The Prettiest One: A Thriller (23 page)

He allowed his terrible mood to fester. What he was feeling might come in handy later if he found out there was, in fact, trouble back east. If he had to injure someone, maybe even kill someone, it never hurt to keep a little rage bottled up so he could pop the top off it if he needed to. As he closed his eyes and prayed for the strength to keep from snapping one of the necks in the seats beside him, he wondered if he would indeed have to kill someone tonight. And if so, with only mild curiosity, he wondered who that might be.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CAITLIN WAS IN THE PASSENGER seat of Bix’s Explorer, where she’d taken to sitting; Bix was behind the wheel; and Josh was in his usual place in the backseat. Caitlin knew her husband wasn’t happy about the seating arrangement, but it was Bix’s car, so he did the driving, and she could only imagine how uncomfortable Bix and Josh would be riding up front together.

A few minutes ago, Bix announced that they needed to stop for gas. They pulled into a Shell station, and while Bix pumped, Josh stepped away to use his cell phone. Once they were all back in the car, in their assigned places, Josh gave Bix an address toward which to head. It was twenty-six miles away in a town called Hyattville. When Caitlin asked Josh where he came up with it, he promised to let them know when it made sense to do so as he told the story. Because they apparently had forty minutes or so ahead of them before they reached their destination, wherever it was, she was willing to be patient.

“Okay, so here’s the whole story,” Josh began. “Twenty-two years ago, this pedophile abducted a couple of little girls from a playground and took them to his shack at the edge of a junkyard he owned. Somehow the cops found out about him, but when they got to his place, one of the girls was already missing and the other was . . .”

“Damaged,” Caitlin said.

“Right. So, they question the guy but he won’t talk. He refuses to show them where the missing little girl is.”

“Kathryn Southern,” Caitlin said.

“Right, Kathryn Southern,” Josh said. “Apparently, the cops tore that junkyard apart but they never found her. The place was also adjacent to a town garbage dump, and they searched that, too, and came up empty.”

Caitlin shuddered at the all-too-familiar story of a lost child left in a ditch or dumpster or shallow grave in the woods, disposed of like garbage.

“The first of the other two articles I found talked about the suspect being found guilty of kidnapping and sexual assault.”

“Not murder?” Caitlin asked. “What about the missing girl?”

“No body,” Bix said. “Without it, it’s hard to prove murder.”

Josh nodded. “The last article was about sentencing. He got thirty-two years in Walpole State Prison, with no possibility of parole.”

“So he’s got about ten years left, then,” Bix said. “If he’s even still alive. How old was he back then?”

After a pause, during which Josh scanned one of the articles, he said, “Forty-two when he was arrested.”

Bix said, “That puts him in his sixties now. That’s not young for a place like Walpole,” he added, referring to the notoriously tough prison by its former name, the one that had been used in the article. Though it had since been renamed Massachusetts Correctional Institution–Cedar Junction, it was still Walpole to most people. “Hopefully, the sonofabitch is dead,” Bix said. “Life’s hard in prison.”

“Speaking from experience?” Josh asked.

“Not my own.”

“What’s his name?” Caitlin asked. “You keep calling him the suspect, but what’s his name?”

“Darryl Bookerman,” Josh said.

Caitlin snapped her head around and stared at him. “What did you say?”

He nodded slightly and repeated the name.

“Hmm,” Bix said, “Bookerman . . . that sounds a little like—”

“Bogeyman,” Caitlin finished for him.

“And I imagine it would sound even more like Bogeyman to a five-year-old girl,” Josh said. He flashed Caitlin a sympathetic look and said quietly, “There’s more, hon.”

Caitlin waited.

“There’s a photo with the article about Bookerman being convicted,” he said. “It’s a bit grainy, but . . . well, take a look, Caitlin.”

He handed her his tablet. She turned it around, looked at the black-and-white photograph on the screen, and couldn’t stifle a gasp. The image was small, so she clicked on it to enlarge it. Her heart thundered in her chest and she took a deep breath, then another, and forced herself to remain calm.

In the photo, two law-enforcement officers flanked a man in handcuffs. He was rail-thin and tall, at least a head taller than either man beside him. His skin was far paler than theirs, his bald head looking almost like a white oval in the photo. His eyes, unusually far apart on his head, were dark holes in the stark whiteness of his complexion.

Caitlin had recognized him at once, though she’d never gotten this long of a look at him. She was always fleeing from him through the dark, stealing terrified glances over her shoulder as he raced toward her on his long, spindly, spidery legs, his thin arms out in front of him, his white hands reaching for her . . .

Darryl Bookerman was the man who had chased her for more than twenty years through her nightmares.

He was the Bogeyman.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Josh asked.

Caitlin nodded. “So I’m really the one,” she said. “The little girl they found in his shack. The damaged one.”

“We don’t know that, hon,” Josh said. Caitlin gave him a look intended to say,
Thanks for trying, but I’m not buying
. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She wasn’t sure. It was strange to learn after all these years that her Bogeyman wasn’t merely the stuff of nightmares. He was flesh and blood. He walked the earth. She honestly didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse.

“Caitlin?” Josh said.

“I’m okay,” she said, because she had to tell him something.

After a few moments passed in silence, Bix asked, “So where are we headed now, then?”

“The lead detective on the case was named Jeff Bigelson,” Josh said. “I figured that if anyone could tell us more about all of this, it would be him.”

Good idea,
Caitlin thought,
but
. . .
“It’s been a long time,” she said. “Two decades. You think he’d even remember?”

Bix joined the conversation again. “I’ve known a cop or two. Some cases they don’t forget, especially the ones involving kids. But is he even on the force anymore?”

“He’s retired,” Josh said. “I called the North Smithfield Police Department. Then I called directory assistance and got an address and phone number for a Jeffrey Bigelson in the area. They had one in Huntington, not that far from here.”

“Maybe forty minutes away,” Bix said. “Could be the same guy, I guess. But how do we know he’s even still alive?”

“Because I spoke with his wife. Jeff was sleeping, which may mean that he’s not in great shape these days. Maybe he’s old, maybe he’s infirm, or maybe he rolled in at three in the morning after a night of hard drinking. Whatever it is, he’s alive.”

“Will he see us?” Caitlin asked.

“I told her it was about one of his old cases,” Josh said. “When she asked which one and I told her, she said he’d see me. She didn’t even have to check with him first.”

Caitlin nodded. She thought about what Bix just said . . . some cases they don’t forget, especially the ones involving kids. Whatever made the Bookerman case too disturbing for Caitlin to remember apparently made it hard for Bigelson to forget. She wondered briefly whether she would be better off letting the past stay in the past where it belonged. But it was too late now. Bigelson . . . along with whatever answers he might have . . . was waiting for her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

FROM THE OUTSIDE, THE BIGELSON house could not have looked more charming and cheerful if it had sprung from the imagination of Walt Disney. Sitting in the car in front of the house, Caitlin took in the roses intertwined through the white pickets of the fence along the front of the property; the big tree with a peaceful verdigris bench in the shade beneath it; and the curving, cobbled walkway that led up to the small stone house—almost a cottage, really—with ivy-covered walls, a wood-shingle roof, and a chimney that Caitlin was mildly surprised to see wasn’t emitting gentle wisps of smoke. She half expected to see little Disney-animated bluebirds fluttering around the birdbath by the wildflower garden on one side of the property.

“I think we just drove into a greeting card,” Bix said.

“Looks like the Bigelsons are into gardening,” Josh said.

“And fairy tales,” Caitlin added. “It’s wonderful.”

She looked to the houses on either side of the Bigelsons’ and saw homes that would be considered attractive in nearly any other neighborhood in the country, but that looked dull next to their neighbors’ idyllic home.

Caitlin began to feel bad about being there. The people inside that beautiful house had probably put the ugliness of the Bookerman case—perhaps of all of Bigelson’s old cases—behind them for good. Irrationally, Caitlin feared that her being there to talk about what they were there to talk about would only bring unhappiness to those inside that house, that setting one foot on the property would break the spell enveloping it and would allow evil to find its way in.

“You ready, hon?” Josh asked.

“Not really,” she said as she opened her door and walked to the gate in the picket fence. She heard car doors open and close, then the men were beside her. She lifted the latch; pushed open the gate; and, after a brief hesitation, stepped onto the cobblestone path. When they reached the front stoop, Caitlin pressed the doorbell and heard a pleasant jingling of bells inside.

“That must be Tinker Bell,” Bix said.

The door opened and Caitlin took a small, involuntary step back when she saw the woman who opened it. She looked far less like, say, a fairy godmother than . . . well, maybe not an evil queen or witch, but certainly an evil stepmother. Put plainly, she was unattractive. Thin and round-shouldered, with bags under her eyes, a sharp nose, and a hard line for a mouth. When she saw them, though, she smiled warmly and genuinely in welcome, and whatever illusion of ugliness had been there a moment ago disappeared.

“Please,” she said, still smiling, “come in.”

She stepped aside and Caitlin walked past her, followed by the others. One glance told Caitlin that the inside of the house perfectly matched what she’d seen outside.

“I’m Dolores, Jeff’s wife,” the woman said.

“Nice to meet you,” Caitlin said. “I’m Caitlin Dearborn.”

Dearborn was her maiden name. They had discussed this on the drive here. She had to use that name, the one she’d had as a child, in order to see if Jeff Bigelson had ever heard it. But there was no reason to reveal Josh’s and Bix’s real names, so they chose Mark Dunlay and Archie Galvin, respectively—names of boys whom each had known in high school.

After they had all introduced themselves, Caitlin said, “You have a truly lovely home. And the flowers outside are gorgeous.”

Dolores waved away the compliment with a modest flick of her hand. “Gardening is my little hobby. Would you like something to drink? Tea, maybe?”

They politely declined, though Caitlin almost accepted just to see if the teapot could sing.

“So, you’re here to see Jeff,” Dolores said.

“We are,” Caitlin replied. “I hope we’re not troubling you.”

“No trouble at all. We enjoy visitors. And when you said what it was you wanted to talk about, I knew Jeff would agree to speak with you. He remembers that case . . . most of the time, anyway. He remembers a lot of cases, though not as well as he used to, of course.”

Dolores looked lost in thought for a brief moment, then smiled again, though less brightly than when she’d first greeted them.

“Before I take you to him, I should tell you,” she said, “he isn’t quite the man he used to be. He’s forgetting a lot these days.”

“Alzheimer’s?” Caitlin asked gently.

Dolores nodded. “Early stages, but yes. Most of the time, he’s sharp as a tack still, but now and then he’ll forget the littlest things, things we had discussed just yesterday. Last week he couldn’t remember his sister’s name. It didn’t come to him until a few minutes later.”

Caitlin wondered how much the man would remember about the Bookerman case after all, but then, as if reading her thoughts, Dolores said, “Before you worry whether you made this trip for nothing, I can tell you that he’s had a good day so far. Hasn’t forgotten a thing today.”

“Thanks for letting us know,” Caitlin said. “May we see him?”

“There’s one more thing,” Dolores said. “Last week he had a tumor removed from his back, near his spine.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Caitlin said. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”

“Not malignant, thank God, but not small, either. It was painful, and Jeff’s on some pretty good painkillers. He was past due for a dose when you called, but he made me hold off so that he’d be clearheaded when he spoke with you.”

“I’m terribly sorry this is such a difficult time for you,” Caitlin said.

“Between the painkillers and the sleeping pills, we’ll get through it. Just wanted you to know.” Caitlin nodded and Dolores nodded back. “Well, I’ll take you to him. We’ve got him set up in the spare bedroom right now so I won’t disturb his rest, when he’s able to get it. I can’t say he’s looking forward to your visit, but he’s definitely curious about why you want to talk with him about that old case.”

Dolores paused, as though waiting for Caitlin to let her in on it, but Caitlin said, “It’s so good of him to see us, especially at a time like this.”

Dolores hesitated only a moment more, then smiled sweetly and led them through what could have been Snow White’s living room, then down a short hallway before stopping outside a door that was ajar.

“I’m hoping you won’t need to stay too long,” she said quietly. “He acts like such a tough guy, but . . .”

“We won’t overstay, I promise,” Caitlin said.

Dolores smiled again and knocked softly on the door. Caitlin heard a throat clear, then a voice say, “Come on in.”