I put down the reports. I decided to call the sister next. Fortunately for me, the number was still on my hand. I wrote it down on a sheet of paper and then dialed. A woman answered on the third ring.
I cleared my throat and went into my spiel. “I was hoping to talk to the family to get some closure. I’m the one who found Linda after she was murdered. I’m sure you can imagine that it’s been an ordeal. I know it has been for you too.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. For a moment, I thought that she’d hung up on me, but finally she said, “I don’t think I can share that information with you without asking the family first. But I will meet you to talk if you’d like.”
I suggested this evening and named a few local diners and restaurants that would accommodate a discussion like ours. I wanted a place that was quiet and relatively private. If she caused a fuss when I accused her sister of taking a bribe, I didn’t want a crowd to look on.
She nixed all of them and told me that she’d come to my work tomorrow. I told her my location on Elm Street and she told me that she’d stop by around 1 p.m. I thought about trying to stop her from coming then because it meant certainly meeting Land who would eavesdrop, and possibly meeting Danvers, who would want to know what was going on. Neither of those things would be considered private.
Her voice sounded tremulous, but I was uncertain if she was really afraid or if that was just the way she normally sounded. I had a lot of questions to ask her, but she excused herself after a few more seconds and hung up on me. I had to wait until tomorrow to learn more.
The rest of the evening was quiet. I got to bed early so that I could get to the truck first and start my day. For some reason, whenever I am in a hurry to get the day done, I’ll try to start it even earlier, as though that made sense.
I was already well into making the coffee when Land showed up. He raised an eyebrow at my early morning efforts. I beat him to the truck one or two days a week, but typically only by a few minutes. We’d worked out a system where the early bird texted the other so we knew where to go. It worked well for us.
I just shrugged and went back to work. I didn’t want to give him any reason to think that something was going on later today. He might want to get involved, take over, or he might notify Danvers. None of those options appealed to me. I wasn’t in a mood to deal with men who treated me like a youngster.
Danvers had not shown at 1 p.m., and I was getting nervous. Normally he stopped by once a day during an investigation, or more recently during the the trial. It’s not necessarily that he wants anything from us. I think he’s just keeping an eye on us to make sure we’re not causing any trouble in his investigations, which I’d done from time to time.
So I had fully expected him to come by to comment on the verdict and likely sentencing options for the killer. He always acted as if I had a vested interest in seeing justice done. In each case where I’d looked into a killing, my involvement had been because I was personally threatened by another. My motives were clearly self-preservation.
However, he hadn’t shown yet, which meant each passing minute led to higher odds that he would come soon. He usually waited until the end of our shift, so that he wasn’t cutting into the profits on the food truck by stopping the paying clients from getting served. It’s hard to make small talk and take the orders for seven hot dogs and three cups of coffee at once. A later arrival meant that he could actually talk to me without waiting five minutes for an answer.
Even so, he still hadn’t mentioned our kiss in all the days he’d been coming around. He’d avoided me for two days after we’d kissed, and even now, he never mentioned stopping by the apartment or what happened inside. It was just like a man to avoid emotions. Yet I knew deep down that I hadn’t pushed the matter at all. I’d been fine with letting things sit unexplained.
It was now 1:19, and Linda’s sister had not shown up either. That did not bode well. Either she had something important to tell me and was debating whether to come, or she couldn’t be bothered to discuss the matter and was just putting me off in any way possible. Neither one of those options was appealing to me as they did not move me closer to getting answers.
I checked my watch again, and Land caught me in the act. “What is it with you and the watch today? Do you have a hot date after work today?” he said with a grin. I was a bit shocked. Land never mentioned anything of a personal nature—either his personal business or mine. So a joke like that seemed very out of character for him. I wondered if he suspected that I was meeting someone regarding the case I’d decided to follow. Sometimes he knew or deduced things that I thought I’d hidden. I wouldn’t be surprised for him to have figured out that someone was meeting me here today to discuss the health inspector.
“I don’t even know what those are anymore,” I said a little too honestly. My social life in the past six months had consisted of exactly one kiss with Detective Jax Danvers, which I wasn’t really even sure counted. It had been a working dinner on a murder case, not a real date. Plus there had been no follow-up dates, or calls either.
“I can explain it to you—that is if your parents won’t.” he said, chuckling.
“I’m good,” I replied. Of all the times for him to become friendly, it had to be when I wanted to talk to a possible witness and hoped that a certain policeman wouldn’t show at the same time.
Coming up Elm Street, I could see a dark-haired woman striding quickly toward the truck. I thought that this had to be Linda’s sister. She was tall with long legs that had a definite intended direction. She was wearing a light yellow jacket over tailored pants and some sort of patterned blouse. She looked pleasant and normal, not the type who would be related to a murder victim who might have been bribed.
Just my luck, I also spotted Danvers walking in this direction. He either didn’t know or didn’t recognize Linda’s sister, because he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to arrive. He was certainly not following her, because at her pace, she would have quickly lapped him around the block. Danvers looked more like he was coming under duress, like he had to put in an appearance rather than wanted to.
The sister was about 20 yards away when I heard a loud crack, like the sound of a bullwhip snapping. Linda’s sister went down in a crumpled heap. At first, I thought that perhaps she’d tripped and fallen, but she didn’t get up—or move for that matter. I just stood at the customer window, staring—not sure that I’d really just seen what I thought I had. My mind refused to process what I’d seen.
Before I could make any motion, I was on the floor. Land was on top of me, holding an iron skillet between us and the window.
“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed. “Get off of me.”
“Stay down, and shut up,” he said. Watching him in action would have been enticing had he not been squishing me. I could feel his hot breath on my neck as he kept his arm perfectly still. The frying pan was still between us and the window, unwavering.
I wondered where he’d learned this. I would have still been standing at the window, gawking at the sight of a dead woman. He was prepared for gunfire without a moment’s hesitation. I could have used more of that type of reaction skills.
From the street I could hear sounds of police communications and sirens. I’d only heard the single crack before Linda’s sister had gone down. There hadn’t been any others. Yet this was one of the busiest areas in the city between the government building in front of us and the myriad business headquarters on all sides. A single shot here had the potential to become a blood bath.
Finally, Land must have realized the same thing that I did. There would only be one shot today. The shooter had hit his mark on the first try.
Land slowly drew himself up into a crouch and looked over the counter to the outside. Only then did he offer me a hand and help me up from the floor.
My apron had the greasy marks of the floor’s grid. I looked vaguely like I’d been run over by a truck. I brushed at the apron and looked out at the gover
nment square.
Danvers had things under control. He’d kept control of the area around the woman’s body. She wasn’t moving at all, which I assumed meant that the killer had hit his mark. Some police officer was pointing in the direction of a nearby office building’s roof. I tried to follow his eye, but from my vantage point, I couldn’t see much. It was probably the place that the police suspected had been used to take aim at the woman. I doubted that many people would have seen a man on the roof, even on a nice sunny day like today.
The square itself was fairly deserted. After the lunch rush, the crowds return to their cubicles to finish the day before heading home at 5 p.m. That’s why it made an ideal time for me to be able to talk to Linda Zoz’s sister without too many interruptions. It also meant that the police did not have to worry about a large crowd gathering in the square to see what was going on. Everyone would be staring from their office windows, so at least they wouldn’t get in the way of the forensics investigation, such as it was. Was it really a crime scene if the shot came from 100 yards away?
Land jumped the counter easily and headed over to where Danvers stood, but not before he issued a warning that I should stay put. Being the good “little woman” that I was, I let myself out by way of the door and headed in that direction as well. I stayed back further from Land, having taken a more orthodox route to the crime scene.
Land was leaning over the body of the dead woman. I’d seen enough dead bodies in my life, including some on this very government square. I had no need to fill my nightmares with any more. I stayed back, watching Land examine the woman. I was shocked to see that Danvers was letting him. If I’d been that much up into a murder investigation, he would have been yelling and screaming loud enough for the suburbs to hear.
Yet Land was allowed to check out a recently deceased woman. It appeared to me that he was looking directly at the gunshot wound. From what I could see, she’d been shot in the head. Fortunately the breeze had taken her long hair and covered part of the wound, so that I didn’t have to stare into a gaping hole. Land still stared at her face. Apparently my chef doubled as a forensics investigator, which I didn’t know. His role in this seemed curious.
I turned my attention away from the body and looked down. A brown leather woman’s purse lay at my feet. Both Danvers and Land were busy with the dead woman, so neither of them noticed me reaching down to examine the bag. Looking at faux animal skins was far more my style than dead bodies.
My main concern, or so my rationale went, was that if the sister had been killed trying to tell me something about the missing Zoz family then I needed to let them know that they were in danger. The purse likely held the woman’s cellphone, and I could get the number for Andy Zoz from that. I might leave a few fingerprints, but save a few lives in the process. Besides, the cause of death was already pretty well defined.
I picked up the purse. Even in the midst of the melee, no one noticed me. A woman with a purse is hardly a spectacle. There were some tissues, lipstick, eyeliner, and a pair of headphones. I noticed that there was no wallet in the purse.
Since I’m a twenty-something, I went right for the smart phone. Even if I didn’t have one, I still knew that most people kept their lives on the device. I pulled it out. Fortunately for me, the woman had not set a passcode on the phone. A quick swipe later, and I was in. I went to the phone list and started looking for the phone numbers called recently. I wrote a few of them on my hand with a pen from my jeans pocket.
I knew my time was short, so I jumped over to the contacts list. I looked for anyone named Zoz, but I couldn’t find any. I was frustrated. I tried to think of other ways that a sister could be located. I tried “Linda,” “sister,” and “family,” but there were no listings. The woman had a very short list of contacts, which mainly appeared by first name.
I hopped over to email and brought up the inbox. Nothing. The inbox was cleaned out. There were no sent mails or deleted mails either. Someone was being very careful about what outsiders could see. I wondered again about the lack of a passcode, but I shrugged. People are hard to explain.
Business school had given me the wonderful skill of being able to multitask, and so when I saw Land and Danvers stand up, I shoved the phone back into the purse and walked it over to them.
“This was on the ground over there,” I said, pointing to where I’d just stood. “I’m guessing it’s the dead woman’s purse. No one else was claiming it.” I held it out like an offering.
Danvers grunted and took it. He waited for a tech to come by, and he passed it off to her. If I’d have known that, I would have spent a few more minutes on a more complete reconnaissance of the contents, such as it was. Land caught my eye as I watched the purse disappear, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he knew I’d checked out a few things. We’d grown to where we could read each other to a certain extent. He spoke so few words anyway that reading his posture and expressions was almost necessary to communicate.
Danvers turned and looked at me. “Did you know this woman? Land said something about her coming to visit you today?”
I looked at Land again. How could he have known that? I hadn’t mentioned the dead woman to him at all. Even so, I knew that Danvers would believe him over me, and so I opted to spill what little I knew.
“Her name was Mariel Mills. She was the dead health inspector’s sister. I went to talk to the Zoz family yesterday, but they’d moved away—rather quickly and with a lot of cash it would appear. No forwarding address. So I called the sister to find out what had happened. She said that she would meet me here today. And you know the rest.”
Danvers walked away from us for a moment. I could see him talking to the same tech who had received the purse from him a few minutes before. The tech shook her head violently, and I wondered what was going on. Danvers took a deep breath and headed back to us.
“The dead lady’s name is not Mills—or Mariel either. We interviewed Mariel Mills at the time of her sister’s murder and that’s not her. Do you want to try again?” His eyes flashed anger as his arms crossed over his chest. “Who was she, and why was she coming to visit you?”
I panicked. I didn’t have any other answers for the police or for myself. “I told you the truth. I called Linda Zoz’s sister. You knew that I wasn’t happy with the results of the trial or the fact that no one would admit to her murder. It left me with questions—lots of them. So I went and asked some of them. She wouldn’t meet me last night, but she said she’d stop by the food truck today around 1 p.m.” I stopped to breathe.
“Well, you better come up with some answers as well as your questions. You’re going to come with us to the station.” He pointed to an upper floor of the government building where Linda Zoz had been beheaded. I’d been to Danvers’ office a few times, but most of them had been social. I’d been questioned there once, and I didn’t really want to repeat that experience. Danvers had not been social at all. He had accused me of murder then. I knew he couldn’t do that today, but I had heard of material witnesses and how they could be held in custody for what they know. I didn’t want to learn more about that process.
Land coughed and looked at Danvers. “Why? She can’t possibly be the killer. She was with me when the shots were fired. I’m sure that at least ten other people will say the same thing. Secondly, this was a professional hit, and I know as well as you do that Maeve is not a professional hitman.”
I looked at him. “Professional? How do you know that?” I asked. When had my chef become an expert on murder for hire?
“The MO is clear. The killer was far away from the scene of the crime. Mostly likely he found a spot to take out the target. He had to use a high-powered rifle, I’m guessing a MSR. You don’t tote those around public places. They’re expensive, and they take time to learn how to use them. Most people don’t own one or use one. So it’s likely someone who gets paid to do just that was behind this murder. We both know that Maeve isn’t a hit man, and she wouldn’t even know where to find a hit
man. It’s not like they advertise on Emily’s List.” While I appreciated the support for my innocence, I felt that Land was going overboard with the description of my incompetence. I doubted that Bill Gates or Warren Buffet could find a hit man either. That skill wasn’t taught at business school.
I’d forgotten about the murder for a minute. I was puzzled by the knowledge that Land possessed. While I couldn’t find a hit man if I wanted one, apparently Land could. I didn’t even know that he knew the first thing about guns, and suddenly he’s sounding like a professor on CSI. I was going to have to find out where he’d gained all of this experience and knowledge. Now was not the time or the place, but it would be soon.
Danvers nodded finally. The pause was probably his reluctance to blame me for all the homicides in his life. “Yeah, it was professional. No other way to be. Still I think Maeve is not telling us everything she knows. She has a history of doing that.”
“I’m not always tight-lipped,” I reminded him. If he was going to throw me off my game, I thought I could return the favor.
Land ignored me. “Well, we can agree that Maeve didn’t do it. So what did the tech say that has you so pissed off?” Land was serious and taking the lead, which made me wonder if this was how the two men knew each other. Danvers was unlikely to take orders from a civilian unless he’d worked for him before in a similar capacity. The man had too much arrogance for subservience. Had they served in the military together? Or possibly worked for a police unit together? I wondered since Land had a working knowledge of firearms.
“We ran a background check on Mariel Mills. I didn’t trust my memory. She’s 52 and plump. Of all the things you can say about our victim here, she’s not 52—and she’s not plump. There’s no ID and no wallet, which is even more reason to think that she’s not Mills. So I got a patrol car to head over to Mariel’s last known address, and we’re going to find out what’s going on. I still think that Maeve knows more than she’s telling, but I would have to agree that she’s not involved in this killing.”
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 31