FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  “Fine. I’ll run a few things for you, and check on the status of the case. If they strongly suspected homicide, then it’s likely to be an open case still—though nobody is looking at it. However, if it was called a disappearance, or they didn’t think anything had happened to the guy, then it might very well be closed or inactive.”

  I knew that those words meant a lot to Danvers. He had often warned me about involving myself in open cases, but if the case was closed, then I would have more freedom in my investigation. I only had to put in the hours, and then I could see the analysis of the food truck schedules.

  “I’m not even going to ask how soon you want it. I’ll try to be back out later today.”

  He turned and walked away without even speaking to Sabine. I dearly hoped that nothing was wrong with their relationship, but she seemed fine when I returned to the truck. I explained the situation to her, and she was more than excited to hear about the potential change in hours than anything else.

  She hadn’t acted at all as though she had expected Danvers to stay and talk to her. I was puzzled. Land and I tried to take a moment just to talk whenever we saw each other. Being so self-absorbed that we didn’t even acknowledge each other was not something we’d ever done.

  “So what’s going on with you two?” I asked finally, not being able to get a suitable answer to the conundrum.

  “Oh, nothing. Jax is just worried that we shouldn’t be seen too often together during working hours. One of the detectives used to visit his wife during lunch for a very extended lunch. Now he’s walking a beat. Jax doesn’t want to be demoted for visiting me at the food truck and spending too much time talking to me here.”

  I knew that he certainly did not. He’d given up a chance at a promotion during a recent case, which had sealed the deal for his engagement to Sabine. She’d been concerned that he loved work more than her, but the grand gesture, while costly, had won her heart. I was certain he would be taking no more chances with his career.

  The crowd started picking up before I could ask her anything about the arrangements for the wedding. Even though they’d been engaged for weeks, she had steadfastly refused to provide any details about the wedding— not even the date. Land and I had both speculated that she still had cold feet despite Danvers’ move.

  Before we were even finished with the lunch crowd, Danvers was back with a file. Sabine waved at him this time, perhaps just to satisfy me, and I took a five-minute break to find out what he had.

  He held a folder and passed it to me without preamble. I opened it, and he said, “No one’s used his social since on-line records have been kept. So this won’t be as easy as you’d hoped. The parents had him declared dead about a decade ago. I gave you their phone number, if you want to call them. They seem to be local, so that’s a point in your favor. That closed the disappearance case, and it never was ruled a homicide since there was no body and no apparent motive for a crime.”

  He stopped there, and I looked up. “Thanks,” I said, thinking he was being too nice. I actually preferred the old Danvers where I knew exactly what he thought of me. In this case, we were almost working on the same side, which meant I would have to watch myself. I had garnered publicity from the case he’d given up to win Sabine. I didn’t trust him not to retaliate slightly if I got close to the solution of this case.

  I made my way back to the truck and tucked the folder into my backpack. I would have to take the time to read this later, when there weren’t five people in line waiting for hot dogs to be served.

  ***

  Business had died down by the time that Land showed up in the second truck. I wondered what his hours would look like if they were optimized. I walked over to Basque in the Sun and exchanged pleasantries with him before talking about what Danvers had found out.

  Land listened carefully as I told him how helpful the policeman had been. “Be careful. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he sees this case as the replacement for the one he lost. There’s no way to stop you from looking into a closed case that took place in another county, but a case with some local notoriety would be just the thing he needed to jumpstart the talk of a promotion.”

  I agreed. I told him that I’d know more by the time that Land got home. I had the evening carved out to read the folder and see what new facts I could learn.

  After returning to Dogs on the Roll, I counted the money, prepped the coffee urns for tomorrow, and took the truck back to the secured lot. I was home in no time, and I made a cup of tea and sat down to read the folder.

  I hate to admit it, but I only woke up when Land arrived home. He was looking a little harried as I opened an eye to look at him.

  “I tried to call you a few times, and there was no answer,” he said. “I got worried about you.”

  I tried to shake off the cobwebs. “Sorry, I must have crashed out. I barely read the first page of the report,” I said, trying to stifle a yawn.

  “We can read it together,” he said, plopping down on the sofa. Apparently he’d been pretty worried, as I could almost visibly watch the stress drain out of him.

  I opened the binder again and then handed it to him.

  He began reading the first page of the report. “The last time the missing man’s social security number was used was to register for the summer classes at your school. There seems to be a hit on the social from a company, but I’m guessing that’s some firm who was interested in hiring him. It was in the same month as he disappeared. Nothing since then.”

  I wrote down the name of the company, though I knew it was likely futile. No one who had worked there in the 1980s would probably remember a potential hire who had wigged out and not followed through on the job interview process. Even if someone did remember him, the HR department would never let them disclose information about Fisher— even if he had been declared dead.

  Land continued on with the report. Danvers had somehow gotten his hands on the original police file for the case. It didn’t have all the notes, just the outline of what steps were taken. Land read down the list. The parents had been called. Some friends had been interviewed. No one in the dorm had heard anything that evening, though the floor only had a few people in the hall at that point.

  I knew that I wouldn’t be starting with the parents. Ronald Fisher had been an only child, and I didn’t want to reopen their hopes and fears just because I wanted to get some business help. They’d be one of my last stops in the investigation, if I even got that far. Since they were two hours away when their son disappeared. I doubted that they would have much in the way of information anyway.

  I planned to start with the RA and the other residents of the dorm that evening. My gut feeling was that he couldn’t have gone very far without cash or shoes. Even in summer, the nights could get chilly and not wearing enough clothes could be uncomfortable.

  Wallace had run reports to give me the current addresses of the people in the dorm, so I had a good place to start. I was planning on presenting myself as a journalist in the matter. In that way, I wasn’t going to get anyone’s hopes up too far, and I wouldn’t be questioned as to why I was investigating. It seemed like the best white lie in the circumstances.

  Land continued reading, the follow-ups the police had undertaken in the past three decades. After the initial search for the man, the police had not given much credence to the police report. The disappearance of a student who was of legal age was not a priority. I knew that in many cases, the person left of their own accord. They weren’t required to check with their parents before leaving for anyplace. That cord was cut at age 18.

  The follow-ups had been scant. After police databases became computerized, the police went back and ran searches on all the relevant facts they could come up with. There were no hits on credit cards, social security number, driver’s license or any other form of identifications. Nothing. The logical conclusion at this point was that he was dead. Either that or he’d abandoned everything when he left for a new life.

  Land
finished reading the file and closed it. “He’s dead, you know?” he said, echoing my earlier thoughts.

  I nodded. “Very likely, but college seniors don’t die of old age or disease, typically. So either he killed himself or someone killed him, intentionally or accidentally. I’m going to start with that presumption and go from there.”

  Land picked up the leather folder that contained all the information that Professor Wallace had gathered. “Have you had a chance to look through all of this?” he asked, flipping through the pages of the volume. He stopped a few times and read pieces of what Wallace had transcribed.

  “Some of it, but not all ,” I replied truthfully. “There’s a lot of information in the volume, but I’m not sure how much of it I can rely on. Some of the data is from the newspapers, which can be flawed. Most of the rest of the pages are interviews, and without the backing of the police, it’s easy for anyone to lie to a professor about what they saw or did. It will be helpful to have, since I can compare what they are saying now with what they said at the time of the crime.”

  Land nodded. “You’re right about that. It’s too bad that the security guard at the desk that night has passed away. I would have been very interested to talk to him, since he would have been the last person to see Fisher alive.”

  I looked over Land’s shoulder at the article in question. The security guard had not died of natural causes. He’d been murdered, stabbed in what appeared like a robbery gone bad. “This could be related,” I said, reading the article a second time, hoping for more details.

  “People get murdered in convenience store robberies all the time. It’s a stretch to think that this crime is related to the disappearance. Years apart, different location, different type of MO.”

  “But two people who knew each other—both had their lives cut short. That’s a stretch to be a coincidence.”

  “No more so than how many times you’ve tripped over a dead body,” Land said, trying to persuade me from pursuing this lead.

  I shrugged. “If I take a look into this and it’s not related, I can still apply those hours to the investigation. I just need to get to 50 hours to get the analysis.”

  Land gazed down at me. “I’ll ask Danvers for the police report on this. You can put the hours to the case, but it’s a dead end.”

  Before I could argue, he flipped the page and moved on to an interview with Trevor Jones, the RA from the dorm where Ronald Fisher had disappeared.

  I pointed to one place in the interview. “See, the RA that night said that he didn’t see anything, but he’s also the one who told the police what Fisher was wearing that evening. So there’s a discrepancy that needs to be ironed out.”

  Land ran his finger down the list of people’s names and addresses. “I’d like to know what these people have gained or lost by the disappearance of Fisher. Who benefited from that situation?”

  I went down the list of names with him, then did a quick social media search on each of the names. Since the dorm had been practically empty, the list was not long. I scrolled through photos, tweets, and posts from most of the people. Having their cities and alma mater made the searches much easier to complete.

  Most of them seemed to have simple lives. I recognized the neighborhoods in Capital City. None of these people had grown rich in the aftermath of the disappearance, or at least their social media pages didn’t show that wealth. So probably financial gain was not the motive.

  Could Fisher have found out something about one of the people in the dorm or one of the faculty members? Fear was another driving motive for murder. If someone had a secret that Fisher had learned, the murderer could have killed to keep it quiet. Wallace was the only professor he had during that shortened term, and I didn’t want to think of my former professor as someone who had done away with the young man. That just left the short list of names of residents of the dorm.

  Land finally put down the binder. “The short version is that you’ll have to ask your own questions and see how these people’s memories stand up against what they said at the time. Most of it will match, but it will be interesting to see what testimony has changed.” With that, he sent me off to bed, reminding me that he could stay up late.

  ***

  Kamila, the new employee recommended by Professor Wallace, was on time the next morning. That was saying something, since I’d asked her to meet us at the food truck at 5:30 a.m. I’m not sure who I expected to meet when she arrived, but it was not the young woman who approached me. She was tall, leggy, and blonde. Perhaps I’d expected someone more studious coming from Professor Wallace, but he had neglected to mention that she was beautiful. I wondered for a second if that was why he was helping her.

  Even Sabine raised an eyebrow at Kamila’s approach. When she arrived at the food truck, I introduced myself and Sabine, who remained mute throughout the introductions.

  My thought in bringing her in had been to allow her to get used to the business by allowing her to see how the truck operated. Then this afternoon we would work at Let it Slide together. Sabine had made an offer to come help this afternoon as well. I was certain that it had more to do with finding out more about the addition to the team and less to do with helping out what was becoming a family business. Sabine could be just as curious as I could be at times.

  Kamila pulled up one of the stools and did her best to stay out of the way. As I prepared the food truck for the first customers of the day, I explained each step in detail, explaining why we had soft drinks rather than coffee at Let It Slide and other details that seemed pertinent.

  When Kamila sampled the coffee, she paused for a few seconds and then said, “I can detect some French beans and Italian beans in this blend. There is another bean that I’m not familiar with. It’s very good.”

  I cringed a little, wondering how Land would react to finding out that she was announcing part of his grandfather’s secret blend to the world.

  By lunch, she seemed to be handling the tasks with ease. I allowed her to work the lunch shift, to get used to the type of crowd she would have at the other truck. She didn’t get frustrated or flustered. I sat on the stool and watched her work. Some of the stress of the past few days left me, and I felt like a wet sponge as a result.

  We left Sabine after lunch and headed to the secured lot to get the other truck. After some of my previous experiences with employees, I was going to drive the truck back and forth for a few days. The thought of allowing a perfect stranger, even with references, to drive an expensive piece of equipment worried me. Land always told me that I was too suspicious, but since we were trying to have a family at this point, I was even more cognizant of the fact that we needed the family business intact and profitable.

  After we got the truck in place, I showed her the routine for getting the truck prepped for opening. The procedures were fairly close to those in Dogs on the Roll, since we both had a single product experience, though the sliders came with a selection of meats. The coffee prep was replaced by checking each of the canisters of beverages to make sure that we didn’t run out of cola during the shift.

  The truck opened, and the crowd started to surge. It was nearly 3:00 p.m., and I was surprised by the number of people who had waited in line for us to open the window. The truck had garnered its own notoriety after it had served as the scene for a shootout a few weeks ago. Apparently the news had generated curiosity, and curiosity had generated sales.

  The shift went well, and as we were cleaning up, Carter stopped by. He had finished his own shift at our taco truck, and was naturally nosy about the new employee. He’d been with us a long time, and had the notion that he had a say in the new people who worked here.

  He introduced himself to Kamila, who smiled at him, though she didn’t stop cleaning the truck. I was impressed with her diligence, wondering if it would only last until I stopped working a second shift at Let It Slide. Those trust issues were still in place.

  We finished the shift with record sales, and I sighed a deep breat
h of relief. Things seemed, at least so far, to be moving ahead in the right direction. We agreed to meet the next day at the new truck, so that she would only have a single shift to work.

  That night, I called Ronald Fisher’s RA. The former resident adviser lived in Capital City, and he agreed to meet for coffee the next day. I felt I was entitled to a short break, since I was working two shifts. He’d heard of the food trucks, and he volunteered to come downtown to meet me. He was so agreeable that I felt as though I should worry. He had been aware of me through my reputation, though I tried to use the journalism story on him. He just chuckled and told me that Ronald Fisher deserved an investigator like me on the case.

  Land encouraged me to go to bed early, and I needed no second prompting to take him up on the offer.

  I just mumbled a few words when the alarm buzzed at 4:30 a.m. I was still tired from the ceaseless double shifts I was pulling, and the thought of doing more detecting nearly drained me. The first part of the day went quickly, and before I knew it, I was looking around for the former RA.

  Trevor Jones showed up right on time. I had seen a photo of him from 30 years ago as well as a few group photos on social media, but that wasn’t much help in me recognizing him today. He had the same smile that he’d had then, but now there were crinkles around his eyes, and he’d put on nearly 100 pounds. The fresh-faced resident adviser who had listened to the complaints of many looked hardened and worn.

  He approached me and stuck out a beefy hand. “How are you? I’ve been meaning to come down here for a meal. I keep seeing your food trucks in the news—rather than in the business section, which has made me curious about them—and you.”

  I rolled my eyes a little. I was still not very good at taking a compliment, even if my PR attempts had lost out to crime-fighting. “Thanks. Can I get you something?”

  He ordered three hot dogs with a variety of condiments and a cup of coffee. I texted the order to Sabine, as we’d arranged, and I sat down to wait for her reply.