by J. J. Cook
“I’ve heard about your food truck, Zoe,” Happy said. “It’s been on the radio a few times. You need to get on that website that tracks the local trucks.”
“I know. I can’t figure out how to contact the person who runs it.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Darnell Weaver runs that site. He worked here awhile before he found his thing on the Internet. He does interviews, and reviews of restaurants and food trucks, too. Maybe he could get you set up. I have his number here somewhere.”
Happy gave me Darnell’s phone number and email address. I hugged him and said thanks. “I can see our food is getting cold outside. Thanks for the information. I’ll see you later.”
Happy hugged Miguel, too. Miguel looked surprised to begin with, but he kind of rolled with it. That seemed to be the type of man he was. Maybe it was because his life had been a series of ups and downs. He’d learned to roll.
We got back in the car. Miguel had to get in from the passenger side because the food tray was already attached to his side of the car. I got in after him, and he passed me my food.
Crème Brûlée smelled the food—especially the burgers—and started looking pitiful. He flipped on his back in his bed and put his paws up in the air. He laid his big head back and let out a few pathetic meows. All the while his nose was sniffing the air.
“You know this will make you sick,” I told him. “Quit looking cute. I’m not feeding you.”
His meows got louder. I realized he was probably stressed by everything that had happened to him. I gave in and handed him the tuna treat I always carried in my bag for him. He was satisfied with that and went back to sleep. I could hear him snoring over the sound of traffic going by, and the sixties music Happy always played.
“This is a really good burger.” Miguel smiled at me “Food means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
That question made me feel a little strange. Was he saying I talked too much about food?
“I suppose good food, and its preparation, is important to me because I’m involved in the industry.”
It sounded like a sound bite I might have given Happy’s friend, Darnell, for an interview. I smiled, and drank some milkshake to mitigate it.
“You’re definitely involved in the industry, Zoe. You have a real passion for it. I could see it on your face as you were cooking the other night.”
“Thanks, I guess. I know making food for people isn’t as important as being a lawyer and getting people out of trouble. It’s just what I do.”
He swallowed what he’d been chewing. “Don’t ever say that. You make people happy, and they feel better, even if they’re going through a bad time. I think that’s as important as anything else.”
After a bad day, his words were very nice. I wasn’t going to wait for a better invitation. I leaned toward him and kissed him lightly, as he’d kissed me at his office. “Thanks. That means a lot.”
He turned serious after that, and didn’t finish his lunch. We didn’t talk, either. I wondered if he felt guilty about his dead wife, or was afraid we were getting too close.
Whatever it was, I didn’t push myself on him. I didn’t finish eating, either, and the waitress came to get our tray. I thanked Miguel for taking me out and saving me from watching someone else plunder my belongings.
“You’re welcome. I guess we should be getting back. I have a client to depose this afternoon.”
And that was the end of my lunch with Miguel.
I was still contemplating what I’d done or said wrong as we drove back to the diner. I didn’t want to apologize. It seemed like he could take that the wrong way, too. It was a good thing I wasn’t thinking about romance with lunch. I would’ve been disappointed. This way, I was just confused.
The police were packing up as we were getting out of the car. Detective Latoure was gone. The crime scene team said they were finished getting fingerprints and whatever evidence they could find.
I thanked them for their help and told them the Biscuit Bowl owed them a free lunch—redeemable anytime they wanted to visit me outside police headquarters during the week.
They seemed happy about that. I felt better. I thought about what Miguel had said about me making food. I knew he was right, despite what other people in my life thought. It made me happy to see people enjoying my food. Why shouldn’t it make them happy, too?
Miguel said he had to leave. “I’ll be glad to come by later and help you get this mess sorted out, Zoe. Will you be able to work tomorrow?”
“I hope so. Thanks for all your help.”
I waved to him as he left the parking lot. Marty and Ollie walked down from the shelter. I could see the consignment store employees nervously looking out of the front window to see what was going on.
“We have lots of free hands to help get this cleaned up for you,” Marty said when he reached me. “You’ve fed us better than we’ve eaten for a while. Let us help you get set up again.”
I was happy to let them help. All those extra hands could make quick work of the cleanup. I got Crème Brûlée set up in our makeshift bedroom and went to get things started.
We worked for a few hours. Half of the men were in the diner. Another smaller group, led by Ollie, was in the food truck. Things were really starting to get back in shape. I thought I might even be able to go back out tomorrow. I made a list of the supplies I would need to do so.
As I was taking stock of the ruined food, I heard Ollie shout from outside.
“Zoe! You have to see this. I know what happened to Delia.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Everyone crowded around as Ollie showed me a note he’d found duct-taped to the trash bin in back.
“I was bringing the trash out of the truck when I saw it,” Ollie said. “This proves Delia was kidnapped. I knew she wouldn’t leave on her own.”
The note was short and to the point. I’ll trade you the recipe for Delia. Meet me here at midnight. No police.
“We don’t have the recipe. Why does everyone think we do?” I threw the note on the ground. “How are we going to help Delia?”
“Didn’t Miguel say you had the directions to find it?” Marty asked.
I wished Miguel wouldn’t have said that. “Not really directions. It was more a vague idea of where the recipe could be. As you can see, it’s not in the diner or in the food truck.”
“I’m gonna strangle that Chef person when we find him.” Ollie growled and twisted his hands in an imitation of wringing Chef Art’s neck. “What about giving him everything you and Miguel found? Maybe he’ll understand what it means and give Delia back.”
“We gave it to the police,” I explained. “Miguel thought it would be bad not to.”
Most of the men from the shelter had issues with law enforcement. They groaned and muttered about Miguel’s decision to give up something that could have saved Delia’s life.
It occurred to me that this whole ordeal had become like a soap opera for them. It was something to take their minds off of their situations.
“I don’t have the paper anymore, but I know what it said. Maybe that would be enough to get Delia back.” I looked at the hopeful faces of the men around me.
“Maybe,” Ollie agreed. “Chef Art is bound to be pretty well connected. He’s got money and he’s got Delia. I don’t know if he’ll be happy with further instructions.”
“It could still be a trick. We don’t know for sure that Chef Art has her,” I disagreed. “It could be Don Abbott, or someone else who knows about the Jefferson recipe. Maybe he got his hands on an invitation. We have to be ready for anything.”
“But not with the police,” Ollie argued. “Calling them would be a surefire way to get Delia killed.”
“We have to tell the police,” Marty said. “Many of you are on parole. Getting involved in this could send you back to prison.”
Marty’s voi
ce of reason was drowned out by the negative reaction from Ollie and his friends.
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t versed in hostage negotiations. I didn’t even have what the kidnapper wanted. I could tell Chef Art what I’d read on the paper. That was about it. If that wasn’t what he wanted, he could kill Delia.
“What did the strip of paper say, Zoe?” Marty asked as the men discussed plans for setting up an ambush for Delia’s kidnappers.
They sounded like they knew what they were doing—even if it was from a kidnapper’s point of view. Some of them had experience with that type of thing.
“Not much,” I told him. “It said, Chef A. Green chili. Food truck. Watch your back. I think it was supposed to be for Don Abbott. Miguel and I were thinking Don was Terry’s fallback in case he got in trouble.”
Ollie was listening. “Maybe it was in the taco truck.”
“We tried there. It looked about the same as my food truck. The police had it towed to go over it again. I’m glad they didn’t feel the need to look over mine again.”
“The police already looked through the Biscuit Bowl a few times,” Ollie said. “Maybe whoever has Delia doesn’t want to keep looking.”
“I don’t know.” I went back inside and sat down on a stool at the counter. “I want to get Delia back, too. But what if her kidnapper isn’t happy with the directions? He could kill her.”
“He won’t know you don’t have the recipe,” Ollie reminded me. “It’s not like he gave you a number to call in case you don’t have it. We’ll have to fake it. He’s coming tonight at midnight. Either we’re ready for him, or we could lose Delia for good.”
The men from the shelter had a plan of action. I knew we needed a cooler head. Marty and I were trying to persuade them not to try this alone. It wasn’t working. I thought about calling Miguel. He’d know what to do.
In the midst of what was quickly getting out of hand—too many mentions of baseball bats and tire irons—my mother pulled up in the parking lot.
Great! That was exactly what I needed.
I struggled through the loud group of men who were offering suggestions for terrible things that should happen to the man who trashed my place and kidnapped Delia. I’d hoped to head my mother off before she could get into the diner. Usually, she didn’t even get out of her car when she stopped by. Today, she was stalking right toward the door.
“What’s going on?” Her voice would have made a drill sergeant envious. It cut right through the voices of the men around me.
They all turned and stared at her in her pale mauve suit.
“It’s nothing, Mother,” I told her with a nervous laugh. “We were talking about doing some things. Nothing serious.”
“Not if you call beating the man who kidnapped Delia down tonight serious,” Ollie said.
“Kidnapping?”
I couldn’t believe my mother was even listening to him. “Let’s talk outside.”
“I think I should hear what’s going on with these men, Zoe. Why don’t you make some coffee?”
What was happening? Why was my mother sitting in my diner that she previously wouldn’t even enter? Why was she talking to these men who were obviously wearing threadbare clothes and boots with holes in them? I was beginning to wonder if I’d stepped into an alternate universe.
Then it became obvious. One of her assistants—Sam or Dan, I couldn’t remember—was videotaping the whole thing from a discreet distance.
Was she seriously thinking this was going to help her campaign to be a judge?
“What’s going on?” I asked Sam. Or Dan.
He handed me a flyer. It had my mother’s picture on it with the caption Anabelle Chase—the judge who fights for you. “Voters are gonna eat this up. She’s right there in the trenches with the common people who need her.”
It wasn’t the craziest thing I’d ever heard, but it was right up there in the top ten. My mother certainly didn’t look the part of a woman who was in the trenches, wearing her expensive designer suit and shoes. No one was going to fall for this.
But I was wrong about that part. Ollie, and the other men from the shelter, bought into it. The next thing I knew, Sam or Dan was putting an appointment into my mother’s calendar to negotiate with Delia’s kidnappers at midnight.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” my mother told them. “I’ll take care of this for you, my constituents.”
All of the men, except for Marty, seemed happy with this. Marty was still arguing to call in the police. His words were falling on deaf ears as they walked back to the homeless shelter, each of them carrying a Vote for Anabelle Chase flyer.
When we were alone with only Sam or Dan, I confronted her. “What are you doing, Mother? You’ve never negotiated with kidnappers in your life.”
“Negotiating with the kind of sharks I’m used to will get me through it. Don’t worry, Zoe. I can swim with the barracudas and not get bitten.” She smiled at me. “I knew if I came down here, I’d find something that would make good press. You live in the perfect area for me to bring in some new voters. I’m going to have Sam start registering your friends tomorrow.”
“Some of them may be convicted felons who can’t vote.”
That didn’t faze her. “We’ll find ways around that, Zoe. That’s what’s good about the American election process.”
I gave up trying to talk her out of it. With a promise to be back at midnight, my mother left with Sam at the wheel. I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind and concentrated on getting back to work tomorrow.
Ollie and the other men had done a great job cleaning the back of the food truck. It was as if it had never happened. I walked through and checked everything. Once the food was ready tomorrow, I’d be ready to roll.
It was therapeutic shopping for the food items I needed. I drove the Biscuit Bowl on that kind of excursion. It was a good chance for people to take a look at it. I always had a few menus to give out if anyone commented on it.
It was about the cheapest promotion I could do, yet it had yielded results. People who’d bought food from me had told me they’d seen my food truck parked somewhere, and thought they’d try me out. That was about the best anyone could hope for.
Uncle Saul had told me I had to break the ice first and then my food would do the talking for me.
I missed him. I wished he’d stayed in Mobile a little longer—at least until the craziness was over. I wished he was going to be at the diner that night instead of my mother. He would know what to do without panicking or calling the police.
He couldn’t be around all the time. I understood that. He loved his swamp, and all the creepy-crawlies that went with it. Don’t ask me why.
I ended up giving a few menus to people at the grocery store. They promised to stop by at police headquarters, or whenever they saw the Biscuit Bowl open for business. I thanked them and said I would give them a free sample if they told me they’d seen me there. Just another gimmick I’d worked out.
Traffic was heavy on my way back to the diner. Driving the big motor home was much different than my Prius had been. It was really like driving with your house on your back. I couldn’t imagine how big truck drivers did it all the time. It was a little scary.
I parked the food truck by the diner. Miguel’s car was there. He was standing outside, talking to Ollie. I had no doubt what that conversation was about. I was glad to have the help bringing in the supplies. I take it where I can get it.
“So your mother is going to negotiate with a man who probably killed at least two other people to get the Jefferson recipe.” Miguel shook his head. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“You were the first person I thought of.” I explained about how all the men from the shelter had reacted when they’d heard about the killer trying to exchange the recipe for Delia. “My mother walked into that. She couldn’t have done
it any neater if her assistant, Sam, had thought it up.”
“It’s crazy,” he said. “Your mother doesn’t know anything about hostage negotiation. You’re all likely to get hurt.”
“One man can’t get all of us.” Ollie walked into the last part of our conversation with a box of beans. “At least there’s something to do besides sitting around.”
“I know you don’t think the killer will come alone,” Miguel chided him. “They’ll have guns, Ollie. Not baseball bats and tire irons.”
“I can see someone ratted us out.” Ollie frowned at me. “I thought you were all for this, Zoe.”
“No. Not at all. Marty and I were both trying to convince you that it was a mistake.”
“Whatever,” Ollie said. “I think we can get this done, and get Delia back. I’m going down to the shelter and getting everyone ready. You want in on this, Miguel, or not?”
“Not the way you’re doing it,” Miguel answered.
“Fine. We’ll take care of it ourselves. See you at midnight, Zoe.”
After he was gone, Miguel and I talked about the problem.
“I suppose we could call in the police,” I said.
“That could be worse,” he surprised me by saying. “The killer might not be worried about your mother and the men from the shelter. If the police are here, he could kill Delia.”
I shook my head as I started a large pot of red beans. “Have you heard anything about the police catching up with Don? I have a feeling he’s the one who trashed my truck. He’s probably going to be the one here at midnight, too.”
“You think he kidnapped Delia and killed Terry?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know. Chef Art is involved in this somehow. I don’t think he’d get his hands dirty or mess up his reputation. He could’ve hired Terry, and then Don, to do the dirty work for him.”
“True. But if that’s the case, why did Chef Art take a chance on kidnapping you himself? He could’ve sent Don. There was no way for him to know that you wouldn’t report him after he let you go.”
