Zinke's Reading Room

Title: A Killer Hypothesis (1/4)
Author: Zinke
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Ensemble cast. Extremely mild undertones of Castle/Beckett UST.
Spoilers: None, though this piece is set to take place somewhere in the zone of seasons 2 or 3.
Disclaimer: Castle and its characters are sadly not of my own creation. Anything and everyone else in this story belongs to me.

Author’s Notes: Several months ago, reema_patel won safeword_apples’s Mini-Hiatus Pop Quiz contest, the spoils of which was a 500 word fic from me based on a prompt of her choosing. The prompt she gave me was: pillow fight, which it turns out was a pretty awesome prompt because my little 500 word vignette has since turned into a full-on case file. Oops? In any case, I thank her for her patience; this story has been far too long in coming.

Research information cited in this story is taken from the National Alzheimer’s Association Research Center and Science Daily.

Thanks goes as always to my own personal adverb protection officer gabolange and to girlunravelled who helped nurse me through the daunting plot-writing process.


* * * *

The great tragedy of science: the slaying of a beautiful truth by an ugly fact.
-Thomas Huxley

* * * *

“Claudia?”

Dressed in running shorts and a tight-fitting lettered jersey, the young brunette sweeps the hair from her eyes as she reaches the top of the stairs and peers down the hallway. “Clau-d-ia!” she sing songs in between swigs from the super-sized travel mug in her hand. “Where are you?”

Bobbing her head in time to the heavy, thumping base of Lady Gaga’s ‘Edge of Glory’, she makes her way past the row of identical looking doors, singing along under her breath as she goes. Stumbling to a stop, she leans against the jamb and knocks impatiently on the heavy oak door.

“Claudia, come on! Dana’s already dealt the next hand. Everyone’s waiting.”

She waits a few seconds before trying the knob. It turns easily in her hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, she steps inside.

And screams.

* * * *

“Tell me Esposito wasn’t lying.”

Beckett looks up from the body to find Castle practically tripping over himself in his haste to duck under the yellow tape marking the perimeter of the crime scene. She watches his eyes dance from Javier, who is interviewing a young woman wearing a Greek-lettered jersey and little else, to the body lying on the dorm room floor in a drift of grey feathers, a ripped pillowcase still wound tight around her throat.

“Castle, would you at least try not to look so excited? This is a crime scene.”

“Death by pillow fight? C’mon!” Castle exclaims. “Tell me you’re not titillated.”

Beckett shoots him an exasperated look. “Aren’t you getting a little old for these co-ed fantasies of yours?”

Castle eyes her as if she’s spontaneously grown a second head. “No.”

“Sorry to disappoint you Castle,” Lanie interrupts, “but it wasn’t that kind of pillow fight.” She points to wounds on the girl’s arms as both Beckett and Castle crouch down to get a closer look. “She tried to fight him off. If I had to guess, the killer grabbed the pillowcase from the pile of laundry at the foot of the bed.”

“Which means this wasn’t a premeditated attack. Our killer was forced to get creative.” Beckett rises as Ryan comes up beside her. “Anything?”

Ryan shakes his head. “Apparently the music was on pretty loud downstairs. The last time anyone remembers seeing our vic was around eleven o’clock.”

“Who found her?”

Ryan nods toward the shaken looking brunette being interviewed by Esposito. “Mandy Sheppard. Vice President of the Zeta Beta chapter of Gamma Alpha Lambda. She came looking for her when she didn’t show up for the next round of Five Card Yak.”

“And our victim was…?”

“Claudia Santos. Chapter President.”

“Ahhh,” Castle breathes as he straightens from his crouch. “Locked in a desperate struggle for power, a jealous Mandy Shepherd decides to forgo democratic process and take matters into her own hands.”

“This isn’t a David Baldacci novel, Castle.”

“It’s a sorority. I promise you, these girls could put even the filthiest of political mudslingers to shame.”

“Waging a smear campaign is one thing. But are you honestly telling me you think that she,” Beckett says, waving a hand in Mandy’s direction, “is capable of strangling a person to death?”

Together they watch as the girl in question lets out an ear-piercing sob and collapses against a bewildered looking Esposito. He awkwardly puts an arm around her shoulder and shoots a pleading look in their direction.

“It’s a theory,” Castle concedes with a shrug.

“Not a very good one,” Lanie chimes in as she stands and pulls off her gloves and gives the techs the go-ahead to prepare the body for transport. “Whoever did this to her was strong. So unless one of these girls happens to play defensive end for the football team…”

Beckett nods. “Thanks, Lanie.”

“I’ll give you a call as soon as I know more,” she says to Beckett before turning to follow the gurney out of the room.

“So…probably not one of her sorority sisters,” Castle says, sounding disappointed.

Beckett frowns. “Probably not.”

“We’re still working our way through the witness interviews,” Ryan says as Castle wanders off to make a slow circuit of the tiny room.”Maybe one of the other girls will have heard or seen something.”

Castle stops to consider the array of snapshots taped to the full length mirror on the closet door. “What were they all doing here, anyway?”

Ryan gives Castle a strange look. “They live here.”

“What I mean is, it’s after midnight on a Saturday. Shouldn’t these girls be out getting down or hooking up or whatever it is college kids do these days?”

Esposito casts a glance back at the still-teary girl being led from the room. “According to Miss Shepherd the Gammas were holding an overnight members only lock-in. No one in or out after nine o’clock.”

Castle’s expression brightens. “Which means it was one of the sorority sisters—“

“—Or,” Beckett interrupts, “the Gammas had an uninvited guest earlier tonight.”

Ryan has no trouble interpreting the meaningful look Beckett sends towards the room’s open window. “I’ll see if we can get security camera footage from University Police.”

“I’ll take a few uniforms, have a look outside,” Esposito adds before turning to follow his partner out of the room.

“Thanks, guys.” Kate watches them go before turning to look for Castle. She finds him standing on the far side of the room, perusing a collection of liquor bottles on top of the room’s mini fridge. “Castle? You find something?”

Shaking his head, he picks up a half-empty bottle of Stolichnaya and sighs wistfully. “Just remembering what it would be like to be young again and indulging my many vices on my mother’s dime.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Wouldn’t you want to go back?” Castle looks over the photos in the room, all filled with smiling faces at football games or crowded parties, laughing over red Solo cups. “Do all this again?” Castle realizes just what he’s asked her a moment too late. “Of course you wouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Its okay, Castle,” she assures him as together they head out the door and down the hallway to the stairs. “Believe it or not, I have a lot of good memories from college.”

“Really?”

“Really. And before you ask; none of them even remotely resemble a scene out of ‘Porky’s’.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.”

“Okay, yes, I was. But you can’t honestly tell me that all you did in college was attend classes and go to the library.”

Beckett gives him a coy smile. “You’d be surprised how much fun you can have in the rear stacks of Bobst Library.”

Castle stops short on the landing, his jaw hanging slightly as a smirking Beckett continues down the stairs without him.

* * * *

“So, what do we know?”

Beckett accepts the steaming mug of coffee Castle offers her without taking her eyes from the murder board. “Aside from the fact that Claudia Santos was a model student? Not much.”

Sitting next to Beckett on the edge of the desk, he studies the various pictures and notations laid out before them. “Pre-med, 3.8 GPA. Rhodes Scholar finalist. Research assistant in the University’s bio lab, academic tutor, member of the intramural volleyball team, co-chair of the school’s volunteer services committee. Was there any campus activity Claudia wasn’t involved in?”

Kate acknowledges the point with a nod. “Her achievements certainly put jealousy into play as a possible motive.”

“I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”

“But,” Beckett says, raising her mug to her lips in an effort to hide her amusement, “I’m going to keep an open mind until we know more. And so should you.”

“Don’t I always?”

Beckett shoots him a disbelieving look just as Ryan calls out, “Hey Beckett, you need to take a look at this.”

“The security camera footage?” she asks as she pushes to her feet and crosses the bullpen to his desk.

Ryan nods. “We got a hit on one of the cameras facing the west side of the building at around ten-thirty.”

“Oooh. A party crasher,” Castle breathes as he peers over Beckett’s shoulder at the grainy video playing on the computer screen. “Is he climbing the side of the building?”

Ryan nods as the person in question hoists himself up and through an open second-story window.

“That? Is not an easy thing to do.” Castle adopts an affectedly innocent look. “Not that I have any experience at all with that sort of thing.”

“Were you able to get an ID?” Beckett asks Ryan.

“University police are working on it now. If we’re lucky, they’ll be able to match our guy to someone in the school’s student database.”

“Not someone,” Esposito calls out as he rounds the corner and hands Beckett a folder. “Daniel McCall.”

“McCall…” Castle’s eyes widen in recognition. “Three-time all-conference MVP, winner of the Biletnikoff Award, Danny ‘Sticky Fingers’ McCall?”

Esposito nods. “That’s the one.”

Castle whistles softly. “Lou Holtz has him picked to go top ten in next year’s draft.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like Mr. McCall’s scholastic record isn’t quite so impressive. He’s on academic probation. One more misstep and he’ll be benched for the rest of the season.” Beckett turns to the next page in his file. As she reads, her lips curl into a cat-who-got-the-canary grin. “And guess who his biology tutor is?”

“Failing class and enraged at the thought of losing millions of dollars in lucrative aftershave endorsement contracts, Danny McCall takes his anger out on the one person who was supposed to save him from his own stupidity.” Castle pauses and takes in the others’ expressions. “Too much?”

Beckett shakes her head. “Let’s bring him in.”



*end part one*

*to part two*