by PJ Fernor
“That’s great advice, sir.”
“Maybe I should write a book. What do you think?”
“I’d read it,” the driver says. “I’d read anything you write. I… I have to say, sir, it’s been an honor driving you around. Learning. Understanding. Your vision and big picture thinking are impressive.”
“Well, of course,” he says. “It’s always good to share knowledge. I can’t do this job forever.”
“I would be honored to continue to learn,” the driver says.
The driver stops the SUV and turns around.
This is not part of the plan.
“Can I ask you something, sir?” the drivers asks.
“Sure.”
“Do you think they’re happy when they arrive at their new home?”
This makes him even angrier.
But he has to understand the context of the situation.
He nods. “They are. It’s a service.”
“Perfect,” the driver says. He looks forward and drives again. “I also did research. The name you kept saying. I know what she’s doing now.”
“Excuse me?”
“The detective,” the driver says. “I know she’s a possible threat. I know you don’t like threats. She’s no longer looking for you. She’s working on a murder case. It has nothing to do with you. You’re safe, sir.”
“Who told you to do that?”
“Nobody,” the driver says. “But I know if you want to get somewhere in life, you need to work. So I work. I always work, sir. For you. Here we are.”
The SUV stops again.
There’s a spooky silhouette of a building against the night sky.
He waits for the driver to open the SUV door and he climbs out.
He looks at the driver. “Say it.”
“We’re all his… yours…”
“Who am I?”
“The One,” the driver says.
“You’re going to stand right there?”
“Where should I stand?” the driver asks.
“Over there,” he says and points. “Blend in. Watch. Learn.”
“Thank you, sir,” the driver says.
The driver trots away.
He waits for the other two SUVs to show up.
This is how he has to conduct business for the moment.
It’s good to know about Detective Allie Down.
Then again, it’s nothing he doesn’t already know or can’t figure out on his own.
The two SUVs show up on time.
Two men get out of each SUV, four in total.
The backs are opened.
The biggest of the men carry the product from one SUV to the other.
There’s three in total.
Not as much as he’d like, but he can’t do too much at the moment either.
The girls are going to be much happier soon. They’ll get cleaned up, haircut, hair colored, different colored contact lenses, and they will be informed what happens if they don’t smile. Then they get to go on an airplane. And they’ll be gone.
For good.
He watches as the delivery finishes.
One SUV drives away.
The other doesn’t.
The two men look at him.
He points to one and waves him over.
“Do you know who I am?” he asks the man.
“You’re The One,” the man says.
“Shoot the man next to me and have your friend take his body away,” he says.
Without hesitation, the man takes out a gun and shoots the driver.
The man then tells the other man to take the driver’s body away and bury it.
“Now you’re my driver,” he says to the man.
The man smiles. “Of course. Where to?”
“Do you know the name Detective Allie Down?”
“No, I do not,” the man says.
“Good. You never heard that name before. Ever. Got it?”
The man nods.
The other man drags the driver’s body to the back of the other SUV.
He thinks about Detective Allie Down again.
Everything meant to be will happen in due time.
No need to rush anything yet.
Then again… he needs Detective Allie Down out of his mind soon.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I sat behind my desk. Thinking.
I was more of a take action kind of detective, but when information began to pile up, I sometimes needed to sit and think.
Ben knocked on the open door and tightened his lips and nodded.
I nodded back.
We were both in the same boat.
“We have to figure something out with him,” he said.
“He attacked her,” I said.
“What’s the plan?”
I stood up. “He’s still sitting patiently?”
“Yeah. He knows he’s in big trouble with the big bosses for coming here.”
“Even that. Why come here?”
“Why don’t you ask him again?” Ben asked.
When Jerry made the proclamation that he did not cut off Jessica’s hand, he did so with a vicious smile and an arrogant look in his eyes. Ben must have sensed me reaching the edge because he pulled me back and said we needed to take a breather. All of us.
Jerry drank his soda in the interrogation room, alone, while Ben and I parted ways for a few minutes to clear our heads.
What Jerry was suggesting seemed a little bit too crazy. Even for me.
“Ben,” I said as I walked to my office door. “You realize what this means?”
“I think so.”
“It means if Jerry is telling the truth that he scared Jessica, then someone else showed up to kill her.”
“Someone from IY Green?” Ben asked.
“I hope so,” I said. “That sounds harsh, but if it wasn’t someone from IY Green…”
Ben shook his head.
I didn’t finish my sentence, nor did I say another word to him as we went back to the interrogation room.
I opened the door with force and put on my meanest face.
Jerry shook the empty soda can. “Do you recycle here?”
“Tell us everything,” I said. “Beginning to end with Jessica. If you don’t, we’re keeping you on murder charges.”
“How so?”
“You were the last person to see Jessica alive,” I said.
“And we need a suspect,” Ben added. “You fit the bill.”
“I never admitted anything. I’m here of my own freewill. And I’ll walk when I’m ready.”
“Then go,” I said. I pointed to the door. “I think you’re here for a different reason. I think Anthony and Giovanni are ticked off. Did they question you about Jessica’s death? Accuse you of taking things too far? Or… were you supposed to clean up their mess and you failed to do so? Maybe you attacked her and someone else came to kill her. Because they knew we’d find the connection between Jessica and IY Green. See, here’s the thing, Jerry, I don’t need much sleep. Ask Ben.”
“She doesn’t,” Ben said.
“You two together?” Jerry asked. “I can see it. She keeps you up all night?”
“Not in the way I’d like,” Ben said.
My face warmed up.
Not now, Allie. Do not get flustered by Ben.
“I never stop thinking,” I said. “I never stop chasing stories. Or ideas. And I will haunt your life until I get the truth. And I will go right back to Anthony and Giovanni and play them against you. Do you think I’m afraid of you? Of them? Of anything?”
I put my hands on the table and leaned forward.
“Don’t tempt her, Jerry,” Ben said. “Trust me. You don’t want her bad side to come out.”
“Maybe,” Jerry said.
“Maybe?” I asked.
“Maybe… there was a problem with Calvin’s payments. Maybe he was behind a little. Then that little became a lot. Maybe I went to talk to him. Maybe he didn’t listen. Maybe I went there for a
nice dinner and went into the kitchen to break a few plates. Rattle a few people. Maybe…”
I pulled out a chair and sat down. “Okay, Jerry. Maybe that happened. What else?”
“Maybe we were left with no choice. Maybe we showed Calvin pictures of his girlfriend running in the park. Maybe I watched her more than a few times. Maybe she even looked at me and waved more than once. I’ve been told I have an inviting smile.”
“Oh, yeah, your mother must be proud of you,” Ben said.
Jerry smiled. “Maybe I was told it was time to take action. That’s my favorite part of this maybe story.”
“We know you’re scared right now, Jerry,” I said. “That’s why you came to us. You need us. We can help.”
“Maybe I waited for Jessica and this time, I stood in her way. Just to give her a little scare. That’s fun to do too. Maybe I’m not the type to just come out of the darkness and strike. Maybe I offer a fight before the attack.” Jerry shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe when she went by me, I had no choice. So maybe I grabbed her and threw her down to the ground. Maybe she smacked her head off the pavement and started to black out a little. Just a little.” He showed me his thumb and pointer fingers on his right hand, narrowly spaced apart. “Maybe I then had to warn her. See, that’s the part you keep missing in this story, Detective. The warning. Death is no good. Death is final. Death is too jarring. Think about Calvin right now. He’s never going to work hard to repay that debt now. He’s sad and grieving. So maybe I told Jessica to tell Calvin to pay up. And maybe that was it for me. Maybe I walked away.”
“Maybe you didn’t,” Ben said. “Maybe you hung around and waited for your next set of orders.”
“Like cutting off her hand,” I said. “And maybe you thought she was going to get help. Just wrap her wrist up and get her off the path. After all, she still had her phone, right? She could call for help and that would be one heck of a message to send to Calvin. He’d have to look at Jessica and see her hand missing…”
“Makes me shiver,” Ben said.
“Maybe everything you just said is wrong,” Jerry said. He slowly stood up and put his hands out. “Maybe you should arrest me for what you think is right. Only I know what is right. As I said before, I did not cut off her hand.”
“But your company told you to attack her,” I said. “You were sent to hurt her. Enough of the maybes. Let’s talk truth.”
“I am,” Jerry said. “I just told you what happened. Now I expect something in return. I want my name to be cleared of any possible murder. I am not going to spend the rest of my life in jail for something I didn’t do.”
“But you’re willing to throw your bosses under the bus,” Ben said.
“No,” Jerry said. “They didn’t kill Jessica. I just explained that. Her left alive is more valuable. You’re looking the wrong way.”
“So which way is the right way?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Jerry said. “I’m not a detective. I just work in finance, remember?”
He winked.
That was enough for me.
I nodded to Ben, then he arrested Jerry.
Ben led Jerry out of the room and I looked at the empty soda can. I could have had that dusted for prints. Of course Jerry’s prints were going to be all over Jessica and the crime scene. He was there. He hurt her.
The thing was… I believed his story.
Jessica hurt was good for business. Jessica missing a hand… that was also good for business.
But Jerry said he didn’t do it.
I believed him.
But that left me back to square one.
Who killed Jessica?
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lo had her appointment with Dr. Deb.
The business complex had two stories. Everything from dentists to eye doctors to a mortgage lending company. I called every company on the board out front of the building to make sure Dr. Deb really was who she said she was.
And even still, as I paced the waiting room, I caught myself stopping and staring at the degrees on the wall.
I knew Dr. Deb was a real doctor. She was recommended by Laura through the department.
A white noise machine hummed in one corner.
That was the most annoying part of the ordeal.
Hearing that little, white machine for an hour straight.
Yeah, I also made the decision to never leave Lo there alone.
During her appointments, I stayed.
I made it known I was staying too.
Just in case.
Of what?
Of anything.
I paced to another wall and looked at a picture of a snowy mountain.
The picture made me want to shiver, but it also brought me comfort. In some romantic fantasy, I pictured Ben and I in a cabin in the woods. On top of this very snowy mountain. Maybe even during the holidays, with the lights from a Christmas tree working with the glare from a fire in the fireplace to give us both the coziest feeling in the world.
Reality wasn’t so kind.
The door to Dr. Deb’s office opened and Lo stepped out.
I noticed a tissue in her right hand.
She smiled at me.
“Lo,” I said.
“I’m good,” she whispered. “Dr. Deb wants to talk to you now.”
“You’re going to sit right here and wait?” I asked.
“Can I text my friends?”
“Of course,” I said. “Just please don’t leave here.”
I walked toward the office.
“Hey, Allie,” Lo said.
“Yeah?”
“Um… Trevor is in the area.” She bit her lip. “He wants to meet me out front for a minute.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay. That’s fine.”
“Thank you,” Lo said with a big smile.
She threw the tissues into the small trashcan at the waiting room door and hurried to rip it open.
I watched her leave and did not feel comfortable at all.
“Detective?”
I gasped and jumped back.
“I didn’t see you there,” I said to Dr. Deb.
“Care to chat?”
Dr. Deb was monotone. With a very dry sense of humor, when she showed it.
Her face was serious, intense, and she was always studying you.
That was her job.
I stepped into her office. “Lo went out front to meet her boyfriend.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Anxious.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like her out of my sight.”
“You’re not with her all day, right?”
“That’s different. I don’t think a child trafficker is going to walk through her school halls and grab her, right?”
The words poured so easily from my mouth.
Dr. Deb took a slow breath. “That’s where your mind always goes?”
“Sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?”
“Okay, fine. All the time. I never stop thinking about it.”
“And can you separate reality from your mind?” Dr. Deb asked.
“What does that mean?”
“Look, Detective, I’m not here to break you down, okay? I consider talking to you part of my work with Lo.”
“Lo told you about the whiteboard,” I said. I sighed. “Right. Of course she did. I got rid of it.”
“But if Lo hadn’t seen it…”
“It would still be in the closet,” I said.
Dr. Deb pointed to a leather loveseat.
I slowly sat and she sat in a chair across from me.
“That’s what I’d like to understand more,” Dr. Deb said.
“I’m not sure what there is to understand,” I said. “He was never caught. The man who orchestrated all of this was never caught.”
“Do you feel he’ll come back?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. What I do think about is anyone else that
goes missing. That gets hurt. Killed. He’s out there.”
“And you can’t accept that maybe it’s not your job to catch him?”
“It is my job.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“But you’re working on other cases, correct?”
“Yes,” I said. “And as I said, I got rid of the whiteboard. I’m not working on it anymore.”
“Because Lo caught you.”
“That, and because I’ve thought about it.”
“A second ago you made it seem like this was your life’s work. Now it’s not?”
“Dr. Leight,” I said, properly addressing her. “With all due respect, I just want to make sure my niece is okay. She’s been through a lot.”
“So has the person caring for her,” Dr. Deb said. “I’m more inclined to worry about you than her. Lo has a support system. She has structure. School. Friends. A boyfriend. She has a longer path to walk, which distances herself from this. She has the tools to work through anything that comes her way.”
“And, what, I’m too old to help myself?”
“No,” Dr. Deb said. “Not at all. I’m just curious about how you accept situations in life.”
“I accept them when I need to,” I said. “I accept that the whiteboard was a bad idea. I fixed that. I’m happy Lo talked to you about it. I accept that Lo is outside talking to her boyfriend. Do we have a history with Trevor? Yes. But we’ve gotten through it. Wouldn’t you agree that’s progress?”
“Of course,” Dr. Deb said. She offered a quick smile. “Lo and I had a great conversation today. She feels more open with you than ever. I feel you both need to keep that line of communication as open as possible.”
I nodded.
That ended our conversation.
Dr. Deb stood up and I followed.
We double checked the date for the next appointment and I thanked her before leaving.
As I exited the building, I saw Lo standing with Trevor as he leaned against a car with his arms folded.
He wasn’t the driver of the car.
I moved slow so I could watch Lo and Trevor.
They certainly had a way about themselves based on how they looked at one another.
In other words - there were real feelings there.
I didn’t mind Trevor, just as long as he stayed out of trouble.
At the same time, I wished he would apply himself more in life.