Castle and Beckett get a Wolf of Wall Street-esque case when a trader is found dead in his swanky NYC apartment. Peter Cordero was a scholarship kid who worked his way up to the big leagues, but found himself caught up in some serious drama when agents began investigating his super-shady boss. Thing get exciting when the detectives spend a little time in the crazy world of JP Harding investment bank—where bags of money are literally thrown about and everyone’s basically assumed to be on drugs due to the high-level stress situation. Because, it’s stressful! You know, making millions of dollars. Stressful.
At the beginning of the investigation, the head of JP Harding (Jamie Berman) points Caskett in the direction of a gang member who he claimed was meeting up with Peter during office hours. The plot thickens when they find actual numbers written in pen on the dead body, along with proof that Peter had been wearing a wire. They’d also been on the lookout for the woman who called in the murder, when she walks right in to the precinct with Elizabeth Weston, AKA the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, AKA Captain Gates’s estranged sister?! The sibling rivalry between the two is immediately palpable, and the Captain makes it clear that she’s not about to share the details of the rift between them.
When Castle and Beckett track down gang member Hector Nunez they learn that he is innocent, but he knows a bit about the troubles Peter was having. On the one hand, Peter appeared to be working with the U.S. Attorney to help bring Jamie down, but he had reached out to Hector (his old friend from the bad neighborhood) to help with a 25 million dollar transfer to a secret account. The account number that he gave Hector was the same one written on his corpse. Creepy.
While all this is going on, it becomes clear that Elizabeth has been keeping some details about her own investigation from Captain Gates. Finally, in a conversation with Beckett, the captain reveals that the coldness between herself and her sister is a result of a previous case. Back in the day, Gates chose to do her job in a particularly sticky situation, even though she knew she was ruining a big opportunity for Elizabeth. Once again, they find themselves at odds; Elizabeth wants to bring down Jamie but doesn’t want her sister to incriminate Peter, her witness. Gates doesn’t care and explains—much to her sister’s chagrin—that she’s unwilling to play dirty just so Elizabeth can win her big case and further become a big deal on the attorney scene.
Once they start listening to the wire recordings that Elizabeth was initially withholding, Castle and Beckett hear Peter referencing Armando Garcia, a name that turns out to be his own alias. He was transferring 25 million dollars to himself, but the money was coming from his boss Jamie, who had offered him a deal to throw the case with the U.S. Attorneys. More details reveal that Elizabeth’s colleague—Stephanie, the woman who placed the initial call about the murder—lied about the times when Peter was wearing the wire and, in fact, had been setting him up from the beginning. The only reason he was helping on the case was because Stephanie had planted drugs in his car and framed him, then murdered him when she learned he was working with Jamie. But she explains that it’s totally okay because she only did all so they could bust the real bad guy for insider trading and all those other white-collar crimes, Jamie Berman. Sorry, Steph. That “for the greater good” theory probably won’t hold up in court.
The Caskett wedding details continue to unfold and, for the record, I fully support Castle’s idea for getting married on a roller coaster. Makes perfect sense, and it’s super poetic. I also support the idea of a wedding that consists of only two people—the bride and groom. But, alas, the re-working of the invite list goes on.
Stray observations:
—Since Elizabeth and Captain Gates made up, can we have more Elizabeth please? Sally Richardson-Whitfield was awfully easy on the eyes. Just sayin’.
—Aunt Theresa apparently wrote something mean about Castle on Facebook? This sounds hilarious; we need more details.
Shannon M. Houston is a New York-based freelance writer, regular contributor to Paste, and occasional contributor to the human race via little squishy babies. You can follow her on Twitter.