Office Heretics (A Coffee & Crime Mystery Book 2)

by Nan Sampson

  After that, there were no more entries at all until October 7th. This one was also brief. "I need a bigger stick. I think L is trying to make an end run. I've put all the docs in an SDB, buried it where they'll never look for it. Need to contact EG, pass her the key."

  And that was it. Just blank pages after that.

  "Damn!" Ellie slapped her hand down onto the table, then looked up to find the other patrons staring at her. She sighed, put the journal down onto the table top. "You can't stop there, you wench," she said to the presence at her shoulder. Buried it where? Which bank? What docs?"

  People were still staring oddly at her so she glared back. She flipped pages, hoping to find something more, written further on, but found nothing. She closed the infuriating journal and flung herself back in her chair, crossing her arms in front of her. Under her breath, she muttered, "You stupid, stupid woman."

  "Still chastising yourself?"

  She glanced up, saw Charlie, scowled at him. "Shut up."

  He sat down, and reached out a cold hand. Chilled fingers wrested lightly on her wrist. "Are you okay?"

  Angry, frustrated, she spat out an answer. "I'm fine. Jeez, don't you wear gloves?" Snatching her wrist away, she sat up, staring down at the white plastic lid of her coffee cup. 'Caution, contents hot', it warned her.

  The buzz of conversation and the hiss and shush of the espresso machines filled the silence between them. She couldn't quite meet his eyes and she wasn't sure why. Was it his apparent concern for her safety that somehow rankled? Or that the concern was based on some notion that she was incapable of taking care of herself? Or was it just frustration over the idiotic journal that made her want to kick him?

  She watched him tear open about six sugars and add them to his coffee, stirring it slowly with the little wooden stick. "I thought you didn't use sugar."

  "For regular coffee, yes. This stuff... it needs it." He stirred a bit more, then replaced his lid. "You want to tell me what happened?"

  "That depends. Are you going to jump all over me again?"

  "Wasn't aware I'd done any jumping yet." He waited until she met his gaze, then waggled his eyebrows at her. "Usually, when I jump on a woman, I tend to remember it. And so does she."

  She stared for a moment, she just shook her head. "If you're looking to cut the bitterness, you should try a little cream."

  He glanced down at his cup. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah." She took a drink of her chai, realized it was lukewarm. "You made good time – drink's not even cold yet."

  'You scared me to death. I thought I'd arrive just in time to see the coroner's van loading a body into the back."

  "I told you I was fine."

  "And if Lacey had been on the cell phone just before someone strangled her, she'd have probably said the same thing. People always think they're fine, right up until the moment it all goes to hell."

  There was a darkness behind his eyes, a fierceness in his voice that she suspected had nothing to do with her, or even with today. She wondered if Kate knew what his story was. And then she wondered why she cared.

  He was watching her intently, his eyes a deeper blue than normal. "So what happened?"

  "I went over there this morning to search like we talked about. Kate was right about her being OCD. The place was compulsively neat and organized. I started in the bedroom, and after searching through both the dresser and her closet, settled in to browse through her nightstand drawer. That was where I thought I'd hit the jack pot."

  "What did you find? No, wait, we can talk about that later. Fast forward to the break in."

  'Okay." She took a breath, found herself tensing up. "So I found what I found, and decided I'd tackle the desk next. But it was about one o'clock and I was getting hungry and frankly, I needed some air. So I decided to try to find a good place to have lunch, then come back fresh."

  "And?"

  "So I did that, came back, and when I got to her place, I found the front door open a bit."

  "How much is a bit?"

  "About an inch, I guess."

  "And had you locked the door when you left?"

  "I frankly don't remember. I don't think I did. But there's security doors, both in the vestibule as well as in the stairwell."

  "The front door had a brick propping it open when I went past. Was it like that when you left for lunch?"

  She nodded. "Not when I left, but I remember noticing it when I came back."

  "So much for security. So really, anyone could have walked in off the street."

  "But it wasn't just anyone, Charlie. They ransacked that place looking for something. They emptied out her filing cabinet, emptied every file folder. The searched her dresser, her closet, they even stripped her bed."

  "Did they steal anything?"

  "Not that I could tell. I mean, things were just everywhere. Like someone had come in pissed off and just started swiping things off tables."

  "Or they got pissed off when they didn't find what they were looking for." He stared at his own white plastic coffee cup lid. "It's a shame you hadn't gotten through the papers in her desk."

  She nodded, feeling guilty now that she'd even taken a break. "I probably should have just stayed, tried to make lunch from her kitchen. If I had..."

  Charlie's eyes widened. "God, no. If you had, you might be on your way to the morgue right now. I'm glad you weren't there."

  "Oh, please." She met his eyes, and was surprised and oddly touched by the genuine fear she saw there. "Well, I'm fine."

  "Right." He glanced around, then looked at his watch. "You just about through there?" He gestured at her cup with his.

  "It's nearly cold. Yeah, I'm done."

  "Good." He stood, and when she followed suit, ushered her outside, setting a brisk pace down the sidewalk. "We should probably get this over with if we want to get home before the wee hours of the morning."

  "Get what over with?"

  "Well, first, we're going to go back to Lacey's and do a quick once over. Then we're going to call the cops, file a report."

  She thought that over and as much as she didn't want to do it, she knew it was the right thing. "Shouldn't we call them first?"

  His lips pressed together in a grimace. "No. First, we see what's left of the contents of her desk. We take what we think we might need, then we call them."

  "What if we smudge fingerprints?"

  "If the intruder wasn't wearing gloves, then their prints will be all over the place. And if they were, then nothing we touch will matter anyway. Besides which, I’ve got a solution for that."

  They slowed a bit as the reached Lacey’s building and went in through the main entrance. The rock that had propped the door open was now gone. Taking the elevator up to the fourth floor, Charlie insisted on exiting first. As usual, the hall was empty, and very quiet.

  He paused as they approached Lacey’s door, pulled a wad of something from his inner jacket pocket. "Here." he said as he handed her a pair of surgical gloves, "put these on."

  She looked at the gloves, grinned and looked back up at him. “Gee, Charlie, you brought your own protection. You think of everything.”

  He smiled back. “That’s what my dates always say.”

  It took the better part of an hour to sift through the files scattered across the living room floor. They tried to leave things where they'd been tossed, examining them in situ. Charlie took notes, copying down bank names and addresses, account numbers, and anything that might possibly help.

  As they worked, Ellie told him about the journal, the bizarre two entries, and the key she'd found taped to the top of the nightstand drawer.

  "So you think that's the key mentioned in the journal, and that she just never got a chance to send it to you."

  "Never got the chance? No, that doesn't sound like Lacey. If she'd really meant to send it, she would have done it. Her life ran like a Swiss clock."

  "But she said in the journal she was going to send the key to EG. That has to be you."

&nb
sp; "I guess. But clearly, the key is still here. So she didn't send it to me.”

  "Did she send you anything at all?"

  "No. We didn't even exchange Christmas cards."

  "Good thing. I didn't think Wiccans celebrated Christmas."

  "Okay, smart ass, we didn't even exchange Yule cards. Or even Samhain cards." And then she stopped. "Wait. Hang on. Did she send me a Samhain card?"

  Charlie stopped sorting through a mass of bank statements and looked at her. "Well? Think. That would have been about the right time, wouldn't it?"

  She thought back. She knew she'd gotten one from Kate – a homemade one, including some pictures of pumpkins and such from the kids. And she'd gotten some cute Halloween cards from some of her friends and neighbors at home. Ah. She had it. "I remember now. She did send me a card."

  "Well, did it have a key in it?"

  She shook her head. "No. I’m sure I would have remembered that."

  Charlie looked disappointed. "Do you know where it is now?"

  Did she? She remembered it had arrived at the coffee shop. She'd opened it at her desk and she had a vague memory of setting it aside, thinking she might respond at some point, or at least copy the address down. She normally kept her desk clean of clutter, and she knew perfectly well it wasn't still sitting on there, that had been weeks ago. Where had she put it?

  "I don't know. I might have thrown it out. I really can't remember."

  Charlie looked discouraged for a moment, then perked up. "Can you call Per? I bet he has a key to your place."

  "It wouldn't be at the cabin. It would be at the shop." She groaned at the thought of Marg rooting through her personal papers. "I suppose I could have her search." She stood, stretched, picked up a desk lamp that had toppled onto the floor. For a wonder, when she switched it on, it still worked. Lucky thing too, she thought, since she hadn't found Lacey's stash of light bulbs. Charlie was staring pointedly at her. "I'll call her later. I promise. Look, it's getting dark. Do you think we've done it?"

  Charlie looked around dismally. "Frankly, if there's anything here, I don't know that I'd even recognize it. It's hard when you don't even know what you're looking for. And yeah," he glanced down at his watch, "if we don't call the cops soon, it's going to look really suspicious. Did anyone see you come back from lunch?"

  She thought for a moment, then shook her head. "No. Didn't see a soul. Not even the folks from the moving truck."

  "Good. Hopefully no one will contradict your story, when you say you got back from lunch an hour later than you really did."

  "And then I went to the coffeehouse, called you and it took you ever so much longer to get down here, because of traffic."

  He grinned at her. "You're a natural at this, Gooden!"

  She pointed to the phone. "Should I call or you?"

  "I will. But not from here. Come on back outside, we'll call from my car."

  She took one last look around, but there didn't seem to be anything else of importance in the place. At the last second, she ran back into the bedroom and grabbed the picture Kate had mentioned seeing, of the two of them from college. Stuffing it in her purse next to Lacey's journal, she followed Charlie out and down the block to his car.

  Chapter 33

  Charlie had been right about one thing. They didn't make it home until well after eight that evening. Ellie had called Kate around dinner time, letting the family know what had happened and where she and Charlie had disappeared to, and to not to hold dinner.

  They swung by a taco place on their way into Naperville, and Ellie grabbed the closest thing she could find to vegetarian food on the menu – a bean burrito. She didn't want to think about the fat the beans were fried in. All she knew was that she was starving and needed some protein. Once they got home, she supplemented her burrito with an apple, a banana and a bottle of water.

  They sat at the kitchen table with Kate while they ate.

  She had no idea what Charlie had ordered, hardly even had a chance to register what it looked since it disappeared in the blink of an eye. She was reminded of Muriel and the way she’d scarfed down those pastries that morning. With a grin, Ellie watched him washed it all down with an enormous soda. Placing his hands on his stomach he sat back in his chair and propped his feet up on the chair across from him. "Gosh, what a fun day!"

  Kate sat down next to him, poked him in the ribs. "Get your feet off the chair, Charlie." Switching to her ‘mom’ voice she asked, "Are you both okay?"

  Ellie nodded. "Just tired. Thanks, by the way, for the hangover tray this morning."

  Kate smiled. "You looked like you needed it, even in your sleep."

  "Hey, how come I didn't get a hangover tray – whatever that is?"

  "If I brought you a tray every time you came home in that condition, I'd have to buy stock in an aspirin company."

  "Low blow, Katie! It's not that often."

  Kate didn't respond. "So what happened?"

  Ellie spent a few minutes catching her up on the events of the day, the brought out the journal. Kate took it from her, opened it almost reverently. "Feels weird, doesn't it? Prying into her private stuff?"

  "All day, every time I opened it, I had the feeling Lacey was standing behind me, reading over my shoulder."

  Charlie gave a half-hearted laugh. "Heck, she probably was."

  They were quiet while Kate read through the last half dozen entries. When she was finished, she set the book down and rested her chin in her hands. "What I don't get is why she wasn't more specific. I mean, in my journal, when I remember to write in it, I usually spill my guts. I go on and on about the most personal kinds of things. In incredible detail."

  Charlie rubbed his hands together. "Guess I'll have to go hunting for that!"

  She elbowed him. "You do and you'll be missing vital body parts the next morning."

  He slapped a hand to his heart. "The old Lorena Bobbitt Syndrome strikes again. You wouldn't!"

  "Don't try me." Kate turned back to Ellie. "All she seemed to write about was, I don't know, ordinary stuff."

  "There was some moaning and wailing about work earlier on. Complaining about this co-worker slacking off, or that co-worker being a fat, lazy so and so. But you're right. It's all pretty impersonal, given the nature of a diary. I mean, who writes about their trip to the dry cleaner?”

  Kate grinned. "Unless the guy at the dry cleaner is totally hot."

  "And you write about the fantasy you had where he takes you in the back room and--" She stopped and glanced over at Charlie. "Anyway."

  "And why, once she discovered this deep dark secret at work, wouldn't she have spilled the beans in her journal? I would have."

  Charlie sat up in his chair abruptly. "Unless..."

  They both looked at him. Ellie met his eyes. "Unless this isn't a real journal. Unless this is just a plant, put there for someone to find."

  Kate shook her head. "Seems a little far-etched. Too John le Carré. And incredibly paranoid."

  "Yeah, but it fits. Remember what Lacey said on the phone? That she couldn't tell me about it over the phone because she thought 'they' were listening in? Well, maybe she thought they were also checking her condo."

  Kate gave her an incredulous look. "Oh, Ellie."

  "Hey, I'm not the crazy one. I'm just saying that if that was Lacey's frame of mind, then creating a fake journal for someone to find doesn't seem that unreasonable."

  "I still don't buy it. If it is a fake, then why would she mention where she put these mysterious documents? And that she needed to mail you the key."

  Charlie had picked up the journal as they were arguing and was reading the last two entries again. "Hang on. She doesn't say she wants to mail you the key. What she says is this, and I quote: 'Need to contact EG, pass her the key.'"

  Ellie shrugged. "Okay, so I didn't get the words exactly. It amounts to the same thing."

  "No." Charlie was shaking his head. "No, it's not the same thing at all." He grinned suddenly. "Did you talk to Ma
rg? Did she find the card she sent you?"

  Ellie frowned. "No, not yet, you idiot. I haven’t had the time – been with you chatting with our good friends the police all evening, haven’t I?"

  "Ah, right. So call her now."

  "But I told you it didn't have any key in it."

  Charlie rolled his eyes. "Maybe it wasn't an actual physical key. Maybe it was something else."

  Ellie puffed out a breath in frustration. "Like what?"

  "Jeez, guys, do I have to spell it out? She said she needed to 'pass you the key'. What if it wasn't the key to the safety deposit box – if that's even what SDB stands for – we're all assuming it does, but it might not. What if the key is really a password, encrypted into her message to you."

  "A password to what?"

  Charlie was squirming in his chair. "To files on her computer, you great dolts!"

  Ellie wanted to smack herself in the forehead. "Duh! Of course. Kate, you said the thing was password protected."

  "Wait, wait, are you saying now that the journal is real?"

  Charlie shook his head, ran his long fingers agitatedly through his mass of curls. "No, no. I think the journal is a fake. But I think Lacey thought there might be a possibility that the bad guys would dismiss it – it doesn't really have anything useful in it – but that Ellie might find it. I think that last entry is a message from Lacey to Ellie, telling her where to look for the information she wants Ellie to have."

  Kate groaned. "Too Machiavellian. Good Lord, Charlie, that's just... crazy."

  "No crazier than filling a personal diary full of notations about going to the dry cleaners."

  "That's not crazy – but it is typical OCD stuff."

  "Look, just try to buy into this for a moment. Ellie, get on the phone. Call Marg now."

  "It's nearly nine o'clock. She'll be asleep by now."

  "At nine? Oh, come on. Besides, do you really want to let this wait until morning?"

  Ellie groaned. "Even if I call, there's no guarantee she will be able to find it. I could very well have thrown it out."