“So what does he know?” I asked, thinking about how another of the counterfeiters was in my truck at the moment.
Land shrugged. “Early days. If you stick around a few minutes, you’ll get to meet Mrs. Pohler. She’s on her way here to identify the body. Danvers already has a full ID on the deceased based on what you told him, but he’s curious to see what the widow will say. He’s pretty convinced that she is in it just as much as her husband was, but he just doesn’t know if they’ll have enough to prove that.” I was surprised, not because the widow was a suspect, but because that was one of the longest statements I’d ever heard Land make. He usually left things to a few furrowed brows and eyebrow raises.
At the mention of Mrs. Pohler, Thomas decided to excuse himself. He made the good point that he didn’t want to be around when she arrived given that he’d left her employ to start with me.
However, it made me wonder if that was all there was to it. He’d been nervous all afternoon. While I could understand why he was upset, there could also be some less savory reasons why he didn’t want to be around—and my mind kept running to those. I tend to suspect everyone, even my family at times, and I knew that I’d have to relieve my mind of the questions at some point. How much did Thomas know? His knowledge would be important if someone was killing people who knew about the counterfeiting ring.
In the meantime, Land kept me busy for a few minutes until we heard the sound of a woman’s voice just outside of the truck. “Why don’t you ask this one where she was last night? She gains by having my husband’s empire crumble. She doesn’t care if his family goes hungry. She just wants another truck and doesn’t care who she steps on to get there.”
I knew that this woman had to be the widow. I’d never met her, but I had suspected that she’d be loud and arrogant. I hadn’t been wrong in my assessment.
When we made it to the window, Danvers was standing there arguing with the woman about causing a scene. She looked much younger than I’d expected. She had silver curls, but was in great physical shape. She was thin and looked like she could run a mile if you asked nicely. She was dressed all in black and wore a hat that covered most of her face. I wondered if the hat was chosen out of necessity, or if that was the only hat she had.
“Ma’am, you need to stop making accusations. Maeve Kinkaid has been cleared of any suspicion in this matter. In fact, she’s the one who called the police this morning. Why would she do that if she killed this woman?”
“I don’t know. I just know that she hated my husband—now he’s dead, and it’s that woman’s fault.”
I had a suspicion that she was covering up her appearance for a reason, and I tried to remember if I’d seen her before, but nothing came to mind. It was hard to take her out of the context of the mourning wear though, and I couldn’t be sure of her true appearance.
I wasn’t going to fight with a woman who was grieving—or pretending to be bereft. So I kept to the inside of the truck.
Land gave me a strange look. “You’re not going out to question her?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want them to pay too much attention to this truck. Thomas is working for me, and that could lead to some awkward questions. So I’ll keep a low profile.”
Land laughed. “Okay. Anyway, we should be able to hear everything she’s saying. It’s not like she’s being subtle here.”
I decided to listen again, hoping that I wouldn’t get as frustrated as before. Danvers had asked her something about an alibi and when she’d seen the truck last. “I was at home last night. My husband was just brutally murdered. I took something to help me sleep and went to bed. I was alone—of course. I have no idea what became of the truck. My daughter has been taking care of the business. She called about nine to tell me that it was missing.”
“You answered? We can check up on that.”
“I told you that I was. I told my daughter to call the police and leave me out of it. I don’t want anything to do with it. Or the people involved with it. They caused the death of my husband, and I want to sell it off as soon as I possibly can.”
Land raised an eyebrow at me. He didn’t want to interrupt the eavesdropping, but I too had heard the comment about food trucks for sale. It was an intriguing proposition, even if it would be an expense we couldn’t much afford at the moment. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to forsake my dream wedding dress to save for a fourth truck. My pool of available workers was shrinking, and I was concerned about leaving new employees alone in the trucks during the run-up to the wedding and during our honeymoon.
Mrs. Pohler was continuing. “I can’t understand why someone would want to kill my Ryan, but I want to leave Capital City as soon as humanly possible. There’s nothing to keep me here. So just ask your questions, so we can get this over with.”
Danvers was not talking as loudly as his companion was, so I had trouble hearing what he was saying. My mind was more interested in what the woman had said. She wanted to leave town as soon as she could. Was she being threatened? Was she concerned about her safety? The information about selling the trucks seemed off.
If I were to die, I assumed that Land would continue the business. He wouldn’t be the type to sell the entire operation in the first week after my death. The move seemed precipitative and desperate. After all, Mrs. Pohler would require some form of income after the estate was settled. Did she really think that selling their main source of income was a great idea?
Of course, while I thought this, I had no intention of going out there and discussing the intricacies of estate planning with her. With Danvers’ more level voice, she calmed down somewhat, and the voices died down to a level that I couldn’t hear over the street noises.
Even though I couldn’t hear the answers to the questions, I stayed around a while. However, Danvers seemed quite intent on grilling the woman whose gestures made it clear that she was not going to say much. After a proper interval, I decided to leave.
“I’ll stop over later and let you know what Danvers says,” Land said with a kiss. “I’m sure he’ll come by the truck and let me know how it went. Half the time he wants to bounce ideas off me, and the other half he wants to accuse me of being too involved. Plus, I want to hear his side of what’s going on with Sabine. She’s not returning my calls now. My grandmother had to go to her apartment and check on her. That’s not a good thing.”
I nodded and gave him another kiss. “See you later then.”
I drove the truck back to the secured lot, and then made the daily deposit. Today’s totals were higher than ever. I suspected that part of the reason for the increase in business was the fact that the police had put up tape around the site. Onlookers wanted to know what was going on, and buying coffee or a hot dog made a decent cover for their curiosity.
Since I knew that Land would still be hours from coming over and that Danvers was still at the current crime scene, I decided to pay a visit to Albert Ruschman. He still had not returned my calls, and I wanted to hear his story about his involvement in the counterfeit ring. I had a strong suspicion that his story would be much like the stories of Thomas and Bernadette. He was forced to help out by Pohler for some misdeed that would either put him in jail or doom his future.
I knocked on the front door of the man’s home but got no answer to my pounding. Given that Danvers now had Bernadette’s death on his radar, I knew he would come looking for the other people who had passed the bad twenties soon.
I had an ace in the hole with Thomas, but he’d been little help to me beyond giving me some ideas about the process of the blackmail and the name of this man, who was not answering his phone and now his door.
I had a bad feeling about the matter. He had not answered a call in over 24 hours, and he wasn’t home either, though what appeared to be his car was in the driveway. I walked back over to the newer-model Audi and put my hand on the hood. It was dead cold. I caught myself, and changed it to ice-cold.
I’d tried to find people before, and when I did, they�
�d been dead. I knew that if I found something incriminating today, I’d call Danvers immediately. The accusations against me earlier made me want to clear this up, and the prospect of perhaps gaining a truck or two had danced around the outside of my thoughts since I’d heard Mrs. Pohler’s intention to sell the trucks.
I stepped between some box hedges and moved close to the windows. Gauzy curtains hung over the panes, so I couldn’t see clearly, but I saw no signs of a struggle and no body on the floor.
I walked around the perimeter of the house and did the same thing to each window that I could find. Nothing. Flat out nothing. The house was immaculate. There were no signs of anything out of place, much less torn up. No signs of luggage, moving or even movement. Apparently Ruschman didn’t own any pets either, since I hadn’t even seen a water or food bowl. That would have allowed me to stake out the place until he came home for the pets, but again, there was not even a goldfish. He’d really left nothing for me to investigate here.
I went back to the Buick and drove home. There was nothing to do except wait, which was not something I excelled at.
It was nearly 8:30 before Land showed up. He’d texted a few times to postpone his arrival. Since I suspected that he was with Detective Danvers, I was more than willing to let it slide. He would have plenty to tell me when he arrived.
I heard a knock on the door and saw Land enter. I’d given him keys to my place, since we were very nearly married at this point; yet he was still gentlemanly enough to knock before entering. I’m not sure what he thought would be going on here—interrogations of suspects or maps with theories about the distances between crimes perhaps, but he was sorely mistaken.
I was merely watching a mindless reality show, putting in time before he arrived.
He raised an eyebrow at me when he saw what was on. “Getting desperate?” he asked.
I nodded and handed him the big bowl of popcorn I’d made. No matter what time he gets off work, Land always seems to want a bit more to eat. I wasn’t sure where he put those calories, but he liked to eat as much as I did.
“So tell me what you found out?” I pleaded after he spent a few minutes chewing placidly.
He gave me a big grin. “Danvers is in a bad place. His chief wants to the turn to the Feds on the counterfeiting aspects, but he doesn’t want to because he knows that they’ll take over and he’ll never clear the murder cases. So he’s pushing ahead as fast as he can, but he’s worried that he’s going to overlook something, and that it will end up being a big mess. If he doesn’t clear the case and the Feds don’t get informed until later, then he’s going to have to take the blame for it.”
“Does he have any leads?” I asked, thinking of Albert Ruschman’s empty house.
“Not really. He is looking at the business dealings of the company. He thinks that some of his shady dealings got him into trouble with the wrong people.”
I shared with Land what Thomas had said about the cheese, the spices and the sprouts.
He made a face. “No wonder that food tasted like crap. I bet he used that cheese the day of the event.”
I looked at him. “That bothered me though. Why would he deliberately use bad cheese on a day when he was trying to attract new customers? It seems counterproductive. You’d want to put your best foot forward that day, and then perhaps use the bad cheese on a daily basis, when you’ve already got their attention.”
Land nodded. “You’ve got a point, but he’s not here, so we just have to guess. I can think of at least three reasons why he would do it.”
I stared at him. “Name two.” His response was so glib that I had to hear his thoughts.
He flashed me a grin and kissed me on the cheek. Then he said, “First, he didn’t have the palate to discern the difference in taste. So he could have used it, thinking that he’d pulled one over on people.”
“But his own employees said that he had to scrape mold off it to use it.”
“Some people don’t care about stuff like that. I doubt that Sabine would think twice about cutting the mold off the bread and making toast. She’s like that.”
I laughed. I just couldn’t see her doing this. She always seemed so sophisticated. “So what’s the second?”
“He didn’t have a choice. Someone else made him use the cheese regardless of what he tasted or wanted.”
I thought that comment over for a minute. “Who do you think could have that kind of power? His wife?”
He took a deep breath. “That’s possible. She was quite the suspect, according to Danvers. By the time she was done accusing everyone of lying and cheating and stealing, Danvers was about ready to arrest her just to shut her up.”
“So what did she say about Bernadette?” I thought of the woman and felt sad again that she’d been an expendable pawn in a larger plot.
“Mrs. Pohler said that she knew her husband did business with her. She’d met Bernadette years ago through one of her children, but she rarely had any dealings with her.”
“So that kind of shoots the theory that she was the mastermind behind the operations. We saw Pohler meeting with Bernadette, and Thomas said that it was Pohler who met with him as well. Mrs. Pohler just doesn’t seem to be the one in charge.”
“There are other people who could have been in charge.”
I sat up straight. “What…like a Moriarty? I thought I was the one who read too many mysteries—not you.”
Land rolled his eyes at me. “I was thinking more about the mob or another organization. They wouldn’t care about what’s best for marketing. They’d just want to bleed the business dry. It would be Pohler’s responsibility to come up with a way to make the money. They’d just want their share of it.”
“But that doesn’t really fit with Pohler being killed. They’d want him alive to make more money. He’s worth nothing to them dead.”
“Not if he wanted to get out of the game. They don’t look kindly on people who want to get out of the business of making them money, especially if they could later tell the police what they’d learned.”
I thought about that for a minute. “Did Danvers say anything about Pohler deciding to talk to the police?”
“If he did, he didn’t tell me.”
“That might explain the counterfeiting too,” I added. “His operation didn’t seem big enough to handle all the details for making the phony money. If someone else was behind things, then that would help explain how he got the twenties.”
“Danvers is still trying to figure out who or what was behind all that money and the operation, but no one is talking. He can’t get any cooperation at the moment, so he’s stuck with trying to find out on his own.”
“Did you talk to your contacts?” I asked. He’d not said a word about it to me.
“Yeah, they were not impressed. This is strictly small time. The serial number is constant, so the bills can be identified easily. It’s the very last thing a good counterfeiter wants to do. They weren’t very interested in the case, because they didn’t think it had much scope.”
I chewed on my lip for a second, not sure if I should ask more. “What about Sabine? You’d mentioned something about them before,” I said finally, giving in to my curiosity.
“After she got dumped, she refused to have anything to do with him. She doesn’t even accept his calls. She’s blocked his number and won’t come to the door when he stops by.”
I thought of my attempts to reach Albert Ruschman. Perhaps that was the same thing that Sabine was doing here.
“Give me your cell phone for a second,” I asked. He handed it over, knowing better than to ask. I dialed Ruschman’s number and waited.
He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
I didn’t speak for a second, because I was so surprised that it had worked. “Yeah, Mr. Ruschman, you don’t know me, but I’m taking over for Pohler.” I was somewhat truthful since I had thoughts of taking over some of his trucks. “I need to see you immediately.”
There was a long
pause on the other end of the phone, to the point where I thought he’d hung up. “Yeah, okay. I’ll meet you tomorrow. I know who this is, and where your truck is. I’ll be there at seven tomorrow morning.” He hung up before I could speak, and I handed the phone back to Land.
The statements sounded somewhat like a threat, and I was concerned about meeting the man at the truck at that time. The foot traffic was at that time of morning was practically non-existent, and if this man had killed two people, I didn’t want to be alone with him in the truck.
Land must have been able to read my cues. “How about I go with you tomorrow?” he said, giving my hand a squeeze. He knew that normally I wasn’t the type who wanted to be protected by a man, but at the same time, I had no desire to be attacked by this stranger.
“That would be great,” I said, showing him my thanks.
***
The next morning was a flurry of activity. Land usually only stayed at my place on the weekends since I had to be up at four, but today we both had to get ready for work at the same time. He’d suggested last night that we just tell Thomas that Land was there to check on some issues with the truck. It sounded reasonable, and he wouldn’t get suspicious about Albert Ruschman’s appearance.
Land drove us to the lot, and we parked the food truck in the usual spot. The police must have taken the truck away overnight as our regular space was unoccupied. Land pulled the truck into the space and began to help with the prep work for the day. I was practically beaming to be working side-by-side with him again. It was like the early days of our relationship. He looked up a couple of times and grinned at me, which was practically a sonnet for him.
Thomas showed up at six and stood in the doorway, uncertain of his position here today. I explained that Land had just been at my place and had come in to fix a few things and that he’d started to do the prep work after he’d completed the work.
He seemed to accept the story at face value, and after a few instructions, Land relinquished his place behind the prep area and moved up closer to me. He made the first two urns of coffee as I counted out the money.
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 109