly.

Beckett gave the teenager a little smile. "Don't lose the cookies. They look good."

He tentatively smiled back. "Yeah, they are," he said as he put them back in his pocket.

She shook his hand and said, "I'm sorry about the misunderstanding. Go on and start your job hunt, and good luck with it."

He walked off and went into a pizza shop a few doors down, and Beckett turned to Patton. "My office as soon as you're off shift. It won't take long."

xxxxx

After returning to the precinct, Beckett sat down at her desk, went through her checklist for the rest of her day, and organized things to have herself back in her office at the end of her shift. About ten minutes after shift change, Patton was at her door, looking like a brewing storm cloud.

"Close the door and have a seat," Beckett said evenly, sitting on the front half of her chair, with straight posture, arms folded and resting on the desk in front of her.

"You're gonna get me fired because you don't like what I said about you, aren't you?" Patton challenged.

"No. If you're going to be fired, there's going to be bigger reason than that. Being fired is entirely dependent on the way you do your job."

"Right," she answered with an almost sneer.

"Why did you decide you dislike me before you'd ever been around me?"

"People who look like you don't even have to work. Everybody wants to just give them things…do things for them."

"The thing is, I don't accept what I don't think I've earned. In your work, do you expect things you haven't earned?"

"No," she mumbled unconvincingly, staring at her hand as her fingers strummed across the fabric on the chair arm.

"In your work, do you think you should automatically be given respect you haven't earned?"

Patton looked up. "You didn't give me any respect showing me up in front of that kid. Everybody wants respect, right?"

"I'd say that's true. But I showed you the respect of conferring with you before I had you release him and before I let him go...and not ordering you to my office until after he left, didn't I? The young man you dealt with this morning would want some respect, too, don't you think?"

"What was I supposed to do?" she protested, still rather disrespectfully. "It looked like a bag of weed, and he was coming from the right place for buying it. Was I supposed to just ignore it?"

Beckett took a deep, calming breath. "When he came around the corner, was he doing anything that looked threatening or dangerous?"

"No."

"Did what was in the bag look like enough of anything to distribute?"

"No, but it was still an illegal substance. I'm not supposed to ignore that."

"Actually, it wasn't an illegal substance. It was his mother's fresh baked cookies."

"Well, how was I supposed to know that? I asked him what it was, and he yelled that it was none of my business."

"I saw most of what happened, but I heard the whole thing…along with everybody else on the street; and your voice was the first one I heard shouting. I didn't hear his voice until after I heard yours, and by then you already had your hands on him."

"How do you know he didn't start it?"

Beckett took another calming breath, folded her hands together on her desk, and leaned slightly across it in Patton's direction. "Years of being a detective tells me that his voice has changed and it's pitched considerably lower than yours. If you didn't notice that yourself, making detective isn't likely to ever happen for you, Patton. Don't try to antagonize me by arguing your points as if you're his age. You've made it through the Police Academy; and on the job, you're supposed to use good judgment and behave like an adult.

"If you hear somebody yell that an old lady was knocked down and her purse was stolen and a teenage boy runs around the corner with a purse, you're gonna need need to announce yourself and stop him. That situation would indicate there's a danger to the community. But slamming a kid who doesn't look threatening up against a wall because he doesn't answer a question you shouted at him out of the blue…it doesn't require that kind of force. And everybody on the street saw most of it."

"He should have responded to law enforcement."

"He did. He answered me, didn't he? What do you think made the difference?"

"There were two of us?"

"Try again. My patience is wearing thin."

"Respect?" The officer obviously wasn't happy at having to admit it.

"When you were his age, if an officer approached you under the same circumstances, how would you have reacted?"

Patton glowered and didn't answer.

"If what I've seen of you so far is any indication, it would probably have been the same way he did. Think about the way you responded to me when I questioned your slanderous statements about me. I'm pretty sure I know how you looked to that teenager."

She looked down and still didn't answer.

"Do you remember what he said about his neighborhood? He said, 'Ain't everybody on my street doin' drugs. The ones that are, they just make us all look bad. I can't help where I live.' That's where I am with you right now, Patton. I'm not saying you need to ignore what looks illegal, just use some reason in how you approach it. If a kid doesn't look dangerous or suspicious otherwise, don't use unnecessary force. It makes the rest of us look bad…and we can't help where we live, either. How do we get the community to respect the police if they experience what a lot of people saw this morning? If there isn't a threat, talk before you shout. Try to work through it calmly, without force. And if you see Jamal again, an apology or an explanation wouldn't hurt. You might even ask if he's found a job yet."

"Are we done now?" the officer asked sullenly. "It's way past the end of my shift."

"More respect for authority wouldn't do your career any harm, either, Officer. Your file shows a couple of complaints, so I doubt it's only me. I see that Captain Dohrman wrote you up twice, and your training officer's evaluation questioned your responses to authority and your judgment in interacting with the public. And I might point out that my shift ended the same time yours did. However, I'm still here because of your lack of good judgment; but yes, Patton. We're done for now. Dismissed. See me first thing in the morning to sign the paperwork."

Patton huffed out of the room, and Beckett leaned back in her chair with a long and exasperated exhale. She released a quiet growl and a big, nearly painful but well-earned eye roll as soon as the other woman was out of sight; and then she filled out the disciplinary form that would go in Patton's file. locked up, and went home.

xxxxx

As soon as she was inside the door of the loft, she went straight into her husband's arms, rested her head on his shoulder, and melted into his embrace.

"Rough day, Sweetheart?" he asked

She didn't even speak, just nodded.

"Want to talk about it?"

"No."

"That bad?"

She nodded again.

Jamie ran out from the study with his customary greeting and hugged her leg, and she picked him up and held him as she dropped her head to Castle's shoulder again.

"I think Mommy needs big hugs from all the boy Castles," Rick said as he snuggled his family. "Can you help Daddy do that?" Jamie squeezed in closer, nuzzled his face into Kate's shoulder, and wrapped his arms around her neck.

Kate sighed and said, "This feels good. You guys give really good hugs." After a long moment, she tickled her son's ribs gently, and he giggled. "I feel better already," she said. "Is that lasagna I smell?"

"Yep. It should be ready in about fifteen minutes."

"Is the salad already made?"

"Not yet."

"Want to help Mommy make a salad, Peanut?" Kate asked, lifting her head from Castle's shoulder. Jamie nodded enthusiastically, and she pulled out a tray and put it on one of the chair seats where he could reach it easily. Then she handed him things from the refrigerator to put on the tray for her. Standing Jamie on a chair, she had him wash his hands and help her tear the lettuce into pieces. The pieces weren't exactly uniform sizes, but nobody there cared. Then she cut veggies and he picked them up and dropped them in the salad bowl, sometimes a little too forcefully, and he giggled as a piece here and there bounced out of the bowl or was dropped to the floor. Castle stood close, being sure his son didn't fall out of the chair...and picking up the stray veggies falling from an overly excited little boy's workspace.

Things calmed after Jamie's bedtime. Martha came home and spent a little time with her children before she went to her room claiming exhaustion after her late rehearsal, and Rick and Kate were finally alone.

"Do you hear that?" he asked a bit dramatically.

"What? I don't hear anything."

"Exactly." He gave her a contented smile. "There isn't nearly as much quiet around here as there used to be." Wrapping his arms loosely around her waist, he said, "We need some time away. The twenty-eighth is next Friday, and it's Memorial Day weekend. You won't even have to worry about time off. We can leave for the Hamptons as soon as you're off on Friday. I already have Jamie covered, and the housekeeping service will have the house ready and some groceries stocked when we get there."

Kate sighed contentedly. "Our 'just for us' anniversary. I think that's even better than the wedding anniversary. It was the two of us finally deciding to be honest enough to give ourselves the chance to have this." She put her arms around his neck, running her fingers through the soft hair at the nape. "I think we've done pretty well so far. And I like that nobody else knows…that it's entirely ours."

"Me, too," he answered, pulling her closer and kissing her head. "That weekend, Kate…I wouldn't change a thing. You took care of me. You put up with long stretches of my writing to meet my deadlines…massaged my shoulders when I'd been writing too long, talked to me about things I know were uncomfortable for you then… You made me feel like I was important to you."

"You were…and it was way past time for me to let you know that. You made me feel pretty special, too."

"We started being 'us' by taking care of each other…and being completely honest. Best sexless vacation weekend I've ever experienced."

"It looks like you've arranged everything else. Tomorrow, I'll find someone to cover for me if there's an emergency."

"If you need to be back for an emergency, I'll rent you a helicopter. I just want you to myself for a little while. I'm kind of glad the rest of the family couldn't be in the Hamptons for Memorial Day this year."

"I want you to myself, too," she answered flirtatiously. "But you've spoiled me now. Better not plan on another one of those sexless vacation weekends, Stud."

Castle laughed, feeling important again, and put an arm around her shoulders as he turned and guided them toward their room and a nice relaxing shower before bed.