Booker left the restaurant that morning with two things on his mind.

One, to find out if anyone from the neighboring businesses had seen Jeff or anyone else vandalize the restaurant's sign.

Two, to get a look at Jeff's car and check for any signs of sabotage.

If Porter and Wills really thought Ferris had vandalized their sign, and they sabotaged Jeff's car in return to make him wreck it, that was premeditated murder.

There was a small problem concerning Jeff Ferris' car: Dennis didn't know where it was. Even if he got ahold of the police report documenting the wreck, it wouldn't tell him where the vehicle was taken afterward.

He'd have to ask Donna if she knew what wrecking yard would have it.

And that posed another problem, because this was Friday and Donna was currently in school teaching one of her classes. He'd have to call her later this afternoon.

Meanwhile, he'd knock on a few doors, starting with the one right across the street facing the restaurant.

But after several answers of 'I didn't see anything', Booker was about ready to give up.

He'd circled the block with his questioning and came back around to end at the small convenience store next to the restaurant.

The last door. He might as well try it.

"Hi," Dennis greeted the storekeeper with a friendly smile.

"Help you with somethin', son?"

"Yeah, actually." He leaned an elbow casually on the countertop. "I was wondering if you could tell me who vandalized the sign belonging to that restaurant next door."

"Bunch o' kids," the guy answered plainly.

"Kids?" Booker echoed. "You saw them?"

"Yeah, I seen 'em," the guy responded in less-than-proper grammar. "Monday 'fore last. I's a-workin' late, after dark, seen some kids sneakin' round." He scratched his beard and continued, "Had spray paint; ugliest brown I ever saw."

"And they painted the restaurant sign next door with it?" Dennis prodded.

"Yessir. Started on my front door too, but I chased 'em off." The man proudly held up a baseball bat that he kept concealed behind the counter.

Booker raised an eyebrow at the bat. "You didn't use that on anyone, did you?" he had to ask.

"Course not," the guy answered, putting the bat away. "Just waved it a little. Punks runned off."

Booker looked back at the front door he'd come in through. "You said they started on your front door. I don't see any paint there."

"Paid a kid to clean it off."

Well, it wasn't proof that the vandalizing had been done by kids and not Jeff Ferris. But it was something, and what would this guy have to gain by lying?

"Alright, thanks for your time." Dennis tapped his palm on the countertop and turned to leave.

"Hey," the storekeeper called after him. "You catch them punks, you tell 'em my bat's waitin' for the next Picasso thinks he's gonna paint up my buildin'."

Booker gave the guy a wary look. "Yeah, I'll be sure to tell them."

It was getting late now, and he didn't want to miss today's Marketing Solutions class.

Apparently nobody in the class had seen Jeff's obituary in the newspaper, because they still believed he was only skipping classes.

But Dennis Booker had a new trick up his sleeve that would quickly put and end to that false assumption and hopefully sprout a new lead.

He drove back to his apartment to find the newspaper clipping that Suzanne had given him. He got to the classroom before any of the other students had arrived, and handed the obituary to the instructor.

"Would you please share that with the class today?" he asked politely. "Oh, and don't tell anyone it was me who brought it in, okay?"

The teacher took the clipping, glancing up at Booker before putting on her eyeglasses to read it. "Oh my," she murmured, reading the text silently. "Well, that certainly explains his absence," she added sadly.

As requested, the teacher shared Jeff's obituary with the class before starting the day's lesson plan.

Dennis' suspicion was confirmed: everyone was surprised at the news of Jeff Ferris' death.

A shocked silence fell over the room. His tablemate Gina——who'd been friends with Jeff——looked like she was going to cry.

But Booker only focused on the reactions of Frank Porter and Jimmy Wills.

The two guys shared a significant glance between them. Wills looked accusatory, but Porter only looked nervous.

Dennis wanted more than just that.

He leaned forward over the corner of his table toward the other guys. "Hey," he whispered loud enough for them to hear but not for everyone to listen. "Isn't that the same guy who wrecked your restaurant sign? Guess he got what was coming to him, huh?"

He received two identical glares from Porter and Wills. Booker held up two hands in surrender. "Hey, I'm just saying…"

Jimmy's eyes darted around anxiously before he leaned in to confer with his business partner.

Now that was more like it, Dennis thought smugly. He strained to hear what was said without being obvious about it.

"…supposed to teach him a lesson, not kill him..."

That didn't sound the least bit innocent. What did Wills mean by that?

But Dennis couldn't hear Porter's hushed response, and Wills said nothing else.

Well, he hadn't expected them to spill any major revelations about anything right in the middle of class. Mostly he wanted to see if the news of Jeff's death would make them sweat at all.

Apparently it did, because they definitely looked suspicious now.

He really needed to get a look at Jeff's car.

But he still needed to find it first. And that meant waiting a while longer.

Dennis didn't want to interrupt Donna's classes to ask her where the car went, and she probably wouldn't have that info for him off the top of her head anyway.

When class was over, he caught up with Porter and Wills before they left.

"That's karma, huh?" he said casually as he slid past them toward the door. "Guy wrecks your sign, then wrecks his car. If I didn't know better, I'd think you guys did it."

Jimmy paled.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Porter challenged him.

"Hey, relax, man," Booker pretended to back off. "Just a joke."

"You got a sick sense of humor," Wills told him seriously.

Dennis shrugged. "No worse than some." But he'd made his point with his calculated verbal barbs.

These two were definitely unsettled now. It was too bad the weekend had to interrupt the flow of classes, because Booker could have happily made them squirm for another couple of days.

But there were other more useful things he could accomplish on the weekend.

As soon as 4 o'clock rolled around, Dennis called Donna's home phone number from his car phone.

"Hi, it's me…Dennis," he said into the phone. "Listen, did the police or anyone inspect Jeff's car for tampering or sabotage when they found it wrecked?"

"I don't know," Donna answered back. "They said they didn't find anything suspicious at the time, but I don't think they looked very hard."

"I want to take a look at the car myself."

"Would sabotage even stand out after a wreck like that?" Donna wanted to know. "I mean, the car was really smashed up."

"Depends on the kind of sabotage, and where it was done," Dennis answered. "Where's the car now?"

"It's at a junk yard. I think I've got their business card somewhere…hold on." Donna was gone from the phone for a minute, then her voice came through again. "It's at Burke's Salvage. Forty-one North Gold Street."

He got the car's make, model, paint color and VIN number from her too before hanging up the phone. But as bad luck would have it, the owner of the wrecking yard was just locking up when Dennis got there.

"Sorry, son," the man apologized but wouldn't let Booker into the junk yard unsupervised. "We're open on Saturdays; come back tomorrow."

Booker had been on a roll; now he was stuck at a virtual roadblock. There was nothing else he could really do until he examined the car.

Disappointed, he headed for home. He'd unwind, maybe order a pizza, read a book for a while.

Tomorrow he'd go back to the wrecking yard and hopefully get some answers.