“Ah, yes. This is Francis Gage. We met briefly last night at the gala—the one for Tom Rachford.” Though it was a statement, he brought up his voice at the end, making it sound almost like a query.
“Yes, nice to talk to you again,” I said. Since he couldn’t see me, I raised my eyebrows. What was he doing calling me?
“I was hoping we might speak. Would you have time today?” he asked.
I checked my watch. Land’s shift was only halfway over. “Certainly.”
“I know that your truck is closed now, but could we meet at your husband’s facility?”
I was impressed. The man had obviously done his homework. Yesterday I was a stranger, but today he knew my schedule, my trucks, and Land’s schedule as well. Someone had been talking to him. I wondered if it was Brianna Preston, or perhaps Victoria Albrecht had filled him in. I made a mental note to try to find out.
“That would be fine with me,” I said.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said, and then the line went dead. In a mystery novel, he would have been toast since he had something to tell me which he hadn’t shared over the phone. The killer in a novel would have done away with him before he could tell all. I knew that not all such pronouncements ended with the death of the bearer of secrets, but at the same time, I hurried to get ready so that we could meet as soon as possible. I wasn’t in the mood to tempt fate.
Andy and I made it downtown in 20 minutes. We parked at the garage on Elm and made our way over to Land’s truck. His face brightened as he saw us approaching. I entered the food truck, and even after children, he still took me in his arms and kissed me with the same passion we’d had for years. It was nice to know that our relationship was still going strong. I didn’t want the moment to end.
“What brings you out here?” he asked, smiling at Andy and speaking to him in the cutest baby talk.
“We’re meeting Francis Gage,” I said. “He called me and wanted to talk about something.”
“You can talk to him out front. Andy stays in the truck with me.” His words were soft, yet adamant. I knew that tone well enough to know that he wouldn’t argue this point.
Since that had been my plan all along, I just nodded and smiled at him. “Sure thing, boss.”
A man came to the window and peered in. He looked vaguely familiar, and I suspected that he was Francis Gage. “Hello,” he said, looking at us. “Nice to see you again.” He was a tall man, and incredibly thin. He was older than I’d expected, probably 60, but up close he looked younger.
I gave Land a quick kiss, just enough for Gage to know that I was not on the market, and went out to meet him.
“So how can I help you?” I asked. “You obviously went to a lot of trouble to find out how to contact me.”
“Yes, well, it’s rather a delicate subject. I’ve heard about you. Honestly, I expect that most of the small business group knows who you are. You’re something of a legend in their eyes.”
I smiled at the compliment, though I doubted his sincerity. To most of them, involving yourself in police matters was looked down upon. Police work was not entrepreneurial.
“I assume that this has to do with last night?” I asked. I wanted to hurry this along so that I could confront Sabine about the news I’d heard from Carter.
He took a deep breath. “Yes, it is. There’s a situation, and Brianna Preston let me know that you were very supportive and helpful in similar ways when her family was involved in a police matter.”
I liked the way that he made a homicide sound less than dangerous. “I was glad to help her. She’s related to a close friend, and I cherish the friend deeply.” Not many people outside of the family knew that the Prestons had a number of illegitimate members, and I saw no reason to tell this man.
He cleared his throat. “Well, yes, there’s an issue. It would seem that I have a motive to have killed Tom Rachford.”
The manner in which he behaved led me to believe that this was something that had only very recently come to his attention. Either he’d just learned it, or someone had pointed out to him that he had had a reason to want Rachford dead.
“What would the motive have been?” I asked.
He looked away from me and then began his story. “Well, I think—if it’s fine with you –that I’ll tell the story in the way that I learned it.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “However you feel is best.”
“Well, last night after the police let us go, I went home. My wife chooses not to go to these events. She says that she’s not comfortable at them. She lost a significant amount of weight about 18 months ago. She looks thinner and healthier, but she still sees herself as the ‘fat woman,’ as she refers to herself. She hasn’t bought many dresses in that time which flatter her figure. She’s stayed with the older clothes, saying that she’s afraid to spend the money on new clothes just in case the weight comes back.”
“I see,” I said, trying to sound like I did. I would be happy to get rid of a few pounds.
“Anyway, when I returned home last night, she was in the bedroom, crying. I wasn’t sure what had happened. I asked her, but she just left the room. She went to the bathroom on the second level of the house. She refused to come out for hours.”
Now I was interested. I had a bad feeling I knew where this was going, so I didn’t interrupt. It wouldn’t be easy for a man like this to admit something embarrassing.
“Finally, when she did come out, she confessed that she’d been having an affair with Tom Rachford, and when she called his cell number last night, a policeman answered and told her about his death. She was bereft.”
Francis Gage would be bereft as well, since the police had her name and number in the call log. It would only be a matter of time before they put the pieces together.
“How did they meet?” I asked.
“Francis was out shopping. As I said, she still saw herself as bigger. Tom was a wolf. He lived to pick up women who didn’t find themselves attractive and making them feel that they were—for a while. Then he went on to the next one, and the next one, and the next one.”
I felt a pattern going on that perhaps I needed to look at. Who had been the previous romance in Rachford’s life? Had she been dumped for Mrs. Gage?
“How long have you known Rachford?” I asked.
“Probably 15 years or so. My wife and I raised three sons together. I’m proud to say that two of them are in business with me. Rachford knew my family all that time, and then he had the temerity to do this to me.” The man’s voice rose sharply and I turned to look at him. His face had gone red, and his eyes were wet, as if tears were about to spill.
“Did she happen to know who the policeman was?” I asked. “It wouldn’t have been Detective Jax Danvers, would it?”
He thought for a second, and said, “Maybe. The name was unique. Does it make a difference?”
“I just was curious. He’s the lead detective on this case, and I wondered if he’d gotten the information from someone else or if he’d answered himself.” In either case, I thought, he would not be pleased to see me wandering around Government Square with this man, whose wife had called the victim last night. Yet at this moment, I didn’t care. I was still thoroughly annoyed by the fact that Danvers wasn’t asking Land to be the best man.
“Anyway, she told me that she’d been having an affair with Tom Rachford for the past six months. They’d met on a regular basis in his office, where they would have relations.” He said the last words with a snarl.
I made some consoling noises, not sure what else I could say. He’d learned that his wife was having an affair and that the affair had put him in the limelight as a potential suspect in a murder case. There was no Hallmark card for that.
“You hadn’t known?” I asked finally.
“Not until that moment, no. They always say that the spouse should be able to tell when your other half is cheating, but honestly, I didn’t. Her behavior was peculiar. I had expected the weight loss to
improve her esteem, but it only served to make it worse. However, there’s no way for me to prove that I didn’t know beforehand, and since I can’t prove that, I’m apparently a ‘person of interest’ in this case.” He made air-quotes with the final words.
I knew from Brianna that Gage had been standing near Rachford last night. While it proved nothing, it certainly made his outlook that much bleaker. “Do you have access to cyanide?” I asked him. Means would be the sticking point for Danvers at this juncture. It wasn’t like you could go buy the poison at the local drugstore.
“Not to my knowledge. I’m not a drug dealer. I work in the jewelry business.”
I wondered where he worked and what exactly he did. The small business group meant that he was not a chain and yet prosperous.
“I run the Capital Silver and Gold Exchange,” he said as if to answer my question.
I was a bit surprised by his response. The Capital Silver and Gold Exchange was a pawn shop a few streets over from here. The company had started with the downtown store and had opened stores in other neighborhoods as the economy had worsened a few years ago. While I didn’t know the exact figures, I guessed that it was now a million-dollar-a-year business.
There was one other issue. Cyanide was used in mining gold and silver, and while I wasn’t entirely familiar with the compound, I was aware of a silver cyanide as well. That did not bode well for Gage at all.
My only response was “I see.” How could I tell him that he practically had sealed his own fate?
“My question is, what do I do now? The police are aware of my wife and, by extension, of me. I was there last night.”
“I would hire the best attorney that you can,” I said honestly. “If I know the police, it’s just a matter of time before they want to question you and perhaps arrest you.”
His face blanched, but we kept walking. We were almost on our third lap of the square, and from the look on his face, I determined that we needed a fourth lap.
As we walked, I asked, “May I ask you a question or two?”
He nodded. “About the murder, I presume. You might as well. Apparently, this will all be news shortly.”
I looked at him. “Did Tom ever mention anything about how he made his firm so profitable in the first two years of operation? In most cases, it takes years for a retail establishment to be so successful.”
He stopped for a second and looked at me. “Are you accusing him of cooking the books?”
“No, not exactly. What I suspect is that he made increasing profits by swapping out generic foods for more expensive brands and makes. That would allow him to make more profit without additional sales.”
“No, I never heard anything from him about such a matter, but it’s not the sort of thing that he would have gone around bragging about. I can’t imagine what the small business group would have thought of him then.” There was a small amount of malice in his voice as he spoke. I suspected that others would soon be hearing of this speculation on my part.
“Could you ask your wife if he ever mentioned such things to her?” I asked. I felt bad about reminding him of his wife’s connection to the dead man, but I wanted to put this case behind me and get back to enjoying my maternity leave.
“I will, but I doubt that they discussed his bottom line while they were together. However, I will ask.”
I nodded. We completed the fourth lap around the square in relative silence, and when we approached the truck, he bade me goodbye and told me that he’d let me know about his wife’s answer.
When I turned to talk to Land, he was busy speaking to another man in Spanish. I could only recognize a few words from my high school Spanish class. I knew that bilingual businesses were a major trend, but I left the languages to Land, who seemed to know several.
The men stopped talking abruptly, and they both turned to look at me. The stranger was dressed formally in a suit and tie. Since I suspected that he was the food products division manager who had been told to contact me, I relaxed a little.
“Maeve, this is Jose Castillo. We were just talking until you returned,” my husband said. I couldn’t read the expression on his face, which didn’t help me a bit. What had he been talking to Castillo about? Most likely the formula, but this once, I wished I could read Land’s mind.
“Nice to meet you,” Castillo said to me. His expression, I could easily read. He didn’t want to be here.
“The same,” I said. “I’m assuming that Maggie Rachford told you why I was calling?” I deliberately used her first name to make it sound as if we were good friends.
“Yeah, about the canisters of formula,” he replied. “Look, I don’t know anything about that.”
“About what, exactly?” I asked him. That kind of blanket denial didn’t sit well with me. It was too broad and too vague.
“Let me tell you the process, and then you can see that I didn’t know about the formula canisters, okay?”
I nodded.
“The shipments come in on a semi-truck. They’re brought in on a pallet. The canisters are wrapped tightly in plastic so that they don’t fall off during the transport. A forklift brings them into the warehouse, which is in the back of the store, and then puts the entire pallet with the rest of the products. We store all the products that way. We don’t take off the plastic until we need the product.”
“And then?” I asked. I still felt like he was trying to hide something from me, and it served to make me more suspicious.
“Someone cuts the plastic off with a blade. The product is brought out on a hand truck or a cart, depending on how much is needed. Formula is covered by most of the government programs, so it’s a big seller.”
I paused to think about that for a moment. Were any consumers likely to be involved in the scam? It didn’t seem likely, since they were all left with inadequate goods and fewer dollars at the end of the process. Still, I’d have to take a look at the consumer side of this scam to see if I’d been an unwitting dupe or if this was the way the scam was meant to be played out.
“So what happens after that?” I asked.
“We sell the product. There’s no way for us to tamper with it. People are in and out of the warehouse portion of the building all day. Someone would see us and get suspicious.”
I thought about performing the switch in the building. That was extremely unlikely since the transfer of powder from one canister to another would not be simple or tidy. There would likely be tell-tale signs throughout the building. Now, in addition to asking who had switched the formula, I needed to ask where.
“So if it couldn’t be done at the store, you’re saying that it had to come to you already switched? Is there any way for someone to come into the building—at night, perhaps— and switch it out?”
Jose thought about this for a minute. “It’s possible. Not probable, but possible. There are guards in the building, but frankly, they sleep a lot. I’ve had to come in early a few times and caught them. One of them even brought a pillow and blanket to work.”
I had to agree that the security sounded lax. Still, he was right. It could be done in the abstract, but could you move enough canisters to make it worth getting caught?
“So that leaves the supplier?” I asked.
“Yeah, her name is Barb Yungbluth.” He rattled off some digits which I scribbled down. “Tell her that you’re calling for Maggie Rachford. That name will get you access to the records there and all of that.”
“So you think she’s behind this?”
“Look, I don’t know who is behind it. I don’t like the fact that we’re selling bad products to the public—and especially to little babies. But our store is just as blindsided by this as the consumers are. From what I can tell, we don’t have any part in how this is done.”
I asked about the crimping machine.
“No, we don’t have any equipment like that. We have a few forklifts, some hand trucks, and dollies. That’s it.”
We headed back to the truck. I was certain
ly getting my exercise in this evening.
When I got back to the truck, Land was just finishing up the day’s work. The register had been counted, and he was cleaning up the prep area. Andy was still in the carrier, but he was happy and quiet, which likely meant that Land had fed him while I was out asking questions.
I stepped into the truck and gave him a big kiss. “Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked when we were finished with the kiss.
“Just for being you,” I said with a smile.
I rode with Land to the Elm Street garage. Andy and I took the Buick home, while Land drove the truck to the secured lot, where he would retrieve his own car and meet us at home.
Land’s grandmother had cooked enough food for the rest of the month, and I cut the lettuce for a Cobb salad. Between the exercise and eating right, I was confident that I’d be back down to my normal weight in no time.
Land shared a few stories with me as we ate. A couple who were from the Basque region had stopped by the truck today and complimented him on the food. They’d eaten double helpings and then made suggestions for a few possible menu items. Land was excited because he was always looking for ways to rotate the menu at the truck. New items would keep the menu fresh and would bring in more customers.
“Once you get settled and back to work, we really need to take a trip to see my parents,” Land said, as a reminder to something he’d been telling me weekly since Ander had been born. Now that Sabine had a wedding date, our window of time for taking a trip was severely limited. We talked for a while about the possible travel dates.
I fed Andy again, and we relaxed on the sofa. I wondered if I dared to call Sabine with Land in the house. I wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on. There was all this secrecy surrounding the wedding, and I was not a part of it. However, the evening was not to be a quiet one. The phone rang about fifteen minutes later.
“Is this Maeve Mendoza?” a voice asked.
I was hesitant to acknowledge it, but then, what other woman lived here? “This is she,” I said, sounding efficient and professional while I burped a baby on my shoulder.
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 163