FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  Within a few minutes, she arrived at a café. It wasn’t far from the location of Taco Inferno, so it seemed like a bold move to be so close to the scene of the crime. She would be a recognizable figure who was dining close to the place she’d passed the bad money. She was very sure that she weren’t suspected of passing bad twenties yet. That meant the counterfeiters had not recognized Detective Danvers yesterday at the truck, so perhaps no one was watching the truck for longer periods of time, only when they chose to pass the money. That was definitely not the way that I would have handled such an operation.

  I had to wonder why she was now at a café, when only twenty minutes ago she had scarfed down a couple of tacos. It seemed peculiar at best—equal parts of arrogance and stupidity. She was obviously meeting someone, since she looked at her watch from time to time.

  Within five minutes, Ryan Pohler entered the café and sat down. I was speechless. She handed over the remaining bills from the change I’d given to her and ordered a drink. They sat there talking for quite some time—long enough for me to get some photos of the two of them chatting.

  I took my time leaving, not because I was hungry, but I didn’t want to be seen by the conspirators. I had just gotten proof of what was going on, and I didn’t want it covered up by the pair of them. As soon as I was out of eyesight of the café, I took off at a trot. I didn’t want to run, because of the number of people on the streets, but I wanted to head back to Carter as soon as I could.

  Carter was waiting for me when I returned. “I was beginning to think that you’d been attacked or something,” he said, opening the door of the truck for me. “I was a bit worried.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, but they didn’t even see me follow her.”

  “They?” he asked. “Did you see the cute guy too?”

  “No, no sign of him, but there wouldn’t be. He hadn’t completed the transaction when he was recognized, so there was no reason to report in and give Pohler the change.”

  We discussed the situation a little more, but I decided that my best course of action was to take the photos to Detective Danvers and let him get the information out of them. I said my goodbyes to Carter and headed back to the original food truck. I texted the photos to Danvers on the way. I had originally thought of taking my new phone directly to his office, but I was concerned that he would want to confiscate my phone for evidence. I didn’t want that to happen, so a text seemed a better way to go.

  I swear that he must have been on his phone already, because he was waiting in line at the food truck within five minutes of my arrival. He was polite about waiting his turn to talk to me, but I doubted that little else would be well-mannered.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked, holding up his phone and showing me the photos, as if I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “I took them. I followed the woman from yesterday when she returned today with another twenty.” I handed him the wadded up twenty from my pocket. “She went to a café and met Ryan Pohler there.” I stayed to the facts and left out any glee at being one step ahead of him.

  “Let me see your phone,” he said, holding out a hand.

  I handed it to him, cursing under my breath. I didn’t want to lose the phone at this point. I didn’t have a landline or any other way to communicate without it. I held my breath as he flipped through the pictures. I found that to be rather unnecessary since only the two most recent ones applied to this situation, but he went through most of the feed. I didn’t have anything to hide in the photos, but it was annoying to say the least.

  Finally he handed it back to me. “Okay, I’ll have a talk with Mr. Pohler about this. Apparently he has some explaining to do. At the very least, he’ll need to provide me with the name of the woman eating with him.”

  I nodded. I was glad that I had my phone back. The incident reminded me that I should back-up my phone as soon as I could. “Have fun with that,” I said.

  During the entire conversation, Sabine had watched us through half-closed eyes, but Danvers had ignored her until the last moments. “Sabine, nice to see you,” he said as he turned and walked away.

  In response, Sabine threw a pan into the sink with far more force that necessary. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I didn’t like it. They seemed to be at some kind of impasse, and I wanted to help them if I could. Perhaps if I continued to look into this mess with Ryan Pohler, it would bring them together more often and allow them to work things out.

  While I tried to convince myself that I was being altruistic, I also knew that I wanted to know why Pohler was trying to sabotage my business. There were plenty of other food trucks in Capital City. He had a major business operation that he was jeopardizing for $100 a day in food and change. It hardly seemed worth the trouble. Was he that consumed with competiveness or hate? Or did he just believe that he would never be caught with these violations of law?

  All I did know is that Pohler had to have access to a variety of materials and connections to do something like this. Counterfeiting wasn’t the pastime of a small-time operator. Counterfeiting was likely to be a federal crime, which was a big deal—with big penalties. I made a note to google the consequences for passing bad money.

  I let my mind wander. I had to think that his operations had something to hide since he’d taken such drastic measures to keep us away from territory that he perceived to be his. He had an operation that could conceive and execute a plot to distribute counterfeit cash to my truck. Yet at the same time, the plan was so sloppy and easily solved that I had to wonder about his expertise in this arena.

  If I were about to distribute counterfeit cash, I would have used people who didn’t meet me in the daytime, and did not go to the same places every day until they were known by sight. Passing the bills took a certain amount of anonymity, and of the two people I’d met, neither of them was particularly skilled at the game. The first had been obvious in flirting with Carter, and the second was obvious by appearance. Why didn’t they use bland white men in business suits? I couldn’t swing a pack of hot dog buns without hitting ten of them.

  Chapter 4

  Land had come over that night to hear what was going on. He’d been surprised to learn that I’d already found out about the connection between Ryan Pohler and the people passing the bad twenties at our truck. He waited until I was done to ask questions.

  “It doesn’t seem like the actions of a good businessman,” Land said finally. “I mean, he’s got all these trucks up and running, and yet he bungles a simple thing like this. He should know better than to pass them that close to home and to go back to the same places to pass the bills. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  Before I could answer him, the door buzzer sounded. I hadn’t been expecting anyone. We both looked at each other for a second, and then I pressed the buzzer.

  The unmistakable voice of Detective Jax Danvers came over the intercom. He couldn’t be here with good news. His official shift had been over hours ago, and he should have been out with Sabine. I hoped he wasn’t here to ask us to interfere in that relationship. I wasn’t sure that either Land or I could persuade her to do anything that she didn’t already want to do.

  Even so, I buzzed the outside door and then waited by the apartment door to let him in. He was dressed in a white dress shirt that fit snuggly and a pair of jeans, the kind of outfit that he often wore to work.

  Land stood up as he entered. “What’s going on? Is Sabine okay?” I guessed that his thoughts had gone in a different direction than mine. He’d been concerned that Danvers had bad news about his sister. I was just puzzled by the visit.

  “What? Yeah, I guess so. We’re still not talking,” he said without looking at either of us.

  “I noticed,” I said. “She’s pretty angry toward you.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know. That’s not why I’m here though. If I had an issue with Sabine, I’d just tell Land.” I was annoyed by the way that Danvers forgot that I would soon be a member of the family.
I had a right to know what was going on as well. He was still cutting me out of that segment of my life.

  “So are you going to tell us what’s going on or do we play 20 questions?” I said with some amount of snark. I could understand Sabine’s feelings if Danvers treated her this way. She deserved better, especially after a year. If he hadn’t been ready to take their arrangement to the next level, then he shouldn’t have asked her to move in.

  “Ryan Pohler is dead,” he said.

  I took the words in slowly. I’d been involved in murder cases before, so a sudden death wasn’t a shock. However, in this case, it felt like I’d been cheated out of justice—and retribution. I had wanted to recoup the money I’d lost to Pohler and get an explanation as to why I’d been targeted, though I felt like I knew the answer. There were so many questions left unanswered that I knew I’d have to get involved, if for no other reason than to satisfy myself with the answers.

  “What happened?” Land asked while he kept an eye on me. “If you’re involved, I guess it’s not natural causes. I’m going to guess that it was a pretty clear case of murder then.”

  Danvers checked his notebook, even though I knew that he had the answers in his mind at the moment. “He was shot this afternoon at his truck. One of his trucks has the same shift as you, two o’clock to after dinner. The truck was parked there, but the window never opened.”

  “Who found him then?” I asked. Frankly, the way that Danvers was solely addressing Land, I wasn’t certain if he would respond to my question.

  Danvers took a deep breath and answered me. “A customer. They knocked on the window, got no response and checked the door to the truck. It was open, and she found the body.”

  “It wasn’t the woman in the photo, was it?” I thought of their meeting just a few hours ago.

  “No, just a customer. We’re running her information through our databases to see if there’s any link between them, but of course she says there isn’t any. It seems pretty random so far.”

  “She might be telling the truth,” I countered. While I wasn’t sure at all whether or not she knew Pohler, I was just feeling contrary. It would be stupid of her, if she had killed him, to go back to the scene of the crime and pretend to find him.

  “Then again she might not,” countered Land. “So why are you here?” he asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

  “You’re a food truck owner, and he’s a food truck owner. I thought that maybe you’d know some gossip about him or his business that we could use. The city wants this case cleared up immediately. The murder of a storeowner doesn’t match the image that the city wants for downtown. The mayor called my lieutenant personally to see that it would be resolved quickly. I knew I could count on you not to bring me those stories that the deceased was a wonderful man who did no wrong crap. I want the straight truth here—the good, the bad, and especially the ugly.”

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t know him well, so there’s not a lot that I can give you. I know a few things though. First, you’ll need to look at how he was able to afford all of those trucks so quickly. I’ve gone through the math in my head, and there’s just no way that he could maintain his existing fleet and handle food costs. So I’m guessing that he had to cut corners somewhere. That could have created some angry customers or suppliers.”

  Danvers wrote down the information. “Any specifics you can give me there or is it just a hunch?”

  I shrugged. “Not much. Last year he put three new trucks on the road. Now maybe someone is bankrolling him, but then again, he’s always maintained that he’s a self-made man. It wouldn’t go over well if the word got out that someone else was footing his bills.” I liked the idea that Danvers would finally be answering the questions I had about Pohler’s finances. I wanted to know how he did it.

  Danvers looked up. “Don’t worry. We’re going to have someone in forensic accounting go over the books. Between his murder and the counterfeit cash, his books need some investigation.”

  “My dad could do that,” I said, trying to get a foot in the door. I knew that Capital City, though the largest city in the state, did not have the funds to keep a forensic accountant on staff. The majority of the cases they solved were simple street crimes. The chances to investigate a full-blown embezzlement or financial crisis were slim. My dad, who had worked in accounting and consulting, would be an ideal person for the job.

  Danvers laughed. “I’m not sure that my superiors would appreciate that suggestion, but I’ll put his name forward if it comes to that. He’d have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so you’d still be cut out of the deal. You know that, right?”

  I nodded. “There’s more that you can do.” I went on. “I would talk to the people he used to pass the twenties. It shouldn’t be too hard to find them. I mean, you have photos of one of them, and a police sketch of another.”

  Danvers checked his watch. “If they weren’t on the six o’clock news, they’ll be on the eleven o’clock broadcast. I plan on finding them as soon as I can.”

  Not if I find them first, I thought. I had a few ideas about how to find the woman and man that I’d try out this week. I wanted to find these people and learn what I could about the counterfeit operations.

  “Plus I’d check out the plates and ink,” I added helpfully.

  Danvers shut the notebook. “You’re not telling me much that I don’t know already. I have most of this stuff to cover, and I know it. I’m looking for more than just a rundown of what I should be doing. That’s too easy.”

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’d only heard about Pohler from others before the last few weeks. There was some discussion of how he got the money to open the trucks. No one ever mentioned any criminal activities, and while he was polite to me, he never once gave any indication that he planned on passing bad bills to get me to lose money and be investigated. So I can’t tell you that sort of thing.”

  Danvers nodded. “But now I’m sure that you will be asking a few questions. Why don’t you talk to some of the food truck owners and see if there’s any sort of stories you can get from them? It would be nice to have that information, and I doubt very much that they’ll talk to me.”

  I was surprised, to say the least. While I’d helped to solve murders over the years, I had rarely been asked to help the police. Usually, I had to do things under the radar to solve a crime. “Sure,” I said, “no problem.”

  Danvers got up and left on that note. I sat back down and looked at Land. “I’m not sure if I’m more surprised by Danvers asking me to help or by the murder itself.”

  Land eyed me suspiciously. “You do realize that he only asked you to do that because he wants you out of the way. The counterfeit case is going to be huge, and he wants the notoriety of solving that on his own. So, by asking you do to something easy, you won’t be in his way. He wants to solve this before the Feds get involved and take the case away. He’s looking for the glory for himself.”

  I hadn’t thought of that aspect, but I didn’t care. The mere suggestion that I could be involved in the case would give me wide latitude in what I could do and say in the days ahead. I told Land that, but he didn’t seem mollified.

  “So what exactly is going on with Danvers and Sabine? Are they done forever, or is this just a bump in the road?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. Land didn’t like talking about his family, but he was vehemently opposed to my investigating other people’s crimes.

  “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “I warned both of them about this, and neither of them would listen. So it’s hard to tell what will happen. I don’t really feel sorry for either one. They had to know what they were getting into. Neither one of them likes to admit they’re wrong, nor are they particularly trustworthy.”

  “So, what exactly happened?” I asked again. Land was being his usual close to the vest self, but if I was going to help Danvers, I didn’t want to find out that he’d cheated on Sabine, making it look like I condone
d his behavior.

  “I don’t know the exact details, but they’re arguing about their future. They don’t see eye to eye on where they go from here, and they’re fighting about it. After grandma said no to their living together, Danvers seemed to get cold feet. Sabine didn’t give him time to think things through. She just went ballistic. I’m thinking that she’s regretting her actions, but you’ll never get her to admit that.”

  His face plainly asked me to stop talking about it, so I changed the subject. I decided that I would enlist Sabine’s help in collecting information, and she’d likely tell me at some point. “So what would you suggest doing first?” I asked.

  “I would try to follow what Danvers asked,” Land said eyeing me cautiously. “He was pretty specific about what he wanted you to do. Of course, if you can find out anything about those two people that Carter identified, that would be something you could follow up as well, but I wouldn’t start a big investigation and cross Danvers on this matter. He’s seeing this as a career-maker.”

  I nodded. Land usually gave me a lot of rope in such matters, so for him to suggest boundaries, he had to feel strongly that I could run afoul of the law. I took his word for it.

  Land didn’t stay the night since I had to be up at 4a.m. I had a long day ahead of me, and I wanted the time to write up a few lists on what I wanted to accomplish the next day.

  Sabine was already at the food truck the next morning when I made it to Elm Street. She had texted me to let me know that she had picked up the truck. I was surprised at her initiative since Land had led me to believe that she was not reliable.

  She had already begun creating the condiments for the day. She’d picked up some fresh tomatoes and peppers for the salsa, and the truck smelled great. Land had made this same dish in the past, and I wondered if it was a family recipe.

  “I heard that Jax was over at your place last night,” she asked, almost making it sound like a conspiracy against her. I guessed that she’d heard the story from Land, since it seemed unlikely that she’d talked to her former boyfriend from the way she pronounced his name.