Kate Beckett (spec)

Have an idea about some of Kate Beckett's missing backstory? Have at it here...

* As far as we know, Kate has always told Castle the truth, but she doesn't usually tell him the *whole* truth. For example, when he asks how her first case with Sorenson went in 1x09, she answers 'we got the guy'. It's Sorenson who tells Castle that they didn't get the guy before he killed the kid. Likewise, there may be much more to the story behind 'this is for the life I saved' than her father's alcoholism.

* Not all of the information given in Castle's story about why Beckett is a cop has been confirmed. There's no other mention of her having studied law, or how much money 'that means money' actually entails. Her behaviour suggests that she's familiar with, but not particularly comfortable in the world of the rich (1x03, 1x07). Kate went to public school (1x03), which would seem to contradict the idea that she's from a 'wealthy' background as rich kids in NYC generally do \*not\* go to public school. She also wasn't familiar with Redding, the elite private school the rich kids in 1x03 go to, which again suggests they inhabit a class above her world. However, there are a few excellent schools for gifted students in NYC which middle class kids *do* try quite hard to get into (along with poor and working class kids). One of these is Stuyvesant High School, which 2x22 confirms Beckett attended, so she may have been referring to this in 1x03. Although she might have gone to private school when younger, the preparation for the exams usually starts in 6th grade (they're taken in 8th), so it's most likely she'd been in public school all along.

* Kate didn't know Redding, but she did know York, which is in the West 60s. This might mean she grew up in that neighborhood, which again would fit with middle class parents who still sent their child to public school. (East side tends to be old money, West side tends towards the left.).

* 'More socially acceptable options' might be referring to the kind of job a nice middle-class girl would be expected to follow after college, or Castle might be referring to a boyfriend and marriage. Castle assumes that Beckett's heart has been broken (from what she says to him at the end of 1x02), but we don't know if that's true, or by whom. It may have been Sorenson, it may have been someone else, it may have been more than once. It may never have been broken at all, unless her mother's murder counts.

* The pilot script puts Kate at 29, but that's not been said on air, and as a career path to homicide, it's so fast it's bordering on impossible. Since you can't enter the police academy before 21, and her mother was murdered 10 years ago (1x10) logic would put her closer to 31 (which is Katic's age as well). HOWEVER, *Heat Wave* does put Nikki at 19 at her mother's murder, which has since been confirmed by Terri Miller, so it appears she was indeed 29 in Season 1.
* Beckett's birthday is November 17, 1979, and Johanna died on January 9, 1999 (3x13). That being said, Beckett would have only been a Freshman in college when her mother was murdered.

* There are quite a few details about Nikki Heat to be found in *Heat Wave*. Several significant things we know about Kate have been changed, so it's likely that not all of Nikki's backstory is the same as Kate's, but given the rest of the novel's somewhat transparent cover of 'reality', some of it probably does apply. It is mentioned that Nikki is 29, and that her mother was murdered when she was 19, at Thanksgiving, in the apartment Nikki grew up in and still lives in (pages 36 and 39). Nikki's parents were divorced (38) which seems unlikely to be true for Kate given her father's reaction to the murder. Nikki went to college in Boston (38), specifically Northeastern (44), was an English major who wanted to switch to Theater (36) but ended up transferring to the College of Criminal Justice after her mother was killed. We also know she likes art (44), particularly John Singer Sargent's *Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose* and that she saves time by pressing her own clothes the night before (71). She also loves animated movies and Broadway shows (18).
* *Naked Heat* adds the info that *Cinderella* is one of Nikki's favorite movies (8), that she discourages nicknaming corpses because she feels it is disrespectful to the victims/families (26), that she had a boyfriend in college named Petar, a Croatian student who followed her home from a semester abroad in Venice [though we know that Kate's semester abroad was in Russia, not Italy] (160-1), that she runs by the Hudson River on the weekends (233) and that she knows how to ride a motorcycle (223).
* *Naked Heat* also includes a markedly negative reaction from Nikki about Rook's article, including the fact that there's been quite a bit of fallout both within the department and in the media because of the article. This is interesting, especially in light of Kate's comment in 2x05 that she's been getting flak about the Nikki Heat books. We haven't seen much of that on the show, but taken together these things might indicate that there's been more negative stuff going on behind the scenes.
* Kate says in 2x12 that she's been a bridesmaid six times. Since Lanie's not married, this presumably means that Kate either has other reasonably close friends, or siblings, or both, but since she doesn't disclose the details, we don't know for sure.
* Beckett's comment in 2x16 about Vice raiding Dungeon Alley may signify that she was in Vice before her transfer to Homicide. Or it could mean that it happened recently and she just heard about it from them.
* When Kate gets annoyed with Castle, she has a tendency to shine a flashlight in his eyes (2x21, 3x10, 3x12).