Sabine and I worked through the back slowly. When she saw the selling price for them, she made several comments about selling the trucks by herself. I hadn’t shared any of that information since I wasn’t planning on selling, but she was quite impressed.
When we were done, the documents had been reduced to a single piece of information, the name of the lawyer who had drafted the paperwork. While the law firm had been a sham, the name of the lawyer checked out via the Internet as a local attorney.
The other piece of information I had was the name of the professor Brett had referenced from business school. Perhaps name-dropping was just part of his act, but he had mentioned a real person in the business program. Professor Wallace had been particularly helpful to me, and I’d taken three classes from him over the course of the year and a half it took to get my master’s degree. I made a note of his contact information, so that I could meet with him.
Both of these items were far outside of the scope of a homicide investigation, so I felt relatively safe in continuing to look into the matter. I decided to start with Professor Wallace, since it seemed easiest. Sabine offered to go with me, but I thought that in this case, her presence would be more distraction then help.
Chapter 3
It just felt plain odd to be back in college. As much as that part of my life had helped to shape me, I had carefully tucked those memories away from the rest of my life. Now I had opened the box again and was peering inside. I was nervous, wondering if I would find the place as helpful and thought-provoking as I had five years ago—or if I would find that the advice proffered in class bore little resemblance to what the real world looked like.
I knew for a fact that they hadn’t offered any classes on potential buyers being murdered before the deal closed. If it had existed, I might have taken that class. I’d encountered crooked licensing agents, bad food inspectors, and mafia-involved warehouses. Sadly, none of those things were in any textbook. I wondered about writing my own curriculum to give more worldly advice.
The university was two hours from Capital City. I’d finished my work a bit earlier than normal. So I get could get an earlier start, Sabine had offered to drive the truck to the secured lot and to drop the deposit off at the bank
Even so, I wouldn’t arrive at the college town until 4:00 p.m., and I had no idea what Professor Wallace’s office hours were these days. I didn’t call ahead because I was concerned that a warning of what I was after might have led to the involvement of university lawyers and statements of denial. I hoped that a more casual private conversation would lead to some insights into Brett Connor and what scam he’d been running.
I found a parking space far away from the university buildings that I needed to visit. Apparently visitor parking wasn’t valued, given the few spaces and their location. I had a backpack full of the contracts and documents that Brett had given me. I hoped that the extras made me fit in, but given the current looks of the students, I knew that I fit in like a hamburger on my food truck.
The business school was located in its own little compound away from the center of the university. During my time there I had felt like our focus on the real world was the reason for our isolation, but now I wasn’t sure. Maybe the students wanted to enjoy this last hurrah before the real world set in.
I found Holly Hall and pulled open the massive door, which announced my presence with a mighty squeak. Some things had not changed in my absence.
I found that I still knew the way to the faculty offices. I made my way there, marveling at how different the building felt now that I owned a business. I wondered if Professor Wallace had ever run his own business. He’d told plenty of anecdotes in his time about different businesses, but I couldn’t recall if he’d run his own company. The experience would likely provide some different advice.
I made it to his office with only one wrong turn and peeked in the door. He was sitting at his desk, looking a few years older, but much the same as he’d always been. He was grading some papers, and I cleared my throat to let him know that someone was waiting for him.
He looked up and paused. It was obvious that he was trying to place me in his mind. I imagined that it would be difficult to recognize a single student after so many years, but in a few seconds he said, “Maeve. Maeve Kinkaid, what are you doing here?”
“It’s Mendoza now,” I corrected him, still feeling a bit awkward with the new name. “I married my business partner.” I went on to tell him about inheriting a food truck and the subsequent growth of the business. I specifically left out any mention of murders or other crimes that had happened since I’d taken over the business. If I could get any information from him regarding Brett Connor, then I wanted the experience to seem like a fluke, rather than a pattern.
“That’s fascinating,” he said as I finished the story. He asked me a few well-placed questions regarding ROI, taxes, and expenses, and I tried to answer them as best as I could. For a few moments, it reminded me of my time in college, where my only care was getting a good grade. Now I was responsible not only for my own subsistence, but the livelihoods of three other people—and soon, more employees.
Then I got back to the business at hand. I was an adult who had nearly been swindled, and I wanted to know more about what to look for. I didn’t want something like this to happen again, and I was already intrigued with the mysterious death of someone who had just come back into my life.
I’d brought a copy of Capital City’s newspaper, the Beacon, with me. The front page had a large photo of Brett Connor with a few facts about him. Some of the things that were printed, I knew to be flat-out wrong.
“Do you see many other alumni?” I asked, trying to turn the discussion to Brett.
“Not as much as you’d think,” Professor Wallace said. “Once they’ve flown the nest, mostly they come back up for football games and homecoming parades. I maybe see someone I’ve taught once every three to four months.”
I nodded, pretending to be fascinated, while I formed my next question. “I just ran into Brett Connor this week. Do you remember him?”
Wallace sat quietly for a minute and then shook his head. “The name doesn’t ring any bells, but then, he was unlikely to have been as memorable as you were.”
I wasn’t sure that I’d been that remarkable. After graduation I wasn’t offered any jobs, and I glumly sat on my parents’ sofa until my aunt’s untimely demise. Inheriting a food truck was hardly the start of a memorable career.
“Thank you for saying so,” I replied, not expecting a compliment.
“It’s not every student of mine that manages to get herself involved in so many murder cases while running a successful business. It’s not easy to do both. I tried to puzzle out a particular crime once, and my case was an abject failure. I’m impressed with your success rate.”
I blushed. I hadn’t come here in search of compliments, and I was flustered by the fact that he was impressed with some of my skillset; however, I was also a bit shocked that he’d followed me closely enough to know about the cases I’d been involved in. So much for playing it close to the chest with him.
Professor Wallace motioned me to lean forward. “So who is this Brett Connor? Victim or killer? I truly wish that I could remember him. I’d love to play a small part in one of these matters. It certainly seems more fun than grading papers on dividends and shareholders’ expectations.” He pointed to the tall stack of reports on his desk.
I laughed. “It’s probably safer though.”
He shook his head. “Some of the students are downright dangerous when I fail them, so if I ever pass away, feel free to investigate the students first.”
I laughed, finding that it was easy to fall back into a pleasant routine with him. “I’ll remember that. If you don’t mind, I have a photo of Brett that I could show you.” I fumbled in my bag for the newspaper photo.
“I’m usually fairly good with names, but Connors doesn’t ring a bell. Are you sure he was one of my students?”
<
br /> “He specifically mentioned you by name in our conversation. That’s why I came to see you. He could have just found that I’d taken classes with you, but it seemed too casual to be a faked memory.” I found the paper and spread it out on the desk, running ran my hand over it to smooth out the wrinkles.
“That answers the first question,” Professor Wallace said. “He’s the victim. They don’t usually put suspects in the paper on page one. What happened?”
In a nutshell, I explained the situation and how Brett had offered me a tempting amount of money to sell my business.
“I hope you didn’t agree,” he said. “The business is worth far more than that.”
“It is?” I said, feeling shocked.
“Based on what you’ve told me, yes.” He went on to explain why he thought so. I was stunned by this analysis, though I could not fault his reasoning.
Finally, he wound down the lecture of company valuation, and I brought his attention back to the photo.
He smiled at me. “You asked the wrong question. You asked me if I knew Brett Connor.”
“What should I have asked you?” I said, feeling confused by his question. The professor’s mind was still sharp, so I knew I just wasn’t following his reasoning.
“You should have asked me if I knew this man under any name.”
The lightbulb went off in my head. “That’s not his real name. I shouldn’t be surprised. Nothing else that he shared about himself was real.”
“His name was Brent. Brent Collier. The name he gave you was close enough to his real name so that it would sound familiar, especially when combined with his face, but that wasn’t it. I’ve heard that most people when they choose a phony name keep the same initials. So that theory seems to be validated here. Brent was memorable, but not in the same way that you were.”
I shrugged. “That name sounds familiar, but I still don’t really remember him.”
The older man took a deep breath. “I do. He was about the same age as you, later twenties. He was at the business college around the same time as you, though I can’t be sure of exactly what years he attended here. We can look it up later.”
“What was he like?” I asked.
“Well, the first thing that anyone is going to tell you about this man is that he was asked to leave the school. He was caught cheating on a paper, which was a large part of his grade in my class. He plagiarized a large chunk of it from a paper another student had turned in two years before.”
“How did he get caught?” I asked. It was unlikely that a student business paper would be on the Internet for any of the plagiarism sites to pick it up. The scheme had a certain amount of brains to it.
“Because the original author had written the piece in 2008, during the financial crisis. The analysis of the company and its work reflected that. Collier was smart enough to get the paper, but not smart enough to pick a paper that wasn’t dated by an economic disaster.” The professor clucked his tongue at the thought.
“Which sounds like what happened with me. The first phone number was legit, but the other two would have made me question the company he was supposed to work for almost immediately.” I started thinking about Brett Connor, aka Brent Collier. The half-hearted effort to swindle me had the same hallmarks as his attempt to cheat in school.
“I’m sure the due diligence would have caught him out,” the professor said. “You wouldn’t by any chance have a copy of the papers he gave you?”
I nodded and patted the backpack. “I brought the originals, in case you had time to look at them.”
He checked his watch. “I have class in twenty minutes, but let me make a copy of them, if that’s okay with you, and I’ll study them the first chance I get.”
I extracted the files, and he walked down the hallway to the copy machines. I could hear the whir of the machine as I sat there. I looked around, but given the speed of a good copy machine, I wouldn’t be able to snoop much. Even though I trusted the professor, Collier had used his name in his spiel, and I was wary of any involvement the older man might have in the scheme.
Before I could even think of where to look, Wallace returned with two sets of papers. I checked to make sure that I had the originals and then stood to leave. He promised again to let me know what he found, and I was on my way home.
I was still back at the apartment before Land arrived from his shift. He gave me a long kiss when he came in. I wasn’t sure what that was for, but I wasn’t complaining at all. When he pulled away, he asked for a complete recap of the situation.
He looked pleased when I told him that I wasn’t sure about the professor’s part in the scam. Apparently, he’d been concerned that I would believe everything anyone at the college told me. He should have known better.
Land picked up his phone and dialed a number. He put it on speaker so that I could hear the conversation. “Danvers, it’s me. I have some news on the murder.”
The man’s voice crackled with annoyance. “Why are you two looking into this matter?”
I cleared my throat. “I wasn’t looking into it. I had a random conversation with the professor who the victim mentioned to me. I learned some information, and wanted to be a good citizen.”
“That’s a first,” he said.
I thought about pressing the disconnect button, but I kept my temper. It wouldn’t help the investigation at all. “The man’s real name isn’t Brett Connor. It’s Brent Collier, or at least that’s the name he used during his time at the school.”
“Are you sure about that? He has a driver’s license and social security card as Brett Connor.”
“Have you looked into his history yet? I bet you run into a dead-end about five years ago.” I thought of the end of Collier’s college career and his likely need to earn a living. Collier wouldn’t be able to use his real name to find a job or get references because he’d cheated his way out of school. A clean start with a new name would almost be required for any white collar job.
It could be that he had obtained new credentials, but I hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about getting a fake ID. If Collier had always been shady, then it was likely that he had made connections at some point with those who could help him. I just wondered where to start on such a search.
“We haven’t gotten those back yet,” Danvers admitted. “We just have the current information for the man. That’s it.”
“How soon until you’ll know more?” Land asked. He looked impatient, and I wondered what was up with him.
“Twenty-four hours or so. They have a backlog, and if it’s going to wind up a dead end, then it will likely take longer. I’ll call them and pass on the new information.” He took a deep breath and sighed.
“You can probably get information like social and date of birth from the university, if you want. They’d have it, since he went there at least two years.”
Danvers made a few noncommittal remarks, which I assumed meant that he’d do it and take credit for the lead. I didn’t care that much if he did. If Danvers felt like we were going to show him up on this investigation, I had no doubt that he’d be ruthless in keeping us in the background. He wanted to be the star of this investigation to improve his chances for that promotion. However, as long as we were just feeding him information on the case, everything would be fine.
Land hung up and looked at me. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You know how Danvers can be about his career.”
I nodded. “The leads I have are not the same things that Danvers is likely to follow up on, so we’re not going to be competing on this case. I don’t want to be in his way.”
Land nodded. “So if this was the first lead, what other pieces of evidence do you have up your sleeve?”
I didn’t think that was the best idiom, since I was still wearing my T-shirt from the food truck. No sleeves and no ideas. “I still have to go talk to the lawyer who drafted the paperwork,” I told Land, thinking again of how little real information I’d garnered from the
paperwork.
“So you’re going to play video games?” he asked, mimicking the hand movements for a controller.
“No.” Though the games would likely be far more fun, I thought. “He appears to be a real person with a real office. The name of the firm was what was dummied up.”
“Take Sabine with you when you go, okay?” he asked.
It seemed like an odd request, but I acceded. Land rarely made appeals of me so while I wasn’t sure of the need for it, I knew I would do it just to please him.
With that settled, we decided to watch TV until I fell asleep.
***
The next morning, I managed to get dressed and have a cup of coffee before leaving the apartment. I felt somewhat readjusted to the schedule, no longer running into tables in the dark and leaving our place missing my caffeine. I was first to the food truck and drove it to Elm Street.
Sabine showed up a little later than she had been arriving since I got back, but that was fine with me. She had really put in the hours while we were gone. A little break was definitely needed.
She was dressed like she normally was for the food truck, but still looked different. After a few minutes, I realized that she’d done her make-up this morning. The whole treatment had been applied, lipstick, mascara, blush and more. I knew something was up, because that treatment wasn’t for me, and it wasn’t for the regular customers. Was she expecting someone new to stop by, or did she have somewhere to go after her shift? If she did, then I was out of luck since I’d promised Land I’d take Sabine with me to the lawyer’s office.
I didn’t ask her about it though. I thought I would let the situation play out and see what happened.
I didn’t have to wait long to find an answer. Detective Danvers showed up in a very short time. He was dressed better today, shirt pressed and hair in place. He still had the dark circles under his eyes though.
He strode up to the window, his mere presence enough to make the other customers move out of the way. I handed him a cup of coffee in order to hopefully mollify him. However, I could see that wasn’t going to work. He looked past me and stared down Sabine.
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 126