Caffeine & Killers (A Roasted Love Cozy Mystery Book 3) (11 page)

I thanked her for the information and hung up.

When I got off work, I drove to the Carpenter
headquarters and headed for the side door. I hoped to get to
Carpenter's office door without the barracuda noticing me.

The side door was unlocked. A young man in the
hallway stood aside when I entered, stooping down to pick up a flyer
that had fallen from a thick folder. The barracuda's back was to me
and the phone was braced between her shoulder and her ear. I knocked
on Carpenter's office door and was told to come in.

The councilman was thumbing through pages of a
large spiraled calendar in front of him. He looked up and saw me, and
actually grinned. "Laila! Glad you could make it during office
hours."

Would he ever let me live that down? Probably not.
I decided I should just be glad that he hadn't pressed charges.

"Come on in," Carpenter said. "I
wanted to ask you to write down your ideas for me when it comes to
the homeless and drug-related problems. I don’t have a lot of time
right now, but I'll look at them later on. I have to be at a Lion’s
Club meeting in half an hour."

"I’ll do that," I told him. "But
right now, I have a question for you." He looked expectantly at
me. "Is Ronald Larch involved with someone named Linda Henson?"

His pleasant expression changed to a frown.
"Sorry, but that’s personal information. I don't get into the
private matters of my staff. I don’t interfere unless it affects my
campaign in some way."

A true politician. He'd evaded my direct question
quite easily. "I'm only asking if they're an item."

He leaned back and studied me. "Well, you're
nothing if not determined. I'm afraid you'll break in and start
rifling through files again if I don't tell you, so here you go: He
and Linda have been seen together off and on for several years."

I paused. "Isn’t Larch married?"

"He is, but in name only. And don’t ask for
details because this is all the information I’m giving you. He's
the best campaign manager I've ever had and I plan to keep him on
board." He paused, and turned away from me to open a desk
drawer. "Anything else?"

I knew I was being dismissed. The barracuda
interrupted us and her raised eyebrows told me she wondered how I'd
gotten past her. I stood up and smiled politely at the councilman.
"Thanks for the info," I said, and left quickly by the side
door.

# # #

Daniel and I had a dinner date planned for later
in the evening, grilling steaks on his back deck. That’s what I
loved about his brownstone: Every unit had its own balcony-like deck.
His building backed up to more brownstones that all looked the same.

"Wait until you get here to feed Thor,"
said Daniel, talking to me on my cell as I drove over.

"Can I bring anything?"

"Uh, got any steak sauce? I didn’t know I
was out until now."

"I'm not surprised you're out. You use enough
to smother all taste of meat. Me, I want pure steak. Not sauce
saturation."

He sighed, but I could hear the humor in it. "You
know what kind I like, right?"

"Of course. I'll stop and get it."

After a quick stop at the nearest grocery, Thor
and I were at Daniel’s door. I heard Benji Junior yipping with
excitement. "Come on in," said Daniel, pulling open the
door and then leaning down to give me a kiss. "The dog food
bowls are filled, so that should keep them happy."

I followed him to the kitchen, and caught the
aroma of steaks grilling out on the balcony. "That sure smells
good!"

"You bet. Hey, get the salads from the
fridge, would you, and meet me outside."

Thor and Benji were left inside to eat and then
play their own games. We settled in at the small wrought iron table
out on the patio and Daniel slapped a sizzling steak onto my plate.

"I have a question for you, Daniel," I
began, as we dug in.

He shrugged. "Ask away."

I paused for just a moment. "Do you know –
do you know a woman named Linda Henson?"

"Well, I think I know who she is. What about
her?" He concentrated on cutting up his nice thick rib eye. He
took a close look at it and then doused it with more steak sauce.

"Do you know her connection with Ronald
Larch?"

"Scuttlebutt is that they're in an affair,
and have been for a long time."

"Yeah, I was pretty sure about that part."
But suddenly I recalled Walter Schubert’s remark to Larch in the
coffee house a few days before. "Daniel – is Linda Henson
connected in any way to John, the homeless man?"

He glanced up at me. "Well – you might not
believe this, but I've heard she was once married to him."

That got my attention. "Uh – that gorgeous
blonde was married to Homeless John?"

"
Was
married. That's the word around
the station. I guess it was right after she got out of high school.
He was some years older than she was, but not many guys could resist
Linda Henson."

I hardly knew what to say.

"But it’s all just rumor."

I could only shake my head. "Now, let me get
this straight. Ronald Larch has a thing going with John’s ex-wife?"
I just sat there, blinking. "That’s a pretty good stretch,
going from the most popular girl in school to being the ex-wife of a
guy who died homeless on the street."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, it does seem pretty
weird. All I know is that when Larch became Carpenter’s campaign
manager, some things about Linda started surfacing around town. I
don’t know how many connected Homeless John to Linda, though. Their
divorce happened quite a few years back. I don't think they were
married for long."

"What kinds of things surfaced?"

"Oh, mainly that Larch is still married and
carrying on an affair with Linda. Rumors also say his wife doesn’t
seem to care. I believe there's money on her side."

"Did you know, at the time of John’s death,
that he and Linda had been married at one time?"

He shrugged. "To be honest, Laila, I didn’t
think about it. The other day some of the other EMTs were talking
about Councilman Carpenter's vendetta against the homeless. John’s
name came up in connection with that, and then somebody mentioned
about him and Linda being married a long time ago. That's all I know.
"He looked up at me. "What made you ask about her?"

"I saw her at John’s funeral. At the
graveside, but at a distance. Then she tried to get to her car before
anybody could get close to her.

"Then I saw her and Larch just this morning
at Roasted Love. She got in a hurry again when she saw me looking at
her and ran like a rabbit."

"So – she seems to know you?"

"Sure seems like, it, yeah. And – I have to
wonder if she's connected to John’s murder somehow."

Daniel looked thoughtful. "If Linda was at
his burial, she must still have some feelings for him. Otherwise, why
would she have gone out of her way to be there? It doesn't make much
sense for her to kill him and then go to his funeral. She'd just draw
attention to herself."

The devil’s advocate was at it again. Worst of
all, he had a valid point.

Chapter Fifteen

Even though I didn’t like keeping secrets from
Daniel, I knew I couldn't tell him that I was still going down to the
rough side of town. But when I arrived at Roasted Love early the next
morning, it looked like the rough side of town was now coming to me.

A scruffy-looking man sat against the wall outside
the coffee house, right in the spot where Homeless John used to
sleep. As I got closer, I saw that he had sticks of red licorice in
his hands. A package of black candy stuck out from his tattered shirt
pocket.

This could only be Licorice Billy, who apparently
had decided to make John’s former spot his own.

I took a good look at him before I got out of my
car. He was shorter than John and his hair was streaked with grey.
His ragged facial hair formed a scraggly beard that touched the base
of his neck.

By his random hand gestures and barely moving
lips, he seemed to be participating in an ongoing conversation with
himself. Every few seconds he used his middle finger to greet
passersby in a way that wasn't usually seen in the Piazza.

I decided to go into Roasted Love through the
kitchen. I wasn’t ready to face Licorice Billy at this point.

When I walked in, I went straight to my boss.
"Jacob, did you see that homeless man sitting outside the shop?"

"I saw him. I don’t know what to do at this
point," said Jacob. "John was one thing. He never caused
any trouble. This one definitely isn’t John. I'm thinking I've only
got one option and that's to have the cops move him away from my
business for good."

I could see that Jacob was torn. His sympathy for
the less fortunate battled with concern for Roasted Love – his
livelihood. I saw his dilemma, but at the same time I wanted to talk
to Licorice Billy first.

"Yeah, I can understand if we need to call
the cops. But do you mind if I take a bagel out to him first?"

Jacob hesitated, but then nodded. "Okay. But
just one."

I filled a take-out cup with black coffee, got a
bagel, and spread a little butter on it. Then I took them out to our
new resident.

He stayed sitting down and quickly took the coffee
and bagel from me. He never said a word but just started on the
coffee first, gulping down the hot beverage. "Do you mind if I
talk with you?" I asked him.

He glanced at the bagel and at the empty cup of
coffee before he responded.

"Suit yourself," he said, in the
roughest, most gravelly voice I'd ever heard. "What do you want
to talk about?"

"Do you know what happened to John?"

He took a big bite of the bagel. "He’s
dead, if that’s what you mean." No emotion of any kind showed
on his face.

"I heard you and John used to fight. What did
you fight about?"

Billy peered inside the empty coffee cup and then
crushed it with one hand. I saw that his fingernails were caked with
permanent dirt. He made a motion as if to throw it onto the sidewalk,
but I raised my hand to stop him. "I wouldn’t advise that,"
I said.

He pushed himself up from the concrete wall,
heaved himself to his feet, and then ambled to the trash container a
few feet away. I noticed that he was several inches shorter than my
own five foot six.

"Yeah, we used to fight," he said. "I
was here before John was. This was my spot to begin with. I picked
the best spot after I saw there were shops selling food here. It’s
better to get leftover food than to pick through a dumpster."

Billy glanced up and down the street, and then
looked at me again. "John and I argued a lot about it." He
snickered. "I guess he won. At least, for a little while."

I didn’t remember this man ever sitting outside
of Roasted Love, but it could have been before I'd started work here.
"You do know the cops have to make you move along if you're –
if you're just hanging out for too long."

I couldn’t bring myself to use the words
homeless
or
street people
. Even Licorice Billy was a
human being and deserved some consideration. "Were you around
when John died?"

"No. I don’t even know when it happened. I
mean, I don’t know what time of the day or night he died. I have to
hurry every night to get a bed at the shelter. They don’t let us in
until seven. If I want a bed, I have to be there early." I
resisted the urge to tell him to wipe his dripping black mouth. "I
stay until morning when they kick us all out again."

"I see. Um, tell me – why would you rather
sleep on the concrete instead of a bed?"

"The shelter's got better beds than the
sidewalks. But it's noisy all night long. Hard to sleep there, too.
Sometimes I stay there. Sometimes I don't."

He shuffled his feet. "If I don't stay at the
shelter, I get moved all night by the police. A person can’t sleep
when the cops come around every hour or so. I think they get a big
kick out of harassing us."

I kept my arms folded across my chest. "I
have to tell you, Billy – I don't think you'll be able to stay here
every night unless you clear out before daylight. Having someone
sleep outside of the coffee house doesn’t go over well with the
customers."

He glared at me, and I saw his lip curl. "No
one seemed to mind when John was here," he said. He finished his
breakfast bagel and wiped the crumbs from his mouth with the back of
his stained stubby hand. Then he reached in his pocket for a stick of
the black licorice and jammed it between his chipped and yellowed
teeth.

"Billy, the cops always made John move along,
too. Now – let me ask you something. Did John say anything to you
before he died?"

Several customers walked towards the door of
Roasted Love, and they all stared at me and the shabby little man I
was talking to. I saw them frown at us and then whisper to each
other.

Licorice Billy threw them an obscene gesture, and
then got back to me and my question. "Naw. All he ever talked
about was his brother, Steven. He hammered away about how much he
wanted to help him. I think his brother was into drugs."

He tried to grin, but black liquid dribbled from
his mouth. I had to look away.

In a moment, Billy's gaze returned to the early
morning bustle on the street. I wondered what he thought about
ordinary people who had real purpose in their lives. I knew I was
looking at night and day when I compared Billy to the people heading
to work.

I tried to ask him more questions, but he chose to
clam up. I was persistent, but he started getting agitated and
talking louder and louder to the voices that only he could hear.

At that point, I thanked him for his help and
quickly returned to Roasted Love.

# # #

I headed for Jacob, who was in the kitchen pulling
bagels and cream cheese from the refrigerator.