The lights were out when we arrived at the house. That meant that the home would be empty, since I couldn’t believe anyone went to bed at 7 p.m. My crimes now seemed to be a family affair, since I’d already broken into Mariel’s place. So I didn’t much care when I went to the back door and broke a pane of glass in the door. I unbolted the door and swung it in. I listened for an alarm system, but nothing happened. All was quiet.
Land and I headed inside. He still had his gun with him. He carried it low now, since there wasn’t an immediate danger. We scanned the basement and then the first floor. There was an office/library near the front of the house, and we found hundreds of books in the room.
Land groaned. “Just another dead end,” he said, flopping down in a chair.
I started scanning the books on the shelves. I went slowly, trying not to skip any title. I didn’t know all of them, but I knew a great many of them from my recently completed education.
I suspected that I was looking for a mystery or a biography of a codebreaker like Alan Turing. Those made the most sense in terms of finding a clue in a book. As I went shelf by shelf, I found a large number of science fiction tales along with children’s classics. I did find a book of Sherlock Holmes tales and another of Agatha Christie short stories. I put these at Land’s feet as I continued to peruse. While Faulkner was hard to understand, it did not constitute a code, I thought.
I was on the next to last shelf when a title struck me. It wasn’t a mystery, but I remembered the scrap of paper from the hotel room. It had read “s web.” The book in front of me was Charlotte’s Web. The book didn’t have a code in it from what I remembered about it; however, the coincidence was too much to be random. I pulled that book down and gave it to Land. “I think this might be the book.”
Land skimmed the pages. “Are you supposed to be the little girl or the pig?” he asked with a smirk.
About ten pages into the book, he stopped flipping through it. “There are underlined words here.” He continued to flip through the pages. “And here. And here.”
I jumped down from my perch. I was getting close to solving the code, which could only help us to learn what the hell was going on in Capital City. Part of me wanted to work through the code here and now and get this over with. However, the rational part of me realized that not only were very bad people looking for this code, we were in someone’s house without permission. Even though the lights were off and no alarm had sounded, a nosy neighbor might ask questions or call the police. I didn’t want that interruption now.
Land could see I was anxious to go, but he encouraged me to finish reviewing the shelves. I climbed back up to the top shelf and looked at the titles on the last shelf. Nothing stuck out at me, so I came down again and we left.
I’d never been to Land’s place, so it was something of a surprise when we reached a high-rise apartment building and he pulled into the underground parking garage. I had not expected this at all. I guess I’d thought that, given his salary, he’d be living in dire straits like me.
We passed the security guard at the door. No wonder he’d wanted to come here. The guard was not a grandpa in need of some extra cash. This guy was a lineman with a gun obviously holstered under his jacket. While he might not survive against a sniper, I knew that he’d raise an alarm before he went down.
Land’s apartment was much nicer than mine was. The furnishings were spartan. He had a lamp and a sofa in the living room. He didn’t offer to show me the rest of the place, and I was in too much of a hurry to push to see it.
I sat down on the floor and pulled out the papers again. I set the book down next to me and looked at all of them. Close as I was, I still had no idea how to solve this code.
Land laughed as he sat down beside me. “Still no clue, eh?”
I shook my head. Today had been too much for me to start trying to pretend that I didn’t need some help to get through this. “Not a clue.”
“This is a book code. You have to know the book to get started. The code refers to page and line numbers and maybe word numbers. So, 3145, would be page 3, line 14, word 5. There aren’t any leading zeroes, so the code is going to be even tougher to break. You’ll have to wait to complete each word before you can hope to solve the next word. Let me show you.”
The first set of numbers was 145239. We looked on page 14, but there were no underlined words. So we moved to page 145 and looked to line 23. The 9th word was underlined. The word was “help.”
Something told me that we were on the right path with that word. We progressed slowly through the lines of numbers I’d written down. Some words used the entire word. In other cases, only a portion of the word was underlined. In those cases, it either was a word in its own right or had to be combined with another word to make sense.
At one point, I stopped and looked at Land. “What is it?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. This was getting scary for me. “It’s the third number that I took from the woman’s cellphone. 1016. It’s part of the code we’re breaking.”
Land actually smiled at me. I was scared to death of what we’d learn, and he was practically grinning. “Good. It means we’re getting close. They must have seen the letter at some point and tried to make sense of it. We’re farther ahead, which is always where you want to be when you’re working against a group like this.”
It was tiring and painstaking, but finally we had the letter. It read as follows:
Mari,
NBG is after me. I took money from them to give them permits. To do what they wanted. Now they want my silence. I’m afraid. Very afraid. If anything happens to me, let the police know.
I sighed. Hours of detailed work, and I got a letter that pretty much told me what I already knew. NBG wanted to own the food truck market for some reason and paid Linda off to get it. I still didn’t know why. I still didn’t know who was behind the deaths. People had been killed over a letter that didn’t give any details. It just seemed like an awful waste.
“And this is why I hate codes,” Land repeated. “You can give this to Danvers, or you can make use of it yourself.”
I nodded. “I don’t see that we have a choice. We’re long past the point of giving him more information. He botched the Zoz meeting, and he didn’t make any announcement about Betty Montgomery. It seems like he’s totally dropped the ball on this.”
Land rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that he’s off working on his next big case. Supposedly there’s a new trial starting tomorrow. He’s testifying at the trial for a mob boss. He’s one of ten witnesses from the CCPD. I doubt that he’ll like that, not being the only one.”
“Do you think that he’s involved with the mob?”
Land paused. “No, but the fact that I had to think about it doesn’t say much for my opinion of him. However, I expect that he thinks that he’ll get a commendation out of this, maybe a promotion. I would expect Danvers to get something for his trouble.”
“So my other option is to learn what I can about NBG and try to use the letter against them.”
Land actually had Wi-Fi service in his apartment, and I used his phone to look up information about NBG. I still couldn’t understand why they’d paid off Linda. I was reading more about the company when I came to a stop. “Land, look at this.”
He read over my shoulder. The Citian hotel was owned by NBG as well. The hotel that had employed the man who had tried to kill me was owned by the same company who apparently had killed Betty Montgomery.
“Do you have the cards of those people you talked to? Maybe you can call one of them and tell them about Betty Montgomery. Maybe you’ll get something from one of them.”
I pulled the papers out of my bag and found the cards. I looked at the first card and froze.
“What is it? Did you think of something?” Land asked. He took the card from my hand and looked at it.
The contact phone number for Jacob Stanton was the same one that had been written on my arm—and had been in Betty’s phone.
/> Chapter 14
Land handed the card back to me. “Well, that pretty much ties things up. We have two people in the financial organization of the company who were involved in bribing people. Who better to pay out money than the CFO and her organization?”
I shook my head. The answer to my question regarding the owner of the phone number had been in my pocket for days. “He knew that she’d been hit. He practically admitted it.”
“It’s good to know,” Land replied, “but that wouldn’t stand up in court. We need a lot more than practically admitting knowledge.”
“What would convince Danvers and the police beyond a reasonable doubt?”
“Motive. Nobody is going to believe that a global corporation decided to kill a bunch of people to corner the market on food trucks. It just isn’t plausible. So if not to make a few extra dollars, what did they want?”
I tried to think of what they could want. The obvious answer of the food truck business just didn’t make sense. So what else was gained? “My aunt always said that the food truck business was all about the permits and the location. Could it be something about where we park?”
Land shook his head. “Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get a particular corner? No, I just don’t see that happening either. You need to think big. The stakes have to be much higher than a few hot dogs.”
I tried to think of what it could be, but my mind was still frazzled from the day’s events and as I sat there and tried to think, I dozed off.
Getting ready for work with your co-worker is an odd experience. I awoke, still lying on the sofa. Apparently Land’s hospitality did not involve giving up his bed for me. My neck and back protested when I sat up straight. It was going to be a long day; I could tell that already.
Land came out of the bathroom, obviously fresh from a shower. His short hair still had drops of water in it, and he was wearing only a towel, which was incredibly distracting. No one could say that I don’t have a keen eye for deductions. His cheeks flushed, and he scuttled into the bedroom to get dressed.
I figured that left the bathroom clear for me, so I took my bag in with me and hurriedly finished getting ready. Nobody expects too much from the hot dog lady, so I was done in a few minutes.
We drove my car to the secured lot, since Land’s sports car was still missing windows. He’d arranged for an insurance adjuster on my policy to come and take a look at it today. I knew that he didn’t like riding in the Buick, but at least it was intact.
Work seemed odd. We had less to talk about than normal, since we’d seen each other all night. Neither of us had come up with a reason why a multinational corporation would want to kill people for food trucks, but I had hopes that we’d uncover some explanation for the crimes.
Business was good. All day, I kept thinking of Betty Montgomery and her death as I watched people come and go throughout the government square. Could the food trucks have been used to shoot people? Did NBG want mobile hit men?
I advanced the idea to Land, but he shot it down, so to speak.
“Why would you want to be at ground level? It’s harder to hit your target and you could get boxed in by traffic or police cars. I wouldn’t want to try to make a shot from Dogs on the Roll. Too many factors.”
I sighed, trying to come up with another reason. “I was just thinking of the hotel balcony and the view from the NBG building. Both of those could easily see the square and our food truck. I’m just wondering if that’s coincidence or something else.”
Land shrugged. “Snipers thrive on those kinds of views. They can get a clear shot without people in the way, and then they can sneak out while the police are still trying to figure out from what angle the shot came. It’s a no-brainer. Food trucks couldn’t be used like that, and I doubt that anyone would use a food truck to cut off someone’s head either. The trucks aren’t going to be used to kill anyone that I can tell, and even if they did, no one said that they had to be in any one spot to do it.”
Detective Danvers came up at that moment and ordered a coffee. We had been so intent on our conversation that I hadn’t even noticed him. He had on an obviously new suit, a dark gray that went well with his hair and eyes. I wondered again about the money he spent on clothes and himself. Did he have a second source of income? One that perhaps came from something illegal? Those thoughts prohibited me from admiring what I saw.
Then again, I wondered how Land had a sports car. Maybe I just needed to budget my money better. Everyone else had the things I wanted.
“The new trial starts today,” Danvers explained. “The reporters are already lining up at security to get in.” He pointed to the doors of the government building, where I recognized a few of the nightly news people. “You should be seeing me on the news tonight.”
“If I watch,” I said plainly, handing him the coffee. I normally gave it to him gratis. I thought about making him pay, but he was still a member of the police, and we routinely gave to the rest of the men in blue. I chose not to single him out one way or the other.
The shift continued without issue. Business was up because of the impending trial, so we didn’t have much time to talk or think about what might be happening. I wasn’t sure that any additional time would be beneficial. We were missing one piece to this puzzle, and I wasn’t sure that we could get to it by mere deductions. We needed another clue. Somewhere was an explanation for why they needed so many food trucks.
I looked around the square and I could count that two trucks belonged to NBG. Why wasn’t that enough?
We were just finishing the shift. The window had been put down, and I was counting cash when I heard a terrible noise from outside and the food truck shook like a cradle. Land was out the door before I could stop him. I followed as fast as I could, stuffing the money in my bag so that it wouldn’t be stolen. I wouldn’t put it past anyone these days.
Another food truck had clipped the front end of Dogs on the Roll. The axle looked like it might be broken and the right front tire was now flat. I cursed, thinking of the fact that I would now have to put in another insurance claim. I didn’t want my rates to go up, but this case would definitely be putting us in the high-risk category.
The driver of the other truck stepped out, looking sheepish. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. When I looked up, I was about to hit someone. It was a choice of either them or you. I thought the truck would handle it better than the person would.”
He came over and shook my hand. “Are you the owner? No hard feelings, I hope.”
I eyed him suspiciously. Not only was the truck likely to be out of commission for a few days, he’d actually assumed that I was the owner of the truck. I could count on one thumb the number of times that had happened. Everyone assumed that Land, that Basque alpha male was in charge. I strongly suspected that he knew about our truck and me before he ever careened toward our food truck. This was some sort of set-up.
The statement made me reassess the situation. Our truck had been put out of commission. That would likely mean that another truck—possibly a NBG truck—would fill our spot for the foreseeable future. NBG had achieved their goal. For whatever reasons, they had wanted to fill more of the spots around the government square—and so they had. The truck would be towed off, and we’d be gone for a few days.
So the object of their plan was to take our location—or remove one more competitor from the game. I still wasn’t sure which one applied; it seemed ludicrous to assume that NBG was killing people and paying off others to make a few more dollars in the food truck business. As Land had said, the motive had to be much larger and it had to be something that would convince Danvers and ultimately a jury.
I looked over to the entrance of the government building, thinking about the trial that was starting there today. At the same time, I saw three men from NBG Security head into the building. I had an awful feeling that I knew exactly what was wrong. Land had missed it. He was busy arguing with the errant driver about the truck and the lost time and mo
ney.
I could see it all clearly now. We were being misdirected. The point had not been about getting the truck business. It had been about getting close to the government building. If the witnesses were all assembled prior to the trial, as Danvers was now, it would be simplicity itself to detonate a bomb of some sort and kill them all. No witnesses, no charges, no conviction. I’d seen that in action yesterday when Andy Zoz had disappeared. Danvers had not believed my story based on a few shells.
“Land, will you get his contact information and then come help me? I’m concerned about the cash drawer from today,” I lied. The cash was already stored in my bag. However, Land didn’t know that, and I needed him to play his part well at this point. Within a few moments, Land was by my side. I’d particularly used the cash, since that had been the impetus for him accompanying me to the bank. I’d hoped that he would get a clue from my word choice, but I could tell as he approached that he hadn’t.
“What’s up with the cash? Lock the door and it should be fine, but don’t leave it in there when they come to tow the truck.” He looked at me with a puzzled frown. Land was much more used to me giving instructions than asking for them.
“Forget the cash. I—we have a much bigger problem than that.”
Land looked at the truck. “I’m sure his insurance will pay for it.”
I shook my head. “I’m positive that they will. It’s a NBG truck that hit us. Does that tell you anything?”
Land slapped himself on the forehead. “I should have suspected something. How do you know?”
My eyes widened. “I read it in the report you gave me. He was one of the trucks that got a permit while my aunt was being shut out. I remember the food truck name.”
Land nodded. “Good work. So what do you think that means?” He furrowed his brows. “I’m not stupid. It means that this was no accident. He hit us on purpose.”
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 42