A Killer Cup of Joe

by Jennifer Templeman

  She looked down and realized her attempt to put a little more time into her appearance must have paid off more than she’d thought. Her hair was still down and seemed to have more body after all of Jose’s attention. She had gone with more makeup than just the lip gloss she usually settled for, but it was still a far cry from the painted-on plastering of color she’d had yesterday. It was her clothes that were the most out of place. She was in the required navy and ivory, but in the place of her usual pantsuit, she was in a short jacket, silk tank top, and a fitted skirt that fell a few inches above her knee. It had four short slits, one at each corner, so the bottom flared a little and brought the eye to her legs. According to Janice, that was a good thing, but Phil’s response didn’t seem to agree. She’d definitely felt people watching her when she got out of her car for coffee on the way in, so she had assumed the look was working. Now she had her doubts.

  Before Ellie could start looking around for a scrunchie to pull her hair into a ponytail, Phil swore and then pulled the phone from its holder at his waist. “Well, it looks like it’s too late to cut this off. The suits brought their fight to us, and since they know you’re here, they want to see us both—now.”

  “Why me?” Ellie panicked, hearing the crack in her voice.

  “Let’s go see if we can figure that out together,” Phil told her, beginning the process of standing.

  When they walked into Phil’s office, one man stood up and buttoned his coat, while the other remained seated and didn’t even bother to turn around. Ellie took the now-empty seat when her boss gestured that she should and began to wonder if she’d made a mistake in wearing the gravity-defying heels this morning. Janice must have been right about them making it hard for a man to look away, because the stiff suit next to her didn’t even attempt to disguise the way he watched her sit and then cross her legs. Finally tearing his gaze away from her calves to look at Phil, who was now seated behind the desk, he opened their impromptu meeting with a blunt, “You look horrible. Why are you even here?”

  “Not everybody got hired for their good looks and charm,” Phil replied, not giving anything away with his tone. “Somebody has to be the control group to make you look good by comparison.”

  Ellie found Phil’s attempt at diversion funny, but she appeared to be the only one smiling.

  Finally, the suit looked over to her and let his eyes take in more than her legs. She wasn’t sure this more intense scrutiny was an improvement. “I thought you said she was a computer geek not fit for field work.”

  “I never said any of those words.” Phil’s immediate disagreement helped to soften the blow. There was a big difference in not wanting to chase down criminals and being considered incapable of it.

  “Semantics,” was the only response. Then he held out his hand to the thus-far silent man standing behind them. Bringing the manila folder he was given around to look at it, he began to speak with the assumed arrogance that everyone was interested in what he had to say. “This serial killer seems to have no geographic boundary and needs to be stopped.”

  No one could disagree with a statement like that, and the group silence allowed him to continue. “So far, every lead has come from your observations and suggestions. Neither field office has done anything independently, which means they aren’t capable of looking at this file effectively. We need to do something different to catch this guy, and I want you to be a part of the group that does it.”

  The fact that he was staring right at Ellie left no doubt who he was addressing.

  “I don’t work in the field, sir,” she reminded him.

  A wave of his hand told her that wasn’t important. “There’s no physical reason why you can’t do it. You just lack the courage.”

  That was all it took to set Ellie off. She might have been willing to sit back and let Phil guide the conversation, but being called a coward wasn’t something she could stomach.

  “Courage has never been the issue; it’s that I have the wisdom to know where my strengths lie. You say that every good lead has come from me, and I’m perfectly willing to continue reviewing this case to help in whatever way I can. But putting me in the field means the intensive review I do won’t happen, and that could impact the ability to move forward fast enough to stop this person from striking again.”

  “It’s too late for that,” he disagreed. “He struck last night, and I have the file of what we have so far for you to review. There was a note from the field office in Northern California that you had picked up on all the details they had used to tie the women together so far and that you needed to receive this as soon as possible. In looking through the other three files, he seemed to be right. I don’t think there’s much new here, because it’s clearly a copy of the others. For whatever reason, you’ve been the one moving this case along, so it’s time for you to do more than just shuffle paper.”

  Ellie was ready to argue the fact that shuffling paper wasn’t what she did.

  “Semantics, Michaels,” he cut her off. “You know, I knew your father—damn fine agent. Would have been climbing the walls if someone had attempted to cage him down here. He used to have this picture of you that he carried in his wallet and showed to anybody that asked about his family. You were sitting in a tree, grinning like you’d just conquered the world. One of your knees was bleeding, but you didn’t seem to notice. He told us he’d tied a flag up high on a branch he knew you couldn’t reach and that wouldn’t support your weight, then challenged you to get it. Said he watched you try and fail every day for a week before you stopped and laid down on the ground, staring up at the flag. The next time you stood up without any apparent hurry, you climbed to the highest branch you could reach, broke off a small dead stick, and used that to pull the green sapling holding the flag toward you. Once it was close enough, you dropped the stick and used your hands until you had the flag in your fingers. He snapped the picture when you yelled that you’d finally done it.

  “He used to tell us that when he couldn’t figure out how to proceed on a case, he’d take the advice of his daughter and find a new way to look at it until he could work it out. All I’m asking you to do is something you’ve done before. Lie on the ground and look at this tree until you come up with a different approach. Then help us to catch this son of a bitch before another woman has to lose her life. I get that you don’t want to do it, but you owe it to these victims and to Elliot to do it anyway. Find me the person responsible, and find them yesterday.”

  With that long speech, the nameless man stood up and left the room.

  After his abrupt exit, the second suit took his chair and cleared his throat. “He isn’t suggesting a permanent transfer from this department, just temporary field status for a specific purpose. We have agents in DC and California running down some leads, but you seemed to think the yoga center is the key to this case. Since the newest victim was also connected to the retreat and the travel schedule you provided matches the most recent attack, there’s too much evidence to ignore. What we want is for you to review this file and send out your observations like you usually do. Then go to the retreat center, posing as a customer in need of some intensive lifestyle coaching. While you’re there, look around and see if you can figure out if it’s exactly what the website promises, a sham of some sort, or a potential hideout for a killer. The hope is that it will save time having you do it and cataloging your observations instead of having someone else go, log a report, and then having you work back and forth with questions. It’s just a weekend, and if it produces nothing, I think he’ll stop pressuring you to stay involved.”

  “I don’t like this,” Phil spoke up. “I don’t like the guilt trip down memory lane, the abuse of Elliot’s memory, and I definitely don’t like sending her to California to some kind of head-case retreat center alone and unsupported.”

  “It’s two nights, and then she’ll be back and you can lock her up in her office,” he replied, as though Ellie were both deaf and too dumb to pick up on the fact that
she was being discussed like she was some kind of zoo animal. “We’ll find someone to back her up while she’s out of state and too far for you to hover over.”

  “I’m sitting right here,” she reminded the men. “Give me the file.” She held out her hand and took the folder from the agent to her right. “I’ll look at this, log my thoughts, and then give my supervisor a decision about whether or not I’ll participate in this hair-brained retreat idea.”

  “I’m the coordinating agent on this case, so I’ll be looking for your notes on the latest victim. But the hair-brained retreat idea wasn’t a suggestion. You were handpicked, and it’s a command performance. When Phil came to me, I tried and got shot down, no matter how many different approaches I used. You’ll do it, or you’ll surrender your badge.” With that piece of news, he stood up and walked to the door. “I’m on your side, but you have to at least give the appearance of wanting to work with us on this for me to be able to help you.”

  Not waiting for a response, he left Ellie with a folder she was anxious to review and a boss who had suddenly found his internal rhythm and begun to bang it out with his cane on the floor.

  “They’re trying to make you bait.”

  “I picked up on that.” She hadn’t spent so much time in the basement that it had fried her ability to draw conclusions. “Did you really go to that guy and try to get me out of this?”

  “You’ll do a good job,” he surprised her by saying, “but I knew you didn’t want to do it. And something in their heavy-handed approach had me on edge, so I went a level higher than mine and got Johnson on my side.”

  “Johnson?” Ellie asked, not sure which suit he was referring to.

  “The last one,” Phil offered. “I figured he’d coordinate a multi-office case, and the more victims there are, the more likely it is to be high profile. I don’t know much about his skills in the field, but I know the press loves him, and with a new victim, there’s going to be press. He did try to get someone else assigned, but there is somebody higher up than even Miller—the arrogant coat that talked first—that seems to be pulling the strings.”

  “Am I in danger?” Ellie wondered aloud, already figuring she knew the answer.

  “Hell, yes, you’re in danger, but the problem is figuring out where the most imminent threat is coming from,” Phil quickly told her. “If you do this and you’re right about the retreat being the connection to the killer, then they might set their eyes on you. If you refuse to do it, the suits upstairs that have singled you out for some reason might turn on you, and who knows what that means.”

  “Other than maybe losing my job, is there a bigger concern from the higher-ups?”

  Again, he rubbed his eyes with his fingers, as though the effort of keeping them open was becoming more than he could manage. “Maybe,” he finally admitted. “You don’t want to think the Bureau would have dirty hands, but it’s an agency full of people, and with this many apples, there’s always the possibility one of them will be rotten.”

  “If there’s a bad apple, why would they care about me?” She couldn’t figure out why anybody would single her out. The first couple of years after her father’s death she heard regularly how she was not the firecracker her father had been. Surely, no one would come after her because of anything he’d been mixed up with.

  “Instead of wasting time and energy worrying about why you’re being forced in the field now, you need to let me handle digging some more, and you focus on what you need in order to go across the country and jump into the middle of this shitball.”

  Ellie shut her door and spread the file out on her desk. Other than the fact that there were ten times as many photos for her to review, it was indistinguishable to the others she’d seen. The victim was positioned in the exact same way. The medallion had been photographed individually and blown up to highlight that in the middle of the silver oval was a woman in the lotus position with no body, just a head with a peaceful face floating above some arms and legs.

  Different job, different face, different city, but all the other particulars were identical. She had slightly darker hair than the other three, but it was beautifully styled. If Ellie ignored the bruising around her neck, she could easily picture the victim having spent time trying to look her best for whoever she thought she was going to meet that night. Her clothes were chic, her heels were high, and she had short, unpainted fingernails. If she hadn’t memorized the faces of the other girls, it would be easy to imagine these were just new snapshots of the other crime scenes.

  Her father had told her to make the world a better place and had given up his life to make the Bureau a place she could work to make that happen. When Miller had tried to guilt her into getting involved, he’d described one of the photos Ellie now had in her purse. It was still curved from all the time it had spent in her father’s overstuffed wallet, so despite Miller’s arrogance in assuming he had a right to tell that story, she didn’t have any trouble believing it.

  Not that she had a choice, but she was beginning to think these women needed her. She was sure there was someone else who could do a better job, but she was the one being asked to do it, and saying no was basically saying it was all right for more women to die. It was going to require stepping out of what had become her comfort zone, but it seemed like a small price to pay compared to what these girls had given.

  Her e-mail had all the particulars about the retreat center, including the information for her flight out the next morning. At least she didn’t have a long time to wait and dread what might happen.

  Ellie looked around her office and was relieved to see nothing needed her immediate attention. She’d already cleared everything to be off for a week, so there was little left to tidy up. After printing out her travel itinerary and the registration at the retreat center, she decided she needed to get home and transform herself into the quiet attorney she had been registered to be.

  As she drove, she realized her earlier relief that she didn’t have long to get worked up might have been premature. There were still plenty of hours left in this day and the whole night to worry herself into a wreck.

  Almost as if her car knew what she needed, she found herself in the parking lot of Mocha Joe’s. It didn’t appear too busy, so she hoped Joe wouldn’t mind her stopping by mid-day. He’d said once that one of his special drinks was to be savored over a long conversation between good friends. After the last few encounters between them, she was beginning to think of him as a friend, and she could definitely use a long conversation to keep her occupied.

  With that decided, she locked her car, holding her keys tightly as she rushed across the small parking lot to the smell of freshly roasted beans. As soon as she took a deep breath inside, she realized just the smell alone relaxed her—although she wasn’t sure if it was because she knew she’d enjoy the drink...or the company of the man who would make it for her.

  ***

  Despite the fact that she knew she hadn’t been great company, Ellie was glad to have been able to spend some time with Joe. He didn’t seem to mind when her brain got stuck in the enormity of what she was walking into and even refilled her cup when she finished her first drink to extend their time together. She knew she was hiding here, taking the ostrich approach to preparing for her assignment, but she hadn’t been ready to get home where she knew the rest of the evening would be spent running through every possible scenario for how the trip to California could fall apart. Trying to stay in the present, Ellie took the last sip from the immense mug in her hand and set it down on the table with a satisfied sigh.

  Joe took the sound as the compliment it was intended to be and grinned in return. “You know, being with you reminds me why I spent nearly a year in Italy learning how to do this. I didn’t see a single museum.”

  “I figured it was to feed your own addiction,” she said, feeling punchy from all the extra caffeine.

  “Probably,” he agreed, “but it’s nice to have someone else to blame for a change.”


  “Feel free to push it my direction,” she volunteered. “I don’t mind being the fall guy.”

  Assuming the joke was evident in her sarcasm, Ellie was surprised when Joe leaned forward, shifting from the laid-back guy she’d known him to be and becoming suddenly much more intense. Before she could ask what had flipped his switch, he spoke up.

  “You say that as though it’s a regular occurrence. Who’s pushed blame in your direction?”

  Wishing she could snap her fingers and erase her comment in order to get back the relaxed atmosphere from earlier, she attempted to blow it off. “I think we’ve all had stuff pushed on us at some point. I wasn’t speaking specifically, just generally.”

  He narrowed his eyes, and Ellie felt as though she could literally see a scale in his mind, weighing what she’d said against his experience with her thus far to see if it rang true or not. “What’s been pushed off on you?”

  Realizing she wasn’t going to get him off this subject unless she gave him an example, she searched her brain and just blurted out everything that came across her mind. “Nothing major. My parents’ inability to get along, the five pounds Phillips gained last winter, my boss struggling to validate the amount of work our department does, and the potential for a killer to get away if I don’t manage to pull off my objective this weekend.”

  “No wonder you downed both those drinks without buzzing around the room,” Joe surprised her by responding. “With all the weight you carry, you probably needed the juice to give you the energy to just keep moving forward.”

  “It’s not like that,” Ellie argued, categorically disagreeing with the idea that she was oppressed by the expectations of others. “I’m sure if you gave it some thought, you could come up with things that you’d been blamed for as well.”