Chapter 1105 The Greg Galaxy (Patreon)

“I knew it. That guy’s basically the male nurse version of Jack—a dreamboat for all the ladies.”

Castle’s comment left Jack unsure how to react. It clearly didn’t sound like a compliment, but also wasn’t something he felt like denying.

Kevin looked at Jack, tilting his chin up and trying to suppress a grin, clearly indicating that he agreed wholeheartedly with Castle’s assessment.

“OK, I thought the same. But Dr. Simms insisted their relationship was strictly platonic. So I dug a little deeper and found... this.”

As he spoke, he pulled out a blank auxiliary board from beside the evidence wall and began pinning up photo after photo from the thick file folder in his hands.

Kevin placed a picture of Greg McClintock at the center of the board, and under Castle’s increasingly wide-eyed gaze, he pinned up nine photos of beautiful female doctors arranged around Greg like planets orbiting a sun.

Finally, at the top of the board, he wrote the title: “The Greg Galaxy.”

Kevin gestured to the board like a game show host. “Each of these women revolves around Greg, treating him like their closest confidant.”

“Oh ho, you actually uncovered a real-life lady-killer?” Castle’s expression was more envious than shocked.

Even Jack found himself curiously examining the photos of Greg’s “orbiting” women, and was surprised to see that the nine doctors weren’t just diverse in hair and skin color—they spanned a wide age range as well.

“But here’s the strange part,” Kevin continued. “I talked to every one of the ‘planets’ in this ‘galaxy,’ and they all denied ever sleeping with Greg. But they had no problem admitting that their relationships with him were special.

And forensics already checked the hospital from top to bottom—none of the carpet fibers match what we found on the victim.”

Despite essentially admitting his work had turned up nothing useful, Kevin didn’t look disappointed at all. In fact, he wore a strangely satisfied smile.

Considering he’d mapped out the entire “Greg Galaxy” in less than half a day, Jack figured that if Kevin ever quit being a detective, he’d probably have a bright future as a paparazzo specializing in celebrity gossip.

It took Castle a moment to close his half-open mouth before he voiced his indignant confusion.

“This makes no sense! If you’re not trying to sleep with these women, why waste your time listening to them vent and buying them gifts?”

That morally questionable comment was unfortunately overheard by Beckett, who had silently walked up behind him, giving the opinionated writer quite the scare.

“Maybe he’s gay?” Kevin guessed. “Just one of those gals’ besties?”

“Judging by how hard he tried to flirt with me—no, he’s straight,” Beckett said with confidence.

Seeing even Castle, the king of crazy theories, stumped by the situation, the group decided to let it go for now.

At least for the time being, Greg McClintock—the warm-hearted nurse on a mission to become the central air conditioning unit of County Hospital—was off the suspect list.

“This is Valerie Monroe’s financial record.” Jack handed Beckett a thin file, at least in comparison to the massive folder Kevin had just carried in.

“Since graduating from med school, she’d been paying the minimum amount on a $440,000 student loan every month.”

Kevin’s eyes nearly popped out. “Being a doctor costs that much? Thank God I became a cop.”

Jack gave him a sarcastic smile. In this country, becoming a doctor requires much more than just money. And Valerie Monroe was just an internist.

If someone wanted to become a cardiac surgeon like Beckett’s ex, the total cost could easily exceed a million, not to mention the enormous time and energy investment—usually twelve to fifteen years of grueling effort.

Which is why handsome young surgeons mostly only exist in TV dramas—or in real life, they come from families of doctors. Most people who make it to the specialist level are already middle-aged and balding.

Jack continued, “But in the past six months, she started paying $10,000 a week—that’s $40,000 a month. I double-checked, and her salary didn’t increase during that time.”

Castle’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Even you FBI guys couldn’t find out where the money came from?”

“Let me finish,” Jack said, exasperated by Castle’s impatience. “We did find the source in her transaction records. The money came from an offshore secret account. We’re still investigating the details, but it’s going to take time.”

Everyone present was an experienced investigator. Jack didn’t need to spell it out—an internal medicine doctor at a public hospital suddenly receiving large sums of money from a secret offshore account over the past six months was suspicious, to say the least.

“So, what do you have?” Castle leaned over, peering at the photo Beckett was holding.

She didn’t answer but instead walked over and pinned it to the evidence board. The image was a bit blurry—clearly a screenshot from surveillance footage—showing Dr. Valerie Monroe standing next to an unidentified man, with an ambulance parked nearby.

“Greg didn’t lie,” Beckett said. “I pulled this from the hospital’s surveillance cameras near the ambulance bay. Dr. Monroe did leave work with another man.”

Jack studied the image closely. Though the quality wasn’t great, it clearly showed Valerie Monroe’s face. Unfortunately, the man beside her was only visible in profile—he looked to be a middle-aged white male, somewhere in his forties or fifties.

“Send me a copy. I might be able to get the operations center to run facial recognition, though we probably won’t get results until tomorrow.”

This case didn’t fall under FBI jurisdiction, but Jack was still overseeing the Dana Morret collaboration project, serving as the liaison between the FBI and local agencies like the NYPD.

Even without that role, he had enough pull in the New York field office these days that he didn’t need to go through Alice—he could go straight to the IT nerds and get help.

Beckett checked the time on her watch. “Thanks for the FBI assist. It’s getting late—anyone up for a midnight snack? My treat.”

“Aha! I heard there’s a new Peking duck place near Wall Street I’ve been dying to try,” Castle said, immediately raising his hand.

“You mean the one that sells ducks for $98 a bird?” Jack declined right away. Not because he was trying to save the underpaid detective money—he’d already tried it.

Whether it was “authentic” or not was beside the point—American palates differ from the people of Cerys, and “authentic” didn’t necessarily mean tasty to them. Jack just thought it was a terrible deal.