119. Chapter 119

Chapter 119

Castle kissed his wife goodbye at the door before she left for work. "Call and let me know how things go," he said enthusiastically.

"I will. Last night, you and I may have uncovered a link that could be a breakthrough. I'm anxious to see where it leads."

Sully was already there. Ryan held the elevator door for Beckett when she came in right behind him, and Esposito was there by the time she had fired up her computer.

"I have something," she told them with a smile. "Last night, Castle and I checked social media for Quincy's aliases, and the woman had several accounts for each one. Gerard Mann was on every one of them."

"So they go back a while," Sully answered.

"The thing is that we found Randall Bright with both Barbara Quincy and Gerard Mann and pictures of the three of them together on all three accounts…Barbara's and both aliases. Castle pointed out that posting dates indicate they all knew each a little earlier than the fire in New Rochelle. He sent you links."

"Good call, Castle," Ryan mumbled as he checked his email. "Nothing ever really goes away on the internet."

Sully looked for news reports on the fire that killed Sarah and Randall's parents. "So their parents die in a fire, leaving both children a sizable inheritance. Now his sister has died violently, and he inherits most of her half. Nothing too suspicious there," he said sarcastically.

"Exactly," Beckett answered as she also looked at news reports. Sully was looking at the information, but Beckett was looking at the videos and photos. After a few minutes, she stopped suddenly, paused a news video of the fire in progress and said triumphantly, "Look at this!"

The three men turned to see what she had found. "Son of a…" Esposito started before Ryan interrupted.

"We can place Gerard watching the fire in New Rochelle. Let's see what's on Randall's posts on that date."

"Again, Randall was out of town that week. Maybe we need to get that file from the New Rochelle PD," Sully suggested.

"I think so, too," Beckett answered. "Do you want to call them, or do you want me to?" she asked.

"They might be more impressed if a Lieutenant calls, especially if it's the extraordinary KB," Sully responded with a playful grin.

She rolled her eyes and glared at the boys, saying. "They taught you that, didn't they?" Her other two partners just chortled and looked pleased with themselves as they bumped fists and turned back to their computers.

"Somebody run facial recognition on Gerard Mann. See if that's an alias, too," Sully said as he kept reading and Beckett made the call to NRPD about the fire.

Beckett was connected with Gunderson, the detective who had run the investigation, and he remembered the frustration of it. They had suspected Randall Bright but couldn't prove anything. She explained the possible connection between their murder case and the arson where two lives were lost, and it wasn't long before they had a copy of the arson file.

"So you and Castle were working on this together last night?" Esposito asked.

"Yeah. We spent a lot of time searching the aliases, then we did some theorizing, We stopped there, though. It was pretty late by then."

"Good work. And yeah, we remember the theorizing," he answered teasingly, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

Beckett made copies of the file for the rest of her partners while Ryan ran facial recognition; and not long after she returned from the printer, there was a victorious sound from Ryan.

"Got him! Gerard Mann is an alias. His real name is Edward Foster Reed, goes by Ed. He was arrested ten years ago for…wait for it." He played a little drum roll on the edge of his desk and finished with a flourish before announcing, "Arson. Smaller scale than the fire in New Rochelle, though. He was in various scuffles with the law for a while before that, and a couple of them involved assault. Did two years for arson and short stints in jail for two of the assaults and small time fraud, but there's nothing in the name Ed Reed since then. Social for Gerard Mann shows up as a man close to the same age who died in New Rochelle about a year before the fire. You and Castle did good, Beckett."

They split up to pick up the security tapes from Gerard/Ed's dinner with Barbara/Sonia/Thelma and security video from Sarah's apartment for the two weeks before the murder, hoping to find evidence of Gerard at Sarah's apartment building. By the end of a long day of scanning videos, they had enough of a connecting trail to believe they had found two murder conspiracies. Lab results came in matching prints on the notes to the prints on Gerard's water bottle, so they knew he had lied about leaving the notes. They planned to take another look at Sarah's apartment building the next morning with their new information in mind. Then they would decide when to bring the three apparent co-conspirators in for questioning.

As Beckett was adding the last of their new information to the murder board, the elevator dinged, and Castle was walking toward them with Jamie. She made her last entry and put the pen down, reaching for her son and planting a big kiss on his cheek. Jamie smiled and wrapped his little arms around her neck, snuggling his mother.

"Is it five already?" she asked. The whole team looked at the clock and seemed surprised that it was a little after five.

"Hey," she said, looking at Castle as she rubbed their son's back. "We did good last night. Look at all the connections we found from that."

"Yes!" Castle answered with a little fist pump. "It felt like it should lead somewhere."

"If it gets this kind of results, we'll pack up copies of case files and pictures of the murder board for Beckett to take home every night," Ryan told him.

"So, did you just come in to gloat?" Esposito asked.

"Actually, I came in because Jamie wanted to take his mommy to dinner."

"Jamie did, huh?" Beckett asked, looking at Castle and sounding amused.

"He did, and I agreed with him right away." Jamie sat up, perching on Beckett's arm at the mention of his name.

"And did you let him drive, too?" There was a definite smirk then.

"No. He wanted to use the car service tonight," Castle answered, as if it were normal for a twenty-two month old to decide on car service for the evening. "Darrell is out there with a town car somewhere in the vicinity of the precinct. He's waiting for me to tell him to pick us up."

"Well, thank you, Baby Boy. I'd be happy to have dinner with you," she said to Jamie, giving her son another kiss and asking, "Should we let Daddy come with us?" Jamie nodded. He understood enough to know what that meant, even if talk of the case went right over his head. "Okay, Castle, I guess you can go, too."

"Well, that's a relief," Castle answered, and he and Beckett smiled at each other, their eyes showing their feelings.

"You two are disgusting. Stop with the eye…" Esposito was stopped in mid-sentence by Castle's hand over his mouth.

"Don't finish that. It does not need to come from not quite two year old lips, and that little mouth over there? It repeats everything at least once just to try it out. If it gets a reaction, it's well more than once."

"Leave, Beckett. Before he's old enough he doesn't want to be seen with his parents, enjoy that your kid wants to take you to dinner," Esposito said, looking askance at Castle.

As she put on her coat, she told the others she would be back early in the morning, ready to jump in. "Jamie" took her to Arturo's, and they enjoyed the friendly owner and the good service. Jamie was well behaved and charmed Arturo and the customers around them, allowing Mommy to enjoy her meal. It was almost as if he had actually been in on the planning.

When things were quiet at home, Rick and Kate sat leaning against one another on the sofa. "Thanks for helping Jamie take me to dinner. It was nice."

"Yeah. It was." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "We really did open up the case last night, didn't we? Tell me how you found everything else today." She gave him a good synopsis of the day's discoveries and actions, and he answered, "So you may solve three murders instead of one before it's over?"

"Looks like a possibility."

"You know, I wouldn't mind if you brought files home more often. Last night was great. I felt like a useful part of the team again. And the big plus was that nobody was here to interrupt us while I kissed you senseless after the theory building." The signature eyebrow wiggle followed.

"I enjoyed it, too. Come on. Shower and bed. This day hasn't slowed down since it started, and I doubt tomorrow will be any better. I need to be there early, but I might still kiss you senseless before we go to sleep."

"I'm in," he said, following her to the shower.

xxxxx

The next day was eventful. The team made a trip to Sarah Bright's apartment to look at it from their new perspective, got financial reports for Randall Bright and Gerard Mann/Ed Reed, rounded up the necessary paperwork to get warrants to search their apartments and vehicles, and called the detective in New Rochelle with more information and a request for old financial records. There wasn't enough to bring Barbara Quincy in yet, but they assigned someone to keep an eye on her just in case; and they hoped that one of the two men might implicate her.

The video from the night of the murder showed a man about Gerard's size, build, and general features entering the lobby and the elevator in the right time frame, but his face couldn't be seen clearly. However, he wasn't seen leaving. Other videos showed Gerard entering the building several times in the two weeks prior to the murder, each time with an envelope in his hand or taking one from his pocket. Randall Bright was there twice in the same time period, and he left looking angry both times. He had also made several calls to his sister.

One of Sarah's friends from work called in to say she remembered why Sarah was unhappy with her brother. He had been asking her for money lately. He had inherited exactly the same substantial sum that she had but hadn't handled it as well. "She knew he was careless about money," the woman told Beckett. "She told me that she had put her money aside so she could retire when she wanted to and enjoy her retirement. I guess she saw no reason to take it from her funds for Randall to squander. She said he got angrier every time she refused him." The team brought the two suspects in separately so neither knew the other was in the precinct. One was held in Robbery until the other was properly ensconced in an interrogation room.

Speaking to Beckett and Sully, Randall said that he barely knew Gerard and had met him several months before when his sister introduced him as her boyfriend. He repeated his alibi, reminding them that he was out of town, complete with references to contacts who could back his claims. When the fire that killed his parents was mentioned, he looked surprised and concerned; and he went quiet when confronted with photographic evidence that he was acquainted with Gerard when he still called himself Ed. Mention of withdrawals from his accounts matching deposits to Gerard/Ed's accounts…equal amounts immediately before and immediately after both the fire and the stabbing murder of his sister obviously shocked him. Then he began to place full blame for his sister's death on Gerard. He said Gerard wanted to defraud his sister. He mentioned that Gerard was going to propose to her, move in with her and figure out how to clean out her bank accounts, and then leave with his real girlfriend, Thelma.

"In that case, Randall," Sully pointed out, "he would have every reason to believe that you, as her only living relative, would be the sole beneficiary of her estate. How would it help him to kill her?"

"I don't know. Maybe he was just really mad that she broke up with him and ruined his plan," Randall shouted, looking flustered.

Beckett calmly said, "It looks to us like you're the financial winner in this. Sarah's friends tell us she was upset that you were asking for money from her. We've seen how you spent your inheritance. Did you expect her to just blindly hand hers over?"

"I'm her brother. You'd think she'd want to help me out."

"Why? So both of you could end up broke?" Beckett asked. "And as you said, you're her brother. It looks like you would have warned her about what her boyfriend was planning. It's looking like you couldn't wait for your parents' inheritance, either. This is a picture of Ed Reed watching the fire at their home…about the same time you gave him money and left town to cover your tracks, then gave him more money after they were dead. Think about it for a few minutes. We'll be back."

Ryan and Esposito were handling a similar interrogation with Gerard Mann. Esposito greeted him with, "Mr. Ed Reed, is it?" taking him by surprise.

Before Gerard Mann/Ed Reed could deny his birth name, Ryan pushed his mug shot as Edward Foster Reed across the table to him and said, "Don't bother to deny it." He also appeared to be taken by surprise at how much the police knew about his record and his association with Randall Bright. Beckett knocked and spoke to Ryan outside the room. When he returned and faced Gerard with financials and evidence placing him near the house during the fire…along with the fact that Randall had tried to place the entire blame for Sarah's murder on him, Gerard said he wanted a lawyer.

They let Randall Bright sweat in interrogation while his partner in crime was sent to holding until his lawyer arrived. After a relatively brief conference with her client, the attorney came to speak to the team about a deal in return for information.

"It depends on the information." Beckett recapped the evidence they had against Reed and pointed out that they were still working.

"Do you have enough to indict Randall Bright?"

"Not yet, but as I said…"

"Suppose Mr. Reed could save you a lot of time and trouble and hand you Randall Bright?"

"We can talk to the DA. That's all we can promise. Before we're finished, though, we'll probably have your client dead to rights, and may have enough on Randall without Gerard's testimony, but we can arrange a meeting with someone from the DA's office if you want.

Ryan and Esposito returned to interrogation when the client and attorney had finished another brief conference.

"So how and when did you meet Randall?" Esposito asked.

"We were all at the same bar, Randall Bright, Barbara Quincy and I. We hit it off, got a booth together and had enough to drink to loosen our tongues. We started talking about everything…trouble we'd been in, his family not being happy with his lifestyle, all the money they had and wouldn't give him because he should learn to work for it. We agreed with him. He offered us…

"Us being you and Ms. Quincy?"

"Right. He offered us a good chunk of money to break into the house while they were sleeping, drug them, then burn the house while they couldn't help themselves. We'd get paid well, and he'd get a big inheritance. We were good friends, so he'd take us with him on a nice vacation now and then, along with whatever woman he was seeing at the time. He hired me to play up to his sister, propose, and move in where I could find what I needed to get into her bank accounts. I was going to transfer it to him a little at a time and leave if she got suspicious. When the money was gone, Randall would pay us the other half, and Barbara and I would leave for another part of the country for a while. Sarah wasn't suspicious of a scam, though. She was suspicious that I was seeing somebody else. I had talked her out of that before she walked into a restaurant she'd never been to before and saw me having dinner with Barbara. The whole plan fell apart after that, and finally Randall hired me to kill her. Then he left town again so he'd have an alibi. I picked the new lock at her apartment and left through the window at the fire escape."

"And you thought you'd get away with it? Ryan asked.

"I guess I did."

They asked other questions to verify more details of the conspiracy and let him know they were finished.

"So what about the DA?" he asked.

"We can't make any promises. You'll have to talk to the DA's people about that, but we'll arrange for a meeting," Ryan told him before he called someone to take him back to a holding cell. They spoke to the attorney, gave her their cards before she left, and went back to let Beckett know she should speak to the captain ask for a meeting with someone from the DA's office.

"I don't get it," Ryan said as he and his partner went back to their desks. "They're living together, have been together for at least eight years, but they take turns sleeping with other people so they can scam them out of their money."

"They don't think like we do, partner. They go somewhere until the money they got from sleeping with other people is about to run out, and then they start looking for somebody else to scam. We're never gonna understand it.

"What I do understand is that we got the guy to admit Barbara Quincy was part of it.

"Yeah," Esposito grinned. "I wonder if he realizes he did that?"

"Too late now. He'll figure it out eventually. Let's go tell Beckett and Sully we can bring her in now."

A search warrant was obtained for Barbara Quincy's home, vehicle, and financial and phone records. The searches for all three suspects were simplified by the fact that Barbara was still living with her boyfriend. Enough evidence was found to link the three conspirators together from a few months before the fire. Phone calls immediately before and after both the fire and Sarah's murder, combined with financial records and their own confessions and disclosures, were enough to close the case and turn it over to the District Attorney's office.

Barbara Quincy was livid when told that, in getting a deal for himself, her boyfriend had implicated her in two murders and arson, and her mood didn't improve when she was told that their apartment was being searched as they spoke.

When they left the interrogation room, Sully breathed out a long, "Whew!" He shook his head and said, "If I were Ed Reed, I think I'd rather be in jail than out on bail sharing an apartment with her. That was one angry woman."

"She gave us a few more details, though. And she's pretty sure neither of the men will be chivalrous enough to protect her. That's good for us. And we have written confessions from all three of them."

"I think Randall is still in shock that Ed got a deal and the DA wouldn't offer him one."

"I guess there's a cost to being an arrogant, selfish, greedy, uncooperative, murderous, lying jerk."

"Want to tell me how you really feel, Beckett?" Sully asked with a laugh, and he got an unrepentant grin in return.

Since he was running the investigation, Beckett allowed Sully the honor of putting the final report together, grinning again as she phrased it that way. "If you're going to be lead, you're going to have to be able to make all the pieces of a complicated case fit, even when there are unexpected factors involved. I'll read it and let you know if any changes or additions are needed before we turn it in to the captain."

"Thanks," Sully answered, looking a little uncertain. "The only closing reports I've had to turn in directly to the Captain were during the last part of December when Stiles went back to the fifty-first, and they were both pretty straightforward…one murder, one murderer, one clear motive, and good solid, simple evidence.

See if you can finish it this afternoon. I'll take a look before I go home, and you can tell the captain we'll have it ready tomorrow morning. You'll be fine, but it's going to be more demanding than the ones you just described. And even if they're tried together, we still have three separate suspects involved. Three separate reports, and the captain will need a concise summary of how they're all related." The entire team was there near their desks as Beckett spoke to their teammate. "You did a good job on this case, Sully."

The boys had to make "Don't let it go to your head. Enjoy that report." sorts of comments, but it was while they bumped fists and slapped his arm in comradery.

The team spent the rest of the day pulling all the pieces of the puzzle together in their reports. Beckett called Detective Gunderson in New Rochelle to let him know they had closed the murder case and had confessions for the related arson and murder from eight years ago as well. She thanked him for his cooperation and promised him copies of their reports and all their evidence related to the fire. He thanked her and asked her to hold the reports until he contacted her the following day.

Sully let the captain know they had closed the case and gave her a rundown of where things stood, and he told her the reports would be on her desk sometime the following morning. "Beckett will take a look before I turn them in. We'd like to take another look tomorrow with fresh eyes. This case had three conspirators and a lot of working parts, to say nothing of the connection to an arson case involving two more murders from eight years ago, which was in another jurisdiction. It's a lot to coordinate.

"I think that's a wise decision," Gates answered. "I appreciate the conscientious approach."

Beckett turned her reports in to Sully and later checked his closing report. She made some notations and suggestions, corrected a couple of typos, and gave it back to him, saying, "I think the captain should be happy with that."

"Thanks. I'll make copies to take home and work on corrections tonight," he answered.

xxxxx

Reports were given another once over in the light of a new day and turned in to the captain. Late the next afternoon, Detective Gunderson from New Rochelle showed up at the precinct, a solid but stocky man with a gravelly voice, a ready smile, and a quick sense of humor. All of them immediately liked him. He arrived in the afternoon with a box of donuts for the team and a half dozen yellow roses for Beckett. He said it was a thank you from his team, that they had always believed Randall Bright was responsible but didn't have enough evidence to prove it. And they were relieved to know he wouldn't get away with his parents' murders.

"The Brights were good people," Gunderson told them. "They were good hearted and used their time and wealth to help the community…always involved in some worthwhile project. Sarah was the same way, but Randall… he was never interested in anybody but Randall. It's a real shame he's the only one of them left. Not too charitable of me, but it is what it is."

"If it makes you feel any better, I agree," Beckett admitted. "Without your help, it would have taken us much longer to put this case to rest. My husband and son are meeting me here for dinner. If you have time, we could return your thank you and treat you to dinner before you have to head home."

"I don't want to intrude. He might not appreciate the extra company."

All three men on the team laughed knowingly at that comment. "You haven't met Castle," Ryan assured him.

"You wouldn't be intruding. He's a mystery writer," Beckett explained, "and he'd never turn down the opportunity to talk to another cop he hasn't met. He's worked with us a lot as a civilian consultant, so some of the guys here might even come with us…to help you out if he has too many questions."

"Yeah. And he's got a million of them. Castle, her husband, he helped with this case, too; so he'll probably want to hear things from your perspective." Looking over at Beckett, Ryan asked, "Is it okay if I ask Jenny to meet us? Where are you going?"

"The little Italian place a couple of blocks from here, and of course it's okay."

"Maria's busy with her mom tonight doing…stuff for the wedding," Esposito answered moving his hands randomly to indicate he had no idea what stuff they were working on. "I'll go, too.

"Beats ordering a pizza when I get home," Sully said. "I'll come, too."

"I guess I ought to pay my respects to the captain before I do anything else," Gunderson responded. "Visiting from another jurisdiction and all. Then I'll let my wife know I'll be later than I thought. She won't mind not having to cook. Castle sounds interesting."

Beckett walked him over to the captain's office and introduced him, then she left them to talk. It appeared to be an amiable conversation. He left Gates smiling.

"Do I get the five cent tour of the big city precinct?" Gunderson asked.

"Ryan and I can do that. Not much going on right now anyway," Esposito volunteered.

As they reached the break room, Gunderson asked, "What kind of name is Castle? Sounds like a soap opera."

"It's his last name," Ryan answered. It's Katherine Beckett Castle. She goes by Beckett here because it was less confusing after all the years of being Beckett. Sometimes he still calls her Beckett, too. That's how they met."

Gunderson smiled. "Writer and civilian consultant, huh? Is he any good?"

"At which one?" Esposito asked.

"Either one, I guess."

"Over twenty best sellers and he'd have been a damned good detective," Ryan answered. "You'll like him."

The boys walked him around the precinct and brought him back to the break room for coffee. It took longer than expected because, like Castle, Gunderson found conversational material with a number of people as they toured.

Beckett got a phone call from the desk sergeant a few minutes after five. "Hey, Beckett, I got Big Castle and Baby Castle in the lobby wanting to know if you're ready to leave. They'll wait for you in the car if you're not ready. Baby Castle is kind of excitable tonight. Right now, he's peeking over Castle's shoulder and flirting with the ladies behind him."

Beckett chuckled. "Thanks, McDonald. You can tell them I'll be right down, and that we'll have company tonight."

"Will do."

"Castle's here," she told the others. Ready to go?" she asked as she put on her coat and grabbed her keys.

"We'll be right behind you," Ryan answered.

The restaurant was small and busy. The owner, in view of the size of Castle's group and the quickly filling tables, offered her long-time customer the back room she reserved for parties. She said they could be comfortable as they waited and have some privacy as well.

The dinner together was exactly what they all needed. Gunderson fit right in. The boys remarked that it was almost like having two Castles. Gunderson's sense of humor played off Castle's almost from their introduction; and between them, even the boys joined Beckett in multiple eyerolls before dinner was over. Around talk of the case, there was a lot of laughter and fun. Jamie was full of himself but not whiny or hard to get along with, and the adults took turns being sure he had plenty of attention. He clearly loved seeing his uncles and his Aunt Jenny, and Gunderson took his turns entertaining the toddler, too.

The biggest value of their time together was the feeling of closure after such a demanding week on a case that branched into so many paths. Jenny played with Jamie a lot, asked a few questions, and mentioned that she was glad Ryan had the chance to be there with them. Castle and Gunderson were able to hear all the twists and nuances of the investigation that they had been at the edge of…being aware of it and a small part of the process, but not fully involved…and to ask questions and offer congratulations for a job well done. The team at the twelfth got a lot of the stress of the case out of their systems before going home, and they all had access to Gunderson's perspective on the arson that took two good people from his community. All of them left with an appreciation of the contributions each had made and a sense of pride at what they had accomplished together. Their time that evening provided all of them the release of tension that would allow them a better night's sleep and a better start for the morning.