Chapter 2

I had intended that this story would be a one off leading up to Jo Martinez being transferred to the 12th Precinct and her first day there. However a number of people have asked for the story to continue, among suggestions were to see how Jo working with Castle panned out. I was also asked to consider transferring Henry Morgan to work with the 12th, sorry that won't be happening as Jo can't have two 'Consultants' working with her at the same time. He will however probably pop up as he is now engaged to Jo Martinez. I have no idea where this story will go but please feel free to come along for the ride and continue making suggestions as to how you would like it to go.

I forgot to mention that I don't have anything to do with the show apart from watching it.

Monday 23 November 2015

The time was 9.50pm on a very cold and wet November Monday night in New York. Amanda Cooke was hurrying to get home so she could have a long soak in a hot bath to get rid of the cold from her bones. As she passed an alley she was very roughly grabbed by a pair of strong hands and muscular arms. As she struggled to get free she realised that she didn't stand much chance of doing so, she dragged kicking and screaming into the dark alley, her assailant threw her to the ground knelt over her and proceeded to strangle her with his bare hands, thankfully she quickly lost consciousness, as her assailant knelt over her and started to molester her. When he had finished he put a rope around her neck and proceeded to hang her from a nearby lamp post, before doing so he cut off a large chunk of her hair which he carefully placed in a plastic bag that he was carrying for this keepsakes.

At 2.10am Jo Martinez was aroused from her sleep by her cell phone ringing on her bedside table, she groaned as she looked at the time and thought to herself "Oh come onyou have got to be kidding, I have only been in bed for about two and a half hours." It had taken her about three quarters of an hour to drop off to sleep as she was alone that evening as Henry Morgan her fiancé had not been able to stay over with her. She picked up the phone and said "Hello, where's the body?" She was quickly given the information as she dragged her weary body out of bed to face the worst weather the day could throw at her.

While she was getting ready she contemplated whether she should phone her Consultant/Partner Rick Castle and decided that it might be best to do so, she phoned and gave him details of the crime scene as she had been given them and arranged to meet him there in half an hour.

As he got ready to leave for the crime scene his wife Kate growled "You can tell that Jo Martinez that I am going to shoot her when I see her for taking my favourite pillow out into this lousy weather." Castle walked over to her and gave her a long tender kiss and said "Go back to sleep Grumpy I will be back as quickly as possible."

As Jo reached the crime scene and was about to duck under the yellow crime scene tapes Castle appeared with two take out coffee cups in his hand one of which he handed to Jo, She said "Thanks Castle you might just have saved my life" and a smile lit up her face as she took a long pull at her favourite coffee to help kick start her body.

Looking round she spotted that Anne Hastings and LT along with Detective Graham Sullivan, who had been drafted in for six months to add experience to her new team, had already arrived and had quickly got down to work, which she was very pleased to see.

She and Castle walked over to Lanie and said "Morning Lanie. What have we got?"

Lanie looked up at her and said "Morning Jo, Morning Castle, I bet Kate was thrilled when you had to get up and leave her in bed." She went on to say "Caucasian female Amanda Cooke according to her drivers licence, 27 years old, found hanging on that lamppost over there, COD would appear to be strangulation from the rope. TOD seems to have been between say 10.00pm and midnight, I'll know better when we get her back to the morgue. She show signs of sexual assault and also non fatal manual strangulation, this was probably done to subdue her before she was assaulted. The killer also appears to have taken a souvenir of the killing as a large chunk of her hair has been cut off and it doesn't appear to be anywhere around here."

Jo said "Thanks Lanie, You'll let me have your report later today?"

Lanie replied "ASAP Jo."

Jo turned away and said to Castle "Any theories Rick?"

Castle replied "Not at the minute I don't think my brain is yet upto full operating temperatures due to the cold and rain."

Jo chuckled and said "I know what you mean." She went on to say "We might as well go back to the Precinct as there isn't much more we can do here at the moment."

She went over to the rest of her team and told them that she and Castle were heading back to the Precinct and said that they shouldn't be long following as it was unlikely that there would be any evidence left to find at that time on the ground due to the darkness and the torrential rain which would have most probably have washed most of the evidence away.

When Jo and Castle got back to the precinct they started to set up the murder white board with what little information that they had.

Jo went to her desk and Castle sat in his usual chair, which had been left in place after Beckett had moved into her new office.

She turned on her computer and tried to find as much information about Amanda Cooke as she could, which wasn't a lot as she didn't have a criminal record or any driving offences. They did find out after looking through the contents of her wallet that she had been a currency trader at Chase Manhattan Bank, which probably explained what she was doing out late on a very wet and windy Monday night.

Castle went into the break room to make a couple more coffee's, just as he got started Sully, Hastings and LT exited the elevator so he added another three cups as he knew how cold they would be. As they were drinking their coffee they gathered around Jo's desk to discuss their findings so far, which wasn't much.

Jo looked at the time and saw that it was only 4.30am and said "As we are unlikely to get very far at this time I suggest that we all go home and try to get some more shut eye."

Castle didn't need a second invitation to leave and was back at the Loft in twenty minutes and was creeping back into bed with Kate within two minutes of closing the front door.

She murmured "Hey Lover, have you wrapped things up?"

Castle replied "Not yet it's just that we couldn't do much else until later today so Jo suggested we all go home and try to catch some more sleep."

Kate murmured "I totally forgive Jo for calling you out, as she has sent you home, and her shooting is cancelled." as she snuggled up to him and went straight back to sleep.

When the team returned to the precinct later that morning they didn't have a long wait for the COD to be sent up by Lanie who confirmed that it was from strangulation, she had tried to find any traces of DNA on the body but was unsuccessful as anything that had been there had probably been washed away by the rain that had fallen during the night. With regard to the sexual assault it appeared that the Perp had used a condom as no semen had been found.

Jo sent her two rooky detectives and Sully back to the crime scene to see whether they could find any usable footprints or tyre tracks, she was not very hopeful that they would be successful, again because the rain would have most likely have washed any such trace away. She also asked them to canvas the immediate area to see whether any one had seen anything suspicious. She again was not very hopeful of getting anything as she had noticed that most of the houses on the alley appeared to be boarded up awaiting demolition.

Kate Beckett came out of her office to talk to Jo three or four times during the day and to find out what if any progress had been made, Jo had said that despite their best efforts thing were not really moving forward. The investigation and enquiries continued throughout the rest of the day.

At 7.00pm they decided to call it a day as it was obvious that that they were just going around in circles and were not likely to get much further that day.

Thursday of that week dawned bright and frosty, as a cold front had moved in to the area. At 9.0clock in the morning they received a call from dispatch that another body had been found in another alleyway about a mile from the last one, the team all grabbed their coats along with their tablets and headed out to the crime scene.

When they arrived Castle split off and went into a local café and bought 3 coffees one each for him and Jo and another for Lanie who had been heard to complain on a number of occasions that he never thought to bring her a coffee when he arrived at a crime scene.

Jo asked "What have you got for us Lanie this time?"

Lanie said "Caucasian female aged 24 her drivers licence shows her name to be Elizabeth Isaacs. Strangled and sexually assaulted just like Amanda Cooke, I estimate that the TOD was between 11.00pm last evening and 1.00am this morning, when she was hung from that lamppost over there. Once again the killer has taken a large bunch of her hair as a souvenir.

This time Jo was more hopeful of getting footprints or tyre tracks as there hadn't been any rain in the last 24 hours to wash any such evidence away.

Looking around she also found once again that most of the properties down the alleyway had been boarded up ready for demolition, never the less she asked Sully to take LT and canvas the area to see whether there any witnesses to the crime.

Just as they left Captain Beckett turned up to see the scene for herself and to ask whether there was anything they needed. She pointed out to Jo that it looked as though they might have a serial killer on the loose. She, Jo and Castle discussed the cases for about 10 minutes, before Kate took her leave as she had a meeting to attend at 1PP that afternoon.

Kate thought to herself as she walked away "Oh the joys of being a Police Captain. I would much rather be here, out and about trying to solve these cases than stuck in a meeting for most of the afternoon."

When the team got back to the precinct their Captain had not yet returned from her meeting and Jo called the team together to discuss, over coffee, the two cases and to try and find anything they may have missed. When their meeting broke up they all went back to their desks to work on the cases.

Over the next three weeks they did not catch any breaks in the cases, but did have another three murders in very similar circumstances to the first two.

Jo and her team were beginning to get very frustrated and were fully expecting the FBI to step in and take over, which surprisingly didn't happen, the only reason they could think of why this occurred was because their Captain was Kate Beckett who had once worked for the Attorney Generals Special Task Force until she was fired for insubordination when she released certain information to the press about one of the cases she had been working on. Since that time however she had managed to build up a new rapport with the Task Force and FBI, especially Agent Jordan Shaw which gave her a certain kudos with the Federal crime fighting agencies

On the Friday morning of the fifth week they received an anonymous tip which led them to an apparently abandoned warehouse where they found Victor Spivey camped out. As they searched through his belongings they found five bunches of hair from the victims.

Jo said "Victor Spivey you are under arrest on five counts of murder." She signalled to a couple of the uniforms, who had accompanied them to the warehouse, to take him back to the precinct where he was to be interrogated.

Jo and Sully went into the interrogation room and Castle and the other two members of the team watched from the observation room as Spivey was interrogated, after about an hour's questioning he broke down and confessed to the crimes.

That evening the whole team, along with Kate and Lanie, went along to the Old Haunt which Castle owned to celebrate the successful closure of the case.

It was noticed by Lanie that Kate appeared to be avoiding all alcoholic drinks Lanie sidled up to her and whispered in her ear "Is there something you want to share with the class?"

Kate covered a blush by hanging her head down so that her hair covered her face, at this remark and replied "No nothing, I went to the Doctors this afternoon and he put me on some tablets and said that I shouldn't drink alcohol whilst taking them."

What she wasn't going to share at that time was that the tablets were in fact pre-natal vitamin tablets that she had been prescribed by her Doctor when she had gone for tests to confirm that she was pregnant. She hadn't even told Castle yet, that he was to become a father, again, as she wanted to tell him and celebrate the news with him in the privacy of their own home preferably in their King size bed.

A/N I have been blown away by the number of people who have reviewed and favourited this story it is very gratifying Thank you.