""As he saw the dark figure approaching," ""he rose up for a better view," ""little knowing he was heading for his doom."" " Wow." " I know, right?" "And listen to this." ""To my mentor, Richard Castle," ""without whose support and guidance" ""this book never would have seen the light of day."" "All you did was give Alex Conrad a few notes on his manuscript, then send it to your publisher." "He was the one who wrote the book." "That's your version." "In my version, I gently foster the glowing embers of talent, fanning them into a literary wildfire." "He's going to be in town and asked to get together with me." "He wants to learn more about my writing process." "And by process, you mean your procrastination until the very last second." "And then writing out of a desperate panic in a caffeine-induced haze?" " That one?" " No, not that one." "The one where I find authenticity by doing hands-on research with the NYPD." "So I'm having Alex meet me at the precinct later on today." "Beckett will be thrilled with that." "Beckett, I'm sure she won't mind." "You haven't told her yet?" "I'm sure she will be fine with it." "Fine with it?" "Why would I be fine with it?" "Okay." "I'm sorry." "Come on, he's a writer." "How much trouble could he possibly be?" "So, is that a yes?" "Is that a no?" "Hey, Lanie." " Hey." " Who's this?" "Zack Lindsey." "A standout on the UNY swim team." "Or he was, before he drowned." "How does a champion swimmer drown?" "He had help." " Burns?" " From a caustic substance." "Someone put a rag to his face soaked in the stuff." "He passed out from the fumes, then was dumped in the pool to drown." "Based on water and body temp," "I'd say between 1:00 and 5:00 this morning." "And what was the substance?" "I won't know till I get him back to the shop." "Who found him?" "Zack's teammates, when they showed up for 6:00 a.m. swim practice." "All right, let's talk to his teammates, find out if anyone had it in for Zack and let's figure out where they were between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m." "I'll go talk to Zack's coach." "It just doesn't seem real, seeing him lying there like that." "What was he doing here so late?" "Training." "Couldn't keep that kid out of the pool." "Two weeks ago, he got food poisoning right before a meet." "Sick as a dog, just puking his guts out." "I told him to withdraw, but he toughed it out, won all his events." "That was Zack." "He was going to be the next Rob Tredwyck or Michael Phelps." "Did he have any personal problems?" "He was a kid from Bensonhurst, you know." "I got him a partial scholarship but he lived on his own all the way out here because it's all he could afford." "What about his parents?" "His dad's gone." "His mom had to move to Atlantic City for work." "I promised I was going to look out for him." "What about the swim team?" "There must have been some rivalries there." "He and Brian Morris were our two best chances to win the tournament this week." "But there was no bad blood, not with Brian or anyone else on the team." "Okay, I'm still going to need a team roster and a list of all the people who had access to this pool." "Yeah." "Excuse me." "This is why Alexis is never going to college." "Hey, you wanna hear something crazy?" " Yeah." " I was talking to the night janitor." "He was here till 1:30 last night but he saw Zack with another guy." "Do we have a name?" "We have a picture, too." ""Rocket" Rob Tredwyck." "Give us a big smile, mate." "Yeah, like that." "You love this man, you want him." "That's funny." "I want him, too." "The guy was invincible in water." "I can't believe he'd drown." "How did you know him?" "From a tournament three years ago." "Zack was a freshman while I was heading to Beijing." "I could tell he was special." "It was like looking at a younger version of me." "He was really that good?" "Yeah, but that's not what I meant." "Most kids in this sport, they come from money." "Zack and me, we both grew up hard." "So I took him under my wing." "Sounds like you were kind of a mentor to him." "I was just looking out for my own." "So, what were you doing at the pool last night?" "Zack said he wanted to run drills, and I figured, what the hell." "Now that I'm retired, I don't do enough time in the water." "But I think he really just needed a friend." " Why is that?" " He'd just had the talk with his girl." "Where do babies come from?" "No, not that talk." "The one I had with my high school girlfriend back in Wilmington." "If you want to get to the top, you can't take everyone with you." "So, some people you have to leave behind." "So, you have the talk." "And how did she handle that?" "She took it hard." "So did Zack." "But he was worried about her." "Worried that she might do something stupid." "Do you remember her name?" "Bridget." "Bridget McManus." "And what time did you leave the pool last night?" "Little after midnight." "And where were you between 1:00 and 5:00 a. m?" "At Buddha Bar with half the ad agency." "We partied till dawn." "We're ready for you, Rocket." "Man!" "Hell of a day to sell a cologne." " What were you looking at?" " Nothing." "First day I put him in the pool, he was two years old." "Took to it like a fish." "You have kids?" "Two daughters and a son." "It's what we do for them, right?" "When his dad left and I was feeling lower than dirt, you know what he told me?" "He said, "I'm going to be someone one day, for you, Ma." ""So you can walk down the street and be proud."" "Who did this?" "Who killed my son?" "We're doing everything we can to find out." "Miss DiNovi, what can you tell me about Bridget McManus?" "Her and Zack have been an item since high school." "What's this got to do with Bridget?" "Maybe nothing." "We're just checking everywhere." "Did he mention anything else, any trouble he might been in?" "Zack knew what trouble was." "He wanted no part of it." "People don't get out of our neighborhood." "Zack was gonna make it." "My baby, he was going to make it." "Captain?" "Zack's mom." " Anything about the girlfriend?" " Not that she knows of." "She seemed to think everything was okay." "Then there was a lot he wasn't sharing." "Check out the text messages that Bridget fired off to Zack on the night he was killed." "Not a lot of "LOLs" in there." ""Zack, if you leave me, I swear to God, I'll kill you."" "She has a way with words." "And a record to go with it." "Disorderly conduct." "Mostly minor stuff." "Uniforms are bringing her in now." "It says here she's 5'2"." "You really think she could overpower Zack?" "No, but her brothers could." "In grand Irish tradition, she has four of them." "Each over 6 foot, each with his own claim to fame." "Assault." " Ag assault." " Bad." "ADW." "Battery." "Assault on a city employee, parking enforcement." " Doesn't count." " Easy." "Dude." "Just jokes." "All right, find out where her brothers were between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m." "Castle and I will talk to Bridget." "Thank you, sir." "Kill him?" "I've loved Zack Lindsey since the ninth grade." "You have a funny way of showing it." "I was pissed." "For five years I cooked his steamed chicken breast." "I put his pasta in the Tupperware at 4:00 in the morning," "I kept him company at the gym." "And then he tells me," ""Sorry, Bridge, I can't have any other voices in my head."" "Like suddenly I'm a distraction." "Like suddenly I'm not good enough for Colorado Springs?" "So you threatened to kill him unless he took you back?" "No, that's how I talk, okay?" "But there was something going on, and it had nothing to do with swimming." "What do you mean?" "Lately he'd been stressed, secretive." "Add that to him saying, "This is my time,"" "and the way those rich college girls looked at him." "I wasn't born yesterday." "I can do the math." "You thought there was someone else." "Oh, yeah." "So, I followed him out of his apartment the other night, ready to fight some queen bitch from Connecticut for what's mine." "Only it wasn't another girl." "Well, who was it?" "I don't know, some scary-looking guy." "They met under the el and they went at it." "Yelling and screaming." "I couldn't tell 'bout what, though, 'cause the guy had, like, an accent." "What kind of accent?" "Spanish?" "Asian?" "Russian?" "Do I look like I work at the UN?" "Not Brooklyn, okay?" "Okay." "No..." "Anyways, I asked Zack about it afterwards and he said it was nothing." "But it wasn't." "Do you think you could describe this guy to our sketch artist?" "So, Lanie confirms no drug in his system, performance-enhancing or otherwise." "And from the high levels of chloride ion in his blood, she's sure the burns came from chlorine." "So, our heavily accented killer rendered Zack unconscious with a chlorine-soaked rag." "We don't know that he's a killer." "Is this the face of an innocent man?" "He had a heated argument with our victim the night before he was killed." "And what would his motive be, exactly?" "He..." "I may have a line on that." "I'm looking at Zack's financials." "The guy only had a partial scholarship." "He still paid for most of his tuition, books and living expenses, all without taking student loans." "He didn't have a job and his mom was just squeaking by." "And NCAA rules preclude him from receiving any financial assistance from outside his family." "So, where did he get that money?" "You think maybe he borrowed money from the wrong guys to finance his dream?" "And when he couldn't make the payments, they came after him." "That would explain the argument." "Esposito." "We don't even know that there is an argument, and the only evidence we have is a sketch of a man that Bridget claims she saw." "All right." "Thanks." "Uniforms just got to Zack's place." "Looks like it's been tossed." "This place looks like my first apartment." "We used to have cockroach races." "I wonder if that's how Kafka got the idea." "Looks like Zack didn't do his chores." "Zack was killed and then his place gets trashed." "Not a coincidence." "You think maybe this was part of a debt-collection effort?" "Then why'd they leave the TV and the laptop?" "Or the medical supplies." "Dental pick." "You think plaque slows you down in the water?" "They were looking for something specific." "You don't rip through a mattress unless you've run out of places to look." "Maybe they didn't find what they were looking for." "Maybe it's still here and it was just too well-hidden." "What?" "Medication?" "Only one thing I know of comes in little vials like that." "Anabolic steroids." "Zack's clean." "Why would he have steroids?" "Maybe he's not as clean as we thought." "Yep." "It's steroids, all right." "I thought you said Zack wasn't using steroids." " The test wouldn't pick up stuff like this." " Why not?" "It's loaded with masking agents and designed to beat the test." "Virtually untraceable unless you look for it specifically." " So, he was using." " Nope." "I went back and tested for this, too." "Your boy is steroid-free." "Well, if he wasn't using steroids, then what was he doing with them?" ""Virtually undetectable."" "Where does a drug like that come from?" "There's been some talk about a new" ""beat the test" performance-enhancing drug being developed somewhere in Eastern Europe." "Eastern Europe." "Home of the hard-to-identify accent." "Given how great everyone says Zack was, this whole steroids thing just doesn't make sense." "Well, we know he needed the money." "If he wasn't using, maybe he was dealing." "That definitely would've given him the cash needed to make ends meet." "Yeah, but he only had a couple of vials." "Maybe he was low on inventory." "And the man Zack was arguing with, our secretive Slav, he was the distributor." "If there even was a man." "For all we know, Bridget was lying." "Well, she wasn't lying about her brothers." "I talked to all four of them, one Irishman to another, and another." "Anyway, they alibied out." "They were in New Paltz when Zack was killed." "All of them?" "For what?" "They were at a sporting event of sorts." "Which was?" "Leprechaun toss." "Don't ask." "Anyway, the oldest brother, he got first place." "Oh, man." "Well, the merits of Irish culture aside..." " Hey!" " Sorry." "Perhaps this suggests that Bridget was telling the truth about our elusive Estonian." "I'll run the sketch past Narco and Vice, see if they recognize him." "Okay, and check if Zack was on their radar." "And, Esposito, can you talk to Zack's teammates about the steroids, find out what they knew?" "Zack would never touch steroids." "None of us would." "Look, the fact of the matter is, Zack was clean." "But we found steroids at his place." "We're just trying to figure out why." "Are you saying you think Zack was a dealer?" "Look, it's not enough that he's dead?" "Now you gotta drag him through the mud?" "Let me tell you something about Zack Lindsey." "He was the heart and soul of this team." "He was the person we wanted to be." "So if you found drugs, they were there for another reason." "Whatever the reason, he was up to something." "Statements from three of his neighbors say that he was going out and staying out all night." "Yes, to the pool to train." "We already know that." "Except half the time, he was leaving without his gym bag." "So, where was he going?" "I'm hoping that you're asking that just for effect because you already have an answer." "I got nothing." "Maybe you're looking at it wrong." "Maybe the steroids have nothing to do with his murder." "Maybe they're your red herring." "Alex, so glad you made it." "Alex Conrad, please meet Detective Beckett." "Detective Beckett, Alex Conrad, my protégé." "Nice to meet you." "It's a real pleasure, Detective." "I have read Heat Wave and Naked Heat so many times, I feel like I know you." "The piercing intelligence, the self-assured beauty." "Thank you." "So, what were you saying about the steroids?" "Well, nothing, really." "I was just looking at the board and I noticed that this swimmer kid, he's caught between two worlds." "Now, if I were writing the story, the steroids would just be a red herring, and the real killer would be someone from the old neighborhood." "Yeah, but that's just me." "Clearly, I'm new at this." "Alex, don't worry." "It takes years of experience to..." "No, no, you're right." "We don't have any proof that this has anything to do with the steroids." "We've just been assuming." "We do need to look into" "Zack's old neighborhood, as well." "Seriously?" "I was helpful?" "Yes, yes, you were." "Yes, but you probably have lots of questions." "So we should get going." "Hey, if it's not overstepping, just in the interest of keeping it real," "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions for the case I'm coming up with for Seriously Dead." "Why don't you just give me a buzz when the two of you are done." "I mean, if it's okay with you." "Why wouldn't it be okay?" " Okay." " Okay." "It's so not okay." "After everything I've done for him." "He goes and tries to steal my muse." "Muse thievery." "What's the punishment for that?" "Five to 10 in mythology jail?" "Yes, you laugh." "Go ahead." "Laugh all you want." "But now I finally know what Obi-Wan Kenobi felt like when Darth Vader turned on him." "No." "I should've seen this coming." "You know what they're calling him down at Black Pawn publishing?" "No." "Alex Conrad?" "The next Richard Castle." " Oh..." "Yes." "I thought it was a compliment, but no." "He's trying to replace me." "What are you gonna do?" "I am going onto richardcastle. net." "I am going to remove my glowing review of Dead Serious and replace it with cover art for Heat Rises." "That ungrateful little weasel." "Dad, you ever think that maybe you're overreacting a teensy bit?" "You ever think that maybe he admires you so much that spending time with Beckett is to understand you better?" "Don't confuse me with your reasonableness." "I'm just saying, maybe he's not the nefarious muse snatcher you think he is." "Maybe you should give him a chance." "Maybe you're right." "Okay, great." "Thank you for your cooperation." "Thank you." "So, Bridget McManus said that Zack didn't really run with the Bensonhurst crowd anymore." "But she did give me a list of all of his old neighborhood buddies." "How about I run it down?" "Yeah, great." "Yeah." "Muffins." "Alex Conrad sent them to me." "Alex." ""Thanks for last night."" "Guess you two got together last night." "Yeah, we talked about procedure." "So, nothing special." "I don't know." "He said he was going to use it all for his next book." "He said next time he wants to talk about cases." "Next time?" "So, something came up on our victim," "I'm not sure what to make of it." " About steroids?" " No." "About our mysterious Moldavian?" "No, not that, either." "Vice and Narcotics struck out on Zack and the sketch." "But I ran Zack's fingerprints through the Unsolved Latent Database, his prints match a set found on a car stolen in Queens two weeks ago." " Who's the owner?" " A Patricia Farrell." "Name doesn't ring a bell." "I think I know what these are about." "It's a video I saw on an underground website a while ago." "Not surprising." "Just watch." "Here." "So that's how Zack made tuition and rent, all without a job." "Zack had a job, all right." "He was a car thief." "Now we know how Zack made his money." "Why he was out all night." "He was playing Grand Theft Auto." "Yeah, the live-action version." "Maybe he boosted the wrong car and got in trouble with the people he was working with." "Our lethal Lithuanian, perhaps." "Guess again, bro." "I ran the names of Zack's pals from Bensonhurst." "One of them has a prior for auto theft." "A Thomas Marcone." "Tommy Marcone?" "Bridget said that that was Zack's best friend in high school." "Lots of car thieves run in pairs." "Let's go to Bensonhurst." "That's it, Scanlon's Bar, and Tommy Marcone's unofficial hangout." "Looks like the neighborhood is mourning their local hero." "Yeah, well, at this point, I'm not sure that's what he was." "Man born into hardship struggles to reach for something greater, only can't escape the demons of his past." "It's Oedipus." "It's The Godfather." "Beverly Hillbillies." "It wasn't that funny." "No, I'm sorry, I just got a message." "From who?" "Conrad?" "It is, isn't it?" "What did he say?" "Nothing." "He just wants to know what time I can meet up tonight." "And that made you laugh?" "Yeah." "He's funny." "Tommy Marcone." "NYPD." "You got the wrong guy." "Remember when?" "You're still on probation, aren't you?" "I've got a couple of questions about Zack Lindsey's murder." "Why you gotta sweat me in front of the whole bar?" "What do you want me to do?" "Take you downtown?" "I know that the two of you were stealing cars together." "Can't prove that." "I know that the two of you were friends." "I know that I've got Zack's prints on a stolen car, and I also know that you have priors." "And since you two were friends, we thought maybe you'd care that Zack's laying on a slab and thought you might want to help him." "He's dead." "Ain't nothing I can do now." "Why don't you tell me where you were between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. the night of the murder." "You're wasting your time." "You ever see this man?" "No, and your watch is too expensive for a cop's." "So, Detective, who's this guy?" "He's the guy buying a round for the house." "Tommy, if you know something, you should talk." "Hey, everybody, a round for the house, in memory of Zack Lindsey." "Zack was a great kid." "Everybody around here loved him." "Tommy included." "Well, the guy in the sketch is definitely Jimmy Lennon." "Grand theft auto, conspiracy to sell stolen vehicles, assault, assault with a deadly weapon." "He immigrated to the US when he was 28." "But he was born Janusz Lenadovsky in Minsk, Belarus." "Belarus." "I knew it!" "That's right next to Lithuania." "Says here that he owns an auto repair shop on Avenue U." "Watch your backs on this one." "This guy's dangerous." "There." "Jimmy Lennon." "NYPD..." "Hey!" "Hey!" "Round up the others, call Burglaryl Auto." "Hey, hey!" "NYPD!" "This is clean business." "I fix these cars." "Really?" "I bet the people who own them would be surprised to hear that." "Now, I want to know about Zack Lindsey." "I know nothing." "Not the best three words to have fallen out of your mouth, Jimmy." "I was half expecting "moose and squirrel."" "You're going to jail." "How long depends on you." "Jail in your country is vacation." "Then I will make it very difficult." "Here's what I think." "I think that Zack stole cars for you, but he had bigger plans and he told you he wanted out." "You were worried he couldn't keep his mouth shut." "So you threatened him and told him, "There's no walking out of this."" "And when he didn't change his mind, you followed him to the pool and you killed him." "Is there anything you want to add to that?" "You should help yourself, Jimmy." "This is your last chance." ""Swim for gold."" "What?" "There's a car over there with the license plate "Swim for gold."" "Whoa!" "This car is registered to a Brian Morris of Greenwich, Connecticut." "Brian Morris." "That's one of Zack's teammates." "It's his main rival." "So either Brian needed his engine rebuilt or..." "Or this car is stolen." "So why would Zack steal Brian's car?" "I don't know." "But I know why it gave Brian a motive for murder." "Those steroids we found at Zack's apartment?" "That he wasn't taking?" "Maybe they're Brian's." "Why you got me in here?" "I didn't do nothing wrong." "No?" "Zack's rival on the swim team, Brian Morris, we found his Stingray at the chop shop." "The one you stole." "I don't even know what that means." "Zack's prints were on it and so were yours." "So stop playing around." "Why did you boost the car?" "Because Brian Morris is a silver-spoon-licking punk." "He hated Zack for being a better swimmer." "Two weeks ago, he spiked Zack's pregame meal to make him sick." "Zack won the meet anyway." "Didn't take him long to figure out it was Brian, though." "So, you took the car out of revenge?" ""Swim for gold"?" "Vanity plates?" "I mean, can you get any more douchey?" "Brian's up in Greenwich with his own training pool, private coaches, whatever he needs." "Meanwhile, Zack's stuck here boosting cars just so he can eat, 'cause he can't take a nickel of outside money, or else he's done." "How'd you find the steroids?" "You always search a car." "You never want more than you bargained for." "Like a dead mobster in the trunk?" "That stuff happens." "We searched the car like always," "Zack found a bag underneath the seat." "He knew right then and there Brian was juicing." "Did Zack have any plans for this information?" "Well, he hadn't figured that out yet." "Kind of a big deal, you know?" "I told him he should turn that cheating bastard Brian in, get his ass banned." "Guess he never got the chance." "I guess not." "Zack was supposed to be your friend, Tommy." "Why didn't you tell us this from the start?" "I don't know." "Maybe I was scared." "All right, stick around, we're not done with you." "You recognize this, Brian?" "If it's going to be adversarial from the outset..." "How is this for adversarial, Counselor?" "Zack Lindsey was killed after he found a cache of illegal steroids in your client's car." "A car he apparently stole." "And oddly enough, your son never, ever reported the theft." "She's like a tiger in there." "I never get tired of watching her." "Me neither." "Seems Alex Conrad feels the same way." "I didn't know it was gone." "A classic car worth over 70 grand goes missing and you're telling me that you had no idea it was gone?" "Why would I be?" "I barely even drive it." "You knew that car was stolen." "You didn't want police to recover it in case they found more of these." "You have no proof of that." "Zack could have planted steroids in Brian's car." "But he didn't." "You know, I think that Zack confronted you about those steroids and you knew if he reported you, you could kiss your Olympic dreams goodbye, and so you killed him." "Brian, you killed Zack and then you broke into his apartment and tried to cover your tracks." "To my recollection, at no point did Zack Lindsey and I discuss any performance-enhancing substance." "And I have no idea who killed him." "Not a gold-medal performance, Brian." "Where were you between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. the night of the murder?" "I've been over all this." "I was at the practice pool at my parents' house." "This DVD is from a camera mounted above the training pool." "It has the date and time running in the corner." "Easily altered." "Furthermore, the Morris family and staff all swear Brian was at home," " and I have affidavits." " I'm sure you do." "So, unless you're charging my client, we're done here." "My son will go to the Olympics, and no one's going to derail that, Detective." "Brian had means, he had motive." "That's at least two." "But what about opportunity?" "Clearly, his father would do whatever it takes to cover for him so he can keep on swimming." "Well, with the kind of team Brian had, there's no way we'll be able to prove that he was at the UNY pool." "Maybe because he wasn't." "Look what kind of guy Brian is." "Pampered, protected, dominated by his father." "This is not a man of action." "So, what are you suggesting?" "That he's not the kind of guy to get his hands dirty." "Maybe Daddy cleaned up his mess." "Or he hired someone to do it for him." "Ryan, can you look into the Morris' financials?" "Look for large payments made around the time of the murder, especially cash withdrawals." "Already on it." "The dad is a hedge fund manager, so you practically need an MBA to follow the money." "But there was something about the kid." "There was a bond." " As in bail bonds?" " As in savings bond." "Three days after Brian's car was stolen, he cashed in a savings bond in the amount of $25,000." "That's enough to hire a hit man." "Especially in today's competitive job market." "Did Brian Morris cash that bond at Greenwich Federal Bank?" "Matter of fact, he did." "What do you got?" "We just searched Thomas Marcone's place." "Found tools of the auto theft trade, but we also found this." "That looks like 25 grand." "And guess where it's from." "Greenwich Federal Bank." "I didn't kill Zack." "Tommy, it seems like every time you open your mouth, another lie falls out." "But I'm not lying!" "Then why did you take 25 grand from Brian Morris?" "A man you characterized as a "cheating bastard," as I recall." "Okay, I may have gotten Zack killed, but not the way you think." "It was blackmail." "You blackmailed Brian Morris." "Him being on steroids, you know, I figured that knowledge was worth something." "Was Zack in on this?" "He would've kicked my ass up and down 18th Avenue if he found out." "And been justified." "Look, Brian didn't know me, and I figured he wouldn't pay if he got blackmailed by some anonymous mook." "So you pretended to be Zack." "I used the library computer and Zack's email account." "I emailed Brian saying I had his roids and I was gonna rat him out unless he put 25 grand into a paper bag and left it underneath the bench at the quad." "When the coast was clear, I picked it up." "I never meant for anyone to get hurt." "I'd like that phone call now." "Okay, so, Zack stole Brian's stash, and because of Tommy," "Brian thought that Zack was blackmailing him." "Brian's motive just keeps getting stronger and stronger." "Almost like it's on steroids." " Miss DiNovi." " Tommy Marcone called." "He said you had him in here." "He said Brian Morris killed my son." "We don't know all that." "We just know he's a person of interest." "So, why didn't you arrest him?" "We don't have enough to hold him." "And he's the son of a millionaire." "I bet that doesn't hurt either." "Around here, it's about the evidence, not how fat someone's wallet is." "Yeah, well, I live in the real world." "And I know that boy's family and they're gonna do whatever it takes to protect him, because they can." "Captain, Zack's all I had." "We can't figure out if Brian is connected to the murder until we find the real killer." "Then you're going to have to dig deeper." "If Brian and his family are involved, then there's gotta be a connection, and I want it found." "All right, great, thank you." "We struck out again." "The Morris' house in Connecticut is gated and the security company says that nobody left the night of the murder." "These guys have everything covered." "Hmm." "What?" "Zack's email account, the one Tommy used to ask Brian for a donation." "The blackmail message was sent at 3:02 p.m." "You'd think that would've caused a flurry of telephone calls." "But he only made one call right after, 3:19." "That's the father's office in New York." "Do we have the dad's records?" "Yeah, I got it right here." "Starting at 3:21 p.m.," "Benjamin Morris made about a dozen phone calls, all to the same 212 number." "Run it." "It's a Dr. Rex Colabro." "He's got a sports medicine practice." "He's got a lot of big-time athletes as clients." "So, Benjamin Morris finds out that his son is being blackmailed, and the one phone call he makes is to Dr. Colabro?" "The only reason that that would make sense is if..." "Dr. Colabro knew about the steroids." "Maybe even supplied them." "I don't supply steroids to anyone." "Never have, never will." "Seen the long-term damage they cause." "Far as I'm concerned, the stuff's poison." "And what about Brian Morris?" "Is he a patient of yours?" "That's confidential information." "His father called you seven times in a two-hour period on Tuesday." "What did the two of you talk about?" "That's confidential as well." "Dr. Colabro, your clientele is mostly high-profile athletes." "How fast do you think they'll abandon ship once they find out you were talking with us about steroids?" "I'm guessing fast, and when they find out it's steroids and murder, it'll jump to light speed." "Murder?" "You think I'm mixed up in a murder?" "I think that it would be in your best interest to help us." "Tell us what you and Benjamin Morris talked about." "And point of fact," "Brian was your patient." "But I'm guessing his father was not." "So, confidentiality really doesn't apply." "How's this?" "Hypothetically, why would an overbearing father of a steroid-using swimmer call you?" ""Hypothetically,"" "he might have asked how long a certain banned drug would remain detectable in someone's system." "Worried his son would test positive." "And what else might have come up?" "That the way an athlete can avoid testing is if he's injured and temporarily withdraws from the sport." "Hypothetically." "Hypothetically." "I'll get a warrant." "Check Colabro's office for steroids." "You won't find any." "Benjamin called him to concoct a strategy to protect Brian's eligibility." "This is damage control, not murder." "Well, looks like the strategy's been put into effect." "Brian quit the swim team, said he injured his shoulder." "No swim team, no drug testing." "So, I checked Lanie's report on the steroids against the file I got from Vice." "They intercepted a shipment of similar steroids that came to New York from a lab in Romania." "So, let's look into Brian's life, see if there's any connection to Romania." "If we can find a connect, then hopefully we'll be able to find Zack's killer." "Kate, you ready?" "Yeah, let me just go get my purse." "You guys are going out again tonight?" "What can I say?" "She's a wealth of information." "You are lucky to have her." "Yeah." "Yeah, I am." "Too bad about tonight, though." "Too bad how?" "Well, it's poker night." "Lehane and Connelly are in town." "I thought you might want to join us, but if you have plans..." "No way." "You're inviting me to your mystery writers' poker night?" "Come on, you're a mystery writer now, right?" "Yeah, but those guys are legendary." "I mean..." "Yeah." "Yeah, they are." "Well, if you're unavailable." "Three, two, one." "Well, wait, wait, wait." "Bingo." "Hang on a second." "Yeah, they're gonna love you." "Gentlemen." "This the new guy?" "Alex Conrad, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane." "It's really awesome to meet you guys." "I am a huge fan." "It's not a book signing, kid, we're here to play poker." "All right." "That's Cannell's seat." "And that's the rule." "We lose a member, nobody sits there for a year." "Sorry." "So, we were just talking about our books becoming movies." "Michael had Lincoln Lawyer, I had Shutter Island," "Ricky has Heat Wave." "So, what about your book, kid?" "They gonna make it into a movie?" "Not yet." "So, Ricky, what's going on with the dead swimmer?" "Treading water." "Dennis, your bet." "Reads like a crime of passion to me." "I bet the girlfriend did it." "The girlfriend?" "You're kidding, right?" "You move through the girlfriend no later than page 50." "Yeah, the woman scorned is like the oldest rodeo clown in the book." "Is he serious?" "He's dead serious." "Well, you know, I just thought we..." "And how many books have you written?" "Just the one." "And this one book made you, like, a crime-solving genius, did it?" "You know what I did after I wrote my first novel?" "I shut up and I wrote 23 more." "I can tell you, a case like this, the guilty party is usually the guy with the biggest secret." "You know Dennis is right." "Aside from Brian, who has the most to lose if this steroid use gets out?" "You know, I think I might just know." "This is ridiculous." "I was in my apartment in faculty housing that night." "You could just ask around." "We know you were in your apartment that night." "Okay, so, then why am I here?" "Do you know what this is, Coach?" "Yeah." "Everybody in my business does." "But nobody on my team takes that stuff." " Brian Morris does." " That's not true." "Apparently, this is his steroid of choice." "It comes from Romania." "I understand you've been to Romania four times in the past two years." "My wife's family is from Bucharest." "So, you're trying to tell me it's just a coincidence?" "Yeah." "So, if I search your apartment and your office, you're telling me that I wouldn't find any of these vials?" "You don't understand." "Brian Morris was a lock to win it all." "He had the body, he had the talent, the money to make himself the best." "He is the reason I came to coach at UNY." "But last year, Brian peaked." "Started fading at the ends of races and from out of nowhere, Zack became the guy to beat." "So, you decided to give Brian an extra boost so he could catch up with Zack." "Brian's father came to me." "He asked if there was anything more I could do." "He said he'd donate millions to the program if that answer was yes." "Yeah, but it wasn't just about the money, was it?" "Every coach knows he has to hitch his wagon to a star." "In fact, you'd done it before with somebody very special." "Before going to UNY, you were coaching in Wilmington." "That's right." "So?" "You ever give that same boost to your swimmers there?" "They keep those old samples, don't they?" "Thank you so much for the interview." "Detective Beckett, Mr. Castle, how goes the investigation?" "Any new leads?" "Actually, we think we caught a break." "Wow, that's great." "Yes, it is." "Well, for everyone except you." "I don't..." "Drop the act, Rob." "We know how you got to be the Rocket." "Coach Rome told us about how he gave you rocket fuel back in Wilmington and didn't stop until you went all the way." "What the hell are you talking about?" "I have never juiced." "I have the test results to prove it." "Yeah, but they weren't testing for the right thing." "We checked your blood samples from the last gold medal race you won against the designer steroids that Zack found in Brian's car." "It came back positive." "There was a mistake." "And then off of that, we got a warrant to search your hotel room, where we found a shirt with chlorine on it." "Pure chlorine." "The kind that killed Zack." "We're waiting for DNA test results right now." "No, I was at Buddha Bar the whole night." "And it was packed there." "You could have easily slipped out and come back without anyone noticing." "This is ridiculous." "Why would I kill Zack?" "Because when Zack found steroids in Brian's car, he was conflicted about what to do." "So he sought counsel from the one guy he knew he could trust." "Captain America, chest full of medals, guy on the cereal box." "Only you realized Coach Rome had given Brian the same steroids he had given to you." "And you knew that if Zack talked, you would be found out." "They'd erase your name from the record books, they'd take away all your medals." "You would lose everything." "And there was no way you were gonna let that happen." "Turn around." "Take a long look, Rob." "Where you're going, I don't think they have pools." "Let's go." "You know, it is ironic, the one man Zack thought he could trust, his mentor, turned out to be his killer." "Yes, speaking of mentor," "I heard that you guys were pretty hard on Conrad last night." "Hard on him?" "No, no, that was just a little friendly hazing." "To hear him describe it, it sounds like someone was trying to teach him a lesson." "What?" "Why would I want to do that?" "Because you didn't want him to spend time with me." " That is completely..." " True?" "Yes, fine." "It's true." "I'm jealous." "There, I said it." "I want you all to myself, and to have you spending time with another writer, that upsets me, and if that makes me petty, so be it." "Guilty as charged." "Actually, I kind of think it's sweet." " You do?" " I do." "And that's why you don't have to worry about me hanging around with Conrad anymore." "From now on, I'm a one-writer girl." "I do feel kind of bad." "He is my mentee, after all." "He really didn't do anything wrong." "I wouldn't feel so bad." "And then he said, "They used to do this to me for talking in class."" "Hey, since we closed the case, we figured we'd take Conrad on a little field trip up to Rikers." "Yeah, I have a pretty heavy prison scene in Seriously Dead and I want to get all the facts right." "Will you still send me your writer's draft?" "Yes, soon as I change the killer." "Girlfriend?" "Rookie mistake." "Let's go." " It was nice to meet you, Alex." " You too." "Come on." "So, a dude can be a muse, right, bro?" "I mean, it's not weird or anything, is it?" " No, it's not weird." " No." "No, yeah." " That's a little weird." " Yeah." "Thank you." "Always."