Curtain Call Part 3

I don't own Castle, no copyright infringement intended, etc., etc. Drake didn't want to be written and so didn't turn out quite as I planned, but I hope you guys like the third part anyways. And yes, I did just blame my character.

            Castle and Beckett had decided it would be easiest for them to wait at the theater for Drake to show up. Beckett regretted it. Castle didn’t deal with boredom well, as she had learned from previous stake-out experiences with him.

            At the moment he was humming songs from the show while kicking a rock down the street a bit then coming back with it. After he’d run through about half of the songs from RENT, made countless trips with the rock and received multiple threats from Beckett, a woman showed up at the theater. Beckett walked up to her.

            “I’m sorry, this is a closed crime scene,” she told the woman.

            “I know,” she responded. “I’m Rachel Golightly. Two other cops came to my place. They said my roommate was killed here.”

            “I’m sorry for your loss,” Beckett said sympathetically. “Detective Kate Beckett, this is Richard Castle.”

            “Hi,” Rachel said, shaking hands with the detective and the writer rather unenthusiastically. “What’s a detective doing hanging around a crime scene, though?”

            “Waiting for someone,” Beckett said. “Drake Lovett. Have you seen him?”

            “Drake?” Rachel asked. “Of course, makes sense you’d want to talk to him. No, I haven’t seen him yet, but he should be here soon.”

            “Thank goodness!” Castle said.

            “Listen, Drake’s no killer,” Rachel told them. “He can get pretty full of himself but he’s not a bad guy.”

            “We just need to ask him a few questions,” Beckett reassured Rachel.

            “Well there he is,” Rachel told her, pointing out a good-looking man just a bit taller than herself and about the same age with short, light-brown hair walking towards the theater. He looked like he’d be full of himself, Beckett thought. Castle knew the type well enough, a cocky young actor.

            “Right, I need to talk to our director,” Rachel told them. “I really hope you catch whoever did this. Anything I can do to help.”

            “Well, she seems to be in an unusually…well, almost light-hearted mood for just being told her roommate was murdered,” Castle said as the actress walked off.

            Beckett thought so too, but ignored this for the moment and went up to the man Rachel had pointed out. “Drake Lovett?”

            “Yeah,” he said, pulling himself up to his full height and looking rather annoyed. “What’s going on here?”

            Beckett took out her badge. “Detective Beckett, NYPD. This is Richard Castle. We need to talk to you about Elizabeth Nunez.”

            “What about her?” Drake asked in an it’s-none-of-your-business tone.

            “I hear you two broke up recently,” Beckett said. “Why’s that?”

            “Why do you care?”

            “Because somebody beat and strangled her last night,” Beckett told him.

            Drake looked like somebody had punched him in the stomach. “Elizabeth’s dead?” he asked.

            “Yes,” Beckett told him, in a somewhat gentler tone.

            “Oh, God,” Drake said. “Her understudy is terrible! This is going to mess up the whole production.”

            Beckett raised an eyebrow at him, all sympathy gone. “Your ex-girlfriend was just murdered and all can think of is how it’ll affect the show?”

            “Hey, it’s my first reaction,” Drake said. “Those never make any sense. You just told me, what, thirty seconds ago that she was killed. Really, give it time to sink in. Besides, like you said, Elizabeth was my ex-girlfriend.”

            “Why is she your ex, Mr. Lovett?” Beckett asked again, sternly. “Why did you break up?”

            Drake sighed. “Because she was a jealous little idiot, that’s why. Look, our relationship could get a bit off-again, on-again. It wasn’t unusual for things like this to happen. But the truth is Elizabeth could get jealous, even if she didn’t always let it show. Let’s just say I’ve dated a lot of women in the past, so Elizabeth got suspicious at times. She couldn’t help it. But I couldn’t stand that she didn’t trust me. I ended it. But I didn’t kill her. I really did care about her; I just couldn’t be with her.”

            “Mr. Lovett, where were you last night, between 8 and 10 p.m.?” Beckett asked.

            “You’ve got to be kidding.”

            “She doesn’t usually kid when it comes to catching murderers,” Castle told him.
            “If you must know, I had a date last night,” Drake said matter-of-factly. “My first one since Elizabeth and I broke up. I had dinner then drinks with a girl I see around the neighborhood a lot, followed by a walk through Central Park, her idea. I got home at maybe around 10:30, we stayed out talking. My date can confirm that. We shared a taxi and I got dropped off at my place first. I spent the rest of the night alone.”

            “What’s your date’s name?” Beckett asked.

            “Claire Wyatt.”

            Beckett wrote the name down. “One last question: Do you know why Elizabeth was at the theater last night?”

            “Why would I know what she was doing last night, Detective? She was always rather secretive herself.” Drake asked.

            “Thank you,” Beckett told the actor. “You’ve been very…helpful.”

            “You’re more than welcome. If that’s all, I’d better go see what’s going on with everybody else,” The actor walked away without waiting to see if the others had anything else to say.

            “I don’t like him,” Castle said simply.

            “As a person or for the murder?” Beckett asked.

            Castle thought for a minute. “As a person. I’d check that alibi carefully.”

            “I think I’ll have another chat with him at a more convenient time,” Beckett said. “Once the news has ‘sunk in.’”