MURDER TO GO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 1) (3 page)

I had just gone out to prop open the panel to start service when another food truck pulled up. It was a Taco truck that I hadn’t seen before. The man behind the wheel threw an empty can at the Dogs on the Roll truck. “Hey, get out of Fred’s spot,” he shouted, so loudly that it echoed up the street. “You have no right.”

I shrugged. “There’s no rule about spots. We all tend to stay where we’re at, but Fred’s truck won’t be back for ages—if ever. So why should a good spot go to waste?”

The man glared at me. His face was red from his ears to his plump neck. “You’re a vulture, you know that? A vulture. I hope you’re next.”

The vision of Fred came back to me, and I shivered as a cold wave ran down my spine. I did not want to be next by any means. I wondered if the location of Fred’s truck had been a factor in the murder. Had someone else wanted this spot badly enough to kill for it?

He drove off and I looked out at the vista from my new location. The entire front of the government building faced the truck, so that everyone coming in and out of the structure got a clear view of the logo and the truck. We would be hard to forget after a few weeks of this.

The questions were put out of my head by the start of the morning rush. I had been right. We probably served another 50 customers on top of our regulars. Land grumbled because his usual number of servings was less than what we needed, and he had to go back twice to make more salsa and horseradish mustard. He went on for a good 20 minutes about why anyone would want horseradish at 7 a.m., but he made the mustard with the same precision and taste as he always did. I kept the coffee pots filled and handled the increased flow of dollars into the till.

The rush had trickled off by 9 a.m., and I had begun the prep for the lunch shift when a knock came at the door to the truck. I hadn’t seen anyone approach, which meant that they’d come from the street and not the building. I opened the door just a few inches and peered out.

Detective Danvers stood there with his badge out for me to see. I wasn’t sure why I was getting the official treatment, but I opened the door and asked, “What can I do for you?”

Danvers motioned me to step down from the truck. I alit gently, rather than with my usual thud as I hit the ground. I stood there, waiting for him to respond.

“So this is your new location?” he asked finally. It seemed like an innocuous question, but I immediately saw the implications behind it. Land had been right. The man was canny.

I nodded. “It seemed a shame to leave the spot empty.”

He looked at me for a moment and then spoke. “I need you to come to the station with me for a few minutes. We have a few questions for you.”

“What?” I asked, feeling like I was on one of the myriad cop shows on TV. He probably would have said “come downtown” except we were already there. I wasn’t sure why I was being asked to answer some questions. “Can’t I answer any questions here?”

“Are you refusing to come with me?” he asked, scribbling in his little notebook again. I knew that I was under suspicion and that my refusal would only make things worse. I wondered if I needed a lawyer, but I had no idea how to find a criminal lawyer. Mr. Huff was a wizened little man who had handled Alice’s estate, but I doubted that he would know the first thing about bail and hearings.

“No. I’ll go, but I’m curious as to why I’m being asked to come in for questioning. That’s a fairly simple request.”

He closed the notebook and shoved it into his pocket. “We got an anonymous tip naming you as a possible suspect in the homicide. Among the issues that were raised was the fact that you jumped into the lucrative spot that was used by Meat Treats before today. I came to investigate, and at least the bit of information that you took over this location is accurate. So I want to ask you a few more questions.”

I leaned back into the truck and told Land to manage without me for a while. He looked out the door, saw Danvers and nodded. I wondered if he was mentally saying, I told you so. I know I would have if our roles had been reversed.

The station turned out to be inside the government building that we faced across the plaza. We walked across the square and into the front doors. We had to submit to a security search before entering the lobby. I noticed that Danvers was able to skip the check, which only served to highlight the difference in our statuses. Danvers punched a button for the elevators and soon we were shooting up to the ninth floor.

We walked across a rather crowded and noisy office to a conference room. He indicated that he wanted me to sit, so I did. The only nice part of this experience was that I got a break from standing up for a while.

I didn’t kid myself about the room though. I knew that there were cameras in the room and there were likely recording devices as well. There was a table in the center of the room, and Danvers sat down at the opposite side of the table from me.

“Now, about this location?” he asked. He took out his notepad again and flipped through a few pages.

“Like I explained, most of the operators stay in one place. Their customers look for them at that location, and they want the repeat business. It makes life easier. However, I knew that it would be weeks before the Meat Treats truck would be operational again, so I decided last night that we’d use the spot until their truck came back. It’s close enough to our old location that we didn’t lose any existing business, and we picked up some of the other truck’s customers.”

He nodded. “And how well did you know Fred Samples?”

“Not at all, really. I could have picked him out in a crowd, but we rarely spoke. We were both busy and didn’t have time for chit-chat.”

“So you’d be surprised to hear that our tip indicated that you and he were seen arguing last week and he told you to get away from his location and truck?”

I thought back last week, but I knew that nothing like Danvers’ account had happened. “I would be very surprised. I’d bet that I haven’t said 20 words to Fred in the time since I took over my aunt’s business.”

Danvers looked at his notes again. “That would be Alice James, your mother’s sister?”

“That’s right.”

“The one who died under mysterious circumstances a few months ago,” Danvers said, echoing Land’s comments.

I had a sinking suspicion all of a sudden. Land’s desire to own my aunt’s truck tied to his comments yesterday made me wonder if Land had called in the anonymous tip. Had he been the one to put me in this predicament? This was definitely his chance to get the business and the new location, all without getting his hands dirty. He’d have to step in and take over if I was arrested or, worse yet, convicted of a crime. I knew that if I was convicted of killing Alice, I wouldn’t be able to profit from her death and the estate would be apportioned in another way.

He continued, “It certainly seems like it doesn’t pay to get in your way these days, does it?” Today there were no smiles, no flirts and certainly no dimples. I also realized with a sinking feeling that a person who was a suspect in a murder case could never date the detective. That was all kinds of wrong.

The similarity to Land’s comments immediately made me sure who had called in the tip. The Benedict Arnold had likely called it in after he left the truck yesterday, thinking he could have it all if I went to prison.

However, in my mind, I wondered if he’d just used a convenient set of circumstances to move his agenda, or if he’d been the killer who set this fiasco in motion. I tried to imagine Land as a cold-blooded killer, but honestly, I didn’t know him well enough to make that determination. He was right that I hadn’t taken the time to get to know him.

In my book, anyone could screw you over, but only a certain kind of person would kill for profit. Land had not struck me as such, but apparently, I was not a good judge of character. As if to put a finer point on that assessment, the man I thought yesterday might be the future Mr. Kinkaid was now sitting across the table accusing me of murder.

“Look, I honestly don’t know anything about my aunt’s death. My mother is the queen of platitudes. No one ever kicks it. They pass or cross the bridge. So in terms of details, I couldn’t give you a thing.”

Danvers sighed. “Here’s the official account. I’m not giving anything away here; it’s all been in the newspapers.”

I looked at him. “I’m a millennial. We don’t do newspapers.”

I thought I heard a growl from him, but I didn’t push it. After all, I was in an interview room at the police station. “Your aunt was found by the side of the road in May. Her car was pulled off to the side of the road and the engine was shut off. There were no signs of a struggle or violence. However, her doctors had recently given her a clean bill of health, so organ failure or other systemic failure seemed unlikely. The autopsy came back with only a statement that she’d stopped breathing. I talked to the ME, but she was not able to be more precise than that.”

I squinted my eyes at him. “So, this isn’t really even a homicide technically. You’re just trying to scare me.”

“Well, Fred Samples is definitely a homicide and not a subtle one at that.”

“I heard that he was having trouble with his son. The son wanted to expand and Fred said no. Plus, I heard there was trouble with his wife, too.” I really hadn’t heard that, but to be frank, I was sitting in a police station answering questions and I wanted to throw some viable suspects out there for the good detective to follow up on. I was pretty sure that every man had trouble with his wife at some point or another.

He snorted. “The wife is always the first one to be looked at. Don’t worry, we’ll be following up with the family.”

“And there was a taco truck that wanted his space too.” I told Danvers the story of the taco truck owner that had yelled at me for taking the location closer to the plaza.

“Just a taco truck? No name or logo?” He looked annoyed, but I figured that he dealt with poor eyewitnesses on a regular basis.

“El Carro Taco, I think? Something like that.” I knew that I’d given him a translation of Taco Truck, but I hoped that would keep him off my case for a while. I was going to do some of my own work to find out what the hell was going on.

He nodded. “Anything else that you can tell me? Do you have an alibi for the night before last?”

I shook my head. The downside of renting my own place instead of living with mom and dad was that I couldn’t furnish an alibi to stave off a murder indictment. Who knew? “None. I went home, ate, read a book and went to sleep. I don’t have a boyfriend—or a girlfriend. Not even a pet. I was all alone.”

He nodded, but I wasn’t sure if he got the hint. I figured that there was some rule against dating suspects, but I was going to put this behind me quickly. I had no plans to be involved in any murder case, much less one where the head was put in a serving dish.

Unlike my glorious entrance into the building, Danvers merely opened the door and waved an arm to indicate I was free to leave. I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t being given the old “don’t leave town” routine, but maybe he figured I wouldn’t get far in a food truck. I found my way back downstairs and walked across the plaza in a sort of walk of shame moment. Land was watching me from the truck as I approached.

“I’ve still got a boss,” he said with a smirk.

“Yeah, you do. Why the hell did you call the police on me?” I had not planned to confront him so abruptly, but his sneer was a bit more than I could take at the moment. I wanted to lash out at someone, and he was available—and sarcastic.

He raised his eyebrow. “Why exactly do you think that I would have called the police on you? What did you do?”

“Good old Detective Danvers accused me of exactly the same things you did, and he used practically the same words. It was as if you two were reading from the same script. It was pretty obvious who had been talking to whom.” I opened the door to the truck and slammed it loudly behind me. I had a point to make. He might not like me, but Land couldn’t go around sabotaging the food truck and hope to keep a job.

He shrugged. “Wish I’d thought of it, but it wasn’t me. Besides, if this place goes under, I’m without a job—and a green card. Not a good career move for me to turn you in.”

While I wanted to pick on a convenient target, and my surly cook definitely fit the bill, he had a point. He had just as much to lose as I did if Dogs on the Roll went under. My mind began to turn. Who could have reported me to the police?

Land offered, “The police might have just picked up on it themselves. They’re not total oafs, you know?”

I shook my head. “No, Danvers made it pretty clear that someone had called in a tip about me. Since the wording was nearly identical to what you’d said, I just assumed it was you.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not the only person around who has a brain and can see your lucky streak comes with a body count. Anyone could have called the police.”

“Anyone who knows me, my aunt and the truck,” I retorted. I started mentally ticking off the names of those who could put all those pieces together. My family and friends were excluded, but any of the other truck owners or customers could have called in the tip. It made my blood run cold to think that I might be taking money from someone who was calling in tips to keep his own ass out of jail.

I wasn’t sure what to do now. The police had shown an interest in me, and not in a good way. There was at least one victim, and possibly two, associated with the truck I’d inherited, and there were anonymous tipsters out there who wanted me to take the blame for the whole thing.