519. Chapter 519

After Murder He Wrote

Episode 5.04

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Badges? Badges? I don't gotta show you no stinkin' badges to prove I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

Castle carried Kate's bags into the house in the Hamptons with her right behind him. As soon as they were through the door, he put the bags down and pushed her up against the wall. He leaned in and kissed her soundly. Very soundly.

"The first time I invited you up here, I screwed up and brought the wrong woman. This time…"

"You didn't screw up, I did." Kate whispered.

"Yes, I screwed up and broke your heart. And the second time we spent almost the whole weekend solving a murder. This time, Kate, I have the right woman and nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to distract me from you. If the entire population of the Hamptons falls dead in my pool, they'll just have to wait until the pool guy gets here next week."

"A swimming pool jammed with corpses?" She teased. "That doesn't sound at all…" She stopped in midsentence. She could clearly hear someone coming down the stairs. They were standing there as Cassius McMurray came around the corner and headed for the door. Over his shoulder was a pillow case, obviously stuffed with valuables he was stealing from Castle.

"McMurray! What are you doing here?" Castle shouted.

Without missing a beat, McMurray swung the suitcase at Castle, knocking him down. He headed for the door, but didn't stand a chance of getting past an enraged Kate Beckett.

Kate was putting an ice pack on Castle's head when Officer Okinewski, Officer Jones' replacement, showed up to take the now unconscious and handcuffed McMurray to the jail.

"McMurray again? He just got out of prison for framing Marty Bentley." The officer said. "Oh, you two will have to come in and give a statement."

"No!" Castle said. "Can't we e-mail it in? Or better yet, just let McMurray go. I want to be with Kate for the weekend. The whole weekend."

Kate glared at McMurray. "He hit you, Castle. They should lock him up and throw away the key. Hanging's too good for him. Drawing and quartering's too good for him. If we could think of a way to…"

"We'll go make a quick statement." Castle said, not wanting Kate to do anything else to McMurray that might get her in trouble and interfere with the weekend he had planned.

Okinewski let them ride in the front of the patrol car with McMurray in the back. As soon as they hit the town, traffic slowed to a crawl. This was the day of the annual Hamptons Polo Match and Fish Fry. The town was jammed even more than usual.

Regrettably, one of the polo ponies, Thunderer by name, was violently allergic to fish. The wind changed and as soon as the scent of fish reached Thunderer, he bolted, headed straight for road, throwing his rider in the process. The horse got halfway across the road and slammed against a pickup truck, stopping him. Thunderer started to panic, kicking at the cars. Castle, a lover of animals, jumped out of the car and ran to Thunderer. He grabbed onto his saddle, hoping to stop the horse. However, Thunderer started running between the cars, with Castle hanging on. He swung into the saddle, but his riding experience consisted of a single ride on a stolen, um, that is, borrowed, NYPD horse. Kate found herself running after the man she loved as he bounced wildly on, and sometimes off, the saddle.

A mile later, Thunderer stopped to munch on some prize rosebushes of Mrs. Willa Clark. She, enraged at this equine vandalism, attacked Thunderer with her broom. Alas, her eyesight and hand-eye coordination was not as good as it had been back in the day and only Richard Castle was hit. Thunderer casually walked off, apparently hoping to be mistaken for an innocent bystander.

"Are you okay, lover?" A winded Kate asked as she caught up with Rick.

"I may have to sleep on my stomach for a while." He replied.

After completing two statements for the police, Castle and Beckett were taken back to the house. Once again, Castle pushed Beckett against the wall and kissed her, long and hard. "I'm locking all of the doors and setting the alarm system. No one is going to bother us from this second on. No one and nothing."

Kate kissed him and smiled. "Agreed. All I want to do is…" She stopped. "Do you hear that?"

"It's a plane. A lot of planes fly over Long Island. It's nothing. Why don't we try out the spa I had installed? We can…"

"Castle, that plane is awfully low. Listen to how loud it is."

"If we turn up the stereo, we won't even notice the…" Castle listened. He had never heard a plane that sounded that low. He and Kate walked to the kitchen window.

"Castle! There's smoke pouring out of the jet's engines. It's going to crash…" Kate stopped as the two engine business jet hit the beach to the south of them and slid along the sand before stopping in front of Castle's house. "…here." Kate finished.

They both rushed out to see if they could help whoever was in the plane. A lone man staggered out of the plane, carrying a duffel bag. He appeared to be stunned. Castle took his arm and helped him get away from the plane, in case it exploded and burned.

"Castle! I know him. He's Robert Tedesco, the fugitive financier. He fleeced his investors out of tens of millions of dollars."

Hearing his name, the fugitive became more alert. Perceiving Castle as the more dangerous of the two, he punched him hard in the gut. As Castle doubled over in pain, he turned to Beckett, only to get her boot in his face. As he fell, the duffle bag came open. Inside were thousands of loose one hundred dollar bills. As he tried to avoid a second blow from Beckett, he threw the bag at her and the bills were picked up by the wind. Kate ignored the hundred dollar bills swirling around her as she cuffed the now unconscious con man. However, hundreds of Hamptons' residents did not ignore the money and poured onto Castle's property to grab the money as it swirled in the wind.

Several hours later, Chief Brady finished taking Rick and Kate's statements, this time in the kitchen. "I'm sorry for all the trouble today, Mr. Castle, Detective Beckett. As you know things aren't usually so hectic around here. Most of Tedesco's loot was still in the plane, the duffel bag was just his walking around money, so to speak."

"Is that all, Chief?" Castle asked as politely as he could.

"Um, about the damage to your house when the squad car hit it. We'll need to take pictures of the damage tomorrow and we'll need you to fill out some forms for the claim from the city. I'm afraid we can't do anything about the damage the so-called treasure hunters did chasing those bills. Those flower beds were really beautiful."

"Can't we just forget the whole thing, Chief?" Castle asked, already knowing it was hopeless.

Chief Brady shook his head. "The law is the law, Mr. Castle. Damage was done by a city vehicle. A proper report must be made and damages paid."

"Of course. Now, if you'll forgive us? It's dinner time."

Kate cooked an excellent dinner and to Castle's surprise, the stove did not explode, the food had not been contaminated by some bio-war material stolen from a top secret government lab and no suicide bombers were found in the refrigerator.

"The refrigerator, lover?" Kate asked.

"It's been that kind of a day." Castle smiled at her. "Can I interest you in some quality time in the new spa?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Castle had filled the spa and watched as Kate slipped her robe off. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." He said.

"You're not so bad yourself."

At that moment, there was a loud pounding on the front door.

"N-o-o-o-o!" Castle screamed. But he put on his robe and went to answer the door.

He found a uniformed man standing there. "Ranger Kelso, sir, National Marine Sanctuary. I'm afraid that a rare albino Minke whale has beached itself on your beach. We'll be trying to pull it back out to sea." Castle looked beyond Ranger Kelso at the large mobile cranes entering his property. "Um, they're a protected species sir. So we do have legal authority to come on your property."

"Of course you do." Castle said sadly.

"And if you hear a very loud moaning, sir, that'll be us playing whale songs to entice it back to sea."

"That won't be the only loud moaning you hear." Castle said softly.

Castle saw a group of people heading towards the beach. He could hear them singing.

"Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya;"Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya;"Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya,"O Lord, kum bay ya."

"That's the local Save the Whales people, sir. They aren't really…"

"Any problem." Castle said, softly closing the door.

Kate snuggled against the man she loved and looked out over the blue Pacific Ocean, clearly visible from the patio of their rented house. "I've never been to Mexico before."

Castle smiled. "And we had a whole day to ourselves yesterday. And we'll have all day for three more days. You really needed to take those vacation days."

They looked up as a man in uniform walked onto the patio.

"Yes?" Castle asked, his heart sinking.

The man saluted. "Sergeant Alfonso Bedoya, of the Federales. I'm afraid, senor and senorita, that there's been a murder on your property."

Rick and Kate exchanged looks. "What can we do for you?" They asked in unison.