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

As much as I didn’t want to interact with him, I called Detective Danvers. While he was currently annoying me with his secrecy and his attitude toward our
moment
, he was a good detective who knew his way around a homicide scene. I had to admit to myself that I thought this was likely the scene of a murder, and he was the man to call about it.

I knew my way around a crime scene too. I stood back and motioned for Carter to step away. Then I dialed Danvers’ number and waited. He picked up with a charming, “What?”

I explained the situation, and after he finished calling me the Typhoid Mary of homicides, he said he would be right there.

Given the locale, he was being literal. Within two minutes, he was striding across the government plaza. He saw us standing by the truck and walked up to where we stood. “Well?” he asked, almost accusing us of ruining his day in one word. I knew that he had to be tired, so I cut him some slack about his attitude.

“There is some fluid leaking from the truck. I thought it was oil, but it has the color of blood to it. The truck’s closed up, and I don’t see the keys, so I called you to check it out.” I pointed to the spot on the ground where I’d seen the liquid. The pool of dark liquid had grown since I’d looked at it last. Given that we’d heard nothing from inside the truck, a growing pool of blood was not good news.

Danvers knocked on the door, identified himself, and waited. No response came from inside. He walked around the truck, tugging and yanking on doors and windows, trying to get the truck open. No luck.

He checked above the visor and under the floor mats. He slid a hand into the pouches in the door and looked in the console of the dash as well. All of those places did not have keys in them.

He repeated the process again before he motioned to Carter. “If this is like Maeve’s truck, two men should be able to yank hard enough to get the window to pop up. I don’t see any external locks, so it’s relying on a single latch lock inside.”

Carter nodded, and on the count of three, they tugged on the window. It moved but didn’t break free. I looked up into the truck from the sliver of an opening between the counter and window. “There’s a padlock on the inside,” I said.

Danvers sighed and called for backup. “I was really hoping not to have to do this,” he said. “I’m really hoping that there’s a simple explanation for this. I don’t think I can deal with this.”

“There is a very simple explanation for what’s going on, but you’re not going to like it,” I responded.

He snorted. “Locked rooms only occur in your mystery stories. People don’t go to these lengths in real life.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” I replied. And we did. A crime scene crew showed up in about ten minutes. There was some haste to the matter, since Janelle or someone else could still be alive in the truck, though incapacitated. The faster they could get inside, the quicker she could get treatment.

The team took a crowbar to the door and pried it open. They hadn’t needed to hurry. Janelle was lying in the middle of the prep area floor, shot through the forehead.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to look at her in that state. I got the message from the crime scene crew who came out of the truck. One of the women shook her head in my direction. Carter was turning a dangerous shade of pale, and I suggested that we go sit down on one of the benches that line the perimeter of the plaza.

He didn’t speak as we sat down though he watched the crime scene squad begin their routines. I tried to make small talk with Carter, but he merely stared off into the distance as if he didn’t hear me. His actions told me that whatever he and Janelle had talked about, it wasn’t just a job offer he’d declined. Carter seemed genuinely upset that she was gone.

I decided to call Land. I wanted to hear his take on the subject, and a part of me wanted to ensure that he had an alibi for today. Normally he was the non-suspect when a murder occurred. He was either at the truck or with me. Today he’d been sleeping, and I wasn’t sure if he’d been at his place alone.

He picked up on the third ring. His voice was thick with sleep, so I deduced that he’d been there alone. Anyone else in his place would have answered the phone for him. So much for having an alibi. “Yeah?”

“Sorry, Land. You know I wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency, and this is.” My voice sounded strained—even to me. I guessed that I was more upset about this than I was letting on.

“What happened? Are you okay?” he said, sounding much more awake.

I appreciated his concern. It was the first time since this had started that anyone had questioned how I was doing. “I’m fine. I just discovered the body, or rather the blood, when I went to talk to Janelle about something.”

“What were you talking to Janelle about?” Land queried. His voice sounded alert and interested now. I wondered what about Janelle had evoked such a response. He had been worn out a few minutes ago.

“She was trying to poach Carter. I wanted to tell her that he was off-limits.” I had nothing to hide from Land, though he didn’t feel the same about me. For once, I didn’t care. I just needed someone to talk to.

He just grunted. “Give me 20 minutes and I’ll be there, okay?”

I agreed and hung up. Carter was still looking off into the distance. “Are you doing okay?” I asked him, putting my hand on his arm.

“Huh? Yeah, it just wasn’t what I was expecting when you came over here. I can’t believe she’s really dead.” Carter looked at the food truck, where a covered gurney was now being removed from the truck.

I knew that if the body was being removed, that Danvers would have little reason to stay. He’d leave the rest of the work to the crime scene people. I was hoping that Land would get here before Danvers started in on me. He had been none too pleasant lately, and I was more upset than I’d like to admit about this. Janelle had annoyed me, but I had never wished her dead. Still Danvers would likely try to make a case against me, just because it was the easiest route at this point, and he was bone-tired.

Danvers came out of the truck about the same time that Land arrived. He was unshaven, but he looked much better than he had for days. His eyes were open, and the dark circles under his eyes had receded. He had very apparently been using his sick time to sleep.

Detective Danvers barely nodded at him as Danvers approached. I wondered again what would bring these two men together to work on a case. Was it espionage or a serial killer? It had to be something important if they had put aside their personal animosity to join forces.

“So why were you pounding on Janelle Nolan’s truck today?” Danvers asked without preamble. He stared at me as if he was really thinking of arresting me for this. “It wasn’t like you two were friends.”

I explained the situation briefly. Janelle had tried to poach my new employee. I was just telling her to back off and leave my business alone.

Danvers nodded. “So you were angry with the victim?”

“Angry is a strong word. I’d say annoyed.” I took a deep breath and tried to forget that he was putting words into my mouth.

“You’re not a thesaurus. This is a murder investigation,” he said with force. “You went inside of the cab, right?”

I nodded and explained that we’d wanted to open the doors, but we couldn’t find the keys. About halfway through my narrative, a thought began to dawn on me. The keys were not outside the truck when we looked for them. “Did you find a set of keys on Janelle? Did she have them?”

The look that I received from Danvers told me all I wanted to know. The keys had been inside the prep area with Janelle. That meant that I had stumbled across a locked room murder, an enclosed place where all the points of entry were closed and locked from the inside. This case would be a struggle for the police, who liked a good shooting where the shooter and the gun were still standing over the victim. Something this complex was likely to stump them, meaning that Janelle’s murder would go unsolved.

Even though I really hadn’t liked her, I didn’t want the woman to die without closure, especially for her family’s sake. I hated to think that she would be marked up as a statistic in the unsolved murder category. No one’s life should be dumped in the trash heap of crimes.

“What about duplicates of the keys?” I asked. It seemed the most reasonable explanation for the exit of the killer, assuming that Janelle had not killed herself. She didn’t seem the type of remove herself from the world.

“It’s possible,” Danvers conceded, “but who else would have a copy? She worked alone so there was no other person who needed them.”

I thought of my own circumstances. I needed multiple copies of the key, so that Land could keep a set. My parents had another set, in case they ever needed to get inside or if I managed to lock myself out somehow. The need for that level of security was minimized by our use of a secured parking lot where we stored our truck overnight. I wondered where Holding out for a Gyro had been stored at night. If it was outside or on a street, then a more secure key system would have been needed.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know her that well. Carter?” I asked, thinking that she might have made another set of keys for an associate.

“Huh?” he managed. He still didn’t look good. His pallor and demeanor suggested that he wasn’t cut out for what had become a way of life around the food truck.

“Did Janelle mention a second set of keys when she interviewed you?” I asked again.

“Like I told you, she really didn’t interview me as such. She just offered me a job based on the fact that you’d thought I was a worthy candidate.” He only looked at Danvers as he spoke. I could see a few beads of sweat on his forehead. It was late spring, but nowhere near sweating weather. I wondered what he was so afraid of.

Land raised an eyebrow at me, and I nodded to let him know that I already knew this. He turned and looked at Danvers, “So what’s your next step here?” His tone sounded like a superior talking to an underling, and again I wondered what their relationship had been in the past. Why Danvers took orders and this tone from him?

Danvers sighed. “We’re going to start looking at known associates. I want to know more about how she got this food truck. Maybe she bought it in a police auction,” he said, throwing a look my way. My aunt and her partner had bought the food truck at a police auction and refurbished the truck to become their business.

I ignored Danvers’ jab at me. I had wondered how Janelle had gone from wanting a job on my truck to having her very own food truck as well. It seemed like a large leap from entry-level work to owner of her own business. I didn’t know if she had family with money or if she’d financed the business. I had doubts that a bank would loan a young unemployed woman the cash to purchase her own truck, so the money had to come from somewhere.

“Sam,” I said to Danvers and Land.

They both looked at me strangely, and given the fact that I hadn’t made much sense, I could understand. I explained the situation with the fix-up date and how I’d seen Sam talking to Janelle the next day. “Maybe he knows something that could help explain her death,” I suggested.

I wasn’t much help beyond that. I didn’t have a last name or a phone number for the man, just a first name. I told Danvers that I would call my mother and find out his contact information. Danvers went back to the crime scene to talk to the medical examiner, who had been taking notes while sitting on another bench closer to the food truck.

“Sorry to have to wake you up,” I said to Land. “Are you feeling better? Will you be at work tomorrow, or will you be up all night again tonight?”

He gave me a strange look, probably puzzling over how I knew he’d been up all night. I thought it a valid assumption, given how tired he was. Land didn’t need to know that he’d been followed. “I’ll be at work tomorrow. No problem.”

I smiled. “Good. Are you sure, or should I have Carter as a backup?”

Land didn’t speak for a moment, looking at me in an odd manner before he spoke. “I won’t be having any more late nights. I was on a surveillance team, keeping an eye on Janelle Nolan with Danvers, but I don’t think we’ll need to follow her anymore.”

My eyes went wide and my mouth dropped open. “What? Why?”

Land gave me that characteristic smile of speaking to a small child. “I was asked to be a part of a team to keep an eye on her. There were some rumors about her political affiliations outside of this country, and the police wanted to keep an eye on who she met with.” He rubbed his eyes as if the conversation had brought to mind those late nights, and then ran a hand over his thickening beard.

“So Janelle was a spy?” I knew that I hadn’t liked her, but I had no idea that she’d been an enemy agent.

“Nothing at all like that. You have a very odd notion about how certain things work in real life. She was most likely a courier who passed information back and forth to other parties; parties that are trying to do damage to the sanctioned government in her country. She was only a conduit, and likely had no idea about the bigger plans of the people involved.”

I nodded. I could see someone becoming involved in what they thought was good work with a country only to learn that they were supporting terrorism. “Do you think that’s why she was killed?” I asked, intrigued by the intrigue. “Her involvement against a government?”

Land shrugged. “It seems pretty convoluted for a political killing. They’d be more likely to have slit her throat in an alley or hired a sniper. This doesn’t fit their normal pattern. A bullet at point blank range seems to indicate a more personal killing, which is why Danvers was asking all those questions. He’s looking for a motive that’s more close to home.”

I looked over to where Danvers was conversing with the ME. “Does he know that you’re telling me all this? I doubt that he’d approve of your sharing spy stories.”

Land sighed. “Again, not spy stories, and yeah, he knows. I called him after you called me and told him that I was going to tell you everything. He objected a little, but I think only because his job demands that he keep civilians out of the way.”

“Like you?” I asked with a smirk.

“It’s not quite the same. I’m a consultant on this project, so I’m not exactly civilian, but I’m not exactly police either.” He looked at me with a stony face that didn’t tell me anything beyond the words he’d said. So he was actually in a semi-official position with the police. The situation had to be dire if they were hiring outsiders to help with a case.

“So besides the fact that you’ll be at work tomorrow, what else should I know about this?”

“I’m sure you’re going to stick your nose into the Sam angle and learn about where she got the food truck. So I figure those are covered. I’ll keep my eyes open to anything going on with this other business too. Then we can compare notes. I’m honestly thinking that you’re going to come up with more answers than I will on this case. I can’t imagine that Danvers is going to share much with me beyond this point since my services are no longer needed here.”

I nodded. Danvers could ask a lot of the people around him, but he played his cards close to his chest. I wasn’t sure if this was because he didn’t trust anyone or because he didn’t want anyone else to get any credit for his work. In either case, he could be quite closemouthed at times. I had no doubt that Land was right about the lack of information coming from the police.

Carter was still looking ill, so I called him over to tell Land about the pineapple salsa. He perked up, talking about the ingredients and the taste. Land made a few suggestions about possible spices to add to the condiment for Carter’s next attempt at it. They chatted merrily away about other possible new condiments, and I was glad to see that Carter had been distracted by the work.

Land was right about one thing. I knew that I could handle some things right away. I finally ushered Carter away from Land, and we headed back to the truck. I got in, took the money to the bank, and headed back to the secured lot. I had wanted to make sure that I got the deposit in for the day since I was running late. I made a mental note to check on Janelle’s cash on hand. I wondered if it had been taken or if it had still been in the truck. It could eliminate robbery as a motive if the killer had left it there.

After I got home, I called my mother. I had to work delicately, since I didn’t want her to get too excited about a future for Sam and me. I just needed contact information so that I could ask him about his relationship with Janelle.

My mother answered almost immediately. I made small talk for a few moments, if you count telling her about a murder as a conversation icebreaker. My mother dances between wanting to know all the details and telling me to be careful.

In the end, I didn’t even have to bring the subject up. “Have you heard from Sam yet?” my mother asked me.

“I don’t see how that’s possible, since he doesn’t have my phone number,” I answered, knowing where this was going. I was doing my own dance between being annoyed and wanting the information.

“He called the following day and asked for your number. That’s odd. He seemed so anxious to talk to you.” If my calculations were correct, my mother was talking about the day after when I’d seen Sam talking to Janelle. I now wondered if he’d seen me as I had noticed him. That might account for him wanting to talk to me now. However, the odd thing was that he hadn’t followed through on this. I had a strange feeling that it might be due to Janelle’s death—or perhaps I was just shaken by what I’d seen today. I wondered if Sam had learned of Janelle’s death yet, and if he’d felt anything about her demise.

I chatted with my mother for a while longer and then hung-up. I thought about calling Sam immediately, but I didn’t want to be the one to have to inform him about the murder, especially if they were in some way close.

My mind traveled back to what Land had said. Perhaps they weren’t close; they could’ve just been working for the same courier service. That would make Sam more dangerous to me, if he suspected that I was interested in him regarding information on Janelle. Land had been right about one thing, I had a vision of spy work that looked more like James Bond than real life.

In the end, I opted to call and play dumb. While I hated the stereotype of the dumb woman, it was the best ploy I had here. I didn’t have enough information to play the role of someone who knew more about the murder than she was willing to share.

Sam picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Maeve. How are you? I had actually gotten your number a few days ago—from your mother. I was going to call.”

I wondered for a moment why men made this statement when it was so obvious that nothing was farther than the truth. Granted, I hadn’t dated much since I’d been working at the food truck. My nights usually ended around nine, which wasn’t conducive to late night meals and long talks on the phone. Most men typically wanted to stay out later than eight on a weeknight unless it meant being in bed. Yet even though it had been almost a year since I’d been active in the dating pool, the lines that men used were still the same. I wondered if they all used the same book to come up with these things, or if they were passed down from generation to generation like some ritual on how to get out of embarrassing moments with a woman.

“That’s great,” I lied, thinking that probably I was no better than men were in this situation.

“Would you like to get a drink tonight?” he asked.

I went through my normal spiel about getting up at the crack of dawn to work, but I agreed to get an early meal with him. We arranged to meet at one of the nicer places in Capital City for drinks and dinner in an hour. I was impressed with the choice of restaurants he’d suggested and hoped that he didn’t want me to pay. I was doing well, but not that well.

Sam was at least courteous enough to be on time. He met me at the door to the restaurant exactly one hour later. He had on a shirt and tie. The clothes were tailored and showed off a nice physique. While I still wasn’t really interested in him as a date, I had to concede that my mother did well at picking men for me. They were never the couch potato types.

We didn’t have much of a wait because of the time. Maybe the seniors were onto something. I was enjoying being on the other end of the food service chain for once. I ordered a martini, and we agreed on a cheese and fruit tray for an appetizer.

He grinned at me as he took a healthy swig from his Manhattan. “So I have to ask. What made you call me? I had the distinct impression that I’d struck out the other night. You looked like you wanted to be anywhere but there.”

I laughed, only because the truth wouldn’t get me what I wanted here. I had been bored and unhappy over the fix-up date. I still was wary, but now for different reasons. Sam had gone to Janelle Nolan’s food truck for a meeting, and I wanted to know what it was about. “I was mostly just surprised. My mother didn’t mention it to me until I showed up at her house. So I had to deal with the shock on top of a long day at work. I told you about my food truck, right?”

Sam had been given multiple opportunities to share his information. I specifically mentioned my truck and where it was parked as we chatted. I talked about the new condiments being added, and I talked about the work itself. None of this evoked a response out of Sam. He just nodded and smiled at me.

Despite Land’s comments about quickly finding out about the nature of the meeting between Sam and Janelle, I didn’t want to rush this. Given that he’d ignored many chances to speak openly about the topic, I wasn’t sure that I’d get an honest response from him. Likely, at some point, he’d come up with a story to tell me about how he knew Janelle or how they’d met. I was going to have to do something more if I was going to learn what was going on with Sam.

The meal ended, and I was pleased, for some reason, that Sam paid. We made our way to the door and left the restaurant. It was still only seven o’clock, so I could get ready for work the next day and not be sleep deprived like Land would be. Sam walked me to my car.

I had already decided that I wouldn’t turn away if a kiss was offered. I was never going to marry this guy, but a kiss in the name of learning why Janelle was murdered was far more pleasant than being shot at. That wasn’t a very high bar to hurdle, but it would do.

Sam stopped by the driver’s side door and slid an arm around my waist. His hand stayed on my waist, which was good for him and his reputation in my eyes. He leaned in for a kiss. His lips were softer and gentler than I remembered other kisses being. They lingered for just a second before he pulled away. The moment was over quickly, and I drove home.