FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  I cleared my throat. I had thought about not intruding on the woman at this point, but I decided to try a less obvious approach in hopes of finding out some details. “I really liked his opinions on the homeless in the city. Do you know of any other candidates with similar views, now that Mr. Preston won’t be running?”

  She turned to face me. “Hamilton Preston wanted the problem taken care of. He felt that they were a blight on the city. You could try checking out Chesterfield or Yarmouth. They were pretty similar in their positions.”

  I nodded. I’d wondered if he’d been against some of the locations that the people here had taken in Capital City. The Preston family had a business downtown, which would color his perspective of people on the streets in front of his business.

  “I’ve listened to them,” I lied, “but I just didn’t find them to be as riveting as Preston, especially his personal story.”

  The woman nodded her head. “Yeah, I wrote that article, but it was the real deal. Preston had some bad family situations earlier in life. He was supposed to run for office a few years ago, but a situation caused him to back out. I think the city would have benefited from him back then.”

  I nodded, hoping she would continue. It had to be lonely here, and I’ve found that most people will gladly talk when presented with an audience.

  “I liked the story. He’d been a bit of a wastrel before that. Granted, he’d run the family business, but after that failed run at office, Hamilton really turned his life around. It’s amazing what adversity can do for a person.”

  I asked a few questions, but the woman was long on generalities and short on specifics. The earlier run had been anticlimactic. After a short run for office, he’d dropped out of the race. It had been around the time that his brother had disappeared.

  While I thought that his website mentioned no brothers, she seemed quite adamant. On the earlier campaign, she’d met the guy. He hadn’t been of the same caliber as his brother, at least in the campaign worker’s eyes, but he was definitely a member of the Preston family. She didn’t have any idea why the website said otherwise, though a look of distaste on her face suggested that he wasn’t the type to appear in a family-oriented campaign.

  I headed back to the truck with the press release, which I put in my back pocket. I went into the truck and found the hot dogs already prepared for the homeless people. Carter must have done that before he left.

  I went out to Government Square and found Delores. She gratefully took the hot dog and blessed me repeatedly.

  I took the press release out of my pocket and folded it so just the photo was visible. “Delores, do you remember seeing this man before?”

  I knew that I was coloring her testimony, since I asked the question as partly a done deal, but I didn’t care. I knew that with her issues, I couldn’t see the courts allowing her testimony anyway. Besides, I wasn’t the police, and I couldn’t be chastised for asking questions of a non-witness.

  “That’s Hammy, the pig,” she said with glee.

  I had to admit that the names Hammy and Hamilton were close, so perhaps she had met this candidate. I could imagine that Preston would want to alter his name, both for anonymity and the fact that there were very few poor men named Hamilton. The name seemed to scream wealth.

  “When did you see him?” I asked. I was so thrilled to have confirmation of what I’d seen, even though it wouldn’t stand up in court.

  “Two or three days ago. He was here for just a few days, and then he went away.” She was eyeing the hot dogs, so I gave her another. “He tried to talk to me a few times, but I just ignored him. He reminded me too much of my third husband.” She wolfed down the hot dog and left before I could ask more.

  Albert, the war vet, had been watching our interaction, and he came up to me after she’d left. “He wasn’t who he pretended to be,” he said to me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. The man was correct, but I wanted to know why he felt this way.

  “His fingernails were clean. When I was in the army, we were always supposed to watch for anomalies. That man hadn’t been out on the streets for long. He wanted something, and I didn’t want to be a part of that. It was a trick.”

  I nodded, reminded of what I’d thought about the other man’s manicure and haircut. Who were these men, and why were they out on the streets?”

  “Why do you think they were out here?” I asked, hoping he had more information than Delores.

  “He asked a lot of questions about us. He asked Delores about my story. She made something up.” The man laughed, and its sound was a touch too loud and manic. “I don’t like people knowing too much about me.”

  I nodded. “What kind of questions did he ask?”

  “He wanted to know what branch of the service I was in, where I served, when I served, if I had family around here. I was worried that he was sent by my parents and here to bring me home. I don’t want to go home.”

  “I see,” I said plainly. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved more in this man’s life. I knew that I’d have to tread carefully here.

  “He’s gone, though. I made sure that he was gone for good.” A smile appeared on the man’s face and it ran chills up my spine. I didn’t like the way he’d said that, especially since Hamilton was now dead.

  “And how did you do that?” I asked. I was afraid of the answer.

  “I told him to go the park and look around. That the answers he wanted were there. He left after that, and I was glad to be rid of him.”

  Had Albert been the one who had been arguing with Hamilton Preston? And why had he wanted to know so much information about a homeless vet? Was this a campaign strategy, or something personal? I made a note to find out if Preston had any family in the military.

  I still wasn’t sure how I was going to get to see the family. Danvers was icing me out on the investigation, so I would have no official standing with the police for this case. I wondered if this was something that Land had asked Danvers to do, or if the policeman had just had enough of me getting involved in his cases.

  ***

  Land wasn’t coming over tonight, so I stopped and got some takeout on the way home. The local burger place looked good, and I brought home some fries, too. I sat down to eat with the papers I’d collected at Hamilton Preston’s campaign headquarters. I started looking through his positions on several issues. He was strong on local businesses, which wasn’t a surprise, since he and his family owned an art gallery. He was campaigning on new ordinances against the homeless, which made even less sense as to why he would have been dressed like one. He didn’t have a listed opinion on veterans, but that could easily be understood since he was merely running for city council. A quick search showed that he hadn’t served in the military, and it didn’t appear that his father had, either.

  I used my tablet and looked up Chesterfield and Yarmouth, the two candidates who the staffer at the campaign office had suggested. The first site I hit told me that both of these candidates had been running behind Preston. That would be a motive for murder, I thought.

  City council only elected nine candidates to office, so the top nine were the winners and the rest didn’t make the cut. If anyone dropped out of the race, everyone below him in the polls benefited. Was winning an election that important to these people?

  Stan Chesterfield was the first candidate I looked at, based solely on the alphabet. Chesterfield was an old name in Capital City. His father had been mayor. His grandfather had been mayor, and his great-grandfather had been governor many years ago. So it had been expected that Stan Chesterfield would breeze to victory in this race. However, he was lagging in the polls. With Preston out of the race, Chesterfield would finish at a distant ninth place, but he would manage to finish as a winner.

  I had to wonder if the Chesterfield family would kill just to get their progeny a place on city council. Would they consider it an affront to their name if the latest progeny had lost his first election? It seemed like a stretch for a mu
rder, but people had killed for less.

  Valerie Yarmouth was a different story, altogether. She had been born in one of the poorer areas of Capital City and had gone to school here, too. She’d managed to work until her children were born, and now she was running for office since her children had gone off to college. I had a hard time seeing a middle-aged woman bumping off the art gallery owner, but at the same time, Danvers had been explicit in asking me if I could have seen a woman at the park. That had made me curious as to whether or not he had a strong female suspect in mind.

  I tried to find out more about Preston’s family, but there wasn’t much in the news about him. There was no mention of a wife or significant other in his life. The family photos showed Preston with two children, a boy and a girl. Having children who looked old enough to be in college was a trait he had in common with Yarmouth.

  The focus of most of the articles was more on the extended family and the art gallery. The Preston Gallery was one of the premiere art galleries in the state, not just Capital City. I’d gone to a few happy hours/showings there, but nothing was remotely in my price range. I could barely afford the wine. They hosted up-and-coming artists who commanded thousands for a single painting. I didn’t even spend that much on my rent for a few months.

  I put the documents away. I had to wonder again why Preston had been murdered. I had three separate areas of his life to investigate: his family, the campaign, and the odd moment when I’d seen him pretending to be homeless. Of the three, I thought that the homeless angle seemed like the best bet, since it was the most unlike himself and he’d been killed at a place where I’d seen him in disguise. So it had been in that persona that he’d likely been killed.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, I was alone in the food truck. Carter had called sometime after I’d gone to bed and let me know that he wouldn’t be in to work until later. His mother had taken a turn for the worse, and she had been rushed to the hospital. He had to get his younger siblings ready for school before he could come in.

  I hurried through the coffee and cash to start preparing the condiments for the day. The list and the cooking directions were taped to the prep area wall, and I consulted them frequently as I chopped the cilantro for the Mexican dogs.

  I had finished the last of the condiments and had opened the window when Carter arrived. He looked worn out. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he was carrying a large cup of coffee.

  “How’s she doing?” I asked, wondering whether or not to send him home.

  “Not good—at all. It’s just a matter of time, I’m afraid.” He didn’t look like he was going to cry about the news. Instead, he had no expression at all on his face. I was more concerned about the numbness than the grief, at this point. I figured that he was overwhelmed with his emotions and the impending responsibilities. I’d seen how the loss of a parent could affect a person. One of my dearest friends had lost her mother in college, and the girl had taken a semester off to deal with her grief, without dealing with grades or worries. She’d come back the next semester, but she hadn’t been the same. She’d been fun and flirty before, but after the break, she was serious to the point of ignoring everything else. I had tried to keep up with her after college, but without the common interest of school, she’d had no time for me.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m not the best at this, but just tell me what you need, and you know I’ll help in any way that I can.”

  He gave me a wan smile. “You can keep Aaron away from me. I told him this morning that I can’t marry him. Not when I will be responsible for three kids. It isn’t fair.”

  I was certain that he was wrong. Now was the time to cement things with someone, not push him away. People in grief shouldn’t make huge changes to their lives; they’re not thinking clearly. I hoped that Aaron knew this and would not take the rejection too personally, especially since I suspected that it would be temporary. However, it would be difficult not to take the rejection of a marriage proposal personally.

  Carter nodded apropos of nothing and started his work for the day. I explained to Carter what I’d learned last night and how that might impact the investigation. He agreed that my logic seemed sound. Usually I bounced my ideas off Land, but I hadn’t seen my fiancé yet today, and I was keyed up between the news about Carter’s mom and my thoughts on the murder case.

  The morning flew by, and when I looked up at one point, Detective Danvers was next in line. I poured him a cup of coffee, but he pulled out his wallet and asked for a Mexican dog, as well. Carter prepared the dog quickly and served it to him. I tried to waive the total, but Danvers paid and then stood to one side, waiting patiently for the rest of the customers to order. I was done in under five minutes, not because I was always this efficient. I wanted to know what was going on, and this man had the information.

  He nodded again as he approached the window. The hot dog was gone, and he was nursing his coffee. “We have a suspect. I wanted to know if you could take a look at a photo lineup to see if you recognize the person who was arguing with Preston in the park.”

  I nodded and waited. Given that my theory had mapped out several people as culprits, I was anxious to see which way the police were headed.

  Danvers had an array of six men, all dark hair and dark eyes. I immediately recognized number three. It was Albert, the homeless veteran. I felt a sickness at the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want it to be him. He was quirky and unhappy, but I had never seen him angry with anyone, and certainly not yelling at any of the others on Government Square.

  I looked back at Danvers. “I have no idea. I told you that it was dark, and I was far enough away that it could have been anyone.”

  Danvers took the array and nodded. “I figured you’d say that. You recognized one of the faces. I could see it in your reaction, but you don’t want it to be that person. Since I made up the array, I think I know who you’re thinking of, too.” He smirked at me, like he’d been too smart for me.

  I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want to be the one who put a possible suspect in prison—especially if I thought that he was innocent. I had doubts that Albert could have done this. He had seemed to be more afraid of Preston than angry toward him. He would have been more likely to run away than hurt the other man.

  “Well, this has been fun,” Danvers said, taking back the array and grabbing his coffee with the other hand. “Wish you’d been more definite, but from your reaction, we certainly have a path to follow in getting our suspect.”

  While I was cursing Danvers, Land pulled up in the other food truck. Carter nodded without being asked, and I went over for some comfort.

  I explained the situation to Land, who just listened. I wasn’t used to this approach. Normally Land was full of ideas and solutions to the issues, but today he just paid attention to what I said without talking.

  When I finished, he took a deep breath. “Danvers has a lot of pressure to make this case go away. He was telling me that if the case goes a certain direction, the Feds could get involved. If one of the other candidates killed Preston, then it becomes a case of election fraud, and the US government doesn’t take kindly to that. He’d be off the case and the Feds would take it over. No one wants to see their case get snatched up.”

  I nodded. I hadn’t thought of it that way, though I had thought of the candidates as being potential suspects. That didn’t mean that I still wouldn’t take an interest in this case. I didn’t like the thought of Albert becoming the main suspect in the case, just because it was more convenient for the Capital City Police.

  “So what’s he going to do besides try to railroad homeless people?” I asked, feeling that desire to outsmart Danvers coming to the front again. I’d done it more than once, and I knew that given the time and effort, I’d likely do it again.

  I thought about the homeless man with the manicure. Danvers had not had his picture in the lineup, but certainly he would be an ideal candidate. Still, I had very little information to go on. The man’s
face had been dirty and smudged. A person with a shower and clean clothes would have looked far different. Hamilton had barely bothered to hide his appearance. He’d only managed to put on cheaper clothes and walk around the areas where the homeless people stayed.

  “I can tell you what we’re doing,” Land said after a pause. “We’re going to a party tonight.”

  I looked at him. This was the master of hulu, telling me about a night out. Land had expressed his desire to have a quiet life with me, stating in vague but certain terms that he’d done enough daring things in his youth. He didn’t talk much about those things, but I accepted him for who he was today.

  Yet here he was now, telling me that we were going out on the town. “Where are we going, party man?” I asked, still feeling surprised.

  “There’s a gala at the art museum later to support small businesses in Capital City,” he said without explanation.

  I put two and two together. “Do you really think that the Preston family will show up to an event the day after their son was found dead?” I asked. I really hoped that if I died, my parents would wait a few days to party. Yet I knew that many people had expectations put on them to perform, even if they didn’t want to participate.

  “I think that they will feel a presence is necessary at the event. It may not be all of them, and I doubt it will be the mother, but I’m pretty certain you can find someone to talk to.” Land smiled at me. I wondered when he and Danvers had concocted this idea. It was unlike Danvers to be so helpful, but at the same time, he had his own motives for doing getting us into the event. He wanted answers before other agencies got involved in the hunt for the killer.

  . Land always stressed to me that I shouldn’t trust Danvers, and at times like this, I saw his rationale for saying that. Under different circumstances, we’d be standing outside, looking in.

  “I have to get something to wear,” I said. “I need to do something with my hair.” I normally didn’t mind the way I looked. I accepted that making a living in the food truck industry meant getting a little dirty. However, I knew that people who made their living selling works of art would not understand that.