THE REAL GYRO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 4) (6 page)

The last photo was the one that surprised me. Sam, the man my mother had tried to set me up with, was smack dab in the center of a Nolan family photo. He was smiling with his arm around Janelle. I barely had a chance to react before Janelle’s mother came back into the room. She was holding a manila envelope that bulged with papers. She handed the envelope over to me. “As I said,” she began without preamble, “we should have the financial data on the food truck soon. I have your card, so I’ll be sure to give you a call and make arrangements to get that to you as well.”

I nodded. She escorted me to the door and closed it abruptly in my face. She definitely was not going to get any points for good graces in the sales process. I took the envelope to my car. On the way downtown, I stopped at a copy shop and made a set of the papers for myself. I stuffed those papers into my backpack, so that no one would know what I’d done.

I made my way through the rush hour traffic and still made it downtown before five p.m. I found a place to park at my favorite lot on Elm and walked over to the government building. I strode through the lobby and up to the floor that housed the police station. I didn’t know if Detective Danvers would be there, but I wanted to drop off my copies quickly, so he might assume that I hadn’t had time to make copies. Land knew that I would, and he’d already invited himself over later for some snacks that he’d bring, and we’d review the papers.

Danvers was at his desk when I arrived. I was surprised to see that he now had an office. I cynically wondered if he’d gotten the prime real estate because of my hard work in other cases I’d been involved with. He’d probably taken full credit for the solution of each one.

He stood when he saw me. I handed over the envelope. “I just got back from the Nolans’ house. I thought I’d drop this off, so you can get started on it.”

Detective Danvers gave me a smile. “I’m sure that if I do, I’ll be two steps behind you in asking questions, right?’

I protested my innocence, but it fell on deaf ears. “I know that Land’s coming over tonight to look at the extra set of papers you had made. So unless I decide to stay the night here, I figure that you’ll be ahead of me in asking questions.”

I smiled at him, even though inwardly I was cursing Land. Where had this recent sense of camaraderie come from? Now Land was telling Danvers all of our plans, which meant I would be hampered in what I could do to solve this case. “Well, I’ll be sure to let you know what we learn, or it sounds like you’ll be hearing it from Land first.”

Danvers grinned. “You never know.”

I left the building feeling much less cocky than when I’d entered, but I was just as resolved to get to the bottom of this.

Land came over right on schedule. He brought an almond torte, which appeared to be some sort of family recipe, and a bottle of wine. I tried to hold a grudge, but it’s difficult with a man who brings you desserts and alcohol. I did tell him that Danvers knew all about our “study” session and that only seemed to amuse him. I wondered if Land had a plan that he hadn’t shared with me. That was the only way I could make sense of telling Danvers what was going on. I had always worked on the idea that I wanted to get to the finish line first. That meant keeping Danvers in the dark as to my thoughts and plans, but not the facts of the case. I wouldn’t outright lie, but I would shade the truth and keep my own ideas to myself.

“He’s never going to believe that you just dropped off all of that information to him without holding on to some of it yourself. I’m surprised that you gave him a full set of copies. I was really expecting you to hold something back that you thought might be important.”

I looked at him. “Who’s to say that I didn’t?” I thought of the photo of Sam with the Nolan family again. He was obviously more than a little acquainted with them if he was given a place of honor in a photo. I would have to call him again and try to find out what was going on there.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. So let’s see the permits,” Land said, holding out a hand. I kept the papers regarding the truck and where Janelle had purchased it. I knew the details of the truck sale fairly well myself. I’d been able to walk through the food truck when we were in the process of looking for a second truck. The papers in front of us proved that she’d looked at the truck after we did and made her bid the same day as the walkthrough. She hadn’t insisted on an inspection of the oven, sink, or electrical systems. She’d plopped down the money, in cash apparently, and drove off with the truck.

The figures were all there for the truck. She’d paid less than my aunt had paid for hers. I wondered if Janelle had just gotten a better deal through her supposed charms, or the truck had needed more work. I knew some men would wilt when she flirted with them, so maybe she’d used her charms to get a lower price. In either case, it gave me a starting point for making an offer on this truck. I wasn’t sure how well Mrs. Nolan would receive a bid on the truck.

I read through the details on the truck, but it seemed to be in good shape. I thought about the secrets that had come with my aunt’s truck, and I wondered if the previous owners of this truck had installed a trap door or device that would allow someone to leave the truck undetected. That sounded great for a speakeasy, but it was highly unlikely in a food truck. There were no adjoining buildings or ways to escape. Even with a trap door, a killer would have dropped to the ground just beneath the truck, a rather conspicuous location for a supposed hiding place.

I sighed as I put the stack down, thinking that tonight’s foray into the investigation did not help much. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it had been more than this.

Land finished the paperwork with the permits and picked up my stack. I took a few minutes getting plates and glasses together before I started on the permits. The torte was chocolate with some sort of raspberry flavoring. I cut two slices of the torte for us, assuming that Land would want his own piece. His physique was such that he looked like he only ate protein and in small amounts, but I’d also seen him devour some very healthy portions of dessert. I poured the wine and deposited both food and wine in front of him.

He gave me a smile. “This is a family recipe. I’m hoping I can use it in the new truck. I’d like to have a dessert option on the menu. I know it’s more work, but I think I could do it.” While it was a big step for my business, I was always a bit surprised by how much Land wanted this to happen. I had enjoyed working with him. I’d learned a lot, and the thought of doing the work with someone who was less experienced made me anxious. Yet Land saw it as a step toward his dreams—a step toward autonomy.

I had to admit that the torte was delicious. I finished my slice in no time and gave some thought to a second piece before deciding against it. Land was watching my reaction, and I gave him my best approval smile. “It was delicious. I don’t know how you could stay in such good shape if that was in your house growing up.”

Land finished his piece as well and swallowed the last of his wine before starting back to the papers again. I went through the permits, but as I suspected, there was nothing in the paperwork to tell me anything about the truck, its profitability or the murder. The truck was in shape and up to par. There had been no delays in the processing of the permits.

Land finished reading the papers about the same time as I did. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

I took a deep breath. I knew what I wanted, but of course, big changes in a thriving business are always scary. “As soon as I get the financials—and if they check out—I’m going to make an offer on the truck. I’ll start at the price that Janelle purchased for it, or maybe a little less. The financials should show me how much money she had to put into fixing the truck up for the inspections, but I have a feeling that the family will want to unload the food truck as quickly as possible. They didn’t seem very enamored of it.” I thought back to the sneers that Mrs. Nolan had given me when talking about food service and the trucks.

He nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me. Want to hear about the latest from Danvers?”

Of course, he hadn’t really needed to ask me. Land knew that I wanted to hear all the details about the murder case, especially if it could relate to our purchase of the truck. I nodded.

“So, now that Janelle is out of the loop. Danvers is trying to use the photos he took of the various couriers and identify them so we can continue the surveillance. Otherwise, he’s wants you to reopen that truck with a foreigner who might have sympathies to other countries.”

“Shouldn’t he have been doing that already?” I asked, thinking that the couriers and their associates should have been identified long ago so that the leaders of the operation could be discovered.

“Yes, but Danvers was concerned about digging too deep and alerting the couriers to the fact that they were being watched. So he did nothing. Now he’s trying to play catch up since there’s no other way to find out what back-up plans were put into place. It’s standard bureaucracy. Try something until it’s clear that it won’t work, and then try something else.”

I thought about Sam again and wondered if he had been photographed by the police. In all likelihood, he had been. He’d been at Janelle’s truck arguing about something while she was under surveillance. So perhaps my piece of information was worth more than I originally thought.

“So the foreigner,” I asked, putting the word in air quotes, “would be you?”

He nodded. “It would work out especially well if you end up buying the food truck.”

I puzzled for a minute. “That would mean that we’d have to keep gyros on the menu, or the truck would be unrecognizable. It would be weird to have a logo that has nothing to do with the cuisine. How do you feel about that?”

Land shrugged. “It does put me in a corner in terms of the fare, but I know some good lamb recipes. I could add some of those so that gyros are only one aspect of the cuisine. My mother had this lamb stew recipe.” He started into a recipe that would have never let you know that he was also talking about moving into a truck where the last owner had been murdered, or pretending to be part of an espionage ring.

Obviously Land had been thinking about this for a long time. I knew that he had insisted that my aunt had promised him the food truck, but she had left it to me in her will. So I knew he’d been thinking about this since before she had passed away. Yet the circumstances were not what he would have wanted. He’d be a sitting duck for agents from a foreign country with a menu he hadn’t designed. It was less than optimal from his perspective.

I pulled out a pad of paper to start making a list. Land knew I was serious about this, since I only made lists for things I absolutely wanted to get done. “So what all do we need to do to make this happen?”

“The truck is currently evidence in a murder case, so there’s that. Danvers would have to get it released. That might take some doing. I mean, it could still have some physical evidence in it that the police missed the first time through.”

I stopped writing. It was going to be a very short list if I had to rely on the kindness of Detective Jax Danvers. Usually he was warning me to stay away from open police investigations, lest I run across something that he’s missed. I could just imagine what he’d tell me if I wanted to buy the evidence in an open murder case. “I’m guessing the fact that it was the locked room where Janelle was found is going to make it that much more difficult to get released.”

He nodded, but his expression did not look defeated. “Absolutely. It just depends on how bad they want to close this other case.”

I looked up at him. “Are you really thinking that a spy case would be more important than a murder?”

He shrugged. “It’s possible. Part of it would depend on which agency would take the lead. The CIA would definitely be more interested in the spies as would the FBI. They’ve made deals with murderers to get information on another case of greater importance to them.”

I just sat there trying to imagine Land’s background that would include dealings with the FBI and the CIA. To me, he would always be this incredible chef, but I knew that he had a past—one that he refused to talk about personally. He would share details about the type of work he’d done, as he was doing now, but he would never breathe a word about how he’d been involved.

“If the murder was related to the spy case,” he continued, “definitely. You’re talking one person against the fate of a country or a city or a building. You don’t know what they have planned, so it’s not possible to put a death count on it. It could pose a major threat. Janelle’s murder is just one person, and she was part of the group who was involved in the major threat.”

I tried to understand what he was saying, but in my world, murder was the worst thing a person could do. One person or hundreds, it was still murder, and the killer needed to be brought to justice. Maybe that’s why I had such a need to help out on these investigations. I liked to see things put right and for justice to be served. I liked the thought that I was so civic minded, but I also knew a part of me wanted to show up Detective Danvers as well, since he was trying to keep me out of this matter.

“So what are our chances of getting the truck any time in the near future?” I asked.

Land shrugged. “When I work with the department, it’s always through Danvers. I have no idea what the rest of those department heads and supervisors would say about releasing a key piece of evidence to a civilian before they could bring a case to trial.”

I sighed. He was right about that. The defendant would not be able to examine all the evidence if Land had been cooking gyros in it for six months. “Either way, we need to solve this murder. If it’s not related to what Janelle was doing, then we need to solve it so that they’ll release the truck. Otherwise, we need to get them to release the truck so that it can work as a meeting place for the couriers.”

Land looked at me for a long moment. “So is this really going to happen?” he asked. “The truck?”

“Absolutely. I wouldn’t have started a list if I didn’t think it would,” I said with a smile. “But let me ask you a question. What do you know about Morocco?” I thought again about Janelle’s mother and the photos on the table.

Land’s eyes went wide. “Where exactly did that come from?” he asked. His tone was suddenly wary.

“I think that Janelle’s mother might be of Moroccan extract. She had a very beautiful exotic look to her, and I recognized the Moroccan flag in some of the photos in the house. I wondered if that might be the foreign country that Danvers was talking about.”

Land gave a long, low whistle. “The country in question is actually Algeria, which has had a running feud with Morocco for ages. Right now, you can’t even cross the border from one to the other. They’re having some squabble about the Western Sahara, as if you should fight about tons of sand.”

“So that’s a possibility?” I asked, feeling quite proud of myself. Who knew that college level geography classes could come in so handy?

Land moved his hand back and forth. “Maybe, but if it is true, then we have some serious issues. A Moroccan would never leak information to Algeria. If this is the case, then I’m thinking we might have a double-cross on our hands.”

I tried to follow his line of thinking, but he was making leaps of logic miles ahead of where I was. “So you think that if Janelle was passing information to Algeria, then she could have been falsifying it so that it would be worthless? That’s a hell of a motive for murder.”

Land agreed. She’d been playing a deadly game of espionage with people who were fighting with her and her family. It could easily have turned deadly…and we would be walking into the middle of that situation.