JUSTICE Is SERVED (Food Truck 7)

by Chloe Kendrick

  “Interesting,” she said. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but I didn’t like it at all. “If you’re to be believed then someone had to poison his food after he took control of it. That means it’s a pretty personal crime.”

  “So it was poison?” I replied, wanting to learn a bit more about this mess.

  “Looks that way. He still had a bit of a bun in his mouth when he died, and he had an untouched hot dog in his pocket. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean. It’s definitely not a mafia symbol, though synonyms for hot dogs might indicated something about infidelity.”

  Gina piped up. “David was an eating machine. It wasn’t unheard of for him to stash food away and eat it later.”

  “Just because he saved pizza for a day or two doesn’t make him a hoarder,” Trent said. “He just could eat and never gain weight. I wish I could have been like that.”

  I remember looking at David’s doughy middle. He might have been able to have eaten like that when he was younger, but now in his late-20s, his metabolism had started to decrease, and he’d been left with that spare tire around the middle. It was interesting that Trent still thought of him in the old familiar way.

  Green cleared her throat. “Do you know his next of kin? We’re going to need to contact them about his death.”

  The implications of a real murder must have hit Gina, because she started to cry. They were silent tears that I could only see because of the number of headlights in the vicinity. Little sparkling diamonds slid down her cheeks. Her husband’s best friend was dead, killed and on the day of her wedding. Their event would also have an asterisk behind it as the day that David was murdered.

  Trent finally spoke. “I would guess his parents would be his next of kin.” He rattled off a phone number that Green wrote down. “He and his girlfriend, Christie, had been dating for a long time, but they weren’t married or even living together.”

  “I wonder why,” Green said, looking around the group for an answer. “Anything there might be a motive for murder?”

  Gina looked around, waiting for someone else to speak, and then spoke up. “There have been some jealousy issues. Dave had a wandering eye, and Christie caught him nearly red-handed a few times.”

  Trent poked his wife, and she stopped speaking. However, the damage had been done, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be Christie right about now. She had a prime motive for murder.

  “Well, then, might as well give me her number too.”

  Trent complied though he didn’t seem happy about the act. He shot Gina a few uncharitable glances. I hoped that Gina’s mouth hadn’t ruined the rest of the wedding night for the newlyweds. I wouldn’t want to spend my honeymoon involved in a murder. I wouldn’t want to spend my honeymoon arguing about fingering the best man’s girlfriend for murder either. .

  “That’s all for now,” she said. “But leave your contact information with the officers. I know I’ll be wanting to ask more questions of you all later.”

  It was after 2am when I finally arrived home Sunday morning, and I stayed in bed for most of the day. Being out until all hours of the night made me sleepy on Sunday morning along with the realization that I’d be getting up at 4am on Monday made me long for sleep above all else. So I turned off my phone and curled up in my new sheets, thinking of nothing more dangerous than what to have for dinner.

  Monday arrived long before I wanted it. I rolled out of bed and managed to have the truck at our typical spot on Elm Street by 5am. Elm Street ran along side of Government Square in downtown Capital City between Fourth and Fifth. The north and southbound streets were numbered, and the east and westbound streets were named after flora and fauna. It made the downtown fairly easy to navigate. So did the lack of traffic at 5am on a Monday morning.

  Carter rolled in at nearly 6 o’clock, complaining about the time and the lack of available hours in a weekend. I noticed that he had a cup of the local coffee shop’s coffee in hand, which meant that Aaron had driven him to work. His other option was the bus, which I was certain didn’t make stops so that Carter could grab a cup of coffee.

  Carter had started working for the food truck when Land had taken over Basque in the Sun, the second food truck. I needed another person to prepare the condiments and hot dogs while I manned the cash register and the coffee.

  He’d needed a job just out of chef school, but he’d also had to move home to help his chronically ill mother. She’d been in better health for a while, but recently Carter had shared that her health had taken a turn for the worse. I knew that every available cent went to her care and skyrocketing medical bills, which is why I’d given him a used PC at one point. My thoughtfulness stopped short of buying him a car as well, but Aaron drove him to work several days a week.

  “So I heard that you went and had a murder without me?” he said after taking a sip of coffee. “That’s not very nice of you.”

  I shrugged. “I had no idea that anything was going to happen. Since when do dead bodies come to mind when you think about a wedding?”

  “Yours will definitely have a murder or seven,” Carter quipped. “So tell me everything.” He continued to cut up the cabbage for the cole slaw as he waited for me to start. Slaw dogs were a perennial favorite at the food truck, and Carter usually started the week with them. The rest of the condiments were rotated, and Carter tried to add in a new set of condiments once a month for variety.

  I finished getting the coffee ready and told him the story of the mustard tablecloth and the dead body in the bathroom. It didn’t take long, but I told him everything I knew. He didn’t ask any questions during the entire process.

  I had barely opened the window for business when I spied Detective Jax Danvers in line. Great, I thought, this is just what I needed. He had undoubtedly come to make my life a bit more miserable.

  Fortunately, he waited his turn in line, so I could practice a few zingers should the occasion arise. He ordered a coffee to go. He got out his wallet to pay, but I waved it away, hoping he’d take the hint. I thought it would be hard to be mean to me if I’d just comped his coffee.

  Normally, he stops by around 1:30pm, when business is light so that he can impart whatever clues he wants to drop on us or any warnings he may have without interrupting our sales.

  Today though, his comments apparently couldn’t wait until a lull in the business traffic.

  “What?” I asked when I saw that he had no intentions of walking away. I knew the man behind him, and I began to fill his order while waiting for Detective Danvers to express himself. I felt my nerves start to jangle, waiting for him to say something.

  Carter sensed my mood and came up front to help out. Typically, no one ordered hot dogs until after 9am, so he had three hours to get the condiments and prep work done. He took over the register, and I let myself out of the food truck’s door.

  “What?” I asked again. Danvers had still not said anything to me, though he obviously wanted to tell me something.

  “So now you’re finding dead bodies at weddings?” he asked. “When did that become a thing? Not enough corpses for you in a normal work week?”

  I shook my head. “We catered a wedding for a friend. Remember the woman with the bloodhound? She and her fiancée got married.”

  Danvers nodded. Land and I had both speculated that Danvers was dating Land’s sister, Sabine, but neither one of them would ever confirm the relationship. I wondered if they’d ever discussed any formal type of courtship, or getting married. I thought about asking now, just to throw him off, but he seemed to have something he wanted to tell me, so I just waited.

  “So this Sheila Green called me today, first thing. Got me out of bed. She wanted to know all about ‘that food truck lady and her hunky boyfriend.’”

  I bristled a little. While I knew that other people, men and women, found Land attractive, this Sheila Green was supposed to be doing her job, not checking Land out. I worried about how her behavior might affect the investigation. Would she lock me
up so she could have a clear shot with Land? “What did you tell her?” I asked, wanting to get away from that subject. I wasn’t about to share my insecurities with Detective Danvers, who might use them against me if he thought he’d get a promotion out of it.

  “The truth – that you tend to find a lot of dead bodies, but that you’re not involved in any material way in any of the cases and that you posed no threat to her or to her case.”

  I sputtered. “But I helped –”

  Danvers grinned at me. “Yeah, that’s exactly the impression I don’t want her to get about you. Conniving, scheming, wanting to put your nose where it doesn’t belong. Police detectives do not find those to be endearing character traits. You don’t want to get on her bad side from the start.”

  “I just help out as needed and make sure that justice is served.” I whined. I was thoroughly annoyed at the description and the other detective and the way in which Danvers had totally sold me short to this woman.

  “Look, if you think that I’m hard-nosed, you haven’t seen anything yet. This woman is one tough cookie. She is strictly by the books, and you will definitely need to be on your best behavior for her. She’d have no problem locking you up for obstruction if you get in her way. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said with resignation. I didn’t like it, but I would keep my distance from this woman at all costs. “Will you tell Land the same thing when you see him?”

  “Good. I already talked to Land last night. He had a few questions about the case and the effects of certain poisons. He also had questions about different strangulation techniques. I told him what I told you. Steer clear of this woman and this case.”

  I nodded and turned around to go, but Danvers apparently wasn’t done.

  “So what’s this about a hot dog in his pocket?” Danvers asked. “It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Apparently he liked to make sure that he didn’t go hungry. He didn’t look obese, but he wasn’t starving by any means.”

  Danvers looked at me. “Green asked a number of questions about your business. I’m going to keep an eye on this situation, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised from the questions if she thinks he was poisoned by something you served him. I’ve seen how you do business. It would be nearly impossible to poison just a few jalapeno slices or an ounce of a glaze. It would have to be a special order with unique ingredients and from her account, that didn’t happen last night.”

  I sputtered again in frustration. This conversation was not at all what I wanted to hear on a Monday morning. “That’s absurd. The only people we knew at the event were the bride and groom. Everyone else was a stranger, so why just kill a random guy?”

  “That’s the one thing holding Green back right now. She has no motive for either one of you to kill anyone at a friend’s wedding. Heaven help you both if she finds something that points to one of you.” Danvers turned and walked away on this statement.

  I took a moment to regain my composure and went back to the truck. Carter raised an eyebrow at me, but in concern. “I’ll tell you later,” I said as I went back to work.

  I threw myself into the shift with all my intensity. I didn’t want to think about any of the past two days and the possible damage to the business – not to mention our freedom. I bristled at the thought of that woman thinking I’d been involved with a murder and checking out Land. Both of those things worried me.

  At 2pm, Land pulled up at his normal station, which was about a block from me, though it was clearly visible from our truck. I told Carter that I’d be right back, which was probably a lie. I had some discussions to have with Land first.

  I entered the new food truck, only to be greeted with a frown and furrowed brows. “I suppose you’ve talked to Danvers by now.”

  I was a little pouty. I had gotten used to these rendezvouses, which usually began with a few moments of passionate kissing. Today I had not received even a friendly hug. “Yeah, he stopped by early to tell me to stay away from this case. I guess he talked to you too.”

  Land nodded, barely looking at me. “Yeah. He called me last night. He’s worried. He thinks that Detective Green is out for blood, and I seem to be the target.”

  “What?” I almost shouted. “Why you?”

  “I’m the one who made the condiments. I mean, you helped, but I knew the recipes, and I bought the ingredients. I’d have the best chance to put poison in a hot dog condiment. So that makes me the prime suspect, I guess.”

  I was boiling faster than some of Land’s recipes. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t see how she could even think that.”

  Land shrugged. “Apparently she does. Danvers is worried about it, and so am I. I think she’d the type to make the evidence fit her theory, rather than the other way around. I’ve seen police officers like this, and they’re hard to work with.”

  I tried to settle down, but it was not an easy task. Of all Land’s faults, he was brutally honest and law-abiding. At some point, he’d been in the military, and I knew that he’d helped law enforcement in Capital City at other times.

  I was much more likely to bend a few rules to get what I wanted. The idea that he’d been behind a murder at the wedding after his comments to me and holding my hand while they repeated their vows was just beyond my comprehension.

  “So Danvers told me that she doesn’t have a motive, so why would she suspect you? You didn’t even know this guy.”

  “I’d never met him before,” Land agreed. However, I was immediately worried. While Land was honest, he was not above sins of omission, especially when it came to his past. By stating his claim in this way, I had to wonder if he and David had talked on the phone or on the computer at some point. That made me think that the motive could be there, but just buried deeper than the police had looked so far. That definitely was something to be worried about. If Detective Green found out something that Land neglected to mention, it would look damning to him.

  “Then we just need to find someone with a better motive and no alibi,” I declared, trying to make it sound easy. I knew that the girlfriend would be a prime candidate. From Gina’s comments, I knew that he’d treated his girlfriend poorly, so she had a good motive. No one had thought it terribly odd that he’d skipped out on the wedding and his date, which typically spelled infidelity. So there would likely be some former flings around too, and possibly the flings’ boyfriends and husbands. There were just a number of people who could have been involved. I just needed to find one at the wedding and show that they had access to poison.

  “Do the police know what type of poison was used?” I asked. Access to the appropriate drugs would be key. I wasn’t sure how to get my hands on the poison, but I figure that there had to be some way.

  “You promised Danvers that you’d stay out of it,” Land said. Apparently, he’d talked to the policeman after Danvers had talked to me. That only made me worry more since I was concerned that Land wasn’t telling me something – and he was telling Danvers.Plus, the number of phone calls going back and forth between these two men was worrying. Usually Land kept Danvers at arm’s length, saying that he didn’t trust him at all. Now I could count at least two calls and a visit.

  “That was before you said ‘never met’,” I retorted without thinking. I was beginning to think that Land was holding some piece of information back. If that something had anything to do with the murder, then I could easily see Detective Green making him the prime suspect.

  Land bit his lip, but didn’t say a word. I guessed that I had hit the nail on the head. “What would you want me to say? That we had met?”

  I sighed. “No, right now I’d just like to know the type of poison used. You’d mentioned cyanide the night we found him. Is that what the coroner said?”

  Land took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The coroner should be doing the tox screen fast, because cyanide dissipates after the first 24 hours, but I don’t know if they will or not. But yeah, if I had my guess, I’d call it cyanide
.”

  I didn’t want to know how Land knew this. Likely he’d seen a man die from cyanide poisoning before, but I’d never learn the details of that story. He tried to keep the seamier sides of his life before the food truck away from me.

  “So where would someone get cyanide?” I asked again. I wanted to know how easy it would be to get poison if you wanted it.

  “First place to look is the Internet. They have everything there, but I wouldn’t guarantee that it would be the real thing. The stuff they send you could be salt, sugar or baking soda. Anything white and powdery. It’s not like the seller is going to get sued for not letting someone poison themselves or others.”

  I made a note on an order pad to check out any sites that offered cyanide in any form. “What else?”

  Land shrugged. “A number of companies use it in their work. Some types of art, some types of mining. I don’t know all of professions off the top of my head, but cyanide is not exactly difficult to get a hold of.”

  I groaned. More methods of getting the drug meant more suspects and more motives. I wanted a swift resolution to this case, in order to get away from any claims that our hot dogs killed David and to keep whatever Land was hiding from hurting him.

  “On the other hand, only a few people knew the victim well enough to put the stuff on his hot dog. I’m going with the idea that the entire tub of brown sugar and vinegar wasn’t poisoned. He wouldn’t have been the only victim if that was the case. So someone had to put the stuff on his food.” The police will have to be able to prove how the killer introduced the poison into the product.

  I nodded. I was particular about who I let touch my food. It wasn’t a random crime at all. Someone had wanted David dead in a very premeditated way. Once again, this pointed to Christie as the main suspect. She could easily have poisoned his food if they’d sat together or dined together.