51. Chapter 51

After In the Belly of the Beast

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own this. Rating: K time: About six months after In the Belly of the Beast.

Author's note: This is another in the After…series that's being posted out of order.

"Detective Beckett, this time you've gone too far and I intend to call you to account."

Kate Beckett looked up from her desk at the speaker. She was an expensively dressed woman in her mid-forties. Kate noted the manicure and pedicure, the perfectly coifed hair and the Cartier watch. However, she had no idea who she was or what she wanted.

"You have me at a disadvantage. You know who I am but I'm afraid I don't know who you are." She said politely.

"Oh, I have you at a disadvantage, all right. And you'll soon find how much of a disadvantage I have you at. You've been harassing my client, making utterly unfounded accusations about him, and now you've arrested him with no cause."

"That still doesn't tell me who you are." Kate remained polite.

"Don't act stupid."

"Oh, she won't. Not when you're doing such a lovely job of acting stupid." Rick interjected.

She whirled around. "And you are Detective…"?"

Rick smiled. "She thinks I'm a detective. See, hanging around you is starting to pay off."

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Aha! You're that writer, Castle, who follows her around."

"Oh, since we got married, I do a lot more than follow her around. It involves sex. I can explain that to you if you have the time."

The woman turned red. "I'm going to take a great deal of pleasure in including you in the lawsuit."

"You're a lawyer?" Kate asked.

"Of course, I'm a lawyer." She slammed a business card down on Kate's desk. "Regina Clark, of Walker, Silvers and Conroy."

"And your client is?"

"My client is Vulcan Simmons, as if you didn't know."

"What is going on here?" Captain Gates had come out of her office and confronted the lawyer.

"I demand that you release my client at once." She said coldly.

"Your client is Vulcan Simmons?"

"Of course my client is Vulcan Simmons. I demand you release him this instant."

Captain Gates turned to Beckett. "Are we holding Mr. Simmons?"

Kate shook her head. "No. We're not."

"Don't lie, Detective. I received a text from Mr. Simmons not an hour ago." She held out her phone, displaying the text. "Detective Beckett has sent her boytoys, Esposito and Ryan, to arrest me. Meet me at the 12th Precinct." It was signed Vulcan.

"Detectives Esposito and Ryan are in court today." Gates said. "Beckett, call them and see where they are."

Beckett called and got Esposito, who confirmed that both were in court and had been for hours.

"Obviously, my detectives haven't arrested your client." Gates said.

"Do you expect me to just accept the word of two policeman who have proven that they are a part of a vendetta by the NYPD towards my client?" The lawyer barked.

"How about the word of one of your partners?" Castle asked.

"Don't be absurd! Why would one of the partners take part in this police cover up?"

Castle smiled. "Ryan and Esposito are testifying at the Willie Hood murder trial. I believe Mr. Conroy is representing him. Why don't you call him and see if he's seen Ryan and Esposito?"

Ms. Clark grabbed her phone and walked to a secluded corner. She stomped back to Beckett's desk, her face red. "Mr. Conroy has advised me that he was cross-examining Esposito at the time of the text from Mr. Simmons and Detective Ryan was also present. However, that doesn't tell me what happened to my client. I want…"

"I believe you'd like to file a missing person's report." Captain Gates cut her off. "That can be done at the desk downstairs. Assuming you have some valid reason to believe Mr. Simmons is missing."

"I noticed that the text came from a burner phone. Anyone could have sent you that text." Castle added.

"And the courts have no record of a warrant for your client. Perhaps this is a crank call?" Kate said.

Ms. Clark turned on her heel and walked out without a further word.

"I wonder what that was about?" Castle asked.

Three days later they got their answer.

"Castle, we have a body drop. Time to get up."

Castle reached for his wife, but found her side of the bed empty. "Do we have to?" He said, yawning.

"Yes. You make some coffee and start breakfast. I'll be in the bathroom."

An hour later the pair arrived at an older office building in lower Manhattan. As she parked, Kate noticed a number of reporters were on the scene. She stopped and talked to a uniform. "Any idea why they're here?" She pointed to the reporters.

"No idea, Detective. The rest of your team is here. They should know."

Kate and Rick rode the elevator to the fifth floor where they were met by Esposito as soon as they got off the elevator.

"What happened?" Kate asked.

"Yeah, why all the press?" Castle added.

"The victim. It's Vulcan Simmons." Espo turned and began walking down the hallway. "He's in the office right by the freight elevator."

Vulcan Simmons was lying face down on cheap industrial carpet, his head in a pool of dried blood from a gunshot to the back of his head. Lanie Parish was just standing up as Kate and Rick entered the office.

"Time of death?" Kate asked.

"Right now I can put it in a six hour period between 6 AM and noon on Monday."

"About the time he was allegedly arrested." Castle said.

"Cause of death?" Kate went on

"Single GSW to the back of the head for right now. When I get him back to the morgue, I'll know more."

"Beckett, you'll want to see this." Ryan said, standing by a bucket some ten feet from the corpse.

"Bleach?" Kate asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Five gallons of it. Inside was a pistol no one can identify, a silencer and two NYPD badges."

"We'll never get any DNA or fingerprints if the stuff has been soaking in bleach since he was shot." Castle said.

Esposito nodded. "CSU confirms that the place has been scrubbed clean. So far they haven't found a thing. And I doubt they will."

"One odd thing." Ryan said, holding up a clear plastic evidence bag. "We found this right by his head. A silver Mexican one peso coin, dated 1955."

"Any ideas on that?" Kate looked at Castle with a smile.

"He went back in time with Marty McFly, but ended up in Mexico where…"

"Thanks, Castle, I think I can take it from here." Kate said. She looked around at her team. "So, as a working theory, Simmons is picked up by phony cops, is dragged here and shot, probably by a rival gang."

"Works for me." Espo said and Ryan nodded.

As the team left the office, the assembled reporters called out questions. Beckett told them to talk to press relations. But one reporter's question stopped the team in its tracks.

"Is it true that a coin was found by the victim? If so, was it a 1955 silver Mexican peso?"

Kate turned and walked to the reporter. "Who are you and where did you hear that."

He smiled. "Juan Seguin, New York Ledger. I used to work for the El Paso Ledger until I got tired of narcotraficantes shooting at me and transferred."

"Who told you about the silver peso?" Kate asked.

Seguin held up a small recorder. "Do you mind?"

Kate nodded. "Go ahead."

"No one told me about the peso. One of the officers told another one about a silver coin by Vulcan Simmons' head and I made the logical conclusion."

"Okay, tell me what you know."

"Only if you tell me what you know." Seguin said with a smile.

"Maybe you'd like to be arrested for obstruction of justice?" Espo said.

"Maybe you'd like to listen to the paper's lawyers talk about the first amendment? A free press and all that? It could take months."

Kate shrugged. "Okay, come over here with us." She pulled up the crime scene tape and walked him back inside the lobby of the building to the complaints of the other reporters.

"How did you know about the peso?" She asked.

"It's the signature of the top killer of the Nuevo Leon cartel. He always leaves a 1955 silver peso by his victims. No one knows the significance of the peso or the date."

"What's his name? Description?"

Seguin shrugged. "All anyone knows is that he's called El Ingles, the Englishman. Rumor has it he's ex-SAS, British special forces, an ex-spy for the Brits who went into business for himself. Allegedly only the top people in the Nuevo Leon cartel know anything about him, but they use him for all of their difficult, high profile hits. What kind of weapon was used?"

"An unidentified pistol. No one has seen anything quite like it before. But we'll track it down." Kate answered. "And it was silenced."

Seguin nodded. "They like to use high end weapons and other gear. The cartel is rich, they have vast resources, so they like people to know that."

"We found two NYPD badges." Castle added. "That mean anything?"

Seguin shrugged. "There are lots of corrupt cops in Mexico. There's no problem getting a couple of them to arrest your target for you. Lots of gangsters in Mexico do that. Up here, they might prefer phony cops."

"Anything else?" Kate asked.

"When did this happen?"

"Probably Monday."

Seguin shook his head. "He's back in Mexico by now. You'll never get him."

"We'll see."

"What have you done?" Cried a familiar voice. Ms. Clark was pushing her way past a uniform and heading for the detectives.

"We're investigating a crime, Ms. Clark. If you would leave?" Kate said coldly.

"You're investigating the murder? That's absurd. I demand that this be turned over to an impartial investigation team."

"You're more than welcome to ask for that down at One Police Plaza." Kate said, barely maintaining a polite façade.

"Excuse me?" Seguin said politely. "Juan Seguin, the Ledger. Do you have any information for our readers about this case?"

Ms. Clark's eyes lit up. "Indeed I do. This detective has a history of harassing my now deceased client. I can't see how she and her team can be objective. It's obvious who's the real culprit." Ms. Clark stared at Kate.

Seguin frowned. "My own sources indicate an assassination by a well-known hit man from Mexico, involving the Nuevo Leon cartel."

"Obviously your sources are biased. Probably even involved in this. I have no doubt that we'll find your sources are up to their necks in this and will soon be on their way to jail. This is the action of an out of control police homicide squad. It's a conspiracy, plain and simple."

"Actually, I'm the source." Seguin smiled. "So, you're accusing the Ledger of being involved in a murder and a cover up? Wow! That's give me the front page, for sure. Thank you."

"What!" Clark said, shocked. "Don't you dare print that? We'll sue if you do."

"You'll sue us for quoting you accurately?" He held up his recorder. "That should be entertaining. My byline will be on the front page for months. This is great!"

Ms. Clark glared at one and all and stomped off.

"Hey, thanks, Detective Beckett. This is the best story I've had in years. See you." Seguin walked away.

Two days later, Kate and her team gathered by the murder board. "We have very little." She said.

Espo nodded. "The rented office where he died is a dead end. It was rented by a company called Gulf Services Corp. It's registered in the United Arab Emirates. The company officers listed are bogus and their address is a post office box in the UAE which is now closed. The only thing the company ever did was rent the office here. They used a cashier's check and paid a year's rent in advance. The check was drawn on a bank in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The account is now closed. Oh, and nobody involved has any surveillance cameras. Their customers don't like them. For obvious reasons."

Ryan looked at his notes. "The gun used and the silencer were manufactured using a 3-D printer. There's no way to trace it. I'm betting the gun was made, used once and left behind. And the 3-D printer is probably in Mexico anyway. The badges are expensive copies of real NYPD badges. The numbers are phony. CSU found nothing in the office or anywhere else in the building. One thing, Lanie did find traces of a powerful sedative in the vic's body."

"There are no security cameras in the garage of the building or in the freight elevator. On a hunch, I tried getting videos from store's security cameras and traffic cams and looked for something that looked like an unmarked car with two passengers that looked like Espo and me. I figured that while Simmons didn't know us, he'd have an idea of what we look like, so the phony cops would have looked like us. All of that and I got nothing."

Castle spoke up. "I talked to both the DEA and the Mexican authorities. We do know that some of the people that Lazarus had killed were the local bosses of the Nuevo Leon cartel. They confirmed there is a rumor of a hit man for the Nuevo Leon cartel called El Ingles and all the rest that Seguin gave us, including the bit about the peso. Other than that rumor, they had nothing. Oh, but to make me feel better, one of the DEA people said that El Ingles might not be English. He said that any sensible hit man would only call himself the Englishman if he was really Tibetan, or something."

"So," Kate said unhappily, "what probably happened was that the Nuevo Leon cartel decided to fight back. They sent their hit man and some other shooters to New York and "arrested" Simmons. Simmons was probably so sure he was protected that he didn't see anything coming. The phony cops even let him make his phone call to his lawyer. He was probably thinking about how he could get under my skin after torturing me. Then they hit him with the tranquilizer, dragged him into their car and drove to the office. They dragged him to the freight elevator, then to their office and shot him. Since the office is empty until the so-called tenants arrived, the place is only cleaned once a week. When the cleaning crew showed up, they got a surprise." Kate looked around. "Anyone have anything to add?"

Espo shook his head. "It's a professional hit. The shooter is in Mexico and we'll never find him."

Kate hated to admit defeat. "We'll think about it over-night, if no one comes up with anything tomorrow, we'll move on."

That night as Castle listened to Kate's slow, regular breathing he wondered. Has Kate figured this out? Will she figure it out? She knows that I really do have a guy I know for everything. Since Paris, she knows how far I'll go to protect my family. Once I knew the Nuevo Leon cartel were one of Lazarus's victims, it was easy to find someone to give them a message for me. Then it was a meeting with a shadowy figure in a darkened parking garage to tell them what I knew. They said they'd take care of it. I wonder if they'll go after Bracken?

I do wish that Simmons had known just who it was that was sending him to Hell.