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At the beginning it looks like a normal, standard case. Well, as normal and standard as their cases were. Especially since Castle had arrived Kevin had the feeling that their cases had gotten stranger.
Victor Fink, 43, gallery owner. Shot in the back, probably after a fight. Everything normal so far. The weird thing? 4 bullets were present, 2 in the victim and 2 in the wall. But there were 5 shell casings on the ground.
Castle was immediately hooked. Kevin totally saw him coming up with mysterious theories, while he and Esposito where checking the real possibilities, like did it get shot through the window and landed outside. Sometimes Kevin wondered if Castle like being with the police because he never got to do and also very often see the boring and sad sides to it.
Back at the precinct, when they had called the wife and called CSU to see if there was anything new at the crime scene they brought Beckett, and Castle who, like always, was right next to her, up to date.
“Yo. Uniforms are still canvassing, but so far they still haven't found any blood trails outside the gallery.” Esposito started.
“And CSU's re-swept the scene twice. No sign of our fifth bullet.” He sometimes thought it was kind of cute how he and Esposito seemed to share a mind.
“I'm telling you. Ice bullet.” And there was the crazy write theory. Kevin was actually glade he didn’t live in one of Castle’s books. He was pretty certain that his job would be a hell lot more difficult. Having to come up with those crazy theories. He’d rather stick with real life and real life, easy to explain possibilities. Still, Castle brought a little fun to their work.
“Nah, bro. An ice bullet would still make a bullet hole.” Easily playing off Castle.
“You mean, ice hole.” Easily playing off his partner.
“What did you just call me?”
“Guys. What else?” Beckett brought them back to the case.
“We checked Fink's cell phone records. He got a call at 9:19 p.m., an hour before he was killed, from a blocked cell phone number.” Those were the things Kevin was thinking of, when he wished Castle would get to see some of the real life police work.
“Phone records indicate that the call originated here in New York, but it was an international cell, satellite phone, registered to Bahrain Cellular.”
“Well, good luck getting a warrant from the government of Bahrain.” Castle, always trying to make a joke out of everything.
“Run down Fink's client and artist list. See if any of them had international numbers and watch your mouth.”
Kevin looked at his partner. Indicating his question and confusion why she just pointed at him, did she just point at him?
“I'm gonna go 10-1.” Esposito says and Kevin gets ready to follow him when Marino called out to him.
“Hey, Ryan. Got a sec?” He was standing in front of the elevator with a guy next to him.
“Witness?” Kevin asked.
“Not exactly. Hang here, buddy, okay?” He walked towards him.
“Of course.” the guy said and looked around nervously.
“I found him on the canvass, by the art gallery. I mean, the guy's got no wallet, no ID.”
Strange, but not unusual. “Okay, did you ask him his name?”
“Yeah, I asked him his name, I asked him where he lived. You know, but here's the funny part. The guy says he don't remember.”
Well, now that was something. He looked again, this time a little closer at the guy. He looked cute, kinda like a lost puppy. Like a rather hot lost puppy ‘Okay, keep your thoughts on the task.’ Kevin told himself.
While Castle and Beckett talked with the wife, he took the no-name guy into an empty conference room and grabbed an inventory list.
“So, you don’t remember anything? Like nothing?” he asked.
The guy shook his head.
“Did you know you where at the art gallery when you were picked up?”
“Only after the officer told me.” the guy actually looked sorry.
“Well, let’s empty out your pockets. Let’s see if we can find something.” He wasn’t really too excited about having the amnesia guy thrown into his hands, but since the guy wasn’t that hard on the eye, it wasn’t too bad. And he was hanging out around the art gallery, so he might actually be important to the case.
“I'm sure you have better things to do. I'm sure I do, too.” Kevin shrugged his shoulders. The first thing the guy pulled out of his jacket was an inhaler.
“An inhaler. You're asthmatic.” Better than nothing.
“Awesome.”
After a second of thoughts, Ryan handed the inhaler back. “You should probably hang onto that.” Didn’t want the guy to die on him.
“Inhaler, grocery bag, keys.” the guy mumbled to himself, like he was trying to recall for himself what all those things were for and what they meant to him.
“Are you telling me you don't remember, at all, what any of that's for?” Kevin tried again as he went around the table to document his findings.
“Yeah. How ridiculous is that?” Castle chose that moment to walk into the room.
“Hey. Hey. So, has he, uh, really got amnesia?” he semi whispered to Kevin.
“Yeah. But apparently my hearing's fine.”
‘Nice comeback.’ Kevin thought and smiled to himself.
“Well, that's good. Richard Castle.” he shook the guys hand. Kevin almost hopped the guy would slip or out of instinct remember to introduce himself if that was possible.
“Hi... I'd introduce myself, too, but...” So that didn’t work.
“Yeah, we're just going through his pockets trying to find something that could tell us who he is.” Kevin explained to Castle.
“Oh, and apparently I've been reading, as well.” the guy says as he pulls a book out of his coat pocket. He hands it to Castle.
“Ah, Crime and Punishment . Dostoyevsky. Classic. You have excellent taste.” Kevin smiles to himself. He has met and dated book nerds before, but caring Dostoyevsky around in your coat pocket was something he had never seen.
“Castle.” He suddenly noticed something strange at the back of the book. He reaches for the book and turns it around. There’s definitely a bullet in there. He shows it to his audience.
“9 millimeter.” he says after opening the paperback. “I think we just found our fifth bullet.”
The amnesia guy looks shocked, Castle looks like a kid at the candy store.
The next day, after paperwork, finding Rocco, phone calls, coffee, and a little bit of sleep, Kevin actually found a psychiatrist, Holloway, who apparently is an expert on the field of amnesia and works at the Saint Vincent’s hospital. He agrees to come in first thing in the morning.
Beckett talks with Esposito at her desk while a psychiatrist talks with the anonymous in the conference room.
“His fingerprints aren't in the system, and we don't have any hits on Missing Persons.” Beckett informs Esposito.
“This is crazy. We actually find a witness to our murder, and we don't know who he is and he doesn't remember what he saw.“
“Where are we on Rocco?”
“Fink's old assistant? Uniforms are bringing him in now.”
“Ballistics confirms that the bullets came from the same gun as the others. Whatever happened in the gallery, he was there.” None of them had needed ballistics to be certain of that, but unlike in Castle’s books, they had to go the official way.
“Not only was he there, but someone tried to kill him, as well. Good thing he reads.”
“Good thing he reads Russian literature. If the guy was a Nicholas Sparks fan, he'd be dead.” Kevin adds in his usual sense of humour.
“Have CSU check the coat for gunpowder residue, blood, fibers. Maybe it can tell us what happened that night. And check photo IDs on Fink's artists and clients.” Like Kevin hadn’t already thought of that. Well, expect for the last part.
“Think he might be one of them?”
“A girl can dream.” Beckett says and she gets up and leaves, but instead runs into Castle who spills coffee, which was probably meant for her all over Beckett’s white blouse.
“I brought you coffee.” he adds unnecessarily.
“Thank you, Castle.” Beckett answers pissed and marches off to the bathroom.
Javier and Kevin chuckle. “Nice move, bro.” Esposito adds.
They leave him with Beckett to talk with amnesia guy and the psychiatrist. Javier is doing the interrogation on Rocco. Kevin decides to watch. As good as Beckett is at interrogating suspects, Kevin really likes to watch his partner who also is pretty awesome at manipulating suspects. He is also much more Kevin’s type than Beckett, which always adds to the enjoyment in his eyes. In a matter of minutes he has Rocco confessing to forgery and who they were selling to.
“Bahir Harun. He's an attaché at the Bahrain Consulate.” Javier informed Kate, while Kevin was on the phone with the psychatrist.
„Bahrain? So, he's the one who talked to Fink an hour before he was murdered. Maybe he figured out Fink was selling fakes and decided to get even.”
“Doesn't matter. The guy has full diplomatic immunity.” Which sucked, big times.
“Great.” Beckett said.
“So, I checked all the photo IDs off all of Fink's clients and artists. Our friend J isn't one of them.” Castle had informed them that through procedural memory, which was apparently muscle memory, he had gotten J to sign a piece of paper, but all they could read was J. So that’s what they were calling him now.
“Then what was he doing at the gallery?” Javier asked.
“Holloway called from the hospital. Aside from a minor head bump, J's got a clean bill of health. Well, other than the memory loss.”
“You know, why don't you guys grab J, take him down to the crime scene. See if that sparks his memory. And get a hold of Fink's assistant Darius. Tell him to meet you down there, with every file he has on Bahir Harun.” Beckett suggested.
They pick J up from the hospital and drive back to the gallery where Darius is waiting for them. J has been given a new hoddie and Kevin can’t help but noticed how nicely the blue fitted him and how it brought out his eyes.
J and Ryan walk around the gallery a bit, mostly around the crime scene.
“And you're sure I was here?” Again that lost puppy look in his eyes.
“Take your time. No pressure.” Kevin tries to sound reassuring.
“Isn't this supposed to be where I get a headache and flashes of memory start overwhelming me until all the pieces come together?”
J sounds slightly like a geek, not that he could remember if he was one. Ryan thought it was nice turn on, followed by the thought of how desperately he needed to get laid. “Okay, you've seen too many movies.”
“Yeah, that I can't remember.”
“Wow. That's very chicken-egg.”
“Welcome to my world.” It’s probably supposed to sound funny, be funny, but in this situation, J just sounds serious.
Javier is talking with Darius in the background. “None of the paintings or sculptures that look familiar?”
“No, none.” He walks back and forth. “The blood on the wall is pretty creepy.”
Kevin almost doesn’t notice it anymore, so he just shrugs his shoulders.
“I guess it’s something that you get used to in your line of work.”
“Yeah, probably.” Kevin answers.
“That’s kinda sad.”
“I know.” Kevin smiles at him. For a moment, he actually has the feeling that J blushes. If he could, he right now would like to slap himself. J was just a guy, a good looking hot guy, but nothing to lose himself like that. Especially because he could still turn out to be the killer and especially because he was very probably married or something.