The Coffee Shoppe Killer

by Rod Kackley

  “Well...”

  “Do you still love her?”

  Sean was dazed. Again, he didn’t respond while he tried to regain his bearings.

  “Well?”

  Sean took a breath.

  “Well, what?”

  “Did you love her?”

  “Ms. Sullivan?”

  “Yes, Detective Flynn. Ms. Sullivan. Mary Eileen Sullivan,” Patricia said. “Who else would I be speaking of?”

  Sean sat back in his chair. He broke eye contact. Sean looked over Patricia’s shoulder at what passed for the skyline of St. Isidore. Not a single building over ten stories tall, most of them built when Michael Jackson was hot. On the wall to Patricia’s left a couple of diplomas were in glass frames. Sean couldn’t read the names of the schools, but he was willing to bet the word ‘Harvard’ didn’t appear on either diploma.

  There was a credenza under Flynn's credentials holding files stacked three deep.

  Three bookshelves were on the wall to Patricia’s right. Each held a few law books.

  But in this whole office, Sean realized, there is not a single thing that was ‘personal.’ Outside of this office, Patricia Flynn had nothing that could be called a ‘life.’ At least no life that she cared to share with the rest of the county building.

  Sean laughed.

  “Yes, ma’am, she is why we are here.” Sean knew her game now. Patricia Fry wanted to get out of St. Isidore as much as anyone with even a drop of ambition. She saw Mary Eileen's conviction as her exit visa.

  Sean was not about to let that happen.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I fell in love with her, and yes, I still love her.” Oh, that felt good. Saying that aloud made Sean feel so much better.

  What a morning!

  Not only was it the first time he had admitted it to another member of the human race; it was the first time he had the courage to say it aloud.

  “I do love Mary Eileen Sullivan.”

  “And that’s professional?”

  “Not sure it’s in the manual.”

  “Are you going to be able to testify? Am I going to be able to count on you?”

  “Of course I will and of course you will.”

  Patricia leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. She’d let Flynn think about that for a minute. Would he be able to testify? Patricia had to be able to count on him. Sean was her key witness. If the defense attorney broke Sean, the case would fall apart, and Patricia would watch any chance she had of blowing this pop stand called St. Isidore sailing on a breeze out of the nearest courtroom window.

  “So you are a state police detective, assigned to investigate a murder. You think you know who did it, at least Mary Eileen Sullivan was your leading suspect, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “But you fell in love with her.”

  “Yes.”

  “You fell in love with a murderer and not just any killer. She was a murderer who killed not one, but two men then cut up their bodies with a chainsaw, mixed cement and used it to hide each arm, leg, hand, foot, and head in the cellar under her coffee shop.”

  Sean leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “That’s about right, yeah. I think you’ve got that spot on.”

  Sean felt as good as when he admitted aloud that he loved Mary Eileen. Now he had told the world that he had fallen for a stone-cold killer; a woman who not only killed, she dismembered, she mutilated, and then she hid evidence.

  If there ever was anyone who should spent the rest of their life in prison for what they had done, it was Mary Eileen Sullivan. Sean knew that. He was aware that Mary Eileen should pay the ultimate price. And if it were anyone but Mary Eileen Sullivan, Sean would volunteer to lock the cell door and throw away the key.

  But they were talking about Mary Eileen Sullivan. So, there was no way Sean would let that happen. He was going to have to do whatever he could to derail Assistant Prosecutor Fry’s case without committing perjury and without losing what little professional self-respect he had left.

  Patricia smiled. She could read Sean’s mind as easily as that of any criminal, which is exactly what he was as far as she was concerned. You want to help your girlfriend beat a murder charge, Patricia thought as she smiled across her desk at Sean. You want to beat me in court. Good luck with that.

  Sean didn’t scare her in the least. What did concern Patricia was the attorney who had offered to take Mary Eileen’s case pro bono.

  Thirty

  Mary Eileen learned quickly that life in the Suicide Watch Wing of the St. Isidore County Jail was lonely. She’d been by herself for most of her time in New York, and even when employees and customers surrounded Mary Eileen at the Coffee Shoppe, she had felt alone.

  David and Hans? Forget about those two, Mary Eileen thought to herself. The only time she had not been lonely when she was with Sean.

  “I’ll never see him again,” Mary Eileen said to herself. Sean had told her differently when he visited, but Mary Eileen didn’t believe him.

  “He’s a cop. I’m a killer. Why would he even consider being with me?”

  Mary Eileen knew the guards were watching her through any of the cameras mounted in the four corners of her cell. They were probably counting the times she muttered to herself. But these days, who else did Mary Eileen have for conversation? True, there was the prison doctors who came to speak with her and she had a psychiatrist. But that was it. Mary Eileen’s mistake had been admitting her guilt so quickly and then telling her cellmate that she would just as soon kill herself if she had the courage.

  Mary Eileen was sitting on the floor hands around her knees which were pulled up to her chest, rocking gently and humming a song that her mother used to sing before they left Ireland.

  Mary Eileen closed her eyes and began whispering the words of the lullaby.

  Rest tired eyes a while

  Sweet is thy baby's smile,

  Angels are guarding

  And they watch o'er thee.

  Sleep, sleep, grah mo chree*

  Here on your mamma's knee,

  Angels are guarding

  And they watch o'er thee,

  The birdeens sing a fluting song

  They sing to thee the whole day long,

  Wee fairies dance o'er hill and the dale

  For very love of thee.

  The song made Mary Eileen think of the baby that was growing inside her. She’d gone through morning sickness. She felt okay now. But the depression was almost more than Mary Eileen could handle. If only she hadn’t killed David and Hans. If only Sean had come along sooner. There didn’t seem to be much more to live for except her baby. That’s what kept her alive. That’s what the doctors who put her in the Suicide Watch wing of the jail didn’t understand. Mary Eileen was not about to kill herself, yet. If she didn’t, there’d be another murder she’d have to account for; the death of Sean’s baby.

  It was lonely, but she did feel better in the Suicide Watch wing. It was so quiet and peaceful. However, even the jail itself had been much calmer and cleaner than Mary Eileen had imagined. She’d seen “Orange is the New Black,” and the other prison shows on Netflix. She’d expected gangsters and lesbians would beat, rob and rape her. Instead, Mary Eileen’s cellmate was a high school teacher who had sex with one of her students.

  She was much more afraid of Mary Eileen Sullivan than Mary Eileen was of her. Kate McManus stayed in her bunk and didn’t say a word for the first week. Then finally, either gathering courage or deciding that if Mary Eileen wanted to kill her, she’d already have been dead, Kate spoke.

  “I liked the Coffee Shoppe. I stopped there almost every morning on my way to school.”

  Mary Eileen had recognized her as a regular. But, as with most of her customers, Mary Eileen had never bothered to ask her name. Just as she would have from behind the counter, Mary Eileen gave Kate a half-smile and nodded her thanks. Then came the question Mary Eileen knew
Kate most wanted to ask; the question that Mary Eileen most needed to answer.

  “Did you do it? Did you kill those men and cut up their bodies?”

  And with that, Kate had opened the door to Mary Eileen’s tearful, sobbing confession and admission that she’d commit suicide if only she had the courage.

  “That’s the problem with talking to people,” Mary Eileen told herself as she rocked back and forth in her lonely cell. “They might just believe you. And worse yet; they just might tell someone else.”

  Mary Eileen stopped rocking. She didn’t want to hurt the baby by pressing her knees against her stomach. As she was getting on her cot, her cell door opened. Two guards, one male, the other female, came into the cell, as Mary Eileen stood and silently accepted the cuffs and chains around her ankles and wrists.

  She didn’t bother to ask where they were going; Mary Eileen had learned in her first week that it didn’t matter if she wanted to go or not. It was much easier to submit.

  The first few times, Mary Eileen had fought back. Although she was not a large woman, the guards soon learned that Mary Eileen could put up quite a fight. That’s why two guards now entered her cell together. No longer would a single female guard be given the task of watching over Mary Eileen.

  Her violent behavior was also why Mary Eileen’s meals were now brought to her three times a day. Even though the county jail was a relatively calm, yet confining, place; Mary Eileen had trouble with some of the other inmates. They had decided to see what she was made of and Mary Eileen had shown they quickly by driving her fingers into one woman’s eyes. When a guard had gotten between them, Mary Eileen hit her throat so hard the larger woman had dropped like a rock.

  Because of her pregnancy, the jail’s full-time doctor decided she could not receive any tranquilizing medicine, so there was no alternative but to assign an extra guard to watch Mary Eileen and above all else, keep her away from the rest of the jail’s inmate population.

  As they walked down first one hallway and then turned left down another, Mary Eileen kept her eyes on the floor, watching the chain that bounced off the ground between her feet. She could tell they were going to the visitor’s area.

  Maybe Sean came back, Mary Eileen thought. It had been at least two months since his visit. Mary Eileen had held out hope for at least three weeks that he would return. First, she thought Sean would be back in a week, then two weeks, then a month. Then Mary Eileen decided he was never coming back. But perhaps she’d been wrong. Was Sean waiting for her in the visitor’s room? Had he figured out a way, a legal way, to get her out of this place?

  Mary Eileen’s eyes rose from the floor. Now, she was looking forward to her destination. It must be the visitor’s room. It must be Sean. For the first time in two months, Mary Eileen Sullivan smiled.

  The guards opened the door and showed Mary Eileen inside where she saw an old man wearing a sports coat and khaki pants, casual yet tailored, and a monogramed blue shirt. Whoever he was, this guy had never seen the inside of the St. Isidore Diner.

  “Hello, Mary Eileen,” the man said as he rose from the chair on his side of the glass partition. “I am Michael Morris, your new attorney.”

  Thirty One

  Mary Eileen drummed her fingers on the countertop in front of her as she processed the news that she had a new attorney. Doubling her skepticism was the fact that this was coming from the attorney who promised to do his best pro bono. Mary Eileen felt like she was back at work, faced with a coffee bean salesman telling her the price she paid for each bean was going up, and there was nothing she could do to change the future.

  She sat back in her chair with an authoritative air that Mary Eileen had not shown in all the days behind bars. In fact, Mary Eileen had lost her alpha attitude the moment Sean and his team had put the handcuffs on her in Detroit. From that time on she stopped being the Mary Eileen who had refused to go back to Ireland after just a taste of America as a foreign exchange student. She no longer was the Mary Eileen who had fought off the advances of one of New York’s leading middle-aged, over-sexed chefs; nor was she the Mary Eileen who had found her way to St. Isidore and opened what would become an iconic downtown business.

  The Mary Eileen who stood before a judge, and pled guilty to two charges of first-degree murder, was a defeated woman. With head bowed, she mumbled her responses to his questions; and then to those who booked her, stripped her, and humiliated her as she made her entrance to the county jail, and finally, even to her fellow inmates.

  But now the old Mary Eileen had returned. She straightened her back, crossed her arms, raised an eyebrow and said, "And why do I need a new attorney?”

  “Ms. Sullivan, or may I call you Mary Eileen?”

  As Morris received no response except his new client's cold, stony glare, he proceeded to sell himself.

  “Ms. Sullivan your public defender isn’t much more than a fetus in a pantsuit. She couldn’t argue her way out of a traffic ticket.”

  Mary Eileen sat silently. There was no way a fellow woman be insulted by this misogynist or anyone else unless Mary Eileen was the one doing the insulting.

  However, more importantly, she was negotiating. Mary Eileen was always negotiating. It was her drug of choice.

  Oh, God, it feels good to be back, she thought.

  Still, she didn't faze Morris. He’d met tougher than Mary Eileen Sullivan. Morris had carved a handsome living out of beating murder charges for some of the most heinous criminals in America. He was so good that Morris often didn’t even have to go to court. Never without a plea bargain proposition in his back pocket, Morris was more than open to negotiating. He bargained, and he won. That was his drug of choice.

  “She let you plead guilty to two murder charges?”

  Mary Eileen slowly closed her eyes and nodded in response.

  Morris smiled and then furrowed his brow. “That was her first and most fatal mistake,” he said. “Never plead guilty to anything, remain innocent until proven guilty. That is my first choice.”

  Mary Eileen raised an eyebrow. “But I am guilty. I killed those men.”

  “And that was your first mistake. Not killing, I don’t mean that. I am not here to judge,” Morris said. “No, your mistake was confessing to the police after they read you your rights.”

  Mary Eileen slowly leaned forward in her chair, rested her crossed arms on the table and nearly set her pert Irish nose against the glass as she said in her softest, yet most threatening brogue, “So what was my attorney supposed to do?”

  “Plead not guilty by reason of insanity.”

  Mary Eileen jumped to her feet, glanced to her left, saw that the inmate speaking to her attorney two seats down had stopped her conversation, glanced to her right and noticed the guard by the door was reaching for her pepper spray.

  Mary Eileen returned to her seat, sat back down, put her hands behind her head and looked at the bright white walls of the visitor’s center to calm herself. She had to admire the jail’s cleaning staff, yet she also knew why the walls were painted white and not a more soothing color. The strongest bleach in the world could be used to wipe off blood stains, urine, fecal matter, whatever bodily fluids might fly in an argument, without affecting the color of the paint.

  “I am not crazy.”

  “I know you are not. You are not now crazy. But think about this Ms. Sullivan; would a rational person kill two men, cut up their bodies with a chainsaw, mix cement, stuff the body parts in the cement and hide it all in her cellar? Would a sane person do that?”

  Mary Eileen rested her elbows on her knees, looked at the legs of the hideous orange jumpsuit she was forced to wear and the ridiculous wraparound shower shoes all the inmates wore, rested her chin in her hands and touched her lips with her index fingers.

  She’d been asking herself the same question. What kind of person would do what I did?

  “You are not insane now,” Morris continued. “But were you sane when you killed those men? How could this woman I am sitting
across from possibly commit such a cold-blooded, calculated act? There is only one explanation. She was temporarily insane. She might need treatment, probably she does. But you, Mary Eileen Sullivan, do not deserve to spend the rest of your life behind bars.”

  Mary Eileen looked from the table top to Morris’ eyes. This new attorney of hers, if he was as good as promised, could not come cheap. Always negotiating, Mary Eileen thought it was time to talk about money.

  “I have none.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Money, I have none. They took it all. My bank accounts are in escrow. And since I am guilty, the county or the state or whoever is going to get it all.”

  “Oh, my Ms. Sullivan,” said Morris. “I must apologize. I forgot you’ve been without the internet or your computers for the last three months. Take a look.”

  From his briefcase, Morris pulled with a theatrical flourish, an iPad Pro. Being a customer of Verizon Digital, he didn’t have to worry about a passcode to get on the jail’s wifi system. He quietly opened the pad’s cover and turned the screen to face Mary Eileen.

  She saw herself. Mary Eileen had become the centerpiece of an online campaign to raise $500,000 to pay for her defense.

  “Free Mary Eileen,” the banner headline screamed. Tears were in her eyes as Mary Eileen read the paragraphs that described how an abused woman could lose control and kill the men who are keeping her in virtual captivity.

  “Mary Eileen Sullivan deserves her day in court...” began one of the graphs.

  She didn’t read it all. Mary Eileen didn’t have to once she saw that the campaign had surpassed its half-million-dollar goal by $250,000.

  Suddenly Mary Eileen had three-quarters-of-a-million-dollars pledged to pay for her defense.

  Mary Eileen had money and with the cash came power.

  She smiled, for the first time, confidently, not submissively. It was time to reinvent herself.

  Mary Eileen nodded her head slowly as her eyes rose to meet Morris’.

  “But first, a question,” Mary Eileen said. “This temporary insanity; where does it go?”