Caffeine & Killers (A Roasted Love Cozy Mystery Book 3) (5 page)

"Do you know where I can get heroin and
sleeping pills?" I asked.

The man turned around again, and frowned at me.
"Yeah, Miss Uptown? You don’t look like somebody who shoots
anything." His voice was hoarse and low. Then he coughed several
times, and at least had the good manners to turn his head when he
did. Then he wiped his bushy mustache on the back of a dirty hand.

"You look more like the pill type. You don’t
look like no H hype to me."

I wanted to object to being called the "pill
type," but I let it pass. This was no time to argue.

"Um – you're right. I don't shoot anything.
I’m down here to buy for a friend."

He grinned, showing broken yellow teeth. "Sure,
sure! People want stuff for their friends all the time." But
then he frowned again and peered at me with small, suspicious eyes.
"Hey, what makes you think I know where to get that kind of
stuff?"

There was no visible movement on the dingy street
except for someone leaving a pawn shop. The nearest people were at
least half a block away. It was just me and this man that I
desperately wanted information from.

Okay, I had to gain his trust and I had to think
fast. I took a deep breath.

"John sent me," I said.
Sorry, John
.

This time, the man looked me squarely in the eye.
"John Collins?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah." This guy had just
given me John's last name!

But he wasn't any happier. "You tell John to
quit using me. I know how to take care of people like him. I’m not
the only one down here who knows about him. He oughta be looking over
his shoulder every minute of his life."

He was pretty mad and starting to scare me. I
stepped back. Thor remained planted where he was, but he was on full
alert and I heard him growl.

The man backed away, still facing us. I tugged at
the leash and commanded the Doberman to follow me. We walked away,
but not casually. I could feel the man's beady little stare drilling
holes into my back and I kept right on going.

I'd never been so happy to be locked inside my
car. Thor sat up in the back seat and kept a close watch on the
dealer. I glanced in my side mirror and saw the man walking a little
unsteadily in the opposite direction.

I started the car and drove away, dodging the
potholes as much as I could. On the next corner, just before I passed
the grocery store, was a man with something black hanging out of his
mouth. There were black stains all around his lips, too. I figured it
for another kind of drug until I saw from the wrapper in his hand
that it was black licorice candy.

I took a deep breath, happy to be leaving this
place. But I knew this wouldn’t be my last visit to the underworld
of the homeless and the drug dealers. West River, New York held two
worlds, one of which I'd never had a clue about.

But I did now.

Chapter Six

Once back into the familiar part of West River, I
glanced at my watch. I decided to take Thor home and grab a quick
lunch. After that, I wanted to have a talk with Police Chief Donald
Hayes.

The chief and I had a good relationship. Not that
West River was a crime-ridden city, but there had been a couple of
times before that I'd sat across from him due to something sinister
happening in town.

It seemed to me that the death of my friend John
was no different.

Arriving at the precinct house, I greeted Susan in
the outer office. "Is the chief in today?" I asked her.

"He’s here, yes, but someone is with him
right now. Can you wait?"

"Sure. No problem." I sat down in one of
the chairs against the wall, and looked at how worn the rest of them
were. Well, countless people had sat in them before me. My mind
wandered a little while I waited, and I wondered what kinds of
reasons all those other people had had for sitting here.

I could hear soft voices from down the hall.
Sometimes a door opened and closed. Finally, after about fifteen
minutes, the chief’s door opened and he walked into the reception
area with a man in dark slacks, a blue shirt and a windbreaker.

"You have some good ideas on how to clean up
the drug problem down in that part of town," said the man in the
windbreaker. He was a tall and slim with dark brown hair. He looked
pretty fit and I would have guessed he was about forty years old. He
glanced at me as he walked past. "I'll stay on top of it."

"Good," said the Chief Hayes. "We
don’t want any more deaths from overdoses."

I turned around to look as the man headed towards
the front door – and that's when I saw that the back of his
windbreaker said DEA. I'd seen enough TV shows to know that that
stood for Drug Enforcement Agency. The ones who took down the
big-time drug dealers. And there was one right here in little ol'
West River.

Mr. Windbreaker left the building, and then the
chief noticed me. "Hello, Laila. What brings you down this way?"

"If you've got a few minutes, I’d like to
talk with you." He nodded and gestured for me to come into his
office. "I won’t take up too much of your time. I want to ask
you about the homeless man who was found dead recently."

The chief sat down behind his desk, and I took the
visitor's chair on the other side of it. "Yes, it's too bad
people end up that way," he said. "But once somebody starts
down that road, it's very hard to find an off ramp." He folded
his hands on top of the desk and looked up at me. "Now. What did
you want to ask about the homeless man?"

I took a deep breath and tried to collect my
thoughts. "I'm not sure if you know this, but Jacob allowed him
to sleep outside the coffee house. Outside of Roasted Love.

The chief frowned. "Sleep outside the coffee
house?"

"I mean – John would get there late at
night and curl up in a dry spot at the front of the building. He'd
leave early in the morning whenever the cop on patrol told him to
move along. Never caused any trouble."

"Did you know this man at all?"

I nodded. "I got to know him a little. He'd
come inside the shop first thing in the morning and buy a cup of
coffee whenever he had a little money, but pretty soon I just started
giving him a cup and maybe a Danish. I didn't want to take his
money."

The chief gave me a sympathetic smile.

"He'd drink his coffee and then talk for a
little while – you know, telling some great stories about his life.
All the customers knew him. Then he'd leave and go to wherever it was
he spent his days."

"Do you know where he went, Laila?"

"No. I did always wonder, though. But I don't
think he was going too far from our neighborhood in the Piazza. He
was most always around again by nightfall."

"You said all the other customers knew him.
What did they think of him?"

"Well, most of them liked him. He always sat
at a little corner table across from the register. A few avoided him,
but most just listened to his stories and some would give him a
little money.

"He never caused us a problem. He never
stayed long. He would just drink his hot coffee and tell a story or
two." I looked up at the chief. "He was educated. Smart.
Did you know that?"

Chief Hayes shook his head. "No. I'd never
heard of this man until he was found dead."

"I think his last name might have been
Collins, but I can't say for sure. Though I've been wondering –
have you found any more information on him? Anything more about his
family? I know he's got a brother, but he's – "

"I'm sorry, but I can't say anything more
about the case. We're still investigating. All I can say is that we
know he died of an overdose. It's easy for an addict to shoot up a
little too much, or to get something that's stronger than what
they're used to."

I shook my head vehemently. "But that's just
it. John was not a drug addict. I'm sure of it. On – on the day he
died, he'd talked to me about all the bad stuff he'd seen on the
streets and how his brother went to prison on a drug charge. He never
touched any drugs of any kind."

The chief looked at me like I was a little girl
who just didn't understand. "Unless you're an expert, it can be
very hard to tell whether somebody is on something or not. You only
saw John for very short periods a few times a week. That wouldn't
give you enough time to be sure."

"But he said – "

"Laila, the needle was still in his arm. The
autopsy and toxicology reports are still pending, but I'm afraid
there just isn't much doubt about what happened."

I closed my eyes.

"We’re stepping up our resources to combat
the homeless and drug problems. So far, it's been concentrated in an
older part of West River. We don't want it to show up here."

"Yeah. Not in Uptown." I remembered what
the grungy dealer had said to me, but I wasn't about to mention that
to the chief of police.

"Now, we can usually track down the source
that provided the drugs, even though it could be almost anyone. It
might be someone who works in the medical field and is addicted
themselves, or somebody who goes outside West River to get dope to
sell."

He leaned forward and smiled patiently. I knew he
thought he was teaching me something. I didn’t let on that I knew
where anyone could find drugs to buy in West River, and it had
nothing to do with the medical field.

I stood up to leave. "But let me ask you a
question," said the chief. "Did you ever see anyone talking
to John?"

"Well, some of the customers would talk to
him a little. They usually just said 'hi' and maybe gave him a dollar
or two. But that's about all."

"You sure?"

I thought about it again. "There were a few
who looked down on him, or tried to ignore him. But either way, I
never saw anyone talk to him for very long."

Then I realized something. I didn’t know where
he died. I knew it wasn’t in front of Roasted Love. "Where was
he found?" I whispered.

"He was found in an alley on the rough side
of the old downtown area. From what you told me about where he was
spending his nights, I'm supposing he went back down there during the
daytime."

"Okay. Thank you. I hope you find whoever –
I hope you find out what happened."

"We will."

When I left the station, I had a lot to think
about. The thing that stood out to me was why John would spend the
night on the Piazza, in front of Roasted Love, and then walk all the
way back downtown to spend his days.

Unless he hadn't been doing that at all, no matter
what the Chief thought.

Chapter Seven

As I drove myself home, I tried to make sense of
what I knew about John's death. Everyone, even the chief of police,
seemed convinced that he was just another addict who'd died from an
overdose of heroin.
They were all, like, why are you surprised,
Laila? That's what happens to most of them. We're not surprised one
bit
.

I had to admit that I didn't know much about how
to recognize a heroin addict. But even so, I couldn't let go of the
idea that John was not a drug addict and had not died of an overdose
– at least, not an accidental overdose. Every time I saw John, he'd
walked steady and his eyes were clear and his speech always made
sense.

It had to be something else. It just had to be.

As I curled up on the sofa in my house drinking
some very good hot chocolate with a hint of vanilla extract, Ronald
Larch came to mind.

Larch sat in Roasted Love several times a week,
usually hunched down over papers while drinking coffee. I'd heard
that he was Calvin Carpenter’s campaign manager and liked to sit in
coffee shops to do his work.

Well, with their attitude toward the homeless,
those two were made for each other. Since John had been found dead,
the campaign manager became more vocal with his opinions to anyone
who would listen.

"But I'll bet he won't run down the homeless
in our shop again, Thor," I said, talking to the dog at my feet.
"Not after Walter called him out." I stirred the hot
chocolate and thought about what I should do next. But for a moment,
all I could see was John's kind face, with his mop of hair and large
brown eye. I could only hope that he hadn't been frightened or in
pain when he had died.

I closed my eyes.

Then I forced myself to keep thinking, and focused
on my little adventure in the Skid Row part of West River. I shivered
when I remembered the anger on the face of the man I had talked to –
and he hadn't been angry at me, but at John.

That puzzled me. Maybe everybody else was right,
and there were two sides to the homeless man known as John. Maybe I
really had only seen his good side.

I picked up my phone and pulled up Daniel’s
number. It rang a couple of times and then he answered.

" –
lo
?"

I laughed. "You in the middle of eating
something?"

"Oh, hi, Laila. Sorry! I had just taken a
bite of coleslaw when you called."

"Want me to call back?"

"Oh, no, no. I'm done with dinner."

"Well, then, how about coming over here for
dessert? I've got a few raspberry scones sitting on my counter."
Jacob generously allowed us to take leftovers home from Roasted Love,
and I knew that he took day-old goodies to the pantry at a local
church a few times a week.

"That sounds like a good finish to coleslaw
and chili," said Daniel. "See you in a minute."

Thor got up and trotted to the door even before
the bell rang, and he was very happy when I opened the door to find
Daniel and Benji there. In a moment the dogs were playing together in
the yard while Daniel and I got settled in my living room with hot
chocolate and raspberry scones.

I jumped right into talking about John’s murder
investigation. Daniel listened patiently, and then set his cup down
when I told him about Ronald Larch’s comments in the coffee house –
about how he'd said that John being dead was "one less homeless
bum around our town."