MURDER TO GO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 1) (7 page)

The second address led us to an apartment building. This area of town was less charming and more rundown than that of the late Mr. Jones. I wondered where my aunt would have met this other person. My aunt had been arty and eclectic. This neighborhood didn’t seem to fit the bill.

Still, I wanted to get this taken care of, so I rang the bell for Jim Boyko. I had noticed that my aunt had asked two men to sign her will. That seemed odd to me, as my aunt had always been surrounded by her group of female friends. She’d never remarried after Ralph. Most of her “couple” friends had fallen by the wayside, yet she’d asked two men with whom I was not familiar to witness the document. Why hadn’t she asked any of her friends to perform this important function during the last days of her life?

I rang the bell again. This time I held it down until I could hear it trill from inside the building. Land looked at me as if I were crazy. “Do you think he’ll hurry if you press it longer?”

“Maybe he’s in the shower,” I offered. I knew that I was being impatient, but at the same time, I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I worried that Boyko had met the same fate as the other witness to the will.

Land shrugged. “I’m thinking it’s more likely that he’s in the cemetery with his friend, witness number one. Maybe in more than one piece, like your friend the health inspector.”

He didn’t seem concerned about it. For me, I wanted this solved, so that my life could get back to normal, either as a truck owner or as the unemployed daughter of my parents. I felt a little sad that those were my only two options at this point. My generation had been promised so much more from a college education.

The third time that I pressed down on the bell, a woman came into the lobby and let us in. “What do you want from old man Boyko?” she asked. She was a heavy-set woman with curlers in her hair. I was shocked by the fact that there were still curlers in the U.S., and that she’d answer the door like that. The uneasiness at the pit of my stomach grew heavy as she looked from one to the other of us.

“I had a legal question for him, regarding my aunt,” I said, honestly but vaguely. “He could answer it in a minute if he would just talk to us.”

The woman cackled. “You’re going to need a Ouija board for that one. Boyko passed away two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks ago?” I had an idea forming in my head, and the outcome wasn’t nice. If the idea of the forgery was to ensure that we couldn’t get the witnesses to talk, then the will had been created sometime in the past two weeks and put into my parents’ home in even less time than that.

Fortunately, my parents were not big entertain-at-home types, so I could likely pare down the list of people who could have put the will into the book to less than a handful of fingers. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone had broken into my parents’ house as they had done to mine. I knew that in certain parts of the house, papers could be placed and no one would be the wiser. My mother had a very loose definition of housekeeping.

“Yeah, two weeks ago. I found his body. He was already cold when I got to him.” She coughed with a deep rattle that sounded like she might be next.

I nodded. “Can you tell me what he died of?”

Land poked me with his elbow, but I pushed him away. The woman wasn’t close to Boyko; she’d laughed at her own joke about his passing. I wasn’t going to offend her by asking a question that would save me hours of research. My head hurt and I was in a hurry.

“Cancer, pancreatic cancer. He’d been ill for a long time, and the doctors didn’t give him much time to live. It wasn’t a surprise at all. Were you two close to him?” She eyed us and noticed the poking and pushing between us. One of her eyebrows went up, which had the effect of making Land turn beet red. I tried not to snicker, seeing the big man look like a guilty schoolboy. Apparently, he didn’t think of me that way, and any suggestion otherwise made him uncomfortable.

“Not very. He was a friend of my aunt.” I had a sudden thought. “Would you have any samples of his signature? He witnessed a will, and I work for a lawyer who is trying to verify the witnesses. If Mr. Boyko isn’t around, I wondered if you had a sample of his handwriting that I could share with the lawyers.”

“When did he sign a will?” the woman asked. She narrowed her eyes to squint at me, as if she were committing my face to memory in case she had to testify about it later. I was afraid that a trial was an option now that I’d learned that the second witness was dead.

“The end of May,” I replied, thinking of the date on the will. “Does that matter?”

“Boyko was in hospice. He only had one visitor each week, the young man from the home care program. The kid brought in food and helped clean up the house. He didn’t leave the house. Hadn’t since he fell in February during that ice storm. So I’m not sure where he’d get the chance to sign a will. Don’t you have to do that in person?”

I nodded. “From what I understand yes.”

She paused and then held up a finger. “Wait here and I’ll be back.” She left Land and me standing in the entryway. He looked at me, but I looked away. Either he thought I was out to steal his truck, or he thought I was up to no good. Neither option was a good thing nor did I want to be reminded of them. He was already aware that I didn’t work for Mr. Huff, and yet I’d told this woman that I did. Land got a firsthand glimpse into how well I could lie in a pinch.

The woman came back to the entryway, carrying a sheet of paper. “This is a note he gave me one day, requesting some things from the store. He even signed it. This might help, but if I were you, I’d look twice at this will. No one came here to have him sign it.”

“Thank you for your time,” I said as I turned to leave. Land followed behind me.

We got back to his Camaro. He didn’t unlock the doors immediately, which left us to look at each other over the top of the car. “What’s up with this? Is this your idea of a joke?” I noticed that Land was always concerned about somebody making fun of him. Between being right and being respected, he didn’t leave much room for being fun.

“No, I’m getting the idea that this will was forged. The witness’ deaths were just too convenient, and now we hear that Boyko couldn’t have signed the will. I need to have someone take a look at this and tell me if the handwriting is really my aunt’s. Do you have any papers that I could use for comparison?”

Land nodded, but the sparkle that had been in his eye was gone—probably along with his hopes to own the food truck. It would seem this had been an elaborate hoax to get me out of the way by getting me away from the truck.

Land drove us back to the truck in silence. He managed to scrounge up a list of instructions my aunt had left him about closing the truck each afternoon. He gave it to me with a frown. “This should do it. Make a copy and give it back to me.” I wasn’t sure why he needed it. He had closing down to a science. For a second, I wondered if he was being sentimental about my aunt. After all, he’d worked with her for months, day in and day out. Perhaps he missed her too.

I nodded. I took the papers and headed home to find a handwriting analyst.

Finding a handwriting analyst proved more difficult than I had expected. The general public has little need for handwriting analysis. Either most of the experts are employed directly by the police, or they are consultants who charge exorbitant fees to testify as witnesses in a variety of civil and criminal matters. In the end, I had to pay another visit to Mr. Huff, who seemed less than pleased to see me again so soon.

“My dear,” he said as he shuffled to his desk. He waited to speak again until he’d settled himself in his chair. He leaned back so that he could see me out of his bifocals. His eyes looked split, the lower half larger than the upper. “Why exactly do you want a handwriting analysis done? I don’t think it would put you in a good light to be dabbling in a field closely related to the matter of the will.”

“I have a strong suspicion that the will was forged,” I said. I explained how both witnesses had recently passed away. If the culprit had forged the will and wanted to use the names of people that could not testify in court, then the will had been created within the past two weeks, long past the time of my aunt’s passing. I explained how Boyko had no visitors and had been comatose for the last several weeks. “There’s a strong case that he never saw my aunt. If he didn’t see her, then he couldn’t have signed her will.”

He nodded. Mr. Huff had sat up straight during my explanation. I must have gotten his full attention. “That certainly does put a different spin on things, especially the part about cancer. You do know that the police have been by here to ask about you. I had to tell them about the will and all. They were very interested to hear about that.”

I rolled my eyes. As if Danvers didn’t have enough to nail me with, now he knew about the possible new will. In his eyes, I would have killed people and hidden the will, which made no sense since it would not have given me the truck. I wasn’t sure what he’d say about the fact that I was actually the one who had turned the will over to the estate. That only served to make me more determined to prove that this was a fake will.

I was finally able to get the name of a reputable handwriting analyst in town, and Mr. Huff was even kind enough to pay for the service out of the estate funds. “After all, anything that would change the disposition of the estate would be of great interest to the estate.” He wrote a note to the man, explaining the payment option.

I wasted no time. I headed over to the office of the handwriting analyst. My head still throbbed, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to rest and close my eyes while this matter was still up in the air. Now that I’d seen a plausible alternate explanation, I wanted to prove it before others got involved. The more people who knew about it, the more speculation about my part in the recent murders there would be.

Of course, John Summers was incredibly good looking. That was just my luck. The person that I wanted to provide an expert opinion regarding some documents was attractive, which meant that I could never say “yes” to a date with him since it would look like I had conspired with him to fake the will. My life was becoming a minefield of men I couldn’t date after months of no prospects in sight.

Summers wore glasses that would have looked nerdy on someone less attractive. He had brown hair that nearly fell to his wide, muscular shoulders. He was wearing a button-down shirt and jeans that looked to have been tailor-made for his narrow waist.

He looked me over carefully before he spoke. Given that I’d spent the last several hours in a food truck making wieners with a concussion probably didn’t put me in my best light. It didn’t matter anyway since we had to remain professional. I’d save my best look for an eligible man.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

I explained that Mr. Huff had sent me regarding the matter of an estate and a possible new will. I produced the will and the handwritten instructions from my aunt along with the note from Mr. Boyko. “How long will this take?” I asked, checking my watch. I didn’t want to wait days to hear if I’d lost the truck. I wanted to get the pain over with now, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

“If you give me a few minutes, I can give you a preliminary result—if you’d like.” He gave me a smile revealing two rows of perfectly straight white teeth. Despite my appearance, once he heard the word ‘fee’ he’d become a perfect gentleman, which was fine with me. I could pretend the circumstances were better.

“That would be great.”

He led me down the hall to a small office. A large wooden desk dominated the room. The desk was cherry wood, but you could barely see the rich, dark texture due to the number of magnifying glasses, microscopes and other devices arranged upon it. He slid the two papers into a presentation device, and almost immediately, I could see both pieces on a screen at the opposite end of the room. At the magnified size, it was easier to see each curve of every letter. He adjusted the papers until he found a few words that were similar to my aunt’s signature on the will. He took a recording device and started to make comments into it. I understood next to nothing about what he said. I just stared at the two pieces on the screen. To my eyes they didn’t look that much alike, but then again, I wanted this to be so. Hoping and wishing do not make good witnesses in court.

Once he’d finished talking into the micro-recorder, he pushed the signature of Mr. Boyko under the presenter, replacing my aunt’s handwriting sample. He worked faster on this one, given that he only had two words to compare in this document. He finished and clicked off the recorder.

Finally, he took a deep breath and looked at me. “In a nutshell, and mind you that this is the quick version, the will was not signed by your aunt and it was not witnessed by Mr. Boyko. At this level of analysis, I can only guarantee that to about a 95% confidence level. I’ll have my report ready in two weeks with the final results, but I think you can count on my professional opinion that this will was forged.”

I sat down on the edge of the table. He shot me a dirty look, as if I could mess up his space, but I didn’t care. It felt as though the stuffing had been pulled out of me. I hadn’t been aware of how on edge I’d been about the whole matter. The truth was that I wanted the truck and the tie to my aunt. Now that it was back, and somewhat secure, I felt worn out. The roller-coaster ride of the past few days had caught up with me.

I thought he was going to have to carry me to the door, but I managed on my own two feet. I sat in the car for a long time before I drove home. I stumbled through the front door and managed to land on the bed.

When I awoke from my nap, I began to think about the will again. The question on my mind was
whom did the incident with the fake will serve
? My brain was trying to force all the facts into some kind of pattern, but everything seemed too random to be connected. The will mainly helped Land and his interests. He was the one who would receive the food truck and the resulting income. I lost money on the deal. No one else really gained from the change. Most of the other bequests had stayed the same. However, Land had followed along with my investigation into the matter. Was he just looking for a way to stymie the questions, or was he legitimately only interested in the correct will being probated? It was hard to say. He held so much in check behind that macho exterior that I couldn’t read his true opinions about most things. Sometimes he seemed like he genuinely liked my aunt—and me. At other times, he only seemed interested in getting away from me at all costs.

The murders were another matter. Someone had killed Fred Samples and the health inspector. Those murders both seemed tied to the food truck, or me particularly, but I couldn’t see how. Fred had a competing food truck, and the health inspector had held up my aunt’s permit for some reason.

I sighed. Maybe it was the concussion still at work, but it all felt so foggy. I suspected that I was still missing several parts of the puzzle that I was trying to solve. I wished I could find the other parts, but not at the expense of more people dying. I wasn’t sure what could possibly be so momentous in the food services industry that could possibly account for the deaths of two people.

I had deliberately put off any thoughts of my aunt’s death. The thought that someone may have killed my aunt, which led to my inheritance, and then tried to take it away from me, made no sense at all. Either they didn’t want her to have it, or they didn’t want either of us to have it. If that was the case, then I was back to Land again as a suspect. Much as I didn’t like him as a person, I couldn’t imagine him in the role of murderer.

With that disappointing lack of a solution, I decided to crash for the evening. It was only 8:30 p.m., but I had to be at the truck at my normal time tomorrow. The events of the last few days had left me worn out and I wanted to be fresh on my first day back.

Land was surprised to see me that morning. I’d picked up the truck and been at our new location a good 45 minutes before he arrived. I’d counted the money and had begun my preparations when he opened the door. I don’t know if he expected something different, but given the handwriting analyst’s testimony, I felt that it was best to continue things as they had been.

After a long pause, he said, “The will was a forgery then?”

I nodded. I was impressed with his mental acuity. He’d puzzled through the situation and come up with the only answer that made sense. I wondered what he thought of the killings. Maybe he’d come to some quick conclusions that I’d missed. I thought about asking him, but wondered if I would get a straight answer out of him.

I told Land about the handwriting analysis expert and his conclusions. He just nodded his head as I spoke. Without a word, he began to do his morning prep work, leaving me standing in the middle of the truck. No reaction—nothing. I knew how he felt, but I had hoped for some conversation with him, primarily to see if he had any notion of where the fake will could have come from.

The shift went quickly, and then we cleaned up. Land had probably only said three words to me in that entire time. I drove the truck back to the lot and went home. I knew that the police had warned me about meddling in an open police investigation, but no one could claim that my aunt’s death was an open investigation. The case had been closed and my aunt’s body had been released for burial. I could look into that matter without conflicting with the police. They had no interest in my aunt.

The issue bothered me. If the killer had wanted me to have the truck, then my aunt had died because of me. The thought of my playing any part in her death sickened me. I wanted that doubt removed from my mind. I wasn’t sure how to resolve the issue, but I knew that my natural curiosity would help me learn more.

I decided to start with papers. After all the violence and action I’d seen over the past few days, I wanted something that seemed entirely non-threatening. I’d had enough of headless corpses to last me a lifetime.

I started with my parents’ house again. They’d received the majority of Alice’s personal possessions, and they’d just incorporated many of those items into their home. I began with the books, taking each one off of the shelves and fanning it to look for papers. Of course, nothing else was there. I’d found the only item in the books, and after all my work the will had turned out to be a fake. It seemed like such a random way to get a will introduced into the case.

Next, I went downstairs. My mother followed behind me, drinking a cup of coffee without offering me one. “What exactly are you doing again?” she asked as she watched me cut open the top of a taped box.

“Looking for anything that could provide me with a reason why someone would want to kill Alice or why someone is after the food truck. Something is going on, and I have no idea what it is. I need more facts.” I was sweating by the time I opened the third box and started scanning the contents.

“What makes you think that it’s going to be in here?” my mother asked, leaning back in an old recliner that still sat in the basement. “No one has been down here in months. I’d think that if someone really wanted the papers, they would have come after them.”

I thought back to the forged will. Someone
had
been in my parents’ house, and I wasn’t sure what they’d taken, if anything. We certainly hadn’t noticed that someone had come into the house and stuck the will in a book. So they could have easily looked elsewhere for any papers they were interested in. We would never have known.

The only thing saving these papers was the fact that they’d been stored in sealed boxes. The boxes had no markings on the outside describing the contents. For all the intruders knew, these were artifacts of my parents’ lives. The shipping tape had not been cut or removed. The color and style were the same as the other boxes, so I knew that it hadn’t been replaced.

I was sad to think that the compilation of Alice’s whole life had been stuffed into so few boxes. She’d never been the type to be constrained. While my parents vehemently denied it, I had suspected that Alice had been involved in a same sex relationship after my Uncle Ralph passed away. Her friend Shirley had begun appearing at family events during the third year after Ralph’s death and had continued to participate in family events until Shirley’s death a few months before Alice’s own passing. In retrospect, the timing of their deaths seemed odd. At the time, one friend had suggested that Alice died of a broken heart, but I would never have put that suggestion to my mother. Now the circumstances looked far more sinister.