The Man in the Microwave Oven

by Susan Cox

He frowned. “Most orders wear modern dress now, and anyway, the Olivetan Sisters wear white habits; always have.”

  “What do you mean? Gavin showed photos of the nuns at Katrina’s memorial, and they were wearing black.”

  He frowned. “I must have left by then. But anyway, Olivetans wear white habits. If the women in the photos were in black, they weren’t Olivetans, and they weren’t at St. Olga’s.”

  As he closed the door behind me and I walked down the front steps, I felt I’d learned more than I expected.

  I left the photo and the doll with Father Martin. What he did with them was up to him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I raised a hand to Haruto as I walked past the doorway to Aromas and kept going until I got to The Coffee. Without asking, Nat made me an Earl Grey latte (which, with the addition of almond syrup, he’d named the San Francisco Fog on his menu board), and I said, “I might have wanted something different.”

  He shrugged. “Do you?”

  “Well, no.”

  He snorted. “One thing I’ve already noticed, people like ridin’ on familiar trails. I don’t know all the names yet, but I can tell you their coffee order. Maybe it’s mostly too early in the mornin’ for them to be thinkin’ of options.” He nodded at a woman walking past the front window carrying a yoga mat. “She’s a vanilla latte, low fat; she comes in with a guy who’s an Americano, triple shot—which I’d know anyway from his shakin’ fingers.”

  He handed me my tea and smiled at a woman approaching the counter. “House blend, large, room for cream?”

  She smiled and nodded at him, looking pleased.

  He winked at me. It reminded me of Faye-Bella putting out my favorite chocolate. He was right, people really did prefer to ride familiar trails. My smile faded. What else did that remind me of?

  I walked slowly back to Aromas. The street was still quieter than usual on a midweek afternoon, and Nat was probably right, people were finding two corpses a little hard to ignore. I sat in my office and tried to add together the few random facts at my disposal. Grandfather and Davo were still in Lichlyter’s sights, and I hadn’t found anything to help them get out from under the weight of her suspicions. I hadn’t found the mysterious Pavel. Was the orphanage an elaborate charade, existing only on paper and for the brief moments of Gavin’s visits? He’d said he didn’t know much about Catholic nuns, so he wouldn’t know they were wearing the wrong outfits. Katrina had been uncharacteristically reticent about trumpeting her philanthropic efforts, but, if Amos Noble were typical, she had solicited significant donations. Haruto said $200,000 a year moved through St. Olga’s. Had Katrina laundered those donations through the phony orphanage? Did Sergei discover the fraud through his priest friend in Kiev and come here to confront Katrina, only to find that she’d been killed? But if the orphanage was an elaborate charade, it had to be built by someone with the technical expertise to set up the web-based shadow accounts, and the contacts to have a priest killed in Kiev.

  I looked at my list of suspects and crossed off the South American drug smugglers. I had no way of finding out if they were involved, and Lichlyter was welcome to them. People Katrina had bested, in court or out, were obviously still possibilities, and that included Amos Noble. I reluctantly crossed off Angela Lacerda, who seemed to use her lawyers to fight her battles rather than taking direct action.

  I started a new list with Amos Noble at the top, well aware that I wanted him to be guilty so the others on my list were off the hook. He’d lied when he said the loss of the Fabian Gardens project was unimportant; he needed that project to keep his company afloat. And he’d lied about not being angry with Katrina over her defection, because as soon as he found out, he fired her over it. What if Katrina had backed away from his company because she’d discovered he was involved in something illicit? That would explain the “criminal fraud” accusation she was hurling during the phone call I overheard the day before she was killed. But he didn’t have a motive to kill Sergei, unless Sergei was a witness to Katrina’s murder. If Sergei was hanging around Polk Street waiting for me to lead him to my grandfather, maybe he was nearby when Katrina was killed. And Matthew might simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, seen something he wasn’t supposed to, and paid the price. No, that practically required stadium seating for the crowd observing Katrina’s murder. I had no idea if Noble was involved in anything crooked, or how to find out, although the lies I knew about were real enough. I had to leave him to Lichlyter, too. I’d tell her what I knew about the end of his relationship with Katrina, but investigating his business took resources I didn’t have.

  Unhappily, because I had liked her, I was back to Valentina and I reluctantly put her down next. If she wasn’t a computer expert herself, she must surely know of at least one in the shadowy world she had inhabited. Still inhabited, if I was any judge. With an expert on tap, she could have organized the building of the online presence and financial background of the nonexistent orphanage. It was easy to see her reacting quickly to kill Katrina once the lawyer discovered the scam that had cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sergei’s sudden appearance on Polk Street twenty years after the death of her husband and child must have been a terrible shock and then an opportunity too good to be missed. It explained why his body was found nearby. It had nothing to do with Fabian Gardens; he just happened to be here when she killed him. It even explained the grisly fingers in Nat’s microwave. She as good as told me he should never have been accepted into the priesthood after his bloody and murderous past; they were the symbolic removal of his ordination.

  Even if I stopped assuming a theoretical computer hacker on her payroll, it still seemed all too possible. For all I knew, she had an advanced degree in computer programming. But could Grandfather be so wrong about her? He was aware of her past, and it hadn’t apparently occurred to him that she might be guilty. Or maybe it had, and he hadn’t shared that with me. Or he was investigating her. Or he was more attached than I realized and simply couldn’t see her guilt. In which case, exposing her was likely to cause him some genuine pain, and I’d do almost anything to avoid that. Anything except let her get away with murder.

  I tried Kurt (and Sabina, I supposed) on for size, but I didn’t want either of them to be guilty, either. Kurt’s deal with Katrina might not pass an ethics test—not that I was throwing stones, considering my visit to Katrina’s offices—but nothing I knew about it made me think he would benefit by killing her. Although he had come out the other side of their partnership on his feet—or at least he seemed content to let things lie. And I could think of no possible reason for him to kill Sergei or Matthew except for the stadium-seating thing. I put his name at the bottom of my list.

  I could also build a strong case against someone else I’d come to like. Gavin had the best opportunity to set up St. Olga’s as a scam. The only thing mitigating that was his lack of computer knowledge—he could barely cope with his laptop presentation at Katrina’s memorial—and Haruto said it would take serious hacker-level skills to do what had been done to hide St. Olga’s finances. Otherwise, Gavin fit the frame nicely. Katrina had somehow discovered what he’d done; she’d threatened him, and so he’d killed her. Sergei’s murder could be explained by two possible scenarios: Sergei was a witness to Katrina’s murder, and/or he had found out about the orphanage scam. That fit. Weighing against that was the fact that he wasn’t living above his means. Somebody was siphoning off $200,000 a year from the orphanage accounts, which would seem capable of providing a better lifestyle than a studio apartment and a job as a barista. He was also kind and seemed too gentle, somehow, to be a cold-blooded killer. I’d seen him with Matthew that day, and he’d been sensitive to Matthew’s foibles and brought him coffee. “Black, no sugar,” as Matthew would say to me. I smiled. Actually, that’s what he said to everyone. Except, I thought, still trying to make everything fit, he didn’t say that to everyone. Not everyone. Maybe that’s what Nat’s “familiar trails” had been tryi
ng to remind me of.

  Feeling suddenly chilled, I thought of something else, picked up my phone, and texted Ben. We talked every night but had mostly stayed away from discussing the murders. His response came within a couple of minutes. ETH stood for Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule. I looked it up on line. ETH produced some of the world’s best computer scientists, programmers, and engineers. And I knew someone in our little group who had earned a degree there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I walked back over to The Coffee, where Gavin made me a San Francisco Fog, and I asked him to join me at a table. Nat had gone out somewhere, and I was the only customer, so we headed over to a table in the window. I remembered the pizza restaurant waitress who used her window table to advertise, and I thought we should do the same for The Coffee. Besides, I wanted to be where we could be seen. Not that there were many people on the street these days.

  “Where’s Nat?” I said, picking off the cover and blowing on my tea. It was too hot to drink.

  He smiled. He really was a sweet, good-looking guy, with his dark eyes and multi-shades of blonde hair. “He’ll be back soon. I should really stay behind the counter while he’s not here.”

  “I’ve been thinking about everything we talked about the other day, and I have a couple of questions you can help me with,” I said. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. It must be tough being on your feet all day.”

  “Sure. What do you want to know?”

  Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? I felt about as certain as I could be that he wasn’t the innocent he appeared, but was he just an embezzler or was he a murderer, too? Katrina had been shot late at night, and it would only have taken a few minutes to shoot her, rifle her briefcase, and then dodge fifty yards to get off Polk Street and into the alley to make his escape. Say five minutes total. Sergei, however, had been stabbed after a struggle, and his hands mutilated, which took time and privacy. It hadn’t happened in the vacant building where he was found, or in Katrina’s apartment.

  I took my time taking the cover off my drink, setting it on the table, and picking up a couple of napkins to wipe up the resulting spot of tea as if it were my life’s work. “You heard the news about Matthew?”

  “Father Martin told me. I know you were fond of him.” His expression was suitably grave, but I caught an unpleasant, malicious gleam in his eyes. It was the first break in his good-guy persona, and now I knew what to ask.

  “Did Katrina have a wine cellar built in her garage?”

  He frowned slightly and then chuckled. “Wow, that came out of left field. Why do you ask?”

  “I just wondered where she was storing all her wine.”

  “Oh”—he huffed out a breath—“it went to an expert for valuation and sale. I don’t know anything about wine.”

  I took a sip of my drink. Still too hot. “Like you don’t know anything about computers,” I said pleasantly. “Did you know that Olivetan nuns wear white habits?”

  He looked puzzled. “No, I’m sorry. I told you I don’t know anything about Catholic nuns.”

  “What do you know about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” I said playfully, “you don’t know anything about wine, computers, or Catholic nuns.”

  “I guess I do sound like an idiot,” he said ruefully. “But in some circles I’m considered quite intelligent.” He chuckled again. “I’m writing an article now about San Francisco’s coffee culture. See? I’ve learned a lot working here, and a writer uses every one of life’s opportunities. I have you to thank for that idea, by the way.”

  I waved my coffee cup at him. “Consider it a freebie. I suppose there really is a coffee culture here; I never thought of it that way.” I fiddled with my cup. “Even the homeless fellows on the street are particular about their coffee. Did I ever tell you about the first cup of coffee I gave Matthew?”

  He leaned forward, his eyes bright, almost too attentive. “What happened?”

  “It had cream and sugar in it, and he turned it down! That was the first time I heard him say—what was his little catch phrase? Oh, right—black, no sugar.”

  He smiled and took the kitchen cloth off his shoulder. “I should get back to the counter. Nat likes the mugs to be stacked when they come out of the dishwasher. Your drink seems too hot to enjoy. Let me add a splash of cold milk.”

  He took my cup behind the counter while I stared out over the café curtains Nat had agonized over. I wished he were here; for some reason this conversation felt as if it could go off the rails any minute. When he slid my cup over to me, I tried it again, feeling like Goldilocks, and then drank half of it down. I was thirsty, I needed the caffeine, and I hadn’t eaten all day. “It’s just right now. You’re a good barista.”

  He walked back behind the counter and began stacking the mugs. “Nat likes to use these unless the customer wants a go-cup.”

  He took his time, building his mug pyramid slowly, aligning them carefully before adding the next layer. I watched him, a little cynically, recalling how clumsy and shy he had seemed when he first walked into Aromas, and wondered if that had been just another piece of theater.

  He was taking too long. I stood up to go, and then sat down again heavily. I was much more tired than I realized. “One more thing, though.” I tried to get up again and somehow couldn’t. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to ask him.

  He sat down and took a set of keys from his pocket, held one of them up, and laid them on the table. “This is the key to the garage, if you want to check it out.” He got up and walked over to the front door, turned the dead bolt, and flipped the door sign to Closed, then went to the espresso machine and poured milk into a metal jug. “We have a regular customer who comes in around this time and likes his drink to be ready,” he said.

  I frowned, trying to understand why the door was locked if a customer was expected. Had he locked the door or not? I listened to the milk hissing and bubbling and wondered how hot steamed milk was—as I said, science wasn’t my best subject in school. I had to walk past him to leave, and I wanted to leave. I moved slowly, feeling as if I suddenly weighed a thousand pounds, fussing with the lid of my drink, and then dropping it, counting the seven steps I still had to walk before I got to the door.

  As I drew abreast, he turned and threw the boiling milk at my head. I flinched instinctively and threw up a protective arm. Most of it missed of my face, but the milk soaked into my sleeve and hot, stinging burns traveled down my arm and neck. I screamed and struggled out of my T-shirt, and threw it in a soggy heap on the floor, then my feet got tangled in it and I clutched the edge of the counter to stay upright.

  “How clumsy of me,” he said, in a parody of concern. “I should get something to put on that for you. Here, let me help you.”

  He came around the counter and put an arm like steel around my waist. I needed to run, but I couldn’t remember why. I slumped against him and closed my eyes.

  The next time I opened them I was sitting on a hard chair, and I could hear the trickle of water somewhere nearby. My hands seemed to be stuck to my legs, which was uncomfortable, and I couldn’t move. The chair rocked when I tried and nearly tipped over. My feet were wet. I had a bad headache, and one of my arms was stinging, as if it had been burned. I couldn’t make sense of anything and I didn’t remember much of anything, either. I thought backward, but the last thing I remembered clearly was sitting in my office. I’d had an Earl Grey latte; or was that earlier? I had no idea.

  “Feeling better?” Gavin’s quiet voice reached me out of the gloom.

  “Not really, to be honest. Where are we? Are we prisoners?” I was slurring my words, and even as I said it, I realized it didn’t make sense, but nothing did.

  “Well, you are, anyway,” he said, sounding amused. “But don’t worry; it won’t be for long. I just need some of the roofie to leave your system. The autopsy will find it, but you take it to help you sleep, so it won’t be unexpected.” He splashed through the wat
er and bent over me. I tried to focus on him, but I couldn’t really make out the details of his face. It sounded like Gavin, but I couldn’t be sure. He tugged on whatever was holding me to the chair, apparently satisfied.

  “I don’t take anything to help me sleep.” I frowned. “Autopsy?”

  “You have insomnia, so you take it to help you sleep. You can get it in England for that.”

  “I can?” I thought about it. I wasn’t sleeping well, but I didn’t remember taking anything, so I shook my head, which might have been a mistake since it made me very dizzy. “I don’t take anything.” I thought for another minute. “Autopsy?”

  “It’s too bad, but the city’s a dangerous place at night. I have to get back to The Coffee to finish my shift. But I’ll be back later.”

  “M’okay.” I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

  He was there again when I woke up. My head was a little clearer, but not much, and the headache was a lot worse. I had no idea how much time had passed. I was still tied to the chair, but not with cord. I was wrapped heavily from neck to ankles, like a mummy. It felt hot and unpleasant, and my arm was hurting. It stung, like burns. I stared at it and then lifted my head. He was standing a few feet in front of me.

  “Where are we?”

  “The wine racks didn’t give you a clue?” He still sounded amused, and as gentle and pleasant as ever, but his face was sharp and tight with tension.

  I turned my head, painfully. LED lights glowed from the edges of tall wine racks full of bottles.

  I looked down at myself. “Is this—am I wrapped in bubble wrap?” It seemed all of a piece with the surreal nature of my evening. I assumed it was evening.

  He chuckled. “I had plenty of it from packing up Katrina’s things. Bubble wrap and duct tape. It’s true what they say—duct tape is good for everything. Couldn’t risk rope burns and bruises being found at the—”

  “Autopsy,” I said hollowly.