Feeling somewhat defeated, I started to clean up the kitchen. Gina stopped out of the party to chat.
“Maeve, it’s been delicious here tonight. Thank you for everything.”
I just nodded as I cleaned the counters.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. I felt bad for not being in a festive mood, but I really wanted this murder to come to a conclusion, so that I could get my life back. I wanted Land to propose, which surprised me when the thought popped into my mind. While I had thought about the matter in the abstract sense, I’d never thought of it happening in the near future. I thought we’d have a few more trucks or perhaps a restaurant by then. Now that I knew he wanted to get married, I was shocked to find that I was equally ready.
“Yeah. I can’t say that we learned a lot here tonight. Not much progress.”
“What do you want to know?” Gina asked. “I can probably tell you anything you want to know.”
I told her about Sabine’s idea, and Gina nodded. “I can see that. Let’s see. I’m a part-time professor. Trent is a commercial photographer. Jason is some sort of artist type, I think. David was a stock analyst. Christie is a teacher. Does any of that help?”
I groaned a bit. “That just makes it harder to point the finger of blame at Christie,” I replied, not wanting to mention that Trent, her husband of a few days, was now on my list. Some forms of photography use cyanide, and I wondered if Trent used any of those chemicals in his processes.
Chapter 9
I headed back to the food truck the next day feeling depressed. I hadn’t gotten anywhere with the investigation without Land. Sabine had been a help, and we had some leads to follow, but at the same time, I felt as though we were nowhere near a solution. As a result, Land sat in prison, and I was stuck trying to run two food trucks by myself.
After my initial shock wore off, I tried to find a workable solution. Carter’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, Aaron, had agreed to help out. The two of them decided to take on Basque in the Sun. Since they were definitely on again at the moment, they reveled in the chance to work together. Carter had trained as a chef, so this would be a chance for him to shine on his own, not under the boss’ thumb.
That left me alone on Dogs on the Roll, which I could do in a pinch, but the experience always wore me out. Just the cost of the gloves in handling food and then taking them off to handle the money was exorbitant. My hands felt chapped by the end of the day.
I was working as hard as I could, but the line was growing longer as the lunch hour rolled around. I had about five people waiting, which wasn’t too bad – at least no one was complaining yet. I rolled my eyes when I saw Detective Danvers about three people back in the line. He was the last person I wanted to talk to right now. I had nothing to tell him, and likely he knew it. Given that he’d gloated in previous cases when I’d come up short, he would likely be in a triumphant mood now.
However, the man in front of Danvers was the one who flustered me. He came up to the window and instead of giving me his order, he slid a paper across the counter. “Maeve Kinkaid, you’ve been served.”
“What?” I asked, not being able to pick up the paper without going through another set of gloves. “What for?”
I knew enough about process serving to know that this was a civil matter and not a criminal case. The folded documents clearly stated as much on the cover. Yet that was the extent of the information. I had no clue who was taking me to court or why.
“Christie Svenson,” the man said as if that would answer all my problems. He snapped a photo of me on his phone’s camera and started to walk away.
I put the pieces together though. Christie, David’s girlfriend, must be suing me or the food truck or both for the loss of David. It wasn’t bad enough that I had to stagger along without Land, but now she wanted to take away my business entirely. I wasn’t even sure if an unmarried person could sue for damages if they weren’t married.
On the good side, my father had forced me to incorporate the business, so I was indemnified against total loss of personal assets, but most everything I had was tied up in the food trucks, so that was small comfort. I cringed at the idea of moving back in with my parents and sitting on the sofa all day.
On the brighter side, the man hadn’t ordered so he moved on, and the line was shorter for it. Danvers was up next, and looked at the papers. “I was going to tell you about that,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the papers. “I guess he beat me to it.”
“What would you like to order?” I asked. While I knew that he officially had to support the police decision made to arrest Land, I was still pretty pissed.
“Coffee, if that’s okay?” he said. “Look, I need to talk to you – alone. When can you give me a few?” His eyes let me know that this wouldn’t be a casual conversation. He had something here for me.
I poured the coffee and slid it across the counter. He started to get out his wallet, but I shook my head. I wasn’t sure if it was because I wanted that information or if it wasn’t worth the effort to get out of the gloves again.
“One-thirty,” I said calmly to him. “Just like always. I’ll be cleaning by then. You can come in the truck, and no one will be able to see you.”
The two hours moved quickly at the truck. Nothing said that I needed help like a full day of doing it by myself.
At 1:30pm, Danvers approached the truck and slid in by the door without asking for permission. He stood in the corner and waited as I handled the last customer, who only wanted the afternoon boost of Land’s secret blend of coffee.
“So what did you want?” I asked, turning my back to the window to clean the counter. “What’s so important?”
Danvers kept his voice low, but I could still hear him. “The case against Land is falling apart.”
I turned to look at him, but then turned back so that I didn’t seem like I was talking to the walls. “What happened?”
“The analysis of the hot dog in the vic’s pocket came back. It was clean, which means that someone poisoned him by either tainting the particular dog that he was eating or giving the poison to him in something other than the hot dog. Green has gone through the video footage, and Land didn’t leave the food truck. There were several dogs of each variety on the counter, which means that Land could only have poisoned a random stranger, not a particular victim. So motive and opportunity are out of the window.”
I actually grinned. Land might still be in jail, but at least there was hope. Now I had to find out who had killed David in order get him free. Before I would have just been presenting an alternate theory, but now I was certain I could get Land out of jail.
“So what now?” I asked. I added watching Green squirm to the list of things to do now. It was only a matter of time until Land was out, but I didn’t want to wait for others to ensure Land was okay. I wanted to be instrumental in solving this.
“There’s still a lot to go through. Green is not going to want to give up on this bust easily. So she’ll do everything that she can to try to cobble together a case. I’ve tried to do that at times, and it always fails.”
I nodded. I knew that it would make her next arrest that much harder in the long run, because she had already arrested Land and had to release him. The defense attorneys would be sure to point out the police’s mistake.
I forced myself not to cry, from relief, from frustration, from all the emotions I was feeling. “Did you see the process server? I’m being sued for the death of that man. His ex-girlfriend is suing – I’m guessing for damages.” My blood pressure started to go up again, thinking of losing my business. “She should be suing Land, but since I’m the majority owner, she’s coming after me instead.” I thought of Christie and her shrine for David. She’d deified him rather than accepted him as a real person. Now she had to try to salvage his image by blaming me for what happened.
“Then you have another reason to solve this case,” Detective Danvers stated plainly. He was right. I had all the reasons i
n the world to solve this case and point out the murderer. Land would be out of jail, and I wouldn’t be sued.
I sighed. “I was going to go visit the ex-girlfriend again, but I’m thinking that’s not a good idea now.”
Danvers smiled. “Yeah, lawyers don’t like it when you threaten their fees. They won’t let you in a mile of her.”
“Well, so much for that idea. I guess I’ll go with plan B,” I groaned. “One of the groomsmen had indicated that David had said some rude stuff about me. Most of the stories started with some guy named Jason. Sabine and I both found out that he’d spread a lot of the rumors. I want to hear exactly what was said and the context. If I can explain that, then maybe the motive will be gone too. That would about shoot the case.”
Danvers nodded. “Let me know how it goes,” he said as he left the food truck.
Since I was going to talk to a guy and ask for a favor, I drove the food truck to the secured lot and then went home for a quick refresh. Working all day by myself was not the way to attract anyone, and I figured that some casual flirting would be my best chance of finding out anything from this guy.
Jason lived in the Harrison Hills, the arty part of town, in a condo. I drove to that part of town, which was also known for its high crime rate. I locked my car and hurried to the buzzers for the building.
The buzzer sounded, and I pushed the door open. Jason’s place was on the fifth floor, which gave him a fantastic view of the city. Normally I would have studied the landscape more, but frankly Jason opened the door shirtless – and my mind was a tad preoccupied. While I was very aware that I was here to help Land, there is nothing in the relationship contract that says you can’t look when presented with a virile specimen of the opposite sex. Really, I thought, the tux did not do him justice.
“So what brings you here?” Jason asked. It didn’t even seem to register with him that he was only half-dressed. I played it off like I didn’t notice, using all the mental tricks I could to ignore his body. After all, I’d had over two years of men ogling me. I knew what it felt like and how I wanted to be treated. I should be able to do the same for him.
I vaguely remembered him from the wedding, but more so from the party. He’d seemed quiet and reserved there, but the whole half-dressed thing seemed to belie that. He didn’t seem like a gossiper either, though a few people had told me otherwise. “I wanted to ask you some questions about David and the wedding.”
He smirked at me. “You and David, right? Christie is telling people that you screwed him to death out in the bathrooms.”
I grimaced, thinking about that. “No, not me and David. Never me and David. I wanted to hear the context of his comments when he told you about me. What was he talking about before? Why did he say that?”
Jason shrugged. “Guys tend to talk about things like that. We were talking about the bridesmaids, and David was ranking all of them. He was like that. He was always looking at women and only thinking of them as his next conquest.”
“You’d known him a long time?” I asked.
“Yeah, David and I go way back. I actually dated Christie before he did, but it didn’t work out. She and David met, and they fell hard for each other. I hated to see the way he treated her though. No one deserves to be cheated on like that. He was a dog – just like he was that day.”
“Where was Christie when this was happening?” I noticed some of the statues in the next room. David apparently worked in metal. The bronze and what I assumed to be silver shone in the late afternoon sun. He definitely had a flair for what he did.
He rolled his eyes up like he was thinking about it. “Not really sure. I mean, I wasn’t keeping track of everyone, thinking about how I might have to tell someone about this one day. How much of life is like that? It just passes by without a real thought as to what was going on around me. It was just a wedding, like a million others. I didn’t think for a minute that I’d have to tell people what I was doing when David was killed.”
“I understand, but just placing everyone can be incredibly helpful.” I said, throwing him an encouraging smile. It was times like this when I envied Danvers, who could get cooperation just by showing a badge.
“Maybe getting her photo taken with the other bridesmaids?” he finally replied. “I’m pretty sure that was it. That may have been what started the conversation, seeing them all lined up that way.”
“But Christie wasn’t in the wedding?” I asked, even though I was sure that she wasn’t. Given Gina’s words about the woman, I knew the reasons why she hadn’t been asked as well.
“No, from what I gathered none of the other women in the wedding liked her – including the bride. That’s a shame,” he said. “She can be a great person when you get to know her.”
I thought of the things that Gina had said about Christie and knew that she didn’t like Christie at all. I wasn’t sure of the reasons, other than she didn’t understand why the couple stayed together, but Christie had not played any part in the wedding.
“So she just stood over there watching the bridal photos?” I asked. The thought of watching someone take pictures that you weren’t included in would be incredibly dull to me, but I doubted that Christie would have wanted to work in a food truck. So we were even in what we enjoyed.
“Yeah, and then David started ranking all of the women in the photos. It was all just a game to him.” Jason didn’t seem fond of the dead man, despite their long history. Was it just because David had been rude to women or was there more to it?
“So how did I get dragged into that discussion?” This was not my favorite conversation, and normally I would have left this sort of delicate man-to-man discussions to Land, but given the circumstances, I had no choice.
He paused a minute, as if to think it over. “If I remember, David looked around after ranking the bridesmaids, and decided to include you. He told us that you two had been involved briefly. He was pretty graphic.”
“Us?” I asked, wanting to know more about who else could account for Jason’s whereabouts.
He shrugged again. “I guess some of the other ushers. I wasn’t sure who all was around. It was mostly for my benefit, but I’m sure some of the others heard it as well. Like I said, I wasn’t thinking that I’d have to keep all of this locked in my memory forever. It was just a bad moment at a wedding. I blew it off and changed the subject.”
“What did you want to discuss?” I asked, not feeling very charitable to men at the moment. “Do you remember what you talked about after that? Maybe who you were dating?”
Jason flashed me a smile. He looked good. I smiled back to keep him talking. “Are you asking me if I’m dating anyone? I’m not for the record, but no offense, I don’t think we’d be a good couple. I’m looking for a permanent relationship,” he said.
I looked down at my hands and remembered the ring. “Thanks, but I’m already in a relationship. So what was the subject then?” I felt a little like I was interrogating Jason.
Jason paused for a long time. “I don’t remember.”
“Can you remember his exact words?” I asked. “What did he say about me?”
“Something like ‘I nailed the food truck bitch.’” He flushed bright red, and at that point he opted to put a shirt on. I waited for him to return more fully clothed.
“So that was it? Did he use my name at any point?” I was thinking of how easy it would have been to prove David’s claim false. Why did these men just decide to accept it for fact?
“Not that I know of, but then again if he’d mentioned your name, I wouldn’t have known who you were. Trent might have known your last name, but no one else would have even known your first name. So why would he tell us?”
I pushed the matter. “Is that all he said? Did he claim that we did it in a particular place — or recently — or a long time ago?”
Jason furrowed his brow. “Why do you want to know all these details? It’s bad enough that he trash talked you, but now you want to know everything he said about
you. It’s awkward.”
It was my turn to shrug. “Since we’re talking about a murder investigation, everything could be important. So I’m tough enough to take whatever you’re going to tell me. I need to know.” My last words were almost a plea. I was getting desperate to find out something that would change this case.
He took a deep breath. “He said that it was a few weeks ago. He’d seen you downtown at your food truck, and that when you were done with your shift you two met in the truck to have some fun.”
I furrowed my brow. The story was obviously false, but there was no way I could prove that from the story. Obviously Land would have noticed a man walking into the food truck and me disappearing from sight. At the end of the shift, he’d already be at Government Square. However, since he had been arrested for this crime, his word wouldn’t hold much weight in court. I’d need to be able to prove that I hadn’t been having an affair, which was incredibly hard to do. Given my lack of a dating history, I thought I wouldn’t rank high on the likely to cheat list, but even so I was sure that I could be painted as a cheater who had provoked her boyfriend into murder.
Jason didn’t have much else to say. Finally, I left and went home. There was no one to come and see me tonight, so I watched television until I fell asleep on the couch.
Chapter 10
The next day went by fast. I was hardly able to keep up with the truck’s business. It seemed like we had more business than we had with two of us working, or perhaps it was just my perspective, given that I was doing it all.
Carter stopped by for a few minutes at the start of his shift, but he only offered a few condolences and the running totals for sales at Basque in the Sun. The arrest of Land had left us short-handed, but had not impacted sales at all. Things were still moving ahead.
JUSTICE Is SERVED (Food Truck 7) Page 8