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"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.
