MURDER TO GO
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERY #1
Chloe Kendrick
Copyright © 2015
Published by: Rascal Hearts
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Chapter 1
I shoved my head under the pillow and groaned. It was six a.m. I could easily remember the days when I could sleep until 9 or 10. “Those were the days,” I said ruefully, even though in reality, it had only been a few months prior; and besides, twenty-five was much too young to be ruing the day.
When my mother’s only sister, Aunt Alice, had passed away three months ago, I’d been surprised to learn that I had been remembered in the will. When I had first heard the news, I thought that she might have left me some much-needed cash or perhaps a piece of heirloom jewelry to remember her by. I’d gone to visit Alice many times during my summers as a teenager. She’d been tough and opinionated, and I could see myself in her shoes as an adult.
When the lawyer had said “Maeve Kinkaid, being my only niece,” at the reading of the will, I’d perked up, wondering what I would get. Numerous wonderful possibilities crossed my mind.
I would never have guessed that it would be a food truck.
Dogs on the Roll had been the only bequest from my aunt. I knew nothing about running a business or operating a food truck, but my aunt had left me in charge of the truck and its associated corporation. She’d picked up the truck at a police auction several months before her death. In one way, it was great to remember her free spirit with a memento of that daring, but in another, practical way, I was baffled.
Shortly after the meeting with the lawyer, I drove downtown to see my food truck. I had to admit that my aunt had done a good job with the look. The logo was adorable, a dachshund that had curled into a ball between two delicious-looking hot dogs. The truck was immaculate on the outside. The interior of the truck had two workstations and a large window with the register bolted down to the retractable counter. The inside was clean and smelled of spices and vegetables. Overall, the bequest could have been much worse.
The truck already had a prime location for the morning rush and the lunch crowd. The lawyer had told me it was a turnkey business. I doubted that, since I didn’t even know where the key was located. Yet I was determined to make the truck work. My aunt had left it to me for a reason, and I wanted to honor her thoughtfulness by not running the business into the ground. I had a great education in business and marketing; now I needed to apply it.
The truck and corporation also included Lander Mendoza as the sole employee. Land, as he preferred to be called, was the chef of the corporation. The man could make pork by-products taste like filet mignon. His salsa made mouths water, and he hand made four different artisanal mustards. He hadn’t been left to me in the will, of course, but he might as well have been.
Land was also an insufferable ass, which is why I was now ducking my head under the pillow rather than getting out of bed. There was no denying that he was a good-looking man. I knew it, and he knew it, too. He had black hair that he kept pulled back under a cap during our working hours. His smoldering, dark eyes set against his olive skin seemed to glare at me frequently. While he had small burns and cuts along his hands and forearms, I could appreciate the strong sinewy arms and his obviously chiseled body in spite of these superficial blemishes. When it became hot in the truck, his damp t-shirt all but exposed his physique. However, since he despised me, I felt that I would be able to control myself in his presence.
He also knew that he was more than capable as a chef. However, I knew that Land was a Spanish citizen from the Basque Country who had come here to be with his family. Land’s green card status required him to maintain respectable employment during his time in the U.S. Most of the food truck businesses in the area already had an owner who doubled as the chef. While these businesses made a profit, they didn’t earn enough to hire a skilled chef. And most restaurants did not want to hire a food truck chef, which they viewed as being in the same category as a short-order cook. So Land was stuck where he was, and I was stuck with him.
Apparently, at one point or another, Alice had told Land that he would inherit the business when she passed away; and yet, here he was, working for me. It did not sit well with him. Presumably, he’d spent the last few months of Alice’s life contemplating what he would do when he owned the truck, and now he could only use those ideas to enrich another person. I didn’t know if my aunt had neglected to chang her will after that promise was made, or if she’d had a reason not to follow through with it, but I was not going to look a gift business in the mouth.
It wasn’t as if I had a number of choices in my life. I’d gotten a degree in business and had graduated just in time to watch the worst recession of our lifetime destroy the securities firm that had offered me a job. After that, I had been severely underemployed, working part-time in retail at a clothing store and watching every last cent of my paycheck go to pay down student loans that would plague me for the next twenty years.
Now, at least, I was able to rent a tiny efficiency apartment in a respectable, though not wealthy, part of Capital City. I was even looking to buy a new car. So why should I grumble about a disgruntled employee?
I finally talked myself out of bed, took a quick shower, pulled my light brown hair into a ponytail and drove the old Buick to the truck. Somehow, Aunt Alice had managed to secure a spot a half block from the government buildings downtown. These skyscrapers made a sort of box canyon around the end of Elm Street. Large parts of the street had been blocked from motor vehicle use to allow more pedestrian traffic. Granted it had been done as a green initiative, but it made for better business for me.
Meat Treats was the only truck that had a better spot. They had somehow secured a location that abutted those buildings. I knew that many of the other operators would have offered up their first-born to get that location. I often wondered how Meat Treats had succeeded in getting that prime piece of real estate.
I made a note to look into the requirements for a move. Most trucks remained stationary despite their ability to move. Customers preferred routine, and food truck operators built up a base of customers by being easy to find. If you moved too often, you were always trying to build brand loyalty rather than adding to your base. Once a truck found a lucrative spot, you might as well take off the tires and put the place up on concrete blocks. You weren’t going anywhere.
Land was already in the truck when I arrived. The smell of hot dogs and other savory aromas hit me fully in the face as I entered. Even though it was still breakfast time, my stomach grumbled. I’d skipped every part of breakfast except black coffee. It was no wonder these workers wanted a dog at 8 a.m. They smelled wonderful!
Land grunted in recognition of my entrance and continued to work. That seemed to be the extent of his conversational skills these days. I nodded and got to work on the coffee machine. With the morning rush, we sol
d more coffee than dogs; but we priced our coffee low, so that people came to the truck instead of stopping at Starbucks. Often they would relent and buy some food to go with their coffee.
After the percolating had begun, I went over the previous day’s receipts, double-checked the cash drawer and card reader tape and fumbled with the financial records. This month would be our best month by far according to my accounting. I was pleased that I could finally use my business acumen, and that I would be keeping my aunt’s memory alive in this manner. I didn’t know if I would have been able to face the family if I had lost the business in the first few months after Alice’s death.
“I’m going to open up,” I said, more to myself than to Land. “Time to roll.”
Land grunted again, but moved a little faster to complete his morning preparations. I unlocked the window from the inside and then propped open the panel from the outside. There was already a small line waiting for Dogs on the Roll.
Many of the customers wanted coffee, and I shouted out the orders as they came in. Land prepped a second coffee machine. We used Land’s secret blend of beans. In my better moments, I thought the recipe was from his Basque heritage. Other times, I was sure he just grabbed whatever was on sale at the grocery store. He poured and handed the cups to me, and I distributed them to the customers.
Down the street, a large crowd had begun to swarm around the Meat Treats truck. They weren’t the orderly customers waiting for their food. The crowd surrounded the truck on all sides, and some of the customers looked like they were more interested in the back of the truck than in the fare.
“What’s going on over there?” Land asked. “Are they giving shit away?”
I frowned upon the use of foul language when customers were around, but I’d had exactly zero effect on Land’s vocabulary at all. For someone who had learned English as a second language, he’d certainly mastered the fine art of cursing. “I can’t tell, but it’s crazy over there.”
Land opened the door to the truck and left. I scrambled to cover the few customers who had remained at our truck. Many of them were getting out of line to look curiously at the Meat Treats truck. Land was back in a few minutes, shaking his head. “You don’t want to go over there. It’s not a pretty sight.”
In accordance with the etiquette of our professional relationship, I opened the door to the truck and hopped down to the concrete. The buildings around the area were all skyscrapers, and the morning was cool even though it was summer. Elm Street was in perpetual shade, which seemed somewhat appropriate. The only glimpse of light came from looking straight overhead.
I strode quickly to the truck and tried to push my way past some of the crowd. They weren’t having it. Given that I’m only 5’6”, I was at a disadvantage behind all the businessmen.
“What’s happening?” I asked a man in a suit that probably cost more than my car.
“Fred Samples. He’s dead.”
I gasped. While I hadn’t known the owner of Meat Treats well, I’d had a few conversations with him over the past couple of months. Once he’d told me that he had wished my aunt’s business had gone under with her death. Another time he’d told me that I was a woman and couldn’t run a business properly. In retrospect, we hadn’t had much in the way of pleasant conversation, but I had never wished him dead.
I finally saw a break in the crowd and I pushed my way through. I made it to the front of the truck and immediately wished I hadn’t. Fred Samples’ body was clearly visible from the open panel where people placed their orders. Someone had apparently come up behind Fred, pushed him forward and used a blade of some sort to cut through his neck. Fred had been a big guy, probably 6’3” tall and 250 pounds by my generous estimate. It would take a lot of pushing to get Fred to consent to this type of treatment.
Blood marked practically every surface and Fred’s head was no longer attached to his body. The head was perched on the counter and it appeared to be looking out at the crowd. The killer had placed it in the bin where the cooked bacon was stored. Blood caked his temples and cheeks, and his mouth was now permanently frozen in a wide O shape.
The effect was chilling, something I’d expect to see at a haunted house or in a slasher film. Its appearance here was shocking, like a machete used to cut vegetables. I wasn’t used to this level of violence. Before I owned the food truck, I spent most of my time on my parents’ couch watching T.V., and even the crime shows I loved to watch didn’t prepare me for this.
I sprinted the other way, running back toward my truck. I’d almost made it before my stomach told me that I had to stop. With all the femininity I could muster, I threw up in the garbage bin next to our truck.
Land watched me from the front of Dogs on the Roll, and when I came up for air, I thought I could detect a small smirk on his lips. Fortunately for me, I’d only had coffee in the last 12 hours so my stomach was empty. Yet the thought of that head glaring at me from the bacon bin haunted me as I climbed back into the truck.
“Maybe next time you’ll listen to me,” Land said as he cut up some tomatoes. The sharp noises of the knife against the board only served to remind me of what I’d just seen. My stomach protested again.
“Yeah, maybe,” I said, wanting to forget the last ten minutes. After taking over the truck, I’d done some research on security in the downtown area. Being a young single woman, I knew that I would be threatened in ways that other owners, who were mostly male and middle-aged, would not be. So I’d beefed up the security on our truck to keep out the baddies. Even in my worst nightmares of what could happen to me, I’d never envisioned anything like what I’d seen.
To ward off the nausea, I busied myself. I took a rag and began to clean. I scrubbed down the surfaces, the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Land just watched me without speaking a word. He walked carefully on the metal floor after I scrubbed it.
With the focus of the morning on Meat Treats, our sales were down for the morning until about 8 a.m. Why get coffee when you can see a headless guy down the block?
The police arrived and some of the crowd scattered. Apparently, many people thought that they could still view the crime scene if they bought coffee from the next food truck, so I was swamped for the next two hours. They purchased a coffee or a hot dog and then lingered at the edge of the other truck’s perimeter. I didn’t complain about the business, but my stomach rumbled whenever I thought about the reason for the increase in sales.
By 10 o’clock, things had slowed down. We usually had two hours to prep for lunch, but today we’d have far less time to get ready. I started on my part of the prep, while Land just glowered at me and cut things with a knife. I didn’t accuse him, but I highly suspected that the chopping was being overdone because I’d ignored his warnings. It was a warning that I heeded. I would be happy never to see another headless corpse for the rest my life.
A tall, blond man approached the truck’s window and he placed a hand on the counter. It was his left, and I instinctively noted that there was no ring. I wasn’t actively looking for a mate, but I didn’t miss chances to check out a good-looking guy. This man was definitely hot. He wore a tan blazer that was not buttoned, and the white shirt underneath the blazer gave an indication of a well-formed physique.
He was wearing dark brown slacks. Without inventing a reason for him to turn around, there was no way for me to check out his butt. So I left it at that. “What can I get you?” I asked with a smile.
Land looked up. Apparently, the tone of my voice had alerted him that something was up. He was perhaps expecting trouble, not flirting. I was glad to see that he went back to work without speaking. We never spoke of our personal lives, but he had to assume that a woman who got up at 5 a.m. didn’t have a chance to spend many nights out on the town prowling for men.
The man opened a wallet, showed me a badge, and snapped it shut. “I’m Detective Jax Danvers. I just had a few questions for you.”
I held out a hand. I had to bend over somewhat to shake his, given the
height difference with the truck. “I’m Maeve—Kinkaid. Nice to meet you.”
He gave me a small smile, one where the lips just turned up at the corners. The smile activated a tiny dimple that I wanted to kiss. It was adorable. He cleared his throat. “I’m trying to find anyone who was in the area this morning who might have seen something suspicious. Did you?”
I shook my head, trying to focus on the crime and not the detective. “No, I didn’t see a thing actually. Once we start with the morning’s prep work, a million things could happen on Elm Street and I wouldn’t lift my head. What exactly did happen?”
He pressed those lips into a thin line. “We’re really not supposed to talk about it. I’m sure you’ll see it on the evening news, but there was a death up the street. We’re just trying to find out who might have seen something at 5 this morning—give or take 30 minutes.”
“I was still in bed,” I said honestly, thinking back to how I’d wanted to play hooky and avoid Land.
“Any witnesses to that?” he asked, looking a bit red on his neck and cheeks.
“I live alone,” I said, thinking that I made my message clear.
“Did you ever talk to Fred Samples? Do you know others who did?” He had a little notebook out and was writing something down.
“Not really. I knew who he was. He was rather old school, and he wasn’t a big fan of women in business. So we didn’t have a lot to talk about. I avoided him, to be honest. So perhaps you’d be better off asking someone else.”
He nodded and wrote something else down. I tried not to panic, but it’s hard not to when someone is writing things down that could be used against you in a court of law. I took a deep breath, thinking that I’d seen too many episodes of Law & Order. I expected to hear the familiar “bum bum” in the background.
“Can I talk to the cook?” he asked.
I cleared my throat and called for Land. He walked toward the window, wiping his hands on his apron as he did. He didn’t speak, waiting for the other man to say something.
MURDER TO GO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 1) Page 1
