110. Breathing in the chemicals

As the day goes on, Castle becomes more and more sure that Montgomery actually made a really big mistake by keeping Beckett clear of new cases for so long. That is, for more than around a week. She’s so much more alive with a murderer to pursue: all her spark is sparkling.

Belvez’s apartment is a two room walk-up, fortunately only on the second floor, in an indifferent state of cleanliness. CSU are summoned, just in case of any leads, and while they’re making their way over Beckett issues instructions to Ryan and Espo relating to bank accounts, phones, street cameras and all the other paraphernalia of investigation. She then tosses Castle a pair of gloves and they start to look around.

“This is weird, Beckett.”

“What?”

“He’s got four unused cans of shaving foam.”

“Why’s that weird? Maybe he bulk buys.”

“They rattle. Shaving foam doesn’t rattle.”

Beckett appears in the bathroom doorway. Castle demonstrates.

“Okay, maybe you got something there. Leave them for CSU. In fact, let’s get out of this room. CSU need to have a proper look.”

“But Beckett…” Castle whines.

“No buts.” She glares at the bathroom, and incidentally at Castle. “CSU can sweep it. We’ll go search his living room. Come on.”

Castle trails after her. The desk is covered in papers. The papers are covered in meaningless diagrams and strings of letters and numbers. Memory is heaving into action and finding long-disused information in Castle’s head, when Beckett makes a very satisfied noise.

“Chemical formulae,” she says smugly. “What’s a down on his luck guy doing drawing formulae in his apartment?”

“What did that run on him show?”

“Nothing yet. I think I’ll put out a feeler to New Mexico. This isn’t your normal economic migrant to New York. Something’s up.” She smiles ferally. “This one is definitely my kind of case. Let’s see if we can find an expert who speaks chemistry.”

“Um… I know a guy at NYU.”

“You do?”

“Sure I do. He told me how to make explosives for Derrick Storm, out of candle wax, fertiliser and a couple of household ingredients.”

“Okaaayyyy,” Beckett drawls. “And I suppose you just had to test the recipe?”

Castle’s ears turn pink. “Well…”

“Mmm?”

“There was quite a big hole in the beach. But it all filled up again in a couple of tides.”

Beckett quirks a sardonic eyebrow.

“It did! And it’s a private beach anyway. If I want to make explosives, I can.”

“I don’t think I want to know any more. If I did, I’d have to arrest you and turn you over to Homeland Security.”

“I liked that sentence right up till you mentioned Homeland Security,” Castle grumps. “Why’d you have to kill the mood like that?”

“Focus, Castle. This is a murder, not some seedy club.”

Castle grumbles under his breath until they’ve finished searching the desk and they’re on the way back to the bullpen.

“What do we got, Espo?” Beckett whips out, before she’s even hit her desk.

“Footage’ll take a coupla hours. Phone records on the way – Ryan’s on it. Bank we’re waitin’ on. Lanie ain’t called yet. Social security number’s backed up so we don’t even know what his job was, if he got one.”

At that opportune moment Beckett’s phone rings. It’s Lanie.

“I can’t see any cause of death other than suffocation. He wasn’t strangled, but his lungs were inflated, so I’m waiting for tox results to confirm carbon monoxide. Should have them tomorrow.”

“Can’t you speed it up?”

“You say that every time. No.”

“You say that every time, too,” Beckett humphs.

“Tomorrow, Kate. Fastest I can manage.”

“Okay,” she grumps. “Thanks.”

Beckett puts the phone down, and looks about her for Castle. He isn’t there. Ryan and Espo are slaving over a hot computer, chasing down cross-connections. She assumes Castle’s gone off to the restroom, and looks at the photos of the formulae. Castle, she thinks irritably, had no right to go to the restroom before he’d contacted his guy who speaks chemistry.

“Detective Beckett.”

“Sir?”

“A word.” Beckett doesn’t fail to miss the lack of any please.

“Sir.” She follows Montgomery into his office.

“Now. Explain last week.”

Beckett gulps. It’s not often Montgomery pulls the full Captain bit, but clearly he is now.

“My father said he didn’t want to be family after I’ve spent five years looking out for him,” she says baldly and rapidly. “Friday was a joint session with the shrink. It got to me. It won’t happen again, sir.”

“How can I be sure of that, Detective?”

Beckett opens her mouth, and shuts it again; repeats the motion. Montgomery simply waits.

“I… you can’t, sir. But please don’t bench me again. I can’t… please don’t.”

Montgomery stares grimly at her. “I heard about your outburst at Central Park,” he says. “If you’d been on duty, there’d be a reprimand on your file already.”

Beckett shrinks into herself. Montgomery observes it with some discomfort, and decides that rating her further is possibly counterproductive.

“What happened?”

“She said she needed my help. I said no. Orders. She asked me how I could live with myself if I never helped anyone.”

Montgomery winces. “I see. So you obeyed orders, even if you were provoked into losing your temper. Hmm. It’s just as well that Detective O’Leary was present.”

Beckett stands at parade rest. Montgomery surveys her, assessingly, and changes tack.

“Are you still seeing the shrink?”

“Yessir.”

“Okay.” He thinks for a few minutes, during which Beckett says nothing and keeps looking hopefully towards the door. “Fine. Here’s how it’s going to be. You do your shifts and no more. You take Castle with you if you’re working a case. If your father’s getting to you, you come tell me before you go disappearing off. If you tell me, we can work something out. If you do that again, you’ll take three days unpaid. After I’ve told you what I think of it.”

“Sir.”

“And no getting hurt on the mats, either. If you’re gonna spar, be careful. Dismissed.”

“Sir.”

Beckett escapes, feeling somewhat flayed. She attains the relative safety of her desk and glares impartially around the bullpen – and then glares very partially indeed at Castle’s still empty chair. She wants a guy who speaks chemistry. Castle promised her one, and he hasn’t delivered, which gives her a reason to be cross, and he’s disappeared. She harrumphs, and goes to harass Ryan.

Castle is in the stairwell. He is not, in fact, hiding. He has even spoken to the guy he knows, who has promised to arrive at the Twelfth after he has finished lecturing for the day. He is now, however, rather than giving Beckett the good news, talking to O’Leary. That hadn’t been the plan, but he’d needed the restroom, and then his phone had rung before he could write her a note, and he certainly isn’t going to have any sort of a conversation with O’Leary with the bullpen listening in.

Not, it turns out, that they would have been able to hear much. Castle barely gets a word in. O’Leary is filling him in on the Friday afternoon storm. He’s a lot more descriptive than Beckett had been, that’s for sure. Castle quietly and privately thanks Beckett’s overworked guardian angel for the existence of O’Leary, and when he’s done offers to buy as many beers as O’Leary can drink (he can always sell a few investments to fund it, and it probably won’t need to be so many that the market moves) when there’s a convenient moment.

O’Leary rings off eventually, and Castle wanders back out to find a very irritated Beckett. He forestalls the irritation by opening his mouth.

“John’s coming over after teaching ends.”

“John?”

“Chemical guy. Formally: Professor John Terrison of NYU.”

Beckett’s scowl disappears as if it had never been. “When?”

Castle shrugs. “About five, I suppose.” It’s three now.

“Good.” The feral smile is back on her lips. “Coffee. If I lean over Ryan again he’ll try and strangle me with the camera footage.”

She leads the way to the break room and competently sets up the machine. Castle takes a very much more careful look around the break room than he usually does, and observes that there is a quiet corner where it’s possible to lurk unseen by the bullpen.

“C’mon,” he says hopefully, “let’s play hooky for five minutes. There’s a comfy seat” – Beckett makes a rude noise – “okay, a seat, there, where Ryan won’t spot you and strangle you” –

“Like he could,” she mutters darkly.

“and we can drink coffee in a civilised fashion.” He bats his eyelashes at her, and widens his eyes to the utmost.

“Okay. Five minutes.” She sits down where he’s indicated. Castle sits down right next to her, tucks an arm around her, and drinks his coffee. Beckett taps his hand where it’s curved around her waist. “What is this?”

“A hand,” Castle says innocently.

Beckett glares at full fearsomeness. It has no effect on Castle, who smiles boyishly back at her, completely impervious to any glare. “A hand?”

“Yep.”

“Why is this hand round my waist?”

“It got lonely,” Castle says soulfully. “It misses you.” Beckett considers vomiting. “And you probably need a hug, but that’s a bit obvious so this’ll have to do.” That’s a little better. She might not have to vomit after all.

“Why do I need a hug?”

“Because Montgomery hauled you in and you looked uncomfortable. So, hug. Well, this half-version, anyway. For now. You can have a proper one later, when no-one will interrupt.”

“Can I?” she says snarkily. She drains her coffee, and stands up. Castle’s hand slides down from her waist to her hip, and draws a little squiggle which produces a small wiggle in return. “Work, Castle.”

At five or so a small, neat man with yellow-stained fingers appears, who Castle greets enthusiastically and who, once extracted from Castle’s happy reminisces, is provided with tea in the conference room.

“So, Professor Terrison,” Beckett says, friendly but professional, “Castle says you teach chemistry at NYU?”

He looks a little embarrassed. “Call me John. Yes, well, I’m the head of department, now, and mostly I do research” –

“He does really cool stuff,” Castle bounces.

“Shush, Castle. I want to hear John. I can hear you talk all day.”

“and anyway, Rick said you found some diagrams and you needed someone to take a look?”

“Yes. I’ve got the papers here.” She spreads them out on the table for John to inspect. He regards them intently, and then starts to mutter words that mean less than nothing to Beckett. She hears definitely organic, and then benzoid, and then ought to be soluble polyimide but this isn’t quite… Her patience is, despite her extreme gratitude that John has come here, wearing a little thin as the unknown technical terms – what the hell is trifluoromethyl or dianhydride anyway – hit her ears and bounce off.

“Right,” John says, just as she’s about to run out the door and drown herself in di-hydrogen monoxide. “I can’t tell you what this is right now, but if you’ll let me I’ll take it away and have a proper look. It’s really interesting. I’d have liked to have met this person. It reminds me really closely of something we’re working with but it’s not quite the same.”

“I’ll get you copies,” Beckett says. “I don’t want to push” – Castle snorts – “but how long will it take?”

“Hmm. Day or two, maybe. If I can match it up to something then faster.”

John wanders off with copies in his clutch, murmuring technical terms to himself. Beckett returns to harassing Espo and Ryan.

Work does not produce any more results after John has left, and at shift end there is nothing new. Montgomery peers beadily out of his office door, and Beckett takes the hint and decamps. Castle wanders after her.

“Want some company?”

She turns to him, only barely shorter than he, and meets his eyes. “Not tonight, thank you. I need some time to think.”

He looks very seriously at her. “Alone?”

“Alone.” She smiles, but there’s a hint of wistfulness behind it. “I need to think, before tomorrow. I won’t have time before Burke. Do you want a ride home?” It’s a conversation closer.

“Yeah. Thanks. But… no hugs? I promised you proper hugs later.”

“Yes…” She would like hugs. But she has to think before Dr Burke tomorrow. She ought to confirm her appointment, too, and tell him that Castle is coming. Her desire to annoy Dr Burke as much as he annoys her is childish, and she can be better than that.

“I need some time. I… only you can save yourself, yeah? I’ve got to work it out, and if you come by I won’t because I’ll just want to… to be hugged.”

Castle isn’t entirely convinced, but he’d rather leave her to it than push the point. He slips into the passenger seat, and – much as Beckett had done yesterday – puts a hand on her knee. Hers slides over it, briefly, and then returns to the wheel. Still, before he leaves the car he leans over to kiss her, and for an instant she holds him tightly.

He watches her cruiser depart before entering his building.

At after six on Monday, Dr Burke is still in his office.   He is contemplating the problem of the Becketts. After the joint session had concluded, with no real resolution but, as consolation, no secrets left uncovered, Friday had included a draining discussion with Mr Beckett, who had been deeply distressed and had required all the efforts of both Dr Burke and his sponsor in order to be in any state to leave. His daughter’s state of fury, disbelief and then semi-catatonia had left him convinced that there was no possibility of reconciliation, and it had taken considerable time to convince him otherwise. He had been desperate to take any actions which might bring his daughter back into contact, and so Dr Burke had taken the opportunity to obtain explicit consent from him to inform Detective Beckett of any matters which he might have mentioned to Dr Burke and to tell her of his feelings. Mr Beckett had been pathetically grateful that Dr Burke would remind Detective Beckett of his words.

Dr Burke is concerned that Detective Beckett had failed to take in a single word that her father had said. He wishes to discuss with her, if she should attend, her views on what had been said. She needs to consider it carefully before she makes up her mind. While Dr Burke believes Mr Beckett to have been absolutely sincere in his remorse, and to wish to re-establish a relationship with Detective Beckett, it had been perfectly clear that she had not been in any state to have absorbed anything of his pain. Dr Burke considers this to be a result of her protective mechanisms, developed over time. Her outpouring of all her feelings, as should have happened years ago, had left her empty.

He sips his tea, and rejects any notion that a cookie might be soothing. He does not need such a prop. There will be a key to this conundrum. He merely needs to think logically and consider the personalities involved.

At that moment his receptionist knocks and, on entering, advises him that Detective Beckett has confirmed tomorrow’s appointment, and has said that Mr Castle will be accompanying her. This development is helpful. Clearly the weekend has not produced another breach. Dr Burke dismisses his receptionist with a smile and courtesy, and returns to his contemplations.

He begins with the two firm principles which are clear in this situation: Detective Beckett wants to be cured in order that she can have a healthy relationship with Mr Castle (which end Mr Castle entirely supports, despite the very occasional mis-step); and Mr Beckett is desperate to mend matters with his daughter. Dr Burke has no doubt at all of Mr Beckett’s sincerity. He does, however, wish that Detective Beckett was not so hard to read. He recalls Mr Castle’s words. She never meant to say all that, and now she thinks they’ll never be family. There is, however faintly, hope.

He considers very carefully the ethics of his next thought. He would like to know if Detective Beckett had said anything further of use over the weekend. It would be possible to find out simply by asking Mr Castle, and Detective Beckett has not withdrawn her consent for Dr Burke to talk to Mr Castle about any aspect of her treatment. It would therefore not be in breach of his duty to her to ask. She had lost her composure remarkably quickly, in fact, and while he is sure that her disagreement with Mr Castle had removed much of Detective Beckett’s normal control and composure, now that he has a chance to look back with the benefit of two days’ distancing, Dr Burke wonders if there had not been more to it than that. He has, he admits to himself, no grounds for that thought at all. He detests the concept of gut instinct, which is almost always either wrong or simply an erroneous shorthand term for an accumulation of clues and conclusions which individually are too small to register in one’s conscious mind.

He considers, again, whether he should speak to Mr Castle. It is a finely balanced decision. He does not believe in games of chance or gambling, but he pulls a dime from his pocket and flips it. As it spins downward, as he had expected, the result he wishes for becomes clear. The coin, naturally, lands on the opposite face. That is irrelevant. The mere act of tossing a coin has made the right path evident.

He lifts the telephone.

“Castle.”

“Mr Castle. This is Dr Burke.”

“Oh. Hi. Um…”

“I understand you will be attending with Detective Beckett tomorrow.”

“Er… yes.”

“I would not normally do this, Mr Castle, but is there anything of which I should be aware that would assist me in guiding the session? It appeared to me on Friday that Detective Beckett was very quick to lose her composure, compared to her usual behaviour.”

“She ran into Julia Berowitz. I didn’t know till today but Julia told Beckett that she never helps anyone and Beckett lost her temper and unloaded. O’Leary said it was like watching a flamethrower. It sounds like it was the other half of what she said to Jim.”

“And this was triggered by a comment that she does not help others?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Now, is there anything that Detective Beckett has said subsequent to Friday’s session that might help?”

“She doesn’t know if he’s lying.”

Dr Burke raises his eyebrows. That is, in fact, a significant admission. It may, indeed, represent considerable progress.

“She said it wasn’t even her word against his. It was his word against his. And then she wondered if he was just messing with her head. She’d looked up emotional abuse.”

“I see.   That is helpful to know.” Dr Burke thinks for an instant. “Have you any insight into what Detective Beckett wants?”

Castle sighs. “She says,” he says heavily, “that she wants this done. That’s what she says.”

“What do you believe?”

“I think that she wants to believe that her dad wants to be a family. But she doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive her for Friday. I don’t think she thinks that he’s ever forgiven her for any of it, anyway.”

“In fact, what she needs is forgiveness.”

“I suppose so.”

“Thank you. That is indeed very helpful. I shall see you tomorrow, Mr Castle. Let us hope that it is a productive session.”

“Um… is Jim okay? Well, not okay, but…”

“He is distressed, but not in imminent danger. His sponsor is a man of great good sense.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

“Goodbye.”

Dr Burke is really most heartened by that conversation. It appears that there will be a route through this morass of emotions to achieve a reasonable relationship between Mr Beckett and Detective Beckett. He takes up his fountain pen with some optimism.