FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  I sighed at hearing his statements. “But what good would that do?”

  Carter was on a roll and practically interrupted my question. “It would give him a head start on getting away, for starters. He’d be in a car and heading out of town when people started looking for him. Secondly, it would make the disappearance seem more like the work of someone else. If there was just Murray gone, then people might assume he left. If people heard a scream, they’d guess that he’d been taken. It’s a better scenario, and one that would fool the police.”

  “So why else don’t you think that someone in the building would have connected to the Bluetooth speaker?” I asked. I hated having my theory shot down like that. I was feeling close to a solution, and now Carter made my theory look like Swiss cheese.

  “Because do you know how limiting this is? There are probably only 10 apartments that could have had access to this speaker. So you’re talking about a pool of 20-30 people who could be behind the scream. Why would you do that to yourself? If the crime isn’t connected to a wireless device, anyone in Capital City could have been behind this. Now you want to say that it was someone who lives next to you.”

  I thought of Wayne and his wife and Zed and the girlfriend he’d cheated on. The old lady I’d met in the hall that first night. Could any of them possibly have engineered this thing? Zed seemed like the most likely candidate, given the technology involved, but at the same time, he seemed more interested in his sex life than financial improprieties. Had he gone to college for any training in financial tools? Did he have any experience in the financial world?

  Aaron wasn’t having any of this. “What I don’t get, is why do anything like this? Think about Murray. He was a loner. He was divorced and by all accounts spent most nights on the computer. He could have walked out of the apartment – or been escorted from the apartment – at any time, and no one would have been the wiser. Fake a call to the office saying you’re sick, and you’ve got a week’s head start on the police, not ten minutes or a half hour. Days could go by with no one noticing that Murray was missing. So why would anyone want to scream and bring attention to the matter at that moment? It seems too limiting and counterproductive.”

  Carter and I both stopped dead in our tracks. Aaron had boiled down the issues with the disappearance into a nutshell. Why would anyone want to announce the vanishing of someone who was practically a hermit? The opposite would have made far more sense.

  Carter changed the subject quickly. “Aaron’s had a lot of time to think about this obviously. So show us where you found the speaker to begin with?”

  I took down the picture that I’d taken from Murray’s storage unit and showed them the hole. “It had been behind here. Stuck in the wall. I put a nail through it when I was putting up the picture.”

  Aaron looked at the hole that Land had made to find the speaker. “Well, this would be easy enough. Punch a hole in the wall, stick the speaker here, and put the picture back up. If I remember correctly this painting was here when Murray lived here. So it would cover it easily.”

  Carter looked at him. “In that scenario, Murray would be the most likely person to do that. He’d have access to the wall. Why couldn’t it just sit on the table? I can guarantee you that no police officer is going to assume that the speaker was used to fake the scream.”

  I had to give Carter credit. He was shooting down ideas today, but the problem was that all roads led back to the fact that anyone could have taken Murray or he could have left on his own.

  Aaron took his phone out. “Do you mind?” he asked, pointing to the hole in the wall. He shone a flashlight app down into the space. “Carter, come here,” he practically shouted.

  Carter walked over to the spot where Aaron stood and took the time to look at what Aaron had seen. Of course, even though it was my house, no one invited me to see what was going on.

  “Don’t even say it,” Carter said, looking at his boyfriend. He took his shirt off and threw it over Aaron’s head. I had to say that I had no idea at all what was going on with the two of them at the moment. Apparently seeing damaged plasterboard made them want to get naked?

  Instead Carter stuck his arm down into the hole Land had created. He faced me as he reached down as far as he could. “Almost. I can touch it.” He looked at me. “Aaron thinks I have no biceps so that’s why I get to stick my arm in the hole.”

  He struggled for a few minutes with the object elusively out of reach. Finally he pulled his arm out. Carter had a fistful of papers in his hand. “Here’s what you wanted. Now give me my shirt.” He quickly redressed himself while Aaron looked at the papers.

  I walked over to them. I wanted to see what it was. In the dead silence of the room, I could hear Aaron’s unsteady breath. Aaron was holding a boarding pass envelope from Delta. “It belongs to my uncle, and it’s for the day after he disappeared.”

  Chapter 10

  There was a moment where no one spoke, which was something of a surprise knowing the three of us. Then Aaron said, “That about settles things, I think.”

  I nodded. “I’m going to have to report this. A boarding pass is something that the police are going to want to see.”

  Carter again was having none of this. “Why? If the boarding pass was here, what good was it? You can’t board an airplane and tell them that you left your boarding pass at home. They don’t like that. He took his wallet with him. I remember you saying that, though.”

  Aaron looked sad and tired. “You can get a new one from any kiosk in the airport – if you have your wallet. It shows intent. Murray was looking for a way out, and I have to assume that he found it. The flight is to Cancun, but who knows where he could have gone from there.”

  I nodded. “This is definitely evidence.” I was sorry that Aaron was having such a hard time, but I had to admit that I knew Danvers would be envious that I’d found something out that he’d missed. Granted it was four feet down into a hole created by someone at my apartment, but it was still something he’d missed. This did my ego good. Maybe the police could track Murray from Cancun to wherever he’d ended up.

  I dialed Danvers and had to leave a message which was most unsatisfying. Gloating never comes out right when you have to leave a voice message. I knew he’d get back with me soon about this.

  Aaron and Carter decided to leave soon after that. Aaron was still looking discouraged. I guess that underneath it all, he’d been hoping that his uncle had a better story behind the disappearance than he’d just up and left.

  “In the meantime,” I told them, “I’m going to talk to the neighbors again. Maybe one of them knows about the speaker.”

  Carter smiled. “Skip the old lady. I’m betting that she’s not up on the Bluetooth, though she would be someone who would grant access to the speaker without realizing what she was doing.”

  “I was going to start with Zed,” I replied, thinking of the guy who’d lived down the hall and moved.

  Aaron’s eyes widened. “Zed Tucker?”

  “Yeah, I’m guessing that you know him,” I replied.

  “They used to date,” Carter spit out. “Aaron wasn’t aware of the fact that Zed was living with a girl.” His arms crossed over his chest, a sure indication that he wasn’t pleased with this discussion.

  “Did you ever hear him mention your uncle?” I asked. “Anything about the neighbors or things going on where he lived?” On the one hand, I didn’t want to upset their relationship, but here was an insight into one of the neighbors that I couldn’t get elsewhere.

  “No, and trust me I would have remembered him mentioning Murray Longhill,” Aaron said, trying to ignore the growing annoyance that Carter was obviously feeling. “Zed talked mostly about work to me. He rarely mentioned anything about where he lived or his neighbors. Murray has a different last name, so there would be no reason for him to link us together unless I’d said something to him.”

  I nodded. “So is there anything that could link Zed to this at all?”

  Aa
ron made a face, but Carter spoke. “Zed’s in the same financial field that Murray was. He could have easily been involved in the trades and the derivatives.”

  “You just didn’t like him because he used to date me,” Aaron shouted. “I don’t mean to be mean, but Zed’s not behind this. He’s not bright enough to plan out something this elaborate. He’d be the type to push someone off a balcony or run them down with a car, but not something that required planning and he certainly couldn’t put together a complex package of financial tools and hide it from the comptroller and other auditors.”

  Carter almost looked mollified by that statement. His features had softened, and he actually smiled at Aaron. I wondered if Land and I would become like this, fighting over people we used to date and other inane subjects.

  “What about his girlfriend?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know a thing about her until he left his phone at my place. He kept getting calls from this girl, and I checked her out on social media – and found out that they were living together,” Aaron’s statements were almost defensive. I wondered how true that story was.

  “You never ran into him here?”

  Aaron shook his head. “I didn’t come here that often. Murray didn’t invite people over or have parties. I usually just saw him at family events.”

  Having worn out all the possibilities, I said goodnight to them. I closed the door, realizing that for all the information I’d gained, I was no further along than I had been before – except for the airline tickets. It appeared that Murray had planned his own disappearance, which meant that this was no kind of crime at all. People could get up and leave any time they wanted. Murray didn’t owe it to his family, friends or coworkers to explain what he was doing. As long as no crime was committed, this wasn’t going to be a police case

  I picked up the notes I’d made after I’d talked to Zed and found the phone number for Arianna. I made a call, and she picked up right away.

  “Hello?” she said with uncertainty in her voice. I was pretty sure that this was a cell number, and I’m sure I wasn’t on her friends list.

  I quickly explained who I was and what I wanted. I was fast in my patter, because I didn’t want her to think I was trying to sell her something. She listened though and then said, “Sure. I’m out with friends. Why don’t you join us?” She named a downtown bar that was not far from where the food truck usually parked. I agreed and hung up.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect at the bar. I hadn’t been out in ages. Being expected to get up at 4 every morning puts a real crimp in going out for the evening. It was only 9 o’clock, but on most nights, I’d be in my jammies. Now I was looking at my dresses and trying to find one that looked appropriate for whatever clientele this place served.

  Within 20 minutes, I was out the door and on my way. I found the place without much trouble and walked in looking for someone who would have dated a guy like Zed. I didn’t find anyone who looked like they belonged with him, so I ordered a drink and walked around.

  The club had a long rectangular bar in the middle and a dance floor on the left. I figured that if Arianna had known I was coming that she wouldn’t have started dancing, so I maneuvered my way through the growing crowds. Finally, on the third time around, a young woman with a pixie cut and huge brown eyes grabbed me by the arm. “Maeve?” she asked.

  I agreed and said, “You must be Arianna. Thanks for meeting me.”

  “You had me at disappearance and murder. What an exciting life. Nothing like my life when I lived that stupid complex.” She rolled her eyes to show her disapproval.

  I smiled. “I don’t know. I heard some pretty exciting things about you from the complex.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not exciting at all. It’s pretty routine from what I’ve seen of men.” She waved her hand in the air as if to wave the entire subject away. I decided to play along since I doubt that adultery was involved in this case at all. It seemed like it was all business.

  “So what can you tell me about Murray Longhill?” I asked, hoping for something more tangible here.

  “Not much. He was a loner. We never got to know him at all. The complex used to have these theme parties and events. I don’t think he ever showed at a one of them. I would see him in the hallway every once in a while and he would mumble something and move along.”

  “So no thoughts on why he’d disappear?”

  “Maeve, I have to tell you. He could have died in that apartment and no one would have been the wiser until the place began to stink. He wasn’t exactly the life of the party.” Her words only served to bring home the point made earlier. Why pinpoint his disappearance?

  “He didn’t have visitors?” I asked. I had really hoped for more than this. I was going to be tired tomorrow – for nothing. I thought a better payoff was in order for my lack of sleep.

  “No,” she said and then paused. “I take that back. Yes, it was shortly before I moved out. Some guy came by and stopped me in the hall asking for his apartment. I showed him. The guy knocked, and Murray answered the door. That was it.”

  “What did the guy look like?” I asked, feeling hopeful that finally I had a break in this case. Perhaps the guy looked like someone I had talked to.

  “He was a muscular guy, big, you know, and kind of balding on top.” She moved her hands to indicate his size and the location of the bald spot.

  My mouth dropped open, and I covered my action by pouring part of my drink into it. She’d just described James Carr, who had apparently come back to life to visit Murray Longhill. This case didn’t seem to have any answers. It just had more questions, and now it seemed to have apparitions.

  Before I could ask anything else, Jimmy Carr was at her side. “Maeve, what are you doing here?”

  Arianna looked from one of us to the other several times. “You two know each other? How?”

  “Grew up together,” Jimmy said offhandedly. “Maeve, what’s up?”

  Arianna interrupted before I could get my brain in gear. “She’s asking questions about that guy who disappeared.”

  Jimmy’s face grew pale. Beads of sweat grew on his upper lip. “You are?”

  “Not the same guy, Jimmy,” I said, trying to reassure him. “The guy who used to live in my apartment disappeared. Arianna lived down the hall. I’m just trying to make sure it won’t happen to me as well.” I tried a wan smile on him, which seemed to help him relax.

  “I doubt that, Maeve,” Jimmy said. “I think the bad guys would need to watch out for you.” The words were quiet and reserved. Maybe it was just my emotions, but it sounded like a threat.

  “So how do you two know each other?” I asked, trying to get away from missing men with Jimmy standing beside me. I’d never want to hurt him on purpose, which is why I had not told him what I’d learned.

  “We work together,” Arianna said. “There’s a bunch of younger people in the company, and we all tend to go out together to burn off some steam.”

  Jimmy nodded. “That place definitely makes you want to get out and have a few.” Jimmy looked like he’d already had a few and then some.

  We talked of work positions. Arianna asked a lot of questions about the food truck industry, and I tried to answer all of them as best as I could.

  About midnight, I’d had enough. I wondered if I would have gotten better answers from Arianna if Jimmy hadn’t been there, but it was impossible to tell. I would just have to chalk it up to bad timing.

  *

  The next morning came much too quickly. I had a slight hangover from the drinks I’d had, and my mind refused to wake up. I threw on some clothes and went to the food truck. Carter had already texted me to let me know that he’d picked up the truck, so at least that was settled. I stepped into the truck, and he whistled long and low.

  “Trust me, I know that look. You went out last night. Who with?” he said, as he cut up olives for what he called a spicy pickle dog, which appeared to be pickles, spicy mustard, olives, jalapenos, and a few drop
s of Sriracha. Not something I’d be eating today, but I was sure that our more adventurous clients would love it.

  “Investigating Arianna. She invited me out for drinks. I thought that I might find out something, but Jimmy was there. So she was all about chitchat, and I really didn’t get a lot out of her. Do you think I should give it another try, or move on to the next neighbor?” I asked, not feeling like indulging in any hardcore thinking today.

  Carter sighed. “I think you can gather that I don’t like Zed, but honestly, I don’t think he had anything to do with Murray’s disappearance. He’s a liar and a cheat, but not a kidnapper or killer. Then he tried to hit on me that day, not knowing who I was. The gall.”

  I snorted. I hadn’t put that together with the revelations from last night. “Plus he has no connection to the Carrs at all. Zed would have been about 17, which is not the age of someone who could have thought up and executed the scenario to make Mr. Carr disappear. He would have had to borrow his parents’ car.” I let out a small whine. It wasn’t like me, but I was bone tired. “That’s what I find so frustrating about the whole matter. There are two crimes, and they have to be connected. I don’t think coincidence extends that far.”

  “Are they really that connected?” Carter asked as he cut up some pickles. My nose burned from the ingredients; I couldn’t imagine what it would do to people’s insides.

  “They have to be. It’s the time difference that makes it so hard.”

  “You mean that the first guy disappeared five years ago and Aaron’s uncle six months ago? Why is that a problem? It was the same sort of crime.” Aaron had switched to a cutting up jalapenos which he was using for both the spicy pickle dog and a bacon-wrapped dog.

  “Yes, the motivations for the crimes seem to be out of whack. Murray was a whistleblower by nature, yet he seems to have taken a bribe, and Mr. Carr was the auditor.”

  “So they both would have blown the whistle on RGF and the financial dealings – just at different times.”