DAY 1

Authentic Nick believes that his competitors Terrific Authentic Nick, Terrific Nick and Authentic Terrific Nick are the culprits because one of them had tried to sabotage his business before. Authentic Nick’s employees managed to alibi out however, the employees at the other Nicks have records of pulling pranks and vandalizing. The coroner stated that the body was burned too badly to scour for prints but victim’s shinbones have titanium plates which contained serial numbers leading to an identity. The victim’s name is Gordon Burns who is a reporter. A melted cell phone belt clip even though the cell phone was missing  and a wallet containing the picture of a mysterious woman. Castle states that Burns had been a war correspondent and found it odd that he was in a pizza parlor. 

 

Detective Beckett and Castle head to his employer who states that Burns had stopped doing war articles because his child had died and started doing a puff piece on the pizza wars between the Nicks. However, Burns had called his employer stating that the pizza wars was much bigger than he had thought indicating that there was something suspicious about it. Detective Ryan could not locate the missing cell phone thinking that it was switched off or out of battery. Detective Beckett and Castle then decide to scour Gordon’s home to find the articles he wrote but searched in vain for them because the area was completely trashed. Detective Espesito mentioned that Burns’ neighbor said that she had been holding his mail for the last week because Burns told her that he was going out of the country for a while even though he was in the city all the while. 

Detective Ryan calls in to inform Detective Beckett that Terrific Authentic Nick’s fingerprints were found on the oven in Authentic Nick’s pizza parlor. The task force then brings Terrific Authentic Nick into custody. During the interrogation, Terrific Authentic Nick stated that he knew the victim who asked him and the other nicks questions for his article. Terrific Authentic Nick denies killing the victim and says that he had tried stealing the oven because Authentic Nick had tried to sabotage him and accused Authentic Nick of laundering money for his friends along with mentioning Burns to him. 

Authentic Nick was brought into interrogation and said that he had connections with the mob because of his cousin whom he sees once a year. He stated that the police had already searched his place before and no evidence was found to make him guilty.  In his defence he accused Terrific Authentic Nick and his alibi was that he was at home with his wife and that victim had only asked him about pizza.