Detective
Kate Beckett walked into the bullpen of the 12th precinct, finding
things almost at a standstill. Uniforms and clerks were working on paper work
but that was as productive as anyone was being. Ryan and Esposito were lazily
tossing a hacky-sack back and forth. Beckett was surprised to find Castle at
his desk, spinning around in his chair and looking bored out of his mind.
“Nothing better to do on a
Saturday?” she asked the writer, hanging her coat across the back of her chair.
Castle stopped the chair so he was
facing Beckett. “I had writer’s block. Alexis is on a school trip and my mother’s
at rehearsals for some off-Broadway play so I didn’t have to watch her. I got
bored. I was hoping there’d be a murder.”
“No such luck, bro,” Esposito said,
catching the hacky-sack. Then he saw the look Beckett was giving him. “We don’t
hope for an innocent person to get killed,” he added quickly, sending the
hacky-sack in an over-hand arch to his partner.
“We hope that one already has been
and that the case happens to come our way,” Ryan added.
Just then Beckett’s phone rang.
“Saved
by the bell,” whispered Ryan.
“Beckett…Okay,
we’ll be right there,” Beckett finished scribbling down a quick note and hung
up, then turned to her team. “A terrible tragedy has occurred. An innocent
young lady has been murdered. Feel free to get excited now.”
“Now that’s what I was hoping for,”
Castle said, already on his feet with one arm in his jacket.
***
Lanie was already at the theater by
the time the detectives, and Castle, arrived. She was up on a ladder inspecting
the body, which was hung from the overhead rigging. Even the others could see
she didn’t hang herself, though. She was completely covered in bruises and cuts
and other such wounds.
“Her acting couldn’t have been that
bad,” Castle said. “I mean, she probably only deserved the giant hook yanking
her offstage at most.”
“Vic was Elizabeth Nunez,” Lanie
said. “She had a wallet and ID in her pocket. And I wouldn’t say this is
because somebody didn’t like her performance, nobody’s that passionate about
bad acting.”
“What else can you tell me?” Beckett
asked.
“As usual, this is all preliminary,”
Lanie told her friend. “But I’d say TOD would be around 9:00 last night. My
guess is she and our killer fought on the catwalk, possibly she was rendered
unconscious based on this blow to the head, and the killer used some of the
handy rope that was lying around to finish her off, tossing her over the edge.”
“Who found her?” Esposito asked.
“The director, Ken Stevens, came in
around seven this morning to this lovely surprise,” Lanie said, turning back to
the body. “By the way, he wants to know when this stops being a crime scene.
They have a show opening soon.”
“I hate when people ask that,”
Beckett said.
Lanie shrugged. “The show must go
on.”
Beckett turned to Ryan and Esposito.
“I want you guys to go Nunez’s place, see what you can find out. Castle and I
will start by talking to people here and we’ll see what we can get from that.” As
Ryan and Esposito left to find out where their victim lived, she turned to
Castle. “Let’s start by getting the director’s statement.”
Ken Stevens was sitting on the other
end of the stage, legs dangling over the edge. He looked uncomfortable and
upset, but not exactly distraught. Beckett supposed he wasn’t extremely close
to Elizabeth.
The
stage had a fake wood-burning stove in the center, a couple of tables, several
ramps and platforms to give it multiple levels, with a metal pyramidal
structure off to one side and a bunch of posters covering a back brick wall.
“Mr. Stevens? I’m Detective Kate
Beckett. This is Richard Castle.”
“The writer?”
“Yes,” Beckett answered quickly,
hoping he wouldn’t dwell on it. But before she could start asking questions,
Stevens was shaking Castle’s hand.
“I’m a huge fan,” Stevens told the
author. “Your books are brilliant. Have you ever considered adapting some of
them for the stage?”
“Huh. You know, that might not be
such a bad idea,” Castle looked at Beckett, and she gave him a “We’ve got a
murder to investigate so shut it” look. He turned back to Stevens. “I’ll give
that some consideration. But that’s not why we’re here.”
“You found the body around 7:00 this
morning?” Beckett asked.
“Yes,” Stevens confirmed, all
excitement gone. “Poor Elizabeth, I can’t believe she was murdered like that.
It’s absolutely horrible.”
“Do you usually come into work at
this time?”
“No, I came in a few hours early
today. I was going to help with some minor adjustments to some of the fixtures.”
“What show are you putting on?”
Castle asked.
“RENT.”
“Oh, that’s a great one,” Castle
said excitedly. He earned another sharp look from Beckett. “Sorry. My mom’s an
actress, I know my musicals.”
“Was Elizabeth in the show?” Beckett
asked.
“She was going to play Maureen.”
“Big role,” Castle said. “She’d have
to be pretty…outgoing to play it.”
“Did anybody have any problems with
Elizabeth?” Beckett asked, trying to gain control of the interview.
“She could be a bit of a diva when
she was stressed out, but most of the time she was a good kid. She got along well
with everybody. It makes no sense that somebody would want to do something like
this to her.”
“Had she been acting strangely? Did
she seem troubled by anything?”
“No, she seemed fine.”
“Can you think of any reason why
Elizabeth would have been in the theater late last night?”
“No,” he said. “I locked up as usual
at around 7:00 last night once rehearsal was over. I’m sure that nobody else
was here at that time. She shouldn’t have been able to get back into the
building.”
“Who else has keys to the theater?”
“A handful of people, not many,”
Stevens said. “I’ll make you a list.”
“Did Elizabeth have any next of
kin?” Beckett asked. “Any really close friends, or a boyfriend, maybe?”
“Her family lives in Chicago,”
Stevens told them. “She had been dating Drake Lovett, he’s playing Roger in our
production. But they broke up a few weeks ago. It was mutual, I’m sure;
otherwise there’d have been more drama backstage. She’s also pretty close with
her roommate, Rachel Golightly. She’s also in this show, as Mimi.”
“Thank you,” Beckett told him. “An
officer will take your statement and then you’re free to go.”
As they left the theater Castle
didn’t even have to ask what their next move was, but he did anyways.
“We’re working the boyfriend angle,
right?” he sounded as excited as a little kid on Christmas. “There could be
great material in that. A break-up right
before the murder, come on. And your roommate kissing your boyfriend, even for
purposes of a play, is a big reason for jealousy.”
He might have kept going on for a
while if Beckett didn’t interrupt him before he got too far into it. “Yes,
we’re interviewing the boyfriend.”
“Yes!”
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