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

by PJ Fernor

“Jessie, we need to go upstairs now. Okay? And then you’re going to get to see your parents. Okay? It’s all over now… for real this time.”

  “Is he dead this time?” Jessie whispered.

  “Yes, he is,” Ben said. “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat, drink, and get you out of this place.”

  Ben offered his hand and Jessie slowly took it.

  “Allie, let’s go,” Ben said to me.

  “Give me a second,” I said. “I’ll be right up.”

  “Please, just listen for once today,” he said.

  He took Jessie up the uneven steps.

  The entire cabin had a sense of relief go through it.

  Jessie was alive. She was safe now.

  Sure, she needed medical attention and would need a lot of help to understand what had happened, but she was alive.

  Lucy Maurowitz wasn’t.

  I crouched down next to the dead man.

  His eyes were open, now lifeless.

  I had screwed up outside with him.

  I shot him and assumed he was dead.

  I had been too focused on Jessie, comparing it to that old case.

  And it had almost cost me and Jessie our lives.

  I knew he was dead but I jammed my fingers into his neck just to feel it for myself… nothing.

  “Right where you belong,” I whispered.

  I stood up as people came rushing down the stairs to begin their work of assessing the scene. I was going to have a lot of questions to answer and probably a lot of paperwork to fill out.

  After I climbed the basement stairs, I looked around for Jessie.

  “Detective Allie Down,” Laura said.

  She put her hands to her hips.

  “It’s over,” I said. “And Daniel Endlebrook is buried out back in a shallow grave.”

  Laura shut her eyes for a second. “Wow. This is going to be messy.”

  “Do we know who he is yet?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Laura said. “But we will.”

  “He talked about Cindy,” I said. “And downstairs the name CINDY was hanging up in sloppy looking letters.”

  “I’m going to need to know everything else,” Laura said. “Beginning to end.”

  “Of course. Where’s Jessie now?”

  “Outside with Ben. We radioed for more help. I’ll go make more calls since we have a body out back.” Laura looked around. “You know, this place is scary by itself.”

  “My understanding was that Daniel had himself prepared for the end of the world and built this himself.”

  Laura nodded and reached for her cell.

  I didn’t bother telling her she probably had no service in the cabin.

  She could figure that out on her own.

  I walked from the kitchen to the main living room area.

  My eyes scanned the messy room and something caught my attention.

  Sitting on a table was a lockbox.

  An old, black, metal lockbox.

  The front door to the cabin was completely missing and I peeked through for a second to see Ben standing with Jessie. He had gotten her a blanket and she was wrapped up tight, but still shaking.

  I had no idea when she was going to stop shaking.

  Poor girl…

  My eyes moved back to the lockbox and I took the key out of my pocket that I found where Lucy’s body had been dumped.

  I shook my head as I stuck the key into the lock and turned it.

  When I felt the lock pop open, I swallowed hard.

  It was his key.

  He either dropped it the night he dumped Lucy’s body or he went back to the same spot and dropped it then. Maybe he went back to the spot to see if Lucy’s body was missing.

  It didn’t matter now.

  I opened the lid to the lockbox and wasn’t sure what to expect.

  There was an old pink bow. For a girl’s hair. It was really old. Then there was a small, wooden train whistle. I picked it up and on one side there was a name written in pen.

  Milton.

  I looked at the bow again and under one of the parts I saw a name written there too.

  Cindy.

  “Cindy,” I whispered.

  Next I saw the pictures.

  A stack of old pictures.

  Family pictures.

  The first one I picked up had a family of five.

  A mother, father, and three kids. I was able to pick out the man easily, because of his eyes. They all had striking blue eyes, thanks to their father.

  I flipped the picture around and saw the names written.

  Mama (Agatha)

  Father (Wilbur)

  Cindy

  Frank (me)

  Milton (RIP)

  I had a name now.

  “Frank,” I whispered. His name was Frank.

  I sifted through the pictures and they were all of the same family.

  “What did you find, Detective?”

  I turned my head and saw Garrison.

  “Don’t say a word to me,” he said with a frown.

  “You didn’t know about that path?”

  “No,” he said. “I know the woods. Not some secret area to get down here.”

  I had a lot more to say to him but I shoved it aside and nodded to the lockbox.

  “The key I found went to this lockbox.” I shut the lockbox. “Get this to Laura. We need to figure out everything about this guy. Beginning to end. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Garrison said.

  He took the lockbox from me and I took a deep breath.

  The cabin was bustling.

  There was a silence in my mind. Almost like a sense of the calm before the storm.

  The pictures in that lockbox were going to tell the real story about Frank.

  But in the meantime…

  I looked at my cell and wanted to call Lo.

  I still had no service and she was still in school.

  The picture on the screen was enough for right now.

  I felt something touch the back of my ankle.

  I jumped forward and let out a little yell.

  When I looked down, I heard a quiet and innocent meow.

  I crouched down and the cat hurried toward me, rubbing its body against my legs. Then it quickly put its little paws to my legs and reached for me.

  The cat wore a collar.

  With a little tag dangling.

  With a name on the tag.

  I laughed.

  It was Mike.

  Mike the cat.

  Miss Westchester’s missing cat.

  I put my hand to Mike’s head and he shut his eyes and began to purr.

  It was soothing.

  I shut my eyes for a second too.

  The worst was finally over.

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Laura stood behind her desk.

  Garrison hogged the good coffee.

  Ben stood near the window.

  I stood with hands on the back of one of the leather chairs across from Laura.

  And behind me, near the door, stood Johnny.

  His cologne filled the room like toxic gas.

  “It’s just one messy family,” I said.

  “No kidding,” Laura said.

  I pushed from the chair. “So let me get this straight. Frank was the one who did this. He took Lucy. He accidentally killed her. Then he replaced her with Jessie. It’s all based around him and his sister.”

  “Yeah,” Laura said.

  Her desk was covered in paperwork.

  I didn’t need to see anything more.

  I started to slowly pace. “So the ages went Cindy, Frank, and then Milton. They were the three kids. And there was a rumor that Cindy’s best friend, Anna, had something bad happen to her by their father.”

  “Wilbur Franzlien,” Laura said.

  I looked around the office. “And at that time, who would have listened or believed? So that did something to Cindy. To know her father had done something so horrible to her best friend. Anna’s
family moves away and Anna ends up killing herself. That sets Cindy off even more. So she decides to kill her own brother.”

  “Which is a side story for Lucy Maurowitz,” Ben said.

  “Right,” I said. “Lucy’s grandfather owned an excavating business. And a lumber business. He was the one who didn’t have the area protected where Cindy took both Frank and Milton so she could push Milton off the cliff. In front of Frank.”

  I shook my head.

  “So Frank grabbed Lucy for revenge,” Johnny asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. “He wanted to bring Cindy back. You read what he wrote.”

  I pointed to Laura’s desk. We found notebooks and pages of handwriting from Frank. Telling everything that had happened in his life. Everything written to Dear Cindy, with the grand plan of finding a young girl that looked like Cindy so he could take care of her and make it so she never felt hurt, pain or anger. So she wouldn’t become evil.

  “Even if it wasn’t revenge, he knew the name,” Ben said. “His father wanted to go after Lloyd Maurowitz hard. But he had no money. He was an alcoholic. And then his wife slit her wrists right in front of Frank.”

  “And Cindy cut and kept a piece of the apron and her own mother’s skin,” I said.

  “That’s sickening,” Garrison said.

  “Then after their father died, it was down to just Frank and Cindy,” Laura said.

  I nodded.

  And after growing up together, remaining close, Frank feeling under the control of Cindy’s messed up mind, she was told she had pancreatic cancer and was going to die. While going for chemo treatments, Frank met Daniel Endlebrook. He had cancer himself and was doing his best to hide it from everyone. He told Frank about the cabin and said it was a good place to heal. He even offered that Frank could take Cindy there when she took a turn for the worse.

  “This had been brewing all this time under our noses,” Ben said. He turned from the window. “That’s what makes me sick.”

  “How do you think I feel?” I asked. “Frank was going to grab my neighbor. She fit the profile for what he wanted. Because I pulled my gun on him, he never came back. He panicked. And he grabbed Jessie instead.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Allie,” Johnny said.

  I looked at him. “Too late. You should try it once in a while. Look what you did to Steve Edward’s life.”

  “Comes with the job,” Johnny said. “I go with what I have.”

  “Maybe next time shut your mouth and use your eyes, Detective Barby,” I said.

  “That’s enough of that,” Laura said.

  I showed my hands and nodded.

  “So that’s everything,” Ben said. “He killed Daniel to end his pain. And to use his SUV and cabin.”

  “That was for Jessie though,” I said.

  “Lucy was a different story,” Johnny said. He rubbed his jaw. “He grabbed her and took her back to the house he and Cindy had been renting. He put Lucy in the room where his sister had died. He made her sleep in the same bed. I wish you had never shot him, Ben. I wish he was alive right now. I wish I could get my hands on him…”

  “There was no choice but to shoot him,” Ben said.

  “We’re not going to discuss what ifs here,” Laura said.

  The mix of tension and relief was overwhelming.

  Frank wanted to replace Cindy with Lucy.

  But it didn’t work.

  Lucy cried. Screamed. Fought back.

  And then one day Frank left to think and when he came back, Lucy was dead. While he was gone and Lucy was slowly suffering, Frank came to Sandemor to start his new plan. That’s when he started to stalk Janelle. And I spooked him.

  And then he took Jessie.

  “You know, I bet he had cancer too,” Garrison said. “Or something like it. He wrote about being in pain so much. Doing anything to steal painkillers.”

  “Well, there’s no more pain for Frank,” Laura said.

  “Which is bull,” Johnny said. “For all he did.”

  “His life was a mess,” I said.

  “Tell that to Donna and Michael Maurowitz,” Johnny said.

  “I’m done talking about this,” Ben said. “There’s nothing else to say. At least we have all the answers.”

  “It’s one hell of a story,” Garrison said.

  “Maybe you should learn the woods better too,” I said.

  “Really?” Garrison asked, puffing out his chest.

  Ben took one step and Laura slammed her hand off her desk.

  “That’s enough. We did the best we could. Jessie is home safe. Frank is dead. I’ll be answering questions for the next few weeks,” Laura said.

  “I’m going to go see Jessie one more time,” I said. “She’s supposed to be getting released from the hospital today.”

  “It’s a miracle she survived,” Johnny said. “That’s one tough little girl right there.”

  I gave a quick goodbye to everyone and exited the office.

  Yeah, there was an ending, and yeah, Jessie was alive.

  But Lucy wasn’t.

  And Frank had lived a troubled life that led him to this.

  Halfway down the stairs, I heard a whistle.

  Ben was behind me. “Care for company?”

  “As long as you drive,” I said.

  “Deal.”

  “And we have to make a quick stop.”

  “We do?” Ben asked.

  I nodded.

  There was still one more case I needed to close.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  I stood on the porch of the little, yellow house with Mike the cat in my arms. He was soft, purring like crazy, and had a personality that actually made me appreciate cats for the first time in my life. I had snuck him into the apartment and asked Lo to help me take care of the cat while I took care of the paperwork and meeting with Laura and the others.

  It should have been no surprise to me that Miss Kesslier got involved and together, she and Lo bathed Mike. Which was good. The poor cat needed it. I wasn’t sure how he survived, but I guess cats were resilient. And I had no idea how he ended up at the bottom of that ridge and in the cabin where Jessie was.

  All of that was just now thoughts and what ifs.

  I knocked on the door and waited for Miss Westchester to answer.

  When she did, she smiled.

  Then her eyes moved down to Mike the cat and she gasped.

  She grabbed the door and looked ready to pass out.

  “Guess who I found?” I asked. “Or actually, he found me.”

  “Mike,” Miss Westchester said.

  She reached for the cat like a mother to a newborn baby.

  She picked the cat up and held him in the air.

  The smile on her face was priceless.

  Two other cats appeared, rubbing their chins and necks to Miss Westchester’s legs.

  She cradled Mike the cat and stared at me with glossy eyes.

  “You did it, Detective Down,” she said.

  I reached and gently stroked Mike the cat’s head. “I told you I would. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

  “You’re amazing,” Miss Westchester said. “You managed to find that missing girl and my cat. You never forgot about me, did you?”

  “How could I forget about you?” I asked.

  “You have no idea what this means to me.”

  I moved my hand from Mike the cat to Miss Westchester’s arm. “I have an idea. Now you go and enjoy Mike. I gave him a stern talking to on the way over here. Told him to stay put inside the house.”

  Miss Westchester laughed. “Oh, he’s a sneaky one.” She sniffed the air. “He smells so good.”

  “Forgive me, but I had him bathed,” I said. “After I sat him in an interrogation room just to make sure he wasn’t involved in any criminal cat activity.”

  Miss Westchester waved a finger at me. “You’re too much for this town. We are all so lucky to have you here. And Ben… he needs you more than ever.”

  “O
h, Miss Westchester…”

  “No, no, no,” she whispered to me. “I get it. You have to be professional. But he’s going through a pretty hard time himself. Everyone knows about his father. Ben Senior was such a good man to this town. And Ben does all he can to keep his father at home. It takes a toll. And I get that you two work together… you can’t cross lines. But what happens behind closed doors…”

  Miss Westchester winked.

  She almost made me blush with that comment and innuendo.

  I quickly recovered with a smile.

  I said my goodbyes to Miss Westchester and Mike the cat and returned to the car.

  Ben waited for me, a grin on his face.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, tell me,” I said as he started to drive while I clicked my seatbelt shut.

  “You just… you really kept to your promise there. And I’m guessing if that cat hadn’t come up to you, you would have started looking again.”

  “Probably,” I said. “It’s what I do, Ben.”

  “Yeah, it is,” he said. “Yeah… it is.”

  We arrived at the hospital a short while later to check on Jessie.

  She was in the process of being formally discharged.

  When we saw Connor, he looked at us with heavy, but happy eyes.

  He shook Ben’s hand aggressively and then faced off with me.

  “You found her,” he said.

  “I told you I would.”

  “She’s really here.”

  “Yeah. At least I think she is.”

  “Cat’s helping her in the bathroom and then we’re just waiting for the rest of the paperwork,” Connor said.

  “How is she?”

  “Not sure,” Connor said. “Good and bad, I suppose.”

  “I think we all are,” Ben said. “But at least it’s over.”

  “I don’t know what else to say here,” Connor said.

  I opened my mouth and the hospital room door opened.

  Out shuffled Jessie, looking much more comfortable showered and in fresh clothes.

  Cat had cleaned herself up quite a bit, which was a good thing. She didn’t look like a ragged mess anymore.

  When she looked at me, her eyes filled with tears.

  She shut her eyes and tried to swallow it down.

  I felt my heart squeezing tight.

  I moved my attention to Jessie.

  “Hey, you,” I said to her. “How’s it going?”