Caffeine & Killers (A Roasted Love Cozy Mystery Book 3) Read online

  "Wow!" I said. "It was a good thing the little girl knew what to do."

  "Oh, yeah. She was a smart kid," Daniel agreed. He decided the oil in the skillet was hot enough and began dumping in the chicken and peppers and onions, along with dashes of the assembled seasonings.

  I smiled as I watched him. Daniel loved his job as an EMT and was well respected by his fellow firefighters, as well as among law enforcement. He didn't mind being called out at odd hours, either, though I was very glad that tonight was his night off. Those were the times when we planned dinners together.

  "Let’s catch the news and see if the little girl made it on tonight," I suggested. I wanted to see if Daniel was on the video, too. He deserved some recognition for the work he did. On the other hand, I knew that he wasn't in this line of work for attention and if he'd seen cameras pointed at him, he would have dodged them.

  We sat down to eat and watched the local news. The first story did concern the little girl and her bravery. "Oh, look! There you are!" I watched as he helped lift the gurney into the ambulance, very excited to see him on TV even if he did have his back to the cameras. "I'm so proud of you!"

  "Aw, just a normal day's work," he said, but he did give me a quick smile before turning back to his plate of stir fry. "How about some music? I guess we've seen the best part of tonight's news."

  Just as I started to answer I heard the reporter mention something about the homeless. "Wait – I want to hear this," I said as I slowly set down my plate as I listened to the field reporter on the screen.

  "The homeless man was known in the community only as 'John.' He was found dead from a suspected drug overdose. That is all they are releasing at this time."

  I stared at the screen. The reporter wiped her hair away form her face. "This emphasizes what Councilman Carpenter has been saying for months now: that drug use and the homeless are issues that must be addressed." The switched to a clip of a man campaigning at a podium with a few important looking people standing beside him.

  Stunned by the news, I could only sit motionless and try to think. "I can’t believe John is dead," I finally said. "How is that possible? I just saw him this morning!"

  "Is that the homeless man that you give coffee to? Are you sure it's the same John?" asked Daniel.

  I nodded slowly, still trying to make sense of what the reporter had said. "What other Homeless John is known in the community. He's the only one that I know. He and I talked as usual today, around mid-morning. He told me Councilman Carpenter was making a big deal about the homeless littering the streets. Those were the councilman’s words. I heard him call them 'rats' one day at Roasted Love."

  I shook my head, and stared up at Daniel. "I can’t believe that poor John is dead."

  Daniel leaned back and sighed, though his eyes held sympathy. "Laila, it can be hard to understand just how tough it really is to break an addiction. This guy was probably using on a regular basis just to get through his day. Being homeless is a tough way to go through life."

  My jaw tightened. "He didn’t do drugs," I said.

  Daniel shrugged. "I’m just saying that it can be hard to tell whether someone is an addict or not. Depending on where you catch them in their high, they can appear as lucid as you or me."

  I just sat there in silence. Daniel lowered the volume on the TV and then, almost as an afterthought, switched it off. The only other sounds in the room were Thor and Benji munching dog food in the corner of the kitchen.

  Finally I looked over at Daniel. "I just feel sure that John was not an addict. He told me only this morning that he never used at all – not after he saw what happened to his brother."

  "What happened to his brother?"

  "Went to prison for possession of cocaine," I said quietly. "And selling to an undercover cop."

  Daniel just nodded silently, and turned back to his plate again.

  Slowly I reached for my own plate, but only pushed the food around with my fork. "Between his brother being in prison for drugs and everything he's seen on the streets, John never touched drugs of any kind. I'm just sure he never did. And I know you see all kinds of stuff while you're at work, but I can tell you one thing: This time, you're wrong about John."

  Daniel gave me a tolerant smile, though the look in his eyes told me he thought I was a little naïve. "Look, I know you felt sorry for the old guy. But it doesn't matter, anyway. It'll all come out when the toxicology reports come in."

  "We have plenty of customers who saw John almost every day in the coffeehouse." I wasn't giving up. "They'll tell you the same thing about him – that he was not on drugs. He told great stories every day. He made perfect sense. He wasn't high, or out of it."

  "Okay, Laila, but let me ask you a question: Why would this guy John overdose on heroin if he wasn’t an addict?"

  "That’s just it," I insisted. "I don't think he overdosed on anything – at least, not by choice. Someone did this to him." I looked up at Daniel and said it again. "Someone did this to him."

  "So – are you calling this a murder?"

  Slowly, I nodded my head. "Yeah. I guess I am. Look – all I know is that John didn’t inject himself with heroin. His death was staged to make him look like he was an addict. Someone wanted to get rid of him for a reason."

  "But who would go to that much trouble over a harmless old guy like him?" asked Daniel. "Do you think he was dealing, and some other dealer wanted him out of the way?"

  "No. I don't think he was dealing. He wasn't the type, like I said."

  Daniel picked up another forkful of chicken and green pepper. "Yeah, you're probably right. If nothing else, he would have had some money if he'd been selling the stuff."

  My thoughts turned to one particular man who was determined to get rid of the homeless in West River – but then I stopped myself. Surely someone in local power wouldn’t stoop to murdering one homeless person at a time to reach his goal.

  Would he?

  I found I didn't quite have the nerve to put that thought into words. At least, not yet.

  Instead, I had tears burning my eyes. I was going to miss John. I wished I'd known his last name. I knew very little about him except that he had one brother, Steven, who was in prison for attempting to sell cocaine. I wondered how Steven would take the news of his brother's death. From what John had told me, there had been a close connection between them – at least at one time.

  We finished our dinner, with Daniel wolfing his down and me just nibbling at my food. Finally I got up and cleared the dishes from the table, and started rinsing them off.

  Daniel placed his hand on my arm. "Hey, don't worry about that right now. Let’s take the dogs for a walk. We all need some fresh air. Come on."

  He was right. A walk in the cool evening air sounded good. But it was hard to forget the death of a man when I felt certain he'd been murdered.

  Once we were out on the sidewalk with the dogs, I turned to Daniel again. "Okay. You know that I think somebody murdered John. And if I'm going to prove that, then the first step would be to prove that he was not an addict."

  Daniel shook his head, watching Benji run around at the end of his leash. "I'm not sure how you can do that. That's a very serious charge you're making."

  I pulled hard on Thor's leash, trying to keep him away from the cars parked on the street. "Yeah. It is. And I doubt that anyone will take it seriously. The homeless don’t matter to most people. But I have to try – for John."

  He placed his free arm around my shoulders. "All right, Laila. I guess I know your next request."

  I couldn't help grinning a little. "We both know you've got inside friends, Daniel. I want to see a copy of that autopsy report. There has to be one for John, even though he was homeless – right?"

  Daniel sighed, and reached over to help me with my Doberman's leash. "Yes, that's right. Any questionable or unattended death requires an autopsy."

  He turned and glanced at me, even as we struggled with Thor. "Okay, Laila. I’m doing this for you. I h
ope you remember that." His teasing smile told me we were all right again.

  We ended the night after our walk and Thor and I headed back home.

  Chapter Three

  When I parked my car in the little lot beside Roasted Love the next morning, I glanced at the front sidewalk. No cocoon-like figure sat there today. My heart dropped as the reality that I would never see John again began to sink in. He wasn’t a member of my family, of course, but he'd become part of our life here at Roasted Love in West River.

  And now he was gone.

  But I had work to do. Several customers were already at the tables, sipping their morning lattes and espressos. Lily, the other waitress, was taking bagels and Danish from the glass case. She greeted me as she headed for the tables with the plates. I clocked in, washed my hands, and right away took a tray of scones from my boss, Jacob Weaver.

  I figured it would be good to keep busy when I had something as serious as the death of a friend on my mind. A death that might be murder.

  I headed out towards the counter display with the scones. "Say, Laila, that’s too bad about what happened to John," said a voice from the other side of the counter.

  I turned to see a regular customer sitting there, and tried to smile a little. His name was Walter Schubert. He was an older man, retired and a widower, and always gave John at least a dollar when he saw him. "I didn’t have any idea he was on drugs," Walter said. "Did you?"

  "No. Because he wasn’t." I started placing the scones inside the display case. "John told me yesterday that he was completely against that kind of stuff. He'd seen what drugs did to his brother. I know he wasn’t using."

  "Laila, this might surprise you – " I braced myself for more talk about how there was no way to recognize an addict just by looking at them – "but I agree with you."

  I closed up the display case and turned to look at Walter. "You do?"

  "Yes. I do. I might be retired now, but I spent a lot of years as a psychiatrist. I think I would know when someone presents as an addict and when they don’t.

  I couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, Walter."

  "I’ll miss him," he went on. "He was a regular here, too. I tried to help him get back on his feet some time ago, but he insisted that he didn't want any help." Walter stirred the coffee in front of him.

  "Well, I'm just sorry he's gone. I'll miss him, too," I said.

  With that, Walter nodded to me and then took his coffee to a table by the window, where he joined a lady about his age.

  I was brewing up several pots of coffee at once, getting ready for the rest of the morning rush, when the bell attached to the front door of Roasted Love jingled loudly.

  I looked up to see Daniel walking in. I felt better just looking at him. He took his usual spot toward the back of the room – and then I noticed that he had a folder tucked under his arm.

  But I had to wait until I had a free minute to talk to him. In the meantime, Lily fixed a cappuccino with a mound of foam on top. I saw her place a cherry on the peak, and knew it was for Daniel. He was the only customer I knew who ordered a cherry on top of his cappuccino.

  "Is that the autopsy report?" I said quickly, as soon as I got to Daniel's table.

  "No. It's not ready yet," he said, keeping his voice down. "These are just some notes I got from the cop doing the investigation. He let me jot down a few things for you, but made me promise not to say a word. You can’t tell anyone what I’ve got. Not even Jacob."

  I nodded. Jacob Weaver was both my boss and a friend, but I also knew how to keep things from him when I had to. Daniel took a sip of his cappuccino, wiped a touch of foam from his upper lip, and then opened the folder. He always saved the cherry for last.

  I saw a sheet of paper with his own scribbled notes on it. "As you can see, they don’t have a lot at this point," he said. "But it appears this man died of an overdose. Leo was on patrol that night and told me the needle was still in the guy's arm. I told him what you said about John not using drugs."

  "Did he take it seriously?"

  "Yeah, he did." Daniel sounded a little surprised. "He believes in getting every side to an investigation. Leo told me that from the looks of John’s arms, there was only the one needle mark."

  "Oh – well, that's a good sign, right? If John had been an addict, his arms would have had track marks all over them. Wouldn't they?"

  "Not necessarily, Laila. He could have been using something that didn't require needles. But we probably won't know for a while. It usually takes a long time to get a toxicology report – even longer than an autopsy report."

  "Okay. And thanks." I meant it.

  "Sure thing." He flashed that beautiful dark-eyed smile at me, and I just sort of floated across the shop as I went back to work.

  But I quickly turned my thoughts back to the murder I was convinced had taken place. I wanted to find out all I could about poor John, and regretted, again, knowing next to nothing about the homeless man who used to come into my shop every morning.

  A few minutes later, I saw Daniel pop the cherry into his mouth and stand up to leave. I got back to work as more customers came in, pausing only to smile at Daniel when he waved at me on his way out the door.

  I caught snippets of conversations going on in the shop. It wasn't long before I realized that most of the people were talking about John.

  "I don’t understand why Jacob let him sleep outside the coffee house door in the first place," said a man sitting at a window table with a friend. "It's just as well having one less homeless bum around our town. That’s my opinion."

  I recognized the man speaking as Ronald Larch. I remembered seeing him next to the Calvin Carpenter on the TV news when the councilman had made his derogatory remarks about the homeless.

  Sure, Larch dressed upscale, but that didn’t do anything for his short, stocky build. He stood about five foot six and I guessed his age to be around thirty. For a few seconds, I just stood and watched the expressions on his face.

  He glanced in my direction when he felt my eyes on him. It seemed as though lightening flashed across the blackness of his eyes before he quickly looked away.

  "That’s a harsh way to put it, Ronald," said the tall angular man at the next table. That was Gary Inman. Like most of the people here, he had shown a little compassion towards John. I'd seen Gary hand John a few dollars and wish him a good day. "Not all homeless are there because they choose to live that way."

  Larch scoffed. "They choose, Gary. Just like John did. He hung out at this place to get hot coffee he didn’t have to pay for. You gave him money to get him by for the rest of the day. You and the other bleeding hearts are only perpetuating the problem of the homeless."

  Gary turned back to his friends at his own table, but not before letting Larch know where he stood on the issue. "John never caused any trouble for anyone. I didn't mind helping him a little when I could. I'm sure he never thought he'd wind up homeless, but the truth is that it could happen to anyone."

  Larch just scowled. He seemed about to say something, but then turned away and picked up his coffee mug again. But it was no surprise to me that he couldn't understand someone like John. The cut of his clothes told me he didn’t have a clue about what it was like to be poor.

  Gary and his two friends stood up and walked to the register. I smiled at Gary. "Thanks for standing up for John, and people like him," I said.

  "I think we'll all miss him in here, Laila," he said, "and I know you will, too. You and everybody working here treated him like a human being." He smiled and paid his tab.

  Then I heard Ronald Larch’s voice again. "Hey, Jacob, you won't let any other hobos sleep on your doorstep again, will you? It's really not good for business. Anyone's business." He was losing his audience but apparently still had more to say on the subject. I wondered what he did for a living.

  Just then, Walter Schubert and his lady friend walked past Larch's table on his way to the register. "Say, Ronald," Walter said, "didn’t you know John personal
ly? I could have sworn you did."

  Walter apparently didn’t ask the question to get an answer. He winked at me after saying that, and then paid his check.

  Larch scowled deeply, but once again had no response. He turned his face toward the window and pretended to study the activity on the street. The back of his neck was as red as fire. The man who had enjoyed an espresso with him stood up to leave, and the look he threw at Larch bordered on disgust.

  I started to ask Walter what he'd meant by that remark to Larch, but he placed his finger on his lips and shook his head no. "See you again soon, Laila," he said, and he and the woman with him turned to go. Walter stepped back and opened the door for her, and then they were gone.

  Chapter Four

  After my shift, I clocked out and drove home. Thor bounded to the door as soon as I inserted my house key, and I thought once again about how lucky I was to get a homecoming like that.

  The Doberman was more than ready to play ball. I changed into jeans and a t-shirt and we went to the back yard, where first he raced back and forth on his own for a while and then tried to take the worn-out yellow tennis ball out of my hand. I threw the ball, and he would race to get it and happily bring it back to me so I could throw it again.

  The idea crossed my mind that Thor was so happy to see me because he wanted to play, and not so much because he was glad to see me personally – but I still hoped that at least a little of that enthusiasm was really for me.

  Once back inside, Thor waited expectantly while I filled his food dish. I rinsed out and refilled his water bowl, and with the dog taken care of, I opened my refrigerator door to see about something for me to eat.

  Nothing jumped out at me fully prepared. I ended up pulling out some slightly wilted lettuce along with a tomato and half a cucumber to make a salad. I discovered leftover tomato soup and decided that soup, salad and a few crackers would do it.