Uncommon Grounds (25 page)

“Which you now believe he committed?” I asked again.

He folded his hands over his black-robed stomach. “My dear, I’m just a simple man of God. I don’t have any answers.”

Well, he had at least one answer, I thought, as I walked down the front drive to my car parked on the street.

David had wanted to talk. Though I hadn’t realized it at the time, I’d actually heard him set up the appointment. David was speaking to Langdon just as I reached the front of the receiving line at the funeral. He didn’t get a chance to keep that appointment. Why? Maybe because someone, maybe Groschek, had killed him.

And I had another answer, too.

I crossed onto the lawn, my heels sinking into the grass like they had when I’d chased down Roger at Patricia’s funeral, and circled around to the front of the wooden sign.

“Christ Christian Church,” I read.

And below it:

“On God’s Side.”

Back home, I let myself into the house and went right to the kitchen, where I dug the red can of coffee out. It was nearly noon, I had a monster caffeine-deprivation headache and I really, really needed to use my head right now.

I dumped the pale, dried-out ground coffee into the filter basket, slopped in the water, pressed “on” and sat down to think.

Obviously, Christ Christian was involved. That was proven by the fact their slogan—did churches have slo-gans?—matched the e-mail address Groschek had been communicating with. And how stupid was that? Wouldn’t you think that people who had masterminded at least one, and maybe two, murders could have done better?

And what about that second murder? David had told Langdon he needed to talk to him, and then died before he had a chance. Because Langdon or someone else in the church wanted to shut him up? But then why would Langdon have told me about the conversation at all?

Maybe David truly had killed himself, simply deciding not to wait to talk to Langdon, perhaps thinking there would be no forgiveness pending for his crime anyway.

Or was Langdon’s revelation of David’s attempted “predeathbed confession” an effort to support the theory that David was filled with remorse and therefore had simply jumped the gun—or in this case, the creek?

I felt like I was trying to think through cotton, my head one dull ache. The coffee was brewing, so I got up and took a mug from the cupboard and pulled the pot off the burner, replacing it with the mug, so the auto drip would filter directly into it. I waited until it was half full, switched the cup and pot back and took a sip.

Awful. Not just because the coffee grounds were very old and dried out, but because the first coffee through the filter is always the strongest. I opened the fridge and, no big surprise, had no cream. But then why would I, when I didn’t even keep good coffee at home? I pulled out a quart of skim milk, blew the dried stuff stuck to the neck of the bottle off and poured the milk into the cup.

I took another swig and grimaced. Better, but not much. I started to put the milk back into the fridge, but then checked the date: April 6. No wonder it tasted so bad. And it didn’t help that it was skim. Even whole milk would be better, I thought as I poured the milk down the drain. But who drank whole milk anymore?

In fact, I’d just had to dump the entire gallon I’d bought to replace the one that had been out on the counter when Patricia had died, because it already was past its freshness date, and...

I sat down at the table.

If it weren’t hurting so much, I’d wonder where my head was. The gallon of milk on the counter the morning Patricia died was whole milk.

But Patricia drank skim lattes. David drank skim lattes. And Pavlik had said the milk spilled on the floor that morning had been skim, too. So why was the gallon of whole milk out?

The only person I knew who used whole milk was...

Gary.

I thought back to his office as he dumped half a carton of whole milk into his coffee. And then added sugar.

I thought of the pot of coffee on the heating element of the brewer the morning Patricia died. Why would she have brewed coffee already, nearly an hour and a half before we opened, when we didn’t keep coffee longer than a half hour max?

Because she had brewed it for someone else. Someone who drank whole milk in it and used sugar, which explained the sugar wrappers that had mistakenly led me to David. But it wasn’t David.

It was Gary. But why?

I didn’t know, but it was the same question David had asked that morning.

“Why, Why?” David had asked Gary as he knelt next to Patricia’s body. I’d thought the question was rhetorical. A “Why would someone do this? Why would God let this happen?” kind of question. Now I wondered whether it was a very non-rhetorical, “Why did you kill her?” directed at Gary.

Maybe that was why Gary had sent Caron and me home and kept David there that morning. So he could talk him down.

I took another sip of sludge and shuddered, but not because of the coffee.

My God, what was I saying? That one of my closest friends, not to mention the town police chief, had killed Patricia?

I thought I was saying that.

So did that also mean that Gary was “ngdseyed?” I went over to the computer and checked my e-mail. Nothing but spam and, for once, I was grateful for it. But “ngdseyed” had e-mailed me back once and, if it was Gary, he’d find out sooner or later that it had come from my screen name, either by using his official status to check with my service provider or because someone told him.

But only Ted, Eric and Sarah knew my new e-mail address and right now—I checked the clock—right now...

Gary was having brunch with Sarah.

Sarah, who also was a member of Christ Christian.

Sarah, my Pancho.

Oh, Cisco. I had more suspicions than I knew what to do with. And who could I trust with them, except Pavlik? I picked up my phone and heard an uninterrupted dial tone, meaning Pavlik hadn’t returned my earlier calls and been bounced to voice mail.

Damn. I had already left two panicky messages, one last night and one this morning. Now here I was with yet another theory. The guy was going to think I was nuts, and I wasn’t so sure he was wrong.

I checked the clock again. 12:30. Sarah had said she and Gary were having brunch at the Country Club at noon. That meant Gary’s house was empty. And I had a key, the key I kept to water his plants when he was out of town.

So why did I want to go to Gary’s house? Because if Gary was “ngdseyed,” he had e-mailed me from there last night. And if he had, his computer, which was identical to mine, would auto-confirm that for me.

I’m not a complete fool, I did leave Pavlik yet another message before I left the house, telling him where I was going. Better that he think I’m nuts, than that he knows I’m dead.

Gary’s house is on Elm, a side street off the far end of Brookhill Road. The street was quiet as I parked a few houses down. I strolled up the sidewalk like I was visiting and stopped in front of the door, pretending to ring the bell just in case a neighbor was watching. Then I let myself in with the key.

Gary’s computer was in the spare bedroom, so I crossed the living room into the kitchen, where he kept the jungle of plants I’d watered. The two bedrooms and bathroom were lined up along a short hallway just off the kitchen.

The computer wasn’t on so I booted it up, hoping there wasn’t some gadget on it that tells you the last time it was turned on. I’d never seen one, but God knows there were all sorts of things I didn’t know about computers.

I looked around nervously as I waited for the computer to finish its gyrations and show me the main screen. Gary’s office looked like...well, an office. Papers on the desk, bills next to the computer, books on the bookcase. No makings for bombs, or rewiring of espresso machines.

The main menu came up and I double-clicked on Gary’s e-mail icon. The “Sign-on” screen came up. It asked for both screen name and password. I clicked on the arrow next to “Screen Name” and it showed me just one name: GDONOVAN.

I had expected that. I mean you wouldn’t route your message through a labyrinth of remailers to hide your identity only to have it show up with your real screen name, right?

So I was prepared for “ngdseyed” not to be on the list. What I had forgotten about was that I needed a password to get into Gary’s e-mail and I, obviously, didn’t have one.

Although maybe...

I typed “ngdseyed” in the password square and sat back as the welcome screen came up. Well, that hadn’t been real smart of him. Then again, people were creatures of habit. I still used my wedding date as my password, and that was stupid on a lot of fronts, too.

Even though I already had the confirmation I needed that Gary was “ngdseyed,” I clicked on “Sent Mail.”

The message he sent back to me wasn’t there. Nor was my original message under “Old Mail.” In fact, there was no mail saved at all.

Hmm. I opened up a blank e-mail and typed “N” and then “O.”

TED filled in.

“No Ted.” Gary was standing in the doorway. “I didn’t get it at first when Sarah told me. Clever, Maggy.”

“Too clever” were going to be his next words, I just knew it. Probably followed by a diabolical laugh. “You’re supposed to be at brunch,” I said, standing up.

“I thought I saw your van and couldn’t help but wonder what you were doing on the wrong end of Brookhill Road. Sa-rah’s waiting in the car.”

He smiled and shook his head. “You’re a trusting fool, Maggy.”

Tell me something I didn’t know. “And you’re a murderer, Gary.” I was sure I sounded more confident than I felt, since the alternative wasn’t possible.

“Only when I have no other choice.” He looked rueful, but it was only surface rueful. There was no depth behind his eyes at all. No real emotion, and I didn’t know why I had never noticed that before.

As for me, I was feeling all sorts of emotion. Fear. Anger. Incredible irritation at my own stupidity. And a smidgeon of hope that Pavlik would get my voice mail messages, actually listen to all of them, and get there in time. “Pavlik knows I’m here.”

Gary shrugged. “Then we’d better hurry.” He reached out and grabbed my arm, twisting it behind my back and forcing me to walk in front of him. I stumbled and almost fell, but he propelled me forward, out of the bedroom and down the hall.

“Sorry, boys,” he said, as we entered the plant-lined kitchen, “but I can’t take you with me. Maybe Sarah will water you, now that Maggy won’t be able to.”

The man speaks to plants. And that didn’t tip me off?

“You killed Patricia with an espresso machine,” I said. “What do you have in mind for me? The blender?” Sure, Maggy, give him ideas.

He laughed and I could feel him shake his head. “Don’t be silly. You and I are taking a little trip.”

I had a feeling my trip was going to be “littler” than his. I looked around frantically, playing for time. “Don’t you need to pack? Or at least take your computer?”

“Nah, there’s nothing on it that matters anymore.” He pushed me across the kitchen toward the back hallway. “I’ll just disappear, and I have everything I need to do that packed and waiting for me in the shed out back.”

Always prepared. “Still playing the Eagle Scout, huh Gary? What a fraud you are.” I imagined a duffel bag stuffed with canteen, compass, cook stove, notebook computer and Swiss Army knife. It was the last one that worried me. Along with the fact he’d switched from “we” to “I.”

My voice was cracking now, but I kept talking. “Pavlik was right. He said you were a lousy cop and you were. I thought it was because you were being compromised by our friendship, that I was putting you in a bad position. But you were purposely mucking things up.”

He gave my arm a tug. “I couldn’t very well arrest myself, could I?”

A chill ran up my spine. “Why did Patricia let you into Uncommon Grounds that morning?”

“I was driving David’s car. She saw me pull into the lot and unlocked the door for me, thinking I was David. Not that it would have mattered. She trusted me. I’m the police chief, after all, and also the head of our little group at Christ Christian.”

“So she made you a cup of coffee? Then what did you do, tell her to make a latte for herself?”

I felt him shrug. “I told her we needed to get ourselves something to drink and sit down and talk. Both the group and the church are patriarchal organizations, so she was used to taking direction from men. The problems only started to arise when she got ideas about running things herself. Being town chairman. Opening your little coffee place. She changed.”

“And that’s why you killed her?” I couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t Stepford, it was Salem. “You killed her for not knowing her place?”

“That was actually an accident. I only meant to scare her. A little shock therapy—”

He laughed at his own sick pun and I wanted to throw up.

“—so she would come to her senses and stay with David.”

I twisted to try to see him. “She was going to divorce him?”

He gave my arm a twist in return. I gave a yipe and faced forward. “Not divorce, exactly, but she was threatening to leave him. I think she really did care for Roger Karsten, believe it or not, and when she saw Groschek on the surveillance tape, she decided she wanted out. Despite the fact that we had financed her life over the last four years, as well as her little investment in Uncommon Grounds.”

The bank robberies. “You planned the First National robberies. Who better to rob a bank than the man who designed the security system?”

“No one better,” Gary admitted. “Though Pastorini was making it more difficult by clamming up. I think the Feds had something to do with that.”

“Pastorini was in on it?” Gary’s replacement at First National had seemed a real straight arrow. But then, so had Gary.

“Nah, but he liked to talk over beers. Kept me in the loop.” I felt Gary shrug. “I knew enough about the security system that when the money from the first robbery ran out, I decided it was time to hit First National again.”

“But you botched the attempt when Groschek was caught on tape.” I was rewarded with another arm twist.

“The first robbery—not counting our robbery, the one while I was still at First National—was a practice run. Midwest Bank, a diversion. The third was the real payoff.”