The Prettiest One: A Thriller

by James Hankins

  “Sure,” Bix said.

  “The usual for you two?” he asked, looking first at Caitlin, then at Bix.

  “Sounds good to me,” Bix said. “Katie?”

  Caitlin started to order a glass of wine, which Josh no doubt was expecting her to do, but instead she decided to see what her “usual” was. “The usual for me, too.”

  Josh ordered whatever they had on tap even though he rarely drank beer and almost never did so with dinner.

  While they waited for their drinks, Josh looked at the menu. Caitlin didn’t bother—the steak tips sounded good, and Bix said she loved them—so she was free to let her eyes roam around the restaurant. It still didn’t look familiar, so she started scanning the faces of the two dozen or so people in the place. No little bells sounded in her head.

  “Do I know anyone here?” she asked Bix.

  Bix’s menu remained closed on the table in front of him. Apparently he had a favorite, too. “Well, Tim serves us pretty often. Recognize him?”

  She shook her head. Bix looked around for a few seconds, then tipped his head toward a very old man sitting alone in a booth.

  “How about Sam over there? Widower. Eats here every night. Every once in a while you invite him to join us. He insists on paying every time you do. He calls you his little cutie when he sees you. ‘Hey, there’s my little cutie,’ he always says. Anything?”

  Caitlin watched the old man raise a quivering forkful of pie to his mouth. It was like she was seeing him for the first time in her life. She shook her head.

  “And you don’t remember the bartender, I assume?”

  “Nope.”

  He looked around. “That’s it for now. Sorry.”

  So was she.

  Tim brought over their drinks. A glass of some kind of beer for Josh, a bottle of Harpoon IPA for Bix, and a Corona Light with a slice of lime for Caitlin. Josh glanced away from her beer and took a sip of his own. She gave his hand a little squeeze under the table and was pleased to feel him squeeze back. He wasn’t enjoying any of this, but he was handling it as well as could be expected given the circumstances.

  Tim took their orders—steak tips for Caitlin, steak sandwich for Bix, and a chicken club for Josh. Soon enough, Tim was back with their food. Bix was right; Caitlin liked the steak tips.

  They talked during dinner, Caitlin and Bix playing “What Else Doesn’t Caitlin Remember?” throughout. Josh spent most of the meal on his tablet, which he’d brought into the restaurant. He said he was doing research. Every now and then he muttered something like “hmm” or “ah.” After they finished their meals, they ordered another round of beers.

  “Pool table’s free,” Bix said. “Want to shoot a game?”

  “Not really,” Josh replied civilly, “but thanks.”

  “No offense, Josh—I mean it—but I wasn’t asking you. Sorry, brother.”

  “Caitlin doesn’t play pool.”

  “Oh,” Bix said, nodding and smiling good-naturedly. “How about you, then?”

  “There are some things I want to talk to Caitlin about.” He turned to her. “Listen, I found some interesting stuff online. I think I might have—”

  “You don’t play pool, either, I guess,” Bix said, shrugging in a way that made it clear that the information didn’t surprise him.

  Josh seemed to consider it for a moment, then stood. “I guess we can talk about it after a game or two.”

  “Now you’re talking, pal,” Bix said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Bring your beer. Come on, Katie . . . I mean, Caitlin.”

  Hunnsaker took a bite of her veggie wrap and stared at the photographs taped to a whiteboard. She and Padilla had commandeered an interview room, rolled in a whiteboard, and started filling it with information. Some detectives could work by flipping through files and stacks of paper and photos, but Hunnsaker liked to see everything at once, all laid out in front of her. So she taped photos of Vic Warehouse taken at the crime scene in the center of the whiteboard—a close-up of his face, complete with bullet hole, and shots of his body from four different angles. To the right of those pictures, she had taped mug shots of Dominick Bruno, their potential squatter, and Kenneth “Stick Man” Kahanahanukahalenahuli, a known associate of Bruno’s. On the far right side of the big board, Hunnsaker had put photos of the scene itself—pictures of the warehouse’s exterior, shots from various angles inside, a photo of the closet in the back, along with close-ups of each of the items found inside it. Each photo had a small typed description taped beside it.

  Hunnsaker had begun a timeline on the left side of the board. She liked to use index cards for that so she wouldn’t have to erase anything if they needed to slot some fact between two they had already written. At the moment, there were three cards. The first read, Vic shot between 9 p.m. and 12 a.m.?, Oct. 3–4. On the second, she had written, Kids find vic approx. 8 a.m.; call 911 at 8:14 a.m., Oct. 4. The last card read, Cops on scene at 10:36 a.m., Oct. 4. All alone in the lower left corner of the board was an index card noting that the gun found by the victim’s body had been identified by its serial number as one that had been stolen during a residential break-in fourteen months ago in Philadelphia. That fact led to a communication with the Philly police. The gun was discussed along with the circumstances in which it was found here in Massachusetts. Also discussed was the warehouse victim, whose photograph and fingerprints were sent by e-mail. His fingerprints may not have been in the national database or in the local database here in Smithfield, but maybe Hunnsaker would get lucky and they’d be on some computer server in Philadelphia. It was possible, too, that they’d get a hit on the photo. Maybe the victim matched the description of someone that somebody was looking for—be it friend, family, or the police themselves. So far, nothing helpful from Philly, but it was still fairly early in the game.

  Hunnsaker surveyed the board. Despite all the photos and notes, there was still a depressing amount of blank whiteness glaring back at her. And the various reports scattered on the table beside her didn’t yet add a whole lot. There was far too much they still didn’t know. She took another bite of her veggie wrap, which wasn’t bad, but which also wasn’t the pan-seared Moroccan salmon her husband had planned to make for dinner tonight. It was his turn to cook, and he was far better at it than she was, though she never admitted that to him.

  Hunnsaker had called Thomas earlier with the bad news that she’d be working late again, which didn’t seem to bother him because he understood her. He totally got the fact that she was never quite able to rest in the early days of an investigation. Those days were the most critical and she hated taking time even to sleep. Besides, Hunnsaker had been a bit more accessible recently, so they’d been able to spend a little more time together lately. Her remaining caseload kept her plenty busy, but she’d been able to clear a little excess by closing a couple of old cases in the last two weeks. Plus, remarkably, this was the first new murder to cross her desk in almost two months, which shattered her personal record of five weeks, and it was the first murder reported in the entire Smithfield/North Smithfield area in more than a month, which was unusual, as Smithfield alone—one of the largest cities in the state—averaged a murder every two-and-a-half weeks. Technically, the murder had occurred in North Smithfield, but that city didn’t have its own homicide division and relied on the Smithfield PD to work its homicides. So with fewer people killing other people lately, Hunnsaker and Thomas had been able to go out to dinner twice last week alone and had found the time to catch up on several movies on cable that they’d missed in the theaters. Her recent nine-hour workdays had almost been like a mini vacation. But it was time to hit it hard again, and she was more than ready. So the Moroccan salmon would have to wait a day or two—though she figured Thomas was preparing it anyway and she’d find a gourmet meal waiting for her in the fridge whenever it was that she dragged herself home. That man was a keeper.

  “Any word on Bruno?” Hunnsaker asked.

  Padilla held up one finger. “Give me a seco
nd,” he said around an extra-large mouthful of tuna-salad sandwich.

  “I thought you were juicing,” Hunnsaker said.

  Padilla chewed a bit more, then finally swallowed. “Steroids make your nuts shrink. I wouldn’t touch the stuff.”

  “Yeah, I imagine you can’t afford to shrink even a tiny bit in that area, Javy. But what I meant was, isn’t Elaine making you do some sort of disgusting diet with her? Smoothies made of seaweed or kale or something like that? Did she give it up?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh,” Hunnsaker said, “she just let you off the hook.”

  “Not quite.”

  Then Hunnsaker understood. “Ah, so she thinks you’re being a good boy and drinking that crap at work, and you don’t disabuse her of that idea.”

  “I’m invoking my Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate myself. Besides, I’m a grown man. What I do at work is my business.” After another bite of tuna salad, he said, “Don’t tell Elaine, okay?”

  “We’re all brothers and sisters in blue here, Javy,” Hunnsaker said. “I wouldn’t do that. Besides, I don’t give a damn. So, back to Bruno.”

  Apparently, Dominick Bruno and Stick Man Whatever-the-Hell-His-Real-Name-Was weren’t as tight as Bruno’s old neighbor thought they were, because when Padilla visited Stick Man in prison, it didn’t take much to get him to volunteer Bruno’s favorite place to be when he wasn’t catching a buzz and jerking off in a warehouse closet. At first, Stick Man tried to negotiate for a reduced sentence. After realizing a mere few seconds later that he was overreaching, he tried for a television in his cell. When that didn’t work, he asked for extra dessert for a week. Eventually, he answered Padilla’s questions without any incentive, probably for no other reason than that it would allow him a few more precious minutes away from his cell, away from other inmates, doing something—anything—to break the monotony of his daily routine.

  “It turns out he shows up most nights at a dive on Preston Street called the Pit Stop,” Padilla said.

  Hunnsaker had heard of the place. Everyone called it the Piss Stop, but that didn’t seem to keep people from going there.

  “Got an officer watching the place right now,” Padilla said. “I gave him your number. He’ll bring Bruno in when he shows, which will be sooner rather than later, according to Stick Man.”

  Hunnsaker finished her veggie wrap and said, “You don’t have to stay, Javy. It’s getting late. I can talk to Bruno myself when they bring him in. We can follow up on anything in the morning. Besides, Elaine probably wants you home so she can pump another spinach smoothie into you.”

  “Why do you think I’m still here with you?”

  Hunnsaker smiled. “Tell you what—if Bruno doesn’t show by midnight, we both go home and get some sleep, then start fresh in the morning.”

  Padilla nodded.

  Hunnsaker sipped her delicious squad-room coffee and took a long look at the close-up photo of the victim’s face. “I really want to figure out who this guy is,” she said. “Somebody out there knows, goddamn it.”

  As Josh lined up a bank shot on the eight ball that would close out the game, he had to admit to himself that Bix was the better pool player. Bix won the first game handily, then Josh won the second on a miracle shot that seemed to impress Bix, but which Josh knew he’d miss nine times out of ten. Josh dropped the next three games and, though they were fairly competitive, found himself playing from behind in every one and never really felt like he was going to catch up. Then Bix lost the sixth game by just barely scratching after successfully banking the eight ball into a corner pocket. At the moment of that victory, Josh still had three balls on the table. But now he was sighting down his cue with a bead on his third win. He sent the eight smoothly into a side pocket. Four games to three, though Josh knew it easily could have been six games to one.

  “Your turn to rack,” Josh said, knowing full well that Caitlin was bored silly watching them play. Her body language had been an open book since they’d started. Patient through two games, less so through the next three, and downright unhappy during the last two. Josh would feel better if he could just tie up the match, though. He was being an idiot, he knew, but he really wanted to even the score.

  “You sure you want to play again?” Bix asked, smiling. Then, in the same stage whisper Candace had used when asking about Josh’s availability, he added, “I’ve been taking it easy on you because Caitlin’s watching.”

  Josh smiled back again in as close an approximation of a genuine smile as he could muster, and said, “Sounds to me like you’re afraid I’m hitting my stride. I won the last two games.”

  “A couple of lucky shots in there, though, you gotta admit.”

  “Me? How about that combination you hit in the third game—”

  “Seriously, guys?” Caitlin said, her voice dripping with exasperation. She set down her third beer of the evening—fifth of the day if you counted the two at Bix’s place, which Josh did—and stood up. “Look down at the table, boys,” she said.

  Josh and Bix looked down at the few balls scattered across the green felt.

  “Know what I see?” Caitlin asked.

  The men shrugged.

  “I see that your balls are exactly the same size.”

  Bix chuckled. Josh looked up at him. His eyes seemed to be saying, Well, buddy, she’d know, wouldn’t she? Then again, Josh may have been imagining that.

  “So we can end this, right, fellas?” Caitlin added.

  After a hesitation, Josh nodded. Bix stepped over and took the pool cue from his hands. “Here, I’ll take that for you,” he said, then added quietly, “Looks like my stick’s longer than yours.”

  “What is this, high school?” Josh responded, though sure enough, now that Bix held them together with their butts on the floor, Josh saw that his cue was at least an inch shorter than Bix’s.

  Bix smiled and turned to Caitlin. “Come on, Katie . . . you and me. Just one game.”

  Josh sighed loudly. “Caitlin, would you tell this guy that you don’t play?” He looked at Bix. “I’ve seen her try a few times. She’s just not good.” He laughed and said, “No offense, hon. Remember the seventies party Ed and Tammy threw last year?”

  Caitlin smiled. “I was awful, wasn’t I?”

  “Your words, not mine,” Josh said, still smiling. She was right, though. Another couple had challenged Caitlin and him to a game of doubles. And Caitlin had been spectacularly terrible. It became a source of great humor for everyone at the party, and then for months afterward between Josh and Caitlin. She had handled it beautifully, of course, because she obviously could not have cared less that she wasn’t any good.

  “Just give it a try,” Bix said. “One game.”

  Give it a rest, Josh thought, though there was something unsettling in the way Bix kept asking.

  Caitlin shrugged. “Okay, if it will shut you up.”

  Bix racked the balls and rolled the cue ball to Caitlin.

  “I’m breaking?” she asked.

  “If you’re going to flame out, flame out big,” Bix said.

  Caitlin shrugged and bent down to line up her shot. She was about to hit when Bix spoke softly. “Close your eyes,” he said.

  Caitlin looked up. “What?”

  “Close your eyes, Katie.”

  “I won’t be able to see the balls.”

  “Just for a second. Before you shoot.”

  “What’s that?” Josh asked. “Some sort of Jedi mind trick?”

  Bix ignored him. “Close your eyes for a second, and don’t even think about the shot. Don’t think about anything. Just feel the stick in your hands.”

  Caitlin closed her eyes. For some reason, despite her almost infamous billiards history, Josh had a bad feeling about this. “Come on, Yoda,” he said, “don’t embarrass her.”

  To Josh’s irritation, Bix kept ignoring him.

  “Now give it a try, Katie,” Bix said quietly. “Let your hands take control.”

  C
aitlin opened her eyes, drew back the stick, and let fly with a solid break, the clack of the initial impact loud enough to make several patrons look up from their meat loaf. The balls scattered nicely and one even trickled into a corner pocket. Josh had never seen her hit a shot like that. She’d never even made solid contact before. Bix smiled. Caitlin did, too. Josh didn’t. At least not at first. He recovered quickly, though, and said, smiling, “Hey, great shot.”

  Caitlin threw a small smile his way as she moved around the table. She closed her eyes again, briefly, then sunk a striped ball into a side pocket. Then she dropped another into a corner, yet another in the side, before finally missing—just barely—on a shot three-quarters the length of the table. She wasn’t even closing her eyes before each shot any longer.

  “You taught me to play pool?” she asked Bix.

  “I told you, we’re regulars here. We play all the time. I taught you a few other things, too.”

  Just in case Bix was about to make some suggestive crack that would have made Josh split Jedi Bix’s skull with a pool cue, Josh quickly turned to Caitlin to tell her how impressed he was with her newly discovered billiards prowess. But she was looking over his shoulder, her eyes wide, her mouth open.

  “Caitlin?” he said. He turned to the flat-screen television mounted high on the wall behind him. A stone-faced reporter with a microphone was standing in front of a warehouse, but Josh couldn’t hear what she was saying because the TV was muted. All he heard was an old Greg Allman Band tune called “I’m No Angel” playing over the restaurant’s sound system. Beneath the reporter’s face, a bold caption read, Unidentified man found shot to death in local warehouse.

  Josh turned back to Caitlin. She said, very quietly, too soft for Bix to hear from where he stood on the other side of the table, “Did I do that?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CAITLIN SAT ON A HIGH stool near the pool table, staring into the empty beer glass she was holding in her lap with both hands. She’d said nothing since Josh had guided her there a few minutes ago. She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t even want to think, either . . . but she couldn’t stop herself. The gun . . . the blood . . . the warehouse . . .