C40: Clues pt2
[12th Precinct] [4 PM]
After getting all the evidence and details from their investigation, they pinned up the important notes on the whiteboard. Ryan got the blue box, but it was empty. So, another dead end. Now, all they can do is search through the files, wait for Lanie's result, and talk to Adrian.
Kate called Keller after she found out he lied about not knowing the victims. Travis tried to contact Adrian, but his phone was off. He then called Adrian's house, but no one answered. Travis sent two police officers to check on him, and they discovered an arson incident. Someone had burned down Adrian's house, and he is missing.
They put an APB for Adrian.
Their best chance now is to find the location from the negative. They need to look through all the files they found in storage, check the security cameras, and hope that Lanie will have some good news.
..
[4:30 PM]
[Interrogation Room]
Keller sat in Interrogation Room Two with his jacket still on and his hands folded tightly over the metal table. The expensive watch on his wrist caught the ceiling light every time his fingers twitched, though the calm mask he had worn at the construction site looked thinner now. He kept glancing toward the mirror like he could feel Castle and Ryan watching him from the other side.
Kate sat across from him with Father Keane's diary closed on the table between them. Travis stood near the corner for a few seconds, arms folded loosely, letting the silence stretch until Keller's jaw tightened with irritation.
"Detectives," Keller said, forcing a tired laugh while leaning back in his chair. "I already gave you my access list, my timeline, and my cooperation. I don't know what else you want from me."
"Yeah, the list was basically useless," Travis said.
Kate opened the diary and turned it toward him. "We want the truth this time."
Keller glanced down at the page, and for one second his expression cracked. It was small, barely more than a flicker around the eyes, yet Travis caught it from across the room.
Kate tapped the page once. "Father Keane wrote your name several times. He wrote about donations, sealed ground, buried records, and a family destroyed on your order. That makes your earlier answer about not knowing him a problem."
Keller looked away from the diary and gave her a sharp smile that did not reach his eyes. "Father Keane was troubled. You said it yourself, he kept journals. People write strange things when guilt eats them alive."
Travis pushed off the wall and walked slowly toward the table. "That's cute. You're already building the dead-man defense before we even ask the real questions."
Keller looked up at him. "I want my lawyer."
"You can have one," Travis replied without hesitation as he pulled out the chair beside Kate and sat down. "You can lawyer up right now, sit there in silence, and let your expensive legal team build a wall around you. That is your right, and honestly, with what Keane wrote in that diary, you're going to need every lawyer money can buy."
Keller's eyes narrowed, though he did not speak immediately.
Travis leaned forward slightly, his voice staying calm enough to sound almost friendly. "Here's the problem, Keller. Lawyers protect you from us. They don't protect you from the person cutting heads off and leaving them like trophies on your construction site."
Kate watched Keller's hands. His thumbs rubbed together again, the same stress tell from the scene.
Travis continued before Keller could gather himself. "You saw what this killer can do. Four people taken, killed, preserved, staged, and displayed without leaving enough mess for us to close the net yet. Whoever this is, they are patient, organized, and completely committed to finishing whatever list they've built inside their head."
Keller swallowed, then covered it with a scoff. "You're trying to scare me."
"No," Travis said, holding his gaze. "I'm telling you that you should already be scared."
Kate slid the photograph from Keane's room across the table. Keller's eyes dropped to it before he could stop himself. Father Keane stood beside Adrian March in the photo, and Keller's face tightened the moment he recognized the young man.
Kate caught that too. "You know Adrian March."
Keller shook his head too quickly. "No."
"You looked at that photo like you did," Kate said, her tone sharpening. "Earlier, you told us you didn't know the victims either, but you lied to us. Evelyn March's son knew Father Keane, Father Keane knew you, and Evelyn changed a file that ruined someone's life, which aligns with what Father Keane wrote in his diary. He did it while working for you. So, you all knew each other very well, didn't you? At this point, you can't expect us to believe that chain just magically formed around your construction site."
Keller leaned forward, anger rising now because fear had nowhere else to go. "I build property in this city. My name is on hundreds of donation plaques, contracts, permit forms, and charity boards. You can connect me to half of Manhattan if you stare hard enough."
Travis nodded slowly. "And yet the killer chose your site."
Keller looked toward him again.
Travis tapped the table lightly with two fingers. "That means one of two things. Either the killer is using you, or the killer is coming for you. Considering Gabriel Rusk had a code name for someone called the Architect, I'm leaning toward option two."
Keller tried to laugh, but it came out thin. "The Architect. That sounds like something your novelist friend made up."
"Maybe," Travis replied. "Or maybe it's what Gabriel called the man who designed the erasure. Miriam broke the mind, Evelyn changed the memory, Keane carried the confession, Gabriel became the witness, and you buried the result under concrete."
Keller's mouth opened, then closed again.
Kate leaned forward now, pressing the advantage. "What happened to that family, Keller?"
He stared at her. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do," she said. "Keane wrote that the family was erased from paper first and the ground was sealed afterward."
Keller's breathing changed.
Travis saw it immediately. The rich developer mask was still there, but cracks had spread through every polished piece of him.
Travis lowered his voice. "You still want your lawyer, take him. Walk out of here with a suit beside you and bodyguards behind you. Then ask yourself what happens next."
Keller's eyes flicked toward the mirror again.
Travis followed the look and smiled without warmth. "You think protection solves this? You had guards at your site, and the killer still used it like a stage. He is a psychopath. I'd be surprised if you make it out alive tonight."
Kate did not interrupt. She let Travis keep pushing because Keller's face had gone paler with every word.
"For all we know," Travis continued, "the killer is outside right now, waiting for you to leave this building. Maybe you step onto the sidewalk and pop, a sniper puts you down before your driver even reaches the door. Maybe you get into your car and boom, the whole thing turns into smoke and screaming before you make it three blocks."
Keller's fingers tightened hard against each other.
Travis leaned closer, his voice dropping further. "Maybe your guards search every corner and still miss the one person who already knows your schedule better than you do. That kind of killer doesn't need a fair fight. He just needs one opening."
Keller stared at him, and the confidence finally started to drain from his face.
Kate turned another page in the diary and pushed it closer. "Once we start digging through the evidence, your lawyers won't be able to bury this. Maybe they delay charges, attack witnesses, maybe they call it old accusations from damaged people. It won't matter once the evidence lines up."
Travis sat back slightly, letting Keller breathe just enough to understand the choice in front of him. "So here's where you are. You can confess, help us find the killer, and face charges with something useful on your side. Or you can walk out of here pretending you're still untouchable and wait for a psychopath to put you down like another loose end."
Keller's throat moved as he swallowed.
In the observation room, Castle stood very still beside Ryan, his notebook forgotten in one hand.
"Damn," Ryan muttered quietly. "That was not even good cop, bad cop anymore."
Castle nodded slowly. "That was bad cop, worse future."
Before Keller could answer, Kate's phone rang inside her coat pocket.
The sound cut through the room sharply enough to break the pressure Travis had built around Keller. Kate held Keller's gaze for one more second before reaching into her coat and checking the screen.
"Lanie," she said, then answered. "Tell me you have something useful."
Travis watched Keller while Kate listened. Keller tried to look uninterested, but he looked really nervous and was sweating. Whatever was going through his head, fear had finally gotten a seat at the table.
'It's so fucking hard to believe a pansy-ass fucker like him does smuggling and all that shit. Something doesn't add up here. Is he just a pawn in someone's big game?' Travis thought.
Kate's expression shifted halfway through the call. "You're sure?" she asked, her tone flattening into something more serious. "Alright. We're on our way."
She ended the call and looked at Travis.
"Lanie found something."
Travis stood up immediately and pushed his chair back into place. He looked down at Keller, who was trying very hard to rebuild his rich-man confidence with very little material left.
"Take some time and think this through," Travis said, his voice calm again. "We'll be back soon enough."
Keller asked. "Am I under arrest?"
"No. But we'll hold you for the next 24 hours. Even if you call your lawyers, you gotta stay here," Travis said as he took the diary from the table.
The door shut behind Kate and Travis, leaving him alone with the silence, the camera, and whatever fear Travis had planted inside his head.
Castle stepped out of observation with Ryan right behind him, still holding his notebook like he had forgotten what it was for.
"That," Castle said, looking back toward the interrogation room door, "was the most terrifying motivational speech I've ever witnessed."
...
[Morgue]
The morgue was cold as usual.
Lanie stood beside one of the examination counters with a tablet in one hand and several reports spread out in front of her. Evidence bags sat neatly arranged beside a small tray of labeled samples. Her eyes lifted when Kate, Travis, and Castle walked in.
"You moved fast," Lanie said, though her attention lingered on Travis for half a second before she forced it back to the paperwork.
"You sounded like you found something big," Kate replied.
"I did," Lanie said, tapping the tablet screen. "The blood from Miriam Voss's storage unit came back. It doesn't belong to Miriam."
Travis stepped closer, eyes narrowing. "Whose blood is it?"
Lanie looked between them before answering. "Adrian March."
Castle blinked. "Evelyn March's son?"
"That's what the file says," Lanie replied, then picked up another report from the counter. "And it gets better. The fingerprints lifted from the storage unit also belong to Adrian. Partial prints on the edge of the metal table, one clean thumbprint on a file folder, and a smudged palm near the back wall."
Castle looked from Lanie to Travis, the excitement fading into unease. "So Adrian was inside Miriam's storage unit, there was a struggle, and his blood was left behind." He paused, letting the thought land properly. "If Adrian is our culprit, did he also kill his own mother?"
Travis did not answer right away. He looked at the reports, then back at the victim board in his head, putting pieces together in a shape he clearly did not like. "They might not be related."
Lanie pointed at him with the report like he had just stolen her reveal. "Exactly what Travis said."
Kate's face tightened. "You ran DNA."
"I did," Lanie said. "I had tissue from Evelyn and a blood sample from Adrian in the system now, so I ran a comparison after the storage unit hit came back." She placed the report on the counter between them. "Adrian March is not Evelyn March's biological son."
Silence settled across the morgue.
Castle's eyes widened slightly as the story reshaped itself in his head. "Adrian isn't the son. He's connected to the erased family."
Kate looked down at the DNA report, then back at Travis. "Evelyn changed a file and ruined a life."
"And maybe that file was Adrian's," Travis said. "Or whoever he used to be before someone rewrote the paperwork."
"My bet is on amnesia," Castle said after a bit of thinking.
"Really, amnesia?" Kate gave him that look.
"Could be," Travis said after giving it a little thought. "Maybe Adrian went through some traumatic experience which caused a temporary amnesia."
Castle took over and continued, "And now he remembered everything and confronted and learned everything from Father Keane. Then, out of rage, he went completely psychotic and started chopping off the heads of those who were related to his family's death. Displaying the heads like that was just to torture the main boss, mentally, and take his sleep away and put him through a hellish nightmare before..." He moved his head a bit. "...sending him off to the chopping block."
--
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