158. Teach me love

When they all turn up at the tennis courts just off Essex Street, CSU are already sweeping the scene and there are several intrepid tennis players complaining bitterly about the loss of their booked courts. Respect for the dead seems to be secondary to their exercise regime, though looking at the sculpted coaches – male and female – and the rather unsculpted players, Beckett thinks that tennis is possibly not the only exercise that’s in demand. Whether non-tennis is on offer is an entirely different matter.

“Where’s the vic?” Ryan asks.

“Round there,” answers a CSU man.

Round there is behind the courts and a rather ugly brick building, in the trees. It’s not very well hidden, but it’s enough to explain why no-one spotted it till now.

“Hey, Lanie. What’ve you got for me today?”

“White male, GSW to the chest.”

“Anything else?”

“Not yet. Looked pretty fit, though. Died a while ago. I’m betting late afternoon yesterday.”

Beckett examines the body. “What’s the chances he’s a tennis coach?” she wonders generally. “Track suit, muscled wrists, sweat bands.”

“Callouses on the hands, too,” Lanie notes. “Pretty likely, I’d say.”

Castle wanders over to inspect the dead man. He frowns.

“What’s up, Castle?”

“He looks familiar. Can’t place him, though.”

Esposito, gloved up, delicately searches the victim’s inside pockets and carefully extracts a wallet. “Vance Lingham,” he announces.

Castle groans. “Of course.”

“Care to share with the class?”

“He is a tennis coach.” Beckett looks very smug. “Top end. Er” – his ears suddenly turn pink – “I had a few sessions with him.”

“You did? When?”

“A year or so ago.”

There is general relaxation at not having to investigate one of their own straight off the bat. As it were.

“You can play tennis?” Ryan asks, amazed.

“Yeah.”

“So can I, but hitting balls won’t solve this murder,” Beckett says. “Unless it would speed you up?” The three men wince in sync, and get back to the case.

Scene evaluated, Lanie whisks the corpse away and promises results as fast as she can. Apparently she’d been bored by all the mundane murders too. On reflection, her enthusiasm for a new corpse is just a little disconcerting. The others return to the bullpen and start on the databases, picking apart the life of Vance Lingham, pro tennis coach. Beckett’s murder board is swiftly decorated with his picture, the start of a time-line, and a number of thoughts.

“Where did you get coaching from Lingham?” she suddenly says. “I don’t see you on the Seward courts. More like a smart club.”

Castle grins. “It was,” he says happily. They look at him expectantly. “I was invited to the Racquet and Tennis Club, so I thought I’d better smarten up a bit. So I looked around, and Lingham offered coaching uptown, at the Manhattan Central Racquet Club.”

“That’s where we’ll start, then. Let’s see if he was still coaching there.” She thinks for a microsecond. “Castle, how would you like some more coaching?” He grins evilly. “Tennis coaching.”

“How boring. Okay.” He taps on his phone to bring up the number.

“You kept it?”

“You never know when you might want someone to play with balls with you.” Beckett’s cheekbones flare. “Tennis balls, Detective. What else would I possibly mean?” Her ferocious growl would rend armies limb from limb.

“Hey, Rick Castle. I was thinking about some more tennis lessons.”

“Yeah, exactly. Does Vance Lingham still teach? He was good last time.”

“Yeah? Great. I’ll be there later to talk about schedules.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

He snaps the phone off with a satisfied look. “Lingham’s still on the books. They’re expecting him for the evening sessions.”

“They’re going to be disappointed,” Beckett notes. “Especially when they get us instead. Field trip, Castle. Let’s go.”

“What about us?” Ryan whines.

“Bank records, phone records, street cam footage… you know the drill. You don’t need to be told.”

“But you get to do the fun bit.”

“Can you play tennis?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

She’s in the elevator before Ryan works out that that actually has nothing to do with solving the case, smirking happily as the strains of Beckett! are faintly heard.

“I didn’t know you could play tennis,” Castle says as they get going.

“High school.”

“We could have a game or two.”

“This you trying to get revenge for the shooting? You’ve had lessons and played in the last year. I haven’t seen a court for over ten. How’s that going to work?”

“I’ll be gentle with you, Beckett.”

“No.”

“I can be rough if you want,” he rasps.

“No, I am not playing tennis with you,” she says, colouring.

“That’s okay. We can play other games.”

Beckett’s face colours further. “Can we focus on the dead man?”

“Sure,” Castle says happily.

“Good.”

“I’ll focus on you later.”

The courts are exactly what Beckett expects, given that Castle has played there: discreet, luxurious, and undoubtedly expensive. The receptionist, who looks as if she works out five times daily and reapplies her make-up six, assesses Castle to be very rich and very sexy in one comprehensive glance, ignores Beckett – clearly defining her as Castle’s arm-candy of the day – and switches on the charm, in truckloads.

“Welcome back, Mr Castle. What can we do for you today?” Her sugary tones make it pretty clear what she’d like to do.

Beckett has already had enough. “Detective Beckett of the Twelfth Precinct,” she raps out. “We’d like to talk to the club manager.”

The receptionist is instantly flustered. “Why?” she stutters. “We didn’t call the police.”

“Just call him.”

She does. The club manager is not impressed.

“Jodi, what’s the matter?” he says sharply. “I told you I wasn’t free.”

“It’s the police, Max.”

“Cops?”

“Detective Beckett. Homicide.”

“What?”

“We need to talk to you about a homicide,” Beckett says very clearly. The manager appears to realise that the presence of a Homicide detective in his reception area is unlikely to impress his clients, and gestures them inward, to a small, neat office.

“There hasn’t been any trouble here,” he says defensively. “No murders.”

“Did I say it was here? I want to talk to you about Vance Lingham.”

“Vance? Vance is dead?”

“Yes,” Beckett says very bluntly. “So tell me everything about his work here. What was his schedule? Did he have favourite clients? Did anyone have a problem with him?”

“He usually did evenings. From six. I’ll get you a copy of the schedule.”

Beckett thaws her fearsome aspect slightly at this evidence of co-operativeness.

“All the coaches have their own client list. They don’t normally swap around, just if one of them’s away or out injured. They aren’t supposed to poach.”

“Do they?” Castle inquires.

“There has been some complaining.”

“Mm. Who was complaining about whom?”

Castle murmurs happily over the use of whom. Beckett ignores him.

“Jace and Bryan.” Beckett pins him with a look. “They said Vance was poaching.”

“I’ll want to speak to them.”

“They’ve gone for the day.”

“I’ll need his client list.”

“I can’t give you that unless you have a warrant.”

Beckett makes an annoyed face. “I’ll get one. What else can you tell me? When did you last see Vance?”

“Seven last night. I finished and handed over to the late manager. Vance was on Court One, giving a lesson. We can give you footage if you get your warrant,” he says helpfully.

“Okay, thanks. Anyone except the coaches who had a problem with Vance?” The manager’s eyes flick away and back again. “There was someone, wasn’t there?” Max looks hunted. “I’ll be back with a warrant. If it was a client, I’ll find out. If it wasn’t, you’d better tell me now.”

“I can’t,” Max wails.

“Thank you.”

They depart, and Beckett mutters all the way back to the precinct, all the way through a warrant request, and then very blackly indeed as she finds it won’t be back until tomorrow.

“What have you got?” she says to Ryan and Espo.

“Whole lotta nothin’, and the techs won’t talk to us. Locked the door again.”

Beckett makes a very angry sound, which attracts Montgomery’s attention. He emerges from his office.

“Where have you got to?”

“Waiting for a warrant for the club records, waiting for techs to give us anything.” Her e-mail tings. “That’s the ME’s report.”

“Next of kin?”

“Still trying to track it down, sir,” Espo says. “Nothing obvious.”

Montgomery considers. Shift ended well over an hour ago, but they are pursuing a hot trail. “Okay,” he says. “Carry on. But all of you get some sleep tonight.”

Around nine there’s nothing more to be done, and they decamp.

“Want a ride, Castle?” Beckett asks, purely for form’s sake since she’s intending to take him home.

“Sure.” He pads out behind her. “Want some dinner?” he asks, as they’re entering the cruiser.

“Huh?”

“Dinner.   A meal eaten at the end of the day.”

“Very funny. No, I’ll get something at home.”

“Okay.” The cruiser pulls up. “Till tomorrow.”

Much to Castle’s surprise, Beckett leans across and kisses him. “Night,” she says to his stunned face.

“Oh no.” He slides back into the car, tugs her back over towards him and kisses her slowly, deeply, and comprehensively. “That’s how you say goodnight.”

He smirks all the way upstairs. His mother is not present, which is excellent.

“Alexis? Pumpkin?”

“Yes, Dad?” Alexis comes downstairs. “I was doing my homework.”

“How have I raised a daughter that thinks homework more important than anything else?”

“Good grades are important, Dad.”

Castle, whose grades in the first year of high school were at best indifferent, ignores the argument he’s never going to win.

“I want to talk to you while Grams is out.”

“Yes?”

“You heard Mr Beckett on Saturday. Do you want to ask me anything?”

“No. I think I’ve got it. He hurt Detective Beckett ‘cause he was drunk and they’re trying to work it out. Her mom was killed and she doesn’t want anyone trying to be a new one.”

“That’s right. Okay. So, we’ve had brunch with Detective Beckett a few times, but now she wants to have dinner with you and me, and her dad.”

Alexis’s face lights up. “Really? That’s totally awesome. I thought…”

“Not here, though.”

Alexis droops just a little. “Oh,” she says disappointedly, and then recovers. “So we’ll go out?”

“Yes. Po, on Thursday at seven. We’ve been there before.”

“Okay.”

“It’s a big step, pumpkin. I know you want her to come back here, but that’s for another day. It was her idea for all of us to go out, too.”

Alexis brightens up instantly. “It was? Awesome.”

Castle declines to comment on the paucity of descriptors in his daughter’s vocabulary.

“Don’t say anything to Grams, okay?”

“I get it. She’ll interrupt and spoil it and I don’t want her there anyway.”

“Alexis!”

“I don’t,” Alexis states mutinously. “She’s not helping and I like Detective Beckett and she makes you happy and I don’t want Grams spoiling our life.”

“You’ve never been unhappy with her before.”

“She never interfered before. If she’s like this now she’ll be totally awful when I bring someone home and you’ll be bad enough without that” –

“I thought I was the cool Dad?”

“Every time I mention bringing someone home,” Alexis says pityingly, “you choke. You’ll be totally terrible.”

“Oh,” Castle says, deflated.

“Anyway, you’re supposed to be like that. Only not too much. But Grams’ll interrupt, and ask embarrassing questions, and it’ll all be an epic failure and it’ll be her fault.”

“She loves you. She’s just expressive.”

“I love her, but that doesn’t mean I want her commenting if I’ve got a boyfriend. You know she totally would. Just like she’s commenting on Detective Beckett. She’d be, like, walking into my bedroom just like she walks in now” –

“You are not having boys in your bedroom!” Castle squawks.

“See, you’re totally not cool Dad any more.”

“That’s not the point. The point” –

“The point is you want us to have dinner without anyone interrupting.”

“Well… yes.”

“Okay.”

And that, it seems, is that.

Alexis squared away, Castle takes himself to his laptop where, courtesy of the weekend and the new case, story pours out through his fingers without a pause, long into the night.

He is woken by his phone.

“Rick Castle,” he yawns.

“Castle, you wanna be in on seeing the next of kin?”

“Urgh? Wha’ time’s it?”

“Ten.”

“Awready?” he slurs.

“Are you still asleep?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh. Okay.”

Castle pulls a couple of neurons together. “Next of kin?”

“Yes.”

“Where? Meet you there?”

Beckett gives him the address, and Castle finds a few more neurons which, once connected, pull him through a lightning-fast shower, shave, and departure, still tasting toothpaste and finger-combing his hair in the cab.

Beckett is waiting for him at the bottom of an elegant block on the Upper East Side.

“It’s his sister, Venetia Lingham,” she says, at his bemused look. “Vance lived in Brooklyn.”

They go up. Castle assesses the building as very expensive, and wonders what the sister does.

“Ms Lingham?”

“Yes?” She’s a very elegant, cool blonde: tall, slim, and stylish. Castle looks from her to Beckett and detects some considerable similarities in type, if not in colouring.

“I’m sorry to tell you that your brother has been killed.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Beckett says. Her tone convinces Ms Lingham of her sincerity, and the woman’s face contorts. She turns away and reaches for a Kleenex.

“What happened?”

“Vance was found shot earlier today.”

“Shot? I thought you meant a road accident. Shot? No-one would want to shoot Vance. Everyone liked him.”

“Yes…?” says Beckett, sympathetically. Inside she’s thinking they all say that.

“He was a really good tennis coach. Everyone wanted him. But he wouldn’t take on anyone who was with one of the others. He was fair.”

Beckett is automatically sceptical. “Did he have any girlfriends?”

“Or boyfriends?” Castle adds. He doesn’t receive the icy glare he was expecting.

“Girlfriends. No-one serious.” Under Beckett’s inquiring eye, she colours delicately along her cut cheekbones. “I think some of them were from the club.” Beckett swiftly kicks Castle before he says something decidedly indelicate. He’s thinking it, she can tell.

“His clients?”

“I think so. Some of them were friends of mine.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a senior account exec at Elegance PR.”

Castle nods in recognition. “Pretty high-end,” he says.

“Yes,” she says, and then takes a good look at Castle. “You’re Richard Castle!”

“That’s me.”

Beckett watches with considerable, concealed, and sardonic amusement as Venetia spots a potential new client, and instantly goes in for the kill. So to speak. Though if Castle’s existing PR rep – what’s her name? She can’t remember, if she ever knew – had appeared at that precise moment, she wouldn’t be so sure that it were a figure of speech. She prods Castle’s expensively shod foot, catches his eye for an instant, and makes a slight gesture meaning you take this one. Castle, thank God, picks up the cue straight away.

“I really admire your books,” she starts.

“Thank you,” Castle says, putting on the megawatt smile. Beckett sits back to enjoy the show. “You know, I’ve been wondering how best to promote my new series” – what? Series? He never mentioned a series. She’s so busy imitating a terrified mouse and trying not to squeak out loud that she misses the next sentence and has to try to infer it from the context.

“So, you must work very hard, with such an impressive list?”

“Oh, sure. I was even out all Sunday: there was an afternoon tea for one of our clients at the Chatwal, and then at night a promotional party at the Waldorf.”

Beckett admires the way that alibi was elicited. That’s going to be very easy to check.

“When do you get time for family?”

“Oh, we don’t see each other that often, maybe a couple of times a month. I’m so busy and Vance works evenings so there’s not a lot of time.”

“He worked evenings too? You’re both really driven. I’ve always respected people who do that. It’s a real plus point.”

“Oh, yes. But…”

“But?” Castle asks softly.

“I don’t know. There was something… I just thought that he was doing something else as well.”

“A second job?”

“Maybe. I really don’t know.”

Castle turns the conversation back to Venetia’s work, and her PR firm, for a few moments, until Beckett closes it down and they leave.

“Nice work, Castle. We can check that easily. Though…”

“Yes?”

“It’s not that far to the Central Club from the Chatwal.”

“You don’t suspect his sister?”

“I suspect everyone.”

“Even me?”

“Not you. I know exactly where you were on Sunday afternoon.”

“So do I,” Castle purrs darkly. “I was in my bed, with you. Specifically, I was” –

“Shut up.”

“That’s not what you said when I” –

“Shut up.”

“It’s not what you’ll say when I do it again, either.”

“Castle! Shut up or I will shoot you.”

Castle pouts all the way back to the bullpen.

“What do we got?” Beckett asks, which changes pout to a pained expression.

“Bank, phone, footage.”

Beckett smiles delightedly. “Great. What does it tell us?”

“Monthly paychecks, but about ten months ago he started getting regular deposits from somewhere else too. We’re chasing that down.”

“Good.”

“Phone records show that every month he had a set of regular calls. We’re tracing the numbers. Footage isn’t helpful.”

“Okay. ME’s report says window for time of death is between five and eight p.m. Sunday. He was shot twice in the chest with a .38. No results on tox, no illegal drugs, no alcohol. He’d taken some painkillers. Lanie thinks he had” –

“Tennis elbow,” Castle says, and snorts.

“Epicondylitis.”

“Like I said. Tennis elbow.”

They continue pulling the evidence they do have apart, all afternoon. Beckett declines to interview Jace or Bryan until she has some facts, so facts they seek. The board becomes decorated. At five-thirty, Castle nudges Beckett, who grumps at him. She wants her warrant, and she still doesn’t have it.

“Don’t you have to go?”

“Go? Go where?”

“Dr Burke.”

“Oh, hell. Yes. Dammit.”

She casts a very quick glance round. Castle distracts the boys, and she escapes. Of course they notice, but not for a good ten minutes.

“Where’s Beckett?”

“Had an appointment,” Castle says non-committally. “Guess it’s with her doctor, since she didn’t explain.”

The boys are only moderately unhappy with that, and it’s rapidly agreed that beer and fries will soothe their unhappiness – once they’ve got a bit further with their investigations. They put their backs into it, but the lack of response on the frequently-called numbers prevents anything further being discovered, and soon enough frustration sends them all bar-ward, where copious amounts of beer leave them slightly less discontented.

“So what’s with Beckett that she needs a doctor?” Ryan asks.

“No idea,” Castle says. It’s not exactly a lie. He doesn’t know of any reason she needs a doctor.

“You take care of her, you hear?” Esposito menaces.

“She takes care of herself. I’m not babying her, that’ll get me shot. You try it. Anyway, she’s okay. You noticed it same as Montgomery. It’s not like it was a few weeks ago, is it?”

“No.”

“She needed her team and she needed to patch it up with Lanie and it’s okay now.” There is a distinct hint of so don’t ask anything more.

“Yeah.”

They all drink to that.