Zinke's Reading Room

Title: A Killer Hypothesis (4/4)
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.

Previous installments can be found here: Part One; Part Two; Part Three


* * * *

Together Castle and Beckett step into the interrogation room, where their suspect is already waiting for them. He looks up as they enter and is almost immediately wracked with a fit of coughing that lasts well after they’ve both taken their seats.

“That’s quite a nasty cold,” Castle comments as their suspect dabs at his mouth with a handkerchief.

“Except it isn’t a cold, is it, Dr. Tripp?” Beckett asserts. “It’s something far more serious than that.”

Tripp holds Beckett’s gaze for a moment, then reaches across the table to show her the blood-stained cloth in his hand. “Stage four lung cancer, with metastases to the pelvic bone and lymph nodes. My prognosis is less than six months.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“So was I,” Tripp says with a self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve seen so many advances in medicine during my lifetime; you’d think we’d have been able to come up with something—” he stops short, swallowing hard. “The oncologist wanted to start me on chemotherapy and radiation treatments to slow the tumor’s progression. But I know better than most what that kind of thing does to a body: the constant sickness, the fatigue. By forgoing treatment, I assumed I would feel well enough to be able to keep working and complete my research before nature took its course.”

“One last, shining moment of achievement before the end,” Castle says. “Except your research wasn’t going anywhere, was it? Not without help.”

Tripp doesn’t bother to pretend that he doesn’t know what Castle is talking about. “I never married, have no children; this discovery was to have been my only legacy, something that would live on long after I was gone, like Salk’s vaccine or Rotengen’s X-ray. When I saw the preliminary analyses and realized what was happening…it was only a week or so after my diagnosis. I know that’s no excuse but under the circumstances, I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You lost your life and your life’s work, all in the span of a few days.”

Tripp nods. “It was too much. So I took advantage of Simon’s carelessness and used his workstation to alter the data. I simply assumed that, by the time the scientific community had done its due diligence and realized what I’d done, it wouldn’t matter anymore.”

“I think people like Claudia and her grandmother would beg to differ.”

Tripp’s lips curl into a faint, melancholy smile. “That’s precisely what she said to me.”

“Right before you killed her.”

Tripp’s pallor takes on a sickly hue at the steel in Beckett’s tone. “I am not a violent person, Detective Beckett.”

“The evidence says otherwise, professor.”

Swallowing thickly, Tripp stares down at his tightly folded hands in his lap. When he looks up a few seconds later, his eyes are over bright with tears. “As soon as I realized that she’d discovered what I’d done, I went to the sorority house to talk to her. I wanted to explain why I’d done it, and try convince her not to report what she’d found. That was all.”

“Except Claudia wouldn’t listen.”

“She said it wasn’t right, to give people false hope, that I’d become blinded by my own ego and lost sight of the true purpose of our research. She insisted on going to the IRB first thing Monday morning to report what she’d found. Nothing I said could change her mind. The next thing I knew,” Tripp concludes, his voice cracking with emotion, “there was a pillowcase in my hands and it was wound around Claudia’s throat.” Tripp pauses to focus his mournful gaze on her. “As I said: I’m not a violent man. But I’d say the facts more than support the hypothesis, wouldn’t you?”

* * * *

From the break room window, Castle watches as a pair of uniforms escort a handcuffed Dr. Tripp from the interrogation room. “I really hate it when the good guy turns out to be the bad guy.”

“Desperation can make even a person with the best of intentions do some pretty awful things.” Beckett reaches for the coffee carafe and fills first her mug, then Castle’s. “Besides, I wouldn’t exactly call a man who puts his own ego ahead of his ethical responsibility a ‘good’ person.”

“He spent his entire life working to find a cure for a terrible disease. Doesn’t he deserve at least some credit for that?”

Beckett follows the two sugars she’s added to his coffee with a splash of cream before handing it to him. “Maybe; but my job isn’t to determine whether a person is inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Like it or not, Jeremy Tripp killed someone. And in the eye of the law, that’s ultimately what matters.”

“You know,” Castle says as they make their way across the bullpen to Beckett’s desk, “this whole case has got me thinking.”

Beckett shoots him a warning look as she takes her seat.

“My thoughts have absolutely nothing to do with pillow fights or half-naked co-eds, I swear.”

“Then by all means, continue.”

“Cogito ergo sum.”

Beckett’s brow furrows. “I think, therefore I am?”

Castle nods. “Except Descartes got it wrong. What he should have said was ‘I remember, therefore I am’.”

“Correcting the Father of Modern Philosophy? Seems a bit lofty even for you.”

“What else are we but the sum of our experiences?”

She frowns, a momentary shadow darkening her features. “I like to think it’s what we learn from them that make the difference.”

“Would you want to forget?” Castle asks after a beat. “If you had the choice?”

Beckett shakes her head. “For better or for worse, my mother’s murder is one of the reasons I am who I am. Lose that, and I lose myself.”

“Can’t have that,” he murmurs, giving her a soft smile.

Beckett holds his gaze for a moment before busying herself with a stack of files on her desk. “So, any other tenets of philosophy you’d like to rewrite?”

Castle makes a show of thinking it over. “Nope. I’m good. Drink?” he asks, hitching a thumb in the direction of the elevator as he rises to his feet.

“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”

“As good a time as any to make a new memory, wouldn’t you say?”

Beckett glances at the papers and files spread across her desk. “Old Haunt?”

“Where else?”

“Okay, Castle.” She stands and reaches for her jacket. “Let’s play hookey.”

“I love it when you talk dirty,” he says as he trots across the bullpen after her.



*fin.*