FIVE WILL GET YOU TWENTY (Food Truck Mysteries Book 9) (11 page)

Carter had been overly efficient. When I returned to Taco Inferno after my shift at Dogs on a Roll, he’d already called the police and left a message for Detective Danvers about Mrs. Pohler’s involvement in the case. “There’s still one more person. We’ve found four people, but there were five twenties that first day. I might come and work with you at the truck one day so that we can see if they show up.”

Carter shook his head. “We haven’t had any in three days. He—or she—isn’t coming to the truck anymore. They might be going somewhere else, or they could have shut things down to keep a low profile now that Pohler was killed.”

I nodded. I still had a nagging suspicion that the fifth person would be the one that cracked open the case. They’d avoided Carter’s system of recognizing bills and had gotten away with it. So why would they just stop? They were just so mysterious that I latched onto them as the criminal behind all of these activities.

Having finished up for the day and wanting to learn more, I decided to head over to Jack Reilly’s office. I wanted to find out about how his information was used by Pohler.

Fortunately, his office was only a few blocks from the new food truck, so I decided to walk over. The office was on the upper floors of a boutique. The ground floor had a cute little dress shop, and part of me was tempted to stop and shop. They didn’t have bridal gowns, so I decided to skip it and save for the more expensive one that I’d had my eye on.

The stairs to the upper floor were dirty, and little had been done to make the steps look inviting. The minimalist appearance would likely have appealed to Pohler, since he was apparently the king of cheap. The door to the PI’s office was at the top of the landing, and I knocked before entering.

The office was one large room with an empty desk for a secretary. Beyond that, a large man sat at a desk in the corner, talking on the phone. He motioned for me to sit on a couch that had seen better days to wait for him.

I tried to listen in on his phone call, but he talked in a very soft voice that didn’t allow for eavesdropping. I checked my phone to see if I had any messages, but nothing was there. Instead, I looked at the stock market articles and read about changes that the Fed might be making in the near future.

Finally, he got off the phone and turned to look at me. “What can I do you for?” he asked. He was large and unkempt, smelling vaguely of cigarette smoke and booze.

I gave him the quick explanation that I’d developed on the way over. I needed to hire a new person to replace Sabine, and several people who had previously worked at Pohler’s food trucks had applied. His widow had indicated that Ryan typically ran background checks on new employees, and I wanted to know if he’d kept those, and if he could share them with me. I used “Ryan” more than once in my story to let him know what good friends we were.

The ruse wasn’t working until I pulled out a checkbook from my back pocket. “How much would it cost me to look at these?” I asked, trying my best to appear naïve and unworldly.

He made a clucking noise with his tongue. Realistically, I knew that he would be getting a second payment for work already completed if he did this, which meant that it was all profit. No businessperson would pass this up. However, apparently we were going to play a game to negotiate the price. “That really isn’t how things work in the investigating business. Work is done for a single client, and it’s somewhat confidential.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mean to sound callous, but I figured since Pohler was dead, some of that confidentiality would be null and void. And I’m ready to pay well to have the information.”

The last sentence caught his attention.

He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “How much?”

“What’s the going price for used information?” I asked. I was a bit nervous about naming a price, because I knew I’d lowball any offer I made. It was just in my nature.

He shrugged. “A hundred? I can take the old lady out with that.”

I nodded and took out the cash I’d pocketed from the day’s take. I had suspected that I would need to pay off someone to get information in this case. The main actors in it were not cooperating at all.

I handed it over to him. He ran a counterfeit pen over it, and when nothing happened, he turned back to his computer. In a few seconds, the printer was whirring and pages were coming out. He actually stood and handed me the pages.

I started flipping through them and I got to the pages on Bernadette. The investigation was brief and apparently done mostly on the Internet. She had been a porn actress at one point and the pages included a few photos of her work. I was guessing that they were stills from movies.

I was a bit shocked, because she’d seemed so demure, but I didn’t judge her for what she’d done. I was more saddened that she’d done bad things to hide a crime so minor.

I flipped through the pages, but there was nothing on Thomas. “Did you do any work on a guy named Thomas Booth? He worked at one of Ryan’s trucks.”

Reilly turned around and tapped a few keys. He turned back. “Nope, nothing on him. I guess no one asked me to do any research on him.”

I wondered about that. Thomas had said that he’d been investigated by this man, but he hadn’t been. Was there another investigator who had looked into him? Or had Pohler merely figured out the discrepancies on his own? I speculated on how much I could believe what Pohler had told Thomas. It wasn’t as if they would've had an in-depth discussion about the source of the blackmail material or that Pohler would give him a list of cited references. Pohler had told him what he had, and Thomas had gone along with it so as not to get called out on the lies.

I did wonder if there was more to it than just the resume. Maybe Thomas had told me a lie, so that I wouldn’t find out the source of the information and investigate. I might have found something out that would have stopped me from hiring him.

Reilly cleared his throat. “Anything else I can do for you?” he asked. “I have a client coming in about ten minutes from now, and knowing this guy, he’s not going to want company for the discussion we’re going to have.”

I nodded. While I’d found Bernadette, and no Thomas, I still had dozens of pages to read through. I wanted to find a quiet place to look at what I’d found. It had to be quiet and away from people since the photos of Bernadette were somewhat revealing.

I didn’t want to go home and do this. Land was due over later, and I wasn’t sure that he’d appreciate me cutting it close to an active police investigation, though Reilly had not mentioned the police when I spoke with him. He’d just been looking for a quick buck.

I went to the secured lot and parked next to the food truck. I unlocked the door and went inside. No one would bother me there, and I could read and study in peace.

The first pages were actually an investigation of Ryan Pohler’s wife. Apparently, he’d suspected her of having an affair. Reilly had followed her for several days, recording information on her movements. In the end, she hadn’t been having an affair, at least that Reilly had been able to find. However, she’d made the purchase of several big-ticket items: a fur coat, a few Vera Wang dresses, and more shoes than I could ever dream of.

I’m sure the question became where she got the money. The private investigator had not been asked to find out the source of the money, probably because it would have meant opening up his finances and that was the last thing Pohler would want. His mysterious transactions would have been visible to the private investigator, who might have asked questions.

That investigation took up several pages, followed by the three or four pages on Bernadette. Next there was a brief investigation of a man named Aaron Youngblood. There were a few crimes on the man’s rap sheet, and I tried to remember if I’d ever met anyone with such a unique name in dealing with food trucks, but I hadn’t.

On the bright side, at least the name was unusual enough that I wouldn’t have much trouble finding him. I had a strong suspicion that the man could be the mysterious fifth counterfeit passer.

There were a couple of pages on me too. I was shocked to see that the investigation had gone as far as to look into my past and my finances. The pages told of nothing that could leave me open to blackmail from Pohler.

There were also pages on Land. I thought about reading through all of them, but I decided not to be nosy. I’d been offered opportunities by his family to hear about his past, but I had declined—and he’d been so grateful. I wouldn’t betray him today either.

By that time, I’d finished the files. I wished there had been more. I was interested to see how Pohler had used his businesses to gather information and then make more money from that.

I took the files I’d received, tucked them under my arm and headed home. I wasn’t home for long before Land arrived. He came in, kissed me, and immediately saw the papers on the table. “What is that?” he asked, walking over to them.

I pulled out the pages that dealt with him. I didn’t want any confusion over what I planned to do with them. “These are for you,” I said, handing the pages over to him. “Pohler ran investigations on both of us. Mine is pretty boring.”

He flipped through the pages. “And what did you think about mine?” he asked, stopping to read something on one of the interior pages.

“I didn’t,” I replied. “If you want to tell me what’s in there, great. If not, it’s your business.”

“But you showed me yours,” he replied, watching my every move, though he was pretending not to be interested.

“As I said, mine were boring. Maybe I need to get out more.” I gave him a reassuring smile, trying to get him to loosen up. He was not the type to trust easily. So he would likely think of what he would do in the same situation. I honestly didn’t know, because my life had been rather boring before I inherited the first truck. After that, it had all been public knowledge, and of course, Land had been at my side the entire time.

He paused for a second and then handed over the first two pages. “Here. You can read these.”

I gave him a long stare. “Are you sure? I mean, it’s up to you.”

He kissed me again. “Yeah, if you’re going to marry me, it would be helpful if you knew some of what you were getting into.”

I took the pages and read them through quickly. Much as I’d suspected, Land had worked as a police officer in Navarre before joining the Spanish army. He’d worked on several missions with NATO as a consultant before he’d quit and immigrated to the United States.

I would have to surmise that he’d met Danvers while he worked for the Army. I knew that Danvers had military service somewhere in his background too. The reports were short on details about the missions, what countries were involved and what they had accomplished. Even so, I was pleased to read it and very impressed with my fiancé, both for his openness and his previous endeavors. Obviously, the file couldn’t have been too bad or Pohler would have tried to use it, so the contents had to be relatively safe.

I gave him a hug when I’d read the pages through a second time, and handed them back to him. “You’re a pretty impressive man,” I said with a grin.

He shrugged. “Thanks. I talked to Danvers on the way over here. He’s been pulled from the case. His lieutenant found out about the ties to food trucks and how Sabine worked at Dogs on the Roll. He didn’t want any conflicts of interest, so he pulled Danvers. That probably means that the case will be going to the Secret Service in the next day or two.”

“The Secret Service?” I asked, wondering why they would be involved.

“They handle all counterfeiting. That’s why they were originally created. Why is it that I know your government better than you do?” he asked, with an air of puzzlement. His statement was probably true. He had a much better grasp of grammar and punctuation than I did. Land had no accent. Now he understood law enforcement better than I did as well. “Anyway, that means the end of your involvement in the matter. They’ll need you as a witness, and they might interview you, but they won’t put up with you anywhere near the case. You’ll end up in big trouble if you were to keep going.”

I nodded. I’d heard Danvers and Land talk about the rules of federal law enforcement, and I really had no desire to be a part of that. I’d have to let it drop, which grated on me as we ate dinner and watched a movie. We talked briefly about Sabine and Danvers, who were still on the outs. Land seemed to think that it was over permanently, but I wasn’t sure. I was just certain that she wouldn’t be returning to work at the food truck. With the wedding coming up fast, I needed someone who could keep the food truck open and operational so that we could go on a honeymoon. Except for a few days when the truck had been closed or confiscated, I couldn’t remember a time that either of us had taken off a weekday together. I was looking forward to some downtime after everything that had happened in the last few months.

I think I fell asleep at some point, because the movie didn’t seem to make much sense. I confused two of the characters with each other and missed several plot points.

***

After having so much sleep, I was up and at work early the next day. I texted Thomas to let him know that I was already here. I hadn’t let him drive the food truck yet, and I had yet to let him open on his own. I was also slow to trust; it had taken me months to trust Carter.

Thomas arrived a bit early, looking like he’d run a few blocks. Since the closest garage was only a few minutes’ walk, I doubted that was the case. “What happened to you?” I asked.