Felicia's Food Truck

by Celia Kinsey

  I was up before it got light. I parked my car three blocks from Whispering Palms, got out, and started down the street at a slow jog. I never jog, so I soon downgraded my ambitions to a brisk walk. I was hot, sweaty, and out of breath even though the sun had barely peeked over the horizon.

  I make two circuits around the outskirts of Whispering Palms before I spotted Patsy, out for her sunrise stroll. I waved at her from across the street and kept moving. I’d made another four trips around the block before I saw Marcella Edwards coming out of Whispering Palms dressed in a neon pink sweatsuit set and carrying a set of hand weights. I followed her a couple of blocks to the entrance of the beachfront walking path.

  It was almost a mile before Marcella paused to take a breather on a bench overlooking the beach.

  “Good morning, Marcella!” I sang out in an obscenely cheerful voice.

  Marcella jumped. I’d have jumped too if somebody had greeted me that aggressively. I decided I’d better tone it down a bit. I dialed back my smile.

  “May I join you?” I asked.

  “This bench is public property,” said Marcella, which hardly counted as an enthusiastic invitation for company, but I sat down anyway.

  “Beautiful morning,” I said.

  Marcella shuffled her feet. I had a feeling she was about to get up, so I got straight to the point.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said. “I have this older female friend who’s interested in Clarence Conroy, and I was wondering if I set them up if I’d be stepping on any toes.”

  Marcella looked at the toes in question and grunted. I could see I wasn’t going to get any straight answers regarding the current or past relationship between Marcella and Clarence, so I went in for the kill.

  “You know,” I said. “Some people are saying that you are the one behind all those weird objects people keep finding in their food.”

  Chapter Six

  When I told Marcella Edwards that “some people” were saying that she was behind the weird objects showing up in other people’s food, I was “some people,” but Marcella didn’t need to know that.

  Marcella sprang wordlessly to her feet. If I hadn’t been a foot taller than she was and close to half a century younger, I’d have been worried. I’m pretty sure she wanted to hit me with one of the little hand weights she carried.

  I expected Marcella to indignantly defend herself from my accusations, but she didn’t. Instead, she took off down the trail, her arms pumping vigorously.

  I was at a loss. This was the woman rumored to tip tables at restaurants when the waiter got her order wrong and carry past-the-sell-by-date produce in her capacious tote bag to throw at the caller when she attended bingo games in the basement of the Baptist church (although the story of her beaning Pastor Pritchett in the head with a rotten orange may have been more legend than fact).

  Marcella Edwards did not seem like the sort of woman who’d take false accusations lying down, or, indeed, founded accusations standing down. What was she hiding? Was she the guilty party, or did she know who was, but had some reason to keep their identity to herself?

  I was planning to head home for a much-needed shower and a hearty breakfast after my unaccustomed exertion. Instead, I headed back to Whispering Palms and rang the doorbell at Fitz’s apartment.

  He answered right away and invited me in. I could tell he found it very odd for me to be dropping by at all, never mind so early in the morning, but he told me to sit down and brought me a cup of coffee.

  I found it odd that Fitz was wearing an eye patch. I found it doubly odd that he wasn’t wearing it on his left eye, which was still heavily bruised from being punched by Clarence.

  “Did you get into another fight with Clarence?”

  Poor Fitz. What with his missing bridge, the black eye, and now the eyepatch, he was looking more and more like something the cat dragged in. There was no danger of Fitz dethroning Clarence Conroy as the most eligible widower of Whispering Palms any time soon.

  “This?” Fitz pointed to his eye patch. “I didn’t get in another fight. My glass eye went missing.”

  I almost dropped my coffee cup.

  “You have a glass eye?”

  “Did have a glass eye,” Fitz corrected me. “I think Clarence stole it.”

  I didn’t.

  “You think he stole your glass eye and inserted it inside his own burrito last evening at Café Tijuana?”

  “He might have, just to spite me.”

  Despite his bluster, Fitz appeared to be hearing for the first time that his glass eye had ended up on Clarence’s plate the previous evening. I suspected Fitz had believed from the moment he’d discovered his eye was missing that Clarence was planning to try and ransom it or something equally absurd.

  “When did your glass eye go missing?” I asked.

  “It disappeared sometime during the night, two nights ago. Sometimes I take it out and put in a glass of saline solution beside my bed.”

  “So you think someone broke in during the night and stole your glass eye off your nightstand while you slept.”

  My skepticism must have shown in my voice because Fitz got a little defensive.

  “You think I’m faking it?” He shook his finger at me. “You think I like going around looking like this? You want to see my empty eye socket?”

  I assured him that I did not.

  “And may I remind you,” Fitz added, “I haven’t decided whether or not to sue you.”

  “About that,” I said. “Have you been to see the dentist yet? I intend to pay that bill.”

  Fitz appeared somewhat mollified by my offer. He had not yet been to the dentist.

  I decided to risk outstaying my welcome and ask a few more questions.

  “Did you wake up when this intruder came into your apartment and stole your glass eye?”

  “No,” said Fitz, “and I doubt they did come in. I always sleep with the windows open, and there’s a window right by my nightstand. Last week maintenance took away that window screen to have it repaired, and they still haven’t brought it back.”

  “So whoever took your glass eye could have walked up from the outside and simply reached in and taken it?”

  “They even took the glass,” said Fitz as if that was the most shocking aspect of the theft.

  “Can I see where you had your glass eye?” I asked.

  Fitz ushered me into his bedroom. It was just as he described. All the apartments on the ground floor of his building were identical, as were the apartments in the building next to it. Since Fitz had a corner apartment, he had an extra window in his bedroom that faced the next building. Whoever lived in that apartment would potentially have a clear view into Fitz’s bedroom.

  “Do you always keep your shades up?” I asked.

  “Most of the time,” said Fitz.

  “Who lives in that apartment across the way?” I asked, pointing to the window in the adjoining building.

  “Randell Romer,” Fitz told me.

  Intriguing as the identity of Fitz’s neighbor was, I cut my visit short when I got a call from Mariel, the waitress from Café Tijuana.

  Chapter Seven

  According to Mariel, the waitress who’d unknowingly served Clarence a beef and cheese burrito containing Fitz’s glass eyeball, there had been two other Whispering Palms residents who’d ordered a beef and cheese burrito shortly before the incident.

  One of them was Marcella. Every member of the service industry from Bray Bay to Eagle’s Rest seemed to know who Marcella was. She’d made quite a reputation for herself.

  “The other patron who ordered a beef and cheese was an old man from Whispering Palms, but nobody seems to know his name.”

  “Small man?” I asked. “Soft-spoken?”

  Mariel relayed my questions to someone in the background.

  “Yes.”

  “Always carries an umbrella, regardless of the weather forecast? Likes to shred napkins?”

  Mariel conferred again with
her fellow servers.

  “Yes and yes,” she said.

  “That’s Randell Romer,” I told her. “Did anyone see him in the vicinity of the kitchen or the server’s station?”

  She asked, but no one remembered seeing him loitering anywhere he didn’t belong.

  I didn’t put a great deal of stock in no one noticing Randell. He had a special talent for blending in. If Marcella had gotten caught hanging around the server’s station trying to switch one beef and cheese burrito for another, somebody would have taken note; not so, in the case of Randell.

  “What happened to the eyeball?” I asked.

  “I think somebody put it in lost and found.”

  “Well, take it out of there,” I said. “I know who it belongs to, and he very much needs it back. I’ll be over in ten minutes to collect it.”

  After I’d returned Fitz’s eyeball to him, the rest of Thursday was uneventful. Arnie informed me that he’d gotten tickets for a jazz concert in the park Saturday night and asked if I’d like to go to dinner beforehand. I wasn’t sure what to make of that invitation, but I said yes.

  Friday, at precisely 11:38, Clarence Conroy showed up and made his regular Friday order (bratwurst dog, potato salad, and a side of sliced tomatoes). He ate it all without incident.

  I breathed a little easier, and I think Arnie did, too. I was naïve enough to hope that the worst was behind us, although I was far from confident that the worst was over for Clarence.

  “I’ll pick you up around six tomorrow evening,” Arnie was saying when a white sedan pulled into the parking lot.

  It was midafternoon, and there was no one around. I thought the white sedan contained an ordinary customer until I saw that the man was carrying a clipboard and wearing a Health Department badge, which proclaimed that his name was Lew.

  “I’m here to do a random spot check,” said the clipboard-carrying Lew.

  “Go right ahead,” I told him, trying not to look nervous. About twice a year, we get a random check, and the inspector always finds something. I think the Health Department hands out official censures to any employee who conducts a spot check without finding at least three infractions to issue warnings over.

  It took Lew an hour to go over the truck, and when he was done, he shocked me by saying that everything looked fine.

  “Keep up the good work,” he said.

  It had only been a month since our last surprise inspection, and we generally only get them twice a year, three times at most.

  “Did someone lodge a complaint about us?” I couldn’t help asking.

  Lew shifted his weight from one foot to the other and became suddenly mesmerized by the form on his clipboard.

  “Somebody did complain, didn’t they?” I persisted.

  “There was a call to the hotline,” Lew said. “But it was such an absurd complaint that we didn’t open an official file on it. Your truck checked out fine, so there’s really nothing to worry about. I’m guessing it was just a crank call.”

  “Crank call?”

  “I didn’t take the call, but I saw the notes. Some guy called up ranting and raving about being given onions even though he’d made it clear to you he had an onion allergy. That seemed credible enough until he claimed that he’d found an eyeball in a burrito at another restaurant.”

  I was guessing that Café Tijuana had also received a surprise inspection that afternoon.

  “The eyeball was hard enough to swallow, no pun intended,” said Lew. “But then the guy started going on about spiders in hot dogs and car parts in cheese fries.”

  “I can see why someone would view such a barrage of complaints with skepticism,” I said.

  “Well, we do get a lot of crazies who call the complaint hotline,” said Lew. “Sorry to bother you. Have a nice day.”

  When Arnie and I parted ways that evening, he asked me where I’d like to eat Saturday night.

  “Mama’s Italian Kitchen,” I said.

  Arnie looked surprised. I’ve never spoken very highly of Mama’s Italian Kitchen. They are very sanitary—you could probably eat off the floor—I’ll give them that much, but the food lacks flavor. The reason I wanted to eat there had nothing to do with the food; what I was concerned with was the clientele.

  Mama’s Little Italian Kitchen is where Clarence eats every Saturday night at 5:47. I had a hunch I was closing in on whoever had it out for Clarence, and I had a bad feeling the culprit wasn’t going to content themselves with relatively harmless pranks for much longer.

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday evening, promptly at 5:30, Arnie arrived at my house to pick me up, which felt very weird. Normally, when we do things together—which isn’t all that often unless you count work—we meet somewhere.

  Arnie seemed nervous, which was doubly weird. He’d just gotten a haircut, and he was wearing cologne, which I’ve never known him to do. Of course, maybe Arnie often wears cologne in his free time. I can understand why he’d want to.

  Even after I’ve taken a long, hot shower at the end of the day, I can still smell the aroma of French fries—or stench, depending on how positive a spin I’m up to putting on things. It’s like the smell is embedded in my nostrils.

  Arnie smelled (and looked) good, I’ll admit, which only served to make me wish I’d made more of an effort

  As we walked across my lawn to Arnie’s car (which also looked freshly washed) I took a furtive whiff of my hair. I smelled kiwi (the scent of my shampoo) with undertones of Eau de French Fry. Maybe Arnie wouldn’t notice if I kept my distance.

  We arrived at the restaurant at 5:48, and we were seated right away. No sooner than we sat down, I spotted Clarence across the room. He was alone and appeared to have not yet ordered. Marcella Edwards was seated at an adjoining table. She was dividing her energies, in nearly equal parts, between her dish of spumoni and giving Clarence the stink eye.

  I looked around for Randell, and at first I thought I’d made a grave miscalculation. Then I located him. He was sitting alone at a corner table near the kitchen.

  There was one player in my little tableau who was still missing: Officer Scott Finch, who’d promised me he’d be entering the scene at 5:50 sharp. He was currently two minutes late.

  “You seem distracted,” said Arnie, sounding somewhat aggrieved.

  I seemed distracted because I was distracted.

  “I have a confession to make,” I said.

  Arnie leaned forward, all ears, but when I revealed that my deep dark secret was that I believed we were in the presence of whoever had been violating Clarence Conroy’s vittles, Arnie was less than impressed.

  When I further revealed that I intended to unmask the identity of the culprit in the presence of an officer of the law, Arnie was downright disturbed.

  “Please don’t tell me you invited your ex-boyfriend Scott to join us on our first date?”

  Was that what this was? A first date?

  “I didn’t invite Scott in the capacity of my ex-anything. I asked him to come here to bust a criminal.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Then I shushed him. I can see now that was unforgivably rude, but I needed all my powers of concentration focused on one thing: what Clarence Conroy was going to order. Fortunately, Clarence has a carrying voice. He ordered beef lasagna and a small Cesar salad. He made a big fuss about how his food must not be prepared on any surface that had previously come into contact with onions. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t really blame him.

  “I have to visit the ladies’ room,” I said.

  I could see Arnie was disappointed that what he thought was a date was turning into a stakeout; I’d just have to try and make it up to him later.

  I was crossing the dining room to the ladies’ and gents’, which were located near the kitchen, when Scott Finch walked in the door.

  “You’re late,” I hissed as we passed by each other.

  Scott continued on to a seat at the bar, and I continued on to the ladies’ room. I loi
tered just inside, with the door barely open, and peered through the crack. I got some weird looks from women coming in and out, but I persisted until I saw Randell get up from his seat and head toward the server’s station.

  Randell loitered next to the station until the waiter who was loading up a tray with a large order vacated, then darted in.

  I burst out of the bathroom, ready to confront Randell, then thought better of it. I should wait until he was in the middle of tainting Clarence’s lasagna. I couldn’t make some wild accusation and then demand he turn out his pockets. If I did, I’d risk ending up sounding like Clarence when he called the Health Department hotline.

  I crept up behind Randell. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Scott had left his table and was approaching the server’s station as if he was headed for the restrooms.

  I paused and watched as Randell withdrew a small paper packet from his pocket and pressed a small flat object between the layers of a large slice of beef lasagna. He then gingerly took ahold of another small object and started to insert it, too, into the block of beef and pasta.

  I was about to spring forward and catch Randell in the act, when a woman screeched in my ear, “Stop him! He’s putting razor blades in the food!”

  That got everyone’s attention.

  Randell whirled around, dropping his paper packet to the floor. Several more razor blades dropped out. I turned to see who had beat me to busting Randell.

  It was Marcella.

  After that, things got truly chaotic. Randell tried to make a run for it, but Scott caught him around the waist.

  Randell should have been easy to subdue, but the old man grabbed onto a tablecloth as Officer Finch tried to remove him to an open area to get a pair of cuffs on him.

  The tablecloth came off the table, which was, unfortunately, occupied by a party of eight who’d not yet gotten far on their dinners but had apparently had copious before-dinner drinks. The entire party was no longer a state of mind to sensibly assess the situation. Instead of getting up and moving out of the way so that the staff could deal with the mess, they set to work trying to reconstruct their dinners and return their plates to the table, most of which were, miraculously, still right side up.