178. No business like show business

Tim Derren is next up, and is obviously terrified by his repeat visit.

“I told you everything,” he blabbers. “Everything. I haven’t done anything. I haven’t.”

“New information has come to light,” Beckett says judicially. “We need to ask you a few further questions.   Look at this sketch.” Derren attempts to focus through bloodshot, bleary eyes. He’s thoroughly hung-over, or possibly still drunk. “You were here, with Kane.”

“Yes,” he agrees. There’s a slur on the final consonant. Beckett tries very hard not to notice it.

“Kane says he thinks two people went past, but he doesn’t know who. Can you remember?”

Derren looks terrified. “One was Cali,” he says. There is a silence. “I don’t know who the other was.”

“But you have an idea,” Castle says.

Derren’s eyes flick from side to side: scared spitless and desperate for a way out.

“C’mon, tell us. It’s only a theory. It might find Cali’s killer.”

“I don’t know, I tell you. All I saw was a flash of dark top.” Beckett makes a note. Her fingers are tight on her pen.

“Man or woman?” she asks, voice tightly controlled. She can do this. She is stronger than her memories and she has overcome her past and she can do this.

“I don’t know. I need a drink. Lemme have a drink.”

“We don’t serve alcohol.” Black humour will get her through. “Only coffee.”

“I need a drink,” he whimpers. “I can’t remember without a drink.” His face is crumpled and worn, a bitter reminder of times past.

“As soon as you tell me whether it was a man or a woman, you can go.” There’s nothing more to be gained from him: pressuring him won’t give reliable info. She knows this, from other times and other places, questioning her father.

“Man. Definitely a man.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Castle escorts Derren out. Beckett doesn’t move, caught in a wash of memory: her father, pleading with her not to empty the bottle down the sink: give it me, Katie, please give it me, I need a drink. She forces the memory away from the front of her mind. She isn’t responsible for Derren, or for her father. She stands up, and is back at her desk when Castle reappears.

“Got a minute?” she says, and doesn’t wait for an answer before leading him into the stairwell.

“What’s up?”

She steps into him, and puts her arms round his waist, leaning on his shoulder. “Need a minute. Dad… Dad used to say that.” Castle’s arms come around her in turn.

“What do you need?”

“Just you. Just a minute.”

“It’s not your dad.”

“I know that,” she says, a little irritated, possibly with herself. “I just need to process it. Understand that it’s not Dad. I’m not responsible for Derren.” She pauses. “I’m not responsible for Dad. He is. It’s up to him.”

Castle breathes a silent sigh of relief when she says that. He won’t need to tell her to back off. He won’t need to tell Montgomery to tell her to withdraw from the case. She’s handling it. She might need him – and he realises that she asked him, immediately she needed him, and though she’s already pulling herself together, just for that moment she knew that she needed something, needed him, and didn’t hesitate, as he hadn’t hesitated to go to her after that last fight with his mother. He drops a gentle peck on the top of her head, releases, and she steps back, looks up and smiles openly and beautifully.

“Thanks,” she says, and then it all changes to ferocity. “Let’s go look at the CSU sweep results.”

“What about Carl?”

“He’s not in for another hour. I can delay him if I need to. I want to look at this sketch, and I want to see if anyone picked up her joint, and especially I want to know if there are any of Carl’s prints on the door or wall along this line here.” She gestures at the picture. “See? So if they didn’t sweep that corridor for prints they need to get back down there.”

“You’re liking Carl, aren’t you?” Castle says happily.

“Yeah, I am. But I don’t have motive yet. Smoking spliffs isn’t enough. It sounds like he was looking for an excuse to fire her.”

“He couldn’t fire her, if the backers insisted.”

“That’s a drastic way to change your cast.”

“Mm, yes, but theatre’s pretty high-intensity emotionally. People do dumb things when they’re on stage, especially when they’re coming up to opening night.”

“It still seems a bit of an over-reaction. There must be a better reason.”

“Maybe,” Castle says doubtfully. Then he smiles. “Let’s go chase CSU. I love CSU.”

“You just want to wear the little blue booties,” Beckett snarks, “and pretend you know about forensics.”

“I do know about forensics. I researched lots of forensics for Storm,” Castle huffs.

“Okay, you get to read the report. I’ll call CSU.” Beckett hands the report over, and dials.

She puts the phone down again, and growls. “Lab’s backed up again. They found the butt of the joint, but they’re waiting for the results. I’ve asked them to go over the corridor for prints. Anything in the report?”

“No. Nothing you didn’t know.”

“Let’s look at the sketch.” She pulls it towards her. Castle shuffles his chair round to look over it. “Derren and Travers were here. Cali went down, and then someone in a dark top.”

“Carl was wearing a navy jumper on Sunday,” Castle says innocently.

“Where’s that video?”

“Right here, Beckett,” Ryan says. “I’m chasing camera footage.”

“Show me, and let’s get that footage. If we didn’t spot the camera, just maybe our killer didn’t either.”

“We’ll never be that lucky,” Ryan says gloomily, finding the right place in the video. “Here’s Carl.”

“Hm. Only man in a dark top.” Her expression turns feral. “Stacking up, isn’t it? I just wish I had a motive.” Fangs flash in her non-smile as she thinks. “Let’s bluff him.” Another flash of thought. “And we’re going to annoy him. Castle, how much do you remember about what your mother did last night?   We’re going to use it to make him lose his temper, and maybe we’ll get some truth out him.”

“Okay,” Castle says happily. “Can I be bad cop?”

“No.” He mutters darkly. “But you can be bad expert if you like.”

“Really? You mean it?”

“Yes. But I get to be bad cop.”

“Bad cop and bad expert?”

“Yes.”

“Oohhhh.” Ryan wanders off, and Castle drops his voice into a sex-soaked baritone.   “Can I play with the bad cop later?” Beckett glares.

“Not appropriate, Castle.”

“I’ll be very inappropriate, later.”

“Shut up.”

“You won’t be saying that later, either,” he smiles lazily. “You’ll want me to keep my mouth open.”

Beckett blushes and glares furiously. Castle decides on discretion, and retires well satisfied, with a highly provocative lick of his lips. Beckett retreats to the restroom to cool her heated cheeks, and returns her normal cool, collected self.

A few moments later they’re informed that Carl is back in Interrogation One. Beckett thanks the officer, and makes no move whatsoever to leave her chair. Carl is going to receive a few moments more to stew, become irritated and nervous, and basically be in no condition to resist when she starts to tear him apart. She looks at her watch. Plenty of time to shred him before she has to see Dr Burke. It’s not even lunchtime.

Castle fidgets and frets and fusses. He wants to start on Carl, if only because he’s hoping, in his most secret thoughts, that he can rile him sufficiently that he walks out on the play and his mother can take over. Discreditable as this thought might be, there is one small creditable part, which is that his mother needs something to do, and this is clearly something that would make her very happy. That creditable iota is, however, overwhelmed by the discreditable mountain of parts which tell him that it would also keep his mother far, far away from Beckett, and from him. From them.

“Can’t we go yet,” he asks for the fourth time.

“Yes, okay, now we can go. You have no patience.” His eyes crinkle wickedly. “Don’t even think that.”

“Think what?” he says innocently. Beckett emits an indeterminate, wordless snarl and stalks off, ignoring him.

Carl, stuck in Interrogation One without so much as a cup of water, is not happy.

“What’s this about?” he demands.   “I answered everything. I need to get back to rehearsal. It starts at two.”

“Don’t worry,” Castle says. “Mother will take it for you, I’m sure. I’ll just give her a call.” He walks to the door, big and arrogant, phone already to his ear. “Yes, it’s me. Mother, do you want to take the next rehearsal? Good. You’re pretty popular with the cast. Okay. Starts at two. Thanks. See you at dinner time.” He turns back to his chair. “There. Rehearsal covered.”

“You can’t do that!” Carl cries. “Even if it’s Martha Rodgers, you can’t just take it away from me like that!”

“It’s only temporary,” Beckett notes. “Or should we make it permanent?” Carl is still reeling from that jab when she follows with an uppercut. “Why did you follow Cali out back of the theatre on Sunday?”

“I… I didn’t.”

“Lie,” Beckett states flatly. “We have witnesses.”

“Witnesses? There can’t be. I didn’t see” – he stops, a few words too late.

“So you did.”

“Looks like Mother’s got the director’s gig permanently,” Castle says casually.

“Don’t count your chickens,” Beckett says, equally casually. “Maybe Carl here’s got an explanation.”

At that fortuitous moment Ryan knocks and enters. “Detective Beckett, a moment?” he asks formally.

“Excuse me.” She follows Ryan out. “What’ve you got?” There’s something. He’s grinning so widely his face might split.

“CSU came through. Prints inside, and the butt with Cali’s DNA.”

“Good job. Anything else?”

Ryan preens. “Security camera over the door. Footage came through.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding. How did you manage that so fast?”

“I got hold of the caretaker yesterday morning like I said, and asked, and when he wouldn’t play I put a hurry-up on the warrant.”

“Great. And?”

Ryan smiles widely. “Your boy there did it. He’s on film.”

“That simple? Who said we were never that lucky?”

“Okay, me. Sometimes we do just get lucky.”

“You got to go to the theatre last night…” Beckett says evilly.

“Eurgh,” Ryan says. “Not a good joke.”

“Good job,” Beckett says again, very sincerely. “That’s cleared the afternoon nicely. As soon as we’ve got him into Booking, let’s get some lunch.”

She stalks back into Interrogation. “Carl Caterham, you are under arrest…” and very shortly he is being taken away.

“C’mon, lunchtime. I think I owe Ryan a burger, mimimum.”

“So what do we do with the afternoon?”

“Paperwork, Castle. Paperwork.”

“So I can go home, then?”

“No. You’ve got paperwork too, remember?”

“Uh?”

“Report for Montgomery.”

Castle grouses and grumbles all the way to, and through, Remy’s till Espo threatens to choke him with his burger if he doesn’t shut up.

“You only have to do this once. We get to do it all the time. Stop bitchin’.” Espo stops, as a thought occurs to him. “Why d’you have to report to Montgomery anyway? You never did before.” He doesn’t miss Beckett’s sudden tension.

“He slapped me down about Mother,” Castle says easily, “and told me I had to do a report on the case for him every day.” He pouts. Espo notices Beckett’s relaxation, too. He doesn’t exactly believe Castle, but he doesn’t exactly think it’s a total lie either. Maybe Ryan’ll have some good ideas. He slips a sidelong glance at Beckett’s face, and decides not to ask. He returns to his burger and fries.

“I’m done,” Castle says happily, not very long after two-thirty. Beckett growls. Clearly she is not done. “I’ll give this to Montgomery and then I think I’m going to go by La Mama and see what Mother is doing to her victims.”

“Okay,” says Beckett, not looking up from her paperwork, at which she is scowling.

“And then I’m going to put a call into the Carriblanes and make sure Mother keeps the role.”

That fetches Beckett. She jerks her head up and then grins. “Good plan. Tell me how it goes later.”

“Later?”

“Tuesday. Dr Burke.”

“Oh. Yeah. Later, then.”

Castle departs via Montgomery’s office. Beckett returns to her paperwork. Shortly, Espo wanders by.

“Why’s Castle filing reports?”

“Tried to sandbag Montgomery about his mother consulting. Captain didn’t like it one bit. Castle got spanked and – worse – made to do paperwork.” She smirks. “Montgomery can be really inventive when he thinks about it.”

“Can I, Detective?” says Montgomery smoothly from behind her shoulder. “In what way?”

Beckett jumps. “Making Castle do paperwork, sir.”

“Mm.”

“We closed the case, sir,” she says hurriedly. Case closures always make her Captain happy.

“Good.” Montgomery pads off. Beckett breathes a sigh of relief, Ryan wanders back to his desk, and the paperwork progresses.

Five minutes later Montgomery reappears. “A word, Beckett?” It can’t be a carpeting. If it were, he’d address her as Detective Beckett. It’s still not reassuring.

“Sir,” she answers, and follows him to his office.

“Anything you want to tell me, Beckett?”

“Sir?” she replies, confused. She hasn’t done anything wrong that she knows about.

“How did you find dealing with this alcoholic?”

“It was okay. Not great, but okay. I didn’t try to get involved or help him.”

Montgomery regards her closely. “Castle’s report says you were a little upset straight after the interview.”

“Yessir. He said the same as my dad used to. It hit a sore spot.” She’s in for it. It’s all going to go wrong. And she invited it because she told Castle to tell Montgomery the absolute truth. Please don’t bench me.

“He also said you didn’t behave any differently in the interview with him than any of the others. Specifically, you didn’t try to help him.” He waits. Beckett waits. Montgomery gives up. This contest of interrogative wills could last all day. “If you should meet another alcoholic, you will take the same route. You will tell me beforehand, and Castle will report to me. It seems to have worked out.” He twinkles mischievously at her heartfelt sigh of relief. “I’ll presume you can handle it unless you tell me otherwise. But I do have one further condition.”

“Sir?” she queries, nervous again.

“You teach Castle how to give a proper report. These are crap. He’s not writing novels now.”

Beckett snickers happily, and Montgomery laughs. “Yessir,” she says.

“Dismissed.”

Beckett swings back to her desk and attacks the paperwork with vim and gusto, such that when she has to leave for Dr Burke’s office it is complete.

Castle slides into the La Mama theatre in which the cast are rehearsing and quietly takes a seat in the darkened circle. He is deeply interested in how his mother will react to taking the second rehearsal in two days. He’ll have even more pleasure in telling her that if she wants it, the Carriblanes are happy for her to take over. Admittedly, he’ll have to pay for the reprinting of all the programmes and posters if she does, but that’s chickenfeed – and a price worth paying if it gets her back in the game. He lurks in his seat and watches.

“Tim darling,” his mother says sweetly, “come back here.”

Tim scuttles back from his attempted skulk out the back of the stage. Kane Travers looks sidelong at him, and then full at Martha. From his expression, he’s realised that Martha has worked out Tim in a few minutes.

Castle watches for a little longer. His mother is totally focused and in charge, in a way he’s never seen her behave. It’s not the way Beckett does it: (thank God: that is a similarity he really would not appreciate) his mother believes in sugar rather than intimidation. At least as a first option.

She rearranges the cast until she’s satisfied, and then calls for another run through. Castle watches, astonished, as his mother manages to bring out the vision that Carl had monumentally failed to convey. In his mother’s hands, the almost-all male cast becomes a testosterone wall: Lee Raven’s female Titania trapped within it.

She takes another scene again, obviously not happy with the portrayal.

“No, no, no! Not like that. You’re intimidated, but you won’t show it. Like this.” Martha ascends the stage, and despite being approximately thirty-five years older than Lee, takes the part of Titania and demonstrates. Castle is riveted. His mother has still got it, in spades.

She finishes the run through, Castle looks at his watch, discovers to his horror that it’s almost seven p.m., and dashes down to the stage area.

“Darling!” Martha says enthusiastically. “Why didn’t you say you were here?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt your creative genius,” Castle says.

Martha regards him beadily, assessing the statement for sarcasm and finding none. “Thank you.”

“I wanted to talk to you, and since you’re obviously going to carry on all evening…”

“What is it?”

Castle draws her away from the cast and interested ears. “We caught the killer,” he says.

“Oh?”

“It was Carl.”

“Oh! But… the play opens in less than two weeks. It’ll have to be cancelled.”

“Well, maybe not.”

His mother’s face turns questioning.

“I spoke to the Carriblanes – the sponsors. If you wanted to direct, they’ll let everything go ahead. If you want it – it’s yours.”

For the first time in years Castle sees his mother utterly dumbfounded. She stands stock still, and then flings her arms around him.

“You mean that? They want me to take over?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t” –

“I didn’t bribe them, I’m not replacing their sponsorship, and anyway it’s clear that the cast love you.”

“But what if” –

“Go for it, Mother. We believe in you.”

“But” –

“The cast believes in you. You can’t let them down.” He crosses his fingers that this will work.

“You really think I can” –

“I do. If anyone can, you can. I wouldn’t have sat through four hours of rehearsal if I wasn’t enjoying it. I certainly wouldn’t have done that for Carl.”

“Well, no, darling.” She draws herself up. “I shall do it,” she declaims. “My return to the stage starts here.”

Castle waits for another few moments as his mother announces to the cast that she is replacing Carl as director, effective immediately. The ecstatic reaction is very satisfying. The knowledge that this will keep her occupied full time for weeks is even better. He dabs at a slightly damp patch on his jacket and very quietly departs, the sounds of the resumed rehearsal trailing behind him.