FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  “Thanks. Have you learned anything about the victim yet? Do you have a name?”

  Even though I could only see Land in my peripheral vision, I could see him tense up while he was pretending not to listen. He was cutting up pickles, but we both knew that at this time of day, it was ridiculous to make more condiments. We’d be closing in less than an hour, so all of that hard work would be gone. He would throw it in the trash, which we’d take to the dumpster on the corner.

  “Not yet, but it’s early still.” His words sounded chipper, but I knew better. Most victims were identified easily either from ID in their wallets or from photos that ran on the news. I knew there was no wallet. If nothing had turned up yet, it was unlikely to turn up in the near future. The photos were a washout as well. The sniper had taken off part of her head. Since they didn’t know who she was, the police were reduced to sending out artists’ sketches of her face. The results left a lot up to speculation at times. The police would have a lot of man-hours ahead of them, looking into who she was.

  So the police had no ideas for the motivation for this woman to approach me. It could have been regarding a previous murder, or it could have been the recipe for the condiments in the truck. I had a strong feeling that the identity of the murder victim would turn out to be crucial to the solution of the murder case.

  Danvers was watching me again, which made me feel self-conscious. I was planning my next moves to learn more about what was going on in this case. I’d already decided that I would not sit back and wait for the police to catch up to me. I had known that the health inspector had been killed by someone else. Now I learned that her family had left town and her sister was attacked.

  However, I was inclined not to let the matter rest with the police. I was personally invested in the matter since the latest victim had apparently been coming to talk to me. Plus I had made an appointment to see Mariel Mills before she was attacked. Like it or not, I was at the center of this mystery, and I felt it my duty to be the one to get myself out of this situation.

  I gave Danvers a smile. He had no way of knowing that I’d just decided to visit Mariel at the hospital today after work. Unless he put a tail on me, he’d have no way of learning about it until after I’d talked to her. My Aunt Alice, who had bequeathed me this truck, had always said that it’s better to apologize than ask permission. I understood the meaning of that saying more today than I had in the past.

  After I finished up the truck business and driven it to the secure lot, I drove my own car to the hospital. While Capital City has a number of hospitals, the closest one to Mariel’s home and downtown was University Hospital, which was on the CCU campus. It was one of the best hospitals in the region, and I had a strong suspicion that Danvers had wanted the best for a potential witness.

  I parked in the garage and went inside the hospital. I recalled that Danvers had indicated that there was a guard on duty outside of her room. I had decided on the drive over just to chat him up and to drop the name Detective Jax Danvers. I thought that should get me in the door. Danvers had actually encouraged me to do so, but I knew that strings had to be attached to the offer. Most likely, the guard had orders to report the visit to him immediately. I could even see him bugging the hospital room to learn what we said. I wasn’t sure what Danvers hoped to get from that information. Would he drop everything and appear at the hospital, or was he just interested in knowing that I hadn’t given up on the murder? In either case, I knew I could live with the consequences.

  Information had told me that the room was on the 7th floor. I rode up in the elevator and quickly found the room. My heart skipped a few beats as the bed was empty. She was gone. Had Mariel’s injuries been worse than expected? I walked back to the nurses’ station and asked.

  “She’s getting a MRI,” the nurse with the dark hair told me. “She should be back in about 20 minutes or so.”

  I nodded. I went in search of caffeine. I hadn’t slept all that well last night and had gotten up early. As a result, I was dragging already, and it was only 3 p.m. I wanted to get my tasks complete, so I could crash out at home tonight, an event that was becoming more common these days. All Danvers’ kiss had done was to make me painfully aware of my lack of social life.

  Many of my friends had taken lucrative jobs outside of Capital City. A few stayed in this area, but they were either unemployed, like I had been, or working normal hours that allowed them to stay out past 9 at night. As a result, I’d felt that my social life had dwindled to a few events a month, rather than its former glory of parties every night. I wondered if this meant that I was growing up.

  The cafeteria was on the ground floor, so I descended and loaded up on the biggest cup of coffee I could find. The brew was nothing like Land’s coffee. I didn’t know the food truck’s blend, which was another secret that Land was keeping. I wished that my aunt had found someone who was more forthcoming, but at the same time, she’d found a great chef who was punctual and rarely missed a day. I couldn’t fault his work ethic, even if he was taciturn.

  I checked my watch and found that nearly 30 minutes had passed. I made it back to the room, and a woman was in the room along with the promised guard outside the room.

  I stopped at the door and gave him a big smile. “Detective Danvers told me that Mariel was here. We go way back.”

  “You’re not on the list,” he said. He didn’t bother to check any papers, so either it was a very short list, or he told that to everyone.

  “You can come in with me,” I replied, thinking that my openness might get me entrance.

  He shook his head. “Sorry, you’ll have to get on the list, and then you can visit.”

  I was growing frustrated. I wanted to find out what was going on before the police got ahead of me. I leaned around the officer and smiled at the woman in the bed. “Mariel, it’s Maeve. How are you feeling?”

  Mariel sat up in bed. “Maeve Kinkaid? Honey, I am glad to see you. I wanted to thank you so much for coming to my aid. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d had to wait to be found by someone else. No one was expecting me anywhere yesterday.” She threw me a big smile.

  I was glad of her reaction. She hadn’t become angry that the woman who had called her out of the blue had also broken into her home. I was relieved and hoped that the interview might be fruitful.

  Given the fact that I was now shouting around the security officer, he moved and let me in the room. I sat down in a chair far enough away from Mariel that I couldn’t be accused of tampering with her medical equipment in any way. “I’m so glad we finally get to talk,” I said honestly.

  Her color looked good. She was wearing a breathing tube inserted into her nose, and she had the typical monitors hooked up to her finger and arm.

  She smiled. “Well, after all the build-up and excitement, I’m afraid that I’m going to disappoint you terribly. I don’t know anything about my sister’s death.” Her pale face looked wan. I knew that part of the issue was that she wasn’t wearing make-up today, but she still looked older and more fragile than her 52 years.

  I took a deep breath. “Let’s start from the beginning. I talked to some of the neighbors who indicated that your sister had a large influx of cash those last few months. Did you notice that too?”

  Mariel fidgeted in the bed. I wasn’t sure if it was from nerves or the wires crossing her. “I did. She went from having just enough to having lots more than she needed. New cars, new boat, all the trappings of suburban life. She wouldn’t tell me where she got it or how much it was. So after that, I just chose not to ask. I figured that she would tell me if she wanted me to know.” The woman dabbed at her eye with the corner of the sheet. I felt sorry for her. I didn’t have any siblings, but I could imagine what seeing one die would be like. I had lost an aunt I was close to, and I missed her every day. Geez, if I wasn’t careful, she would have me crying in no time.

  “So what happened?” I sniffed, trying not to think of Alice and her part in all of this. I was h
ere because of what Mariel’s sister had done to my aunt, apparently for a large sum of money from an unknown source. Linda, most likely, had been responsible for her own fate.

  I handed her a tissue from the box on the nightstand.

  “She was killed before I ever found out. I heard from her a few times, but nothing that explained what was going on with her.”

  “And then her family moved?” I was still hoping for some answers.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that was downright peculiar. I can call them. I have a phone number that I can use to make contact, but her husband—who was always a jerk—won’t give me their new address. It’s like he’s decided that it’s all top secret. They were a couple of suburban middle-class workers, not someone in the witness protection program. I don’t know why I can’t talk to my nieces and nephews.”

  “So you can call a number, but you can’t visit?” I was getting ideas from this. Perhaps they’d gone into some kind of hiding where they didn’t want anyone to find them. They had a number, likely a cell phone, so Mariel could maintain contact, but nothing else. What exactly had Linda Zoz been doing? It was beginning to seem like whatever she had been doing was very dangerous and still was.

  I thought of the woman who had died in the government square, and I had to agree. It was still very dangerous. Someone was interested in hushing things up.

  “Yes, so it’s rather distressing. I don’t know what is going on with that family. First I get an odd letter from Linda the day before she died, and then the family disappears. Now I get attacked in my own home.”

  “Could I get the phone number for the family?” I asked. If I could talk to them, I might be able to find out why Linda had been killed.

  She frowned, and her face showed indecision. “Andy, that’s Linda’s husband, he told me not to give the number to anyone. I had to memorize it, and not store it in my contacts. That’s how paranoid he was about it.”

  I had an idea. “Did the number start with 829?” I asked, thinking of the man I’d talked to last night. It could have been Linda’s husband.

  “I don’t think I’m betraying anything by telling you that it’s not,” she said. “But I won’t play a guessing game until you get it.” She fluffed her hair.

  “What about 385?” I asked, thinking of the other possible phone number. I wasn’t even going to ask about the 101 number, since I knew it couldn’t be a phone number due to the exchange. “That’s the only other phone number I know associated with the case,” I said truthfully.

  She caught her breath, and her face turned whiter. I had obviously hit a nerve with that piece of information. The bad thing was that I didn’t have the full number for the 385 exchange. I only had four digits. That would mean that I had 1000 numbers to dial if I was going to try to contact Mr. Zoz. That seemed like too much work for me. I would have to try something less time and energy intensive. I just wasn’t sure what that would be.

  The guard looked in on us. I figured that I only had a few minutes with Mariel before the guard would inform a certain police detective that I was paying a visit. Then it would just be a very short time before the police would want to know why I was visiting. Though I’d already made up my mind to tell them that I felt guilty for Mariel’s attack and wanted to check on her, I knew that Danvers wouldn’t buy that for a minute. He’d want to know everything we’d talked about, and he’d get it either from Mariel or me.

  “What was the letter about?” I asked. Something odd might make sense in the right hands.

  “Just a rambling. It was poorly constructed, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it. If nothing else, it just showed me what state Linda was in before she died. I could barely make heads or tails of it. I think it’s kind of like that text stuff the kids do these days.”

  I just nodded. I’d come back to this after Mariel was released from the hospital. Then I could read it myself with an eye towards content more than grammar.

  “Do you remember much about the attack?” I asked. I knew what Danvers had told me, but honestly, I wasn’t in the mood to put much faith in his word these days. He could have told me that just to keep me from pursuing the attack.

  “Very little,” she said. “I was coming in the back door of the house. I stepped inside the kitchen, and that’s all I really remember.”

  “So you didn’t see any faces?” I asked, wanting her to tell me more.

  She shook her head slowly. “Nothing. I didn’t know anything until I woke up here.

  I sighed. It was too much to ask to think that the case would be wrapped up so easily. Nothing came easily to me. It was odd that she’d been attacked in kitchen and left unconscious in the bedroom upstairs. It indicated that the attacker was strong enough to carry a grown woman, or that more than one person was involved in this mess.

  I had one more thought as I gathered my things to go. “Did you see any photos on the news about the woman who was killed in the government square yesterday?” I asked. I had wondered if she knew this woman. Perhaps since I suspected that this woman had taken Mariel’s appointment with me, they might be acquainted.

  “I did. It was so horrible.”

  “Did you know her?” I asked, crossing my fingers.

  She shook her head again slowly. “No, I’ve never seen her before in my life.” She yawned, and I took that as my cue to leave. No telling what kind of painkillers she was on, but she’d been through a lot, and yet she’d still found it in herself to answer my questions.

  I said my good-byes and waved at the guard on the way out. He was less than enthused by my cheerfulness.

  I was in the elevator when my phone chirped. It was a text from Detective Danvers, asking me if I was with Mariel. I honestly told him that I wasn’t. He replied, asking if I had been with her. He obviously knew about it from the guard, though I hadn’t seen the officer leave his post while I was there. I wasn’t sure how word had been conveyed, but it obviously had.

  I told him that I had been, and his next text instructed me to go home, and he’d meet me there.

  It was only a short drive, so I had little excuse to be anywhere else when he arrived. I headed home to wait.

  He showed up at the door around ten minutes after I arrived. “What the hell are you doing?” was his greeting.

  “Looking into this matter. No one believed me when I said that Linda Zoz had been murdered by someone else. Now everyone seems to be looking into her death. Why is that?” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for the answer. This ought to be good, I thought. A part of my mind wondered how we had moved so far from having a collegial relationship in our last case to outright arguments now. While the cases were similar, I was still working to solve murders, just like before. Was our relationship different or was the case different? I thought again about Land’s warning and how so many government employees had been a part of the plot to keep my aunt from getting a food truck. Was Danvers working with those people this time instead of me?

  “I know. It’s because of you and sticking your nose into matters that don’t concern you. That’s why, and for the record, it’s a damned dangerous thing to do. People don’t like it when you threaten their perfect crime.” His neck had begun to get splotchy, which told me that I was getting to him.

  “I call it avenging someone’s death and not sweeping it under the rug by blaming someone else for the murder.” I felt my face start to warm. I was getting pretty angry, and in looking at myself, I thought that part of it had to be the fact that we’ve never discussed our kiss or anything else. Now he came over here telling me what to do as if he owned me. I wasn’t having any of that. Even if we had a relationship, I knew that I would behave just the same as I did now.

  “So what did Mariel Mills tell you?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if this was a test to see what I’d say or if he genuinely wanted to know. I had only garnered two pieces of evidence from the conversation. I decided to offer him one and leave the other for me.

  “Andy Zoz and the k
ids are hiding out. They can be found at the 385 number in the most recent outgoing calls of the dead lady’s phone.” Tracking someone’s cellphone and getting them to come in was more the work of the police. They had the phone so they had the complete number. They could ping the phone to see where he was located and contact him then. I couldn’t possibly do that on my own, especially if it turned out that Andy was the one who had killed his wife. The police were way more capable of taking on a potential killer and bringing him in. The other piece of evidence could wait until later.

  “You looked at the victim’s phone?” That seemed to be the only thing that Danvers took from our conversation. It frustrated me that he missed my proffered clues or brilliant deductions. I had tied Linda Zoz to the dead woman via Andy’s mysterious cellphone. Now it was no longer a case of coincidence. The dead woman had information that only one other person, Mariel, was supposed to have. The fact that she had his contact information suggested that they could be in league with each other—or they could have a romantic type of relationship which would have made Linda superfluous. I had given him motive and connections.

  “It was on the ground. Her purse was near my feet. I picked up the phone, looked at it quickly and threw it in the bag. I gave it to you seconds later. I didn’t steal it, and I didn’t mess things up.”

  Danvers’ eyes squinted at me. “You had numbers written on your arm yesterday. That’s what those were. You wrote down the numbers from the phone.”

  I held my arms out for inspection. “Nothing here. I think you’re imagining things.” I was surprised that Danvers had let the phone numbers go at the time he’d seen them. I wondered why he had waited.

  He snorted. “I don’t need to imagine things when I’m around you. Reality is bad enough.”

  “You didn’t think that when you were kissing me,” I said. I was a bit shocked that the statement came out of my mouth that way. It was part taunt and part challenge. My anger today had made me think of our unresolved feelings, but I hadn’t planned on mentioning those feelings to him.