JUSTICE Is SERVED (Food Truck 7)

by Chloe Kendrick

  I looked over my shoulder and started. The body of a man lay on the floor just inside of the handicapped stall. The angle of the mirror was just so that I could see inside the stall if the door was open.

  He wasn’t moving. Great, I thought, this is just what I needed. A drunk guest who had been left by his friends. He’d probably come in here to use the restroom and had passed out before he could leave.

  I turned around and walked over to him. I gave his foot a kick, since I was still holding the tablecloth. He still didn’t move. I carefully put the cotton cloth over the edge of the stall wall and leaned down. Up close, he didn’t look healthy. His color was bright red with blue around his lips. That was never a good color. I took a wrist between my fingers and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one. I put my fingers on his throat, like I’d seen people do in the movies, but there still wasn’t any pulse. His skin was cold and clammy.

  I snatched the tablecloth and sprinted back to the food truck. I was breathing heavy by the time I returned.

  “What’s up with you? Did you run all the way here?” Land looked slightly amused at my desire to leave the park quickly. Of course, he would think it had to do with his irresistible charm.

  I took a deep breath. “There’s a dead man in the men’s restroom. I wanted to get away from there as soon as I could.”

  “What were you doing in the men’s room?” Land asked, as if that was the most important aspect of this problem.

  “The woman’s room was locked,” I explained. “So I went into the men’s room. I just wanted a paper towel, and no one was around. I figured I’d be fine there.”

  He nodded, understanding my practicality. “So you saw a dead man when you walked in. Gun shot? Knife wound?”

  I shook my head. “Strangulation maybe, but I didn’t see any palm prints around his throat.”

  “Asphyxiation, then.” He nodded. “It could be a natural death.” He opened the door to the food truck, stepped down, and joined me. “Let’s go check this out.”

  The park was darker now, and I was glad to have his company on the walk back to the restrooms. They were just out of sight of the food truck, on the far side of a slight rise in the ground. I would not have wanted to go back to the restroom alone, knowing what waited for me there. I moved a bit closer to Land, and he gave me a kiss on the top of the head.

  He pushed open the door to the restroom and went in first. I followed along behind him. Land was already hunched down by the body and checking out the corpse.

  He looked serious. “Not natural causes. He’s got a lump on his head that happened before death. He may have choked to death on something. Or knowing you and your penchant for murders, he might have been poisoned. If I had to make a guess on a poison, I’d say cyanide.”

  Part of my mind wanted to ask him how he could possibly know all this from a quick examination, but this wasn’t the time to talk about his past or previous skills. I was standing in a men’s room with a dead body, and that took precedence.

  “Do you want to call Danvers?” I asked, not really wanting to call the detective who had worked against us on a number of murder cases.

  “We’re not going to call Danvers,” Land said.

  “We can’t just leave this guy here,” I protested, though part of me thought running away would be a great idea. “That’s a crime.”

  “Danvers doesn’t have jurisdiction. We’re in Siever Park, which is outside the city limits. So we have to call the county cops, not the Capital City guys.” Land pulled out his phone and started scrolling though his contacts. Who keeps the phone numbers of the various local police on their phone?

  He looked at me. “You’re going to want to call Gina,” Land said. “She needs to know.”

  “Land, it’s her wedding night. She has better things to do than worry about a dead guest.” I waggled my eyebrows and then regretted it. I’d picked up that bad habit from Carter, the man who worked with me on the food truck. He’d seemed to have perfected the maneuver since Land and I had started dating.

  “Don’t you recognize him?” Land asked, almost as a challenge. “Forget that he’s dead and take a closer look.”

  I bent over to take a closer look at the face of the man, but I didn’t recognize him. Honestly, I’d been busy serving food, and I hadn’t paid attention to many of the guests. Since I was happily ensconced in a relationship, I had no desire to check out the other men at the wedding. So I couldn’t see what Land was getting at.

  Before death, he would have been an attractive man. He obviously took good care of himself, though he was a bit doughy around the middle. Maybe he’d let himself go since college. His once-handsome face was framed by styled hair and his beard was close-cropped and well-groomed. Yet I was obviously missing what Land saw about him.

  I stood up and shrugged. “I still don’t know why I need to call Gina. Do you think he’s family?” I didn’t see a resemblance to Gina. He was dark-haired, and Gina was a natural blonde.

  Land shook his head. He pointed to the boutonniere, a single red rose, and said, “Member of the wedding party. Best man, if I remember correctly. So he’s a good friend of the groom. They’ll want to know about this.”

  I nodded. The flower in the lapel hadn’t made an impression with me, but Land was right. Only the wedding party would have worn those flowers, which matched Gina’s own bouquet. “I’ll call her now, but don’t be surprised if it goes to voicemail.”

  Land pressed dial on his own phone and turned his back to me. I could hear him request the number for a particular officer in the county police and waited. After a long pause, he began to talk.

  I called Gina’s number. I was shocked when she picked up on the second ring. “Maeve, what’s going on? Why are you calling me?” I had to say that her voice sounded as though she’d expected something bad to be announced. I worried. Had she somehow known about this death before I did? The thought didn’t settle my nerves any.

  I quickly explained the story to her, including Land’s deductions about the identity of the dead man. Gina gasped loudly. “Holy shit. I bet Land’s right. David was Trent’s best man. They’ve been friends since grade school.”

  I gave her a quick description of the dead man:the hair, the beard, the figure, and she started to cry. “Yeah, that’s probably him. It certainly sounds like him.”

  “Did anyone see him at the end of the reception?” I asked, thinking that perhaps we could rule him out if he’d gone home with other people.

  Gina sighed. “Christie, that’s the best man’s girlfriend, was looking for him at the end of the reception. She couldn’t find him anywhere. She was pissed, thinking he’d gone home with another woman or something.”

  “Does that happen often at a wedding?” I asked. I had felt all romantic and gushy after the event – until all of this had happened.

  “They’ve had trouble for ages. I don’t know why she didn’t just dump him. He didn’t respect her, and she put up with it.”

  I swallowed hard before responding, because I was starting to see a viable motive for a murder. I didn’t like it one bit. I had hoped that I’d been wrong, that I’d misread the situation, but natural causes were appearing less and less likely by the minute. We had a man who had disappeared and had a reputation for cheating on his girlfriend.

  “Are you still there?” Gina asked, interrupting my chain of thought.

  “Yeah, I am. I was just thinking.”

  “So what happens now? Have you called that Detective Danvers yet? I guess I shouldn’t be dishing about him now that I’m married, right? But he was cute.” She giggled for a second and came back to the line. “Sorry, Trent was doing his best to remind me that I’m a married woman now.”

  I rolled my eyes, thinking how unconcerned she was about my message. Granted that David was her husband’s friend, but she didn’t seem like she cared deeply. Perhaps it was just the emotion from the day.

  I explained the issue with city vs county jurisdiction to her and why D
anvers wouldn’t be participating in the case. Land had hung up already and was listening intently to my call. “See if they’re willing to come down and do the identification,” he whispered to me. His lips brushed my ear, and it sent a shiver up my spine. Not the best reaction under the circumstances, but he could still make my nerves melt if he tried.

  I hung up, but not before Gina had promised to come down in an hour or so. She was determined not to let the opportunity to investigate pass her by, even if this was her wedding night.

  “I called a friend of Danvers who works on the Clark County police. I explained the situation. They’re on their way out now.” Land motioned to the door, and I followed him out into the quickly chilling night. I wished I’d brought a jacket, but I hadn’t thought that I would need it with working in the food truck. Now goosebumps raised on my arm, but I wasn’t sure if they were from the air or the situation.

  Within a few minutes, I could see the flashing lights of cars headed in our direction. The cars pulled up to the parking lot next to the restroom. A pair of uniformed officers walked over to us. One pointed a flashlight in our direction, and I had to partially cover my eyes against the harsh glare.

  “One of you report a dead body?” the larger man asked.

  Land spoke up and explained the situation to them. I wondered if one of these patrolmen was Danvers’ friend, but I didn’t ask. I was tired and just wanted to go home at this point.

  The larger man, whose name was Wells, stayed with us. He was about 6’3” and weighed well over 200 pounds. He had grizzled hair with eyebrows that grew like undergrowth. The other man entered the restroom and returned within seconds. “Yeah, there’s a dead body in there alright,” he said as if that was a major deduction on his part.

  Wells grunted and used a device to confirm the report. Apparently they had to check out reports of death before sending their crime scene team. It seemed logical not to waste the time of an entire team for every call they got. I still had yet to determine who Land knew through Detective Danvers.

  At the same time, two cars pulled up and stopped. I could easily recognize the first car. The windows had been soaped with “Congratulations” and “Just Married.” Gina and Trent stepped out of the car and approached us.

  The two policemen pointed the flashlight at them. The couple had changed out of their wedding attire. Both wore jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts. They would probably be wishing that they’d worn coats in a few minutes. “We’re here to help identify the body,” Gina explained. “I believe he was the best man at our wedding here at the park today.”

  I admire her conciseness under the circumstances. She hadn’t gone into much detail, jus the basics to explain their presence. No one wanted to start talking ill of the dead, especially before they knew if it was really David or not.

  Wells explained that a team was on the way, and that no identifications would be made until they’d arrived and processed the scene.

  The second car held a lone woman. She was dressed in a sweatshirt with CCPD emblazoned across the front and a pair of jeans that had seen much better days. The pants had rips along the knees and across one ankle. Her face wore no expression at all as she approached us.

  The policewoman looked at the people and shook her head. “What the hell? Who decided to hold a party here?”

  “Actually we did,” Gina chimed in. She gave her a small smile. “We had our wedding today, and I think that the victim may be a member of the wedding party.”

  The policewoman grunted. Her expression still had not changed. “Good for you. Who found the body?”

  I admitted that I had found it while cleaning up after the reception. I explained how the women’s restroom had been locked, so I had used the men’s facilities. She looked at the food truck in the distance, only the top of it visible over the rise. “Is that yours?”

  I nodded.

  “Did you touch anything in there?” she asked, pointing to the doorway of the restroom.

  “I was cleaning the tablecloth, so the sinks and the knobs there. I checked for a pulse on his wrist and his neck, so there too. The door handles of course, and I think that’s about it.”

  She closed her eyes for a second and then opened them. “Okay,” she said, turning to the patrolmen. “Has the tech team been called?”

  Before they could answer, another truck pulled up, and several men stepped out. Given their equipment and the sanitary gear, I guessed that the question about the tech team had been answered. They spoke for a minute with the patrolmen and entered the restroom en masse.

  The woman who had just arrived talked to the patrolmen, and then she too headed into that restroom.

  The four of us stood with the two patrolmen acting as if we would make a run for it at any second.

  Chapter 3

  We didn’t talk much while we were waiting for the police to finish their work in the restroom. I was nearly dead on my feet from the long day, and the realization that in less than 24 hours I’d need to be in bed for going back to work. The thought depressed me.

  Gina and Trent appeared to be regretting their decision to come back and be a part of the investigation as well. They shuffled from foot to foot and checked their phones obsessively for the time.

  I passed the time by asking them about the tablecloth with the mustard and Table 15. “Who sat there?”

  Gina thought for a few minutes, trying to recall her seating chart. “That would have been my aunt Eunice, and two of Trent’s maiden aunts as well. We thought they’d all get along. Eunice doesn’t get along with many people. She has a very sharp tongue.”

  Trent nodded. “I could see her putting mustard on a tablecloth, just to think she ruined it, but I don’t think she’s so scheming as to write ‘help’ on it. My aunts are entirely too proper to pull a stunt like that. I honestly think they’d be most happy to go through life with no paying any attention to them at all. Writing on a tablecloth with mustard would only serve to get them noticed.”

  I agreed, not being any further towards solving the mustard mystery than before. I got the contact information for Eunice and knew I’d be seeing her at some point. It seemed too coincidental that a warning message had been written on the tablecloth at approximately the same time that the best man had been murdered. The two events had to be connected.

  It was nearly midnight by the time the crime scene crew had finished with the scene. The policewoman in the sweatshirt came out after them. Two other men rolling a gurney stopped outside the doors. The woman in the sweatshirt motioned for Trent to join them. Without speaking, she pulled back the covers and revealed the man’s face.

  Trent looked like he might be ill. Obviously Gina had not married someone who was quite so enthusiastic about crime solving as she was. “Yeah, that’s David. He was the best man today.” He turned around and took a few steps away from the gurney.

  The woman came over to Land and looked him up and down. “You’re Land Mendoza, right? You’re the one who called.”

  Land just nodded.

  “I’m Sheila Green. After I talked to you, I called Danvers. He vouches for you with a few caveats. So what happened here?”

  I wondered what the caveats were, though I strongly suspected that I was probably one of the biggest warning Danvers had given. The detective would likely warn any police officer about my talents for getting into a murder case.

  Land ignored her comments and went through a few details of the evening, ending with calling the police. He was concise and totally honest about what had happened. Green didn’t take any notes as he spoke, but I could tell that she was paying attention to every word he said.

  Green took a deep breath and began. “It appears that the victim was poisoned. Do you have any samples of the food that you served this evening?”

  I spoke up, since I’d done a lot of the clean-up and kept track of the inventory. “We have the hot dogs that weren’t used today, but for the most part the condiments were dumped out after we were done. We make them
fresh daily, and many of them wouldn’t taste good on the second day.”

  “Spare me the freshness commercials. What were the condiments served today?” Now she pulled out a notebook and took notes.

  “We had Mexican dogs, with jalapeno, pepper jack cheese and salsa. We had sweet and spicy dogs with a ginger glaze and brown sugar and vinegar, and another with a pineapple-mango salsa. Then we had the American, which is just homemade mustard and relish, and finally the slaw dog with cole slaw and chili.” I named a few more as well.

  Green pulled a phone out of her pocket and held it out to me. “What type was this?”

  The photo was obviously of a sweet and spicy dog. Since this detective hadn’t been at the wedding, she’d obviously found this at the crime scene, but I hadn’t noticed any of our food lying in the restroom, which puzzled me. The recipe was one that Carter had come up with after he started working at the food truck, which tied the crime to me.

  “We found this in the dead man’s jacket pocket,” she said by way of explanation. “Of course, it’s going to be tested for every type of poison. It’s a shame that all of your fixings are down the drain and can’t be tested as well. That would answer a few questions for us.”

  I didn’t like the implications and was going to say something, but Land put his hand on my arm in a clear sign of restraint. “The condiments are stored in containers that we serve from. If one person got poisoned, then all the guests got the exact same poison as well. There was no way for us to know in advance who was going to take any particular hot dog.”

  “You didn’t do any special requests tonight?” she asked. “Anything out of the ordinary that would require you to create a hot dog for just one person. Like perhaps for a diabetic person?”

  “Only to put some other condiment on the dog or leave one off. We didn’t make any additional condiments just for one person. The condiments were served to everyone who ordered that type of dog. And I wouldn’t recommend sweet and spicy to a diabetic. White sugar is used in that recipe.” I bristled at the questions. The last things we needed was to be linked to a poisoning case. Our business was mostly by word of mouth, and I didn’t want the food truck to be tied to dead customers.