Way Down There (An Allie Down Mystery Thriller Book 1)

by PJ Fernor

  We walked back to Connor and Ben helped him to his feet and took the cuffs off.

  We went into the kitchen where Connor scrambled to get his phone.

  “Who is Lucy?” he asked. “What does she have to do with my daughter?”

  I wasn’t completely sold on anything.

  “Connor, we have to take your brother’s SUV. For more than one reason.”

  “You know what? I don’t care. Kyle has always gotten me into his schemes. He’s my older brother, okay? I always tried to look up to him. Why do you think I left from up there? I knew if I didn’t I’d end up just like him. And now look at me… he knew just how to sell it. The sob story about his vehicle and what it meant to everyone up there… and now you think I took my own daughter. Again. You’re wasting your time…”

  Connor’s eyes looked down to his phone.

  He covered his mouth and groaned.

  He dropped the phone to the counter and spun around and heaved over the kitchen sink.

  Ben and I looked at each other.

  “Call whoever you have to,” I whispered to Ben. “I want that SUV gone through anyway. Just so we know for sure.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone with him,” Ben said.

  “I’m fine,” I said. I stepped away from Ben. “Connor…”

  “She’s really dead,” Connor said. “I just saw the pictures. In the woods. It’s online now. It’s everywhere now. The little girl they found last night.” He turned around and wiped his mouth. “It wasn’t Jessie…”

  “No,” I said. “I already told you, it was a little girl named Lucy. Does the name Lucy Maurowitz mean anything to you?”

  “Never heard it before,” he said. “The place was searched? And then she just appeared there? How is this…”

  Connor groaned again.

  He turned to face the sink, taking deep breaths.

  I had to swallow down a heap of pride.

  If Connor was lying to us about his daughter, then he needed to pack up and move to Hollywood. He was one hell of an actor.

  Or just a man and father terrified and no longer able to hold it back.

  When Connor turned to face me again, he was crying.

  “Nobody is going to believe me,” he said. “I already told you, Detective, tear this house apart if you want to. Tear my life apart. I did nothing wrong…”

  Connor lowered his head and sobbed out loud.

  I opened my mouth to remind him of all he had done wrong.

  But I knew that would have gotten me nowhere.

  I just needed to wait for Ben to come back after making his calls and then we’d leave. Because we had to start over again.

  Which I blamed Connor for.

  “I’ll do anything,” Connor said. His knees started to bend. “Anything… I just know it…”

  “What do you know, Connor?” I asked.

  He lifted his gaze and was officially a broken man. “That little girl… Lucy… she was killed. And now my daughter is going to be next.”

  Connor broke down again.

  I just stood there.

  I was starting to feel empty.

  Worse than that…

  I had a sick feeling what Connor just said was right.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  More time ticked by as it felt like all of us were just walking in circles. Where Lucy’s body had been discovered was searched and it wasn’t a shock when we were told the body was dumped there post mortem. In other words, there was no evidence near or around the scene. Not a single footprint. No tire tracks. Not even a fiber from a shirt or the smallest of whatever from a pair of jeans.

  Luck wasn’t on our side as it had rained on and off for two days.

  Even still, the case was wide open and an even bigger mystery.

  There were no proof that Lucy’s death and the dumping of her body was in any way connected to Jessie, but anyone with a pulse and half a brain knew it was too much of a coincidence to not be true. The two girls looked too much alike. And that to me was what it came down to. Their social statuses were very different. Finances, parents, location, schools, friends, everything was different.

  Except their looks.

  Two beautiful young girls with blonde hair and bright blue eyes and each with a smile that promised a great future.

  One of those futures was cut short for good.

  The other…

  I dropped the picture of Jessie on my desk and stood up.

  My chair groaned and I wasn’t sure if it was just that old or groaning in relief since my diet had consisted of sugar and takeout.

  Ben knocked on the window that we shared between offices.

  He waved a piece of paper and I hurried from my office to his.

  “Please tell me something good,” I said.

  “Wish I could,” he said. “That SUV in Connor’s garage completely checks out.”

  “I thought we knew that already,” I said. “We took care of that when we were in the garage…”

  “Right,” Ben said. “I had the guys dig deeper though. I made them look for anything that seemed off. And it’s clean. There’s no blood, hair, any sign of a struggle. It’s probably never been cleaned. The closest to it was whatever Connor did to the exterior after he hit the deer.”

  I lowered my head and sighed.

  Even that… we made Connor tell us exactly where he had hit the deer. And sure enough, a quick drive out to the spot and there was a doe on the side of the road, just starting to stink.

  “I hate to say this, Allie Down, but we might need to forget about Connor,” Ben said.

  “I never forget,” I said. “I’ll just shift sight.”

  “Okay. So let’s shift sight. Look at this from a bigger perspective. I’m going to say something and it might make you angry at me.”

  “Are you afraid of me, Ben?”

  “Very much,” he said. He offered a quick smile and then leaned back in his chair. “What if Lucy and Jessie aren’t connected at all?”

  I let the question simmer for a few seconds. Of course that had gone through my head more than once. But I played it off.

  “Explain,” I said.

  “Lucy was taken a few months ago,” Ben said. “I talked to Johnny for a while on the phone about the case. I asked as much as I could and got as much as he’d give me. Like he told us, the family wanted it quiet. They believed it was in their family because of what happened when the business was sold off. You think Connor and Cat are messed up, the Maurowitz family is just as messed up. Going back years too. There’s a lot of legal and political dirt all over that family and the business. Now, Lucy’s disappearance wasn’t made into this national news story. I’m thinking maybe the person who took her wanted it that way. So now he has this girl and doesn’t know what to do. So he…”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, I get it. I know what he did.”

  “Right,” Ben said. “Then this guy gets wind of Jessie’s disappearance. See where I’m going here?”

  “I see it, Ben,” I said. “Whoever took Lucy and killed her saw the Jessie case and saw an opportunity.”

  “Right. To dump her body and make it seem like they were connected.”

  “Meaning some guy just pulls up into town and tosses Lucy’s body to the ground and gets the hell out of there.”

  “Without leaving any evidence because he’s smart. Calculated. Just like the way he took Lucy. That neighborhood is full of cameras. But there was that one split second chance to get her and he did it.”

  “Meaning this is a waste of our time,” I said. “Talking about Lucy, I mean.”

  “Possibly,” Ben said. “By mixing the cases together, it leaves Laura pushing and pulling with Morris. It leaves you and Johnny full of tension. And I’m sitting here trying to cut through as much as I can to make sense of it all. I could be wrong here, but I’m looking at all angles.”

  “If that’s the case, then we push harder at the parents,” I said. “Connor is obviously perfectly okay wi
th lying to us. And getting involved in his brother’s schemes.”

  “He took the SUV from Kyle because their father needs rides to the doctors,” Ben said. “Not the smartest idea since Kyle is still in jail. He thought he would be in and out. Quick. Like he’s used to. And he’d been parking the SUV in different places to avoid the repo company.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “I’m not saying you’re wrong either. I’m still thinking about Cat here. She was so paranoid about Connor for so long. Even going so far as to hire a PI.”

  “So maybe we should talk to her next,” I said.

  “Maybe.”

  Ben rolled his fingers on a folder.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You heard everything I just said and it all makes sense,” Ben said. “Now with Lucy gone the family is willing to open the case to the public. Talk about it. Start their own version of a healing process but also ready to do what’s needed to find who took and killed their daughter.”

  “Why are we talking about Lucy again?”

  “Johnny gave me the name of the initial suspect in the case,” Ben said. “A local guy. Not here. Over in Morris.”

  I looked toward my office and nodded.

  There was silence between Ben and I.

  The soundtrack to that silence was the hustle of the station. Phones ringing. Chairs squeaking. Computer keys clicking. Voices murmuring. There was a lot of moving parts at once, with everyone’s focus on Jessie, but also on anything else that came our way.

  “It’s a big risk,” I said, breaking the silence. “To just show up and ask questions that have already been asked.”

  “You don’t mind risks,” Ben said. “Johnny crashed our town, right?”

  “He had cause.”

  “And we don’t?” Ben asked.

  I looked at him and furrowed my eyebrows. “Since when have you become me? You’re the one that’s supposed to convince me not to do this.”

  Ben laughed. “And like you weren’t already wanting to dig into Johnny’s case files. The difference between us, Allie Down, is that I approach with a smile and kindness to get what I want.”

  “And I don’t?”

  “You were on a flipped over trash can, peeking into Connor’s garage, and that was after you pulled your gun on him.”

  “But I was right,” I said. “There was an SUV in his garage.”

  “Fair enough,” Ben said.

  “I’ll keep it simple,” I said. “He was questioned. I’d like to know why. The sympathy card… for Lucy and Jessie. Two missing girls. One dead. One still missing. Time racing against us. I have to ask just to know. In case Johnny missed something.”

  “Johnny doesn’t miss anything.”

  “I guess I’ll be the judge of that,” I said.

  “And this is the part where you tell me you’re going to go alone, right?”

  “Yeah. I need you to keep tabs on Johnny. And Laura.”

  Ben sighed. “I hate myself for saying something.”

  “But you know it’s the right thing to do, Ben,” I said. “This is how I work.”

  “Then I guess you know what the rest of your day looks like.”

  I nodded. “So if this guy in Morris was a suspect… what made it so he was no longer a suspect?”

  “Read the file,” Ben said. Then he frowned. “Then again, who says he isn’t still a suspect?”

  My heart jumped a little.

  I moved toward Ben’s desk to get the name and address.

  He kept his hand flat on the folder and looked me in the eyes.

  There were a lot of unsaid words between us.

  But now was not the time to speak any of them.

  Chapter Forty

  It was a beautiful, old-looking, colonial style home with a short iron gate around the nicely sized and perfectly kept front yard. The sidewalk was made up with uneven patterned stones that were gray, dark blue, and a red-gray kind of color. The front door was a welcoming blue color with a wreath that said WELCOME.

  Nothing about the house or the neighborhood suggested this was the home of a mastermind kidnapper and killer. And sadly that’s how a lot of these cases went. Sometimes it was the nice house in the nice neighborhood. Sometimes it was the friendly man at the grocery store or the guy who volunteered his time at the soup kitchen who kept the darkest and scariest of skeletons in his closet.

  I knew right where my gun was, not that I thought for a second I’d need it.

  This was just a friendly and sympathetic visit to a man who was questioned numerous times in the disappearance of Lucy Maurowitz.

  The defense?

  His credit card was stolen and used to frame him for the kidnapping.

  I knocked on the heavy door and then rang the doorbell.

  The door opened enough for me to see a man wearing black glasses with messy salt and pepper hair. He had a five o’clock shadow that looked closer to the seven o’clock. And not in a purposeful rugged way either. That, with the look in his eyes, suggested he was tired and out of cares to give.

  Yet he was dressed nice.

  A polo shirt under a sweater, dark tan slacks, and even dark shoes.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, but his tone told me he knew why I was there.

  “Steve?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “I’m Allie Down. I’m a detective with-”

  “I’ll call my lawyer right now,” Steve said.

  He tried to shut the door and I stuck my foot forward. “This isn’t about you. I’m not here to accuse you. There’s another missing girl.”

  “What?”

  “I’m from over in Sandemor. I’m not supposed to be here. There’s a missing girl and I’m working the case. I’ve read the case file for Lucy and-”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I want to hear everything from you,” I said. “Not some files. Not police jargon. Not legal jargon. I want to hear what happened to you.”

  “Nothing to say,” Steve said. “My credit card was stolen and was used to frame me…”

  “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through,” I said. “Mind if I come in so we aren’t standing here with the door wide open? I’m sure the neighbors have their own opinion on things.”

  Steve laughed. “Opinion? More like verdict. Guilty. From day one. From the second my name was brought up.”

  I didn’t say anything else.

  Steve looked over my shoulder and backed up. “Yeah, sure, come in.”

  The foyer matched the aged beauty of the house.

  I paused and looked around.

  There was a coziness to the house. Even in a room with hooks on the walls for coats and hats. I saw two coats, a raincoat, and on the floor were a pair of running shoes and rain boots.

  “You’re a runner?” I asked Steve.

  “Used to be.”

  “Used to?”

  “I can’t leave the house anymore,” he said.

  He moved through the foyer and I followed him into the front room, which was an almost powder blue color, including the stone fireplace which served as the centerpiece of the room with the furniture surrounding it. The carpet was thick and plushy, but definitely dated.

  “I love this house,” I said.

  “Me too,” he said. “It was an old couple that sold it to me. They made me promise to keep the integrity of it as I fixed it up. I kept that promise. Haven’t gotten to this room yet. I apologize for the look and the smell.”

  “The smell?”

  “It’s got that old carpet smell. Dust for fifty years hiding everywhere.”

  “We can go into another room,” I said.

  “Here is just fine,” Steve said.

  He didn’t want me to see anywhere else in his house.

  I couldn’t blame him for that.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard about what happened to Lucy…”

  “Of course,” he said. “That detective was here again t
o remind me.”

  “Johnny Barby?”

  “That’s the one,” Steve said. “He turned my life upside down. Came rushing into my house like I was some common criminal. I’ve got two speeding tickets on my record. That’s it.”

  “What do you do for a living, Steve?”

  “Software,” he said. “I work from home. That’s why I wanted a big house like this. So I have my work areas and my non-work areas. It makes sense to me.”

  “I get it,” I said. “Can you tell me what happened? How your credit card was stolen and used?”

  “How was it stolen? I don’t know. I must have left my credit card somewhere. Or dropped it. Or it was stolen. I don’t know. I had been working on a project that week and hadn’t gotten much sleep. That happens from time to time. And I usually work straight through until it’s done and then sleep for days.”

  “Okay. You were identified by a cashier…”

  Steve laughed. “Oh, I was? The corner store? Right? Let me tell you something about that store. I’ve gone into that store five hundred times. Easily. If I want the paper, a coffee, a pack of gum… whatever it is. It’s better than going across town to the shopping center.”

  “According to the file, your credit card was used there…”

  Steve walked to the stone fireplace and wiped his hand across the top of the mantel. “You said this wasn’t about me.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m trying to not make it about you. Look, a little girl went missing in my town. And she looks very much like Lucy. And Lucy’s body was dumped in my town. It’s been a nightmare. The powers over me are fighting over jurisdiction, evidence, blah, blah, blah. I’m not supposed to be here. I just want to understand, Steve…”

  “Then understand this,” he said. He looked at me. “I’m innocent. That night, my credit card was used at that store. The cashier was too busy on her phone to pay attention to who it was. That camera? It was pointed down to the counter. The person who used my credit card was smart enough to stay back. That detective went after that poor girl and aggressively interviewed her, twisting every story he could find to say I was there.”

  “But you weren’t there,” I said.

  “No,” I said. “I was here working.”