THE REAL GYRO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 4) (10 page)

I nodded. “That’s not much help at all, is it? So what now?”

“We’ve dusted the place for prints, but we’re not finding anyone’s other than Land’s and yours. So they must have worn gloves. We’ve pulled a few things for possible DNA testing, but I’m not hopeful. These people seemed to know what they were doing. They’re not going to just leave pieces of evidence around for us to find.”

Danvers yawned, not even bothering to cover his mouth. I thought back to the dapper man that I’d met so many months ago. He apparently lost his manners when he didn’t get enough sleep.

“So here’s the information I have. I’ve written it all down for you.” I spread out the financials that I’d been given by the Nolans just yesterday. It was hard to believe that so much had happened so quickly. “Two things caught my eye when I was going through this. First, Janelle was given a large sum of cash to start the business. There’s no indication of where she got it, but if what you said is true, it might be a pathway to find out who is supporting her. If they wanted the truck for a drop-off point, then they might have paid for the truck.”

Danvers nodded. “We can certainly take a look at her finances and see where the money came from. That shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Good,” I said, pushing the other papers in front of him. “She also makes a payment to an unnamed source every month. Four hundred dollars was wired electronically from her account on the 15
th
of each month. There’s no notation regarding its purpose or use.”

Danvers took a little time in glancing over that one. “Good, this is another lead we can follow up on.” He looked at the paper where I’d written it all down. “You didn’t make quadruplicate sets of these papers? The copy queen? You must be slipping.”

I hadn’t wanted to tell him the story of the theft, but under these circumstances, I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I told him the whole story about being knocked down outside and getting up to find that all the copies were gone.

“You should be happy that it was just that. Land had it much worse. I don’t know what they didn’t want you to find, but there must be something in the financials to warrant that type of behavior.” He leaned back on the couch as if to ponder life. “I wonder if the financials were what they wanted to get from Land as well. They’d likely know that you’d pass on any materials you’d gotten related to the food truck.”

I left him to think for a moment, cleaning up the mug of coffee and such. I deposited it all in the sink and returned. Danvers had fallen asleep on the sofa.

I tried to rouse him, but he didn’t budge. He was out. Shaking and shouting only made him turn away from me. Giving up, I brought out a pillow and a blanket. I tucked the pillow under his head and threw the blanket over him. Then I went to my own bed to sleep.

Sleeping with an unwanted guest in the house can be difficult. I tossed and turned most of the night. For starters, I was going into a work situation where Land was out of commission. This concerned me both as his friend and as his employer.

The thought that I could be spread too thin, having only Carter to help if we had two trucks, scared me somewhat. With Land out, the plans would be put on hold, since I wouldn’t have another person to manage the second food truck. I suddenly had worries about what I was doing.

The other part of my anxiety was the fact that Detective Danvers was sleeping like the dead in the next room. Granted that, like Land, he’d been working nights to keep tabs on Janelle Nolan, and later her apartment, but even so I was not looking forward to the awkwardness of the morning.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry. I dressed quickly and quietly in the morning, skipping a shower and buying coffee on the way to the secured lot to pick up the food truck. I had left a note for Danvers telling him where the coffee and extra towels were in the apartment.

I was setting up the coffee and the register when Land entered the food truck. I was gobsmacked. I hadn’t heard that he’d been released from the hospital; much less that he’d been planning on coming to work.

In spite of my best efforts to maintain a professional relationship with him, I ran over and threw my arms around him. To my surprise, he hugged me back. I’d expected a nonchalant rebuff, but Land had his arms around me and held on tight.

“Should you be here?” I asked finally after I let him go.

He shrugged, which was a much more Land-like thing to do. “They didn’t say not to.”

“Great,” I said, trying to play off my display of emotions casually. “If you pass out on the floor, try to do it in the corner, so I don’t have to step over you.”

He gave me a smile, which warmed my heart. I mentally cursed that four hours ago, I’d been staring at the ceiling wondering about what to do with the second food truck, and here was Land back and ready for work. I truly wished that I had those hours of sleep back.

Carter showed up a few minutes later. His eyes widened as he saw Land. He looked toward me. “I thought you said he was out today.” Carter was carrying a bag of groceries, which indicated where his mind was. I’d offered to let him make some new ingredients for coming in on his own, and yet Land had shown up for work. He was likely wondering the fate of his condiments.

“You’re still going to work today, Carter,” I said, taking control of the situation. “Land’s here, and he’ll help, but you’ll be in charge. This is like your dress rehearsal. So if you have the ingredients for some new condiments, go for it.”

The words seemed to energize him. Carter pulled out a large plastic bag that vaguely looked like blood. “What exactly is that?” I asked tentatively.

“My own recipe hot sauce,” he beamed. “I made it at home last night to save time. I brought it in and thought I could put it in one of the unused containers.”

Land took that as his cue, and he reached down into the cabinets on the right side of the sink. He moved slowly and deliberately. I was guessing that his macho stunt of coming in was not working as well as he’d thought it would.

“I’ll do that, and you can start on the rest of the condiments,” Land said. I knew he must not be feeling well, because he was talking in full sentences and playing well with others.

Carter, in a very judicious move, started making all of the standard condiments for the day, leaving his own until last. I liked that. Since he was the new guy on the truck, he was trying new things, but not forgetting the old. My nighttime worries were starting to fade somewhat.

Meanwhile, Land put the hot sauce in the plastic container. He allowed a few drops to land on his finger, and he nodded at me. The new condiments seemed to be a hit with the main chef. Of course within about 10 seconds, Land had to shuffle over and get a drink of water, but that was to be expected.

Carter ended by cutting up some onions and making caramelized onions for the other condiment. Land and he discussed a few minor changes to the dish, but Carter seemed pleased with the collaboration and the results.

I was so busy watching the two of them that I nearly forgot to open the window on time. There was already a line of people waiting to be served, and I didn’t get to see what was going on at the grill for a good half-hour.

The early morning rush is usually coffee, but a few people ordered hot dogs and complimented Carter on the new condiments. He beamed as he readied more dogs for the morning rush.

I continued working, and Carter kept up with the business. Land helped from time to time, but mostly he stood back and offered suggestions about the different aspects of the truck. The morning went smoothly, compared to the last few days of my life.

Danvers showed up around lunch. It was more than a little obvious to me that he hadn’t showered at my apartment. He had a couple of places where bed head was pretty visible. I thought about pointing them out, given how much pride he put into his appearance.

Land gave him a hard look. “You didn’t go home last night.”

It was a casual sentence, offered without judgment, but Danvers turned beet red. “Long night,” he replied, trying to look cool under the heavy blush. It wasn’t working. He looked like a school kid who had been busted for missing curfew. Carter gave Danvers a few odd looks but kept working. “Apparently, you did though,” Danvers said, trying to switch the conversation away from his own nighttime activities.

“They let me go. The nurse told me that I wasn’t a good patient.”

Danvers looked him over. “How are you feeling?”

“Good enough to come in, but not good enough to stay up all night, if that’s what you’re asking,” Land replied. I was glad. I would have worried even more if I thought he was continuing with the late night police work.

Danvers nodded. “We’re shutting down the surveillance per se. The family has allowed us to put in motion detectors and cameras in the apartment, so we’ll have the whole thing covered.”

“It almost sounds like you’re giving up,” Land said, again without judgment in his voice. I wanted to learn how to do that. When I tried to make an announcement like that, it always sounded preachy.

“We’re taking on some different tacks.” He turned to look at me. “Do you still want that food truck?”

I gasped. Land looked at me like a kid at Christmas. Even Carter had stopped cleaning. He knew that his long-term career here was based on getting a second food truck.

“I guess so,” I replied, trying to sound cool. I was glad that I wasn’t the one at the hospital, because my heart rate had just shot to the sky.

“Here’s the deal. The forensics team finished a second walk through of the crime scene. They found nothing to help them there. As a result, we want to use the food truck as a possible drop point for more intelligence on the situation that we spoke about earlier. Land can do it without problems. He knows the ropes. The truck would be yours for now, but obviously, if anything goes down at that truck, it would become evidence again. We’d have to confiscate it.”

I nodded. I didn’t like the sound of that. I needed to think about the cost of retaining the truck if we were not being able to use it for months as we waited on a trial. That could be a big drain on the business. I knew I’d have to steer the investigation away from the food truck if possible.

Land spoke up. “That won’t happen. I personally guarantee that the truck won’t be materially involved in this sting operation.”

I felt calmed by his words, but I highly doubted that they were true. If these people were dropping off the papers to Land, then storing them at the food truck would seem to be the natural thing to do. All of that could easily lead to the new food truck being confiscated.

I nodded. “We’ll do it and worry about that later.” I tried to channel some of my business school professors as I spoke, hoping that they would have made the same decision to expand the business.

Danvers held out a hand for me to shake. I looked at him for a second. We’d gone from kissing to yelling to sleeping over—albeit chastely—and now he wanted to shake hands? What was his problem?

After making him wait a few long seconds, I finally grabbed his hand and shook. “The higher ups at CCPD will be happy to hear this. They’ve been on my case to break this wide open, and I can’t. I don’t have any leads.”

Land spoke. “So before we go too much further, what are the terms of the deal? If I’m expected to work for you as well as work for the truck, then there should be some consideration of this in the deal.”

Danvers and I said at the same time. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, we know what the truck sold for a few months ago. That should be the starting price for negotiations. However, since I’m the one who is going to be in the most danger, I thought that my work could be compensated by the police paying a small part of the truck’s asking price as payment for my services. In that way, I’d be a part owner of the truck. Maeve could put up the rest, and then we could get started on finding out who is behind this.”

Apparently someone had been thinking about this for a while. I was concerned about the transaction. As it stood, I was the boss. If I took this deal, then we would be partners and with two partners, a draw could easily occur. We were two people with strong opinions about most everything.

Finally, I spoke. “What type of a percentage are you thinking?” I knew I should get my facts straight before I unilaterally nixed the idea.

“One quarter. You’d still be the boss, which is what you were indirectly asking,” Land replied. I didn’t like it when he knew me that well, but he was right.

“I can live with that,” I said. If, for any reason, I was knocked on the head, it would be nice to have a minority stakeholder in the business to keep it running. I knew that Land and my parents would do their best. However, Land would not have any authority to sign checks and such.

Danvers looked at us. “So it’s a deal? Everybody’s happy and warm and fuzzy? I can tell my bosses that you’re good to go.”

I nodded. Just for that last crack, I reached out and patted a patch of hair that was standing up. “You really should do something about this. You must not have slept well last night.”

I left him blushing while I grabbed my cellphone from my bag and dialed my banker.

The process for getting the second truck up and running was far smoother than it had been the first time around. Granted, I was purchasing a food truck and not inheriting it from a relative. So that was different.

However, the banks were willing to offer me a loan at a better than average rate. Within a week, I had the loan and within two weeks I had the truck. My work on the truck was much better than any work I’d done on the investigation.

During that time, I had spent a lot of time talking to the Nolans. On occasion, I would call and ask for something else from Janelle’s truck or estate just to keep the lines of communication open. It shocked me that they agreed to all of the conditions I set. I probably could have gotten the drapes from her bedroom if I’d tried, but I felt that was pushing it a bit.

I had several opportunities to talk to the family about the funds for buying the food truck. However, both Mr. and Mrs. Nolan professed no knowledge of where the money had come from. Likewise, they were surprised to learn that Janelle had been paying $400 a month to an unknown entity. The only person I didn’t talk to was Janelle’s brother, who was conspicuously absent from the home whenever I was there. I did learn that he’d taken his own apartment, but without an address, I would be hard-pressed to talk to him about any knowledge he had of Janelle’s business. I wanted to find out more about the rest of the family, but that was turning out to be difficult. They were very reserved, unlike my own chatty, no boundaries family.

“You’re accusing her of bad things,” Mrs. Nolan had told me during one interview. She hadn’t liked my questions about the mysterious funds.

I tried to glaze over it with a lie. “Not at all. I’m just trying to make sure that I have all the bills covered. If this is something that I need to pay, I don’t want to overlook it in my budget, or worse yet, default on something.”

Mrs. Nolan seemed slightly mollified. “I don’t think it’s a business expense. Janelle had very specific accounts set up in Quicken for each one, and this one doesn’t have an account. So we don’t know.” I was surprised at the depth of knowledge Mrs. Nolan had about the accounts. I doubted that my mother could have told a stranger anything about my business, much less what software I used to run the business. If she knew this much about Janelle’s business, I suspected that she knew more about the suspicious funds.

The police had not come up with anything either. The money had come from a cash deposit, made by Janelle the day of the purchase. Janelle had not made any attempts to hide a deposit of $25,000, which would have alerted some agencies to the transaction. However, nothing seemed to have been done about the transaction. I wondered if a federal law enforcement agency had allowed the transaction to see what would happen with the transmission of information between here and Morocco.

Of course, Danvers had only shared a fraction of this information. His mood had been fairly distant since he’d woken up at my apartment without me there. Land had apparently heard more about the situation and communicated it to me.

The account that received the money from Janelle was a Cayman Islands account with no responsibility, so while the police could find out more about the bank, they still had no idea who was behind the account. Danvers had plenty of speculation about the recipients, but nothing concrete. I had personally offered to go there and look into the matter, but Danvers just rolled his eyes at this suggestion.

As for the murder, the police were still stuck on the point that no one could get in or out of the truck without a key. The Nolans had turned over a key to me when we closed on the food truck, but that was likely Janelle’s key, so there was nothing to be proved by that.

Sam had also been missing over the past two weeks. I’d tried to set up another “date” to see what I could learn, now that I knew he’d dated Janelle, but he always had plans or just didn’t bother to answer his phone. I felt rather jilted, even though I hadn’t wanted him for myself. He should still be anxious to go out with me.

Land was recovered enough to be arguing about the cuisine of the food truck again. I half expected him to just do what he wanted, even without my approval.

“The problem we have is that I have ingredients coming for the next month or so. I wouldn’t know what to do with all of this if we don’t serve at least some of the original menu,” I’d argued. Indeed, Janelle had made some standing orders for six months, which seemed overly optimistic given that many restaurants close up in the first few months. It locked me in at a particular rate, which seemed reckless, given that the price could easily decrease over the next half year.

“I can work around that for now. I know I can.” He began rattling off a list of recipes that I’d never heard of, so the argument was somewhat lost on me. I half-suspected that he did that on purpose.

His arguments came down to three points, which were all valid. Since we were tied into these contracts for certain food items, we had to either keep the existing menu, shift it to something that could use lamb and some of those spices, or attempt a new and unfamiliar menu that used those items. He made an obvious case against the entirely new menu. No one wanted to learn how to cook dishes at the same time you were serving them for the first time. Word of mouth about uncertain dishes would be the death of a food truck.

So the debate came down to either keeping the original menu or moving to Basque cuisine. I argued that I wanted to change as little as possible, but he argued how well the menu had been received when he’d done a special prep of Basque food for Dogs on the Roll. I hated to admit it, but he was right. That day had netted us one of our highest volumes of all time.

In the end, I let him try the Basque cuisine. I knew he had nothing to do with it, but Basque food was all the rage in the market these days. So mixing trendy with the wholesome fare of Dogs on the Roll seemed like a good fit. Both would serve similar coffee, which would cut into the profits somewhat, but the main fare would be different enough not to pull clients from our existing truck.

I was pleased with the decision, though I put up a tough fight so that Land wouldn’t think I was a pushover in matters of business. He knew the cooking side far better than I did, but I wanted to ensure that I kept control of the business end of the food trucks. He would have gladly spent all the profits in order to make the dishes just so.

We did both agree on Basque in the Sun for the name of the renovated food truck. People might groan a little over the pun, but clever wordplay was often well received in the food service industry. The truck was quickly repainted to have a giant sun on the side along with the new name.

Finally the new food truck was ready to open. Given the truck’s rather bloody recent history, we decided to do a cold opening first. So, on Monday morning Land rolled the truck up to the place where Janelle had parked before her demise and set up shop for the day. It was odd to watch it open, knowing that I owned it.

Even though Carter had been hired to work with me, we decided that he would be better suited to work with Land for the first two weeks. Land would need help in getting over any particular bumps in the road, whereas things at Dogs on the Roll were fairly steady. Carter could fetch things from the original truck or run to the store if need be.

However, that meant that I had to get the truck, do the prep work as well as my own work, and both serve and take money. Over the first few days of that first week, I felt more exhausted than Danvers and Land had looked during their surveillance.

Basque in the Sun had a different schedule than Dogs on the Roll. I was still on the early shift, bringing in the early commuters and people in need of a caffeine fix. The other food truck opened around 10 a.m. and stayed open until four. Land counted the money around the end of my shift, and the remaining cash, from late sales that day, was left in the drawer for the next day. Basque cuisine was not particularly mouth-watering at eight a.m. People can wolf down a hot dog as breakfast, but a lamb stew or fish entrée was less likely to be eaten before lunch. They stayed open long enough to catch the people leaving work that wanted something to take home with them.

Yet every day when I took approximately double the amount of money to the bank, I felt refreshed. The new truck was doing well. It had exceeded my estimates for the first month—or any of the first twelve months—of being open. The food was delicious. Carter was doing well at both cooking and taking orders.

The only issue was that we still had not come up with any information on the espionage ring or the murder of Janelle Nolan. I wasn’t allowed to just bask in the glory, pardon the pun, because Detective Danvers stopped by every day to ask where things stood. When he didn’t get the answer he wanted from me, he sauntered over to the other truck to ask them as well.

To be honest, no one had approached Land at all regarding documents or being a courier for the Moroccan people in regards to the situation in North Africa. All was quiet on the food truck front.

I still hadn’t learned anything else about the financials either. It frustrated me to think that the answers to these questions were just a few interviews away, if I knew whom to ask, but other than the Nolans, I had no one to query. I couldn’t even get in touch with Janelle’s brother. His number was unlisted, and I couldn’t think of a good reason to ask the Nolans for his number. All of the participants in this were in the shadows, and I didn’t have a way of learning anything about them.

Finally on that first Friday, we had an opening celebration for the new food truck. I had promoted the new truck heavily in the newspapers and on the TV news, hoping to get more people to come and see us. I had some hope that if I ratchetted up the profile of the food truck, then someone would take notice of us.

The day went as planned. The food truck had a line halfway down the block, and the orders were done quickly. Some of my customers even went over to the other truck and tried the cuisine. I wasn’t too worried about most of my customers defecting because they still thrived on the coffee I provided at 6 a.m. They’d have to wait until 10 for the other truck’s coffee, and most of my customers would have killed three people if they had to wait an additional four hours to get their fix.

I closed up a bit early and left a sign suggesting that anyone could find me at the other truck. I didn’t plan on making a habit of leaving this food truck unattended. I had no desire to see my income drop back down to its previous level. We had opened the second truck so that we could double the income, and even though the work was tough, I wanted to succeed.

Yet I was also human, and the thought of being left out of all the excitement at the other truck finally got to me. I headed over there to see what was going on.

Land was the first to spot me in the crowd. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the other truck?” he chided. He was more concerned that I would stop working on our original truck and return to our old arrangement of me boss, him employee.

“I told the customers to come over here. It’s just for today. I thought I deserved a day to enjoy the fact that this dream had finally come true.”

Carter looked out the window at the line. “I think we have a success here.”

I nodded. The line was growing as we spoke, so I hopped up into the truck and took over the customer end of the business so that both men could cook. I was almost giddy from the sales we were making. The cash register rang constantly.

The success was all I could think about until Sam stepped up to the window. “Hey, Maeve. I didn’t expect to see you here. How have you been?”

I was more than a little annoyed at the fact that here was the man who had been telling me he was too busy to see me, waiting in line for some Basque food at noon on a Friday. However, he was a customer, followed in line by 50 other customers, so I had to keep it pleasant. “Well, I told you I had a food truck, and we’re expanding.”

He half-grunted a response. “Wasn’t there some guy in the interview I saw?” There was almost an implication that if he’d seen me, he would have skipped this opening. I knew that he wasn’t the one for me, but even so, I wondered what I’d done to get the cold shoulder like this. I’d run through our encounters several times, but I couldn’t think of any moment that would have evoked this reaction.

I still had to play it sweet. “That’s Land. He’s the cook and minority owner of this truck. He’ll be running it while I take care of the original truck.”

Sam stuck his bottom lip out as if he was thinking—or pouting. “I’d heard that this was Janelle Nolan’s truck before you guys bought it.”

Now things were getting interesting. None of the interviews had mentioned that, and I certainly hadn’t played up the dead owner angle when I sent out the print ads. I decided to play dumb and stammered, “Yeah, but how—?” I let the sentence trail off.

Sam paused for a moment. I had apparently caught him in a story that he hadn’t prepared for. “I think someone must have told me,” he replied, hoping to get out of it.

“The Nolans?” I asked blandly, not letting him know that I was privy to such information. “They’ve been very helpful about selling the truck.”

He nodded. “Maybe it was the Nolans. I can’t remember.”

The line was backing up, and Sam’s food was prepared, so I rang him up and moved on to the next customer. I did notice that he left a five dollar tip in the jar, but I wasn’t thrilled by that. I would much rather have had answers to a tip. The tip just reminded me that our relationship had gone from occasional outings to food service customer.