Read Devil in the Deadline for Free Online Page A

tomorrow’s front page. But I didn’t have to be there when he did.
    He snapped his dark eyes shut. “Don’t think I do. But you think we could help?”
    â€œI hope so.”
    â€œYou need to talk to Carl.” He turned for the swinging door next to the bar. “He should be here by now. Follow me, and don’t touch anything.”
    The dining room was still quiet, but the kitchen bustled with prep for the post-church lunch rush. Mixers whirred, meats sizzled on a long grill, and clouds of steam rose above a stove top covered with huge pots of boiling pasta.
    Men and women in black pants and white t-shirts covered by long, sauce-stained aprons shouted conversation over the din. It died when I stepped into the kitchen, curious eyes following every move.
    I kept a smile on my face and stayed on the manager’s heels until he stopped in the far corner, where a tall man with enormous biceps and a gleaming bald head worked a table-sized clump of white goo I suspected was the fresh mozzarella that covered most of the food in thick, stringy layers.
    He nodded to the manager and glanced at me before returning his attention to stretching the mass of cheese to the edges of a large tray. The way the muscles in his arms rippled, it wasn’t easy work.
    â€œCarl, this is Miss Clarke. She’s a reporter at the Telegraph , and she wants to ask you a few questions.”
    â€œMaking cheese is news, now?” His teeth flashed bright against his dark skin when he grinned at me. “Forgive my manners, but I’m not sure you want to shake my hand right now.”
    â€œNo worries. Nice to meet you. And while that looks fascinating, food and wine isn’t quite my area of expertise. I’m actually looking for information on a group of homeless people. I hear y’all feed them on Friday nights.”
    Carl glanced at his boss, who nodded an okay.
    â€œThere’s a lot of folks without a place to stay or food to eat around here,” Carl said. “Why throw out pans and pans of stuff at the end of our busiest night of the week when we can do some good with it?”
    I pulled out a notebook and pen, jotting his words down. “Absolutely.”
    â€œWho are you looking for?” he asked. “And why? Some of those folks got stories that make living on the street seem like a Jimmy Stewart movie.”
    I put a star by that and looked up.
    â€œThe guy I talked to was probably twenty-three, twenty-four. Thin, with shoulder-length hair and a deep voice.”
    â€œPicasso.” Carl nodded. “Green combat boots, right?”
    â€œThat’s him. They call him Picasso?”
    â€œHe’s...different,” Carl said, continuing to work on the cheese. “Autism? Maybe slightly slow? I’m not sure. But he can draw like nothing I’ve ever seen. Makes a little money that way. In the summers, he sells sketches down in the Slip.”
    I scribbled, underlining as I went. And I thought the guy was in shock. Better than Landers, who thought he was a junkie. “Sketches. Was that what he meant when he said he was working?” I asked.
    â€œProbably. I don’t think any of them have regular jobs. Hard to get work when you don’t have an address.”
    â€œDo you know where they hang out?” I asked.
    â€œI never followed them away from the restaurant or nothing.” Carl gathered the edges of a long piece of white muslin around the cheese wheel and cinched them together with a rubber band he pulled off his wrist. Turning, he leaned on the wall. “Why do you care, ma’am?”
    â€œI’m working on a story about a murder,” I said, my eyes straying to the manager who didn’t want to know. I got that, but I needed a lead on who the victim was—and where she came from. The trick was finding out without giving these men nightmares.
    â€œThe one I heard about on the TV this morning? The pretty blonde girl on Channel