by PJ Fernor
It was a small town, but certain parts felt like they could take days to get to.
Especially when you were working on a murder investigation.
“What is going on around here?” Ben asked, breaking up my thoughts.
“That’s a great question,” I said.
“I just… how does this all fit together? Because it sure does feel like it. Unless I’m turning into you.”
“Thanks for that,” I said with a smile. “But something is up. First Nikki is found murdered up on the ridge. Then talking to Chelsea…”
“That was worrisome,” Ben said.
“We’re not done with her.”
“You know she’s going to run or hide,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’ll find her again. Give her a chance to think about what we said. We couldn’t arrest her, Ben. She did nothing wrong. She’s just living a tough life.”
“That I won’t argue for a second,” Ben said. “And now we have this call from Muldavey. A young woman in someone’s basement?”
I shook my head.
I grabbed my phone and called Muldavey.
“Detective Down,” he said.
“Are you there yet? What’s going on?”
“Just got here. The young woman is gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?”
I looked at Ben.
He looked at me for a second and frowned.
“She took off,” Muldavey said.
“She took off,” I said so Ben knew what was going on. I shut my eyes and felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. “Okay. Don’t move. Don’t let anyone in or out of that house until I, we get there. Got it?”
“Sure thing,” Muldavey said.
“Be there in a few,” I said.
I hung up and shook my head.
“Gone?” Ben asked.
“Took off,” I said.
“The homeowner probably spooked her. Whoever she was.”
“The address…” I thought about it for a second. “That’s on the other side of that dead end, right? Where the woods start?”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “We always called it Ends End. When I was twelve we’d ride our mountain bikes down the hill and cut through there as fast as we could go. It was a thrill for us.”
“I remember that,” I said. “This whole town is full of its own little mysteries.”
“That it is,” Ben said. “Most I don’t mind. But missing girls, dead girls, and girls sleeping in basements then taking off… I don’t like that.”
We drove in silence for the rest of the ride.
When we arrived at the house, I saw the dirty white, crooked gutters, and tilted porch, and knew this was one of the original houses and areas in Sandemor. Which made sense because it wasn’t all that far from the coal dumps and where the mines had been located. The houses were all tilted thanks to the soft ground.
This was the kind of area that not even a wealthy developer would touch, as the houses would have to be leveled and the ground somehow built up to be firm.
Muldavey stood at the bottom of the porch steps, holding the railing with his left hand.
On the porch was a woman who looked to be in her late fifties. Next to her was an oxygen tank. She leaned against the porch pillar and looked to be taking extra deep breaths. I couldn’t imagine the scare she had gotten by seeing a young woman in the basement.
I got out of the car and hurried toward the house.
“Hey there,” I called out. “I’m Detective Allie Down.”
“This is Annie Barchettie,” Muldavey said. “Her cousin Petey was actually my old t-ball coach.”
“He loved his baseball,” Annie said. Her lips smacked together, revealing that she had no teeth. “God rest his poor soul. The family genes got him.”
“I’m sorry?” I asked.
Annie looked at me. “Bad hearts. We all got ‘em. I know my days are numbered.”
Annie didn’t look to be in the best shape as she pushed off the pillar and kind of waddled to the front door. She reached down and grabbed the oxygen tank.
I looked at Muldavey.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“You coming in or what?” Annie called out.
I looked back at Ben. “You go around the house. Walk through some of the bushes and trees and see if you find anything.” I looked at Muldavey again. “You go on the other side of the house. Maybe we can get lucky.”
I walked up the steps and followed Annie into the house.
The first scent that hit me was old cat urine.
It was so potent that my eyes started to water.
I looked around the old house and there weren’t any cats that I could see wandering around.
Next came the smell of cigarette smoke.
Stale. Old. Bitter and brutal to the senses.
Annie shuffled to the coffee table that was littered with newspapers and magazines. There was a recliner stacked high with clothes. A single love seat was positioned in front of the small television, one cushion visibly worn compared to the other.
Cobwebs hung in the corners with thick black and yellowish lines.
The house felt haunted.
Tragic, sad, and haunted.
Annie reached down to the table and took a deep breath.
I heard the way her body struggled to get the air in and out.
To my shock, she reached for a pack of off-brand cigarettes. She took the oxygen hose out of her nose and lit the cigarette.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she said.
“Not at all,” I said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Sure thing,” she said. “Dragged my laundry down from the bedroom.” She gasped for a breath of air. “Was taking it down into the basement. Got halfway down and turned to see some girl sleeping on the dirt floor!”
“Did you get a good look at her?” I asked.
“As good as I could. Scared me. I heard about that girl who got murdered the other day. Thought it had something to do with that. So I hurried back up the stairs to call the police. Took me a good few minutes. My bad heart, breathing and all.”
She took another drag off the cigarette.
“What did the girl look like?”
“I don’t know,” Annie said. “A girl. Dirty clothes though. White shirt. Jeans. She looked homeless. She was just curled up, looking innocent and sweet. I feel bad that she ran off. I called the police and then went to take her a glass of water and she was gone. Ran right out into the backyard.”
“You saw her run off?”
“Sure did,” Annie said. “She looked like a ghost.”
My heart flipped.
“A ghost?” I asked.
“Well, the white shirt, you know? Maybe I’m too caught up in Halloween. How is that going to work this year with a murder investigation going on?”
“That’s not my decision to make,” I said. “Did you pick out any features on this young woman? Maybe even guess her age?”
“Oh, she was a teenager,” Annie said. “I don’t know. Seventeen? Nineteen? Somewhere around there.”
I heard a noise and turned my head to see Ben coming through the house from the back door.
“There’s prints in the yard,” he said. “It’s a lot of dirt out there. She took off into the woods.”
“Told you so,” Annie said.
“Mind if we check the basement?” I asked.
“That’s why you’re here,” Annie said. “I’m going to finish this here cigarette and then try to breathe.”
“Okay,” I said. “You relax here.”
I walked to Ben and nodded.
He led the way into the kitchen.
The linoleum floor was orange and peeled up in the corners.
There was a black line around all the walls that suggested mold.
A door was open right off the kitchen that had a set of wooden steps.
I went down first.
The basement stunk of old water and mold,
but it was a pleasant relief from the cat urine and cigarette smoke.
As sad as it was, this was just how some people had to live. It was about survival. Not all towns and cities were built for thriving. For some it was just about getting to your next meal and maybe another day to live.
The steps were wobbly but held my weight.
The floor was all dirt and the ceiling was low.
I turned and pointed and looked back at Ben.
“Yeah, this isn’t good at all, Ben,” I said.
“What makes you-”
Ben stopped talking right away.
The young woman left a message in the dirt.
WE’RE ALL HIS
The same message that was written in blood where Nikki had been murdered.
Chapter Thirty-Four
We didn’t have the resources of a big city. We also didn’t want the locals living in fear. At least that part was what Laura told me. There was a delicate balance between working the case and causing fear. Small towns had a notorious way of taking a story and twisting it around three hundred times until nobody knew the truth.
On top of that, just like Annie had brought up, we were getting close to Halloween.
The thought of telling kids they couldn’t go trick or treating seemed taboo.
It also meant Laura looked at me and threw another two tons of weight onto my shoulders.
She wanted answers, and wanted them right now.
The alternative was unspoken.
Trevor.
If I couldn’t come up with something - and soon - then all eyes and pressure would go back to Trevor. His bracelet was still the only piece of evidence we had.
There wasn’t much to do at Annie’s house other than take pictures, dust for prints, and hope for a miracle.
Ben, Muldavey, Garrison, and I walked through the woods for a little bit. We all knew we’d find nothing. It was still worth a shot just to say we did it.
The woods were thick and deep.
If she cut one way, she would have come out to the dead end where I chased a young girl not that long ago.
Could it have been the same one?
The thought raced through my brain faster than the thoughts of Ben and Sandra being together.
If the girl went that way, she could have been anywhere in town or outside of town.
If she went deeper into the woods, then it was no use.
She could have gone up the mountain. Or fifteen other ways.
Again, we didn’t have the resources to send out a true search party.
Back when Jessie went missing, the locals tried to help coordinate search parties, but even those were tough to manage.
This wasn’t a case of a missing girl.
This was about finding who murdered Nikki and left her in the woods near the fire road.
Laura suggested that maybe I was comparing apples to oranges.
But what was written on the basement floor was too hard to look past.
WE’RE ALL HIS.
First it was written in blood at Nikki’s murder scene. Now it was written in the dirt floor of a basement.
By the time Ben and I got back to the station, I was in full thinking mode.
He got a phone call about his father and had to leave.
“I’ll call you,” he said. “We can talk as I drive. You can get everything off your chest.”
“Is your father okay?” I asked.
“I’m sure he will be,” Ben said. “He’s having a bad day. He keeps asking for me. Sandra called and wants me to just stop by. Maybe seeing me will help him. This disease… it’s… it’s just terrible…”
“Sandra is there,” I said. “That’s good. You have an easy contact point.”
“Allie.”
“Go check on your father,” I said. “Send him my love.”
Ben sighed and walked away.
I shut my office door and felt the collapsing feeling of jealousy inside my chest.
I didn’t feel like sitting around the station, lingering in my office, throwing words against the wall.
Right on cue - like a bad decision - Johnny Barby called me.
“How’d it go?” he asked. “Did you get your girl?”
“It’s a mess, Johnny. She tried to run. We got her. Talked to her. She knew nothing about Nikki’s murder.”
“You believed her?”
“Yeah. She also… you know what? What are you doing right now?”
“Talking to you,” he said.
I cringed. “I hate myself for saying this, but do you want to meet up?”
“I’m not going to pass up the chance to see you, Allie,” he said.
“For work,” I said.
“Work?”
“Meet me on Depot Avenue,” I said. “I want to poke around a little. I need something here, Johnny. I might need your help.”
“For you, the world. I’d grab a star out of the-”
“See you soon,” I said and hung up.
I shut my eyes and cursed myself for wanting to meet up with Johnny.
He always seemed to find a way to have his fingers dipped into whatever case I was working on.
I really didn’t have much of a choice.
I needed to clear Trevor’s name.
I needed to find out who actually killed Nikki.
And I needed to know what the phrase WE’RE ALL HIS meant.
I left the station, got into my car and drove while I thought.
Somehow this was all tied together, and it was going to be deep and twisted.
Nikki had been seen down under the bridge on Depot many times. She had been chased around by Officer Preens, along with Chelsea. I was sure Preens and other officers were used to it. Like swatting at flies around a picnic. They’d scatter, but always come back.
Then Nikki goes missing. Or takes off.
Something happened to her.
She ended up beaten and stabbed in the woods.
I thought about the young woman I saw in the middle of the night on my walk.
It had to have been the same one in Annie’s basement.
Was she the young girl who wrote the message in blood at Nikki’s murder scene?
Was she involved in this somehow?
That was a whole other thing to think about.
Teenagers, young girls…
My mind and heart jumped around.
I parked my car in the parking lot where Ben and I had chased Chelsea around.
The car she said she was living in was still there.
I walked up to it and saw nothing but old clothes and food wrappers on the seats and floor.
Behind me, I heard a horn beep and turned to see Johnny Barby.
I sighed.
Last time he and I were alone, I was kissing him and breaking Ben’s heart.
He climbed out of his undercover SUV and looked as sharp as ever.
He pulled at his shirt and smiled at me.
“I’ve missed you, Allie.”
“Case talk,” I said.
“Always,” he said.
We started to walk side by side.
I threw everything at him that I knew.
He listened intently.
As we approached the underpass of the bridge, there were a few young woman standing there.
“Don’t run!” I called out. “Just please don’t run.”
I showed my badge.
Johnny made it a point to show off his gun.
“I need to find Chelsea,” I said.
“Who?” the one asked.
“Come on, doll,” Johnny said. “We’re not here for games. You want to walk the streets like this? That’s fine. But we have a murder to solve.”
“Chelsea got murdered?” the other asked.
“Nikki is dead,” the first one said.
“Okay, names,” I said.
“I’m Angel,” the first said. “This is Tanya.”
“Nikki was murdered,” I said. “I’m going to find out who did it. I
talked to Chelsea earlier. She mentioned Nikki disappeared. Is that true?”
“I don’t know,” Angel said. “We all come and go.”
“What does that mean?” Johnny asked.
Tanya laughed. “What do you think it means? Sometimes we have to move around. To stay safe. Or we get picked up for something stupid. We’re just trying to survive out here.”
“You ever hear of getting help?” Johnny asked. “There are places you can go to. Programs you can get into.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Angel said. “We’re all good here.”
“How old are you?” I asked Angel.
“Twenty,” she said.
“Anybody here under eighteen? Or really young?” I asked.
“No,” Tayna said. “Cops would grab them if there was.”
“You’re lucky I don’t work around here,” Johnny said. “I’d have this cleaned up in a second.”
“Tough guy,” Angel said.
“You want to talk back to me?” Johnny asked.
I put my hand out and stopped Johnny from crossing the line.
“Look, I’m looking for Chelsea,” I said.
“The truth?” Tanya asked. “She mentioned there were two detectives looking around about Nikki’s death. We know nothing. Neither does she. Chelsea hopped on a bus to get away for the day. She and Nikki were really close. So if she says she doesn’t know what happened, then she doesn’t know.”
“When you see her, tell her I was here again,” I said. “Detective Allie Down.”
“Okay, that’s fair enough,” Angel said.
“Think about your lives,” Johnny said. “You don’t need these streets.”
“You know nothing about us,” Tanya said.
They turned and walked away.
Johnny took a step and I grabbed his arm.
“Don’t,” I said. “They’re scared to death. This is all they know.”
“And you believe them?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But if we push too hard, we’ll chase them all away. Someone has to know something about Nikki.”
“You know something really bad is going on here, right?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
I took a deep breath and swallowed down a ball of emotion because each time I saw one of these girls, all I could see was Lo.
I looked up at Johnny.
“I just hope I can figure this out before another one of them turn up dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
