FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  Keith had purchased Mops and Pups for $500, which was a steal at any valuation. I wondered if the business was listed in his assets. Did someone want to get a hold of his investments, or was there another reason for wanting him dead?

  I called and left another message for my lawyer, asking him about finding out the contents of a will. I knew that these things were available during the probate process, but I wasn’t at all sure when that began or ended. Since it had only been two days, I was thinking that it was far too soon to know much.

  It would make sense, though, that someone could kill Keith to get their hands on the various businesses. From what I could tell, the businesses were still in operation. The website and phone numbers for Mops and Pups were still working properly, though the phone went to voicemail where the computerized voice told you to leave a name and number.

  My phone rang, and I answered it. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I quickly hit the speaker button and checked the number. It was the same number that had called and warned me before. Now what they did want? I’d nearly forgotten this person in all the chaos of a new truck.

  I heard the background noises again, and wished that I could determine what the sounds were. I knew I’d heard something like them before, but not recently. I closed my eyes and let the sounds rush over me. Finally, a voice said, “Stay away from this case,” and hung up.

  Land looked at me as he sat down next to me. “What was that about?”

  “The mysterious caller again. I could hear these background noises, and yet I can’t quite figure out where they’re coming from.”

  He leaned forward, his intense eyes watching me. “Describe the sounds to me. Sometimes articulating the idea will help you figure it out.”

  Land usually knew what he was talking about with these types of ideas, though I had no idea where he’d become an expert on drawing things out of people. So I decided to give it a try. “It’s people. I can hear clanking noises.”

  “Like machinery?” he asked.

  “No, not mechanical sounds. There are some machines in the very background of things, but it’s not the noise I hear.”

  He looked at me. “I have to ask, though you should recognize this noise. Silverware?”

  I flushed and put my head down. “Arghhh,” I said finally. “It’s more than just a restaurant. It’s a place where a large number of people eat. This is a college dorm cafeteria.”

  “Which means that it’s your professor who is most likely calling you,” Land stated. “Why would he want to warn you off? He hasn’t been involved with these people in over five years. That seems like a long time to hold a grudge.”

  “It makes even less sense in the case of Edward Keith, because he almost lost his job because of him. That’s a dangerous can of worms to open.”

  “It explains why he would not want you involved in the matter. Keith could be dangerous, even if not in the physical sense. He seemed to hurt people in the pocketbook.”

  I nodded. “But he’s dead now. Why continue the warnings?” I asked. “What good does that do?”

  “Does your professor know that Keith is dead?” Land asked.

  I nodded. “I told him about it when I went back up there. This does make sense. The phone calls have followed my visits up to the business school. So the timing would be right.”

  “The timing is right, but why warn you when both men are dead? The only thing I can think of is that he doesn’t want his part in these crimes found out.”

  I hated to agree with Land, but that thought had crossed my mind. Threats from an unknown source might scare off most business school graduates. Wallace had no way of knowing that I wouldn’t be similarly intimidated.

  “What if he’s trying to help me?” I asked. “What if he knows more, but he can’t really talk about it?”

  Land shrugged. “If both men are dead, there’s no one to stop him. I’m sure you’re going to try to find out though. I know you won’t leave this alone.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. I thought the professor was on my side. He even talked about a case that he tried to investigate many years ago. Now I find out that he’s actively trying to shut me down. I just don’t know what to say.”

  ***

  The next few days went by without issue. I barely had enough time to get in some sleep between the two shifts at the two food trucks. Emily was a welcome addition. After that first day, she parked where I asked her to, and she made the most delicious sandwiches I could imagine.

  I was so tired by Friday after three days of the double shifts that Sabine brought in some green make-up and suggested I just go full zombie. I wasn’t amused, but at the same time, I wasn’t up to verbally sparring with her either.

  Danvers had not been back. So I wasn’t sure if she’d had turned him down for good, or if he was just keeping his distance until she made up her mind.

  After she got done offering make-up, I asked Sabine what was going on.

  “I talked to him again last night. I’m still making up my mind for certain, but I’m pretty sure that I’m going to accept. Waiting a few days just shows him who’s in charge. I want to set that up at the very beginning.” She smiled at me.

  I laughed. “I don’t think that was ever a question with you, was it?”

  She pointed at the counter. “You have a customer,” she said with a smirk.

  I turned around and indeed I did have a customer. It was Danvers. I gave him a smile, wondering how much he’d heard about what Sabine had said. I didn’t know if he’d be happy that she was saying yes, or mad because she was already plotting control.

  I gave him a large coffee, but he didn’t move. “I need to talk,” he said. At first I thought he wanted to borrow Sabine again, but the way he was staring at me, I knew that was wrong. He wanted to talk to me for some reason.

  As soon as I’d gotten out of the truck, he turned to me. “What are you doing withholding evidence about this case?” he said, a little louder than necessary. I wondered if he was doing that so Sabine would know the reason for the conversation.

  I ran my mind over the past few days. What had I done to make him mad? I usually had a list of things that could be construed as withholding, but not at the moment. I stammered, hoping for some hints from him.

  “Land told me that you’ve been getting threatening calls. You didn’t think that was a part of the case?”

  I shrugged. I’d had much worse things happen to me that Danvers had been cavalier about. I wondered why he was so concerned.

  “What specifically did they say?” Danvers asked, pulling out a notebook.

  “Long pauses, warned me to stay away from this case. That it was dangerous.” He didn’t ask what I’d heard in the background, and I chose not to tell him. I still couldn’t figure out why Professor Wallace thought he had to tell me things anonymously. We’d always gotten along well.

  “Can I see your phone?” he said, holding out his hand. I noticed that he didn’t give me much wiggle room in saying no to him.

  I fished it out of my pocket and handed it over to him. He handed it back long enough for me to type in the passcode and then started sliding his fingers through my texts and phone calls. It would have been a bit too much in most circumstances, but for some reason, I felt that Danvers’ concern was genuine. Maybe it was the possibility that he could be family soon, or perhaps the notion that he was likely to get a promotion after I solved this case.

  He didn’t find anything, because my deductions had been made from the context of the call, rather than anything about the words. “Here,” he said grudgingly, handing back the phone. “Nothing.”

  “I could have told you that,” I said. “You really should be looking more at Sizemore and what he does with those businesses after he steals them.”

  Danvers laughed. “We have a whole team working on that. They’re not the typical thieves we get coming through the precinct. I have to hand it to these guys. We still haven’t determined the extent o
f the cover-up with the dummy corporations and who owns what. The auditors get the feeling that the businesses are sold for pennies on the dollar, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would you go to all that trouble for nothing?”

  I thought about it. My business had been valued high. If they were selling for the valued price, then they’d still make money. It was like having a sale on the list price at the store. You were paying more than you thought at first glance.

  I explained that idea to Danvers and he nodded. “Any chance I could see the papers and contracts that Collier tried to get you to sign? It might help the auditors if they see the scheme in action, so to speak.”

  I agreed, but told him they were at home. He said that he’d stop over tonight, if that was okay with me—and Land. I knew Land wouldn’t care, so I said yes.

  He left Government Square without saying hello to Sabine. I was shocked. That meant something. Either he knew the answer, or the time for pleading had passed. In either case, it spoke of a new phase of that courtship.

  The line of customers was long and I returned to work.

  Sabine didn’t mention Danvers, and I chose not to ask. I felt that at some point I had asked the right questions, but I hadn’t given myself the proper answer. I needed to try to bring back all my thoughts on the case, and review them again. I wished that I had written down all the questions I’d wanted answers for. I began to understand Danvers’ need for a notebook.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling, but I was getting nowhere in trying to summon the idea back to my mind, so I decided to focus on work instead. Maybe if I concentrated on the task at hand, it would come back to me of its own volition.

  It was a good thing that I had that epiphany, because we were swamped the rest of the day. We had record sales for reasons that I couldn’t fathom. I wasn’t arguing with the results, but I hadn’t done any particular marketing or change of menu to get this reaction. I wish I could do that more often. Sometimes business was like that; you had no idea what things worked and what didn’t, so you ended up doing all of them.

  I finished counting the cash at the end of shift, and I told Sabine I was going to visit her brother for a minute at his food truck. Walking over there, I tried to bring back my thoughts, but they were gone for the moment.

  After an appropriate interlude of greetings, I told Land that Danvers was planning on coming over tonight to pick up a copy of the contracts to try to learn more about the deals and the other paperwork. Land sighed, because he suspected—as did I—that Sabine would be the topic of conversation once he arrived. If that happened, I would gladly excuse myself from the discussion. I was officially confused about their relationship at this point.

  Land just nodded, and I headed out to drop off the truck and maybe get a nap before tonight’s fun.

  ***

  Land had only just arrived home when Danvers showed up. I had the sneaky suspicion that Danvers had been waiting specifically for my husband’s homecoming to show up. I would not have been surprised if he had been waiting in the far reaches of the parking lot for him. I was always wary where he was concerned.

  Danvers did bring a bottle of wine, which was far more than he usually brought – which was nothing but questions. My hackles were up, watching and waiting to see what he was going to drop on us.

  “So what’s up?” Land asked, as if this were just a friendly meeting. I’d returned from the office with a stack of papers that I thrust into his hands. They were the originals, but my lawyer had a copy, and so did I.

  “I just came over to get the papers from Maeve,” he said, looking around the apartment and not meeting our gaze.

  “A three-dollar courier service could have done that. You came here for a reason.”

  I was not at all surprised by Land’s forthrightness, though I wondered where he thought someone could get a courier service for three dollars in Capital City.

  Land waited after the statement. Danvers looked like he would hold out for a moment, but then caved. “It’s Sabine. She’s really holding out on this proposal, and I’m not sure why.”

  Land looked at me, knowing that I had the answers to that question. I was trying to interpret his glance to see if it meant that I was to spill the beans or just keep quiet. Finally, I decided to speak up.

  “She thinks that you’re just proposing because you want to get ahead and you need a wife to fit at the higher-rank level.”

  Danvers’ mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding. We’ve been over that. I proposed because I want to marry her—not because I want to get a promotion.”

  I shrugged. “I’m just reporting on matters. I’m not the one who decides, and I’m not the one with that opinion.” I felt a little harsh, but he’d come over under false pretenses just to get this information, so why not tell him and be gone? I knew that Sabine had already told him the same thing, so I wasn’t spreading gossip or violating any confidence.

  “So how do I convince her?” he asked, looking at me. I had no idea; I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t asking Land, who probably knew Sabine better than anyone.

  “It’s going to take a big gesture to get her to change her mind. She’s pretty stubborn that way.” Land looked at me, and I wasn’t sure what the suggestion was supposed to be.

  “Does she want me to stay a detective? Would that make her think about this seriously?”

  Land laughed. “She would just think you’d delayed your promotion to get her to marry you. Then you could accept the rank in three months or six months or a year.”

  Danvers’ shoulders slumped, and he looked like someone had let the air out of him. “Should I keep trying?”

  I let Land handle it from there. “I would, if you’re serious about it. She’ll come around eventually, but she doesn’t trust easily, a trait that runs in the Mendoza family.”

  I was touched, because, while I knew that to be true, Land had always trusted me to have his back. I had waited for a while before returning the compliment, but he’d always worked in my favor as well. We were exceptions to the rule in each other’s lives.

  Danvers cleared his throat. “Since you gave me all this without a fuss,” he said, sounding more like his old self, “I’ll let you know something in return. Keith didn’t buy Mops and Pups. Apparently, the sale fell through after a few days. Keith threw a fit about the company. It wasn’t ‘right’ for him. So Sizemore sold it to someone else.”

  “Who?” I asked, hoping to have some more information before Danvers returned to his normal personality.

  “We’re still trying to determine who bought it. Sizemore was very willing to tell us about Edward Keith, because that gives us less motive for Sizemore. However, when it comes to who bought it next, he has nothing to say.”

  My eyes grew wider. I had come up with a theory based on the fact that Sizemore was the link they had in common. So he would have been the logical person to kill them all. Now the disbarred lawyer was finding his way out of the morass around his business scheme. I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to get my evidence before he squirmed out of it. I would have to act fast to see if I could do that.

  Danvers left a few minutes later without adding any more to the evidence. I called my lawyer, and left a message for him to try to find out who had bought Mops and Pups from Sizemore after he and Collier had taken it away from Emily. I wondered if Emily would want the company back if Sizemore no longer wanted it. He could give it back to her if he truly wanted to be rid of a reason to kill two men.

  After that, we had the evening to ourselves. I’d ordered a pizza, which made Land turn up his nose, but he did eat some. This felt much more like what newlyweds were supposed to do with their free time.

  ***

  The next morning started early and so I was up and at it before 4:30 a.m. I made it to the food truck before 5:00 a.m. and had the coffee going for the customers before Sabine showed up. If Danvers had said anything to her last night, she didn’t show it in her demeanor today. She gave me a big smile and
went right to work.

  I was still on the same shift, so I would be out at Let it Slide for the afternoon. I wondered how long it would take for me to fully trust Emily. It had been months for Carter, but it hadn’t been an issue since I worked with him every day. Emily was expected to run her own truck, which meant that she operated with no supervision, which, of course, worried me.

  The sales had been good, so I had no concerns there. The truck’s income was even ahead of where I’d expected it to be. Not much, but enough that I had high hopes for the future.

  Sabine and I worked in peace for most of the shift until Danvers showed up around 1:00 p.m. The truck’s business had dwindled down to just a few people, and Sabine gave me the look to request a few minutes off. Since I was going to be taking the rest of the afternoon on the new truck, I found it hard to deny her some time as well. I wanted them to get this settled one way or the other.

  She came back in a few minutes, smiling.

  “So?” I asked innocently.

  “Just things are okay. No final decisions, but maybe.” She was humming again. I took that as a good sign.

  I counted the cash and left it with Land before heading over to the new truck. Emily was there with the truck, serving sliders to the customers. The line was long, but nothing one person couldn’t handle. I jumped in though and took over as cashier. The line went down quickly and we had a steady stream of three to four customers for most of the afternoon. I was tired by the time 4:00 p.m. rolled around, even though I had been there only two hours.

  My phone rang and I checked the caller. It was my lawyer. I was surprised to hear from him so soon about my latest request. He usually took his time to find out the information I needed.

  “Maeve, can you talk?” he said, sounding quite urgent.

  “Sure, did you find anything?” I asked, sounding hopeful that I could help solve this case and that life could get back to normal.