A Killer Cup of Joe Read online

  Chapter Nine

  Ellie settled into her room at Miss Sheila’s Bed and Breakfast and pulled her legs under her on the bed before setting the backpack containing her father’s final gift where she could reach it. Taking a look around she wondered when she had ever seen this much lace. The curtains were calico ruffles edged in ivory, the bedspread was a quilt, no doubt handmade, that had lace embellishments, and every horizontal surface on the table, dresser and nightstand had a doily. Despite the near overkill of charm, she still felt comfortable here. It wasn’t her decorating style, but it was apparent someone had gone through a great deal of effort to make the room feel homey.

  She unzipped her bag and sat there for a long moment, wondering why he’d wanted her to have these things. It would be easy to brush it off as insurance so that he would know she had the truth about what he was working on when he was killed, or even that he wanted her to have it so she would know who to avoid at the Bureau. But neither of those options really fit in with who she was.

  Her father had understood her inquisitive nature and usually encouraged her to dig as deep as she needed to in order to satisfy her own curiosity about what had happened in a given situation. Then, once she had the truth on her side, he’d always taught her that those who are strong have an obligation to bring the truth into the light to protect those who are weak. Which of her father’s lessons was she supposed to act on now? The years of instruction at his side, or the single letter telling her not to put her nose into this investigation?

  She slowly moved her hand into the backpack, intending to start with the envelope of pictures, but before she could extract it, her cell phone rang. She let out a long breath, hoping to cover her frustration at the interruption before answering the call.

  As soon as she said hello, a panicked voice came over the line. “Ellie? Is that you? Are you all right?”

  “Agent Peters?”

  “Yes,” he seemed irritated.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “No, it bloody well isn’t all right,” he responded in frustration. “Where are you?”

  While it was tempting to answer him honestly based on the friendship she’d always assumed they had, for the time being, she decided to keep her secret regarding her location.

  “Phil told you yesterday that I’m taking a week off,” she responded, trying to be vague. Her mother had taught her the only way a man would give you what you wanted was if you told him exactly what that was. It was time to see if Janice had any idea what she was talking about. “Why you’re so worked up.”

  “I’ll tell you why I’m worked up,” Agent Peters replied.

  Ellie mouthed the word, “Finally!”

  “I looked up the case file to the murder in D.C. that you were so convinced was connected to my case. They have a medallion that is missing the legs on the person, but is otherwise whole. Because of that, the higher-ups have decided one killer committed all these murders. Then I read that they are going to pull in a new agent—a female not associated with either office—to see if they can plant her in this same retreat center to dig up information on who the killer might be.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she replied, relieved to know that someone besides her had made the connection in the cases and brought them under a single investigation.

  “Are you the agent they’re going to send to the retreat center next weekend?” he asked, sharing part of why he was so worried.

  “No,” Ellie answered emphatically. “I’m not in the field. I review cases, I log notes, but I do not infiltrate crime rings or root out killers in person.” At least, not anymore.

  A rustling came through the line, and she could easily picture him letting out a long breath of relief. “I’m sorry I got worked up,” he stated after pulling himself together. “I just saw the sketchy details about someone new being brought in, and I was worried that since you had pulled all the details together on these cases, they would tap you for the assignment. I’ve read your file, Ellie. I understand why you don’t want to work in the field, and I wanted to try to spare you being forced to do this.”

  She hardly knew what to respond to first. Should she be pissed off that he’d gone snooping in what she’d thought was a sealed file, or should she be touched that he was apparently concerned for her? “While I appreciate you wanting to protect me, I am fully qualified to work for the Bureau in any capacity I see fit. I won’t be forced into anything I don’t want to do. Nor will I be prevented from doing something I think would help a case.”

  There was a period of awkward silence, where she wondered if she’d been too harsh. Finally, her conscience got the better of her and she said, “Look, Agent Peters. I don’t mean to come across so blunt. I was caught off guard that you read my file. I was under the impression it wasn’t up for general review. There are some things that I would prefer to keep private, and the idea of my past being discussed openly doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “Your file isn’t open for general review,” he corrected her. “Your general background is out there, as is true for everyone.”

  “Then why were you worried?” she asked, completely confused.

  “When my boss saw the notes you’d added to my file and to the one from D.C., he called me into his office and said I needed to know a few things about you.”

  As Agent Peters spoke, Ellie could almost feel the blood drain from her face.

  “He told me about your father and how you were practically destined to follow in his footsteps, and then he told me about the last case you worked in the field right after your father’s death.”

  She couldn’t bear to hear the details of that night again. “You don’t have to say anything more,” she stopped him. “I get that he wanted to warn you not to put me in any high-stress situations. Trusting my opinion when I’m in the safety of the basement is one thing, but you can’t expect me to pull my weight in the field.”

  “Actually, he said he always thought there was a brilliant agent inside you and it was a shame you hide it in the cellar. He hoped I might use this case to pull you out and give you a chance to remember the thrill of the hunt and the rush of being out on the streets.”

  “Thanks...” She failed at removing the sarcasm from her voice. “But I’m not the adrenaline junkie you guys are. I’m perfectly happy in my little office.”

  “If that were true, why are you on vacation?” Agent Peters asked.

  “Everybody deserves a vacation,” she deflected his question.

  “True, but this wasn’t planned in advance. You walked in and basically told your boss you were taking the next week. You deserve it, sure, but I’m betting something had you on edge, or you would have planned out a real trip so you could use your time off better than you are.”

  Unable to tolerate him presuming to know her, she said, “How do you know I’m not at a spa being pampered?”

  Light laughter was his response. “Ellie, if you were going to take a vacation, the last thing you’d want is a bunch of people hovering, waiting to attend to your needs.”

  He was right, and she hated that she couldn’t argue to the point. “All right, I’m not at the spa. Nor am I so on edge that I had to run away from the office.”

  “I never said you were running,” he corrected. “I just felt like you were avoiding something by pretending to be on vacation.”

  She repeated what was now her cover for what she was doing. “I am on vacation.”

  “It doesn’t count unless you come back completely relaxed or bearing a few new tan lines,” he teased, taking on the tone he used to have before this case appeared, when they’d spend most of their time on the phone joking with each other.

  Seeing her opening to put an end to the conversation, she stated, “Agent Peters, what on earth makes you think I’d have any tan lines?” With that, she hung up without even saying goodbye.

  Setting the phone down, she stayed on the bed looking at it, as though it would suddenly reveal the reason he’d ca
lled. She felt there was some sincere concern for her, but at the same time, there was still something he wasn’t telling her. No conclusions were valid if they were based on only part of the evidence. She’d love to credit her father with that lesson, but it came straight from her instructor at the academy.

  Thinking of her father caused her to glance down once more, seeing the stack of items she’d removed from the safety deposit box that morning. These pieces of her father, clues he’d gone through the trouble of preserving to help her unravel a mystery, brought back the feeling of loss she’d kept at bay since the week after his funeral. She swallowed, wondering what it would take to make the lump in her throat disappear.

  She stretched her legs out on the bed in front of her and found her mind repeating what Agent Peters had just shared. The D.C. victim had been wearing a medallion that had been modified to remove the legs. Glancing at her own legs made her wonder why that would be significant. Obviously, the woman had been able to walk.

  Against her better judgment, she pulled out her laptop and logged into the FBI website to pull up the case from D.C. and review the documentation in the system.

  It was nearly a wasted effort, as the details of the individual girl shared nothing with the two victims from California, but every element of their murder was identical, including exactly how they were lying in the parking lot and the way their necklaces were placed against their collarbones. How anyone could make the argument that these cases weren’t related was beyond her. She decided to push that thought from her mind, as insulting the stubbornness of Agent Peters wasn’t helpful at the moment.

  The legs, arms, and face had been removed from the medallions. Ellie looked at the original pendant given out at the conference and tried to estimate how many other variations could be made to account for the total number of potential victims for this killer. Realizing that line of thought was basically admitting they wouldn’t be able to stop this person before they struck again, she decided to look up the retreat center instead.

  While she was waiting for the Wi-Fi at the bed and breakfast to pull up the website, she glanced down at the folders and notebooks she’d planned on reading. “Sorry, Daddy,” Ellie said, carefully placing each item back in the bag. “You’ve waited five years for me to see this. I don’t think another few hours will make much difference.”

  By the time she’d zipped up the bag, the website for the Yoga For Life Retreat Center was loaded. It had beautiful photography of a private retreat in the woods of Northern California, filled with small ponds and gardens that held plants so perfect, Ellie wondered if they could possibly be real. They promised world-class instruction in the yoga lifestyle, spa services to help one relax, and daily guided meditation to assist in transitioning from seeing yoga as a form of exercise and beginning to see it as a necessary part of a life transformation. They guaranteed you better health, a brighter outlook, increased productivity, and stamina beyond imagination if you gave them four days of your life. If it weren’t for the fact that the women who attended this conference seemed to be dropping dead, Ellie felt like it would be tempting to see if they could deliver even half of what they promised.

  Methodically working through the entire site, Ellie realized there were links buried behind small lotus pictures, including one in the retreat brochure that mentioned additional services. She couldn’t imagine what else they could offer than what had already been promised, but clicked on the flower anyway and saw lifestyle coaching as a sideline. When she followed the various blossoms embedded in the description, she realized their coaching services were more than a sideline, as they were priced beginning at three hundred dollars an hour and allowed customers to purchase them in blocks of ten hours at a time—and only after they had completed a weekend with the retreat leader, who would spend the initial intensive time analyzing one’s readiness level and testing their ability to adapt to the full yoga lifestyle, which he would be leading them into with their private coaching sessions after the start-up weekend. If someone managed to completely transform their life in just ten hours, that plus the weekend analysis would be completed for the bargain price of five thousand dollars—payable up front in one lump sum.

  Ellie knew she shouldn’t judge. People found motivation to change their life in different ways, and if it worked as well as the website claimed, it was as good as any. Even though Ellie knew yoga was beneficial and had even tried it herself, she couldn’t help but form the impression that this went beyond simple health and wellness coaching and was jumping straight into fleecing the innocent with borderline cult-like vernacular. Especially since the site suggested at least quarterly “tune-ups” to keep priorities in line with their prescribed yoga lifestyle.

  Curious as to why they hid their most expensive services behind flowers, she did a quick internet search on lotus flowers and was surprised at how much meaning was associated with that simple bloom. Ellie never knew that lotus flowers grew in the mud at the bottom of a pond. Like all plants, it grew toward the light, which meant working out of the muck and through the water to rise to the surface and bloom in the sun. The more she read, the more she felt drawn to the symbolism and how people often associated that flower with a spiritual awakening or a symbol of having battled against something difficult in order to rise above it stronger than they had been before. When she went back to the retreat center’s website, she had to admit that the use of the flowers through the site was not only aesthetically pleasing, but meaningful, considering all they were promising their special service clients.

  She moved back to the FBI site to see if there was any indication the victims had done more than just the weekend retreat. In the process, she stopped and looked at the victim’s profile from D.C. So far, she’d managed to review the file with the kind of detached interest that allowed her to focus on the specifics of the scene and background without it becoming personal.

  The first girl had a lovely smile. No sooner had she thought that than she remembered her father’s advice, mumbled under his breath at a crime scene he’d brought her to during the night one weekend when she was staying with him. Some tech at the scene had dared to challenge her father, who was demanding answers they didn’t have. The tech had finally heard enough and spoken up, “Calm down. This isn’t personal; these kinds of questions take time to answer.”

  Her father had spun around and walked straight to the car where his daughter was waiting, and as he got in, he’d mumbled, “Not personal? Anytime there’s a loss of life, it’s personal. Somebody lost a daughter or a wife, and to that family, it doesn’t get any more personal than this.”

  Instructors at the academy had warned them against personalizing the crimes they would be investigating. Ellie had called her father up after hearing that and asked him how he kept from letting the faces and crime scenes in so they didn’t take over his life. He’d laughed at the question. Then he’d explained, “There’s not an agent out there worth their salt that hasn’t had their life taken over with at least one face—one victim they couldn’t get justice for. You’ve got to find a way to stay just detached enough to keep your head in the game, without getting so attached that you can only focus on the life that was lost. But make no mistake... Death is always personal. If you get to the point you don’t feel it, then you’ve been at this long enough to lose your humanity, and that, little girl, would be an unthinkable loss.”

  The woman on her screen was somebody’s child. More specifically, victim number one, whose name was Megan Miller, was the only daughter of a district court judge and his wife of thirty-five years. Megan was a new economics teacher at a local community college in a D.C. suburb in Virginia. She was in great physical shape, ran half-marathons for fun, and was described by her friends as being kind-hearted and quiet. The night of her death, she’d met some friends for drinks at a club and was the first one to leave—not unusual for her. Based on forensics, she never got in her car before she was grabbed from behind and strangled—the blurred bruising served as eviden
ce to that fact—without leaving much in the way of signs of a struggle, and then her necklace was apparently switched out for the modified version without legs.

  All three victims were described as friendly, yet quiet. They seemed to have a social group that allowed them to get out rather often, but they always came and went alone, so their early departures weren’t questioned as unusual. Strangely, when Ellie realized that, she couldn’t help but note the striking resemblance to her own social habits.

  Picking up her cell phone, she hit the speed dial for her oldest friend, and upon hearing Anne’s hello, Ellie asked, “If I were killed and someone came to your house to interview you, how would you describe me?”

  “What on earth would make you ask a question liked that?”

  Ellie noticed she didn’t bother to ask who this was, because Anne knew that no one but Ellie would blurt out something so morbid.

  “I’m reviewing case files from a serial killer, and trying to find a connection between the victims,” Ellie began, realizing that her impromptu call was probably not helping her get any real answers. “When I read the files, I realized they didn’t share much in the way of similar activities or background, but they were all described in the exact same way by their closest friends. It made me wonder how you would describe me.”

  “Well, let’s see…” Anne attempted to give it thought, something Ellie admired. Despite how different they were, she knew she could always count on Anne to take her seriously when she asked something—no matter how outrageous it might sound. “I’d say you were smart—really smart—and then I’d tell them you were kind and friendly, but sort of quiet until you got to know a person.”