Office Heretics (A Coffee & Crime Mystery Book 2)

by Nan Sampson

  "Good God. You people are a bunch of nuts. Buried where? And why on earth would she do that?"

  Charlie jogged up to the table, carrying the filthy metal box and Kate scrambled to throw down some napkins before he dumped it on the table.

  Dan leaned back in his chair. "You should take this directly to the cops."

  Charlie shook his head. "No. What if all there is inside is a bunch of old Spiderman comic books? No, we need to open it first."

  Dan scowled at his brother. "You're tampering with potential evidence."

  Charlie ignored his brother, focused his intense blue gaze on Ellie. "You have the key?"

  Ellie fished it out of her purse. Her hands were shaking. "Kate – you do it."

  "No. No, I couldn't."

  Ellie pressed the key into her hand. "You missed out on digging it up, because you were doing the right thing by Lacey. You should be the one who gets to open it."

  Dan scoffed. "You people are acting like you've found the Holy Grail or something. It's an old safety deposit box. It probably contains the deed to her condo and the title to her car."

  Ellie resisted sticking out her tongue at Dan. Why was he such a kill joy? What did Kate see in him? And how had one mother birthed two such completely different children? "Go ahead, Kate. Let's see what Lacey left for us."

  Kate pulled the filthy box, covered now in melting snow and mud toward her. She wiped the area around the lock and inserted the key.

  Ellie was holding her breath as Kate lifted the lid. Inside, wrapped in a zip lock bag, were two computer memory sticks, the kind you plugged into a USB drive, and a handful of papers. On the outside of the bag, Ellie's name had been written in black marker.

  Kate wiped her hands on more napkins, then passed the bag to Ellie. "It's got your name on it. You should open it."

  Ellie took the bag, although she suddenly didn't want to. Responsibility weighed on her shoulders, both for the years she could have been a good friend, as well as for the one day she lost in coming to Chicago. Which sin was worse, she didn't know.

  With a sick feeling in her stomach, she pulled open the zip lock bag and pulled out the handful of papers. They'd been folded in half and she smoothed them out on the table.

  Charlie rescued the thumb drives from the melting snow then grabbed the box and lifted it off the table. "Dan, can you help me wipe up the mess?"

  Dan had his arms folded across his chest. "Nope. I am not taking part in this."

  "Fine.” He gave his brother a scathing look. “I’m going to grab some napkins, I'll be right back, ladies. Don't read anything crucial or juicy until I get back."

  Kate gave her husband a pleading look. "Dan, please. Don't be like this. This could be important."

  "I will not be implicated in evidence tampering. And I'd rather you didn't either."

  Ellie tried humor to defuse the situation. "Aw, come on. You're just mad because you weren't there to help us dig it up."

  Kate got up and went to the counter and grabbed more napkins from the dispenser. "Here, let me get some of the mud wiped up before the papers get filthy."

  Ellie held the papers up, still not wanting to look at them, although she'd already seen that the top paper was a letter addressed to her.

  By the time Kate finished, Charlie had returned and they were all staring at her expectantly. All except for Dan who was still scowling.

  She set the papers down and smoothed them. Then she read the letter, at first to herself, to make sure there was nothing ridiculously private in it, and then to the group, as it was only mildly embarrassing.

  "Dear Ellie,

  If you've found this, I'm either dead or so incapacitated that it makes little difference. Inside the bag you'll find two thumb drives. On one is a series of photographs and receipts that will prove that my boss, Rob Lawson, has been having multiple affairs with a number of women in our office. On the other is evidence of embezzlement. He’s been siphoning off pennies from orders through some kind of rounding error when customers used coupons. It took me forever to figure out how he was doing it, but I finally did.

  I was foolish. I thought I could use the information to get... well, to get something I thought I wanted badly. So badly I was willing to forget about my own integrity.

  Lawson knows I have the evidence. And he's tried twice now to kill me. The first time was supposed to look like an accident. Someone nearly ran me over as I was crossing the street one night. If my heel hadn't caught in a crack on the sidewalk, I would have been in the street when a car came racing around the corner.

  The second time, I was nearly gassed in my own condo. I barely got out in time. The cops, when I asked them to investigate, told me I had left my oven on and the pilot light was out and chastised me, because I could have blown up the whole building. Ellie, you know I don't cook. Ever. I've never even used the oven."

  "So I moved, but I don't feel any safer. That last attempt was a few months ago, and I've been living in fear ever since. Always looking over my shoulder, wondering when Death is going to come knocking again.

  Two nights ago, I got home and found my front door standing open. My desk had been searched and I could tell someone had tried to access my computer. I'm sure he's going to make another attempt soon, since I know he didn't find what he was looking for.

  You've got to avenge me now. The police may not believe you, but you've got to find a way to make them see reason. I know you can do it. You've always been able to do anything you set your mind to.

  I'm counting on you. Remember our promise. If there was ever a time I needed you, it’s now.

  See you the next time round,

  Lacey

  They sat there, frozen, while Ellie set the letter down in front of her and began smoothing out the crease in the middle, where it had been folded.

  Dan was the first to break the silence, sucking up the last of his chocolate shake. "Well, there you go. Now you can take those thumb drives to the police and Bob's your uncle, the case will be closed."

  Kate gave her husband a withering look. "Ellie, what do you think we should do?"

  Ellie looked at Charlie. "I suppose Dan is right. This should be all the proof the cops need."

  Charlie now had his arms crossed in front of him. "There's just one little problem with all that."

  Dan set his cup down with a thump. "Of course there is."

  Charlie ignored him. "Don't you remember? Lawson has an airtight alibi. He was in the restaurant having dinner. The restaurant staff and the people he had dinner with all say that. So he couldn't have done it."

  “Cary said he left for a few minutes,” she reminded him.

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like he had enough time, especially since he left the table after Muriel and Lacey went to the rest room, and came back before Muriel returned. I know you don’t care for Lawson, but I just don’t like him for this. I can’t see him getting his hands dirty.”

  "Well, then, he hired someone." Ellie pressed closed the seal of the plastic bag. "That has to be it. He hired someone."

  Dan leaned forward. "Hello. It doesn’t matter what we think. The evidence is in those flash drives. Take them to the cops and they’ll figure it all out. Then we can all be done with this circus.”

  Kate flinched and seeing the hurt look on her friend’s face made her want to punch Dan in the nose. She looked at the younger McCallum brother. “So we take it to the cops?”

  He nodded. “Tomorrow.”

  She frowned down at the metal box. For some reason their victory felt hollow. She should feel relieved, but instead she felt... incomplete.

  Kate put her hand on Ellie's. "They’ll do the right thing, Ellie. Don't worry. They’re the police. They’ll do the right thing."

  "Yeah, right. Just like they did for my folks."

  No one had a response to that. Ellie packed up the letter and the other papers into the plastic bag again, stuffed it all back into the box and stood, pulling her coat on. "I'll see you back at the
house. I need some time to think."

  "Ellie, honey, don't..."

  She didn't hear what Kate didn't want her to do.

  Angry, she stormed out, past Charlie, who was gaping at her, past Dan, who was glaring at her, and out into the biting cold air.

  Snow swirled around her and the wind whipped at her clothes. She'd left her coat inside. It was bitterly cold now, so she tucked her hands in her arm pits and ran, head down, chin on her chest, across the parking lot towards her car.

  Just before she reached the Nissan, a flash of movement caught her attention. She lifted her head, eyes tearing in the icy wind and was aware of a flash of movement. Something crashed down against the back of her skull. The last thing she was aware of was falling face first into the snow

  Chapter 41

  "Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Ellie? Ellie, come on, wake up. God damn it. Dan! Dan, call an ambulance!"

  Ellie heard the voice from somewhere above her, wished violently that it would shut up and go away. She told it to, in a very unladylike manner.

  The voice didn't listen. "Thank God." She felt fingers touching her, yelped when they touched the back of her head.

  "Stop it!" She tried to pull herself to her knees, but the pain at the back of her head made her sick to her stomach.

  "Don't move." The voice was gruff, but she recognized it now. "You could have a fractured skull."

  She got to all fours then hung her head. She would not humiliate herself by throwing up in front of McCallum. "I'm fine."

  "You are not fine. You're bleeding and you were out cold when I found you." He put a gentle hand on her back. "Ambulance is on the way."

  "I don't need a stupid ambulance. I just..." Just what? She couldn't remember.

  Someone else knelt down next to her and she recognized the scent of Kate's perfume. "Oh, Ellie! Charlie, help me get her into the car, she'll freeze to death."

  "We shouldn't move her, Katie."

  Ellie groaned and swung in Charlie's direction, hoping she could nail him in the crotch. "I can get up. There's nothing broken."

  "Stubborn idiot." But he put his arm under her shoulders and helped her up, at which point it became clear she wasn’t going to make it to the car under her own steam. Before she could object, he scooped her up and carried her to Kate and Dan's giant SUV, depositing her gently onto the back seat. Dan turned the heat on full blast and the warmth felt divine. She leaned sideways against the seat and closed her eyes. Bile rose in her throat and her head throbbed like the devil, but she refused to give in to it.

  Kate climbed in next to her and wrapped a blanket around Ellie's shoulders. "Oh honey, what on earth happened?"

  Ellie had a flash of memory - something red, the sense of something coming at her. "Someone hit me. I think. Oh, shit - the bag. From the safe deposit box." She opened her eyes turned her head to look at Kate. "Is it still in the car? I put it in the glove box."

  Kate looked at Charlie, who was standing just outside the open car door. "Charlie?"

  Charlie disappeared then came back a few moments later. "It's gone."

  Ellie groaned. "Shit." Gone. The evidence was gone. Charlie was grinning still and it made her want to smack him. “What the hell are you smiling at?”

  “Because when I was cleaning off the table, I grabbed the thumb drives and stuck them in my pocket.”

  Kate gasped. “What?”

  Ellie absorbed that for a moment. “So they have Lacey’s letter and some of the paperwork, but they don’t have the thumb drives?”

  He patted his pocket. “See? I am good for something.” He chuckled, then glanced behind him. "EMTs are here. Try not to punch them, Glenda. They're just trying to do their job."

  He stepped aside and waved the two uniformed EMTs towards her. Ellie submitted to their examination, didn't swear at them, and refrained from slugging either of them. In the end however, she refused to be taken to the hospital. The EMTs didn't think she had a skull fracture, but encouraged her to see her doctor. She didn't tell them her doctor was 180 miles away in Horizon, Wisconsin and that she had no intention whatsoever of making an appointment with him. All she could think of, as Kate and Charlie thanked them profusely for a whole lot of nothing, was that the killer was going to be almost as pissed as Ellie was when they got home and discovered they were missing the thumb drives.

  Despite the hideous pain in her head, that lone thought kept her smiling all the way home.

  Chapter 42

  She had a hell of a headache when she cracked gummy eyes open the next morning. She hadn't slept well - that was beginning to be a pattern here - between the headache and the soreness of her head every time she tried to lay down on the pillow. Of course, being coshed over the head by person or persons unknown didn't lend well to a restful night's sleep either. She was sure she should be able to remember something, some way to determine who had attacked her. Whoever had hit her had to be Lacey's killer. Who else would want the safe deposit box?

  She sat in full lotus, trying to ground and center so she could try to take herself back to that moment in time, when the bedroom door opened. Thinking it was Kate, she put on a smile then let it drop as Charlie entered. "Ever heard of knocking, McCallum?"

  "And good morning to you too." He was grinning. Gods and Goddesses how she was beginning to hate that grin.

  "Damn you, McCallum, why are you so cheerful and what the hell time is it?"

  "I was born this way, and it's 8:30."

  She really wanted to throw something at him. "And you're here why?"

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. "How on earth did you ever keep a corporate job? I thought you had to be a good little rule-following, Kool-Aid-drinking drone to work in corporate. Where the hell is your corporate smile and hearty handshake?”

  She glared at him. “I left them back in Wisconsin.”

  He laughed, which only annoyed her further. "Lucky them." He sobered a bit. “Listen, I have some news for you. But first you have to promise not to hit me.”

  Great. Just what she needed, news that would make her want to hit someone. “I can’t promise anything until I hear it. Not that I need much of a reason to hit you anyway.”

  He chuckled. “My mother always told me that if a girl wanted to hit me, that meant she liked me.”

  “Not this girl.”

  With a shake of his head, he turned serious. “I spoke with Kowalski this morning.”

  She remembered, a bit foggily, that he had been going to turn the thumb drives over to the police the night before. “I already want to hit you and I don’t think you’ve gotten to the bad part yet.”

  He scooted back out of arm’s reach. “They have some forensic accountants looking at the data - Lacey was right that there was some kind of funny business going on. Kowalski went out to Naperville this morning to have a chat with Lawson.”

  “And?”

  “And he’s disappeared. Wife says she hasn’t heard from him since last evening. Called her on his way to the memorial service.”

  “Then it was Lawson who hit me over the head and stole the safe deposit box. And once he figured out the drives weren’t there, he skated. Son of a bitch!”

  “I know. But at least the cops now have the evidence and they will catch up with him.”

  She considered that, but it didn’t make her feel much better. “So I guess this means it’s over. I mean, as soon as they arrest him, Lacey can finally get justice.”

  Charlie was staring at a spot over her right shoulder. “Well, not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that as far as Lacey is concerned, the police still don’t consider her death anything other than a mugging gone wrong. In fact, Kowalski says one of the guys on the Gang Task Force says he’s heard rumors on the street that some gang bangers have been taking credit for it. Apparently there have been a string of violent muggings and according to Kowalski, Lacey was just part of that.”

  “What?!” She couldn’t believe what she
was hearing. “That’s... ridiculous. How can they dismiss her death in the face of the evidence?”

  Charlie’s eyes were hooded, and Ellie could sense the anger simmering underneath his outer calm. “Because right now the evidence is circumstantial. If-- I mean, when they arrest Lawson, if they can get him to confess, that might change things, but as it stands right now, the two cases are being handled separately. Kowalski said that, basically, Lacey’s case is closed.”

  Bile burned her stomach. “Idiots!” Bitterness welled up inside her, and the sense of hopelessness she’d felt after her parents’ murder swamped her, draining the energy out of her, the hope out of her. With a groan, she lay back against her pillows which made her head throb anew. "Damn it!"

  Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out her cell phone, threw it into her lap. “Here. Thought you might need this.”

  She reached for her cell phone. "Is this like a cat bringing someone a dead mouse?"

  "Half dead. It's been ringing since about six a.m., but your battery is running low."

  "Shit. What now?" She checked her incoming calls. Four calls from Marg. "Damn. Jeez, McCallum, why didn't you bring it to me earlier?"

  "Because Kate told me to let you sleep."

  She ignored his answer, hitting redial, then anxiously waiting for Marg to pick up on the other end. But the phone just rang and rang. "Damn!"

  "I think the knock on the head injured your language center. That's like the fourth time you've said 'damn'. Something's stuck." He raised his hand and waggled his eyebrows at her. "Want me to give you a whack on the side, like we used to do with the TV when it was on the fritz?"

  Ellie ignored him. Marg wasn't answering. It went to voice mail, so she left a quick "I'm here, call me", then ended the call. She thought for a moment then dialed Per. She got his answering machine - the man refused to get a cell phone -- and left a message for him to call her back. At this time of day, he was probably out feeding his llamas. Damn it, what was going on?

  Charlie was still sitting there. "You could check voice mail."