“I killed someone,” Caitlin said abruptly.
He narrowed his eye. “A second ago you were asking me if you did. And what, you suddenly remembered?”
“Not him. I killed somebody else.”
He chuckled. “Right. Okay, who’d you kill?”
“Michael Bookerman,” Caitlin said. “I shot him to death at his house.”
“Who’s Michael Bookerman?”
“You probably know him as Michael Maggert.”
If Caitlin had wanted to convince One-Eye not to shoot them, Bix doubted the wisdom of admitting that she had killed his bald buddy. But the guy said, “Yeah? Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Caitlin said.
After a moment of thought, One-Eye said, “I never liked him.”
“I thought you two were pals,” Bix said.
One-Eye said, “We hung out some, did a few jobs, but he was an asshole. Always pushed me to take jobs I didn’t want to take. Made me do things I didn’t want to do. He’s the reason this happened,” he said, pointing to his eye. “I never should have been caught. We never should have pulled that job. But Mike pushed me. Then I took the fall for it. Cost me my eye and three years of my life. It was his fault.”
“I killed him,” Caitlin repeated. “I shot him. Twice, I think. First in the shoulder, then in the stomach. Left him dead on his living room floor.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So that you know. It’s a confession. You have a cell phone on you? One with a voice recorder? I’ll confess again. Then you’ll have that over me, and I wouldn’t be able to go to the cops even if I wanted to.”
Not bad, Bix thought, especially considering that she was planning to go to the cops anyway, so a confession wouldn’t matter. The man looked lost in thought as he chewed on that for a bit. Bix again considered making a move but decided to hold off a little longer. Quietly, almost to himself, One-Eye said, “I never liked him. I don’t really want to kill you. I’d like to trust you. I won’t go back to prison, though.” Finally, he looked up at them. “You really killed Mike?”
Caitlin said, “I did. You don’t believe me, go to his house. He’s still there. We just left him.”
“I thought you killed him two nights ago.”
“I did. We went back.”
“Why?”
Caitlin shrugged. “Looking for answers. Like I said, I don’t remember doing it.”
The man reached up, slipped a finger under his eye patch, and scratched. Bix felt himself grimacing as he watched. “And he’s still there?” the man said. “The cops haven’t found him?”
“Not as of forty-five minutes ago.”
“What about the money?”
“What money?” Caitlin asked.
“You know what money. You saw it at the warehouse.”
Caitlin shook her head. “You’re forgetting—I don’t remember that night. And we didn’t see any money at Bookerman’s house, though we weren’t looking for anything like that, so maybe it’s there.”
After what seemed like another minute or two of internal debate, One-Eye pulled a cell phone from his pocket, fiddled around with it, then turned it toward them. He looked almost relieved as he did it. Apparently, he was telling the truth about not wanting to kill them.
“I’m taking a video of this,” he said. “Just in case. So tell me again for the record.”
Caitlin stated her name, her real name, and for the record confessed to shooting Michael Maggert, whose real name was Bookerman. She said she shot him twice, killing him. She provided his address and added whatever detail she could recall, such as the room where he died and the position of his body. For motive, Caitlin said that he had been stalking her, which seemed to come as a mild surprise to One-Eye. Apparently, Bookerman and his one-eyed buddy weren’t as close as Bix and the others had thought, as Bookerman had never shared his pet project with his friend, nor had he invited him into his spare bedroom where Caitlin’s photo was pinned to a corkboard. Caitlin wrapped up her confession, and Bix had no idea if it would ever be heard in court, but he knew it would be enough to cause Caitlin serious trouble if it were. The man gave a satisfied nod and pocketed his phone.
“Okay, then, that’s it,” he said as he started for the door. Halfway there, he paused. “And you really don’t remember the other night?”
“I really don’t,” Caitlin said. “Any chance you’d tell me what happened? I really want to know.”
One-Eye just laughed. Then he was gone. Bix stepped over and closed the door behind him, locking it. He turned back to Caitlin, wondering how she was holding up. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “I need a beer.”
Following a bartender’s direction, Hunnsaker found Jane Stillwood in stiletto heels and a red corset with matching panties, serving beers to a table of rambunctious businessmen in starched white shirts that were open at the collar, their ties hanging loosely. Hunnsaker thought Stillwood was attractive, but the men had eyes only for the topless woman in a shiny gold G-string squatting on the low stage in front of them, her knees spread, her boobs jiggling for dollar bills.
Drinks delivered, Stillwood headed back toward the bar with her empty serving tray, and Hunnsaker caught her attention. For the waitress’s sake, Hunnsaker didn’t want to show her detective shield, if she could avoid it, and draw unnecessary attention to the woman. Managers in places like this had enough trouble with the law; they might not take kindly to an employee who led a cop to their door.
“Jane Stillwood?” Hunnsaker said. “My name is Detective Charlotte Hunnsaker. I left you a few messages.”
Stillwood tried to look confused, but she made her attempt a fraction of a second too late, and Hunnsaker saw something in her eyes that told her that Stillwood had listened to but chosen to ignore Hunnsaker’s messages.
“What’s this about?” Stillwood asked, looking around nervously.
Hunnsaker walked to a relatively quiet corner and took a seat at a tiny table. Stillwood followed but balked at sitting down.
“This won’t take long. You know this woman?” Hunnsaker showed her the picture on her phone of Caitlin Sommers, the one that had been tweaked to give her short red hair.
Stillwood frowned and pretended to be thinking. She was a terrible actress.
“I don’t think I do,” Stillwood said.
“It wasn’t really a question, Janie. You know this woman. I know you do. I’ve spoken with just about everyone you know, and they all told me that you do. They said you two are pretty close, in fact.”
Stillwood didn’t respond, which was probably smart. Hunnsaker changed the photograph on her phone to the undoctored one from months ago, before Sommers disappeared, when she had her shoulder-length blonde hair.
“How about this woman? You know her?”
This time, Stillwood’s confused look was convincing. “Who’s she? She looks like . . .”
“Yeah,” Hunnsaker said. “Same woman. This woman with the blonde hair is named Caitlin Sommers. She disappeared without a trace seven months ago. This,” she said as she switched back to the photo of Sommers as a redhead, “is the same woman. You know anything about that?”
Stillwood shook her head slowly, looking befuddled. Hunnsaker believed that she didn’t know anything about the identity change. She didn’t know Caitlin Sommers the blonde. But she sure as hell knew Katherine Southern, the redhead.
“Something strange is going on here,” Hunnsaker said. “I don’t know what it is, but I need to know where to find this woman. And I know you can tell me. So tell me.”
Stillwood stared at the picture of her friend, probably a bit shocked to learn how little she really knew her.
“You seem reluctant to help me, Janie,” Hunnsaker said. “Look, I get it. You two are besties, probably get together to paint each other’s toenails, drink wine coolers, and talk about boys, but I think you can see now that you don’t really know this woman. She was never honest with you. So how much can you possibly owe
her?”
Stillwood looked up from the phone.
Hunnsaker said, “And if you two aren’t quite as tight as you thought you were, is she really worth facing obstruction charges, maybe aiding and abetting?”
Stillwood’s eyes widened just a bit. That struck home. Finally, she spoke. “I think she might be in trouble.”
“Really? You think?”
“I don’t want Katie to get hurt or anything.”
“I know you don’t. And you’re right. She’s in trouble. So tell me how to find her so I can keep her from doing something stupid, something that might get her hurt or worse. Where does she live?”
Stillwood shook her head. “I don’t actually know where she lives.”
“Janie . . .”
“No, it’s true,” she added quickly. “I’ve only been there once, maybe twice. And Katie always drove. I never paid attention to the turns we took or to the street names.”
“You’re telling me that even though everyone I spoke with told me that you and Katherine Southern, as you’ve known her, are pals, you don’t even know where she lives?”
Stillwood looked confused again, and now it was starting to piss off Hunnsaker. Before she could voice her displeasure, though, Stillwood said, “You mean Southard.”
“What?”
“You said Katherine Southern. You mean Southard, don’t you?”
Hunnsaker still had her phone in her hand. She flipped back past the two photos of Caitlin/Katherine, to the list of employees who worked at Commando’s. Even though there was a line through Katherine’s name, Hunnsaker could read the last name clearly. Southern.
“Her name is Southard?” she asked Stillwood, who nodded. “And you’re sure about that?” Stillwood nodded again.
Hunnsaker left the Sugar Factory in a hurry. If Caitlin Sommers had been going by Katherine Southard lately—and not Katherine Southern, as they had thought—perhaps another records search would be more fruitful than their last one. She dialed Padilla’s number.
“Got yet another name for our redhead, Javy, and I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MIKE MAGGERT WAS DEAD AND Martin Donnello was okay with that. Or maybe his name was Bookerman, or whatever the redhead had said it was. Either way, according to her, she had shot him two nights ago, after the warehouse, which made sense because Donnello hadn’t been able to reach Mike since then. Donnello had looked for the redhead and assumed Mike had been doing the same, but he hadn’t been sure because the guy wasn’t answering his damn phone. Now Donnello knew why.
He and Mike had made some money together over the years, but they’d lost some, too. They’d had a few good times, but plenty of bad ones, ones that were far worse for Donnello than for Mike. So, yeah, all in all, Donnello was all right with Mike’s death. An eye for an eye, as they say, right?
But given that the two of them had been involved together in plenty of things over the years that Donnello wouldn’t want the cops to know about, he thought it would be wise to get to Mike’s house before the cops found out about his murder and tore the place apart. Who knew what the guy had lying around the house that could tie Donnello to illegal activities? Besides, Mike had left the warehouse with five thousand bucks, which they had planned to use to pay for the stolen smartphones that had turned out to be a bag of fake hands instead—which was what had led to the storm of shit that started at the warehouse and apparently ended when the redhead killed Mike at his place. Presumably, the money was still at Mike’s, if the girl wasn’t lying when she said they hadn’t taken it, so Donnello figured he might as well retrieve it while he was there.
He pulled his motorcycle into Mike’s driveway and up around the bend toward the house. He saw Mike’s car and wondered idly why the trunk was open as he pulled his bike to the side of the house. He doubted that anyone saw him pull in, and the house was secluded enough that no neighbors would see his motorcycle, but still . . . can’t be too careful. He trotted around the house to the front door. There was no need to hurry on Mike’s account; he wasn’t going anywhere. But again, better safe than sorry. Get in, find whatever there was to find, grab the money, and get the hell out.
The front door was unlocked. The place smelled rank, which wasn’t surprising given the dead body he now saw on the living room floor. Two bullet wounds, one to the shoulder and a kill shot to the gut. It looked like the redhead and her friends had been telling the truth. Donnello had taken a hell of a chance that they were, but he really hadn’t wanted to kill them. Mike would have murdered them without a second thought. But he wasn’t Mike. He’d never killed anyone and wouldn’t unless it was absolutely necessary. And Mike could no longer tell him what to do.
Donnello looked at Mike’s dead face and still felt nothing close to sentimentality. The guy had been a prick, and the world was probably a better place with him dead. Just ask any of the women he’d brought here. Donnello had never taken part in any of that, and he’d turned down Mike’s only offer to watch one of the videos, but he knew that there had been quite a few women Mike had drugged and “entertained” here, as he used to put it. Prick.
Enough time spent on reflection. Time to look for anything the cops could use to tie him to Mike, along with the cash. He turned away from the body to find someone standing close behind him. Donnello hadn’t even heard him. The man didn’t move. He stared down at Donnello from just two feet away. The guy looked a hell of a lot like Mike Maggert—bald, pale, and ugly—though this man was at least half a foot taller and a little less thin, and where Mike’s dark eyes had always seemed almost completely lifeless, even during moments of excitement, there was something down in the darkness of this guy’s eyes . . . a deeper darkness that somehow seemed to be a separate living thing. Then Donnello noticed the knife. His thoughts immediately flicked to the gun at the small of his back.
“Did you kill my brother?” the man asked.
This guy’s brother was dead on the floor and he showed no emotion . . . just the slightest squirming of whatever it was that lived in the darkness of his eyes. God, what a creepy thought, Donnello realized. He struggled to speak. “No . . . I didn’t . . . I wouldn’t . . . we were friends.”
“Not good enough friends to call the cops, though. He’s been dead a while. Why are you here?”
“I’m . . . looking for something,” Donnello said as he backed up a step. The other man moved forward, staying close to him.
“Money?”
“No,” Donnello lied.
“What, then?”
“Something that might . . . incriminate me.”
“In my brother’s death?”
“No,” Donnello said quickly, “I swear to God. Something . . . anything . . . you see, the thing is, your brother and I used to . . . well, we did some things together, illegal things, and I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything the cops would find here to point them to me. You see?”
Mike Maggert’s awful brother looked down at him. “How did you know he was dead?”
“Because I just talked to the person who killed him. She told me.”
“She?”
“Yeah. It was a woman. A redhead.”
“I’m sure there are a lot of women who had a good reason to kill my brother, but did this one tell you why she did?”
“She said he was stalking her.”
Maggert frowned as he considered that. “Where can I find this woman?”
Donnello quickly told him the address. “She lives there with her boyfriend. I left her there just a half hour ago.”
“Was she alive when you left her?”
“Yeah.”
“Some friend you are,” the man said. “Now, I’m going to give you a choice.”
Donnello allowed himself to feel the slightest sense of relief, the smallest glimmer of hope. He hadn’t wanted to find out if his draw was quicker than a knife thrust, and it looked like he might not have to. If Mike’s brother were planning to kill him, why would
he bother letting him choose anything?
The brother said, “Would you rather I cut your throat or slice your stomach open? The first way ends you quick. The second is more painful but gives you a few more seconds of life. You probably have less than a hundred left, at most, so every one is precious.”
Donnello backed up a step, his gun hand inching behind his back. The guy stayed with him, knife in hand.
“But why?” Donnello said. “I told you I didn’t kill Mike. And I told you who did.”
“Because when people start finding the various pieces of the woman who killed my brother, you’ll know it was me who chopped her up. And I can’t have that.”
Seconds later, as Donnello lay on the floor next to Mike, spilling his life on the faded carpet, he knew two things: his draw hadn’t been quick enough, and he’d made the wrong decision. As soon as he’d hit the floor with his gut torn open, he’d been given another chance to have his throat cut, to end it quickly. He should have taken it. He’d hoped the few extra seconds his choice bought him would be filled with a sense of relief that his miserable time on Earth was over, a sense of peace that he’d be moving on to whatever new life waited for him beyond this one. Instead, he’d merely had more time for sadness and regret and pain.
Detective Charlotte Hunnsaker stood in the living room that Caitlin Sommers shared with Desmond Bixby, her boyfriend. Hunnsaker had no warrant and no one had answered the door, so under normal circumstances she shouldn’t have been standing inside the apartment, but through the window near the front door they had seen the overturned table and broken lamp, and because good cops are interested in the welfare of the community, Hunnsaker felt she had an obligation to enter the premises to ensure the safety of anyone who might be inside and possibly be injured. Anyway, that was how she’d spin it if she were ever questioned about it. The door had been unlocked, which was stupid in this neighborhood, but it made things easier for Hunnsaker.
Nobody was home, which annoyed Hunnsaker. Then again, that would have been too easy. It never seemed to work out that way.
The Prettiest One: A Thriller Page 27