A Killer Cup of Joe Page 5

  Her dad used to take her to the mall and have her people watch with him—pointing out their nervous habits, their shifty eyes, and their worried expressions. She'd learned so much more from that time in the general public than she had in school with a monotone professor attempting to explain body language postures to her, referencing still images on a screen.

  Once she started her car, she was unable to shake the soft smile on her face from the fact that she’d just spent an hour and a half with a man she hadn’t known before, but had thoroughly enjoyed talking to. It wasn’t quite enough to make her pick up the phone and endure her mother, but it was certainly tempting to point out that she was capable of getting men to want to spend time with her. She might not have credited her college class with much, but she did remember that a lingering touch usually indicated a reluctance to end time with an acquaintance, which had to be a compliment of sorts, showing that she was capable of being interesting.

  Half a block from her apartment, her cell phone rang.

  “Thank goodness you answered, Ellie,” came a voice that was difficult to place because it was rushed and panicked sounding.

  “Were you expecting someone else to pick up the call?” She'd had a relaxing evening, and the caffeine coursing through her system had her feeling a little more punchy than usual.

  “I followed up on your suggestion from this afternoon, and I think I might have something, but I wanted to run it past you first to see if it made sense.”

  Assuming this was Agent Peters, as he was the only person she’d made any suggestions to today, she asked, “What do you have?” She was annoyed at having her fun ruined with work, but she felt connected to this case after having read all the reports and looking at the limited photos.

  “It took some digging because the first victim went to two different yoga studios, and the second victim only went to one, but none of them were the same. I was about to give up until I saw a flyer on the bulletin board that could be the connection,” he explained.

  “What was the flyer?”

  “Two of the studios are members of a larger organization that uses a retreat center for weekend cleansings at a fancy spa in Northern California. I haven’t looked into it yet to see if they both went to a retreat, but do you think this could be the yoga connection you were referring to? I mean, did you see anything that would make this a possibility? I need to know before I report this and start requesting registration information.”

  “I’m not a psychic,” Ellie replied, irritated at his choice of words. “You have the same information I do—you sent it to me. But I think this is the most solid lead you have to date, so it’s definitely worth pursuing.” After pausing, she added, “Did you find anything on the necklaces?”

  “No,” he answered, “After I got this, I figured the necklaces weren’t as important.”

  Ellie got out of her car and stomped up the stairs. “At this point, you can’t drop any leads until you get something solid. It will take a while to sort through the registration data to confirm if there is a connection and, if so, what it is. In the meantime, you should still try to figure out if the jewelry was a common thread. They died two weeks apart, and it’s almost been another two weeks. There is a high likelihood this killer could strike again. You don’t have time to wait until you see if one thing pans out before you pursue a second idea.”

  She stopped to take a deep breath because her irritation was growing and her voice was louder than usual. “I’m sorry,” she apologized out of habit more than sincerity. “But I hate the idea of letting a killer continue to hurt people if it might be within our control to stop it.”

  “I know,” Agent Peters said. “I’ll make some calls and see what I can dig up. You always know how to point me in the right direction.” After a pause, he added, “I’m sorry about calling so late. Sometimes I forget you aren’t in my time zone.”

  “It’s fine,” she told him, even though she didn’t completely mean it. “You know I want to help if I can.”

  Ellie slipped into her apartment, hearing the echo of Phillips's warning from last night. Agent Peters calling to check on what he’d discovered before moving on seemed odd. She hated things that felt out of place and knew between his unusual behavior and the caffeine, there was no chance she would get to sleep. Had it just been the coffee, she might have been willing to stay awake and replay the conversation with Joe. But she knew deep down that she’d be poring over the interaction with Agent Peters instead. This case was thin, at best, and his behavior was totally out of character for a field agent. He’d never hesitated to call on her for help before, but this was the first time when he seemed slow to act on her suggestions. If he was desperate enough to seek her assistance, one would think he would act on anything she offered as important. Something was off, and she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  She’d been complaining that she wanted something to think about at home other than why her apartment sat higher than all the rest, and it looked like she had it. The problem was, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answer to this puzzle.

  Chapter Four

  A knock at the door caused Ellie to lift her head quickly to see who was entering her office. Her boss, who insisted that everyone call him Phil, stood there with a file in one hand and a cane—which today looked like a peppermint, as it was painted red with white barbershop pole stripes—in the other.

  “Hey, Phil, whatcha got for me?” She asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice that he'd startled her and caused her to spill the pictures she’d been poring over onto the floor.

  “It’s a low-priority case, but they're going to dead file it, and I thought as a last-ditch effort, I’d see if anything here stood out to you,” he said, holding the folder up in his hand.

  Phil was an ideal boss because he knew when to help and when to step away because his assistance wasn’t needed. He’d been a field agent for fifteen years, but according to him, he’d taken a few too many bullets, which meant he probably wasn’t qualified to do the adrenaline rush stuff anymore. The last one had gone through his kneecap, and even after a knee replacement he still needed the help of a cane.

  His wife had a sense of humor, though, and seemed to have access to an endless supply of walking sticks to help him balance, so each day, it was fun to see what he was using. In some ways, Ellie envied him. She wasn’t allowed to wear flashy shoes or accessories, but nobody could refuse to let Phil use a cane, even if it had red flames painted on it—like yesterday’s model had.

  When he didn’t make a move to leave, Ellie knew there was something else behind his visit. She moved closer to save him the steps and held out her hand for the papers. “Now, tell me why you’re really here. You’ve never had a problem filling up my mailbox before. Why the personal attention all of a sudden?”

  Phil smiled at her, almost appearing pleased by her question. “Well, since you asked…” He made a gesture with his now-free hand, as though anything he was about to say was solely because she’d been pushy. “I got a strange call from the upper echelon, who wanted to know what I thought about you working in the field.”

  There wasn’t a single mirror in the basement, but Ellie didn’t need one to know her face currently matched the bleach white color of her blouse. “I don’t do field work,” she managed to choke out.

  “I know you don’t, and that’s exactly what I told them,” Phil explained in a soothing voice much like her father would use when she started getting worked up about something and he wanted to calm her down. “They were trying to find out if you didn’t want to or you absolutely couldn’t.”

  Ellie tried to wait, but Phil choosing that sentence to stop and look around her office instead of finishing the details of his conversation was more than she could stand. “What did you tell them?” There was a hint of a shriek in her voice, but Phil didn’t so much as look her way to acknowledge the mild disrespect.

  Instead, he smiled softly, as though remembering an amusing st
ory, and then finished. “I told them if they wanted to feel you out for something, they needed to brave coming downstairs to do it themselves instead of wasting my time. As far as I was concerned, you were the best agent I had down here, and I’d fight them tooth and nail to keep any other department from taking you away, but in the end, I had a feeling the harder fight would be with you directly.”

  That sounded like the perfect answer. It didn’t call her a coward, nor did it sound like Phil was interested in the conversation continuing for any reason. Hopefully, they’d get the message, and it would stop whatever fool-brained idea someone had gotten upstairs. There was a reason she didn’t work in the field, and she had no intention of detailing it with some suit who probably thought he knew better. She’d worked hard to pack her past up and lock it away, and there was no way she was going to let anyone force her to do it again.

  After Phil left, she picked up the file he’d brought by. Normally, Ellie was opposed to mixing cases, but the file she’d been working on was currently scattered across the floor, thanks to her boss’s unexpected entrance. She grumbled once more to herself about people making some noise and minding their own business and moved on to the folder Phil had brought by to see if anything in it interested her.

  Skipping over the lengthy narrative of interviews conducted, evidence collected, and leads followed up on, which had all apparently ended in dead ends, Ellie moved straight to the photos. Sometimes, things would jump out and give her a starting point to refer back to the investigation details. The first snapshot was of a white Honda Accord. It was nondescript, but parked perfectly in the middle of the space. Ellie always appreciated it when someone took the time to get in the center of a parking space instead of encroaching on one side or the other and making it difficult for another car to move into the next space.

  The second photo caused any color that had been regained after Phil’s visit to immediately return back to where it had been. She’d looked at enough scenes of death that they no longer bothered her, but this one was obviously connected to the two she’d gotten from Agent Peters. In the picture was a woman in her early thirties, with perfectly-combed blond hair, nightclub clothes, short fingernails, and a medallion on a chain resting on her collarbone. She’d been strangled to death with the telltale bruising around her neck and had been left just beside her car, with the driver’s side door ajar. The woman, the method, and the scene left behind were an exact replica of the other two victims.

  Quickly, she turned back to see that this death had occurred six weeks ago in D.C. That would put it on the timeline as preceding the two files from California. After a full investigation had been conducted, leading to no suspects, motives, or possible explanations for the woman’s death, the file had been sent to her department for review. Two of her co-workers had looked it over, offering some meager follow-up suggestions, which were acted upon, but had ultimately led to nothing.

  While looking through the notes on the victim to see if she had an interest in yoga, there was another knock on her door. She acknowledged Phillips by lifting her chin and asking, “What do you know about yoga?”

  Both his eyebrows shot up, registering his surprise at the question, but he was never one to be shocked to the point of not being able to respond, “I know women who practice it are much more limber than those who don’t. Do you want to know how I know that?”

  How that man could make something as straightforward as exercise sound crude was beyond Ellie, so she let his comment go and looked back down at the picture in front of her. The victim still had her keys in her hand, which seemed strange. One would think that, if attacked, you would struggle and use your hands to attempt to get free. It was possible the killer was quick about their approach, but strangling someone still took time, which left Ellie to wonder why there was no sign of a fight. Did the killer drug them first to keep them from fighting back, or did he rearrange the body after the death to remove any sign of the struggle?

  Phillips broke through her concentration to remind her he was still standing there. “As fascinating as it is to watch you work, I did have a reason for coming down here.”

  “I didn’t pack a lunch today, so you can’t loaf off me,” she teased, not sure why he seemed to bring out the argumentative side in her. Perhaps it was because she knew he could take it and wouldn’t read anything into her comments.

  He mocked pain at her retort. “You wound me, Ellie. I would never do something as ungentlemanly as attempting to talk a lady out of her lunch.”

  “That’s right,” she pretended to agree. “You only do that for dinner.”

  “Only if you’re in the act of cooking it,” he corrected, as though this were an important detail. “As far as I’m concerned, if you didn’t want company for the evening meal, then you shouldn’t be cooking when you know I usually eat.”

  There was nothing she could say in response to that lack of logic. “Any chance you’ll get to the point of your visit and tell me why you’re here?”

  “Maybe I just came down to say hello,” he countered, obviously enjoying the parley. “Does a guy have to have a reason for dropping by to brighten the day of a friend who works without the benefit of sunlight?”

  “He doesn’t have to have one,” she agreed, stretching over to grab a fresh stack of Post-it notes and her favorite black pen. There were all kinds of things that hadn’t been done on this file, so there was no way she was going to let it go to the vault of dead cases just yet. “But you did begin this whole episode by saying you had one.”

  “I can see you’re busy,” he replied, pointing to her file, “so I’ll get to the point.” He crossed his hands over his chest, bringing attention to the fact his arms were filling out his suit jacket. Ellie didn’t need anything to bring attention to his physique; she’d seen him jogging wearing nothing but his Nikes and a low-hanging pair of running shorts.

  “Joe called me last night and said he had an unexpected visitor come to his shop after work yesterday,” Phillips began, grinning at her as though they were fifteen and he had the hottest piece of gossip he was dying to share.

  Comparing Phillips to a fifteen-year-old boy had some merit, but she didn’t like the idea of her life being the source of gossip making him smile.

  “He seems to think you enjoyed yourself and is hopeful it won’t take forever to get up your courage to drop by again,” Phillips continued on, still sporting his cat-that-ate-the-canary expression. “Is there anything you’d like me to tell him in return?”

  It was tempting to try to get a little more information from the man in front of her, but she knew that if she even hinted that she’d enjoyed herself, Phillips wouldn’t let it go and would press her for her side of how things had gone. As much as she'd enjoyed herself, she didn’t want to endure that level of interrogation about it. “I’m perfectly capable of conveying my own messages,” she replied, looking down at the file in front of her instead of maintaining eye contact. Phillips was a seasoned field agent and could read the avoidance coming from her poor attempt to deflect the conversation. Looking him in the eye would give him too much fuel to resist pushing for a quote to carry back to this cousin.

  After waiting as long as she could stand it, Ellie lifted her head to see what Phillips was doing. He wasn’t exactly known for his patience, yet he didn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave.

  Once he had her looking his way, he spoke. “Joe’s a good guy, totally solid and loyal. You could do worse, but I don’t think it’s possible to find a guy any better.”

  She considered his words. Phillips had gone out of his way to seek her out to encourage her to pursue time with Joe. She tried to see what was in it for him, but couldn’t come up with anything, so she smiled, deciding to interpret this as his way of looking out for the guy he’d once described as his favorite family member.

  “Thanks, Phillips,” she replied, hoping it would be enough to get him out of her office.

  He turned to leave, but then caught himself at the d
oor and said, “There was another overnight package on your doorstep this morning, so I picked it up and brought it in my place. I can bring it over tonight if you want.”

  “That’d be great,” Ellie replied, wondering why the sudden onslaught of mail was coming for her. Then she remembered she had forgotten all about the last box he'd brought over and couldn't help but wonder what was in it. It wasn't like her to forget to investigate an unsolicited package. She made a mental note to do it as soon as she got home from work.

  When she glanced up again, Phillips was gone, and she was able to return to the file in front of her. After writing out a dozen questions and suggestions, she wrote a note referring to the two cases Agent Peters was currently investigating and told the agent to be sure to touch base with the west coast as a part of moving forward. Someone would need to coordinate the work, and since field agents tended to like credit for the work they did, she didn’t want to be in the middle of deciding who was going to take the lead on this case. The toxicology report was more detailed from the D.C. case, causing Ellie to make a note to ask Agent Peters to follow up with his own file to see if the blood work on his victims had shown the same traces of alcohol along with muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories that this woman’s had.

  It took several hours to finish detailing her questions, and after sealing everything back in the folder Phil had brought, she figured she owed Agent Peters the same courtesy she’d given the other agent. Ellie tried to choose her words carefully, especially considering anything she wrote now could become an official part of the case.

  Dear Agent Peters, I wanted you to know I reviewed a case from D.C. today that bore a striking resemblance to your current murders. Every detail was the same, including the victim’s looks, position of the body, and jewelry choices. I would suggest you call the office there and see about coordinating efforts. I have made a note in the file from the east coast to reach out to you as well, as I’m not certain how you two will go about working together. There is no doubt in my mind that these cases are connected; claiming coincidence isn’t possible. Let me know if there is any way I can be of assistance after you have contacted their office. ~Agent Ellie Michaels