510. Chapter 510

After A Dance with Death

Episode 4.18

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: My evil twin Skippy is the one who claimed to own Castle, not me. Rating: K Time: See above.

"It's absurd, Castle." Beckett said, coldly." It's an absurd idea and nothing else."

"But it explains everything. Carol Howard goes out on her big, badass offshore racing boat, takes it out and ten miles off shore, it blows up. A dozen people who know her well saw her go and ..."

"No!" Beckett interrupted. "A dozen people who knew her well saw someone who, from a distance, looked a lot like Carol Howard walking towards her boat. No one actually saw her getting on the boat. Eyewitnesses are not very reliable, remember?"

"But someone took the boat out. They would have needed a key. It had to be her." Castle explained passionately.

"No, they would need to know how to steal a key, copy a key, or how to hot wire a boat's ignition system. Anyone could have done that."

"And the boat blows up and no body is found." Castle replied.

"No body is found because the boat, or what's left of it, is on the bottom of the Atlantic. And somebody's body is on the bottom of the Atlantic, too, or somewhere inside some fish. Or inside lots of fish."

Castle went on. "And a week later Carolyn Howard comes walking into her Manhattan apartment saying that she decided not to go out on her boat and decided to go camping, but didn't take any of her cars, any camping gear, didn't use her credit card to buy anything and there's no record of her in any campground, public or private, between here and Florida. You've seen how that woman lived, Beckett. Her idea of roughing it would be twelve room log cabin with all mod cons, surrounded by twenty acres of perfectly manicured lawns and a staff of only six servants, where she only had domestic wine to drink and only got four hundred cable channels." Castle leaned over Beckett's desk. "What happened is this. Carol Howard got on that boat, got blown up and her evil twin is now taking her place after murdering the real Carol Howard. That's what happened."

"Except that Carol Howard doesn't have a twin." Beckett said, smiling at Castle.

"And we know this because?" Castle asked triumphantly.

"Because her mother said so."

"Aha!" Castle crowed. "Her mother was a doctor doing research in the jungles of Guatemala. She's a good month away from her due date and she thinks she had plenty of time to make it to a hospital, but she gives birth in the middle of nowhere, assisted by a couple of Mayan women that no one has ever been able to find."

"Castle, no one was able to find them because no one looked. There was no reason to. Rose Howard had one child, her daughter Carol. There is no evil twin. There isn't even a good twin. There is no twin of any sort."

"Then explain the lack of Carol's fingerprints on file!"

"No one took her prints because she was never arrested."

"In spite of being a renowned party animal? Her escapades make mine look like a grade school prank."

Beckett took a deep breath. "Carol Howard is richer than even you are. Her mother patented a dozen or more medicines and made hundreds of millions of dollars, which her daughter has used to protect herself. She doesn't go out on the street and buy drugs where she can be arrested, she has them delivered to her home, or one of her many homes. And, because she has very expensive lawyers, no one can get inside those homes without a search warrant, and no cop can get a search warrant without evidence of some sort of probable cause, and since no cop can get inside, no such probable cause can be found. She doesn't get DUI's because she uses drivers who remain perfectly clean and sober. She never gets arrested for drunk and disorderly because she parties at one of her homes, a friend's home of yacht, or at a private club that no cop can just walk into. "Kate smiled. "And in addition to her expensive lawyers, she contributes to many fine and needy politicians who protect her. Does that remind you of anyone?"

"I don't do that anymore, and besides, I donated to Bob Weldon because I liked his policies, not to get myself out of trouble."

"And you never, ever, in your wildest dreams thought that being the mayor's buddy might keep you from being punished for, oh, I don't know, maybe stealing a police horse while nude."

"I borrowed it and may I remind you that the horse was nude as well? No one mentions the horse's actions in that. Just Rick Castle's."

"Do you know why we've never Mirandized an animal, Castle? Ever?" Beckett asked sweetly. Suspiciously sweetly.

"Um, you want to trap them into confessing?" Castle guessed.

"Really?" Beckett rolled her eyes.

"Because animals can't commit crimes?" Castle said quietly.

"Perfect."

"So you refuse to look for evidence of the evil twin?"

"Tell you what, Castle. If you want to traipse through the jungles of Guatemala searching for a couple of Mayan midwives, please be my guest."

Castle frowned. "I'll bet those Mayan villages don't have a decent bottle of Sancerre. And they probably serve it at room temperature and in the jungle I'll bet that's a hundred degrees. So the evil twin investigation is a non-starter?"

"Absolutely." Beckett replied, then smiled at Castle. "Look, I know that the Odette Morton/Barbara Landau murder a few months back got you onto this evil twin thing, but evil twins only happen on soap operas or in B movies. Trust me."

Much, much, much later.

"Captain Beckett? "Detective Hastings stuck her head in the captain's office. "You'll never guess who's here."

"If she'll never guess, Hastings, why not just tell us?" Rick asked with a smile.

"It's Carol Howard, her twin sister Carla and an entire Wall Street law firm."

"Her twin sister?" Beckett said as Castle smiled hugely.

"See for yourself."

Usually, Captain Beckett didn't do interrogations, but this once she made an exception. If her husband was going to be there, she was too.

Practically the whole interrogation was handled by Mr. Gardener, the senior partner of the law firm. "My client realizes she made a mistake and wishes to make amends. For reasons that remain unknown, Rose Howard took her daughter Carol back to New York with her and sent her other daughter off to California to live with the girl's father, Dominic Reese. Why no one else ever knew of this arrangement will never be known as both parents are now dead."

"Why would Carol want to fake her death and have Carla take her place?" Castle asked.

"My client almost died of a drug overdose. She tried to quit, but all of her friends and associates did drugs and she wasn't able to stop. However, she did know that she did have a twin sister as her mother had left her a letter explain who her sister was, but not why she had never told my client about Carla. They met and discovered they had nothing at all in common, so they decided to forget about each other. Until Carol decided she needed help in getting off drugs. Carla took her place while Carol went into rehab. She's been clean and sober for four years now. In fact, the sisters exchanged places again two years ago."

"And she just now decided to come forward and confess?" Kate snapped. "Why?"

"I felt guilty about all the trouble I caused people." That was the first thing that Carol had said.

Mr. Gardener quickly spoke. "My client did blow up her own boat, but she never submitted an insurance claim on it. There's no fraud. Admittedly they did use each other's credit cards, but with each other's permission. And I'd like to point out that my client has no criminal record."

That got a laugh from Castle, and Castle got a nasty look from Mr. Gardener.

Kate glared at the people across from her. "Using explosives without the proper license is a crime and the DA may find other things to charge Ms. Carol Howard with and it appears that Ms. Carla Reese took part in a conspiracy. I'm placing both of them under arrest."

"I'll be talking to the DA when we play golf tomorrow, Captain Beckett." Gardener said with a smile.

Once back in her office Kate glared at Rick. "What are you smiling about? There was no evil twin."

Castle nodded. "But there was a twin."

"Fine. You won that one." Kate kept glaring.

"Who knows? Maybe she'll change her ways even more. Perhaps she'll follow a hot male detective around, make his life miserable until he realizes he loves her and they get married."

Kate tried not to smile, but failed. "If they do, I hope they have less trouble than we did."

"Don't worry about it. No one could possibly have more trouble than we did."

This time Kate laughed.

Author's note: I'd like to thank everyone again who sent me their condolences for the passing of my wife. I tried to respond to everyone who did so in a review or a PM. If I didn't get back to you, well, I guess I'm not perfect. So thank you. And for those guests whose reviews I couldn't respond to, thank you so very much for your kind words.