CASTLE

Flowers For Your Grave - Chapter 11

They were back at the 12th precinct. 

Kyle Cabot was still rocking back and forth in his chair in the interrogation room. His skin was pale. He was sickly thin and his eyes were bloodshot. Kate wondered how such a man was capable of such demanding murders. Through the one-way mirror Castle and the Captain watched Beckett try to crack him.

She got up and joined them in the room behind it. "He's still not speaking." she sighed. "State medical records indicate he's got pervasive developmental disorder."

"Well that explains his fixation with me." said Castle. "PDD sometimes manifests in an obsession with a single subject."

"Yeah. Well, your super fan also has a history of delusions." she said. "Guess who his case-worker was?"

"Allison Tisdale!" came Rick's enthusiastic reply. "Yeah." she said. It was supposed to be rhetoric. Was he always this childish?

"Her files indicate that he was on pretty heavy anti-psychotics." she said looking at her notes.

Captain spoke finally. "Limited intelligence. Thinks he has a personal relationship with his hero. Looks like your profile was right, Detective Beckett." 

"So... what, tha--That's it?", said Richard as Kate turned around to check some files. 

"What more do you want? Evidence is in his apartment. We can connect him with the three victims. Two from the diner where he worked and Tisdale was his social worker. ", said Captain Montgomery. "Call the D.A. Get him a legal aid." he said to Beckett as he left the room.

"Alright.", said Beckett.

"Tha..That's too easy! The reader would never buy it!" 

Kate looked at him and thought that he really was stuck in his own world. She knew he expected a grand dramatic reveal, with an amazing motive but that's not what usually happened. 

"This isn't one of your books, Castle. Out here, we find a guy standing over a body with a gun, he's usually the guy who did it.", she gave him a small smile as she left the room.

Beckett was back at her desk, sleeves folded, hair disheveled, surrounded by heaps of paperwork. Being a homicide detective was not just catching killers, case solved. It was late at night but there were a lot of legal procedures to be followed which she didn't particularly like, but she couldn't help it. It was just another occupational hazard.

"You know, this kid was in and out of the system for years.", she said to detectives Ryan and Esposito as they took off pictures and case evidence from what they called the "Murder board", putting it into a box to archive. 

"Doesn't seem like he ever got the proper treatment. Until..Allison Tisdale took over his case file. She's the one who got him a job at the diner and her notes seem to say he's doing okay."

"Well, you can let the D.A. worry about all that now. Our job is done.", said Espo.

 She didn't feel right about this. Here was a guy starting to move towards the right track, trying to salvage his life. Why would he ruin it by murdering someone who helped him so much? And he was on heavy anti-psychotics. So how could they dismiss this as a psycho-serial killer killing random people he knew from the diner? All the evidence pointed towards him, yes. But there was more to this and she was going to find out.  

"Hey, um, can you leave the box? I'll take care of it tomorrow.", she said as Ryan picked up the box to drop off at archives. She wanted to go over the entire case again. She turned again to her paperwork as she saw her fellow detectives leave for the night. Her night had just begun and so had someone else's.