'Castle' Recap: 'Almost Famous'

Team Castkett find Grimm at a bike shop. Beckett asks about Derek but Grimm says he doesn’t know. Beckett threatens to have police comb the shop for stolen parts to jog his memory. Grimm suddenly remembers that Derek brought him $25,000 as an peace offering. Beckett says that Grimm extorted Derek and shows a picture of Grimm’s girlfriend with Derek. Grimm asks his girlfriend what she was thinking. She tells him that she didn’t want him to go back to jail so she told Derek if he paid-up Grimm would lay off. Grimm is flattered and has inappropriate PDA with his girlfriend. Grimm has an alibi for the murder; he was shooting pool at a bar until close, which is confirmed by the bartender.

Back at the precinct, Beckett wants to know how Derek could come up with the money so fast. Ryan says his accounts never had more than a couple thousand dollars. Castle realizes that Derek’s regular accounts are not at the same bank of a deposit slip they found in Derek’s car. Esposito finds out that Jesse Mandolay, the same name on the card in Derek’s apartment, made a $25,000 transaction. The team suspects that Mandolay lent Derek the money and killed him when he couldn’t pay it back.

But Mandolay turns out to be Derek and the reason that Derek was dying his hair gray. Derek withdrew money from an account called Sunfire Limited. When the team traces the paper trail in only leads to Mandolay. Castle thinks that because of the gray hair and suits and finance books Ryan found, Derek had to play the role of a financial wizard for someone. He thinks that Derek was hired to play the face of a company so the team is looking for whoever is behind the actual company.

Castle and Beckett questions Bella Lombardo, a lady who says that Mandolay was selling high-end riverfront lofts for a steel of price. She says that she and a bunch of other people gave him checks for $10,000 to reserve a loft at The Bravermen Lofts but it’s a real estate scam.

Castle and Beckett find the actual Bravermen lofts and talk to the developer, Bert Kramer. Kramer says he knows Mandolay. He says Mandolay pretended to be a real estate agent to gain access to the building and that Derek pulled the scam at a bunch of other properties. Castle and Beckett suspect that Derek wasn’t making any money from the scam because he was just the actor for hire and his partner was raking in all the cash. Esposito calls and says that the real owner of the company is Rebecca Dalton.

Apparently, Rebecca has lost a lot of money since her husband’s death; she has many failed businesses. When Team Castkett confronts Rebecca about the business, she says she wasn’t in the country when the company was created. Beckett says they already knew that. It turns out, Rebecca’s trusted lawyer, Michael, used her information to start the fake business. He was also stealing from Rebecca, causing her businesses to fail. Michael hired Derek to be the front of his company, but when Derek took the $25,000, he knew that Michael couldn’t go to the police and Derek told him that he wanted out of the business. Beckett says that Michael killed Derek because Michael couldn’t let Derek expose his scam. Michael clams up. Castle asks him if he wants a lawyer or an actor who plays a lawyer.

Back at Castle’s apartment, Castle is cooking with his mother. He tells his mother that the police found the murder weapon in Michael’s apartment - case closed.

Alexis returns home but she didn’t get part in Grease. Martha is, of course, very upset, but Alexis is pleased because she gets to be the stage manager instead - a gig that she likes even more than acting.

Next week, Team Castkett searches for a missing boy while trying to solve a murder.