The Murder of Johanna Beckett: Chapter One

There is an underlying narrative thread within Castle, however—beyond the sexual chemistry and attraction between the two lead characters—that centers on the background of Kate Beckett. As Richard Castle explains in the pilot episode, “There’s always a story. Always a chain of events makes everything make sense. Take you for example. Under normal circumstances, you should not be here. Most smart, good looking women become lawyers, not cops. And yet, here you are. Why?”

Instead of answering, Beckett allows Castle to continue. “Well, you’re not bridge and tunnel, no trace of the boroughs when you talk, so that means Manhattan. That means money. You went to college, probably pretty good one. You had options. Yeah, you had lots of options, better options. More socially acceptable options. And you still chose this. That tells me, something happened. Not to you. No, you’re wounded but you’re not that wounded. It was somebody you cared about. It was someone you loved. And you probably couldn’t live with that, with the person responsible never caught. And that, Detective Beckett, is why you’re here.”

Although the psychological analysis provided by Richard Castle hits a little too close to home as far as Kate Beckett is concerned, it is not until the fifth episode of Castle, “A Chill Goes Through Her Veins,” that the storyline is alluded to again. During the course of an investigation into the death of a former drug addict—the murder actually occurred five years earlier but the body was stored in a freezer located at a storage facility for the intervening years—Beckett becomes angry in regards to the initial “missing persons” investigation by the NYPD which failed to follow potential leads. “I hate cops like him,” she tells Castle about the previous officer-in-charge. “Guys like him, things only make sense if they fit in a box. So they make them fit and murderers go free.”

The reason for Kate Beckett’s frustration stems from her own personal experience with the New York Police Department ten years earlier. While Richard Castle initially believes it has to do with her father, it was actually Beckett’s mother, a former civil rights attorney and law professor, that was the victim of a fatal stabbing. Robbery was immediately ruled out since she still had all of her possessions, and there was no evidence of sexual assault. With few possibilities remaining, the murder was eventually deemed a case of gang violence. “They couldn’t think outside the box so they just tried to package it up nicely and the killer was never caught,” Beckett explains to Castle.

Whether it was an inability to let sleeping dogs lie, an innate curiosity and need to “finish the story” or even growing affection for Kate Beckett, Richard Castle inevitably—and secretly—begins his own investigation into the death of Johanna Beckett. Being a successful mystery novelist has enabled Castle to acquire relationships with numerous experts in a wide variety of fields, including a leading forensic pathologist named Dr. Clark Murray. Although he informs Castle that the odds of solving a murder after ten years of inactivity are remote, Murray is still able to find new clues in the autopsy photos contained within the case file.

“The original (medical examiner) concluded the stab wounds were random,” he tells Castle. “Now maybe the killer got lucky. But you see this wound right here? It’s a low angle thrust to the kidney. The wound size indicated that the knife was twisted. Her body would have gone into immediate shock. (As for the other wounds), their angles indicate they were delivered after she was immobilized and on the ground. They’re just for show. This is the one that killed her.”

More significantly, Dr. Murray discovers three additional victims with the exact same type of wounds who were murdered at the same time as Johanna Beckett. They include one of her former law students as well as a documents clerk and a lawyer working for a non-profit organization. While this new evidence dismisses the randomness of gang violence that the original investigators concluded a decade earlier, Kate Beckett has no interest in the details and even temporarily breaks off her professional relationship with Richard Castle because of his private inquiries into her personal life.

“Same reason a recovering alcoholic doesn’t drink,” Beckett forcefully tells Castle in regards to her indifference. “You don’t think I haven’t been down there, you don’t think I haven’t memorized every line in that file? My first three years on the force, every off-duty moment was spent looking for something someone missed. It took me a year of therapy to realize if I didn’t let it go, it was going to destroy me. And so I let it go.”

Kate Beckett may have “let go” of finding out what happened to her mother, but fate apparently has a different viewpoint during the season two episode “Sucker Punch.” While investigating the death of an Irish street thug named Jack Coonan, it is revealed that the gang enforcer was killed in the exact same manner as the four victims from ten years early—including Kate Beckett’s mother. It is also deduced that the culprit in all fives cases was a professional contract killer with extensive military training.

Dr. Clark Murray, who is brought in by medical examiner Lanie Parish to assist with the inspection of Jack Coonan’s body, is able to make a replica of the weapon used in the murder. “It’s a special operations group knife, the kind favored by Special Forces in Gulf War I,” he explains “He kills with a single blow using these other wounds to camouflage the skill with which the initial stroke is delivered. The very same method and the very same weapon that the killer employed ten years ago.”

Beckett initially excuses herself from the investigation, unable to handle the implications. She changes her mind, however, after meeting with her father at a local diner. “She was a devout believer in the truth,” he tells Beckett in regards to her mother. “If she were here right now she’d tell you the truth can never hurt you. This may be your mother’s way of reaching out to you, Katie. And reminding you the truth is still your weapon to wield, not theirs.”

It turns out that Jack Coonan met his untimely death because he was about to inform the FBI that his brother Dick Coonan was operating an extensive drug operation. In exchange for immunity, Coonan agrees to tell everything he knows about the hitman he hired—named Rathborne—to kill his sibling. “About my height, just so average he’s almost invisible,” he begins. “We were in the service together. They said he’d been killed back in a training exercise in ’95 but then about a year ago, I’m sitting at a bar and I glance across and I’m looking at a ghost. Turns out he’d actually been recruited back then, not killed, to do the bad stuff that governments like to deny.”

As to the process of hiring Rathborne, it was rather simple and direct. “He’d given me the number to his answering service in the Caymans and then they provided me with a single use e-mail address,” Dick Coonan explains. “E-mailed him the name of his target, wired him the money and waited.”

The process is repeated—with Richard Castle paying the $100,000 fee—in the hopes of catching Rathborne in a sting operation, but the assassin does not show up as scheduled. A slip of the tongue, however, leads Kate Beckett to deduce that there isn’t anyone named Rathborne after all and that Dick Coonan himself is the contract killer. Before he can be apprehended, however, Beckett is forced to shoot and kill Coonan when he uses Castle as a shield to escape capture.

“Forget it, you’ll never touch him,” is all Dick Coonan is able to tell Kate Beckett in regards to who hired him ten years earlier. “He’ll bury you.”

The first two seasons of the ABC drama Castle contains many memorable episodes and inventive means of murder, but it is the characters of Richard Castle and Kate Beckett that make the more indelible mark on viewers. While the death of Beckett’s mother was only briefly explored during those freshman and sophomore efforts, it added depth and emotion to both characters and served to whet the appetites of fans of the series nonetheless.

Just like a good murder mystery is supposed to do.

Anthony Letizia (September 19, 2011)