Caffeine & Killers (A Roasted Love Cozy Mystery Book 3) (4 page)

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.

Then I remembered the chocolate scones I'd brought
home from Roasted Love the other day. Oh, yeah. Dinner was complete.

While I ate my soup and salad, I found my thoughts
wandering back to John.

I remembered hearing Walter say that some time
ago, he had tried to help John but that John had disappeared for a
while soon after that. And that had been before John started sleeping
at night outside of Roasted Love.

I was curious about where he would have gone.
Since he had a brother, he may have stayed someplace with him –
assuming this was before Steven had been sent to prison. It seemed
highly unlikely that John had a family home to go back to. Or, even
if there was one, he may not have been welcome there.

Then I gradually became aware that my cell phone
was ringing. I pulled it out of my jeans pocket and answered it.

"Laila," said Daniel, "I was told
by Leo Swenson that the autopsy report on John should be back soon.
Have you found out what his last name was?"

I swallowed a quick spoonful of tomato soup. "Not
yet, but I haven’t had much time to look into it. But yeah, I’m
pretty curious about his name and about his life in general. He
didn’t strike me as someone who'd lived on the streets for a long
time – I don't think it was more than a few years at the most. And
I know he said he'd gone to college for a while."

"It’s too bad people end up like he did,"
said Daniel. There was something in his tone that said he could have
easily dismissed the situation if I hadn’t asked for the autopsy
report. But in his line of work, I guess, you have to sort of harden
yourself to the things you see every day.

"Do you get a lot of calls to treat people on
drugs?" I asked him.

He sighed. "More than I can count," he
said. "Resuscitating drug users is pretty common. We see it in
bars, streets, motel rooms, and even homes. Emergency rooms get their
fair share, too."

"Are you ever called to resuscitate people
who live on the streets?"

Daniel hesitated. "We are, Laila, but in most
of those cases the person is already dead before we even get the
call. There isn't usually anyone around who can dial 9-1-1 before
it's too late."

I had another question for him. "Do you ever
know their names? I mean, the names of the ones who are homeless."

He paused. "My job is to keep them alive,
Laila, if I can. Once in a while I know their names, but you know
that I can't tell you – or anyone – who these people are.
Besides, most of those calls are from a seedy part of West River. And
knowing you, you'd go right down there to see if any of them knew
John."

"Oh, I have other ways of finding out John’s
last name. That’s all I want to do." I paused. "I wonder
where he'll be buried."

There was no way I'd tell Daniel that he was
right. If it meant going to the bad part of town to find out more
about John's death, I would do that. Though I had to admit that I had
no idea where the seedy area Daniel talked about was located.

I was aware of some older areas on the far side of
West River, New York, but they were neighborhoods where the working
poor lived. Children and families could be seen socializing with one
another. People sat on the front porches of homes that they cared for
as best they could. Daniel and I drove through that area whenever we
went into New York City. We both enjoyed the theatre and had seen
several Broadway shows in the past.

I don't think that was the "seedy area"
that he was talking about right now.

"To answer your question," Daniel went
on, "the police will try to locate any family so they can make
arrangements for his funeral. Otherwise, he'll be buried in a
pauper’s grave at the main cemetery in town."

I was quiet for a moment. From what Daniel was
saying, I realized that he experienced more of West River and its
inhabitants than I had imagined. My nice quiet life revolved around
working as a barista at Roasted Love, playing with my dog Thor,
spending time with Daniel, and enjoying normal stuff in a normal
life.

It occurred to me that I lived in a cocoon, in
much the same way that John had been in a cocoon when he was curled
up on the ground in front of the coffee house – but they were
cocoons that had separated us almost completely.

I reminded myself that we had at least connected
over coffee every morning, and I was grateful that Roasted Love had
been the one common element in both our lives that had let us do
that.

I bent my head down, very sorry that it was too
late now to ever get to know the real John.

"Are you still there?" asked Daniel.

I raised my head. "Sure. I’m still here.
I'm just thinking about what you told me. I guess I never really
thought about the kind of stuff you see while you're on the job."

He paused. "No reason to tell you the worst
of it. I love my work, but it’s not always a story with a happy
ending like the little girl who dialed 911 and saved her mother."

We talked a few minutes more, and then ended the
call – but my mind went on racing. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to
get involved with whoever had forced an overdose on poor John. That
should be left to the cops, and from what Daniel had told me, his
friend Officer Leo Swenson was on top of things.

No, my goal was to find out exactly who John
really was. I decided that I'd start with finding out his last name.
The investigation wouldn't be complete until that was known –
unless, of course, the cops already knew his last name and just
weren't giving it out to the news media.

Yawning, I put Thor out for the last time that
night. "Hurry it up, Thor. I’m turning in early tonight."
He took his time and explored the backyard as if he'd never been
there before. He finally decided to come back in and headed to the
throw rug on my living room floor, right next to my favorite chair.

"Okay, Thor. We’ll keep the usual ritual."
I flipped the TV on, and sighed.

I was just in time to catch the local news and
watch Councilman Carpenter hammering away on his usual issues. He was
up for re-election and going full force in his campaign. Once again,
he was ranting about the homeless.

While Carpenter insisted that law enforcement
wasn't doing enough, a photographer’s lens scanned an area of town
I'd never seen before. Several people shuffled into the range of the
camera. Across the street were two more who were exchanging money for
drugs. At least, that’s what the reporter said.

My heart caught when I saw a woman with two small
children walk into the frame. The camera didn’t focus on them, but
I watched the three disappear behind a crumbling old building in the
background.

I got up and went over to my laptop, and Googled
"homeless area West River New York." It gave me several
sites that looked promising and I clicked on one. Reading the
information, I realized that this old downtown area was just behind
the neighborhoods Daniel and I always drove through on our way to see
the Broadway shows.

According to Councilman Carpenter, that area was
"dangerous and a blight on our city of law-abiding citizens."
He seemed to know the powers and limitations of local cops when it
came to drug laws. I didn’t personally know much about all that and
I made a mental note to ask Daniel what he knew.

Tomorrow was my day off, and I began to put
together a plan. I got a map and looked up the GPS coordinates for
driving to the blighted area that Calvin Carpenter spoke of.

"Well, Thor," I said, as the Doberman
raised his beautiful sleek head and looked at me, "We've got a
mission. And you're the one I'm trusting with my life."

Chapter Five

The next morning, as I prepared for my trip to the
old downtown area, I wanted to get some information from Daniel. I
hit speed dial and there he was.

"Laila! You're up early on your day off,"
he said.

"Yup. I want to get as much as I can out of
my free day. You in a hurry?"

"I've got a few minutes before I have to
leave," he said. "I have to be at a meeting for most of
today. There's some kind of training we have to go through. Seems
like there's always something new we have to learn. Why? Is something
up?"

I paused. "Well – you know – the drug
users you try to save. Are they mainly heroin users?"

Now it was his turn to pause. "No. Not
always. Some overdose on pills they find in the trash, or get from a
dealer."

"In the trash?"

"Sure. People are careless about throwing
away their outdated meds. The stuff ends up in dumpsters, and that’s
where the homeless search for food. I just had a case last night
where somebody took almost a full bottle of sleeping pills."

"Where was that case? I mean, where in the
city?"

"In this case, a mother living in a tenement
house had ransacked a dumpster outside a fast-food restaurant. She
told us that that was where she found the pills." He sighed.
"Seems she was a nurse at one time and recognized
benzodiazepines."

"Benzo – what?"

"Laila! What is this all about?" asked
Daniel. When I didn’t answer, he went on. "The autopsy report
isn’t back on John yet, if that’s why you're asking all these
questions."

"I definitely want to know what the autopsy
shows as cause of death," I said. "Do drug users ever
combine sleeping pills and heroin?"

"Yeah, of course. They'll combine anything
they can get their hands on." He paused again. "I’m
sorry, Laila. I have to get to work now. Don’t get yourself
involved in things you don’t know anything about. Just leave all
that to the professionals. Okay?"

There were times when I wondered if Daniel was
psychic. Sometimes I thought he really could read my mind.

"The drug world is entirely different from
the world you and I live in," he went on. "It's
concentrated in a small area of West River. The local cops are on top
of the problem and they make sure it doesn’t go any farther than it
has already."

I made a feeble attempt to reassure him before we
ended the call. Then I reached for Thor’s leash, and at the sight
of it the dog bounded to the door and sat eagerly while I hooked it
onto his collar.

A few minutes later, we were both in the car.
Following my GPS instructions, I found myself traveling from the neat
and trim West River I knew so well into far less attractive areas.

I saw several buildings that were being torn down.
Or maybe they were just crumbling from neglect. The farther I got
into what was supposed to be the "homeless area," the more
I had to maneuver around potholes. Small businesses were secured with
iron bars on their front windows.

A sprinkling of people sat on the sidewalks and
front steps. A few stood on street corners. One grocery store had a
sign plastered across the front reading "Ground Beef Special."
The price was half of what I paid at my local store, and I wondered
where they were getting their meat.

Teenagers hung out on the broken sidewalk a yard
or so away from the door. Three of them held cigarettes between
stained fingers.

I drove another block and then parked my car.
"Stay with me, Thor," I reminded my Doberman, as I caught
up his leash and we got out.

I took a deep breath and picked one man standing
alone to approach. Thor walked close beside me and I kept his leash
short. The dog was distracted with all the new smells in the air and
all the new sights.

Stumbling once over the uneven concrete, I
wondered why the city didn’t just tear up the sidewalks and pour
gravel instead. I guessed that money for nice new sidewalks down here
wasn’t exactly in the city budget.

As I got a few yards past my car, the man I had
targeted eyed me. He shifted from staring at me to staring at my car.
He glanced at Thor’s strong body and white teeth, and a shadow of
fear might have crossed his face. That was good. Thor was meant to be
intimidating.

I glanced around me. Only two other vehicles were
parked on this part of the street, and one had a flat tire. Both were
at least ten years old and looked like they'd been driven to the moon
and back.

"Hi. Do you mind if I talk to you?" I
asked the man.

He looked closely at me with dull grey eyes. "You
want some party favors?" he asked.

I must have looked confused when he said that,
because he turned around and started to walk away. I had no idea what
he meant at first. When he glanced back at me, I noticed a slight
bulge beneath the thin coat he wore. Facial hair covered any
expression on his face, except for his eyes.

Then I realized that, of course, "party
favors" meant drugs.

"Wait," I said. I pulled Thor a little
closer. His sharp gaze was fixed on the disheveled man, and his nose
twitched. Even I could catch the smell of clothes and skin untouched
by soap and water. And there was some other weird scent there, too,
that I figured must have something to do with the drugs he was
carrying.