There was a low mutter of agreement from the contestants. Johnny continued, “To best remember Annabella, we’ve asked her sister, Rochelle, to take over for her in the competition. Before anyone objects, Rochelle is a minority owner in the business, and the entire truck will likely come to her following the probate of the will. If you read the fine print on the contracts, co-owners are allowed to participate in the competition in the event the original contestant cannot be present. As a part owner of the food truck, she’s amply qualified to continue as Annabella’s replacement.”
I wondered if the cameras were rolling for this segment. I looked around and saw two red lights on top of the oversized cameras. I made sure to smile and make congratulatory noises. I poked Land in the ribs and jerked my head to the cameras. He picked up on the hint and gave Rochelle a smile that would have melted most women.
Rochelle thanked everyone and pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m dedicating my efforts in this contest to continuing Annabella’s work and her desire to win the contest. I know this is what she would have wanted. Any win I have is a win for Annabella.”
I was pretty certain that Annabella would have rather not been dead, but I kept my tongue silent. My sense of humor would not translate well to the small screen.
With the reading complete, Johnny Ruck went on with the script. “Today we’re going to be mixing things up, literally. Each of you will be given an ingredient, which has to be added to at least two of your menu items. We’ll have the judges visit your truck as always. And today we’ll also have you…”
Ruck stopped and looked around. The cameras were rolling, and I knew we’d have to do the scene over. “What the hell happened to the rest of the script?” he asked. He held up the clipboard which showed us all that the last paragraphs of the text had been blacked out with a marker. He couldn’t finish the text without x-ray vision.
Someone ran out to print off a new copy of the script while we stood around waiting. Apparently, neither Marsha nor Annabella had been the prankster since the disruptions were continuing without them. I found it in bad taste that the prankster had started up again on the first day back after the murders, but apparently whoever it was didn’t care about propriety.
Ruck got a new copy of the script and began again. “And today we’ll also have you get some reviews from people on the street. A new component of the challenge will be wowing the man on the street. Good scores from the customers will be a part of the rubric for this challenge and the next.”
There were a few gasps and murmurs from the other truck owners. Many people came to the truck’s sites just to be on the air for the program. If they thought that it would create more drama, they could easily throw in a bad review for that truck. It was a drastic change to the format, more like American Idol, where the people get to vote. I wondered if this interactive change to the format was due to the boring video journals they’d been getting. Was this another ploy to get ratings up?
An intern who looked like she might have been 12 started passing out the wooden boxes with the mystery ingredients. The cameras cut in to show the contents of each box.
On one of the TVs off-stage, I could watch as each food truck got their mystery ingredient. Anthony’s bagel truck got some type of beans. Rochelle got nutmeg for the taco truck. I wasn’t sure how that would work. Nutmeg and Mexican food didn’t seem like a good fit. I was nervous by the time the intern reached us. She handed a box to Land, who opened it about three inches and then decided to share it with me.
I saw a light-colored plant root. It looked kind of organic, but that was just my guess. I had no idea what it was, to be frank. Outside of our own menu, I wasn’t the world’s best cook. In all fairness, not many people wanted to come home and do their day job some more. As if eight hours was not enough.
I gave Land a pleading look, letting him know that I had no idea what this was. He leaned closer “Ginger,” he said, his mouth so close to my ear that I felt his hot breath on it. I don’t know if turning me on was his intention, but I felt warm all over after that. Who knew a food truck challenge could be so intimate?
My first instinct was to pull out my phone and hit the recipe app, but Land shook his head. I took that to mean that he had a good idea for how to incorporate ginger into the meal. I was glad that he did. My ginger was in a little jar on my spice shelf. I had no idea how to use it other than in a few Chinese dishes, and I certainly had no idea that it came from a root like this.
I heard a gagging noise from across the set. I looked up at the camera. One TV turned to black, and I wondered if it had been blacked out due to a prank. Then I saw that Tracy Jones was holding a box that was full of dog poop. I was pretty certain that no food truck item, even in a taco truck, could be made from that.
The baby-faced intern blanched while the cameras were still rolling and snatched the box away from Tracy. She ran off stage with it. I wondered how many of the studio employees were thinking that Marsha would have never allowed this to happen. She would have been on top of the situation and double-checked the ingredients and the contents of the boxes before handing them out to the contestants.
I wondered about that as an implication. Had Marsha been too close to discovering who was behind the pranks? Her normal methodology would have noticed any discrepancies. If she began to notice them in terms of when they happened or who they happened to, then she could have pieced together the identity of the person behind the pranks.
Johnny Ruck cleared his throat and spoke. “There seems to be a bit of an issue with one of the ingredients. We’ll just wait until that’s all taken care of, and then we’ll get started. With this challenge you’ll only have three hours to prepare for the day, and you’ll be expected to use this ingredient as part of your menu.”
The intern returned, with what I hoped was a different box, and presented it to Tracy. The new ingredient was green and leafy. Someone whispered that it was cilantro, and someone else replied that they’d rather use the dog poop.
I didn’t speak about the switch while we were on-set. The taping stopped and we proceeded out. The intern stood by the green room door and encouraged us all to speak our minds before we headed out to the challenge. I heard the truck owner before us, an older man named Jason, complain in the green room about the ease with which some trucks would complete this challenge. I had to agree that Mexican food and cilantro were a very easy mix. He questioned if the competition was rigged.
I let Land do the talking this round. I was still feeling anxious about being in the green room after the murders. I kept staring at the floor, looking for the place where the women had been placed. The pooled blood was gone, and of course, the bodies had long ago been taken to the morgue, but I could still feel their presence here. I barely heard what Land said in the interview. For all I knew, he could have professed his undying love for me—or his desire to get his hands on my truck.
We left. He seemed more talkative today than he’d been lately. I was glad for the distraction after the green room incident. I was still spooked from the experience. He chatted about the challenge and what he thought he would do for the challenge.
“Ginger and scallions, I think. I’ll replace a relish with the ginger and scallions. You’ll just need to tell the customers not to use too much. It’s pretty potent stuff in small doses.” He looked at me as if it would need repeating.
“Got it. Small doses. Did you hear what Jason said about Tracy’s ingredient? It did seem rather simple to incorporate compared to most of the challenges.”
Land nodded. “She might even be using it now, but I don’t know that for a fact. It’s used in a number of Mexican dishes.”
I paused for a few seconds. “Do you think that someone is out to fix the contest in her favor?”
Land laughed. “That’s amusing. We made a deal to solve the case so that we’d win the contest and you’re wondering if anyone else might have a fix in. Yes, I think it’s entirely possible
that someone on staff at the studio is helping out Tracy, but he is being pretty heavy-handed about it. Everyone is beginning to suspect that she’s behind something.”
“That’s what is so confusing. It’s almost like whoever is behind this wants people to question her motives and her contacts. She’d not received any pranks until today, after we all questioned the fact that she’d been excluded. Everyone else has been the victim of at least one prank and some nasty notes. And now she’s been pranked, but she was also given a ridiculously easy ingredient to work with. It’s like giving rice to a sushi truck.” I sighed, wishing that my life could be that easy sometime. Everything I got was earned with a whole lot of work and trouble.
Land didn’t speak for a few minutes. I sat with my thoughts, but nothing was coming to me. Tracy would bear some looking into, but she’d already shut the door on me once. I wondered how amenable she’d be to more of the same.
We switched the car for the food truck at the secured lot and made our way to Elm Street. While Land drove the truck, I looked up ginger scallions; the recipe and the reviews made it sound delicious. Given that we’d been given such a unique spice, I thought this would work well. When I thought of the others and their challenges, I got annoyed with Tracy all over again.
Land started up the grill, and I began getting things ready at the window. Even though we’d switched once for a challenge, we were still happiest in our existing roles. He took the ginger out of its box and peeled off the skin. Then he peeled some paper-thin slices of ginger and started cooking it. The entire kitchen had a different smell after he began. It was odd how I associated certain smells with the business, and this definitely wasn’t one of them.
“I doubt that it’s going to win over the hot dog and coffee crowd, but ginger has a lot of medicinal properties too,” Land said.
I gritted my teeth. He was going to pontificate to me on his superior food knowledge. I took a deep breath and sighed. I was trapped here until the end of the shift around 2pm, so I had to grin and bear it.
He went on about how the ancient Chinese had used this as a drug to help with upset stomachs. How it supposedly helped with asthma, muscle pain, loss of appetite and reportedly some forms of cancer. I half-heartedly listened as he droned on. I got the cash register ready to be opened and prepped the coffee machine as well.
We opened in less than the three hours that had been allotted to us. In practical terms, that gave us more time to earn more money toward our goal. It also allowed Land and me to earn a real living for a few hours. I knew that the impact of the lost sales had hurt me. I wondered if Land was hurt as well, though he’d never mentioned it. We had six more weeks of challenges before the final, and I wondered how many more days of lost income.
The ginger scallions were a hit. Many of the people who ordered them as a condiment had tasted them before. When we had a lull in sales, I took a spoon and dipped out some onto a hot dog. I tasted the vivid flavor on the dog. Land was certainly right. It was not to be used in large doses.
I kept looking for the judges, but none of the people who had judged us before showed up at the truck. I did wince when a pedestrian jostled one of the customers, who spilled the ginger scallions on his dress shirt. I hoped that he wouldn’t be one of the customers who was asked about their experience at Dogs on the Roll. I suspected that he wouldn’t have good things to say. I could see the pale yellow stain from here. I doubted that bleach would get that color from his shirt.
Danvers showed up after a while. I wasn’t sure why he was here. We hadn’t learned anything new about the murders since it happened. Even though the producers had given us free rein on the case, I knew that we were limited on what we could do. I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t be allowed to march into the offices and view the files Marsha had saved on her hard drive.
I did wonder about being able to copy them to a flash drive though. I thought about it and decided that it was worth a try. I kept a spare flash drive in the food truck, in case I wanted to back up our register receipts. Keeping back-ups had been drilled into me during business school. I’d read too many cases where poor security protocols had lost time and money for a company.
I slipped the drive into my pocket and turned around to face Danvers.
“What’s up?” he asked nonchalantly. He looked good today. His hair was slicked back except for a few strands that had artfully been allowed to fall over his brow. He was smiling and his eyes twinkled just a bit as he did. He looked good, and the bad thing was that he knew it. I remembered Land’s warning that I shouldn’t share any news with Danvers. Land had been vague in the warning, but I still heeded it. I wasn’t sure why I trusted Land on his assessment of Danvers, but I did.
“Just trying to win a challenge,” I said with a smile in return. “Want to try our ginger scallion condiment today?”
He nodded, and I gave him a dog with the sauce on it. Normally, I would have given him the dog for free, but today I was all in to win this competition. I wanted every dollar that I could muster, and that meant charging the police even if they were suspicious of me.
He paid without seeming to notice, and he ate the dog in silence. His brows raised when he tasted the ginger scallions. “I like this—a lot. Is this another one of Land’s creations?”
I nodded. “Of course. I didn’t even know what it was when I saw the ginger root in the box.”
Danvers smirked. Even a sarcastic look could be sexy on him. “But you two have made it work. This is great.”
I pointed to the cameras. “Be sure to go over there and tell the interviewers that. Part of our score is based on customer reviews.”
“That’s a bit dangerous,” Danvers said, looking over his shoulder. “So were there any pranks this morning at the announcement of the challenge?”
I told him the story of the dog poop and Tracy Jones and her subsequent receipt of cilantro, which worked too well with a taco truck. He finished his hot dog while I was talking. He licked his fingers which I took as a good sign and nodded.
“So there seems to be some preferential treatment going on backstage. Do you think that it’s coming from the staff or the other participants?” Danvers kept my gaze as he asked the question.
“The preferential treatment would have to come from the staff, but the pranks could be from anyone. I don’t know who is behind the pranks so it’s hard to tell. I was thinking of looking for the surveillance footage again to see who urinated on our pots and pans.”
Danvers made a face. “I wouldn’t say that too loud. It might affect business. I don’t want to think of anyone doing that to your cookware.”
I laughed. “Good point. I’ll keep my voice lowered.”
“So where is this cameraman?” he asked. I pointed him out and Danvers headed off in that direction. I wondered if he was going to question the cameraman about what he’d seen over the course of the competition. The same cameraman was not with the same food truck each week, so one of them might have seen several of the pranks.
I saw Danvers talk to the cameraman. From my vantage point, it looked like he was giving Dogs on the Roll a customer review. I wondered what he would have to say about the new condiment.
When the lunch crowd had died down, I closed the window and started counting the money. I had to count the twenties twice. I was nervous about the competition and the idea of sneaking into Marsha’s office and getting those files. By my tally, we were seven hundred dollars over an average day. The extra money was sweet, and I knew that put us near the top of the competition for the week. We’d do well with the challenge at this rate.
I handed over the pouch with the money and the deposit slip to the show’s staff member on-site. He took it, counted it, and he would be responsible for depositing the cash after his tally. The information about our sales would be called into the show, where it would be tallied with those of all of the contestants as part of their rubric for winning.
After we finished our clean up, we headed back to the studio. T
he show’s plan was to have us watch our customer reviews and react to their responses. I was not looking forward to this. I was not a big fan of random critiques of my life’s work. I didn’t think that Land would react well either to the comments of an untrained palate.
We were about the fifth truck in the lot when we arrived. We waited our turn for the green room and the airing of the customer reviews. We finally made it to the green room, which still creeped me out but not as much as it had before. The room had been changed so that a remote hook-up allowed us to watch the big screen TV in the room.
An image appeared on the screen. A woman was screaming at the camera. “This is the worst shit I’ve ever tasted. I wouldn’t feed this to my worst enemy.”
My mouth dropped open. I didn’t remember this woman from today. I hadn’t seen her at the food truck, and yet here she was, trashing my food. She continued on with her rant, calling the owners dirty names and generally abusing the truck.
The disembodied voice of the intern came through the speakers. “Sorry, that’s for another person. Wait a second, and yours will come up.”
I breathed a heavy sigh. Land’s eyes were huge. I think he’d been more stunned than I was. He hadn’t seen the customers and hadn’t realized that the person couldn’t have been talking about our food. He raised an eyebrow to let me know he was wondering who was getting reamed like that.
A new set of reviews came on the screen. The first one was a man that I recognized from this morning. He praised the new condiment and suggested it as a permanent fixture on the menu. Land watched with his bottom lip stuck out, as if he was contemplating the suggestion.
The next customer was an older woman, who liked the ginger scallions, but wished we would just stick with the regular menu. She was tired of us trying new things. She liked the old menu with its hot dogs and relishes.
Danvers put on quite a show and talked up the business as well. There was only one negative review, from the man who had ended up wearing the ginger sauce. He complained about the lack of napkins of all things. I rolled my eyes as he spoke. Even with his complaint, he admitted that he’d loved the food and new condiment.
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 24