289. Chapter 289

After Hell Hath No Fury

Episode 1.04

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Why the hell would I claim to own Castle? I don't. Rating: K Time: See above

Author's note: This was the fourth episode filmed, but it was the third one shown on TV.

"So tell me, Castle, did you ever worry about one of your wives killing you for lack of zipper control?" Beckett asked

Castle looked up from his phone. "You really have a low opinion of me don't you?" Having said that, he went back to playing on his phone.

Kate Beckett sat there looking at him for a minute or so, wondering if he was going to answer her question. When she decided he wasn't going to respond further, she spoke. "I thought my opinion of you was perfectly clear."

Castle looked up and smiled. "It is." He went back to his phone.

"So, that's your answer to my question?" She said, rolling her eyes. "That I have a low opinion of you."

Castle put his phone away but did not answer at once. "You're assuming that my divorces were both my fault and that they were caused by my cheating on my wives. Not a very good interrogation technique. You shouldn't assume things."

Beckett thought seriously about hitting him with her empty coffee cup. However, he was right. In asking the question in that way, she had been making assumptions. Either her assumptions were wrong, or Castle was just messing with her. As usual.

She pushed herself away from her desk and looked at Castle. "Okay, let me re-state my question, in as non-judgmental a way as I can manage. Would you please tell me about your divorces?"

"Why, Detective Beckett, I'd love to." Castle said with a smile. "Um, first, wouldn't you like a cup of coffee? I'll be happy to make you a cup."

Before Kate could decline, Castle grabbed her cup and headed for the break room. "Be right back." He said over his shoulder.

In minutes Castle was back, putting her cup down in front of her. He took a sip of his own coffee, smiled and then put his cup down. "My first divorce, from Meredith, who is Alexis' mother, was caused by zipper control problems. But it was her zipper, not mine. I came home one day and found Meredith in bed with another man. She's an actress, of sorts, and her…partner was a producer. Or maybe he was a director. I'm not sure. I didn't really care. Anyway, I got mad and threw Meredith out of the house, as well as her friend. Oddly enough, Meredith filed for divorce. I found out that Meredith was a much better actress than I had thought. Considering the weight of the evidence against her, she did everything in her power to make herself out to be the aggrieved party in the divorce. Some people even bought it. In short, I got Alexis and Meredith got everything else. Which meant I had to do a lot of writing to make enough to take care of Alexis. Meredith is still acting, sort of. I saw her on one of those cable TV spy shows as the code clerk who handed the hero a message. She was a dead body, not for real unfortunately, on a cop show. I understand she argued with everyone about how her corpse was positioned. She wanted everyone to see her legs. We haven't seen her for a couple of years which is fine with me."

Kate broke in. "Castle, I'm sorry. This is obviously private and very personal. I never should have…"

"Private?" Castle said, raising an eyebrow. "Hardly. The LA tabloids spread the salacious details all over their front pages. One of them got a great photo of me, front page, of course, looking kind of cross eyed. I understand the divorce even got some coverage in the main stream media. The entertainment sections, of course. The entertainment industry is very big in LA."

Castle smiled at Beckett. "If you ever feel the need to get a good laugh at my expense, you can look the divorce up on the internet."

Kate blushed. "I'm sorry. Castle, I don't need…"

"No, you don't need to know, but there's no reason you shouldn't know a little about my past. And the fun, embarrassing part is over, I'm afraid. Next I married Gina, that's the blonde publisher you met briefly at the book launch party, for all the wrong reasons. We had a pretty good working relationship, and still do, to be honest. Not perfect, but good. I was lonely and I felt that Alexis needed a mother. But I didn't love Gina, not in the way you should love your wife. We divorced. There was no real reason we should have been married to begin with."

"I'm sorry for intruding." Kate said quietly.

"I intrude on you all the time. There's no reason you shouldn't intrude. In fact, go ahead and intrude. Maybe it'll make you feel better."

Kate knew she should not, definitely not, ask Castle anything else. She did anyway. "You were lonely? I seem to recall you were always with some super model, starlet, celebrity or debutante. Sometimes two at once." She decided she didn't regret needling him a bit.

Castle shrugged. "There's a difference between having company and having friends."

"I know." Kate knew she should say no more.

Detective Beckett, you now know a little more about me. I hope that will make you more willing to open up to me on how you got to be so wounded, so hurt. I need to know to do Nikki Heat properly, and more importantly, I need to know for your sake.

….

"Senator? We need to talk."

"Sure, Todd. What is it?"

"There's been a problem in New York. Councilman Horn was murdered, by his wife, apparently. She found out about the hooker and the blackmail. She and Nesbit cooked up the whole thing between them. The police arrested both of them."

The Senator nodded, his brow furrowing in thought. "Too bad. But Horn was only a city councilman. It would have been nice to have had something on a councilman, but he never would have risen much farther in politics. It's no great loss. But that means Bollinger is running unopposed?"

"Yes, sir. And we have nothing on him, one way or another."

The Senator shrugged and smiled. "Don't worry about it. City councilmen won't be any problem for us and they can be of very little help at this point."

"There's one more thing, sir. The detective on the case was Detective Kate Beckett."

That caught the Senator's attention. "Any reason we should be worried?"

"No, sir. There's no reason to expect that Detective Beckett will ever be a problem."