64. Always in command

Thursday passes in some more tearing apart of the Donbass’s lives, with the addition of the CCTV footage of the hedge fund where Cal-the-chauvinist (as Castle none-too-harshly dubs him, though the boys are hardly behind in using the term) works. Esposito insists on another round of lunchtime sparring, to keep Beckett in shape.  So he says in public.  In the break room, with Ryan and Castle, it’s a little more pointed.

“She’s off her game. What’s goin’ on?”

“She had a run-in with Lanie,” Castle says laconically, and leaves it at that. Everyone understands, and cop-like, no-one says anything more about it.

The sparring match is as brutal as before, but Espo hits the floor a little more often and rises with a satisfied, dangerous smile.

“Range tomorrow, Beckett. We’ll even let Castle have a turn.”

“You’re on.”

And so Thursday evening rolls around. The boys leave, and Beckett insists that Castle leaves too.  She wants some time alone, to consider the case and consider how to exit therapy with some dignity.  Her father has stopped calling as often.  Dr Parrish (not, not, Lanie) has largely left her in peace.  Time to rebuild.  And the best way to rebuild is to focus on the positive.

Positive one: her job. She’s still the best in the business.

Positive two: her team. Ryan and Esposito.  They’re there.  A little pushy about her best interests, but not – usually – intrusive. 

Positive three: Castle. Which would be positive one if only she could get past the whole family bit.  Of course, since she can pretty much write off any chance of her having any family of her own there’s nothing to compare it to.  So if she simply harnesses the power of positive thinking she’ll manage to reset her expectations so that Castle’s relationship with Alexis is no skin off Beckett’s nose, because she has nothing with which to compare it.  It’s a beautiful thing, and one which she never had and never will have.  This is no reason to be upset, envious, or stressed, just like she’s not upset, envious, or stressed that some photographed celebrity owns a five-million dollar diamond pendant.  It simply doesn’t affect Beckett’s life, and the sooner she internalises that the better. 

Right. Done.  Settled.  She might wish that she had a relationship like that with her father, but she doesn’t and she isn’t ever going to, because he doesn’t want one.  So, time to grow up.  Accept that Castle’s relationship with his daughter is a good thing, and move on.   Accept that her own father doesn’t want to be a family, and move on.

Blow her nose, dry her eyes, and move on.

“What’s this?” Ryan wails woefully.

“Your daily dose of square eyes,” Beckett replies. “I want you to go over these times.  Cal came out his hedge fund, you traced him through Midtown from cameras and a cash withdrawal, and he was last picked up on a street cam heading down East Houston between Avenue A and B.  I think we’ve got enough to bring him in.”  She smiles very nastily.  “Let’s see how much of a big shot he thinks he is.”

“Like Cardon?”

“Just like Cardon.” She stops for a moment.  “No.  Not just like Cardon.  This time, I want Castle in there too.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s been a single parent, been there and done it, on his own, and managed to write best-sellers and make millions while he did. If I need it, I’m going to use that to piss Donbass off big-time.”  The smile becomes – hard as this is to believe – even nastier.  “Faced with someone who actually did it, all his poor-little-me won’t wash.”  She picks up her phone.  “Better get Castle in here.  I need to warn him.  It wouldn’t do for this to be messed up because I forgot to prep the other player.”

Ryan wanders off to tidy up the timeline and tie up the canvassing results down on the Bikeway. While he’s at it, he works out to his mild consternation that Beckett must have been through several hours of footage, and even on fast-forward that’s a long time after shift-end.  However, she’s done it in the past and she looks pretty fired up, so they’d all better roll with it.  He finishes off and produces the results to general approval.

“Okay. Thanks, Ryan.  Espo?”

“Yo?”

“Canvass results? Anyone see this guy around?”

“Yeah, but it’s not exactly reliable. Couple of hobos, couple of joggers think they might have seen him but none of them are sure.  If it is him, he got really lucky.”

“Every murderer needs a little luck,” Beckett says mordantly, on which note Castle arrives.

“You wanted me, Beckett? Finally my rugged handsomeness has prevailed to sweep you off your feet.”  A trademark eye roll appears.

“I want you to do something useful in interrogation. We’re bringing Donbass in shortly, and I want you to show him what a good father is supposed to be like, if it goes that way.  I want him to get really angry that he can’t do it and you can – and make a fortune into the bargain.  I’m guessing he’s all about the money and appearances.”

“Okay,” Castle says. He is – well, surprised really doesn’t cut it.  Utterly flabbergasted, dumbfounded, and amazed might just about cover the ground.  He looks more closely at Beckett.  Hmm.  Less sleep and more stress.  Just what was she doing last night after she sent them all home?

“Ryan, Esposito, get Cal Donbass in here. Politely, like he’s a witness.  I want him to be all fat and happy right up till we start hitting him with the facts.”

Cal Donbass has a certain similarity of outlook to James Cardon. This does not endear him to Beckett in the slightest, but at least Cardon hadn’t looked her up and down like she was street meat.

“Cal Donbass,” she says coolly. “Your wife was the last person to see Della Roberts alive.”

“Petra? Last to see her?  You think Petra had anything to do with this?  Dumb cop.  Petra couldn’t.”

“Petra went to see Della at nine-thirty that morning. Della walked out with Petra.  That’s the last time she was seen alive.  Now, did you have any contact with your wife that morning?”

“What’s that gotta do with anything?”

“Answer the question.”

“She might have called. I don’t remember.  Wouldn’t have been important.”

Castle comes in right on cue. “Wouldn’t have been important?  With a tiny baby?  I’d have thought you’d have assumed every call was important.”

“Callie’s Petra’s problem.”

“Problem?” Castle says. “Your child is a problem?”

“What the fuck do you know about it? Who are you anyway?”

“This is Richard Castle. You likely read his books.”

Donbass’s jaw drops. “Richard Castle?  Derrick Storm?”  Castle nods.  “There was a man.  No-one got in his way.  No wailing babies, and women just fell open for him.  Boy, was he something.”

“Yeah, I’m that Richard Castle.” Castle’s tone doesn’t change.

“You’ll get it, then. Man needs peace to bring home the mammoth” – it’s just as well Donbass can’t see Beckett’s expression of disgust – “and wants his home nice when he does.  So I brought the money home and Petra was supposed to deal with the baby.  Every time I came home the damn baby was screaming.”

“What did you do?”

“Went out again. Couldn’t think with that noise.  No use talking to Petra, either.  All she could think about was Callie Callie Callie.  No time for me.  She just bitched that I didn’t do anything.  That wasn’t the deal.”  He’s talking exclusively to Castle, who is managing to preserve an interested and even sympathetic expression.  Beckett can just see the line of a tightly clenched fist under the table.  “So I got fed up of it and told her to get it sorted.  Even looked up ideas for her.”  He looks like this should have won him Father of the Year award.  “Found out about this cranial osteopathy.  Petra rang Della and Della told her it was nonsense.  Bitch.  Could at least have tried it.  I told Petra to keep trying.  Put some effort in.”

“Is that why Petra went to see Della?”

“Course it is. If you had brains to match your looks you might be clever.”  He looks back to Castle.  “I can see why you’re down here.  Need a man to add some intelligence.”

“But Petra called you,” Beckett says very coldly. “Phone records show you answered.  Nine-fifty.  All your calls are recorded.  I have the recording of that call.  Let’s just listen to it, shall we?”

Cal, she wouldn’t see us. I really tried, Cal.

Try harder. Make the bitch listen. 

Cal, she wants to talk to both of us. She’ll come over and explain.  Cal, please.  Maybe she’ll listen to you.

For Chrissake, Petra, what use are you? Can’t keep the baby happy, can’t make this woman do the right thing. 

[crying]

Okay, I’ll come down. I gotta do everything myself.

“Camera footage shows you leaving your fund at ten. Where did you go to meet them?”  Beckett carries on.  She doesn’t think that Castle has much more tolerance left for Cal Donbass.

“Met them at East Houston. Had to walk from Essex Street subway.”

“Then?”

“Baby was screaming. Petra said walking would make it better.  It didn’t.  You’d have thought she’d have known that.”

“You ever spend any time with your own child?” Castle enquires dangerously softly.

“That’s Petra’s job. I earn, she looks after the baby.”

Beckett kicks Castle gently before he explodes.

“So you walked down to East River Bikeway. That’s where we found Della’s body.”  She shoves the pictures across.  “Messy, isn’t it?  What’d she say to you?”

“Stupid bitch didn’t know how it works. She said I should be doing more.  Changing diapers and feeding.  No freaking way.  That’s a woman’s job.”

“Do I look like a woman?” Castle says, frigidly furious and projecting a substantial amount of infuriated large masculinity.

“What?”

“I changed my daughter’s diapers and fed her. I managed to do that and still make a shedload of money.  None of it made me less of a man.”  He surveys Donbass with a completely unfaked look of absolute contempt.  “You’re not a man, you’re a waste of space.”

Completely as hoped and planned, Donbass loses his temper at Castle’s disgust with him.

“You just write about it. I did it.  I got rid of that whining bitch, making Petra think I was useless.”

“Did you indeed?” Beckett interjects. Realisation dawns.  “Cal Donbass, you are under arrest for the murder of Delaine Roberts.”

Donbass is removed by two big uniforms. Beckett still appears to have swallowed something particularly nasty-tasting.  “What a jerk,” she says.

“Yeah. They’ll be better off without him.  If you can’t be a good father, be involved, you shouldn’t do it.”

“Right,” Beckett says tightly, and controls the reflexive wince by walking into the bullpen. She’d wanted to play it this way, and it had worked.  No point in getting upset by the inevitable memories.  No point at all.

“So now what?”

“We write it up, just like always, and then we go home.”

“First, Beckett, you’re coming to the range. Remember?”  Espo looks cheerfully competitive.

“I’m coming too,” Castle puts in happily. “You said I could shoot with both of you.”

“Have you ever shot?”

“A bit. Learned when I was trailing round the theatres of the Midwest behind Mother.”

Espo casts a disbelieving glance at Beckett, who simply shrugs. She is not prepared to bet that Castle won’t pull some ridiculous ability out of his back pocket, but she’s also not prepared to believe that he’s up to their standard.  Anyway, going and shooting targets will clear her mind so that she’s upped her game for therapy tonight.  Total concentration on something outside of her woes.

She certainly has total concentration. And total amazement.  Castle can shoot.  Not as well as Esposito – she’d be really worried if he were as good as an ex-Special Forces sniper – but she’s having to put effort in to stay ahead.  Truth be told, she’s having to put effort in to stay level, and from Castle’s wide grin, he knows it.  When Espo calls time and the scores are tallied up she’s scraped ahead, but not by much at all.  Castle simply smiles cheerily and says next time, Beckett.

On the other hand she feels a lot better simply for putting bullets through targets, and it’s not as if she needs to mention that she’s been working off her angry misery at her father and Lanie. She feels that she can make it through the therapy session, now, and when shift end comes, departs towards Dr Burke’s office with less of a feeling of impending doom than on Tuesday.  If nothing else, she remembers, she’d initially thought about therapy as a way to spill out her feelings to a non-judgemental listener.  She should have remembered that on Tuesday.

Dr Burke is not content with the way in which the sessions with Detective Beckett have progressed. The third substantive session will be this evening, and he has not in any previous session induced Detective Beckett to reveal the true reason she is attending.  She has admitted to the stress caused by the Berowitzes and in particular Mrs Berowitz’s refusal to believe Detective Beckett’s own experience, and also to the emotional upset that her father’s story had produced.  He has, therefore, set aside an hour in which, with the aid of a full pot of his preferred Orange Pekoe tea, he intends to consider the conclusions and deductions which he has drawn in the previous sessions and to evolve a path down which, he expects, Detective Beckett will then be taken forward.  It is pointless to continue an unproductive method of therapy, and he has no need to do so. 

He draws a pen and paper towards him. He has always found that the act of writing by hand allows him to see clearly the matters which he needs to consider.  He has also found that, unlike typescript, it is entirely illegible to any patient, many of whom have a well-developed facility for reading typescript upside down.  He is certain that Detective Beckett is skilled in the art of reading upside down, and that this is likely to extend to neat handwriting.

From the first substantive session, he knows that Detective Beckett is uncomfortable with Christmas. This is unsurprising, given the timing of her mother’s murder and her father’s alcoholism.  Dr Burke expects that Christmas whilst her father was suffering with alcoholism was an extremely unpleasant experience, and quite opposite to the expectations of society.  He will ask Detective Beckett about Christmas. 

He also knows that Detective Beckett is not convinced of her father’s continued sobriety. He will probe that further.  She had not assisted Mrs Berowitz – in Detective Beckett’s own mind – twice.  Her feelings around that have remained unclear and consequently unexpressed, although Dr Burke considers that they include guilt and self-reproach.  Neither is unexpected, though both are unjustified.

From the first half of the second session, very little more had become apparent. It was really a most unproductive session, by Dr Burke’s standards.  Detective Beckett had revealed that she had thrown herself into work to deal with her father’s troubles; which Dr Burke would characterise not as dealing but as concealing their effect on her, and provided Dr Burke thereby with considerable insight into her personality.  Motherless at nineteen, and effectively abandoned by her father by twenty.  Detective Beckett, instead of grieving or retreating into any of the myriad methods by which young people conceal hurt, simply set her mind and soul on succeeding as a police officer, and, being both highly motivated and highly capable, did so.  Dr Burke strongly suspects that she has found that her success, while bringing her substantial professional satisfaction, does not bring her satisfaction in her personal life.  He has also formed the impression that, although Detective Beckett’s co-workers and superiors have been thoroughly supportive of her need to be available for her father, they are largely unaware of the strain she is under at all other times.  Dr Burke had had the unpleasant feeling that Detective Beckett was concealing a major matter which had occurred after their previous session, but she had been sufficiently guarded not to give him the slightest opportunity to probe.  Quite why she is coming to therapy if she is unwilling to talk escapes Dr Burke.  That is not how he treats his patients, and he is not inclined to continue in that mode.

The second half of that session had been slightly more enlightening. Dr Burke had asked about the support on which Detective Beckett can rely.  The answer had been disappointingly sparse.  Her co-workers, which Dr Burke considers an inadequate form of support, owing entirely to Detective Beckett’s own inability or lack of desire to confide in them; her friend Dr Parrish, with whom there appears to have been a complete breach of trust and of communication; and Mr Castle, with whom Detective Beckett appears to be in a romantic relationship.  Detective Beckett’s father had not figured in the list, which is unsurprising, although Detective Beckett had stated that her father had been more interested in her daily life and more parental since Christmas-time.  There had been some hints of very substantial stress in that disclosure, which on reflection Dr Burke considers may be connected to the concealment of her emotions in the earlier part of the session.

Dr Burke considers his notes and uncaps his fountain pen to begin on an orderly, bullet point list of matters to explore.  For now, he will simply make the points as they occur to him.  He will consider the appropriate order in which to raise them after that is done.  He begins by sketching a timeline of the critical events.

Half an hour later he is done.  As he had expected, the mere act of taking time to consider the information which he has, evaluating it in a logical and orderly fashion, and writing out his deductions and the points which it will be necessary to cover, has provided him with an appropriate course to follow.  He caps his pen and puts away the paper with a sense of considerable professional satisfaction.

Castle, Ryan and Esposito find themselves – no-one admits to knowing how – in a comfortably shabby bar with a decent volume of beer and basketball on the screen. Perfect for a Friday night to celebrate closing the case and the weekend to come.  It’s all beautifully comfortable.

Right up until Lanie appears, that is.

“Who told her where we are?” Castle hisses.

“I did,” Ryan admits.

“Why?”

“Stop her trying to find Beckett. You’ll just have to take your licks.” 

Castle considers a sharp exit, but then considers that this will only ensure that Lanie hunts him down like a fugitive. Besides which, she’s already arrived at their little group.

“Is Kate here?” she says, without pausing for breath or indeed greeting.

“No,” the three men chorus.

Lanie droops. “Where is she?  I wanna talk to her.”

“No idea,” they chorus again. Well, Castle has a very good idea where she is, judging from the time she left and her expression as she did, but he has no idea where her therapist might have their practice and so he is not lying.

“Okay. See you.”

Lanie turns to depart.

“Don’t you want a drink?” Ryan asks. She turns back, briefly.

“Nah. Not if Kate isn’t here.  Too much testosterone.”

Castle looks at Lanie. She’s a lot less combative than she has been.  In fact, she looks almost unhappy.  Hmm.  Seems like she might have realised that she’s overstepped, albeit with the best possible motives.

“C’mon, Lanie,” he says, “stay for one. You can sit between Ryan and me.  We’ll protect you from the testosterone overload from Espo here.”

Espo preens. Ryan mutters blackly into his beer bottle.  Castle stands and pulls out a chair for Lanie, who – rather surprisingly – sits down.  While Ryan and Esposito are discussing technical issues arising from the basketball referee’s decisions – otherwise known as disagreeing vehemently and questioning his eyesight and parentage – Lanie says quietly, “Is Kate okay?”

“Yes,” Castle lies outright.

“I wanna see her. Talk to her properly.”

Oh God here we go again, Castle thinks.  “That’s between you and her.  I keep telling you this.  I’m not getting between you.  You two broke it, you two fix it.”

“She won’t take my calls, she won’t talk to me when I go round. How’m I supposed to fix it?”

“I don’t know,” Castle says. “I really don’t know, Lanie.”