FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books)

by Chloe Kendrick

  “It doesn’t look very comfortable,” he said, trying not to smile.

  “A phony address. Not a surprise.”

  “It is a little. A fake driver’s license is not something the everyday person comes in contact with. We’re looking for a criminal type here. You might try starting with the jails and prisons in Capital City. See if they have any Danny Gardners there.”

  “What if it’s a fake name?” I asked.

  “Most criminals are not that creative. It’s almost a guarantee that his initials are DG. People are not very original. So if he doesn’t show up under that name, try all the Gs and scroll through them.”

  Danny Gardner’s photo was listed on the Capital City jail’s website. The building was located only yards from where Dogs on the Roll operated. I began reading to Land.

  My husband stopped me before I made it past the date of arrest. “Maeve, they only keep the current occupants on the website. If Danny is still listed there, it’s quite likely that he’s wanted for escaping from the jail.”

  I bounced over to the Capital City Gazette website and scrolled down. Sure enough, the newspaper had a story on the escape of Danny Gardner and two other inmates from the Capital City jail. From what they had reported, Gardner had received another set of clothes somehow, had changed in the visitors’ room, and had left with people who had come to see loved ones in jail. The guards had been remiss and allowed the felon to leave with the families.

  The Gazette quoted a local police captain who was embarrassed by the ease with which Gardner had escaped and promised better security in the future. No details were given on whether or not the police had a lead on the felons or if either of the others had been recaptured.

  I finished reading and looked to Land. “Why would a fugitive come to a ski resort, give his real name, and walk around with $100,000 he got from somewhere?”

  Land took a deep breath. “I think when you find out all that, you’ll have your murderer.”

  Chapter 3

  With my cyber-sleuthing finished, we went to find Danvers and Sabine. Land had become a touch more protective now that he’d heard about wanted criminals on the loose. I was fine with him sticking near me, as I enjoyed bouncing ideas off of him.

  Sabine was tucked into a chair, reading a book about hosting a destination wedding. She looked like a cat—sleek, warm, and satisfied, as she turned the pages. I cleared my throat, and she looked up at me.

  “What’s going on with you two today?” she asked, smiling at us. “You certainly are making the rounds.”

  “Is your fiancé here?” I asked, craning my neck as I spoke. I didn’t see him anywhere.

  “He’s in the crime room,” she said, starting to go back to her book. “Why? What’s going on?” She held her place in the book with her finger. I wondered what exotic location she’d found for the wedding. I had an idea that this event would be expensive.

  Land looked at her for a second. “The dead man is a fugitive from justice. I want to tell Jax, in case that changes the way he’s viewing the case.”

  Sabine put her book down and uncurled her body. “Exactly how do you two know that? I could search the entire hotel from top to bottom and not find a thing. You go away for an hour or so, stuff your faces, and come back with information that changes the entire case.”

  I just shrugged. “I was just trolling around looking for information. Land seems to think that the lines are going to get iced up soon, and we’ll lose our Wi-Fi. My network won’t get a signal out here in the middle of nowhere, so I wanted to find out what I could before we lose online access.”

  Sabine looked at her brother. “Are you serious? I came here to relax, not stress out about being cold in the dark. This is not what I bargained for.”

  Land gave her a big smile, one that was not called for in this situation. “I’m sure that one of our aunts or uncles will risk the weather to come and take you back for a big Basque Christmas with all the trimmings.”

  She made a face. “But it will be cold here.”

  “They have generators. Don’t worry about it.”

  She nodded, her mind apparently made up. “Let’s go find Jax then. I want to see his face when he hears about the victim.”

  We walked through the common area until we got to the hallway that led to the dead man’s room. We didn’t have to look far to find the detective. He was standing in the hallway, knocking on a door.

  “What do you three want? This can’t be good news,” he said as he pounded on the door again.

  “Maybe no one’s home,” I suggested, seeing as how his last knock could have woken the dead.

  “The front desk told me that they hadn’t taken the shuttle this morning, and they didn’t rent any skis today. So they should be here.” He pounded again. “Where else could they be?”

  I thought of the couples in the dining area. “Could they be eating?” I asked. “Or maybe at the pool?”

  Danvers shook his head. “Not a chance. I went to both places before stopping by here. They should be in their room.”

  I leaned forward and tried the knob, but it was locked.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Danvers asked. “Just because we’re in the middle of nowhere, it doesn’t mean you can barge into people’s rooms without a warrant. Police protocols still need to be followed. A defense attorney would still have a chance to question me on improper search and seizure.”

  I gave him a grin. “Just wanted to try. If they were gone for good, they might have left it open. So, what about the shuttle this morning? I thought that we were all stuck here for the foreseeable future.”

  He sighed. “The first shuttle of the day went out to a local ski shop at the break of dawn. The stores announced that they would open early today, in case anyone wanted to buy some gear. The Richardsons, a married couple from Capital City, were on it. By the time the pair were done shopping, the snow was too deep to get back here. The resort had to put them up at another hotel. They’re not happy about that at all. The local chief of police is going to ask them some questions about their movements last night.”

  “What if they are the people who killed Danny Gardner?” I asked, thinking that they could have been trying to escape.

  “Yeah, I thought about that,” said Danvers, “but they were on the shuttle when the weather got bad. Unless they’re playing a mind game, they really did want to return to the resort.”

  Land cleared his throat and told Jax about the information I’d located on Gardner.

  “Unbelievable,” he said.

  “I …” I started, but Danvers interrupted.

  “I can’t believe that you’re in on this case. You don’t have any reason to be looking into a murder. Leave it alone.”

  “I just looked up something on the Internet. It’s not like I’m out interviewing witnesses or helping people to get away with the crime.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You need to stay out of this. You’re not a professional, and if someone in the hotel committed this crime, they’ll have no problem in killing again if they perceive you as a threat. .”

  Land shot a look at me, and I knew that Danvers had scored a point with that argument. My husband was protective on a good day, and since I’d become pregnant, he’d been hypervigilant. I was glad that we hadn’t had any investigation since I’d given him the news. It would have driven me insane.

  Sabine cleared her throat. “Then maybe I should stay with my brother in his room, if it’s so dangerous?”

  Sabine would never sleep on a rollaway bed, not even to prove a point. She was too pampered for that, but she still didn’t like it when Danvers tried to play on her brother’s emotions. A small reminder that other people had choices too seemed to put Danvers in his place.

  “Wouldn’t it be better if you called your office and got some information on Gardner?” she continued. “Land says that the Wi-Fi is going to go down soon. Too many icy, heavy wires. So you can’t look the information up on your own.”


  As if on cue, the lights flickered and went out. I had never heard the resort without the sounds of people and activity. It was eerie. We all waited together, hoping Land had been right about the back-up generator. In little over a minute, the lights turned on again. I could now hear the sounds of a motor chugging away, where there had been silence before.

  “Gasoline generator,” Land said, almost as if he could smell the odor from here.

  Danvers groaned, a sure sign that he knew he was outnumbered. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number before walking down the hall to talk to the Capital City police.

  I pulled out my phone and checked the Wi-Fi connection. Land was right. The generator did not allow for an Internet connection. I felt isolated.

  “No go?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “We’re really on our own.”

  Land smirked at me. “Yeah, out in the wild with the generator, a gas fireplace, and a down comforter. Cuddling with your husband can be fun.” He slid his arms around me to prove his point.

  “Maybe fun, but I use the Internet to solve cases.”

  “It is handy,” Sabine chimed in. “Too bad we couldn’t have found out more.”

  Danvers came back before I could respond, and all three of us grew quiet.

  “You’re right. Gardner broke out a few days ago. It’s all over the news in Capital City.” Danvers ran a hand across his jaw in a sure sign of disappointment. I’d found information that in another 20 minutes would have been unavailable to us.

  “So what have the police been doing?” I asked. “Have they set up a manhunt?”

  “They’ve been more focused on his contacts and family. People who might want to see him get out of jail.”

  “Did they give you any names?” I asked hopefully.

  He held up a piece of paper. “There’s about five people on the list. I’m going to go check these names out with the front desk.”

  “What about the other two escapees?” I asked. “The paper was rather vague on their details. Could one of them be here?”

  Danvers looked at me. “They’re a man and a woman—no connection between them that the police can tell so far. One is a woman who is wanted for kidnapping her own child. She was being held until she could be extradited out of state to face charges. The other is an older man, who was in for being a party to an assisted suicide.

  “The DA is trying to make a name for himself, so he’s prosecuting that crime to the fullest extent. Neither of these two were considered a danger to society, so the focus has been on Gardner, who has a rap sheet longer than you can imagine.”

  Armed with that additional information, we all followed Danvers.

  When Danvers approached the front desk, the three of us stood by the roaring fire, which burned in the fireplace in the center of the room. The heat made me feel sleepy, and I longed for a nap. My mother had been encouraging me to sleep, telling me that I wouldn’t get another chance for 18 years. I didn’t find the advice helpful, but I was inclined to take naps when possible.

  Danvers came back to us, his face set in stone. I wished I could read what he was thinking. “No dice. None of the people are registered here. The possible contacts for Gardner are not here, and the other two fugitives aren’t here either.”

  “Under their real names,” I added.

  “Maeve, the resort requires an email address with verification, and a driver’s license, along with a credit card all with the same name. They would have to be fairly into the criminal class to get those things. One of the women on the list is his mother. Not exactly the type to be tied to a gang.”

  I had to admit that he was likely right. I certainly couldn’t have opened a new credit card account with another name, even though I knew my way around credit and finance. Those things were gained through connections that I didn’t have, and wasn’t likely to find.

  “They’re going to check on the people on the list in Capital City and see if any of them are out of town at the moment. That might give us a lead, if one or more of them is in the area.”

  I nodded. For all my work, I didn’t feel like that had been explored enough. The crime had to be related either to Gardner’s escape or the crime that had put him in jail.

  “What was on his rap sheet?” I asked. “Before he got charged with escape and all that.”

  Danvers shrugged. “It was mostly petty things. Stealing a car to joyride, out past curfew, and such. The ones in the past two years have gotten progressively worse. Assault, attempted robbery, drugs.”

  “What is he in jail for?” I asked, thinking of the money in his room.

  “Grand theft.”

  “So that $100,000 was stolen?” I asked, thinking of the money I had counted earlier. “Just wondering where a guy in jail came up with that much money. Either he took it before he went to jail or someone gave it to him after he escaped. It’s similar to trying to figure out if he was leaving the cabin or coming back into it when he was killed. Two possibilities with different conclusions, based on what you think happened.”

  Danvers paused for a few seconds. “I’ll have to call back on that one. I hadn’t thought of a cash theft. It’s usually a car or weapon. It does sound like he’s been in contact with his family and friends though, so it could be that they were holding onto it since the theft. They could have returned it to him after he escaped.”

  “So what are you going to do in the meantime?” I asked. I was hoping that he’d let me be involved in some manner, since the local police were as snowed out as we were snowed in.

  “Talk to some of the couples here. See if any of them had any interactions with Gardner or knew him before they came here.”

  “Good,” I added, since he hadn’t specifically excluded me. “We’ll help with that.”

  Land cleared his throat. “You might as well give in on this one. You’re not going to be able to keep Maeve from talking to the other guests, and the topic of conversation is bound to be the weather and the murder.”

  Danvers sighed and looked at Sabine. “Fine. You can talk to people, but you’re not to represent yourself as a police officer or as someone who has any authority from the local police. Got that?”

  Danvers had a number of other instructions for me, but I chose to ignore them for the moment. I went over my list of things to cover while he went on.

  First, I wanted to find out more about Carletta. She’d said that she had gotten to the room earlier today than usual. I wanted to know more. Had she just been early, or had she—or someone else—put her there early so that the body would be discovered at a certain time?, It just seemed too convenient for her to find the body at a time that was not the normal time.

  Land came with me when Danvers concluded his lecture on what I could and couldn’t do. “Did you listen to anything he said?” Land asked as we walked down the hallway to the main desk.

  “A bit. I’ve heard most of those instructions before. I could probably recite them by heart.”

  “Yet you don’t ever seem to pay attention to a word he says.”

  I hoped I wasn’t going to get a lecture from Land. I would take every precaution to ensure my baby’s safety and mine. However, I still had a few debts to settle with Danvers, and this seemed like the perfect head-to-head battle with him. He had fewer resources than I did at this point.

  I looked around the common area, searching for Yuri, the head of housekeeping, to ask him about the cleaning schedule. I finally located him by the door to the manager’s office. He was tall and rather thin, with dark hair that seemed to stand up all over the place. I would have guessed him to be 50, but his worn hands and face didn’t seem to match the younger buoyancy and still brown hair.

  “Yuri, hi. I’m Maeve Kinkaid. I’m a guest here,” I started.

  “Do you need towels—or maybe some toilet paper?” he asked immediately. I wondered if the guests had been running low.

  “No, I wanted to talk to you for a second, if you have the time?” Since I couldn’t say I w
as associated with the police, I tried being pleasant in my requests. I was still trying to determine how to phrase my words to convey that I had accompanied the police to the lodge, which was technically true.

  We stepped over away from the offices and front desk to a corner with some chairs and a large plant that provided some camouflage. He offered me a chair, and then Land sat down on the arm. Yuri took the seat opposite me and leaned back against the cushions.

  “So what did you want to know?” he asked.

  “I just wanted to understand why the maid went to the dead man’s room so early. I was under the impression that she normally came to those rooms much later in the day.”

  He nodded. “Usually she does go there later. However, when we’re in this sort of weather and the guests will be here for several days, many of the guests request that their rooms not be made up. They don’t need fresh towels and everything picked up. Or they are in the room and don’t want to have housekeeping interrupt them. So they leave a note saying something to that effect.”

  It made sense, but I was always wary of any circumstance that was different only on the day when a murder occurred. I hated to see the world as an endless yarn ball of coincidences. I wanted things to make sense.

  “Is that what happened today?” I asked.

  “I don’t have her chart for today. Carletta was rather upset, and so I sent her off to get some sleep. She’ll turn the paperwork in later.”

  I nodded. The one downside to investigating such a fresh crime was that all the details weren’t available yet. I couldn’t make any solid deductions when all I had were partial clues and details that would be settled later.

  “When did Danny Gardner arrive? Had Carletta cleaned his room before?”

  He consulted the clipboard that he’d brought with him. “He checked in two nights ago. According to this, Carletta cleaned his room yesterday, and he requested new towels and sheets on the bed. She didn’t make any notations that there was anything amiss with the room.”

  I thought for a moment. “Was there any sign that Gardner had hosted guests? Perhaps he did some entertaining?”