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The truth was that I did have a few others in mind that I hadn’t looked into yet, but it wasn’t time for Daniel to know about that.
"I will say, though, that Councilman Calvin Carpenter still nags at me. He and Ronald Larch seem like the most likely suspects. They could have teamed up to have John murdered and hired someone to kill him. It's not that hard to do."
"I wouldn't know," he said giving me a funny look. "Just remember – the drug world is not the world you know. Speculating is fine, but I don't want you to do anything more than that. Just leave the investigation to the cops."
He gave me a kiss as he left to go home. But, I knew I couldn’t just drop what I had started in John’s case. My next plan was to scout out the councilman’s headquarters after closing.
# # #
The next night, I waited until nine o’clock and headed to the building that housed Carpenter's campaign headquarters. I arrived just as the last light was going off – I could see that it came from his office – so I circled around again to avoid him when he came out.
I gave him time to get in his car and leave, and then I drove back to the side door. I parked in a shadowed area between the streetlights and got out the bent bobby pin I'd prepared earlier.
I wasn’t sure how easy the side door lock would be to pick, but I'd noticed, when I left Carpenter's office after my visit there, that the side door only had an ordinary lock. There was no deadbolt on it.
I had no luck with the hairpin, so I tried the old credit card trick. Within a few moments I was rewarded with the door opening quite easily for me. I walked inside and shut the door behind me.
Adrenalin surged through me. I'd made it! I had no idea what to look for, but I felt sure that if "it" was there I would know it.
I headed for Carpenter’s office. The door opened right up. His desktop was stacked with various folders and I shuffled through them, but nothing there concerned homeless people.
Next was his desk drawer, which I rifled through. The first thing I noticed was the dark golden liquid in a small half-filled liquor bottle. There were a few family photos and a Twix bar among scattered pens and miscellaneous keys. Wrappers that had once held dark chocolate were wadded up and stuffed in the back of the deep drawer.
I sifted through a few scribbled notes. They seemed to be just reminders of significant dates coming up, all of which dealt with Carpenter's campaign.
On the credenza behind his desk I found more folders. I picked one up and saw that it was financial accounting for possible future plans to run for the Senate. He was ambitious, if nothing else.
Just as I was ready to close the folder, a few receipts fell onto my lap. The tabs revealed that they came from a night club in New York City. One was dated the same day John had died and was signed by Carpenter. It sure provided an alibi for the councilman and I decided I was ready to give up on Carpenter as a suspect. My findings were too thin to hold any water.
Then I froze. From the corner of my eye I saw a shadowed figure in the darkened hallway outside the councilman’s office.
I had no weapon with me or anything for defense, unless I counted the heavy paperweight on Carpenter’s desk.
"What are you doing here?" The voice was loud and demanding, but the face in the shadow was even more frightening – it was that of Councilman Calvin Carpenter.
He flipped on the fluorescent office lights. In the sudden harsh glare, his face appeared grotesque from the rage that twisted it. "This is breaking and entering. I can bring charges against you right this minute! What are you doing here?" he repeated.
If I thought I'd seen anger on the day I'd visited him, it was nothing compared to the fury he displayed at this moment.
I stood up and faced him. I had to put on a brave face and bluff my way through this. There was no other option for me.
Before I had a chance to find an impossibly plausible answer, Carpenter snarled at me again. "If you're trying to find evidence of my stance on the homeless, and on drug dealers, there's nothing here that I haven't said publicly."
When I remained silent, his angry eyes narrowed even further. "Who are you working for? What are you trying to do? Ruin me?"
"No. I have no intentions of ruining you," I said at last. "Everyone has a right to their opinions. It’s just that the homeless are people, too – people who have had a run of bad luck."
"Your take on the homeless does not explain why you are rifling through my office!"
"I’m looking into the murder of John, the homeless man," I said. There was no other answer that came to mind.
Carpenter sighed heavily. "The police reported that he died of a heroin overdose, either accidental or as suicide." He glared at me with cold, cold anger. "So, you think I killed him? That it was murder?"
Again, I froze. I'd never seen anyone so furiously angry – especially not anyone so angry at me. It occurred to me that maybe he had killed John and that if he'd killed once, he could kill again.
The paperweight was too far away for me to grab it easily. He remained standing in the doorway with his hands on the door frame, trapping me inside his office.
We stared each other down for a few moments. Finally, his face relaxed slightly even though his eyes still blazed. His facial color began to look a little less red and a little more normal.
