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

BOOK: Caffeine & Killers (A Roasted Love Cozy Mystery Book 3)
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"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 hope 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 personally? 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.

BOOK: Caffeine & Killers (A Roasted Love Cozy Mystery Book 3)
8.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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