FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  “So what are you looking to gain here?” he asked. The question was a bit of a shock. He’d looked like an amiable guy in the photo, but his first question was very direct. I guessed that thirty years had left him less good-natured.

  “As I said, I was planning on writing an article about this. It was part of the school’s lore when I was there, like an old ghost story based at the university.”

  His eyes squinted. “I don’t believe you. When I got your call, I felt certain that you were investigating this for some reason of your own, and while I don’t mind answering some questions, I’d like to know why you’re asking them.”

  Fortunately for me, the phone buzzed, and I saw that Jones’ order was done. I excused myself quickly and picked up the dogs at the window.

  I scuttled back to the table we’d chosen, and looked him in the eye. “Look, I have no iron in this fire. I don’t know any of the people involved, but things are quiet, so I thought I’d look into a familiar case—maybe write about it and get some more free publicity. An article would be far cheaper for me to write than to fork over hundreds to advertise the business in the traditional way.” I went on about my time at the business school, which had been many years after his own studies.

  He seemed to think over my comments for a moment, and then shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t believe you for a second, but I’ll answer the questions anyway. I’m still doubting your answers, but I can’t prove anything.”

  I took a deep breath. “First, I wanted to get an idea of what Fisher was like. A lot of times you can get a feel for motives by knowing the person at the heart of it.”

  He raised an eyebrow and stared at me. “Motives? So you think he’s dead?”

  I talked him through the research I’d done already for the story, including the lack of any documentation past the time he’d left the school with no shoes. By the time I was done, he was slowly nodding his head.

  “I think he’s dead,” I said finally. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Trevor stared off into the distance. “I always thought he was too. I mean, the way he vanished without a trace. I was the first one in the room, and it was like a play set, staged and waiting for someone to come on. Everything was there. Nothing was messed up. The only thing missing was Ron.”

  “You saw him that evening?” I asked, remembering the discrepancy between the professor’s interview and the actions of the police in asking Jones to identify what he’d been wearing at the time of the disappearance.

  “For just a second.”

  “Where?” I asked, hoping to learn some new information.

  “He was at the door to the dorm with his hand on the door handle. I couldn’t tell if he was coming or going. I was probably about 50 feet away, so I could see what he was wearing, even if I didn’t know exactly what he was doing.”

  “Are you sure it was the same night as his disappearance?” I asked. He stared off in the difference for a moment. “Not really. I mean, it was weeks before anyone really thought he was gone. It could have been the night before or two days before, if I had to be totally honest.”

  “Was it like him to go out at night?” I asked, trying to lead the conversation back to Fisher’s personality.

  “We had been RAs together during the regular school year. Then it was pretty rare that he didn’t come home and study. He was carrying a stupid number of hours. It was amazing he found the time to sleep, but when the summer session came, he was a lot more relaxed than he’d been. He would eat out once in a while. He’d stay out late with friends from time to time. He only needed nine hours, which seemed like nothing after the year he’d had.”

  “He was taking all nine at once?” I asked, thinking that it still sounded like a heavy load. Each class met daily and had homework due the next class meeting.

  “No, he had taken six in the first part of summer, and now he was down to three hours, which was a business law class with Professor Wallace. He had one class to finish to graduate. He was pretty relaxed and happy.”

  “So you don’t think that suicide was a possibility?” I asked, wondering more about the man at the center of the case. Despite being close to his goals, depression could easily make his achievements seem meaningless. Meeting other people’s expectations was not the road to happiness.

  “The police asked me that. I mean, you never totally understand another person, but as much as I could tell, no, it wasn’t really an option. He was interviewing. He was talking about getting a job, graduating, getting on with his life. It all seemed pretty standard to college and pretty positive. He was a very easy-going guy. He didn’t seem overly stressed. His parents had told him that he could move home if he didn’t find a job immediately. So he had all his bases covered.”

  “Was he dating anyone?” I asked. I hadn’t seen anything about romantic interests in the reports, but that didn’t mean he had been unattached. I doubted that his family or his professors would know about his dating history. It was outside of the normal topics of conversation for those relationships.

  I waited while Trevor took a big bite out of the second hot dog. “No. I just think he’d gotten out of the game when he was taking so many hours, and now he was just taking his time. I mean, everything depended on where he got a job. If he was moving to New York or LA, it would be pointless to get a girlfriend here with a few months still in state. They’d either have to break-up, or she’d have to follow him. If she had a year or more to go, she could lose credits, extend her time in college. All that stuff.”

  Fisher seemed like a very together guy for a college senior, incredibly articulate if he’d discussed all of these plans. “He told you all this?” I asked, wondering if Trevor Jones was just looking back on the situation and making some inferences.

  “Not in so many words. He just told me once that he wasn’t ready to get involved. He wanted to get settled in his work and a new city, before he found someone.”

  The use of the vague pronoun struck a nerve with me. I’d heard some of my friends use that when they didn’t want to reveal the gender of the person they were talking about. “Sorry, I have to ask,” I said, “but was Ronald gay?”

  Jones flushed. “I wasn’t going to talk about that today. I didn’t think it was important. It’s been so many years ago that I didn’t think it could be relevant.”

  “It’s not, except it might be a clue in terms of motive. If he was seeing someone who was not out, or something like that …” I let the words trail off. Usually not being overly explicit in my explanations let the other person speak more. I often found out a great deal by dropping the last few words of my thoughts.

  “I never knew for sure. He never came out to me in any sense of the word. It was the 1980s, and it took a very strong person to come out to acquaintances back then. However, he was very cagey about any discussions of dating and romance. It was always very third person and impersonal. He always had a reason why he wasn’t ready. It made me wonder why he was not just being honest.”

  “Did you talk to the police about this?” I asked, wondering why it hadn’t been in the records. Had no one mentioned that to the police, or had they not asked about who he dated?

  “No, they didn’t ask. When they finally got around to looking into the matter, they were only curious about putting together a timetable of the events. They never asked a thing about people or anything outside of the last few days of his life.”

  While I could hardly say that I had solved the case, I was excited for a moment to think that I’d uncovered something that had not been released at the time of the disappearance. Maybe Professor Wallace was right to have put his trust in me. Maybe I would actually find out who was behind Fisher’s disappearance.

  “Was he close to anyone else? I’m not asking about dating. I just want to know who would be helpful in terms of interviews. I’m deliberately not talking to the parents. I have a few comments from the time when they declared him dead, so I won’t be intruding on them.”

/>   Jones’ eyes grew wide. “Yes, by all means, don’t talk to his mother. That woman scares me. She came up a few days after the disappearance, and she cornered a few people, including me, pushed them into corners or secluded spaces, and gave them the third degree. You had to stare into her eyes, and they were red and teary and vengeful all at the same time. It was like a horror movie.”

  I made a mental note to stay away from the mother. I’d already decided to avoid the family if possible, so I didn’t feel like I would be missing any information by that action. While I could imagine the devastating loss of your only child, the pain would not go away by finding out what happened or if he’d been murdered. At the end, he would still be gone and you’d still be alone. That might explain why he hadn’t been declared dead for so many years.

  Jones looked uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation and stood up. He’d polished off all three dogs in the time we’d talked.

  “I have one more question,” I said quickly, thinking of what Land had uncovered about seeing Fisher on his last day.

  I explained to the discrepancy in his statement to the police and other comments he had made. Jones had been the one to look through Ronald Fisher’s clothes and determine that he hadn’t taken anything with him.

  He looked puzzled for a moment. “Did I say that? I honestly don’t remember. I can recall that the paper took a few photos of me looking through Fisher’s closet, but that’s it. He had shirts, shoes, shorts, jeans, a suit, and that was it. I would have to check to see what I said back then.”

  I bristled. What he had said back then was a discrepancy that couldn’t be explained now. This would have to be a detail that I’d have trouble learning. The worst part was that the detail could make a world of difference. Everyone had assumed that Ronald Fisher had disappeared from the dorm with only the clothes on his back. If Trevor Jones hadn’t seen him the day of the disappearance, then he didn’t know what Fisher had worn—and therefore could not speak authoritatively about what clothes were not present in his closet. Ron could have taken other clothes, which would suggest flight, rather than a crime.

  Fisher could have had another outfit with him when he left. That fact alone would change the disposition of the case. He might have had more clothes with him at the time of his disappearance which would imply that he had expected to be gone overnight or perhaps longer.

  Jones was oblivious to what he’d done. He started to shake my hand, but he had sweet and sour sauce on his own hand, so he just waved with a quick thanks for dinner.

  Chapter 3

  I walked back to the food truck, thinking about what the former RA had said. I hadn’t gotten much information from him. Just that Fisher had not seemed suicidal, that his mother was domineering, and that he only had a few friends on campus that summer. Professor Wallace had suggested that there weren’t many people at all on campus during the summer, which might have been the explanation for the few friends, or it could be that Fisher was doing something that did not involve friends.

  Sabine said that Land had called while I was out talking to the former RA, and I quickly dialed his number. He’d only called me at work a handful of times in the years that we’d worked together. Mostly he didn’t bother because he would see me at 2:00 p.m. This call meant that something couldn’t wait until then.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Hey, how was the talk with the adviser guy?” he asked in the same voice he asked about the condiments. There was no panic or concern in the tone.

  “Fine. I got a few pieces of information. Sabine said that you’d called?” I asked, wondering what was going on.

  “Yeah, I wanted to give you a head’s up on a few things.”

  I waited, but he didn’t continue. “What?” I asked finally, worried about a million things that ran through my mind at the moment. It had to be dire if Land was calling me.

  “Danvers is looking into this case—the same one you are. The Ronald Fisher case.”

  “What?” I said again, albeit in a much higher pitch. “Why would he do that?” I felt my anger rise and my spirits fall. I had actually looked forward to a case where Danvers and I were not fighting each other, but now he had decided to further his career again at my expense.

  “I think he’s determined that since Sabine has agreed to marry him he can go after this promotion with everything he’s got. A nice cold case closed would be a feather in his cap—that it’s a mystery which has puzzled a university for years is all the better.” Land’s voice sounded cold and distant, which I knew meant he was angry. He had an odd relationship with the detective. The policeman had been the best man at our wedding and Land had known Danvers for years, but on a regular basis he warned me not to trust the man at all.

  I thought about what Land was telling me. I could easily see Danvers trying to push his way into a favor for my professor and make the entire case about him and his career. He had a tendency to do that. “Do you think that he gave me all the information he had on the case?” I asked, now feeling suspicious about everything that he’d done up to this point.

  “Yes and no,” Land replied after a pause. “I think he gave you the entire police file, but if the police officers he talked to up by your business school had any pieces of gossip not in the files, I would bet that he kept those for himself.”

  “I’m sure he would, but I got some pieces of gossip as well.” I told him about the RA and his suspicions that Ronald Fisher might have been gay. I also explained that the RA could not remember if he’d seen Fisher the day he’d disappeared or not, leaving a question about what Fisher had taken with him.

  “Hiding his orientation could explain sneaking out,” Land agreed after a moment’s thought. “Just don’t be too quick to jump on a theory though. It’s still early days. Another set of clothes missing could mean that this was a planned disappearance, though I’m not sure a college senior could come up with a way to get another social security number.”

  . I asked Land if he could get the file on the stabbing death of the security guard, since that would be an open case—if it hadn’t been solved—and would likely get me a lecture from Danvers.

  I had suspected that I would pay a price when Danvers let me have the credit in a previous murder investigation, but I hadn’t really thought in detail how his competition might present itself. I had been thinking more along the lines of parking tickets for the food trucks, not trying to show me up in a favor to my professor—and the chance to improve my hours for the trucks. I wondered if it would matter to Danvers if I told him the real reasons why I was looking into this. Would it matter to Professor Wallace if Danvers solved the case instead of me? Would he be generous enough to still give me the analysis of the hours, or would he only provide that information if I solved the case before the police?

  I thought about asking Professor Wallace, but I was afraid that if Danvers interfered, he would think I was trying to welch on the agreement. It was, as Land had said, still early in the investigation, and he might think I was trying to get the police to do the heavy lifting instead of putting in my own hours.

  “I’d go back over the testimony of the police officers who were at the scene,” Land suggested. “They would likely have some information, and you can play catch-up to Danvers before you beat him.”

  I loved the way that Land just took it for granted that I would figure out the case before a well-respected police officer, albeit it an officer who wanted to show me up at the moment. I looked over at Sabine, who seemed oblivious to her fiancé’s perfidy. I was going to try to keep this away from her, though seeing Danvers socially would be awkward at some point. She had done nothing to deserve any ill-will.

  “I’ll see you in a bit—and thanks,” I said. A few last minute customers had queued up, and I wanted to have a good sales day so that I knew I was at least successful in one area of my life.

  Unfortunately, I wouldn’t get a chance to call the police officers who had investigated that case, since I would be working in Let
it Slide, helping Kamila in her new role. Land and I had decided on two weeks of supervision, then spot inspections after that. I would naturally be keeping a close eye on the receipts and deposits. I was worried how the new truck’s revenues would fare with the new employee.

  At two, I stopped by Land’s truck on the way to Let it Slide. Land was there, already chopping vegetables for today’s recipes. He stopped and gave me a kiss that reminded me of the reasons why I’d married him.

  “I called one of the officers,” Land said without preface. “He wasn’t much help. Danvers had made some comments to him and the other officer that a pushy redhead would be stopping by to ask questions, but since I wasn’t pushy, red-headed, or a woman, they answered a few questions for me.”

  So it was like that. Danvers was definitely trying to keep me from 30-year-old information so that he could best me in some fantastical competition. Normally, I would have just taken it as a challenge to my investigation skills, but in this case, the stakes were higher. I desperately wanted that analysis of hours of operation.

  Granted, I could likely do the same studies and come up with a better way of doing things, but that would require far more than 50 hours of investigation. I just didn’t feel that I had time at the moment to invest in such an analysis. I was working a double shift, and Land and I had been discussing children.

  We’d tried often, but not methodically. It’s a surprise that the woman who loved spreadsheets did not have this down to a science with dates and times calculated. However, I had just been enjoying the intimacy and the random nature of it. I didn’t want us to become one of the couples who took the spontaneity out of the physical relationship.

  So, as a result, I was still not pregnant. I had decided that random occurrence would have to do in this case, and I had made my peace with it.