A Killer Cup of Joe

by Jennifer Templeman

  “You cannot make coffee, can you?” he guessed on the first try.

  “I’ve read all the books, purchased the right kind of maker, and gotten the most expensive beans, but after following the directions as exactly as humanly possible, it still tastes mediocre at best,” she confirmed. “I’m a great cook, so it makes no sense.”

  Catching on to what she was saying, he asked, “Do you follow recipes when you cook?”

  “Sometimes...” The truth wouldn’t hurt here, and if he could finally explain this inability to her, it would be worth disclosing a little more about herself. “If it’s something new, I always follow it exactly, but once I’ve made it before, I tend to improvise or make little changes.”

  He wasn’t done making his point. “Do you measure everything out?”

  “Loosely...” She tried to picture herself cooking to be sure she was being honest. “I mean, I use a cup to measure out the flour and I fill it before leveling the top off with my finger, but I do it fast, and I don’t use a straight edge to be sure it’s precise.”

  “But when you make coffee, I assume you scoop the grounds and then carefully level off the top, maybe even doing an exact partial scoop to perfect the ratio you have calculated in your head,” he guessed.

  She didn’t need to answer him. The fact that she blushed and looked down said it all.

  “Have you ever watched somebody make good coffee?”

  Ellie didn’t know if she should be picturing Phillips with his loose scoops of dark grounds into a coffee maker that looked old enough to stop working at any moment, or Joe, who had perfected the art of the ideal cup. “Yeah, I’ve seen it a few times.”

  “Ten cups of water and nine scoops of grounds is what the book would say, but someone who gets brewing coffee will just scoop, letting some be rounded and others be sparse, knowing that in the end, the basket will be about half full of grounds and it will be delicious. Until you let go of the need to control every individual bean, it will always taste off somehow. I cannot explain how it happens, but I have seen it enough to know it is true. You have yet to get from the stage of controlling every single movement or every single ground to get to the place where you are just feeling it. Until you get to that place, it is going to feel forced.”

  “How do I get from forcing it to feeling it?” If he could explain that, then Ellie just might be willing to suck it up and call him Master after all.

  “You must answer that question on your own,” he disappointed her by responding. “But I can tell you the only thing keeping you from doing it, is you.”

  “You realize that was a less-than-helpful or encouraging response, right?” Ellie challenged.

  “It depends on how you look at it.” He didn’t seem put off by her reaction. “I cannot give you a set of directions to follow to make it easy. But if you are the only thing getting in the way, then it is completely within your control to fix it.”

  “I can’t fix it if I don’t know how,” Ellie argued.

  “There are a few rules I follow strictly,” Luka spoke softer, which made her think what he was about to say was important. “I do not blame people for things they did not do, I never jump to a conclusion until I have all the facts, and I do not waste time with lost causes—it takes too much energy that I would rather spend on things that bring me joy. If I did not think you had the ability to do this, I would have referred you to another instructor. You are almost there, and when you figure it out you will wonder why you did not understand sooner.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “If it were easy, it would hold no value,” he disagreed. “It is the effort that makes it worthwhile.”

  “You talk in circles,” Ellie pointed out, sounding younger by the minute.

  “That is how your mind seems to work,” Luka countered. “Everything is jumbled in there—” he touched her forehead “—when your mind shuts off, your movements become fluid and easy, and your body relaxes into the positions instead of fighting its way through them.

  “You have to find a way to invite your mind into the process because you are most comfortable in your head. This is not about shutting off your mind. It is about letting the distractions pass to give your mind some peace so it is not overwhelmed all the time.”

  Pausing long enough to wipe his face with a towel and turn the heat back down, he then walked over to the drawer he’d pulled paper from the night before. Once again he gave her a slight bow with his hands together at the center of his chest. “Those are your instructions for tonight; I do not think you need me to go over them.”

  Seeing that she was being dismissed, she turned around to look at the small clock mounted on the wall behind her and saw it was time for dinner. Except for the short break for lunch six hours before, she’d been with Luka all day. Usually that kind of one on one interaction would be draining, but it hadn’t been today. Ellie almost felt guilty for why she was here. She was supposed to be on the trail of a killer, but it felt like she was getting the lifestyle coaching she’d made fun of when she read about it on the internet.

  “Tomorrow, we will spent one hour together, and then you will leave,” Luka told her. “I want to give you a sample of how you could begin your day to take home with you. Try it on your own, and then you can come back for more training, or I can help you find an instructor near where you live that could keep you focused. You have made such progress here; I would hate to see you lose that when you leave.”

  “Me too,” she answered honestly. No matter what her search might turn up when she got home, she knew this time here had done something for her, and she hoped it wouldn’t all disappear when she got back to her real life.

  That night when Lydia came to give her a massage, she was back to the kind older woman Ellie had initially observed.

  “I didn’t realize how sore I was until you started finding all the knots.”

  “You would have found them all on your own tomorrow morning if we hadn’t tried to get them out now,” Lydia advised. After a few moments of comfortable silence where Lydia focused in a tight area in Ellie’s lower back, she spoke up again. “Did the Master give you anything today?”

  “Just another sheet with instructions, but they were virtually the same as yesterday’s, so I’m not sure why he wrote it down,” Ellie answered, hoping this wouldn’t be the point where the personality switch would flip and her masseuse would turn into someone entirely different.

  “He was probably just trying to be thorough,” Lydia assured her, continuing to walk that line between making Ellie feel boneless and pushed to the brink of pain all at once. “And since you’re leaving tomorrow, he won’t have another chance to see you, so it was his way of being sure you didn’t skip over this part of your workout, which is just as important as the time you spent sweating in the meditation room.”

  “Maybe.” Ellie was more focused on Lydia’s touch than filtering her thoughts. “But he could have reminded me tomorrow when we do our final hour together before I go.”

  “He’s seeing you in the morning?” Lydia asked, her hand stilling and her voice going up nearly a whole octave by the last word.

  “Yes,” Ellie replied, realizing she had no one to blame but herself for the fact that her massage was over. When Lydia made no additional comments or movements, Ellie rolled over slightly and attempted to abruptly change the subject. “Are there ever people that get so worn out that the massage and soak don’t work the kinks out?”

  Lydia’s face scowled initially, but then she shook her head and responded. “There are always people who do more than they’re told to, or who think they are in shape enough to overexert. We have a doctor on site so that he can check on them to see if anti-inflammatories or muscle relaxants might be of use. But most people who come here are interested in making lifestyle changes, so they listen and do as they’re told without pushing into experiences where they don’t belong.”

  Unsure if that last part held more meaning than just an answer to her
question, Ellie didn’t respond, but shifted again to sit up.

  “After you return home, you will be contacted by someone from the retreat center to get feedback on your time here. We would appreciate it if you would be as honest as possible with them so that we can improve our services based on suggestions. If you need recommendations of places to go to continue your yoga studies, they can assist you with references to studios near you. Thank you for entrusting Yoga for Life with the task of beginning your journey and we hope you will continue down the path you began here.” After those parting words, the older woman gave a slight bow and walked out.

  Bringing the phone into the bathroom so she could soak and get her check-in accomplished at the same time, she was embarrassed that Agent Peters answered at the precise moment she leaned back into the warm water.

  “I take it you’re enjoying your time at the retreat center?” he teased, no doubt hearing the moan she couldn’t hold back.

  “Laugh if you want,” she replied, unable to let him get the last word. “It may sound like simple stuff, but I’d love to see what kind of shape you’d be in after doing hours of yoga.”

  “No doubt you’re right,” he agreed before abruptly changing the subject. “I looked into Lydia Taylor like you asked me to.”

  “Is there any chance she could be the one killing these women?” Ellie didn’t see a need to hold back and just decided to throw the most important question out there first.

  “There are certainly some suspicious coincidences,” he appeared to agree, “but when I looked into it further and discussed it with my boss, we don’t think it’s possible.”

  “Why not?” Ellie wasn’t one to let something like this go just because someone said to. Her mind needed facts to explain their conclusion before she’d be able to stop thinking about it.

  “For starters, the physical strength required to murder someone by strangling them quickly enough that there are no signs of a struggle is beyond what this woman could possess,” he began.

  “But she’s in excellent shape from the workouts here, plus she gives deep tissue massage regularly, so her hands are misleadingly strong,” Ellie made the counter argument.

  “Even so, the motive is missing, as is the physical proximity,” he added, finally getting to something Ellie thought was worthwhile. “There’s no evidence to support her being on the east coast when the women were murdered there. We’ve gotten proof some of the instructors and the leader there purchased tickets to go to conventions and health fairs in D.C., but there is no record of Lydia having traveled as well. Plus a call to the conference center confirmed Lydia was on the schedule as being in California on the dates in question.”

  Ellie hated to let it go, but if Lydia was in California when someone was dying in DC, then it wasn’t possible for her to be the person they needed to focus on. “Thanks for looking into it.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” he replied, sounding impressed with himself. “We’ve all gone down false trails every once in a while.”

  She didn’t appreciate him making it sound as though she’d done something wrong, but decided now wasn’t the time to argue about it. Even though Lydia’s reactions had been strange, it wasn’t worth wasting time on it.

  ***

  The next morning she took a walk through the facility once more, looking for anything out of the ordinary. When she came across a door marked ‘Medical’ she knocked and then let herself in. A man in his mid-sixties wearing a white coat with a retreat nametag that read, Dr. Evans, came around the corner and stared at her. “Who are you?” he asked gruffly.

  “I’m Ellie,” she began, wondering if the guy realized he had no bedside manner. “I’ve been staying here and was just walking around—”

  “Who was you instructor,” he interrupted her explanation to ask.

  “Luka.”

  The doctor’s eyes narrowed after she mentioned the retreat leader had been working with her. Then his expression completely changed and he gave her a smile that made Ellie picture a weasel. “Come with me.”

  He led her to the next room which appeared to be a state of the art medical suite and had her sit on the examination table. “Practicing yoga correctly usually prevents injuries, but sometimes people come to us with a preexisting condition and the work they do here exacerbates that to cause acute pain. What hurts? Neck, back, shoulders…” he rattled off options.

  When he mentioned neck she twisted her head from side to side. “Luka can be demanding and most of his students feel the need to push themselves to meet his expectations.” He reached in a cabinet and pulled out two bottles.

  While he studied the labels on the containers in his hand he asked, “Where are you from, Ellie?”

  “On the east coast,” she hoped she could get away with generalities.

  “I have the opportunity to travel some when I attend conferences,” he continued to look at the bottles in his hand as he spoke. “I was in the DC area recently and enjoyed my stay there very much.”

  “It’s a lovely city.”

  “What do you do there?” he looked up and held her gaze, waiting for a response.

  “I’m an attorney.” She quickly ran through her alias backstory.

  “You must do well practicing the law to be able to come here and participate in our program with Luka,” Dr. Garrison took another step closer, making Ellie uncomfortable as he encroached on her personal space.

  “I manage.”

  “Hmmm, indeed,” he responded. “I believe having Luka here has revitalized the center and made it the premier location to receive this kind of instruction. We feel strongly that without him we would lose our advantage.”

  “He is good at what he does,” she agreed, wondering if the doctor was trying to tell her something else.

  “Will you be returning back to your home when you finish this weekend?” he changed the subject.

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” he seemed pleased by that answer, and handed her the two bottles he’d been holding while they talked, “One of each every four to six hours as necessary for pain.”

  Ellie slid off the table, hoping she could get out before he questioned her any further. Something in his eyes reminded her of the angry side of Lydia’s personality, as though they thought Ellie was a threat to what they had at Yoga for Life. Obviously she’d been thinking about catching a killer so much that she was seeing suspects in everyone she ran into.

  Later that morning, Ellie and Luka went through exactly sixty minutes of yoga. However, this time, instead of ending up sitting on her heels in what she thought of as the meditation position, Luka slipped a cushion under her and she found herself in what she knew was the lotus position. The cadence of his voice was as hypnotic as ever as he guided her through relaxing her muscles with the tops of her feet resting on her thighs and her hands open on her knees. Because of the position of her knees, her spine automatically felt straighter, and Ellie found that she didn’t have to use her muscles to support her frame. Their time together had been so intense this morning that it wasn’t until Luka broke the meditation that Ellie made the connection between how she was currently positioned and the engraved woman on the medallions.

  “Why did we end like this instead of the usual meditation pose?” Ellie asked.

  As usual, her question seemed to make him eager to teach. “Not everyone is able to make the journey you have made this weekend. You have truly blossomed as the lotus flowers growing in the garden ponds. This pose is for more than health, but for enlightenment as well. I do not introduce it at first because people have many preconceived notions about its purpose and they fight against it. Great seekers have found that in this position, the body will slow down; circulation is concentrated in the abdomen, allowing you to focus on your breathing and flush all other distractions from your mind. If you want to move from yoga as exercise and into the idea of yoga as a lifestyle, then learning to use this position is vital. Few people achieve a place where it is possible
, but I believe you are on that journey.”

  He was exactly right about people coming to yoga with many negative associations. Knowing she’d gotten a great deal out of the weekend, she was embarrassed by her initial assessment of the retreat center when she looked at the website. She had quickly classified Luka as a sham artist fleecing people for money. Now that she was literally in this position, she had to admit that if she’d paid for it instead of coming here as a part of her job, she would have felt it was worth every penny.

  “You have made great progress. It is rare to see someone take to this as easily as you have,” Luka praised. “To remember what you have done and what you are capable of still, I want you to have this.” In his hand, Luka was holding a silver chain with an oval medallion depicting a woman with long flowing hair seated in the lotus position.

  “It’s…” Ellie wasn’t sure how to describe it and paused to keep from telling him the truth, which would have been scary, or even disappointing, that he was tying himself to the case by handing her a necklace like the ones the women who’d been murdered had worn. Finally, she realized if she’d ever had any acting skills, now was the time to draw on them, so she shook her head to clear it and started again. “It’s beautiful.”

  He seemed pleased with her comment and stood effortlessly, holding out the chain to ask, “May I?”

  Ellie nodded and moved her ponytail out of the way so he could put the necklace around her neck. Despite it being small and the chain appearing to be delicate, it felt heavy on her at the thought that the women whose deaths she had studied in detail had worn a necklace identical to this at some point.

  “I designed this and commissioned a local artist to make them for my personal use.”

  “None of the other instructors give them out?” Ellie asked in disbelief.

  “No, they are reserved for the rare student that I meet who is able to commit themselves to this journey.”

  If he was the only person here with access to the necklaces, then every instinct she had about Luka must have been wrong. This elevated him to the position of primary suspect.