He was there before the guy on the floor even bothered to move. Land had multiple sets of handcuffs and shackles, and managed to truss Robby or Richie up like a pig. Then he called the police for me.
I hadn’t realized how I’d been running on adrenaline until Land had walked into the room. He took charge, and I just plopped into the nearest chair. I put my head between my hands and tried to wipe out the thoughts of what could have happened. He’d obviously not believed my story about my sister, but that could have been because he’d gone to school with me. He would obviously have known that I didn’t have a sister who needed something from the room. Even so, a white lie was no reason to come to someone’s house and try to kill them. My only possible conclusion was that he was mixed up with the people who had killed Betty Montgomery—or possibly the people who had killed Linda Zoz.
My money was on the Betty Montgomery angle. The hotel had the tie-in with the woman who had claimed to be her sister. The hotel had nothing to do with the Zoz family that I knew of. So it was more likely that they were involved with the sniper shooting. I was surprised in thinking about it. This attempted crime was far more up-close than a sniper’s bullet. I wondered why they had changed their MO.
I looked up to see Land watching me. After the recent events, I was a little creeped out by the way he was staring, even though I’d long considered him a friend, not someone to be worried about. Now, this close examination made me worry. I was even more worried about the fact that I was getting so paranoid. I didn’t trust anyone at this point.
“So how are you doing?” Land said finally.
I started to whisper and realized that there was no need to. Robby or Richie would not be going anywhere soon. “As good as can be expected,” I said, “considering that someone wanted to kill me tonight.”
Land shrugged. “I’m surprised that this hasn’t happened before. I think you’re pushing awfully hard to solve something that a lot of people don’t want solved.”
I heard a moan on the floor. I stopped talking for a second to check out the man who had tried to harm me. He was still firmly tied.
I motioned to Land to move to the other room. Frankly, in my apartment there’s the living room slash dining room slash kitchen and then the bedroom. So we awkwardly moved to the bedroom for a moment. Fortunately for me, Land chose not to make a deal of it, and left any sarcastic comments about it outside.
In a few brief sentences, I told him what I’d found. I explained about the scrap of paper and the letter from Mariel. He nodded and asked to see it.
“After the police leave, I can show you, but I don’t even want to give him a hint that those papers are here somewhere. It could mean another break-in or worse.”
Land nodded in understanding. Before he could speak, knocking came from the front door. It had to be the police, so we headed out to answer the door. Land looked out of the window before motioning for me to open the door.
I pulled the door open and two patrol cars were parked out front. The lights were off, but the two men at the door both had their hands on their weapons. It was definitely not the way I was used to being greeted at the door.
I told the men my story as they entered. The older of the two men took notes while the other checked the vital stats of the man lying on the floor. My former classmate must have been okay, because the officer stood up and came over to where we stood. I finished up my narrative, and the younger officer nodded at the other. So apparently my story checked out against the wounds of the man on the floor. I hadn’t thought of the possibility of my story being doubted. It had been so extreme and frightening that I just assumed my word would be taken at face value.
I tried to think of another scenario where I would have been attacked. The marks on my neck still hurt, and I could see the impression of his hands still around my throat. I certainly couldn’t have done that to myself.
The officers slapped Robby or Richie awake and hauled him up by his arms. “Who has the keys to these things?” one of them asked.
Land came over and unlocked the handcuffs. He caught the restraints as they began to drop to the floor.
“Nice cuffs,” said the same officer. “Where did you get those? They look military.”
Land merely nodded. “They are,” he said without elaboration. At least I felt vindicated that he was taciturn with everyone and not just me.
They left with their prisoner, and the apartment suddenly felt very quiet and very vulnerable. I was concerned about staying here by myself. If whoever these people were had sent one person, what was to stop them from sending another, or ten others together, to kill me? It was not a comforting feeling.
Land looked around the place. “So where is this hiding place that you’ve found here?”
I took him to the kitchen and showed him the loose drywall. I brought out the letter and the scrap of paper.
He was unimpressed with the scrap. “This could be anything. It could be the hotel bill or a reminder to pick something up at the store. There’s not enough to go on. You don’t even know that it belonged to this Petra—if that’s her real name.”
I still slid the piece of paper back in the envelope, and then I handed him the letter. He read through it twice and sighed.
“I hate codes,” he said, throwing it back on the table. “Everyone wants to write in code, but all it does is slow things down. Translating from code is worse than being tortured in my opinion.”
I rolled my eyes. I’d only been threatened for a moment, and I knew that I’d much rather be locked in a room all day decoding letters than be tortured for a second. Easy choice. “I’ll do it then. You just have to get me started, and I’ll take it from there.”
“Why don’t you just give it to Danvers?” he asked. “He’s got people and computers to do this for you. It would go a lot faster if you did it that way—and fewer headaches.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Uh, didn’t you notice who didn’t show up tonight to see how things were going? I could have been dead on the floor—”
“You called him, so that would have been quite the feat,” Land interrupted.
“Yeah, well I could have been hurt,” I retorted.
“You would have said something about it in the phone call. He knew you were alright and just sent backup to take care of it.”
“Normally, he comes to check on the situation himself,” I said, wondering if I was angry at my attacker, or Danvers or whatever group wanted me dead—or perhaps a combination of all three.
“Maybe he’ll stop by later,” Land said trying to conceal a smirk.
“I’m doubting it. I think that was over before it began.” I would have to think about my feelings on that matter, but only after I got to the point where I wasn’t being attacked or threatened. Now I wanted to find peace.
“It’s for the best. I told you not to trust him,” Land said, again not explaining what he meant about Danvers or why he was so suspicious of the man. “So about this letter.”
“Codes, right. So, in looking at this, I’m wondering about a few things. The first is that some are letters and some are numbers. That’s not what I’m used to. What it makes me think of is the Caesar Shift code, where each letter is represented by another letter in some pattern. You figure out each letter individually until you have enough of the letters to read the message. A might be 1, B might be Y, etc.”
I widened my eyes. “How exactly am I supposed to do that? I’d be here forever.”
Land smiled. “Now you know why I hate codes. The easiest way to start is to know that ‘E’ is the most common letter in the alphabet. So whatever character you find most often is likely to be the letter E in the real message.”
I started trying to count letters, but he stopped me.
“The thing I don’t like about this code is that the letter makes sense—I mean, almost makes sense. So I doubt that this is that type of code.”
“Then what I do next?”
“I would start with trying every other
word, every third word and every fourth word. If none of those options work, then I’d split the letters and numbers and see if either of those makes any kind of coherent message. This could be Baconian. In all honesty, I’m not expecting any of them to work. This is a weird code, but it also has to be tough enough that these organizations couldn’t solve it in the first five minutes of having the letter.”
I started with the every other word, but within seconds, I could see that the new letter wouldn’t make any sense. The same thing happened with every third word and every fourth word.
I groaned.
Land looked at the results so far. “I told you that I hated codes, and now you are starting to understand why.”
I then split the note into text characters and numeric characters, but that didn’t help either. I just had two lists of nonsense. The text no longer made sense at all, and the numbers were just a list.
“Do you think that we need to break the numbers up to make words?” I asked Land.
He shook his head, while trying to hide a smile. I wasn’t pleased that he was laughing at my struggles. “Not a chance. First, the alphabet and the digits are not comparable. You have 10 digits and 26 letters. So, either 16 letters don’t have corresponding digits or one digit could mean at least two different letters. Either way, it would be a nightmare. Secondly, you have no idea what the words would be, so until you have broken the code, you won’t know where to put the breaks. It’s a fool’s game.”
I began to see what he meant. I wasn’t going to get anywhere like this. I didn’t understand enough about codes to break it myself, and I didn’t know anyone who could break codes either. Both Linda and Mariel had been killed, presumably regarding whatever secret was held in this document. Now I had it, and I was just as scared of learning what the secret was as I was of sharing the fact that I had this paper with anyone. I was getting to be very skeptical of the motives of anyone in my life.
I took a deep breath and looked at Land. “So now what?” I asked him. The evening had left me shaken, and I had no desire to be attacked ever again.
“There’s a couple of things that you could do, but they have serious drawbacks,” Land said. I thought that this was probably the longest time that he’d ever talked to me, and certainly the longest time we’d spent in each other’s company without being in the truck. It was an odd sensation to see this side of him.
I looked at him and saw his reticence. I wasn’t sure what was driving it, since normally he was more than happy to tell me exactly what he thought of me. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was pursed.
“Okay, so tell me,” I asked.
“The first is to do what you’re doing. Make yourself a target and wait for them to come to you. Like tonight. Like at the bank. The problems are that it’s very reactive, and you’re likely to get killed. You’ve been lucky so far, but you don’t have the skills to go up against a pro like they’re going to send at some point.”
“Yeah, not a fan of that one,” I said truthfully. I had already experienced more than enough attacks on me to be happy if it never happened again. The thought of making myself bait for these people did not appeal to me at all.
“Then you can pick one of the open cases associated with the Linda Zoz murder and start investigating that crime. Of course, the police are not going to like that. You don’t have a way to find the Zoz family. Mariel is dead, so that’s a dead end as well. In that case, you’re stuck with a weird code that you don’t want to solve and two beheadings. You can talk to the fire department about the fire, but I’m guessing you won’t learn much there. The only clue you’d have is trying to dial all of those thousand numbers to find the family. That’s safe, but dull.”
I’d thought of doing just that, but again I didn’t know what to say to Andy Zoz once I had him on the phone. I had so many questions, but I wasn’t sure that he would answer any of them. More than likely, it would be as bad as the phone call I’d made after the murder of Betty Montgomery.
“So what else do you have?” I asked, feeling rather defeated. “There has to be a better option than getting arrested by Danvers for involving myself in an open investigation. Please tell me there is.”
“My last suggestion would be to talk to the real family of Betty Montgomery. You can find out why they didn’t report her missing, which might be another case of blackmail or bribery. You could find out who benefitted there. You could also talk to that company about her role there and try to find out more about the permits.”
I nodded. He had definitely saved the least troublesome path for last. I could talk to these people without raising too much of Danvers’ ire. With all the troubles and murders going on, I wasn’t sure that he’d even notice if I wanted to offer my condolences to the Montgomery family. At least this family was in town and not at an undisclosed location.
“That sounds like a plan,” I said finally. “Let’s go with door number three.”
We talked for a bit longer about the truck and business. Land studiously avoided talking about the attack, and so did I. After a while, he made his excuses and left. The apartment felt lonely and vulnerable without him.
Chapter 11
I made it to the truck by almost opening time the next morning. I hadn’t slept well at all. Every noise was an intruder, and every time I woke I was positive that it was because someone was in the room with me. I’d lie very still until I was sure that I was alone, and then I’d struggle to go back to sleep.
In those long hours, I decided that I would take Land’s suggestion and start looking into Betty Montgomery’s life and NBG. The corporation had definitely pulled some shenanigans that had delayed my aunt’s permits, and they had likely bribed Linda Zoz, who had disappeared with the cash. It seemed like the company was at the heart of many of the mysteries and murders going on.
I had looked up the address for NBG. It was extremely convenient to the food truck. They were located in an office building just one block away from the government square. I planned to stop there after work and talk to someone in the finance department to learn why no one had reported Betty missing. That, combined with someone else coming forward, had misled the police for several days. Had I not been looking into the business because of the denied permits, the deception could have gone on for months.
Land and I concentrated on business for the morning. We didn’t talk much about last night or the murders. Business was still going well, and I knew that every time we had a big till, Land thought about us opening a second truck that he could run by himself.
Lunch came and went with no sign of Danvers. I had to say that I was a little hurt that he had chosen to ignore me in this way. He hadn’t bothered to check up to see how I was after last night’s attack, and now he was skipping his daily visit to pick up a coffee and chat. Even if most of the conversations dealt with crimes that I was involved with, I’d grown accustomed to seeing him around.
His behavior made me all the more certain that I would be going to talk to NBG today. If he wasn’t going to find out what was going on with me, I would solve this myself. He could read a report later for all I cared.
We finished up the shift. Land agreed to take the truck back to the secured lot, so that I could visit NBG. His sole demand was that I text him when I was safely out of the building. Apparently, he had the idea that I could be snatched from the corporation and murdered somewhere in the building.
I tried to make myself appear more professional before leaving the truck. I knew how these people dressed and thought. I had received a business degree in college. I’d interned for a similar firm and been courted by a few others during the interview process. I felt at home with this crowd, but due to the economy and the lack of jobs, I’d not been offered anything. I didn’t exactly have a chip on my shoulder regarding firms like this, but I did wonder how I would feel about talking to someone my age that had actually started to work for them.
I took the elevator to the eleventh floor of the building. From the lobby
I had a clear view of the government square and our food truck’s location. I thought about how different it looked from that perspective. It appeared to be so small and insignificant. Is that how NBG saw its competitors, so that it was willing to walk all over them to get what they wanted? I recalled the hotel balcony yesterday and how I’d been able to see the government square from that vantage point as well. It made me wonder if that was not a coincidence. Betty Montgomery had lost her life there, but I couldn’t think of any particular reason why the square was important.
A receptionist came to the desk, and I approached her.
“May I help you?”
She didn’t look like a killer. I have to say that in my time in corporations I never saw anyone who looked like they would do wrong, yet I knew for a fact that many of them lied to customers, cheated on corporate taxes, and skirted the law when it suited them. I remembered this as I decided what to say.
“I’m here about Betty Montgomery. I understand that she was killed last week, and I needed a statement from some of her co-workers.” I tried to look somewhat official, but I was still dressed in my normal food truck clothes.
“Are you from the police?” she asked. I noticed that she didn’t ask what had happened to Betty.
“No, I’m involved in the insurance end of things. It’s a mess. Someone pretending to be her sister claimed the body and identified her as someone else. You can’t imagine what that does to the payout of an insurance policy. It’s a nightmare. I’ve never had anything like this happen in my career.” I adopted a put-upon air with ease.
She nodded. “We heard about that. It was such a tragedy. So why do you need to talk to her co-workers?”
I sighed heavily, in the manner I’d heard many overworked people do. “Well, since it’s apparent that we can’t trust anyone who says that they’re Betty’s relatives, the firm decided to work with the co-workers. They should be able to provide sufficient information to get this resolved. We’ll need some help in the matter of providing a positive identification.”
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 39