Who Are You?

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I am one of the many who do not own Castle. Rating: M, here and there. Time: The future, season seven.

Chapter One

The foreman picked his way carefully through the partially demolished building to where one of his crews was just standing around.

"Randy, dammit, am I paying you to just stand around and scratch your asses?"

Randy, a tall, African American with a bit of a paunch, pushed his hard hat to the back of his head. "Maybe, Charley. We got something here."

Charley cursed. "Well, get it out of here. That's what we're here for. Well, get to it!"

Randy stood where he was, but his crew started to back away.

"What the hell is it?" Charley demanded.

"Take a look." Randy stood back and pointed to where a hole had been knocked in the wall.

Charley looked in the hole. "Oh, God damn it. Can't you just get that thing out of here?"

Randy took a step backwards. "You expect me to touch that damned thing? The way it looks? And haul the damned thing all the way to the street with everybody looking? Forget it. If you want it moved, you move it. Or better yet, get the damned suits to move it."

Charley actually seemed to be considering moving it himself, but then shook his head. "Any idea what's in the bag?"

"The bag?" Randy asked.

"The bag. The bag by his feet."

Randy looked briefly through the hole. "I don't know and I don't care."

"Crap." Charley grumbled. "Somebody call the damned cops. We'll be lucky if we don't lose a damned week because of this."

"What should we do?"

"Stand around and scratch your asses." Charley growled.

An hour later, Kate Beckett's homicide team arrived. She went past the uniforms and walked to the third floor with her team trailing behind her. Dr. Lanie Parish was already there, checking over the corpse, or rather what was left of the corpse.

"What do we have, Lanie?" She said, kneeling beside her friend.

"This one has been dead for years. He's practically rotted away to just bones. "

"Any idea just how long he's been there?"

"No. It won't be easy to find out, as badly decomposed as he is."

"You're sure it's a he?" Kate asked.

"He had a driver's license on him." Lanie took a clear plastic evidence bag and handed it to Kate.

Kate examined it. "Napoleon Bonaparte Moncrief. The license expired in 2004. So he's been dead for more than ten years. Anything else?"

Castle interrupted. "Did anyone see a tall, English noble in a red coat around here?"

Kate looked up at him. "A what?"

Castle smiled. "Napoleon Bonaparte? It stands to reason he was killed by the Duke of Wellington. Probably at the battle of Waterloo."

Kate smothered her smile. "I don't know why I didn't think of that, Castle. Thanks."

Castle beamed with pride. "Always glad to help. Always."

"There was something else that might be almost important as Castle's very helpful clue." Lanie said.

"What's that?" Kate and Rick asked.

"The bag over there."

"And it's important because….?" Kate asked.

"It's full of hundred dollar bills. At a guess, a couple of hundred thousand dollars."

"A couple of hundred thousand dollars?" Ryan said, bending over to try to get a better view of the bag. "Maybe he's a mystery writer. "

Castle shuddered dramatically. "That is so not funny, Ryan."

"Maybe he was a pest to his muse?" Kate said.

"A writer who's a pest to his muse? Never happen."

Kate smiled up at him. "What was I thinking of?"

"One thing I don't get." Castle said, frowning. "How could the tenants in this place have missed the unmistakable stench of a decomposing body?"

"I may be able to answer that." Eposito said, walking up to the team. "I was talking with the project foreman, Charles Parks. He said the place was closed down years ago. The owner was a slumlord who did absolutely nothing to keep the place up, and just pocketed all the rent. Also didn't pay his property taxes, or have any insurance. Eventually, the city was going to force him to fix the place up, and the other ones he owned just like it, so he just grabbed his cash and headed back home. The foreman thinks we went back to India."

"Okay." Beckett said, "But how does that explain nobody noticing the stench?"

"A pipe from an upstairs toilet broke. Crap poured down into the apartment next door for, god knows how long, until someone managed to shut it off. Not the landlord, of course. Nobody would have noticed the corpse with all the crap next door."

Castle again shuddered. "Gross. But who owns the place now?"

Espo checked his notes. "The city does, now. When the owner left, the city didn't want to take over all of the abandoned and worthless properties in New York and be responsible for them, so they did nothing. Tenants stopped paying rent and the place was taken over by squatters and the homeless."

Espo checked his notes again. "One more thing. The guy was found in a secret room that someone had put in. Mr. Parks said it was a real professional job. His crews didn't notice until they broke through the wall."

"Why are they here now, by the way?" Ryan asked.

"Redevelopment. New condos are going up across Lex and this area is suddenly prime real estate. The city finally took it over for unpaid property taxes and are selling it to a developer for a nice chunk of change."

"Speaking of a nice chunk of change, how did our vic end up with a bag full of hundreds?" Castle asked.

"Drugs." Ryan answered. "Back in the late nineties and early two thousands, this whole neighborhood was one big open air drug super market. Anyone who had that kind of money must have been dealing."

Castle looked around. "So our vic grabs his stash and cash, and heads for his secret room and then gets popped. But why didn't the killer just grab the money and run?"

"Maybe the killer was Virgil Starkwell?" Kate said.

"Who?" Espo asked.

"The character played by Woody Allen in the movie Take the Money and Run. Allen played an incompetent crook." Kate explained.

"Couldn't have been Starkwell." Castle said seriously. "The vic would have been shot with a gub."

"How could I have missed that?" Kate said, shaking her head and smiling.

"You've been hanging around with Castle way too long, Beckett." Espo grumped.

Kate stood up. "Okay, let's let Lanie and CSU finish up here. We'll go back to the precinct and see what we can find on Moncrief."

After an hour back at the precinct, they had very little.

"We have a photo of Moncrief from DMV, but that's it so far. I asked records for any files we have on him, but they haven't called back yet. The address on the license is an apartment building in Queens, maybe Espo and I can…."

Ryan stopped when Beckett's phone buzzed. "It's Lanie. She has something for us. Hold off on checking out his address, Ryan. Maybe Lanie will have something more useful than an old address."

With Castle right behind her, she headed for the morgue.

"Got something?" Kate asked.

"It's a murder all right. I got four slugs out of what's left of him, all .38s. I sent them over to ballistics. From what I can make of the damage to his ribcage, he was shot three times in the back." Lanie then pointed to a neat hole in the back of his skull. "Then someone made sure."

"Anything else?" Castle asked.

"I inventoried the bag. He had $278, 500 with him when he died."

"Tried to take it with him?"

Both women gave Castle a look.

"There's more." Lanie continued. There was a switchblade knife in the bag with what looks like blood on it. There's also what looks like blood on some of the hundreds on top."

Kate nodded. "So our vic was jumped by someone who wanted his cash. He pulled a knife, stabbed his assailant and got shot for his troubles. That could explain why the killer left the bag behind. He was wounded."

"And maybe bled out and never could come back for the loot. We should check for stabbing victims at local emergency rooms and for anyone found dead of a stab wound." Castle added.

Kate frowned. "That's an awful lot of paperwork to go over. All we know about the time of death is sometime before 2004. "

Before Castle could make his excuses, Lanie spoke up. "I might be able to help. There was a notebook at the bottom of the bag. It had entries beginning in February 1998 running to May 2001. The dates were about two months apart and next to each was a six figure number. Whoever wrote it didn't put a dollar sign in front of the numbers, but if he was keeping track of money, he collected over five and a half million dollars."

Castle whistled softly. "That could get you killed."

"One more thing." Lanie added. "I found a cheap camera in the bag, too. There was a roll of exposed film still on it. I sent it to the lab to be processed. Maybe it'll be a help."

"More likely its shots of our vics last birthday party." Castle grumbled.

"What?" Kate said, doing her best to sound shocked. "You don't think we'll find ghostly images of the murder in the camera? Somehow taken after our vic was dead? With the Twilight Zone theme playing on them?"

Castle looked very superior and replied, "My theory is that he was a courier for a secret terrorist organization who was assassinated by a beautiful lady spy, who even now is smiting our enemies."

"And you want to meet this beautiful lady spy, I assume?" Kate said softly.

"Me? Of course not. The thought never occurred to me. Why would I want to meet a beautiful lady spy? Unless it was you."

"Good answer, Castle." Lanie called to Kate and her partner as they left.

When Beckett and Castle arrived at the precinct the next morning, Ryan and Esposito were already there.

"What've we got?" Kate asked.

"Nothing." Ryan said disgustedly. "We've got nothing."

"Nothing?" Kate said, surprised. "How could we have nothing? We must have gotten something."

Espo shook his head. "Records told us that they've had a computer meltdown, so they have to locate all the records manually. And that takes time."

"What about ballistics?" Castle asked.

"Ballistics and CSU say they've got a bunch of rush jobs. We're just going to wait our turn."

Kate thought for a moment. "Okay. Espo, you and Ryan go to the address on Moncrief's driver's license. It's a long shot, but maybe someone there remembers something about him. Every apartment building seems to have nosy neighbor who knows everyone else's business." She turned to her partner. "Castle and I'll check out the neighborhood. See if anyone knew Moncrief, or anything about the building."

The first place Beckett and Castle checked out was a little bodega across the street from the crime scene. It seemed like the kind of place that the former residents would go to.

"Moncrief? Napoleon Bonaparte Moncrief?" The man behind the counter said, staring at the DMV photo of their vic.

Kate nodded and smiled. "It would have been in the early two thousands. He was found shot to death in the building across the street."

"Shot to death and you're just finding him now? Sure you don't want to wait another couple of years to investigate? "

"He was hidden in a secret compartment." Castle said quickly. He know that Beckett wouldn't take the implied criticism of her homicide team at all well.

The man shook his head. "Can't say that I recognize him. But I made a point back in those days of not looking at anyone too closely. That sort of thing could get you a bullet."

"That bad?" Castle said, sympathetically.

"Yeah. The place was a damned shooting gallery, in more ways than one, back then. We had more frigging drug dealers than junkies, so the dealers would try to cut down on the competition with a gun. I couldn't tell you how many murders we had just on this block alone. Add in the junkies OD'ing, and we could have used a branch office of the morgue."

"What did the police do?" Castle asked, getting a glare from Kate.

"Damn little. Of course no one would talk to them back then. Worth your life, it was. I saw a guy get shot right in front of my door." He pointed to his doorway and shuddered. "I knew the guy who did it, too. But when the cops came, I told them I was under the counter and didn't see a thing. Just as well, a couple of months later and the shooter was dead, too. Him and some hooker blasted in his car by a couple of guys with shotguns. No loss, really."

"Any idea who might know Moncrief?" Beckett asked.

The man scratched his unshaven jaw. "You might try Gracie three doors down. Runs a coffee shop for her older brother. She's the block gossip. Always knows what's everybody's doing."

Castle and Beckett ordered coffees at Gracie's. Neither was expecting much, but they were pleasantly surprised. "Hey, this is good." Castle said, smiling at the slender, grey haired, dark complexioned Hispanic who served them. "Where do you get it from?"

The woman laughed. "My family comes from Nicaragua. During the war down there, some of us went to Costa Rica and some came here. The ones in Costa Rica send me the coffee."

"So, you're Gracie?" Beckett asked.

"Sure am, Detective." Gracie said with a smile.

"Are we that obvious?"

Gracie nodded, still laughing. "Once, well dressed white folks used to come to this neighborhood to score drugs. Now the only time we see anyone like you is when there's a crime. I heard they found an old, dead body down the street. That's why you're here?"

Castle and Beckett both nodded. Beckett pulled out the photo of Moncrief. "Ever see this man? His name's Napoleon Bonaparte Moncrief. He's the one we found in the building."

Gracie pulled a pair of glasses out and carefully looked at the photo. She nodded. "I remember him, but I never knew his name. He hung around here in the late nineties, early two thousands. He'd come in about once a week in a big, old Cadillac and talk to the drug dealers. A money man, I think."

"Do you know anyone that's still around that might have known him?" Kate asked.

Gracie thought for a while. "There was a girl. Pretty little thing, name of Diana. She always rode in the back seat with him. He really liked her, I think."

"Do you know her last name?"

Gracie shook her head. "Won't do you any good. She died of a drug overdose." She stared at the ceiling. "It was…2010. She wasn't so pretty any more. Shame." Gracie shook her head.

"The dealers?" Castle asked.

"Dead or in jail. Some moved on, I guess. Your people would know better than I would." Gracie smiled. "Wait. Moncrief was a Haitian. Talk to Jean-Paul, on the corner, he's Haitian, too. He's a tailor. Moncrief used to go there all the time."

Castle asked for and got the name of the coffee that Gracie used and where it could be purchased in New York. Then they left.

"Napoleon Bonaparte Moncrief." Jean-Paul Hebert nodded solemnly. "He always needed his suits altered. Forty four waist and twenty eight inch inseams. His suit coats were always too long because he had these really wide shoulders and a long body…"

"Do you know anything about who might have wanted to kill him?" Beckett interrupted.

"The street out there used to be covered with people who wanted him dead. Rival drug dealers, rival drug gangs. All gone now. His own people are all dead, too, I hear. The d'Erlons. Three brothers and some cousins. All from Haiti. All got killed."

Beckett nodded. "The d'Erlon brothers. I vaguely remember hearing about them. I was still a uniform when they were active, though. We should be able to find out something about them from Narcotics." She turned back to Mr. Hebert. "Anything else you can tell us about Moncrief?"

Hebert shrugged. "He had very small feet."

Beckett sighed. "Thank you for your help."

"Always happy to help. And If you need any tailoring or alterations, I have a special law enforcement rate." He called to Castle as they left.

Once back at the precinct, they found Ryan and Esposito waiting for them. "What did you find at Moncrief's old apartment?" Kate asked.

"Damn little."Espo said. "We didn't find anyone who knew Moncrief and the manager said their records don't go back past seven years. We did find the neighborhood busy body who remembered a young woman whose name was Moncrief. Described her as pretty, in her twenties, Haitian, well dressed and well spoken. She did remember an older man coming around every couple of months or so who might have been our vic. She thought he might have been a relation. She didn't think they were lovers, but you can never tell."

"Did you get a first name?"

"Luci, spelled with an "I". And she dotted the "I" with a little heart."

"That's useful." Kate grumped. She told the two detectives what she and Castle had found. "We'll ask Narcotics what they can tell us about the d'Erlons and Moncrief. They should have something in their files. Maybe some of their older people remember them."

"Oh, crap. "Ryan said, "Look who just got off the elevator."

They all turned to look. The woman was indeed striking. Tall, slender and toned looking, she had long, glossy black hair that framed a face with high cheekbones and surprisingly deep blue eyes set in a cinnamon colored face with a slight epicanthic eye fold. She wore a skirt that stopped just above the knees, showing off excellent legs. Her sweater was tight enough to show off a very nice set of boobs. In short, a total babe. Castle noticed a gold shield on her belt and could tell she was armed.

She walked right by the detectives without even glancing at them and walked into Captain Gates' office, closing the door behind her.

"Who was that?" Castle asked.

"Interested, Castle?" Beckett teased.

"Yes, but not in the way I'm interested in you."

Kate smiled at the compliment. "Lieutenant Lisa Bergdahl. Her mother was Irish and Korean and her father was Swedish and Iroquois. She started out in Vice, and she was very, very good there. Now she works for Internal Affairs. And she makes Gates look like a gushing teenaged girl."

"Tough?" Castle asked, already plotting a scene for the next Nikki Heat book.

"Oh, yes. Tough and cold. And if she's come here instead of calling us into her office, someone is in big trouble. Really big trouble. "