Office Heretics (A Coffee & Crime Mystery Book 2)

by Nan Sampson

  "The power of three. Remember?"

  "Yeah, yeah. We're the sisters from "Charmed". Not."

  "But you're going to come, right?"

  Ellie paused. She knew she had to go, but damn if she couldn't think of a zillion reasons why she didn't want to.

  "Ellie? You still there?"

  "Yeah, I'm here. And yeah, I'm coming. Can I stay with you? No way can I afford a hotel right now, and I'm sure as hell not letting Lacey put me up at the Palmer House."

  "Sure! You know you've always got a room here. As long as you don't mind mass pandemonium. Only one thing... were you planning on bringing Erik?"

  "No. I know how Sadie hates him." Sadie was the McCallum family cocker spaniel and a notorious hater of every other dog on the planet.

  "Sorry. I know how you hate leaving him."

  "He'll be fine. I'll just leave him with Per again. The two of them get along like gangbusters. Per can feed him all kinds of naughty stuff he doesn't get at home."

  "So when can I expect you?"

  "Probably not until late tomorrow night. I need to make some arrangements for the shop. Damn, I was supposed to go to Madison on Friday for a supply run. Don't know how that's going to get done. Marg is nearly out of half a dozen items."

  "It'll work out. Why not let Marg make some decisions for a change?"

  Ellie shook her head. "You don't know Marg very well. Making decisions – at least sound business decisions – just isn't her strong suit." She blew out a breath. "Don't push the river, don't push the river."

  "It'll work out. Leave it in the hands of the Goddess."

  "Right."

  "And it'll be good to see you again. It's been months."

  "That, at least, is the light at the end of the tunnel."

  "Oh, I should probably warn you, Charlie is staying with us too."

  "Again?" Charlie was Kate's husband's younger brother, and notorious for never trodding the beaten path.

  "He, uh, sort of got... well, let's just say he's between apartments at the moment. Things have been hard since he left the Force."

  "Got evicted, huh?" Charlie had worked for a while as a Chicago cop, but quit recently and opened up a detective agency.

  "Well, you know it's hard when you first go out on your own in business. Hard to make ends meet. But he'll turn it around. Charlie's a smart guy."

  "Says you. I think I agree with Dan on this one, Kate. Charlie should just get his shit together and get another job."

  Kate resolutely ignored that comment. "Just thought I should warn you that he's here. It's not a problem, is it?"

  "No. I just think--"

  "Okay, then. Just give me a call when you're on your away. Oh, Ellie, this could be fun, you know?"

  "Let's hope so. Okay, I'll give you a call from the car tomorrow. Oh, and Kate, can you give Lacey a call, tell her I'm coming? It's really late, and I need to turn in."

  "Liar. You're just avoiding her. But sure, I'll do it. Night!"

  Ellie hung up, feeling better than she had since she'd gotten Lacey's phone call that afternoon. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Maybe they'd deal with Lacey, get her to go to the police, and then she and Kate could have a nice little weekend. Charlie was occasionally good for a laugh, even if he was a ne'er do well. And it would be good to see the kids again.

  She banked the fire, put the photo album and the obsidian puzzle box back into the cardboard storage box then shoved it over into a corner. "Okay, bud, time for bed." She patted the couch and Erik jumped up and nestled into a corner of it. "See you in the morning."

  She switched off the downstairs lights and climbed the ladder to the loft. It was a little chilly, but because the little cabin was so small, and the fan on the fireplace directed the heat up, it really wasn't too bad. She changed quickly, brushed her teeth and slid under the covers, feeling more settled than she thought she would that night. She began her nighttime prayers, and was out before she could finish with Blessed Be.

  Chapter 5

  Per was standing on his front porch when she drove up the long gravel drive to his home the next afternoon, his breath puffing out in clouds around his angular, sun-weathered face. He was smiling and held out a mug of steaming hot coffee for her. Nothing fancy, just good, strong, Fair Trade Joe. She took the blue and white speckled enamelware mug, which was so old it was probably the real thing and gave him a smile of thanks. Erik preceded them into the house like he owned the place, curling up in front of the roaring fireplace on the big puffy pillow Per had stitched together for him from some old flannel shirts.

  "I guess I don't have to worry about him, do I?"

  "He'll be fine here."

  "But no pot roast. Or lamb."

  "How about just a little gravy on that cardboard you feed him?"

  "A little being how much?"

  "Just a tablespoon or so."

  "As long as it's just that."

  Per leaned against the door jamb, sipping his brew. "Will you be staying with Kate?"

  "Yeah.” She frowned. "And apparently Charlie will be staying there as well."

  Per scrunched up his forehead. "Ah, yes. The fellow with the nice smile. The one who saved your life last spring."

  She groaned. "Yes, yes, stop reminding me. I know about my karmic debts."

  "He's not a bad fellow, Ellie. I don't know why he rubs you the wrong way."

  Ellie wasn't exactly sure either. All she knew was that he somehow got away with doing whatever the hell he wanted whenever he wanted and without regard for anyone else. The concept of being a responsible adult didn't seem to be part of his worldview. "He's an okay guy, I guess. He just never grew up. Marches to the beat of his own drum."

  "Hm. Sounds like maybe you wish you could be more like that."

  That rankled. "There's following a dream and then there's being lazy and selfish. I took a risk coming here, leaving the corporate sector, but it was a calculated risk. I'm not mooching off people while I get my house in order. I'm not an irresponsible brat who freeloads off my family."

  Per just raised his eyebrows. "Methinks thou doth protest too much," he said, and when she gave him a cold, arched look, he raised his hands. "Okay, okay. But often what we dislike in others we can find in ourselves. Something to look at the next time you meditate."

  Ellie scowled. She would not be thinking about Charlie McCallum the next time she meditated. She preferred not to think of Charlie McCallum at all. "Besides it's not that I don't like nonconformists. I just don't like selfish ones. I mean look at you and me - I love you." She thought of his herd of llamas and his wooden stang dedicated to Odin in the garden out behind his cabin. "And you're not exactly a bastion of conformity."

  "My dear, my generation epitomized nonconformist behavior. Bet you never heard Jack Kerouac give a poetry reading in person."

  Ellie laughed. "No, can't say that I have. But I'm guessing you did."

  "I have an autographed copy of "On the Road". I should lend it to you –" He strolled over to his book case and started rifling through the layers of books stuffed into it. "It's here somewhere, I know. I re-read it just last winter."

  "That's okay, Per. I don't need it right now. Maybe you can find it while I'm gone and I'll pick it up when I come to get Erik."

  "Oh." He looked disappointed then waved his hand. "Now, be sure to call me. If you need anything, you have only to ask."

  He made sure he caught her eye and suddenly she felt uncomfortable. "Sure. Not that I expect much to come of this trip. Lacey is as stubborn as they come."

  "Just make sure you take care of your own karma. Ultimately, we're all only responsible for ourselves. We cannot make life choices for other people."

  "I know." She crossed the room and gave him a quick hug. "Thanks. You take care too. Marg promised to bring you lunch. If she forgets, you call her. You know what her memory is like."

  He held her when she wanted to step away. "You be careful." He gave her a fatherly squeeze. "Something doesn't feel righ
t about all this."

  She disengaged as quickly as she could. "Next you'll be telling me you feel a disturbance in the Force."

  "That would be your gig, not mine. I'm just saying that, in the immortal words of Han Solo, I've got a bad feeling about this."

  In truth, since waking that morning, she'd had the same gut feel. But she knew she still had to go.

  "I'll call you when I get there tonight, let you know I arrived. And then I'll give you a call on Sunday, let you know what time to expect me back. You sure you're going to be okay?"

  He laughed now, and sat down in his chair by the fire. "Ellie, my dear, I lived here all by myself, without any neighborly help for years. And despite the fact that I've grown accustomed to your kind and welcome company and assistance, I think I can manage a few days without you."

  She nodded then knelt beside Erik. "You be a good boy for Per, okay? I'll just be gone a few days."

  Erik gave her a lick then put his head down and settled into his bed.

  With a little wave, she left them both basking in the warmth of the fire, while she braved the cold in Arabella Kemp's Nissan that she’d borrowed to make the trek south to the city of her birth, the Windy City, the city of Big Shoulders, Hog Butcher to the World. A place she had no real desire to go again.

  Chapter 6

  She had intended to drive straight to Kate's house, but once past Rockford, she felt a compulsion to visit her old hometown. The closer she got, the more pressing the urge became. When she reached the exit to Randall Road around five in the afternoon, a part of her felt she wasn't really in control of the car anymore. She turned off onto the ramp and made a left onto Randall Road, heading north, just as the sun was starting to dip below the horizon. She hadn't been through the area in close to a year, but not much had changed. Still congested, still crammed with subdivisions and chain eateries, still a haven for suburban consumerism. The traffic, which had been bad before, now made her grit her teeth. Maybe it was having lived almost a year in a small, rural town, where rush hour was four cars at a stop sign, but she could feel the pain of a migraine start behind her eyes. She inched along, stop light to stop light, passing Route 72 a full ten minutes after getting off I-90. She was so frustrated, she almost turned around in the parking lot of Woodman's grocery store to head back to the highway.

  Breathing through her anger, she kept on, and a half an hour later she found herself in Crystal Lake, in the suburban neighborhood she had grown up in. The trees were bare of leaves and the ground spotted with patches of dirty snow. The houses in this subdivision were, unusually, not cookie cutter homes, with the same four house designs repeated endlessly in four different shades of beige. It was an older neighborhood with tall trees and wide lawns, and each home looked different from its neighbors. She drove slowly down the streets, making the turns without even thinking. How many times had she taken this route? How many times had she ridden it on her bike? Or walked it from a friend's house? Too many to count.

  It looked different now. Alien. Nothing had really changed, not on the outside, but she no longer belonged here. She was a stranger. An interloper. It was no longer home.

  She finally pulled up in front of the two story colonial that had once been her safe haven and let the car idle at the curb. The rehab-ers that had finally bought the place had painted the outside a nondescript gray-blue and changed out the front door. The shutters were different too, white to match the door and the trim. It was bland. Boring. It was no longer the house she had known. With her hand on the car door handle, she thought for a moment to march up onto the stoop and ring the doorbell. She wondered what they'd done inside, if they'd gotten rid of the one rickety kitchen cabinet that always squeaked when you opened it or replaced the downstairs bathroom counter that had the little chip on the left hand corner. Of course they had - and that thought, more than anything else, made her want to cry.

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Maybe it was better that she didn't see. Even though the last time she'd been inside, the house had been empty of furniture and belongings and had been cleaned until every surface sparkled, all she had been able to see was carnage. The vision of her father's body lying where she'd found him, in a creeping crimson pool on the tile in the front hall, arm outstretched towards the kitchen, his pale yellow polo shirt dark and soaked with blood overlaid the empty foyer. The kitchen, barren and vacant still looked, in her mind's eye, as it had been, worse than the foyer, looking as though a three-year old had finger painted every surface with blood, with a thing sprawled on the floor and drenched in red, not even recognizable as her mother. Her skirt had been shoved up around her hips and her slender legs were splayed open obscenely.

  Ellie shuddered, felt bile rise in her throat. When a car pulled up alongside her and honked, she jumped, bumping her knee against the bottom of the steering wheel.

  Through the closed window she heard, "Ms. Gooden? That you?"

  She let out a string of expletives, then turned to face the police cruiser next to her. She recognized the officer as one of the ones who had first responded to her call that night. She pressed the button on the window and tried to give the cop a pleasant smile. "Officer Bennett. Nice to see you."

  "Didn't recognize the car. Wondered who you were."

  Cold air rushed in and she reached to turn up the heat. "I was in town and thought I'd drive past the old place."

  Bennett nodded, and some of the cop-look left his eyes. He gave her a sad smile. "You know we're still investigating. We won't give up."

  The words held no comfort for her. The case had gone unsolved for over a year. The likelihood of it being closed at this point was a snow ball's chance in hell. "Thanks."

  "We still do drive-bys. In case the perps come back. That's why I stopped, I didn't recognize your car."

  His earnestness - and his proud use of the word 'perps'-- made her smile despite herself. "I appreciate your vigilance, Officer Bennett." She rubbed at her arms, miming being cold. "Well, I should be on my way. I still have to drive down to Naperville."

  He nodded. "You let us know if you need anything while you're in town."

  She nodded and they rolled up their respective windows in tandem. With a wave, he drove off slowly, and after he'd turned the corner, she took one last look at the house. Taking a deep breath she tried to remember it the way it had been, before that horrible night. She could see her father, tall and lanky, mowing the lawn with his shirt off, grinning and bobbing his head as he listened to the Doors on his iPod. And there was her mother, wavy, auburn hair pulled back in a bandana, kneeling on her garden pad, planting annuals in the beds that lined the walk, streaks of dirt smudging her rosy cheeks and forehead.

  Tears rolled down Ellie's cheeks, but she found herself smiling. Then, as if she were heading off for some afternoon adventure with her friends, both her parents turned and waved at her, and for a moment, just the briefest of moments, she felt as though they were really there. She even thought she heard her father call out to her. "We love you, baby. Be careful!"

  She waved back at them, mouthed the words, "I love you too."

  The vision faded, and she was left looking at dead winter grass and dirty snow. Wiping away her tears, she put the car in gear and headed back the way she'd come.

  Chapter 7

  The McCallum home was a large, two story home in an older section of Naperville. Probably built in the sixties, it had been added onto twice, but both additions had been masterfully integrated. It now boasted five bedrooms, three upstairs, with a master suite on the first floor and a small mother-in-law's apartment in the basement, although no mother-in-law currently lived there. There was also a gorgeous new sunroom that jutted off the back of the house, which in the summer was all light and airy. In the winter, Kate had chosen some heavy damask window treatments that helped keep the heat in at the same time as making both a dramatic statement and giving the room a sort of old world drawing room feel.

  Ellie suspected Charlie was staying in the
basement, which was fine with her. She preferred her favorite room upstairs, the one with the sunshine yellow paint and the chintz bedspread. It reminded her of her grandmother's house back east.

  When she arrived, she expected the house to be settling in for the evening. She’d stopped at a coffee shop for a couple of hours, wanting to make sure she didn’t arrive at the house during the family dinner hour. While she loved the kids and Katie, she didn’t want to spend an uncomfortable meal under the disapproving scrutiny of Kate’s husband Dan, or the goofy gaze of curiosity from Dan’s younger brother Charlie.

  So it was going on nine when she pulled into the driveway and parked her car where she always did, in the little jut-out beside the three-car garage. Far from being dark, however, the house was awash in lights, so much so she thought there might be a party going on.

  She knocked tentatively on the front door, not wanting to interrupt a business dinner party or some kind of neighborhood block thing.

  Kate answered, looking frazzled, smartly dressed in a pair of jeans and a monogrammed sweater. Shirttails hung out the bottom, yet she still looked put together. She had her cell phone pressed to her ear in one hand and in the other was a bottle of school glue.

  She mouthed, "Come on in," and held open the door, while saying into the phone, "Oh, I know, I know. I can understand how frustrating that must be."

  From the direction of the kitchen, she heard Kyle, Kate's seven-year old, holler, "Mom! Where's the glue?!"

  "I'm coming! No, Denise, I'm sorry, I was talking to Kyle." Kate rolled her eyes at Ellie and shoved the bottle of school glue into Ellie's hands. "Take this to Kyle," she whispered. "Please!"

  Ellie dropped her overnight bag onto the hall tree seat and obediently took the bottle of glue into the kitchen.

  Kyle's face lit up when he saw her. He jumped off the chair and ran over to give her a big hug. "Mom said you were coming to visit. This is excellent. Did you know that Uncle Charlie is here too?"