Castle

There are two kinds of folks

who sit around thinking about how to kill people

psychopaths and mystery writers.

I'm the kind that pays better.

Who am I? - I'm Rick Castle.

Castle. Castle.

I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?

Every writer needs inspiration, and I've found mine.

I'm Detective Kate Beckett.

Beckett.

- Beckett? - Could you get some backup, please?

And thanks to my friendship with the mayor,

- I get to be on her case. - Oh!

Do I look like a killer to you?

Yes, you kill my patience.

And together, we catch killers.

- I hate this case. - I know. Isn't it great?

Whoa!

Oh, dude.

Oh!

Dude.

Dude.

Aw. Science project?

No, it's a pet.

Say hello to Theodore, dad.

I'm rat-sitting him for Ashley. Hello, Theodore.

How goes the rat race? Did you know

the average life span of a rat is two to three years?

Ashley's had Theodore for five.

And this is the first time he's left him with anyone.

Trusting you with a treasured pet...

That's a big step in a relationship. Yeah, I guess it kind of is.

I must say, the little plague pusher

is not very diligent about his exercise.

I don't know. I-I think it's just those beady little eyes.

It's a rat, mother. They all have beady eyes.

That's where the phrase comes from. Mm.

Dad, those are for Theodore. He has a very specific diet

I'm supposed to follow. Well, unless he's Ben,

I'm sure he won't hold it against me.

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the park with a dead body. Ah.

Who's Ben?

Killer rat movie. Before your time.

You know, I understand ferrets as a pet...

Snakes, spiders, even a hairless mole. But a rat?

Probably kids in this city who keep cockroaches as pets.

You're probably right.

What's the strangest pet you've ever had?

You. Hey, Lanie.

What's this, a hit-and-run?

In a manner of speaking.

Two BMX bikers rode over the body, then called it in.

But the cause of death are the gunshot wounds...

One to the chest,

and two more in the back.

So he's wounded on both sides?

Maybe there were two shooters, he was caught in the cross fire?

Won't know till I get him back to the lab. You got an I.D.?

Leonard Levitt, Ozone Park, Queens.

Wallet, cash, keys- everything still here.

Which means it wasn't theft. No.

Something much more nefarious.

A feather.

Alternating stripes, uniform color...

This is no ordinary pigeon feather.

This... this is from a bird of prey.

So what are you suggesting, Castle,

that a bird shot him three times?

Not just any bird.

This is the calling card of a murderer

known only as... The Falcon killer.

Or maybe before getting shot,

he just bent down and picked up the feather.

See, that's why you'll never be a best-selling novelist.

No sense of drama.

I find that dead bodies are usually enough.

Thanks, Lanie. Mm-hmm.

Yo. So we ran background on your vic. It's pretty thin.

He was a New York city transit employee.

Worked in the subway out of the 116th street station.

He worked uptown and he lived in Queens?

Then what was he doing in the park?

That's pretty out of the way.

Well, we thought that he was looking to buy

some weed or some love, but he has no drug history,

no convictions of solicitations, no nothing.

And what about his family?

Both parents are deceased. Guy never married,

has no children. It's like he barely existed.

Making him the perfect victim.

Mild-mannered city employee

lured into a conveniently wooded area,

struck down by a murderer

with the speed and cunning of a bird of prey.

Don't ask. You guys go to his apartment.

Find out who he is and what he was doing in the park. Right.

Lividity and temperature puts time of death between 5:00 and 7:00 P.M.

The victim also has a broken wrist.

Could be postmortem from those BMX-ers

playing X games on his corpse.

What about the gunshot wounds? Al three entry wounds

were made by the same weapon... A .45.

There was only one shooter.

So the same person shot him in the front,

and then shot him in the back?

Didn't make any sense to me either,

so I decided to take some measurements.

Turns out, the wounds are of different depths.

The one on his chest is very shallow,

indicating the shot came from a distance.

How far? About 150 feet.

That's quite an accurate shot with a handgun.

Mm. Yeah, I'd say your killer had some shooting experience.

But the next two shots in the back were close range,

inside 6 feet, maybe.

So he got shot in the chest at long range,

turned around to run... But he's wounded.

The killer goes after him to finish what he started

with a double tap to the back.

He wasn't just shot. He was hunted down and killed.

But why?

Whoa.

What was this guy up to? No idea.

What about that? Looks like some sort of counter.

What do you think he was counting? Nothing good.

Night vision, spotting scope, parabolic microphone...

Top quality, too.

What's a subway worker doing with all this? I don't know.

But whatever he was into, it had something to do with the park. Look.

This is right where his body was found.

5:26... That's around our time of death.

Looks like he was tracking something or someone

with the initials B.H.S.

And it looks like that someone found him.

Surveillance equipment, clandestine meetings,

a professional hit... Mix in the subway, and we're looking at

"The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3," or better yet, "Money Train."

Any one of these people could be a secret accomplice.

That's what I love about the subway.

Down here, everyone's got a story. See,

that's the difference between you and me, Castle.

You see the subway as a place to pick up dialogue

for your novels. Or the

occasional investment banker on her way to the gym.

I, on the other hand, see it as a way of getting

from point "A" to point "B."

So Lightbulb Len's dead, huh?

Lightbulb Len? Yeah, it was his job to change the lightbulbs

in the stations and tunnels all over New York.

I figured something was wrong.

It's the first time he's missed work in 22 years.

Mr. Rivera, Len was found shot to death in the park.

Any idea what he was doing there?

The guy changed lightbulbs for a living.

You know, a job like that, it's not for the social.

I mean, in the 12 years I was his supervisor,

I don't think we ever had one personal conversation.

But you know who you should talk to? Who?

Mr. Sansone?

Arthur!

I'm sorry. It's just...

Why would anybody want to shoot him?

Well, we were hoping that you could tell us that.

Well, the guy was one of the unsung heroes of this city.

He saved a lot of lives.

I'm sorry. I thought... I thought he changed lightbulbs.

Bad things happen in darkness, Mr. Castle,

dimly lit tunnels,

darkened stairwells.

If Len heard about a blown bulb before shift end,

he would stay late, on his own time, to fix it.

And of course, there was his response

to the Abe Lipschitz tragedy.

1989...

An electrocution of a bulb changer at the Brighton Beach station.

This is a circuit interrupter switch.

Shuts down all of the power inside a tunnel

so that electrical maintenance could be performed safely.

Down here... It's called the Lenny Box...

Because it took a visionary like Len Levitt to design it

and force the transit authority to install one in every station

in this city. What about high-tech gear?

Did Lenny ever use any night vision or microphones for his work?

No. Why?

How about the initials B.H.S.? Does that mean anything to you?

Maybe someone or something that Len was keeping tabs on.

The only thing Len Levitt ever kept tabs on

was every single bulb he ever changed.

Did he have any enemies that you know of?

You don't make waves without making a few enemies.

Because of Len, we're in the middle of a systemwide changeover

from incandescent to compact fluorescents.

New technology comes in,

the city ends up with a warehouse full of old bulbs.

That makes some guy in a suit

at the old bulb factory very unhappy.

You ask me, corporations conspired to take Lenny out.

"'Lenny Box. '" So the guy's an inventor?

Apparently he was an underground renaissance man.

Guess that explains all the electronics.