We don’t usually peg Castle as a traditional family show, but this episode makes us rethink things. Alexis is researching her family tree and there’s one glaringly bare branch. As Beckett says, “Castle is famously fatherless.” But it doesn’t seem to bother him. Castle says, “That’s the beauty of the mystery. Right now, my father could be an astronaut, a pirate, a humanitarian, winner of the Nobel Prize…” Yes, Castle loves a good mystery, like all those unsolved murders he gets to investigate. CUE A CALL FROM BECKETT!
"Castle is famously fatherless."
Legendary pro baseball player Cano Vega is found dead at a Spanish Harlem field he built. Cause of death: a baseball bat to the head. Vega’s wife, Maggie, says he wasn’t the same after a recent trip to Cuba; his first time back since defecting. When he returned to America, locals in the neighborhood dubbed him a traitor, due to the unflattering editorials of newspaper publisher Alfredo Quintana.
Quintana cites his first amendment rights and, despite a weak alibi, Castle and Beckett can’t hold him. Esposito tracks a blood trail at the crime scene to a car registered to Anton Wade, a loan shark known for using a Louisville Slugger to get his point across. Wade admits to being at the crime scene to collect on a loan of two hundred grand. But Vega was paying on time, so Wade had no reason to take batting practice on his head.
Vega’s agent, Bobby Fox, doesn’t know his client’s motivations for the loan or his trip to Cuba. At the morgue, Perlmutter shows Beckett and Castle fist-sized bruises indicating Vega was in a fight. The punches came from someone with a ring. A championship ring, just like one Vega’s teammate, Tommy Zane, has.