I resented the word choices, but I was too tired to complain. I would argue vigorously later.
“So we’re looking for your Mr. Huff and someone who has done serious time. Interesting combination, don’t you think?” Danvers looked at me as if I was lying. I was too tired to care.
“Looking for him?” I managed to squeak out finally.
Danvers looked at me. “He’s not at the office or his house. His wife claims that she doesn’t know where he is. He’s 72. It’s not like he can get far.”
I told Danvers the name of his last mistress, the one who had received the bracelet and had later hocked it for cash. “Try there. Supposedly people didn’t know about them.”
“Supposedly?” Danvers asked with an eyebrow up.
“Men are never as clever as they like to think they are,” I replied. Then I leaned back on the gurney and closed my eyes.
They found Mr. Huff at the former girlfriend’s apartment, hiding there and waiting for the police. Apparently, the paramour had requested a rather large part of the loot that Huff had recovered from my car after they’d tied me up in the food truck. The police had found bracelets and Rolexes in her drawers and hope chest.
Once confronted with the evidence, Huff broke down and confessed to everything. He named his co-conspirator as Tony Samples, the son of the first headless corpse—and Land’s new employer.
Fred had let his son into the business after Tony had been released from prison. The small food truck business hadn’t pleased Tony, and he’d fallen in with Mr. Huff, who had been his lawyer, to get the jewelry out of my truck and into their hands.
Mr. Huff had been no part of the murder of Fred Samples. He’d been appalled by the brutality of the crime. He’d wanted no part of Fred Samples’ death, but Tony Samples had wanted more and felt that the influx of cash, combined with total control of the company, was the best way to get what he wanted.
Epilogue
That’s how I got the Meat Treats spot again near the government building on Elm Street. Land had come back and started working for me again. His stint at the new Meat Treats truck had lasted a full three days before the axels had given out on that dream.
He seemed more resigned than angry this time around. He did the work with little conversation though, which was a pity because I was dying to learn what Mr. Huff had known about Land that would have kept him in line for any sort of dirty deeds. The opportunity to ask never came up, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you could just toss out in the middle of a conversation about trying a new type of pickle for the relish.
That was only one of the loose ends from the murders and the robberies. The most disturbing unresolved issue was that no one was taking claim for the beheading of the health inspector. The police had assumed that Tony Samples had murdered the health inspector for some reason given that the murder method, which was rather unusual, matched the one used on his father. However, Tony denied the whole thing, and Mr. Huff, who had thought that decapitation was beneath him, had denied it as well.
Detective Danvers didn’t seem to mind as much. He shared that the district attorney would be filing charges against Tony Samples for his father’s murder, which he’d confessed to, and that no charges would be filed in regards to the health inspector, though the case would unofficially be marked closed since it was so closely related to the first murder.
Danvers still stops by in the morning. He talks for a few minutes and then gets a coffee and leaves. We haven’t moved past the stage of smiling, though Land is always mimicking his semi-flirtations. I pointed out that since he and the detective go back, he should broach the subject, but Land just snorts and goes back to cutting up the vegetables.
~ END of Book 1 ~
NEXT TRUCK MYSTERY BOOKS:
MURDER IN THE SPOTLIGHTS
LEFTOVERS
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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
MURDER TO GO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 1) Page 15
