Secondly—he’d spent the day with Danvers? I was dying to ask Land about anything the detective had said about me during the day, but I didn’t want to set off any alarms with Land. He already suspected that something had happened between us, and I didn’t want to add more fuel to that fire.
Land was staring at me when I looked back at him. He chuckled. “Yeah, and he told me all about your fight on Saturday. You two need to learn how to talk to each other. It’s not that hard.” I was rather frustrated that the man who still had never as much as mentioned that he had parents was telling me about how to communicate.
“Says the man who didn’t bother to call me back all weekend,” I quipped. I didn’t want to be that direct with him, but I wasn’t about to let him get away with that statement either.
He shrugged. “I was busy until about nine last night. I have a whole new life now that I don’t have to go to bed at dinner time anymore.”
I smiled. “Don’t rub it in. I was in bed by 8:30 last night.”
“Yeah, he’s feeling bad. He knows you’ve been a lot of help, but he was pissed that the brother is just another dead-end. He was really hoping to pin it on a family member, so that the espionage case could continue without interrupting the flow of information.”
“Thanks. I’m glad to hear that. I’m off to talk to the uncle in an hour, so I might know more then. It could still be personal instead of political.”
With that, I left Basque in the Sun and went back to the original food truck to drive it to the secured lot. The bank transaction only took me a few minutes, and I called Janelle’s uncle on my cell.
He answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
I explained who I was and what I wanted. I liberally used Jeremy’s name and mentioned how I’d known Janelle and bought the truck from the family.
He indicated that he was at his office and that I could meet him there in an hour. That gave me just enough time to go home and change before heading to his office. Fortunately, he worked not too far from my apartment, and I managed to be there with time to spare.
I had to admit that he had a plush office. I sat in a waiting room that was bigger than my apartment. Multiple dividers split the space into multiple meeting areas, but since they were all glass, it still gave the illusion of being a single space as well. I plopped down in a comfy chair and waited. I had to focus not to drift off as the speakers piped out mellow music. I hadn’t been getting enough sleep lately with this case going on.
A large man appeared from the hallway. He had the same dusky features as his nephew, but was perhaps twice the size. He was taller than Jeremy by about four or five inches and weighed significantly more. Even so, he was dressed impeccably in a suit that cost more than three months of my rent. No wonder he could afford to help Jeremy and Janelle out financially. He could have sold a suit and put both of them in business.
“Ms. Kinkaid?” he asked as he approached. “Exactly how can I help you?” He didn’t move as he spoke, which made me wonder if we’d be conducting our business out here. I’d hoped for a more private setting where I could ask more detailed questions regarding the food truck. Perhaps that’s why he chose not to move.
“I had a few questions about the purchase of the food truck. I explained on the phone that we bought the food truck from the Nolans last week.” I was using every point of access I could to get information.
He nodded. “Why don’t we go back to my office? It will be more comfortable there.”
We walked back a long carpeted hallway to an office. He stood aside so I could enter it. I noticed that he closed the door as he entered, which made me a bit worried. If he was the killer, I had just stepped into an office where the walls were probably thick and soundproof. I had already eliminated him as the person who had knocked me down to get the financials. This man couldn’t move that fast…unless he was putting on a very good show for me.
“So how exactly can I help?” he said.
I explained to him about the review of the financials, the attack on Land, and the theft of my copies. In all the worries about this international plot, I still had not come to any conclusions about the theft of my documents—or Land’s attack. However, he had nothing to do with either one of those things. I told him that we’d come across two particularly worrying details, the payment for the truck and the monthly payments to the unnamed account.
He cleared his throat. “If you’re asking if I helped Janelle purchase the truck, the answer is yes. I gave her sufficient funds to buy the truck outright.”
I whistled. I tried to think of a time when I would have that much cash lying around. The truth was that I would likely never be in that position.
“If that was meant to imply that I was extravagant with my brother’s children, it’s true that I have a habit of being rather generous. My brother has complained about it over the years, but it’s my money so he ultimately can’t stop me from doing what I want with it.”
I supposed that was true. My aunt had left a food truck to me. Given the amount of trouble it had landed me in, I felt that my parents wished that my aunt had left it to someone else. “Did she come to you about it?”
He nodded. “Both children asked me for money from time to time. Most of the requests are not outrageous. That was the largest one Janelle had ever made, but on the other hand, it was to open a business, which would generate her own money, so I didn’t object. Is there a problem with the transaction?”
I shook my head. “No, but obviously given the fact of the death of the owner, I was concerned about any transaction that wasn’t easily explainable. I want to ensure that I don’t inherit any liabilities related to the death of your niece.”
He sniffed and for a moment I thought he might cry. “Sorry, her death has been very hard for me. I can’t imagine how she could have possibly gotten involved in anything so ugly as to lead to her murder. That’s just not like her.”
“What do you mean?” It was helpful to hear other people’s opinions of Janelle. Her parents seemed to have made a saint of her, and Jeremy had not been very helpful other than to suggest that she’d snatched a flash drive from him.
“Janelle just couldn’t have been involved in a plot like what I’ve heard. That’s just not her style.”
I was a bit shocked. The news about the espionage and couriers had not been reported on the news. So either he’d heard it from Janelle’s parents or he’d just told me that he knew about that. “What was she like? I mean, I only knew her very casually.”
He took a deep breath. “She was impetuous. She could be spiteful. She was focused on the short term. I truly hoped that Janelle would have continued with the food truck as a career, but it also would not have surprised me if she’d have dumped it in six months to do something entirely different.”
“So she didn’t have the drive to run some enterprise?” I thought about what I knew of Janelle. She’d bought the truck to spite me after I hadn’t hired her, which matched her uncle’s opinion of her. She’d tried to hire Carter away from me, or so he said. These were all minor annoyances to me as revenge for not taking her on.
“I love my niece and nephew dearly, but they are not burning up the world with their drive. Janelle had worked at exactly one job before this. She’d been a clerk at a convenience store for two weeks, and then she got bored and quit. She was being forced to work now, because her parents were threatening to throw her out on the street. She didn’t date, and she spent most of her time at home with a few close friends who were just like her.”
“Weren’t you concerned about your investment?” I asked. “Two weeks at a convenience store doesn’t seem like good training.”
“Our arrangement was that she had to buy a truck that met certain standards. Once she bought such a truck, she could run the truck as long as it was profitable after the second year.”
“What standards?” I asked. I thought about the small holes around the top of the truck, and wondered if he’d demanded that. If so, the
family certainly knew about the ability to stick a gun’s muzzle into the slots to shoot Janelle—though it did nothing to explain how it was done without a clear view inside.
“Safety standards. I made her get one of those cameras that shows you what’s behind you, so you can back up without incident. Last year, Janelle was not paying attention to what she was doing and rear-ended my Lexus. So this seemed like a good choice to keep her from doing that again with a vehicle that could do far more damage.”
I wasn’t aware of the back-up camera, but I would ask Land about it. Of all the luck, the man who could parallel park a food truck got the gizmos to help him drive. “Why two years? Many restaurants don’t turn a profit for several years.”
“Honestly, I never suspected for a moment that she would last two years. She could be flighty. If the food truck was not profitable or she decided to quit and pursue something else, the truck reverted to me. I would have recouped most of my investment in that manner. I may be indulgent, but I’m not a fool.”
Something dawned on me. “But I bought the truck from the Nolans. Was that a legal sale?” I had contracts, but I wasn’t sure how they would stand up in court if I’d been swindled. The Nolans had put it out there that they owned the truck. Had I bought the truck from the wrong people?
The panic must have shown on my face as he answered quickly. “No, they inherited the truck as part of her estate. I should have put a clause in the contract about the possibility of Janelle’s death, but in all honesty, I thought that to be a very unlikely event. So I didn’t, and I lost all of the investment.”
“Did you speak to your brother about the matter?” I asked. I didn’t have any siblings, but I couldn’t imagine taking something that didn’t belong to you in that way.
He nodded. “He said that I should learn to cover all possibilities in a contract and that this would be a lesson to me.”
My eyes went wide. The father was certainly not what I’d expected. He sounded unnecessarily harsh. However, there was a motive now for murder. If Janelle’s father had needed cash, killing his daughter and taking the estate would be a way out. I didn’t like it as a motive, because I would have thought that more money would be required to kill your own daughter, but people had killed many more for much less.
I decided to change the topic, since I suspected that I wouldn’t get much more from this man about the very private affairs of his family. “What about Jeremy? Did he ever ask you for money?” It seemed like a safe question and one that covered less tragic territory.
“If you’re asking if I always gave the children the same amount, no, I didn’t. However, I did give them what they asked for. Jeremy wanted to establish himself as a homeowner. So I gave him a down payment on a rather large apartment. It’s not the same amount of money per se, but the function was the same. It helped him get a start on his adult life.”
I nodded. That seemed fair to me. “Did you have a set of keys to the food truck?” I asked, suspecting that I was running out of time with him. Billable hours did not come cheap, and I was a non-paying customer.
“No. Janelle insisted that she be the sole driver of the truck and the sole owner. So she kept the only set of keys. I didn’t want to argue with her about something like that. I knew if she lost them, we could always get another set from a locksmith.” He stood up and motioned for me to follow him down the hall.
I nodded. He’d given me a lot to think about. I’d thought that Jeremy and Janelle had lived in the same home, which would explain her use of his flash drive, but if Jeremy had his own home, then it was not spur of the moment thing to swipe a flash drive from him. I wondered if the flash drive had been a quick fix or a way to point the finger of guilt at her brother. I didn’t know, but I suspected the latter. It had been a premeditated act, which suggested a plan to point the finger of guilt at her brother.
I wondered if there was anyone who would miss her.
Chapter 14
The following afternoon I dropped by the new food truck. I started looking over the exterior to see if I could find the cameras that Janelle’s uncle had indicated he’d made her buy. However, I couldn’t find any sign of them.
Land came outside to ask what I was doing. “Janelle’s uncle told me that she was a terrible driver, so he made her get one of those cameras that allow you to see better behind you. But I haven’t been able to find it.”
Land didn’t have to look around. “The truck doesn’t have one,” he said. “I would have known about it.”
I stood there with my hands on my hips. I hate it when someone tries to cheat me in small ways in a deal. The truck was supposed to come as appointed from Janelle, not after it had been stripped of amenities.
“I’m going to ask Danvers then. I’m going to try to trace this back to the source,” I answered.
Danvers didn’t answer, but I left a message about the rearview cameras for the truck and hung up.
“Do you think that those cameras could have recorded something that the killer didn’t want anyone to see?” I asked. I was trying to make sense of why a person would take one amenity off of a food truck.
“They’re technically not cameras,” Land said flatly. “They’re more like mirrors that just help you see places that are blind spots on a big vehicle. So there’s nothing on it to record what was done.”
“What about the possibility that she might have seen something that she wasn’t supposed to see? Someone could have been doing something illegal behind the truck or two people who weren’t supposed to know each other could have been meeting there.”
Land took a deep breath. “That’s a whole lot of speculation. There are a million what-ifs that this could be, including mom and dad just wanted to sell it for more money that didn’t really belong to them.”
I nodded. I was still a bit concerned over the fact the Nolans had sold the truck that Janelle’s uncle had bought for her, just because one clause was left out of the contract. It just didn’t seem like something that families should do to each other.
True to form, I saw Danvers leave the government building and head across the square. He was aimed directly at the food truck, so I knew he must have got my message. He looked more like himself these days, so I had to assume that he was getting enough rest. Land hadn’t mentioned any more surveillance, so I assumed that it was done.
Danvers looked at me as he approached. “There were no cameras on the truck when we released it to you. So that means they weren’t there when we did our crime scene evaluation. She probably got tired of it and took it off. She’d only put it on to please her uncle.”
“So did you find it in her possessions?” I asked.
I suspected that I already knew the answer, but Danvers confirmed it. “No, it wasn’t there either.”
I looked at him. “This has to mean something. I have a hunch.”
Danvers rolled his eyes at me. “By all means, let’s investigate your hunch. I’m sure I could get the honchos to pull all the men off of the espionage angle to this and look into your hunch.”
I shrugged. “I’ll do it myself then.”
“Fine. Have fun with that. Hopefully it will keep you out of our hair for a while.”
I looked back at our food truck. Carter was busily selling to the customers, out of earshot from our conversation. “I have one more question for you. It’s about Carter. When you showed me all those photos of people who had visited Janelle’s truck, you didn’t include him in the stack of photos. Why?”
Danvers had a very odd expression pass over his face before he gained control of his emotions again. I’d never seen that look on him before, and I wasn’t sure what it meant. Had I uncovered something that he was hoping I’d missed, or was this a clue that he didn’t want me to look into? “I wasn’t aware that he’d been to the truck. What did he tell you when you asked him? Because I’m sure that you asked.”
I was growing peevish with him. I wasn’t sure why he got on my nerves in this manner, but he did. “Yeah
, he said that Janelle had offered him a job, and he’d turned her down.”
Danvers shrugged. “Then what’s the problem?”
“It doesn’t explain why your team didn’t have him listed in the file of photos taken during their surveillance.” I studied the man, trying to read some clue into what he was saying. Was he suggesting that I drop this matter, or was he truly not interested in how Carter had gotten around the surveillance team?
“I’ll be sure to take that up with our HR department so they can chastise the surveillance team and put something in their employment folders. I don’t think you’ll be satisfied until you’re running the entire police force.”
Danvers left before I could throw back a retort. I wondered why he was so angry, but perhaps it was because nothing was coming together on this case. Every road that he followed ended in a cul-de-sac.
Land had watched most of the conversation with a bemused expression on his face. “You two just need to date or stop,” he said finally. He’d never talked about the fact that he had seen all of the stops and starts of Danvers and me together. However, he’d warned me about Danvers many times in the past.
“I thought you said that you didn’t trust him?” I asked. Those words had always made me reserve a part of myself in dealing with Danvers.
“I don’t trust him, and you shouldn’t either, but you seem to be stuck in a rut here. Go another route or go forward, but move.”
I looked at him. That was almost good advice from someone who rarely spoke of his own personal life. I wondered if he would follow it if he was in the same position.
“Did you ever find anything from all that surveillance you did at Janelle’s place?”
Land shook his head. “Not a thing. It all seemed to have dried up. Nothing was ever picked up. I mean, now we know why. The information was at the food truck, which was probably why they weren’t concerned with her apartment.”
THE REAL GYRO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 4) Page 13
