FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  Carter slipped off his apron, which I’d now have to wash. Then he pulled off the t-shirt that he’d been wearing, some indie band from the 90s. Sure enough, my new help was wired for sound. He had a small unit at the small of his back and a few wires running up his chest. I’d managed to hit some of the wires with the mustard blast, and apparently the feedback and screaming from Carter had led to Danvers coming on the run.

  “Care to explain?” I asked Danvers. “Is my new cook actually a police officer or did you just corrupt someone off the streets?”

  Carter spoke up. “I’m really a cook. I was approached by the police to wear a wire on the new food truck. They made me a great offer, and I need the money to help out my mom. There was no way I could say no to that.” He wasn’t looking at me, but down at the floor. I cursed myself, wondering now if I could trust this guy with the truck. He had violated my trust, but not done any damage to the truck or the business. He’d just been a conduit of information to the police.

  I turned to Danvers. “So you think that you need to spy on me to keep track of what I’m doing?”

  Danvers had the good graces to look uncomfortable. “It was one of the provisos about letting you have the truck out of the evidence room. We needed to have access to the truck full-time, in case anything happened.”

  “One that you chose not to tell me,” I pointed out.

  “Would you have taken the truck under those rules?” he asked.

  I paused. I wasn’t sure if I would have or not. On the one hand, the truck had been tremendously profitable so far and had shown no signs of slowing down. On the other hand, I felt like a five year old who was too immature to be trusted with the adult toys and had to be monitored full-time. “I don’t know, but it would have been my decision,” I pointed out to him. “It would be nice if I got a say-so in what happens to me and my business.”

  Land, who had been watching with some amusement, spoke, “Maeve figured out how the killer managed the murder using the gun with the ventilation holes and camera.” He provided a quick demonstration of the technique. Given the laidback attitude that he was displaying, I suspected that Land had either known or strongly suspected that the police were listening in on us.

  I tried to remember if I’d said anything about Danvers while we were in the truck. I couldn’t remember for sure, but at the moment, I hoped that it was something extremely harsh. I wanted him to suffer a little as well.

  “It still doesn’t mean that you’ve solved the case,” Danvers pointed out. I wasn’t sure what he wanted at this point, but I was tired of the constant demands and accusations. As far as I could tell, he’d kept one of my employees out too late working on surveillance that had turned up nothing and the other had been transformed into a giant microphone. Yet for all his work, I’d determined how the crime was committed.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I will.”

  I walked off without saying a word to any of them. The decision about Carter would wait for another day, and it wouldn’t do any harm to make him worry about his fate. I had plans for this afternoon, but it wasn’t surveillance.

  I’d had another idea while Detective Danvers had been yelling. Perhaps he and Land never had any success with their surveillance, because they were looking at the wrong place. Everyone had suggested that Janelle was not the type to spy and pass on information. She’d been immature and spiteful, but never disloyal to this country. She’d barely even visited Morocco, where her family came from.

  What if she’d only been a diversion? What if the real espionage ring used her idea of a food truck to pass information without her knowledge? I had a few questions for Jeremy about his flash drive, and I decided to head over there now. I’d always found that a surprise visit was much more likely to get results than watching the person’s home for hours on end.

  I headed over to Jeremy’s apartment. I hoped that he was home, but I’d soon find out. I pulled into his parking lot and walked into the entryway. I was impressed. There was no parking the car just outside the door. There was no chance of people knocking you over and taking your things without waiting for the elevator.

  I walked up to the second floor and rang the bell to his apartment. I heard voices inside, so I knew that he was home—though perhaps not alone. I waited as I determined that he was looking through the front door’s peephole at me.

  I rang the doorbell again. Finally, Jeremy opened the door a few inches and stuck his head out. He looked rather flushed, and his hair was rumpled. I wondered if he had been sleeping. “What do you want? I’m busy,” he said without preamble.

  “I need to know more about how someone could have gotten that flash drive from you. I was hoping you could help me with that.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “I explained all of that to the police. My parents have keys to the apartment. They would have gladly given them to Janelle if she’d asked. She could have taken one without my knowledge.”

  “You wouldn’t have noticed it missing?” I asked, thinking that I had a single flash drive which I used as a back-up system for the truck’s financials.

  “No, I have a whole bowl of them over there.” He pointed with the arm that wasn’t holding the door. When he did that, the door opened wider and I saw Sam standing in the living room—shirtless.

  This must be my day for seeing men without their shirts, I thought. And, in each situation, I couldn’t admire their bodies because of the awkwardness of what I’d just discovered.

  I suddenly understood many of the unexplained loose ends in this case. Janelle and Sam had broken up most likely because either Sam had told her he was gay or she’d learned by accident like I did. Sam hadn’t called me back because he was already dating someone. And Jeremy’s secrets dealt with affection, not espionage.

  Sam finally stepped forward and said, “You might as well let her in Jeremy. She’s already got it figured out.”

  Jeremy stepped back and allowed me to enter. The apartment was spacious with beautiful appliances and carpeting throughout. The mere thought of living in a place like this made me want to go back and sell more Basque food.

  “Sorry that I haven’t called you,” Sam said as an opening.

  I raised an eyebrow. “I can see you’ve been busy.”

  He laughed nervously. “Yeah, kinda. It’s just that my parents don’t know, and Jeremy’s parents don’t know. I don’t know how either set would take the news, so we don’t tell them; just another set of secrets between parents and children. It’s a generational thing.”

  Sam continued to tell me how they’d met, and how he’d left Janelle to start dating Jeremy secretly. Janelle had suspected something was up, but she’d never been able to prove anything.

  I’d stopped paying attention to the conversation for the most part. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about these two men who were concerned about their lives and their futures. I liked both of them and thought that they deserved happiness like everyone else.

  However, Sam had said something that made me stop in my tracks. I kept replaying the words in my head, thinking about what they meant—and I kept coming back to one solution. It wasn’t a pretty one. It was one that made me slightly sick to my stomach, but it was the only one that made sense.

  I spent a few more minutes with Jeremy and Sam and then left. I wanted backup for what I was about to do. I had been in too many ugly situations to go barnstorming into the denouement without a guardian angel to watch over me.

  I called Land, but I couldn’t get an answer from him. I wasn’t surprised by that. Work hours were over, and he was likely enjoying his longer evenings. I had a pang of envy, I would have loved a few evenings free, but that wasn’t in the cards yet.

  After that I paused, I wanted to get this over with quickly. My fear was that if I waited longer, then the killer would try to do something to harm the truck—or us. I had sunk a great deal of money into that food truck and the thought of it being taken as evidence for a trial made me nervous. Today I’d been given
glimpse of what a real apartment and evenings off looked like. While I didn’t mind the hard work to get to where I wanted to be, these luxuries were now being dangled in front of me.

  So I could call either Detective Danvers or Carter. Danvers would be the safer choice. He’d be armed and ready to arrest the perpetrator. Carter was neither of those things. However, he was directly linked to the police via the recording devices he wore. That seemed like the better of two choices here. Danvers likely would have had to have gotten a warrant that included recording our conversations plus whatever conversations were heard in the background. That should be enough to get him the arrest he dearly wanted.

  I called Carter, who stammered as he answered the phone. I think that he was expecting to be fired on the spot, but instead I told him to wear his police gear and meet me at my apartment as soon as he could. He agreed.

  Thirty minutes later, he was there, wearing a baggy shirt that hid the recording equipment and, what I recalled, was a very nice body. Sometime when I wasn’t solving crimes, I was going to have to just enjoy all the torsos I’d seen today. I felt a little out of shape compared to all the buff men who worked around me.

  “So what’s the plan?” Carter asked.

  “I’m going to confront the killer about the crime. I’m going to lay out all of the information and hopefully they’ll respond.”

  Carter puckered up his lips. “Does that work? I mean, anywhere other than in TV movies?”

  “It could. This was a very personal crime, and I think that I have a good chance of making them feel like they need to explain their actions.” I honestly didn’t have much of a plan, but I was going to wing it as best as I could.

  “How can you tell if Danvers is listening in on that thing?”

  Carter lifted his shirt and showed me his remarkable abs again. “This red light means that someone has switched the device to record and listen in. That’s the signal that lets me know he’s listening.”

  I nodded. “Dick move on your part, Danvers—dick move.” It didn’t help anything, but I felt better for it. Janelle was not the only one who could be a little spiteful.

  We arrived at the Nolans’ home again. I didn’t see any cars out front, but I knew someone had to be home. When we got out of the car, I could hear the sound of the TV blaring in the background. We walked to the door, and I knocked.

  Mrs. Nolan answered the door. Her face was more haggard than when she’d sold the truck to me two weeks ago. I wondered if the strain of all of this family drama had worn her down.

  “What do you want?” she asked, eyeing Carter. She barely acknowledged my presence.

  “We need to talk to you,” I said. “Can we come in?”

  “I don’t see why,” she said, starting to shut the door.

  “Well, I can accuse you of killing Janelle on the porch, but it’s probably not going to be very private.” I looked around at the other houses. I wasn’t sure that anyone was home, but it worked on Mrs. Nolan. She opened the door wide and let us pass. Into the spider’s lair, I thought.

  Carter and I took seats on the sofa in the living room.

  “Now what is this nonsense? Why would you think that I would ever harm my baby girl?” Her eyes became watery, and for a moment, I thought I might have made a huge mistake, but I mentally reviewed the evidence I’d accumulated and decided to continue this quest.

  “There are several reasons why I think that you’re involved,” I started. “The flash drive was the first reason. It looked good to see that information was being passed through the food, in case something was discovered, but the flash drive you used had your son’s name on it. So much of this case revolves around having access to keys.”

  “The police think that Janelle went to Jeremy’s house and took the flash drive. She would have had access to my keys—or her father’s keys.” Mrs. Nolan was visibly upset. Her voice was loud and clear, so I knew that the police would be able to hear everything she said.

  “That’s exactly what you wanted us to believe,” I replied. “You wanted us to think that Janelle was behind the passing of information from people here to people in Morocco. It was her truck, so it had to be her conduit. However, anyone with access to the truck and the food supplies could have done this.”

  “So do you think that I just went to her truck and put that information inside the food wrappers? When would I have done that? Why would I have done that?” She took a few steps toward us. Carter wasn’t much help. He visibly cowered and moved closer toward me.

  “It kept all the police watching Janelle. If she’d really been doing all of this, someone would have known. They would have gone to her apartment and looked for the missing communications—but they didn’t. No one went to Janelle’s apartment. The police watched it day and night. Just as no one came to talk to Janelle during the truck’s operating hours. The police watched that too…but again no one ever showed up.”

  She shrugged, trying to look like she didn’t care. “The police are sloppy. That’s not my fault. They could have watched closer and seen what they needed to see.”

  I took a deep breath and plunged into the midst of the case. “But that doesn’t explain the murder. Someone killed Janelle. The motive seemed uncertain. If she was running a successful courier service through her food truck, no one would want to kill her. She’d be doing this rebellion a big favor. So it either had to be someone who wanted to stop the courier service or something that wasn’t related to the passing of information at all.”

  “Which would make it a family affair,” she said plainly. The mood in the room had changed. I wasn’t sure what emotion she was feeling, but it was obvious on her face that she was holding back some serious emotions. I would have loved to have known what they were.

  “Exactly. So again, I came back to the family. There were only four of you: you, your husband, Jeremy and Janelle’s uncle. Jeremy wouldn’t put a flash drive with his own name on it in the yogurt. He’s not that dumb. Your brother lost his investment if Janelle died, so he was out too. That only left the two of you.”

  “So I had to be the one? Why is that?” Her eyes flashed as she spoke. I tried not to show that I was frightened of this woman. Her passion was overwhelming; I could almost feel it radiating from her.

  “It’s your country that was involved. You would have wanted to help a rebellion. You wanted to make sure that your daughter wasn’t going to get in the way.”

  She laughed, but didn’t speak. Another voice came from the staircase. “My wife is not Moroccan. She’s Egyptian. I’m from Morocco.” He came down the rest of the stairs. He was carrying a gun in his hand, probably the same one that had killed his daughter. “You Americans always think peoples are interchangeable, but they’re not. Their passions are different. Their beliefs are different. My wife has absolutely no interest in Algeria, but I do.”

  Mrs. Nolan’s eyes grew wide. I could see the same fire in them as before, but now it was focused on her husband. “You did this? You killed Janelle?”

  “She was going to ruin everything. I had worked so hard to set up this network to help the cause, and she was just going to ruin it all. She was going to switch vendors and I would lose the entire network. I tried to reason with her, but she laughed and said that she was American. She didn’t care about the old ways and the old feuds—that’s what she called them.” His hand was trembling as he brought the gun up and pointed it in my direction.

  Several things happened all at once then. The police broke in through the front door. The men were heavily armed with shields and weapons that I had never even seen before. One minute it was a suburban home, the next it was a war zone. I grabbed Carter by the arm and pulled him down. He landed on top of me with a thud, causing me to lose my breath.

  However, they weren’t quick enough. At the sound of the interference, Mr. Nolan was distracted and Mrs. Nolan lunged at her husband, fierce as any lion. By the time that the police pulled her off him, Mr. Nolan was dead.

  While my p
lan had not been foolproof, I had determined who had killed Janelle Nolan and how she’d been left in a locked room. That was two for me, and zero for Detective Danvers in my book.

  Carter remained on the truck. I had spot checks of his shirt to look for wires and others for his phone to make sure that nothing was being recorded. He passed those and so he came back to work with me after Basque in the Sun was up and running.

  One morning Land came over before his shift started. He was looking well-rested and amused. “You realize that you never uncovered the answer of who was picking up the information from the trash barrels around Government Square,” he said.

  I smiled as I watched Henry walk by with his basset hound. If half of what he’d told me was true, the man had been left with nothing except the dog. Call me softhearted, but if the police wanted to solve every crime, they’d have to do it without me. I’m just a sucker for a dog.

  ~ END ~

  DEAD GIVEAWAY

  Chapter 1

  I watched as the movers brought in the truckload of furniture to my new apartment. In the last six months, the food truck business had boomed. So much so, that I was able to make a few lifestyle improvements.

  I determined from my budget that I could afford either a new place to live or a new car. Hey, my business wasn’t good enough to take on both new expenses at once. Even so, I spent more than a few weeks vacillating between the two options. One night after my next-door neighbors had fought until 3 a.m., I’d made up my mind. I wanted a new place to live. I wanted upscale and I wanted walls that were thick enough to block the noise from the adjoining apartments. I wanted security doors that wouldn’t give way to those who wanted to mug me in the parking lot.