We walked across a rather crowded and noisy office to a conference room. He indicated that he wanted me to sit, so I did. The only nice part of this experience was that I got a break from standing up for a while.
I didn’t kid myself about the room though. I knew that there were cameras in the room and there were likely recording devices as well. There was a table in the center of the room, and Danvers sat down at the opposite side of the table from me.
“Now, about this location?” he asked. He took out his notepad again and flipped through a few pages.
“Like I explained, most of the operators stay in one place. Their customers look for them at that location, and they want the repeat business. It makes life easier. However, I knew that it would be weeks before the Meat Treats truck would be operational again, so I decided last night that we’d use the spot until their truck came back. It’s close enough to our old location that we didn’t lose any existing business, and we picked up some of the other truck’s customers.”
He nodded. “And how well did you know Fred Samples?”
“Not at all, really. I could have picked him out in a crowd, but we rarely spoke. We were both busy and didn’t have time for chit-chat.”
“So you’d be surprised to hear that our tip indicated that you and he were seen arguing last week and he told you to get away from his location and truck?”
I thought back last week, but I knew that nothing like Danvers’ account had happened. “I would be very surprised. I’d bet that I haven’t said 20 words to Fred in the time since I took over my aunt’s business.”
Danvers looked at his notes again. “That would be Alice James, your mother’s sister?”
“That’s right.”
“The one who died under mysterious circumstances a few months ago,” Danvers said, echoing Land’s comments.
I had a sinking suspicion all of a sudden. Land’s desire to own my aunt’s truck tied to his comments yesterday made me wonder if Land had called in the anonymous tip. Had he been the one to put me in this predicament? This was definitely his chance to get the business and the new location, all without getting his hands dirty. He’d have to step in and take over if I was arrested or, worse yet, convicted of a crime. I knew that if I was convicted of killing Alice, I wouldn’t be able to profit from her death and the estate would be apportioned in another way.
He continued, “It certainly seems like it doesn’t pay to get in your way these days, does it?” Today there were no smiles, no flirts and certainly no dimples. I also realized with a sinking feeling that a person who was a suspect in a murder case could never date the detective. That was all kinds of wrong.
The similarity to Land’s comments immediately made me sure who had called in the tip. The Benedict Arnold had likely called it in after he left the truck yesterday, thinking he could have it all if I went to prison.
However, in my mind, I wondered if he’d just used a convenient set of circumstances to move his agenda, or if he’d been the killer who set this fiasco in motion. I tried to imagine Land as a cold-blooded killer, but honestly, I didn’t know him well enough to make that determination. He was right that I hadn’t taken the time to get to know him.
In my book, anyone could screw you over, but only a certain kind of person would kill for profit. Land had not struck me as such, but apparently, I was not a good judge of character. As if to put a finer point on that assessment, the man I thought yesterday might be the future Mr. Kinkaid was now sitting across the table accusing me of murder.
“Look, I honestly don’t know anything about my aunt’s death. My mother is the queen of platitudes. No one ever kicks it. They pass or cross the bridge. So in terms of details, I couldn’t give you a thing.”
Danvers sighed. “Here’s the official account. I’m not giving anything away here; it’s all been in the newspapers.”
I looked at him. “I’m a millennial. We don’t do newspapers.”
I thought I heard a growl from him, but I didn’t push it. After all, I was in an interview room at the police station. “Your aunt was found by the side of the road in May. Her car was pulled off to the side of the road and the engine was shut off. There were no signs of a struggle or violence. However, her doctors had recently given her a clean bill of health, so organ failure or other systemic failure seemed unlikely. The autopsy came back with only a statement that she’d stopped breathing. I talked to the ME, but she was not able to be more precise than that.”
I squinted my eyes at him. “So, this isn’t really even a homicide technically. You’re just trying to scare me.”
“Well, Fred Samples is definitely a homicide and not a subtle one at that.”
“I heard that he was having trouble with his son. The son wanted to expand and Fred said no. Plus, I heard there was trouble with his wife, too.” I really hadn’t heard that, but to be frank, I was sitting in a police station answering questions and I wanted to throw some viable suspects out there for the good detective to follow up on. I was pretty sure that every man had trouble with his wife at some point or another.
He snorted. “The wife is always the first one to be looked at. Don’t worry, we’ll be following up with the family.”
“And there was a taco truck that wanted his space too.” I told Danvers the story of the taco truck owner that had yelled at me for taking the location closer to the plaza.
“Just a taco truck? No name or logo?” He looked annoyed, but I figured that he dealt with poor eyewitnesses on a regular basis.
“El Carro Taco, I think? Something like that.” I knew that I’d given him a translation of Taco Truck, but I hoped that would keep him off my case for a while. I was going to do some of my own work to find out what the hell was going on.
He nodded. “Anything else that you can tell me? Do you have an alibi for the night before last?”
I shook my head. The downside of renting my own place instead of living with mom and dad was that I couldn’t furnish an alibi to stave off a murder indictment. Who knew? “None. I went home, ate, read a book and went to sleep. I don’t have a boyfriend—or a girlfriend. Not even a pet. I was all alone.”
He nodded, but I wasn’t sure if he got the hint. I figured that there was some rule against dating suspects, but I was going to put this behind me quickly. I had no plans to be involved in any murder case, much less one where the head was put in a serving dish.
Unlike my glorious entrance into the building, Danvers merely opened the door and waved an arm to indicate I was free to leave. I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t being given the old “don’t leave town” routine, but maybe he figured I wouldn’t get far in a food truck. I found my way back downstairs and walked across the plaza in a sort of walk of shame moment. Land was watching me from the truck as I approached.
“I’ve still got a boss,” he said with a smirk.
“Yeah, you do. Why the hell did you call the police on me?” I had not planned to confront him so abruptly, but his sneer was a bit more than I could take at the moment. I wanted to lash out at someone, and he was available—and sarcastic.
He raised his eyebrow. “Why exactly do you think that I would have called the police on you? What did you do?”
“Good old Detective Danvers accused me of exactly the same things you did, and he used practically the same words. It was as if you two were reading from the same script. It was pretty obvious who had been talking to whom.” I opened the door to the truck and slammed it loudly behind me. I had a point to make. He might not like me, but Land couldn’t go around sabotaging the food truck and hope to keep a job.
He shrugged. “Wish I’d thought of it, but it wasn’t me. Besides, if this place goes under, I’m without a job—and a green card. Not a good career move for me to turn you in.”
While I wanted to pick on a convenient target, and my surly cook definitely fit the bill, he had a point. He had just as much to lose as I did if Dogs on the Roll went under. My mind began to turn. Who could have reported me to the
police?
Land offered, “The police might have just picked up on it themselves. They’re not total oafs, you know?”
I shook my head. “No, Danvers made it pretty clear that someone had called in a tip about me. Since the wording was nearly identical to what you’d said, I just assumed it was you.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not the only person around who has a brain and can see your lucky streak comes with a body count. Anyone could have called the police.”
“Anyone who knows me, my aunt and the truck,” I retorted. I started mentally ticking off the names of those who could put all those pieces together. My family and friends were excluded, but any of the other truck owners or customers could have called in the tip. It made my blood run cold to think that I might be taking money from someone who was calling in tips to keep his own ass out of jail.
I wasn’t sure what to do now. The police had shown an interest in me, and not in a good way. There was at least one victim, and possibly two, associated with the truck I’d inherited, and there were anonymous tipsters out there who wanted me to take the blame for the whole thing.
The lunch crowd was fierce. We had more business than we could handle and the profits for the day were beyond my estimates for the new location. It made me wonder if Fred had taken in this much cash. Large sums of money would always be a motive for murder.
I took a deep breath. I had thoughts about the crimes running through my mind as I sorted orders and took in money. It was amazing that I was able to keep it together and do my job. Land had prepared enough of the condiments for the lunch rush, and things went smoother. We were done by 1:30, and we finished the prep by 2:15.
I had barely stepped out of the truck when a large man approached me. I knew this had to be Tony Samples. He was probably 6’ 6” tall and weighed a very sloppy 300 pounds easily. “Hey, we need to talk,” he shouted at me from about a half block away. I figured that this was his way of telling me to wait. Given his size, I could have outpaced him, but I stood there and waited.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he said, still shouting even though we were closer than we had been. “This is my spot.”
I shrugged. “You’re not here today. I figured it would be a few weeks before you’re ready again, and I didn’t want to see this spot wasted.”
He looked down at me. The anger was clear in his eyes. “Pretty lucky for you, isn’t it? This makes a great spot for you.”
I was tired of being accused of being a killer by men who didn’t know me. While I couldn’t be openly rude to the police, there was no reason why I couldn’t shut this man down. “If you come back, we’ll give the space to you, but I’ve heard you wanted to move anyway. Seems like I’m not the only one to benefit from this.”
He gasped, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. “You think I’d kill my dad just to get the business back on track?”
I saw my opening and went for it. “You just said that the business was off track. You knew that it couldn’t have kept up like that or you would have gone under.”
He snorted. His wide nostrils flared even more. “It’s not that bad, but sales have been flat for a long time and inflation eats away at the profits. I don’t know what my dad was thinking.”
“So you had a better motive than I did to kill him. I’ll move out of here as soon as you move back. My word on it.”
He stared at me. I couldn’t tell what he planned on doing. After a few seconds, the big guy began to cry. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I miss him so much. I know the business will be better, but what a cost, what a cost!” That’s how I ended up with my arms halfway around Tony Samples. We hugged until he tried to slide a hand down to my backside. Compassion and pity sex were two separate things in my book.
I took the truck back to the lot and found my car. I had more business to take care of now, but this was family business.
Chapter 3
My parents owned a small ranch house in suburbia. Until my recent inheritance, I’d lived there as well with my ass parked on the sofa waiting for the perfect job to arrive. It still felt like home, which was why I didn’t bother to knock before I entered.
My mother was reading a book in a recliner in the living room when I stepped into the room. No one would ever have taken us for mother and daughter at first glance. My mother is larger than I am. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but I had inherited my dad’s thin build with not many curves anywhere, whereas my mother was all curves. She wasn’t a fat woman by any means, but she was a classic voluptuous gal. Men stopped to stare at her when she walked down the street. I was lucky if I got a second glance.
Even with her curvaceous beauty, she was decidedly a homebody, and I wasn’t surprised to see her sitting in her favorite chair reading. She’d instilled a love of reading in me as well, beginning to read to me at an early age.
I plopped down on the couch and looked at her. She finally raised her head and put a finger in her book to mark the place. There was no bending down the corners of a page in our house.
“Why do you look like that? You should be happy.” My mother tilted the chair forward and stood up.
This next part was going to be tricky. I knew that my mother was still grieving for her sister, but I needed to talk about the gory details of her death. I wasn’t sure how she would take the discussion, especially since I was asking if Alice had been murdered.
“Lots of drama with the food truck,” I started truthfully. “Somebody was killed downtown yesterday.”
“I heard about that. Who would want to kill someone who drives a food truck?” my mother asked as she headed to the kitchen. She opened the fridge and looked inside. My mother was not only full-figured, but she could eat what she wanted and not get fat. She had a metabolism that still ran strong after sixty years. The world was too unfair.
I didn’t speak for a minute, and the import of my words sunk in with her. “Has there been some trouble with the truck or something?” she said, eyeing me while she tried to look like she wasn’t.
“I’m not sure, but I’m getting the feeling that Aunt Alice’s death might be tied to the death of the other truck owner. I didn’t know the details of her passing,” I said, using my mother’s words, “but I want to know more. Maybe I can find out what happened to Aunt Alice. That would be a fitting tribute for her.”
My mother sighed deeply and then sat down again. I sat on the sofa across from her, but this time I tried to be more genteel in my actions. There was no point in antagonizing the woman that was going to provide me with answers.
“It would be just like Alice to cause a ruckus even after she’s gone.” My mother ran a finger under her right eye. I wasn’t certain if there was really a tear there, or if she was just preparing for the onslaught. Neither was a great sign for a frank discussion.
“What did you know about her food truck before she passed?” I asked, trying to get something more specific from my mother.
Another deep sigh came. “She had trouble getting a permit. The city had some permits available; Alice was able to find that out from a friend. However, when she went to apply for one, the agency said they were out. Alice spent months going around and around with them over that. Finally, she took a count of the trucks in town, went back to the permit office and demanded to talk to someone about their lack of math skills. The Consumer Affairs Department was the one giving her trouble about the permit. Then she had to get a health inspection. They failed her the first two times. The third time, another vendor cleaned the place for her and the health inspector failed her again. That would have meant that she couldn’t apply for another permit for six months, but the other vendor went to bat for her and pointed out all the errors in the health inspector’s report.”
“Wow, who did she piss off?” I knew Alice well enough to know that she wouldn’t take things lying down. She’d been a fighter all the years I’d known her, and she’d always encouraged me to be one as well. She could tilt at windmills
when she felt like it.
“That’s just it. Alice couldn’t figure it out. First, she just thought it was someone in the Consumer Affairs office, but then when the health inspector started pulling the same thing, she realized that it had to be someone higher up. She never mentioned if she’d figured out who it was, so I guess it was still a mystery to her.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know the names of anyone she dealt with?” I asked. I needed to talk to someone, and their offices would be in the same government building that we parked across from. I could go during a break and ask questions.
Mom nearly rolled her eyes back into her head, trying to recall what Alice had said. I could understand the feeling. Alice was a fast talker. She could speak faster than most people could think, and then add to that an Irish gift of gab, and she could talk until you tuned her out or went mad. I’d done it a number of times and so had my mother.
“The Consumer Affairs person, I’m just not sure about, but the health inspector had a weird name. It started with a Q or X or Z, something like that. It was a weird word. I made her spell it the first time she told me about her.”
“Her?”
“The health inspector was a woman. Aren’t you the little sexist?” she said with a smile.
“Not really. I just equate bureaucracy with men.”
My mom laughed. She was not doing too poorly with the discussion of my aunt, so I decided to move forward. “Hey mom, the police mentioned that Alice’s death was suspicious. What does that mean?”
“It means that medical science can’t figure out what she died of. They did the standard tests for cause of death and nothing came up. They ran some tests to see if it was drug-related. I knew better, but they did it anyway. They found nothing. They wanted to do more, but Alice had asked to be cremated and the ME had released her body. So she’s officially dead with no real cause of death listed. She stopped breathing and that was all that the medical examiner said. I guess it’s not all that uncommon, but it drove the police mad.”
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 3