The Prettiest One: A Thriller (27 page)

“I doubt it was a conscious decision,” Josh said. “More likely you were operating on autopilot for a while, doing those things without necessarily knowing why. Hell, you’d lost your whole identity. Bix asked your name, and for whatever reason, it was Kathryn’s that came to mind.”

“And then, what, once I said I was her, I remembered on some deep level that I should be a redhead?”

They were quiet for a moment, giving this thought.

“I guess that makes as much sense as the rest of this,” Caitlin said. “We’re just blowing bubbles here. Until we know more, we can’t be sure about any of this—why I came here and why I subconsciously tried to become Kathryn Southern. Did I have a plan? Did I just get lost, end up here, and pick her name out of a mental hat?” She paused. “Why would I choose to bring all of this back into my life after I’d so successfully blocked it out decades ago?”

Bix opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, his cell phone rang. With one hand on the steering wheel, he pulled the phone from his pocket and looked at the caller ID. “It’s Janie.”

After leaving Commando’s earlier, they had discussed how best to approach Jane Stillwood. One option was for Caitlin to call her and pretend that she remembered Stillwood, which would be difficult given that they were supposed to be BFFs and all, and would therefore likely have an established rhythm to their interactions that Caitlin was unlikely to be able to fake convincingly. More importantly, it would be difficult for her to ask questions about what Caitlin had been doing lately and why she was doing those things. Wouldn’t she already know? A second option was for Caitlin to call and give Stillwood the same story they had tried on Martha, the one in which Caitlin said she’d recently suffered a head injury and was having issues with her memory. The problem was that, though somewhat true, it was nonetheless a difficult story to believe.

After a short debate, they decided on a third approach. Bix would call Stillwood and tell her that he suspected Caitlin had gotten herself mixed up in something potentially dangerous and Bix wanted to help her get out of it. The problem with option number three was that Stillwood’s loyalties would no doubt lie with Caitlin—or Katie, as Stillwood knew her. She would likely decide that if Katie was keeping things from her boyfriend, it was Stillwood’s job to help keep those things secret. She might doubt that Bix had good intentions. Maybe he was merely suspicious of his girlfriend and was checking up on her. Still, they all agreed that Bix being the one to make the call made the most sense. So, on the way to the Bigelsons’ house earlier, he had done so. Stillwood hadn’t answered, so he left a message asking her to call him back. He’d said it was important.

And now she was calling back. Bix had no idea how this conversation was going to go. He had met Stillwood a few times, but they hadn’t spent much time together. He certainly had never called her before.

He said hello and they forced a few pleasantries, neither of them putting much effort into the exchange, before Bix got down to it.

“Janie, I’m worried about Katie.”

“Why?”

“I think she might be in trouble.”

Cautiously, Stillwood said, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I’m hoping you can help me.”

“Help you what?”

“Help me get her out of it.” Stillwood said nothing. “Janie? You still there?”

“Yeah. Where’s Katie now?”

“She’s out somewhere. That’s why I called you.”

“Yeah?”

And so it went, much the way they expected it might. Stillwood was cagey and not the least bit forthcoming. At first she played dumb, but finally she came right out and said that Katie’s business was her own, even if she lived with Bix, and that Stillwood wasn’t about to get her friend into trouble.

“But that’s just it, Janie . . . I’m trying to keep her
out
of trouble.”

They went around a few more times, and once or twice Bix thought she might just hang up. Finally, he said, “Goddamn it, Janie, I love the hell out of Katie . . . more than most people love the people they love, you understand? I’m not going to let anything happen to her. And I don’t think she’s sneaking around behind my back, if that’s what you think I’m thinking. She wouldn’t do that to me, and even if she did, if that’s what makes her happy, then she should be happy.”

Bix sensed Caitlin listening with interest beside him. Josh, too. He hoped they thought he was just playacting for Stillwood’s benefit—at least he hoped Josh thought so—but he was on a roll and he wasn’t about to dial it back, not when he thought he might be getting somewhere.

“But I think it’s something else,” he continued, “and I think maybe you think so, too. So I need you to tell me everything you know that she was up to. And I’ll get the ball rolling for you, okay? I know that this started about two weeks ago, right around when she stopped going to work.”

“You . . . know about that?” Stillwood asked. “Katie told me she wasn’t gonna tell you.”

“She didn’t, but I found out. And thinking back on it, I sort of remember her acting a little different with me starting right around then. I wasn’t sure at the time, but now I think so. Not angry with me, or less in love with me, just . . . like she had something on her mind.”

Bix thought he heard a mumble on Stillwood’s end of the line, as though she had quietly said “mm hmm” in agreement.

“What do you say, Janie? Will you help me help the woman I love, who just happens to be your closest friend?”

Stillwood fell silent. Finally, she said, “Did you hear that somebody got himself murdered at a warehouse over in North Smithfield?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t suppose you saw the drawings of the victim and some woman who’s supposedly connected to the case?”

“I did.”

“Is that a drawing of Katie, Bix?”

“I don’t know, Janie, not for sure. But maybe now you have some idea of why I’m worried about her, worried that she somehow got herself into trouble. Maybe you can see why I need you to tell me everything you know. For Katie’s sake.”

As it turned out, Jane Stillwood knew a lot about what Caitlin had been up to lately. Not everything they needed to know, which was a disappointment to Caitlin, but a good amount nonetheless.

Bix had looked pointedly at her and then at Josh, then held a finger to his lips and said, “I’m gonna put you on speakerphone, Janie. I hate driving with a phone to my ear.” Without giving her a chance to object, he pushed a button on his phone. “You there?” he asked.

Stillwood’s voice came through the phone’s little speaker. “I’m here,” she said, and Caitlin had no trouble hearing her.

There were questions and answers, reluctance and prodding, doubt by Stillwood that she was doing the right thing, and reassurance by Bix that she was. Eventually, she shared what she knew.

Things had been fine, Stillwood said—Katie had been the same old Katie—up until one night a couple of weeks ago. They were working the same shift at Commando’s, and it was a busy night. Todd, an unreliable prick who called in sick every time there was a big basketball game on or something, had begged off work again, and Stillwood and Katie were doing extra duty. So Janie definitely noticed when Katie sort of just . . . stopped working. Stopped even moving. People were buzzing all around her—customers, waitresses—and Katie had just stood there by the bar, staring straight ahead. Maybe she was looking at someone in particular, but it kind of seemed like she was just zoning out. Stillwood took a quick look around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, nobody staring back at Katie or, alternatively, trying not to be seen. But Katie had sure seen something or someone. As Stillwood had said, though, it was a busy night and Martha was barking at everyone, so Stillwood gave Katie a nudge. Katie said something really weird then. “Did you see him?” she asked. When Stillwood asked who, Katie didn’t answer directly but said, “He was with that guy with one eye.”

At that, Caitlin, Josh, and Bix had exchanged glances.
One-Eyed Jack.

Stillwood continued her story. She had told Katie that she didn’t see anybody with one eye, and Katie said he had just left. They both had. Again, Stillwood asked her
who
had just left with a one-eyed guy, but after another moment in a daze, Katie shook her head and wouldn’t talk about it. But according to Stillwood, Katie wasn’t the same after that.

A few days later, she’d finally admitted that she was trying to find the two guys who had been to the pub the other night—a one-eyed man with long blond hair, and the guy he was with, both probably in their thirties. It turned out she had been asking most of the regulars if they knew the guys. She described them, focusing on the blond guy with one eye, presumably because he was the more memorable of the two. Katie had tried to be casual about it, as though she were just making conversation, but Stillwood said it was starting to get weird. Finally, according to what Katie told Stillwood later, somebody said he knew of a guy like that. Eye patch, long yellow hair. Katie asked how she could find him, but the guy shut down. Probably didn’t want to get involved. But Stillwood reminded Bix that Katie has a way with people, so the guy finally admitted that he’d seen the one-eyed guy one night at Bob’s.

Caitlin caught Josh’s and Bix’s eyes again. Bob? Another name from Caitlin’s secret list.

“Bob who?” Bix asked.

“Not Bob who,” Stillwood said. “Bob what. It’s a place, a bar. The Barrel O’ Beer. Everyone calls it Bob’s because of the initials,” she added in a tone that implied that Bix was a halfwit.

Bix nodded, then shook his head slowly, as though he felt he should have thought of that.

“Never been there,” Bix said, “but I know of the place.”

Stillwood said, “So the next thing I know, Katie starts calling in sick at work, then finally just stops coming altogether. Martha fired her, though she never actually told Katie, I think. Just announced to everyone else that Katie was fired.”

“And what was Katie doing all that time?” Bix asked. “Now that she had stopped going to work?”

Caitlin could practically hear Stillwood shrug. “Looking for the guy with one eye, I guess . . . though I think it was the other guy she was really looking for, the one-eyed guy’s friend.”

“She tell you she was doing that?” Bix asked.

“She did, without actually saying it, if you know what I mean. She didn’t want to talk about it, whatever it was. I pushed her on it a few times but she wouldn’t give me anything. She started calling me less often, and she didn’t answer a lot of my calls. She was a woman on a mission.”

“To find the one-eyed guy and his buddy.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Stillwood said.

“Exactly where was she looking?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. I doubt she would actually go inside Bob’s—that place is just dangerous—but maybe she staked it out or something. Maybe she looked for them in other bars, too. I don’t know. Like I said, she started shutting me out.”

“Anything else?” Bix asked.

“Hold on . . .” A moment later, Stillwood said, “Sorry, another call is coming in. I’ll ignore it. Oh, I’ve got a message, too. Didn’t see it.”

“Janie?” Bix prompted.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was asking if there’s anything else you can think of, anything I should know.”

“That’s about it,” Stillwood said. “Except . . .”

“Yeah?”

“If she’s in trouble, Bix . . . get her out of it.”

“That’s the plan.”

He disconnected the call.

Caitlin summarized the situation for them. “So, according to Janie, a few weeks ago I saw a one-eyed blond man and his friend, and it freaked me out or something. I asked around and finally found out that he sometimes goes to a bar that everyone calls Bob’s. I spent less and less time at work until finally I stopped going altogether, apparently to find those two guys.”

“So who are they?” Josh asked.

Caitlin shrugged. “No idea. The one-eyed man is obviously not the guy I shot in the warehouse.”

“You didn’t shoot anyone, Caitlin,” Josh said.

“Whatever,” Caitlin said. “The warehouse victim had two eyes, according to his sketch.” And, Caitlin knew, according to her nightmare in which she shot him to death. “So it’s not One-Eyed Jack. But maybe the other guy, whoever he is . . . maybe that’s the guy I shot.”

“Come on,” Josh said. “You didn’t shoot anyone.”

“We may find out soon enough,” she said.

“Looks like we’re going to Bob’s,” Bix said. “Like Janie said, that place can be dangerous, so fasten your seat belts.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE BARREL O’ BEER—or Bob’s, as it was apparently known to the locals—was in a nasty part of town, not far from the equally nasty part of town where they had been just hours earlier when they visited the empty store that used to be called the King of Pawns. Josh saw similar graffiti on the walls and iron bars on the first-floor windows.

The entrance to Bob’s was a black door in an otherwise featureless brick wall—well, featureless in the way of architecture. It was covered with spray-painted tags, gang signs, and random profane words. Affixed to the brick above the door was a wooden barrel, sawed in half, with the name of the establishment carved into it.