The Murder of Johanna Beckett: Chapter Three
The ABC drama Castle can be enjoyed on a multitude of levels. On the one hand, each episode of the series features a neatly-crafted New York City murder for homicide detective Kate Beckett and her mystery novelist consultant-slash-partner Richard Castle to investigate and resolve by the end of the hour. Castle also contains, however, a collection of equally well-crafted characters that adds substance to the show that goes beyond mere crime drama and are just as entertaining as the weekly cases themselves. First and foremost are Beckett and Castle, but supporting cast members Martha Rodgers, Alexis Castle, detectives Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan, and Captain Roy Montgomery add to the series’ success as much as anything else.
The duo of Kate Beckett and Richard Castle are somewhat polar opposites—Castle’s background as a mystery novelist inevitably brings imaginative interpretations to the facts at hand while Beckett is more “no-nonsense” and “by-the-book” than her offbeat pseudo-partner. Conflicting personas also exist between the other characters on Castle, but in the end they all come together to form a tightly-knit family nonetheless. The group inevitably cares about each other as more than mere co-workers and instinctively watch each other’s back throughout the seasons. A prime example of these familial bonds involves another on-going narrative thread on Castle—the investigation into the murder of Kate Beckett’s mother over ten years earlier—as each of the characters play their part in the unfolding drama.
The death of Johanna Beckett has only been featured in a small handful of episodes since Castle first premiered in March 2009 but enough pieces of the unsolved murder puzzle have been assembled to build a clearer picture of the event. Initially ruled an act of gang violence, for instance, it was discovered during season two that Johanna Beckett was actually the victim of a hired hit man who also killed three others during the same time period. The following season, clues led to the even older death of an undercover FBI agent named Bob Armen in the same alley that Johanna Beckett herself was murdered. The convicted culprit in the Armen case, mob enforcer Joe Pulgatti, maintained his innocence when Kate Beckett and Richard Castle later interviewed him, however, claiming that the shooting was part of a kidnapping attempt gone wrong by three rogue New York City police officers.
“We called it incarceration,” one of the former cops, Gary McCallister, admitted in regards to the vigilante actions against the mafia that transpired two decades earlier. McCallister was himself incarcerated for his involvement while another former police officer linked to the kidnapping scheme, John Raglan, was assassinated before he could tell Kate Beckett about the true motivations behind the death of her mother. Raglan’s assailant, meanwhile, was arrested during the season three episode “Knockdown,” an anonymous John Doe who went by the fabricated identity of Hal Lockwood.
“Who hired you?” Kate Beckett asks Hal Lockwood. When he fails to answer, she adds that she will be back week-after-week until he finally does.
It apparently was not an idol threat on Beckett’s part, because the final episode of the third season of Castle, “Knockout,” begins with her again visiting Hal Lockwood in prison. She discovers, however, that Lockwood is no longer in administrative segregation but was transferred to the general population instead. Beckett immediately understands the implications and races to the cell of Gary McCallister, only to arrive too late—Hal Lockwood has just eliminated yet another member of the conspiracy surrounding the death of Johanna Beckett.
Kate Beckett attends the subsequent court hearing and again confronts Lockwood. “This doesn’t change a thing,” she tells him before the proceedings begin. “Whoever hired you, he can’t hide from me.”
“No sweetheart, you’ve got it ass-backwards,” Lockwood coldly replies. “You can’t hide from him.”
During the hearing, Beckett notices three fake police officers in attendance but before she can react, they toss a flash grenade in her direction. Armed with guns and a waiting helicopter, they retrieve Hal Lockwood from custody and escape. “Courthouse security personnel were so used to seeing cops come and go, nobody gave them a second look,” Javier Esposito explains afterwards. The helicopter, meanwhile, flew below the thousand foot radar ceiling and thus went undetected as well.
Detective Kevin Ryan, meanwhile, is more successful while examining the prison records. “Lockwood made weekly calls to the same number but week after week, the person at the end of the call refused to accept the charges,” he tells the others. “Until four days ago.” The group then listens to the recorded conversation.
“How’s the family?” Hal Lockwood asks. “Same,” comes the response. “How are Charlie and Mike?” Lockwood inquires and is met with yet another one-word answer, “Good.”
Javier Esposito immediately recognizes the communication as a code. “They’re not talking about people,” he explains. “That’s phonetic alphabet, military jargon. Charlie and Mike is ‘Continue Mission.’”
The question then becomes, what exactly is the mission? Richard Castle surmises that it must pertain to the third cop that had been involved with the mafia kidnapping spree of John Raglan and Gary McCallister. The group has already gone over police records from the time period and found no indication that Raglan and McCallister had an additional partner, but Kate Beckett insists that they look over the records again.
As Richard Castle, Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan begin to pour over the volumes of ancient police files, Castle stumbles upon the name “Napolitano.” The police officer in question died in 1993 but Castle discovers various arrest records that have been altered, with Napolitano’s name added after the fact. This information leads Esposito and Ryan to Michael Yanavich, who was not only assigned to the records room—and thus had access to the altered reports—but also graduated from the same police academy class as John Raglan and Gary McCallister. While not the mysterious third cop, Yanavich does have information nonetheless. “Some black kid used to follow them around, a rookie,” he tells Esposito and Ryan. “Montgomery. McCallister and Raglan trained that kid.”
Unfortunately Hal Lockwood had already visited Captain Roy Montgomery the evening before. “He’s very disappointed, Roy,” Lockwood begins. “Did you not understand the conditions of the agreement? Beckett stays alive as long as you keep her on a leash. That’s the deal that you made with him. But you’re not holding up your end. And that’s unfortunate because she really is a lovely girl. But now we’ve reached a critical stage and I have to cap the well.”
Threatened with the death of his own family, Montgomery agrees to set up a private meeting with Kate Beckett in an isolated airplane hanger. “I was a rookie when it happened,” he offers in way of an explanation. “McCallister and Raglan were heroes to me—I believed in what we were doing. We were just going to snatch Pulgatti that night. Bob Armen wasn’t even supposed to be there. Armen reached for my gun, that’s when I heard the shot. I didn’t even know it was my gun that went off until Armen went down. Then McCallister pulled me into the van. I remember him saying, ‘It’s OK, kid, it’s not your fault. Happens in this town every day.’”
Roy Montgomery denies any involvement in the death of Johanna Beckett, however, and likewise refuses to name the person that was ultimately responsible. “I don’t know how, but somehow he figured out what we had done,” is all he says. “And he could of turned us all in. Instead he demanded the ransom money. He took that money to become what he is and God forgive me, that may be my greatest sin.”
Montgomery is now willing to pay for that sin, even if it means sacrificing his own life in the process. As Hal Lockwood and his group of fellow hit men arrive at the hanger, Montgomery instructs Richard Castle to remove Beckett from the scene. “They’re coming to kill you and I’m not going to let them,” he explains. “I’m going to end this. This is my spot, Kate. This is where I stand.”
The New York City Police Captain is able to quickly dispose of Lockwood’s men but Hal Lockwood himself is able to take cover and gets the drop on Montgomery instead. The paid assassin then lingers over the shot-but-not-yet-dead Roy Montgomery and says, “You can’t hide her from us. From me.”
“Got that ass-backwards, boy,” Montgomery replies. “You can’t hide from me.” He then shoots and kills Hal Lockwood as his own life likewise comes to an end.
The investigation into the murder of Johanna Beckett has taken many twists-and-turns through the first three season of the ABC drama Castle, with hints of a greater conspiracy and a trail of dead bodies connected to the crime. The list of casualties now includes the mentor of Kate Beckett and patriarch of the family unit that comprises the cast of the show. Kate Beckett and Richard Castle may or may not be any closer in determining who exactly is pulling the strings on all of the events surrounding the mystery, but one thing is increasingly apparent—the on-again, off-again investigation is starting to hit a little too close to home.
Anthony Letizia (November 7, 2011)
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