Murder By Any Other Name

Season 9, Episode 14

Written by acertainzest

This is a work of fiction by writers with no professional connection to ABC network's Castle. Recognizable characters are the property of Andrew Marlowe and ABC. Names, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The heavy, cloying scent of dozens of flowers hung thick in the air as Lisa re-checked the day's receipts. She barely noticed the smell any more, but the stifling humidity motivated her to work quickly, eager to escape into the bracing air of a New York spring.

Finished entering the final tally into the accounting book, the young woman closed the cash register's drawer and slid the book into its place on the shelf behind the counter. She gave a small sigh of relief; at last her work shift was over and she could lock up the store and go have a little fun.

As she turned to grab her purse from its hook on the wall, a movement caught her eye. From the shadows of the darkened store a figure approached, and she startled, then relaxed when she recognized the shape.

"Oh, you're back," she said unconcernedly. "Did you-" But then she saw the gun, gripped firmly in a slightly trembling hand, and she blanched, flinching backward.

"I know what you've been doing," a voice rasped, thick with anger. Lisa put her hands up defensively, sliding sideways toward the door, her eyes widening with incipient panic.

"I haven't - I haven't done anything," she stammered guiltily, drawing a hiss of fury from the other. The muzzle of the gun wavered dizzily through the air, always coming back to point directly at Lisa's chest.

"Don't lie to me! You know what you've done! Thought you could pull one over on me, did you? Thought I was stupid!"

"No," she protested desperately. "Please, calm down. We can talk about it. I can cut you in on-"

But the other person said no more. The gun, suddenly steady, did the rest of the talking.

Lisa's body slumped to the floor, her hand catching the edge of a display shelf as she fell. Loose petals rained down, sticking in the pool of blood that spread rapidly from under her lifeless frame.

"How about Rebecca?" was the first thing Castle heard as he emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed but still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Uh?"

"The name Rebecca means faithful, captivating," his wife read aloud from a book that sat open on the countertop, surrounded by others. "From a Hebrew root meaning 'to join together.'"

"Baby name books?" Castle questioned, moving around the kitchen island to pour himself a cup of coffee. "Again?"

"Well, this is an important decision, Castle!" Kate exclaimed, picking up another book and riffling agitatedly through its pages. "We can't just keep calling her Gnocchi, much as I know you love that." She flashed him a quelling look. "Seriously, we have to get our name choices narrowed down."

He pursed his lips in an attempt to hold back a grin, nodding.

Although he didn't feel the same urgency about naming their daughter that Beckett did, it warmed his heart to see her obsessing about that happy topic, rather than focusing on the worries that had gripped them both after their latest encounter with the serial killer Megan Bailey. He and Kate had both had difficulty sleeping after that incident - compounded, on Kate's part, by the increasing physical discomforts of late pregnancy - and for the first week or so they had been continually on edge, jumping at every little thing.

As the weeks went by, all avenues that might have led them to Bailey's location had fizzled out. Her credit cards and cell phone had gone unused, her apartment remained empty, her car was nowhere to be found, and none of her coworkers or acquaintances had heard from her. Beckett's FBI contacts had traced Bailey's movements into New Jersey, but then the trail went cold. She had simply disappeared.

It was unsettling, to say the least, but the FBI had concluded that she had gone into hiding, possibly even left the country. Castle and Beckett weren't so sure, but they had no firm evidence otherwise, so maybe the feds were right. Maybe that final message Megan had slipped under their door was just a parting shot before she went off the grid. With Dr. Burke's help, they had both finally started to feel secure again, and had learned some coping strategies to help ward off the panic attacks before they started.

For Castle, it was a relief to see Kate waking up before him again, which was the natural order of things. Her energy levels were quite good for the third trimester, but she was usually tired by evening and had gotten into the habit of going to bed early and waking up with the sunrise - although sometimes she chose to linger in bed. But today, apparently, she had gotten an early start on the baby-naming question.

"Rebecca, hmm? Rebecca Castle," he said, testing the name on his tongue. "Becky Castle." He shook his head. "No, Becky is too much like Beckett. That's just weird."

Kate made a pained face. "You're right. Damn." She glanced down again at the book in her hand. "Okay, how about Gertrude?"

"Gertrude?" he repeated incredulously. "Are you planning on giving birth to an 80-year-old Jewish woman?"

"The book says that classic names are coming back into fashion," his wife groused, before slapping the book down and rubbing the bridge of her nose. "No, you're right, you're right. Gertrude is terrible." She sighed.

"Hey." He slid an arm around her waist, pressing a kiss to her forehead as his hand lightly rubbed her swollen belly. "You know, we've still got plenty of time to find exactly the right name for her."

"It's just such a big decision," she murmured, slumping against him. "I mean, whatever we choose, she's going to be stuck with it for the rest of her life."

"Or at least until, in a fit of adolescent rebellion, she re-christens herself Spike and forms an all-girl punk rock band. Ooh," he brightened, grinning, "that would be so cool."

"Rick," his wife groaned, shaking her head. "Why is this so hard?" She cocked her head at him, curious. "How did you decide on Alexis?"

"Oh, well." He shrugged. "Alexander was originally my middle name, as you know, and it was also Meredith's father's name, and she didn't like Alexandra, so."

"Mm." Kate frowned. "Well, that's no help. We can't use Alexandra now, and we're not naming her after any of our parents."

"Right..." He studied her face and said gently, "You don't want to consider Johanna?"

"No." She shook her head slowly, but definitively. "It would just feel too weird, I think. But... how would you feel about it as a middle name?"

"Sure. Of course," he agreed immediately. "That's perfect."

"Your mom isn't going to be offended if we don't use her name, is she?"

"No, no." He grinned as a memory popped into his head. "When we were expecting Alexis, I suggested to Mother that we might use Martha as her middle name, and she urged me not to. 'It's far too stuffy and old-fashioned for a modern girl like yours, darling,'" he caroled in his best imitation of his mother's tone. As usual, it made Kate burst out laughing, and he grinned some more, pleased with himself. He never got tired of being able to make his wife laugh.

"Okay," she said, still chuckling, shaking her head, "but that means we're still nowheresville on her first name."

"We'll think of something." He picked up one of the books and thumbed through it. "Ahh! How about Esmerelda?"

Kate scoffed, but whatever sarcastic reply might have been forming on her lips went unspoken as her phone buzzed. She shook her head again and scooped it up.

"Beckett."

Rick smiled to himself as he pushed the baby-name books into a neat pile, listening to Kate's side of the conversation with Ryan. From the way her tone of voice changed as she responded, he could tell that she was about to hang up and tell him they were on their way to a murder scene. Beckett was supposedly letting her detectives handle the homicide investigations at this stage in her pregnancy, though the reality was that she often found an excuse to get personally involved.

He strode across the room to the hall closet, listening to her "mm-hmms" and "okays" as he got out their coats.

"Okay," she said again. "See you soon." Castle turned, already holding her coat out as she approached, dropping her phone into her purse.

"Thanks, babe," she smiled, pushing her arms into the sleeves. "There's been a murder at a flower shop just a few blocks from here. Ryan thought we could stop by on our way to the precinct."

"He knows you miss being out in the field," Castle commented with a smile, carefully buttoning up the maternity coat over his wife's chest and the large round curve of their child. "He's too good to you."

"And so are you," she murmured, catching his cheek with her hand and pulling him down for a brief but sweet kiss.

"Morning, Captain," greeted Officer Hernandez, holding up the crime-scene tape so that Beckett and Castle could duck through the doorway into the florist's shop. "Morning, Mr. Castle, sir," he added, showing almost more deference to his boss's husband than to the captain herself.

"Good morning, Officer," Beckett responded, elbowing her husband in the ribs when she caught him glaring at the young cop. She knew that Kyle Hernandez had gone on yet another date with Alexis recently, and that Castle was itching to ask him about it, but now was not the time.

"Morning," Castle grudgingly replied, and Beckett nudged him through the door before he could say anything more.

The interior of the florist's looked the same as almost any other: a small, low-ceilinged space lined with shelves bearing a riot of colors on every side. The scents of half a dozen different flower varieties filled the air. CSU technicians and uniformed officers were moving carefully around the cramped space, while at the back of the room Lanie was crouched over the body of a middle-aged African-American woman. The drying pool of blood under the body told Kate that death had not been particularly recent.

"Hey, Castles," Ryan greeted, approaching them with his ubiquitous notebook in hand. "Check it out, all these flowers - kinda takes you back to that first case, doesn't it?"

"Roses on her body, sunflowers on her eyes," Beckett recited, drawing a smug grin to her husband's face that she steadfastly ignored. "I don't see any sunflowers in here, though."

"Nah, and this wasn't staged. Not very similar at all, actually," Ryan agreed with a shrug. "Marian Jefferson, 59, an employee of the shop. Worked here full-time for the past few years. The owner," a tilt of his head indicating a dark-haired hulk of a man standing behind the counter, "says he left here around five last night; the shop closes at six. It was Marian's job to work the last hour and then clean up and close everything up for the night."

"Which it looks like she was in the middle of doing," Esposito chimed in, joining them. "Display cases are locked, cash register was locked, front door was locked, but the lights were still on. Looks like she was going out through the back door and our killer surprised her there."

"That timing fits lividity and liver temp," Lanie added from her spot on the floor, "and the cause of death seems pretty obvious, although we'll see if I find anything else when I get her back to the morgue." She indicated the wounds on the victim's torso. "Two GSWs, looks like a .38, but ballistics will have to confirm."

"Okay," Beckett started to say, just as Ryan's cell phone rang. He flashed a quick apologetic glance at the others and turned away, muttering his name into the phone.

"That guy's the owner?" Castle asked, casting a dubious eye in the direction of the man in question, who currently had his face buried in a handkerchief. "He looks more like a retired pro wrestler than a florist."

"Maybe he's both," Esposito chuckled. "That could be something out of one of your books."

"Guy like that wouldn't need to shoot someone," Castle observed. "He could probably just pull their head off with his bare hands."

"Castle," Beckett admonished, wincing at the gruesome mental image.

"What are you talking about? I'm already there," Ryan was saying into his phone. Castle raised his eyebrows curiously, looking at Beckett, who shrugged.

"Let's send some unis over to the victim's home to look around, and we need to find out about the next of kin," she said to Esposito. He nodded and opened his mouth to respond, but just then his partner rejoined them, frowning.

"Okaaaay," Ryan said, "this is kind of weird."

"What's weird?" Castle asked, a shade too eagerly, drawing a small eye-roll from his wife.

"Dispatch just called," Ryan replied, his brow furrowed as he stared down at the notebook in his hand. "There's another florist a few blocks away, calling to report that he found an employee dead in his shop."

"Huh," Esposito said in surprise, and they all paused for a moment, taking in the news.

"Okay," Beckett said then, decisively. "You guys head over there and get things started. Castle and I will finish up here and meet you back at the precinct."

"Gotcha."

"Right."

As Ryan and Esposito departed, Beckett approached the owner of the shop, with Castle close behind.

"I'm Captain Beckett," she introduced herself, and the large man took her hand, his grip surprisingly gentle. His eyes were red and damp.

"Frank Rossi. I just don't know," he said earnestly, sniffling. "I don't know what the hell happened here. I can't imagine anyone wanting to hurt Marian, and there wasn't even anything much worth stealing."

"What can you tell us about her?" Beckett asked. Frank scratched his cheek, wiped his eyes, and shrugged.

"She'd been working for me four, five years. Since her husband died. She needed the cash, but also, I think she just needed to get out of the house, you know? She was a people person. She loved helping people find just the right flower arrangement." The corners of his mouth turned downward and he heaved a trembling sigh, lifting the handkerchief to his face again.

"Any other family?" Castle prompted. The florist nodded sorrowfully.

"Yeah, she has three grown kids, but only one of them lives around here. Oh," he added, straightening up as a thought struck him. "Actually, he was here just yesterday. Her son, Matthew. He came by to see her not long before I left, maybe four-thirty."

"Was that unusual?" Beckett asked.

"Nah. He comes around every couple months, looking for money. Marian usually says no, he's just gonna spend it on booze."

"And is that what happened yesterday?"

"Yeah." Frank nodded. "He wanted her to lend him some cash; she told him to go back to the last place he got fired from and beg them to take him back. They yelled at each other a bit and he left." The florist let out another sigh, putting aside his damp handkerchief and grabbing a handful of tissues from a box on the countertop.

Beckett and Castle exchanged a look. "Do you have contact information for Matthew?" she asked.

Frank nodded again, going slightly pale, twisting the wad of tissues between his hands. "Yeah, I can pull it out of my files for you. God, you don't think - you don't think he killed her? Her own son?"

"We'll look into it," Beckett replied neutrally.

"By the way," Castle interjected, apparently unable to contain himself any more, "do you wrestle, Frank?"

Still sniffling, the big man stared at him in confusion. "Not since high school, why?"

"No reason."

Beckett rolled her eyes and stepped back in. "Who else works here, besides you and Marian?"

"Just my wife, but she's in Michigan this week visiting her sister." Frank looked up, his eyes catching on something at the back of the shop. "Oh, and Guillermo."

Beckett and Castle turned to see a young man standing in the rear doorway, horror spreading across his face when he caught sight of Marian's lifeless body on the floor.

"Dios mio," he gasped, crossing himself. "What happened?"

"He drives the delivery truck," Frank added. "Guillermo, c'mere, these are the cops."

"Oh," the younger man said warily, stepping around Marian's body, his eyes averted from the sight. "Um. Hello."

"Just a couple of quick questions," Kate told him, her tone brisk. He nodded, fidgeting. "When was the last time you saw Marian?"

"Uh, last night," Guillermo responded. "I picked up the last order of the day, she helped me load it into the van like always." He gestured toward the alleyway outside the rear door.

"Did she seem nervous, upset at all?" Kate prompted. "Anything unusual about her behavior?"

"No. Uh-uh," Guillermo denied, shaking his head. "She was just herself. A nice lady. She told me to have a good night, I said 'you too' and that was it." He twisted his fingers together shakily.

"Okay. Thank you," Beckett said, and turned back to Frank. "If you think of anything else, please let us know."

"Of course," the florist agreed, wiping his eyes once more.

The scene at the second flower shop was similar to the first when Ryan and Esposito arrived. CSU was poking around, caution tape blocked the front door, and a woman's body was slumped on the floor in a puddle of blood and flower petals. Unlike the first victim, this one was young, Caucasian, and blonde. Perlmutter crouched over her, wearing his characteristic scowl.

"I told you not to go in there. If you touch my orchids I swear I'll have your job. I'll sue the city." A whiny nasal voice was buzzing around the humid interior of the shop, and Esposito saw several uniforms surreptitiously rolling their eyes.

"Sir, as I already told you, we're being as careful as we can," Officer Aragon was saying with admirable patience. "But we do need to look at each area of the store as part of our investigation."

"I told those buffoons not to go blundering in there. If they knock anything over, that's years of work down the tubes," the complaining continued. Aragon looked up and spotted the detectives, and smiled with mostly-concealed relief.

"Sir, these are the homicide detectives who will be handling the case." She gently steered a short, skinny older man in their direction. "Detectives Esposito and Ryan, this is Albert Goldman, the owner."

"Good morning, sir," Ryan said politely. "Can you-"

The florist cut him off. "Would you tell your goons to get out of my back room already? That's where I breed my prize orchids. They're very delicate. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to create the perfect hybrid?"

"Okay, sir. Don't worry about it." Ryan nodded to Aragon. "Officer, if you don't mind, let's clear that area."

"Yes, sir," Aragon agreed, and gratefully escaped, flashing a quick smile at Javier on her way. Ryan caught it and smirked at his partner, who glared him into submission.

"Sir," Esposito said, drawing the florist's attention onto himself, "what can you tell us about the victim?"

"Lisa?" The older man huffed, glancing at the body on the floor and then quickly away. "Terrible, just terrible. Lisa? I can't believe it." He wrung his hands anxiously.

"Tell us about her," Esposito prompted again, and the little man blinked and nodded apologetically.

"Right, yes, of course. Good worker, never late. Decent eye for arrangements. No trouble. These NYU students are a dime a dozen, but sometimes you do get a good one."

"She was a student?" Ryan repeated, making a note. "So she worked here part-time?"

"Yes, that's right. I only hire part-timers. Cheaper," the florist nodded, glancing twitchily back toward the side door that led to his orchid-breeding room. "Are they all out of there yet?"

"We're taking care of that, sir," Esposito said firmly. "What time did you leave the store last night?"

"Five-thirty maybe?" Albert replied, frowning in thought. "Yes, that's about right. We close at six, but Lisa was in charge of closing up. She was a good worker. Some of those other clowns, I wouldn't trust them with my lunch, let alone my keys."

"So you left at five-thirty, and she was here, and all was well," Ryan summarized. "Then you come to open up this morning and find her like this?"

"Exactly. Exactly." The little man nodded rapidly, flinching when his eyes drifted back toward the body of his late employee.

"Okay," Esposito said. "What else can you tell us about Lisa? Did she have a boyfriend, or any enemies?"

"How would I know?" Albert snorted. "I don't meddle in my employees' personal business. Long as they show up and do the work, don't make any trouble, that's all I need. I'm not looking to make friends with these kids."

"Right. Of course," Ryan agreed. "Sir, we're almost done here, but we're going to need a list of all your employees, with their contact information."

"Yes, yes. Of course, yes," the older man muttered, bustling off toward a filing cabinet along the side wall. The detectives approached the body to take a look.

"Looks like a .38," Esposito commented to his partner, observing the wounds on Lisa's torso. "Two shots, just like the other one."

"Yep," Ryan agreed. "Hey, Perlmutter, we're looking at a time of death around six, six-thirty last night. That sound about right to you?"

"Are you trying to do my job for me, Detective?" the M.E. complained, scowling over the corpse. "I don't tell you how to interrogate a witness, do I?"

"Just answer the damn question," Esposito grumbled.

Perlmutter glared thunderously at him, but grudgingly admitted, "That would fit the time frame that I'm postulating, yes. But I refuse to commit until I get her on the slab."

"Okay. Keep us posted," Ryan said, nudging Esposito away.

"Did you touch my orchids? You better not have touched 'em," came the owner's querulous voice as the last uniformed officer exited the side room, closing the door carefully behind him. Ryan caught the officer's eye and they shared a tiny eye-roll of commiseration before he turned away to rejoin his partner.

In the front doorway, the detectives paused to regroup.

"Looks pretty similar," Esposito commented. "Both shot twice with a .38, around the same time period. Killer came in the back door, both front doors were locked. Both victims were alone, closing up."

"Yeah," Ryan agreed. "The shops are close enough together, our guy could have easily killed one of them and then walked or driven over to the other within the time frame." He frowned. "But other than working at florists, our two victims don't seem to have anything obvious in common."

"Let's check with NYU," Esposito suggested. "Maybe they can give us more info on Lisa."

At the precinct, Castle sat on the edge of Esposito's desk, watching with a small smile as his wife set up the double murder board. He knew that although Kate loved being the Captain of the 12th, and was happy to be pregnant, she sometimes missed field work - the rush of picking apart the details of a murder, getting to the answers at the heart of it. Getting justice for the victims and their families. And with this double case, he could see that she sensed an opportunity to get more involved than usual.

"That's all we've got so far," she said, straightening up with a slight grunt of effort, surveying the so far sparsely populated murder board. "Ryan and Esposito are at the second victim's dorm, talking to her roommate."

"Two different flower-shop employees killed at almost the same time, with the same gun," Castle mused. "There's a government conspiracy theory in here somewhere, I just know it."

"Well, if anyone can find it, it's you," Beckett replied with a smirk. "But we don't know for sure yet that it was the same gun."

"Oh, it was," he nodded confidently. "It has to be. It's just a better story that way."

"Captain?"

They both turned to see a pair of uniforms standing at the side of the bullpen, supporting another man between them.

"You sent us to Marian Jefferson's apartment to look for clues," one of them said. "We found one."

"Her son," the other officer added. "Found him passed out on the couch."