☽Season 1, Episode 5☽

Avery follows her very excited dad to greet the detectives, "Dad, this is a crime scene, you should not be this excited!" 

"Oh! Finally, you are here," Richard greets Beckett, waving his daughter off, "You are gonna love this."

They head into the construction site where Kevin is trying to get the workers to leave, "Okay, folks! Active crime scene! Please leave, we appreciate your cooperation."

"Awesome, right?" Richard asks as Beckett stares up at the frozen woman on top of some scaffolding, "My first cold case," Beckett glares at him before he shrugs, "Come on, it's kinda funny."

"Not so much funny as true," Lanie comments from her spot next to the body, "She's frozen solid."

"What was the temperature last night?"

"Mid-40s, no where close enough to freeze a turkey let alone a human body," Avery says, "Besides, the sites active. The guys said there was no way she was here last night."

Beckett steps up to get a closer look at the scene, "She's melting."

"Maybe we should be looking for ruby slippers," Richard jokes, causing Avery groan with annoyance.

"Yeah, while you're at it, why don't you look for some flying monkeys? Maybe they left her here," Beckett then turns to Lanie, "So what do you got for me?"

Lanie makes a note before gesturing to the body, "There are pieces of plastic on her body from the garment bag."

"So she was inside the bag."

"Other than that, it's gonna take a while for her to thaw. I can tell you she hasn't been here long. Maybe a couple of hours."

Beckett turns to the boys, "What about security?" 

Avery holds up one end of the chains, "Chainlink. Pair of bolt cutters took care of it. From the looks of it, he was hoping she'd disappear into the concrete pour."

Esposito nods, "Few more feet, and she would've."

Richard steps up to help Beckett step down, "It's kind of odd, taking the trouble to freeze a body and then dumping it? We got two personality types working here. A killer who freezes a body is a keeper-he wants a souvenir. But a guy who dumps a body?"

"Doesn't want to be reminded of the crime. All right, I'm gonna go check out the fence. Get a close up on her face. I wanna run her through missing persons."

Avery and the guys groan as Richard and Beckett walk away, "I hate going through missing persons."

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Each of the cops carry a stack of folders into the conference room, "By hand?" Richard asks, "That's like life before TiVo."

"Maybe you could download an app on that phone of yours. You could just-" Richard cuts Esposito off with a fake laugh. 

"There are a lot of missing people."

Beckett nods, "One way or another, we eventually find them. Some end up dead, some turn up in a double-wide with a stripper named Trixie outside Atlantic City."

Esposito holds up a file, handing it to Richard, "And some just don't turn up."

"Dana Sullivan."

Avery's head pokes up, "Oh, I remember that one. We talked about it at the Academy. Uh, her and her boyfriend left a club. He's a couple steps behind her because of a call on his phone. She turns a corner a few seconds before him. When he goes around, she's gone. Street is totally empty, no traffic, nothing. In a matter of three feet, she disappeared."

He shakes his head at her, "People don't disappear off the face of the earth."

"Sure they do. Quantum physics, alien abductions, Schrodinger's cat. One minute, you're getting a hot dog in the park. The next, you're fighting off sleestaks on the far side of a dimensional rift," Kevin lists.

Avery gives a smile, resting her head on her fist, "I didn't know you believed in alien abductions."

Richard shakes his head, "I don't buy it. There's got to be an explanation. A story that makes everything make sense."

"Dad, you are the first person to believe in things like alien abductions," Avery reminds her father, "Remember that three month period you make Alexis and I wear tinfoil hats so they couldn't steal our ideas?"

"That was to keep your distracted while I was trying to finish the second Derrick Storm book."

Beckett gives the writer her full attention, "Okay, Castle, what's our Jane Doe's story?"

"Well, I don't know how it starts, but I know how it ends- frozen at a construction site. So, flying monkeys aside, what's the first question? How did she get there?" Richard points out as Avery rolls her eyes and flips through different cases.

"Considering she was frozen solid, she had to have been kept pretty close," Kevin theorizes.

Avery shakes her head, "Not necessarily. Her body might not have been kept as close as you think. It's gotta take a frozen body a long time to thaw."

Kevin looks in slight disbelief at her, "What, your dad, uh, freeze a body once for one of his books?"

She smiles sarcastically at him, "No, but an eight pound turkey takes hours to thaw correctly and fully. Human bodies can't have that big of a difference."

Beckett's phone rings, "Beckett. Okay. I'm on my way. Lanie's got an ID."

Richard looks to the detectives, "You'll take care of these?" Before following her out.

"Hey, Mini-Castle, thanks," Esposito is quick to leave the room.

"Here, let me help you," Kevin tells her, taking more than half of the files.

☽☽☽☽

Avery leads the male detectives back into the bullpen area, taking a seat on her desk across from Beckett, "Samuel Kavanaugh was shot outside a grocery store about a year ago. Small caliber, double tap to the chest. Wallet and valuables missing."

"Poor schlub's wife disappears..." Esposito starts as he hands Beckett the file.

"Four years later, he gets shot in a mugging."

"Yeah, what are the odds?"

Richard speaks up from behind Avery, "Long. Unless they're connected."

Esposito shakes his head in disbelief, "What, four years between murders? One's a popsicle, one just got popped. How could they possibly be connected?"

He shrugs, "Maybe he and his wife got into something they couldn't get out of, maybe something to do with her drug habit."

"So some skell waits four years to finish the job?" Kevin asks.

"Maybe he finally figured out what happened to his wife and was about to go to the police with it," Richard smiles as his story in his head starts to come together.

"I don't believe it," Kevin shakes his head causing Richard to jump forward with interest.

"Give me 250 pages. I bet I could make you."

Beckett looks to Avery, who had been looking over the missing persons report on Melanie, "What do you think, Officer Castle?"

Avery looks up as the teams eyes go to her, "Uh, I think they are related-"

"Oh, come on," Esposito rolls his eyes.

"If you would let me finish, you'd know I didn't mean same person. I think Samuel had a hand or some part in his wife's death. Then, somebody who cares about her, found out four years later, and POP! There goes Samuel Kavanaugh."

Beckett nods, "Interesting theory. I look forward to watching you prove it. With facts," She pins Richard with a look before turning to Esposito, "What happened to the kids?"

Esposito tells her, "Living with Melanie's parents up in White Plains."

"Well, looks like I'm going to White Plains. Canvass the construction site. Someone must've seen something," Beckett assigns as she stands up.

"Yeah, the foreman said that, uh, they have a problem with the homeless at night, so I figured I'd go down there later, try to catch them at the site."

Richard stands up, weighing his options, "Homeless, White Plains."

"Both kinda creepy," Esposito shrugs before Richard snaps his fingers and points at Beckett, "Fine, what about you Mini-Castle?"

"Can't leave Kev to suffer with you by himself."

"But you'd let Beckett suffer with your dad alone?" Kevin snorts.

She shrugs, "She's his muse. May as well get used to it."

☽☽☽☽

"You find a witness?" Beckett asks as she approaches the trio looking at a truck.

Esposito nods, standing up, "Yeah, homeless guy. A couple of bucks jogged his memory."

Kevin tells her, "Said he saw a dented yellow truck pull up to the site. Heavyset guy pulls a large bag out of the back, and when he comes out, he doesn't have the bag anymore."

Beckett asks them, "How'd you find this place?" 

"He also remembered the word storage written on the side. Searched all the storage places on the West side and found out that this one has yellow trucks," Avery says, rolling her eyes when Kevin and Esposito do their handshake.

"So, who owns the trucks?"

Kevin pulls out his little notebook, "According to the DMV...Albert Bolland."

☽☽☽☽

Avery sits at the kitchen counter, ignoring her dad who's staring into the open freezer when Alexis goes to the fridge, "You know, we have air-conditioning."

"I'm just trying to figure out why someone would put a dead body in a freezer."

"Is this a Nikki Heat or Detective Beckett question?" Alexis asks, looking to her sister for help.

"It's a case. The Nikki Heat thing was incinerating a body in a self-cleaning oven. Two ends of the spectrum Alexis," Avery jokes with her sister, stealing the yogurt from her hands.

Alexis doesn't even fight to get it back and instead grabs a new one as Richard theorizes, "I mean, you put things in a freezer to keep them for later, but once they're there, you rarely ever go back."

"If I was putting a body in a freezer, it'd be because I was trying to hide it," Alexis says, like it was an everyday conversation. which, in the Castle house, it was.

Avery nods, "Yes, but then you stop paying the storage space."

Alexis asks, "Did I stop or did something stop me?"

The two working the case freeze before turning to Alexis as Richard smiles, "It's family moments like these, that I hope to never forget."

"With a good therapist," Alexis scoffs, "Hopefully I will."

"Ditto," Avery smiles.

☽☽☽☽

Avery sits at the kitchen counter in the dark with laser tag goggles on while her father and sister run around her playing laser tag.

"Has anyone seen my purse?" Martha comes out in a robe and towel with a skin care mask on.

"Mom, we are totally doing battle on the field of honor."

Martha asks him, "How old are you?"

Avery snorts, "Sadly, old and rich enough to afford top of the line laser tag."

Alexis jumps out from behind Martha and shoots her dad, "Ha!" 

"I'm dead! Mom!" Richard whines, "Now Voltar will never rule the omniverse."

"Ugh!" Avery groans, throwing the file down, "I do not understand how Sam pulled this off!"

The buzzer beeps, Richard looking to the women in his life, "Someone order food?"

They all shake their heads so he puts his goggles back on and holds up his gun, "I better check this out."

"Hi?" Beckett sounds confused at the door.

"Hi."

Alexis pokes her out out from behind Richard, "Who is it?"

Richard asks, "Detective Beckett?"

Martha moves to stand on Richard's other side, "Darling, are we entertaining?"

Avery looks over, "Hey, Beckett. Come on in."

Beckett enters the penthouse, looking around in slight awe as Avery moves to stand with her family and Richard reintroduces everyone, "You, um, you remember my mother, Martha. And Alexis, of course."

"Hi," Alexis gives a little wave.

"Yes, hello," Beckett says, a little awkwardly.

"Can I...make you a drink?" Richard asks.

After a few awkward minutes of conversing with Martha and Alexis, Richard follows Avery and Beckett into his office.

"Wow," Beckett nods, "I feel like....Alfred in the Batcave for the first time."

Richard takes off the laser tag garb as Avery sits behind his desk, "Hmm...Batman fan. Figures."

"Why?"

Richard smiles, "Similar origin stories? Loss of a loved one leads to a life of fighting crime."

"Yes, well, you are the multimillionaire crime fighter," Beckett jokes.

"Sadly," Avery sticks her tongue out at her dad.

Beckett stops at the screen Richard has his Nikki Heat murder board on, "That's where he outlines his books," Avery explains, "It's why I understood murder boards before even joining the Academy."

"Wow," She nods, sighing.

"Something wrong?" Richard asks.

"I can't find it," Beckett admits.

The Castles share a look, "What?"

Beckett turns to them, "The answer."

Richard nods, "It was Sam. Everything fits. It's a good ending."

"Yeah, but without proof, it's just a theory," Beckett argues, "And that family- those kids-they need more than just a theory. The need to know. I need to know."

Avery sits up, smiling before turning to her fathers board and clicking to a blank tab, "Okay, I've on the same track for the last four hours. We have the ending, now, we work backwards. I have three main questions that can fracture off into millions of other questions-"

"Ave, get to the point," Richard smiles at his daughter.

"Right. Okay," She picks up the E-Pen that goes with the board and starts writing, "One, who would pay money for a storage unit for a freezer holding the body of Sam's dead wife? Two, where did the freezer even come from? And finally, how did Sam get Melanie's body out of the apartment without his daughters seeing it? They didn't have a babysitter, proven by police statements."

Richard smiles, "We just have to put the facts into the story, and see where the gaps are. Then, we do some real police detective work, and fill the gaps."

Avery nods, "You told me to prove my theory with facts. Here's a couple. With him at work, she'd be home with the kids. Now, he said that she left later that night but the doorman never corroborated. So, if she was there and never left, she was murdered in the apartment. Fact: he lived in Manhattan. He doesn't own a car. So one of our gaps: what does he do with the body and bring it to the storage unit?"

They all sit in silence as they try to think, until Richard comes up with an idea, "You know what may help? Sometimes when I'm trying to think of how a character of mine does something, I will walk the crime scene. This one time, I was trying to figure out how to throw someone off the Empire State Building, and that movie Sleepless in Seattle had just come out. So many lonely women approached me, thinking I was their Tom Hanks. I got la-"

"Dad!" Avery flicks the back of his head, "You two should go walk the scene while I try and find the freezer's origins. See what problems Sam had to face."

☽☽☽☽ 

Avery looks over the reports that Beckett and Richard had of talking with the old lady the freezer was delivered to, "Hey, Beckett?"

"Yeah? What's up?"

"Sloan wasn't every interested in finding Melanie, right? Why would he look into the delivery of a random freezer the day she went missing? It's not in his report here, either," Avery hands her the file.

Beckett takes the file, "Huh. You are proving your theory."

As Beckett and Richard leave, Avery turns to Kevin and Esposito, "I bet, it was her dad."

"Where the hell do you get an idea like that?" Esposito asks.

"If somebody hurt Alexis or I, my dad would put more than a few rounds in the guys chest. I'm sure he never gave up on Melanie and found out what happened. He couldn't let Sam walk around free," Avery sighs, "Well, I've got to type up my report."

Kevin shakes his head in awe, "How do you do these things? You always seem to know what happened."

Avery smiles, "I have my dad's imagination but I'm grounded in reality. I go through every possible situation and then use the facts to decide which is most likely. Nothing beats the education on crimes that I got growing up in the Castle household."

"I-you impress me more and more everyday," Kevin smiles, "I'll type up your reports. Why don't you go home and rest that beautiful brain of yours. We have a new case tomorrow."

She stands up, kissing his cheek, "You are a good man, Kevin Ryan. See you both tomorrow."

As she walks away, Esposito shakes his head, "Man, man up and ask Mini-Castle out. What could go wrong?"

Kevin scoffs, "She rejects me and make working together awkward and one of us has to leave the team? Her dad kills me?"

"Oh, come on, man," He denies it, "Castle can't do anything to you."

"You heard her, if her or her sister are hurt, Castle would cause them some damage."

Esposito shrugs, "I think you need to man up. You never know what could go right or wrong unless you try."

☽☽☽☽

AN: It's always fun knowing what's supposed to happen and making my characters smarter than most of the people they work with.

Since we learn about Beckett's backstory in this episode and it got me thinking about the side of Avery's family we haven't learned about yet. Hehehe.

QoC: Who do you think is the family of Avery's we haven't met yet?

Thank you for all of the votes and reads and comments!!!