JUSTICE Is SERVED (Food Truck 7) (5 page)

I preferred to give the information to Detective Green, since it would make any case against the food truck or us less credible.

Deep down though, I knew that this was an effort in futility. This crime had been carefully premeditated. If indeed David’s food had been poisoned, then the killer had known enough to use a liquid cyanide compound to put over the glaze or with the vinegar. I wasn’t sure how someone would know which type of hot dogs that he would prefer in advance. That clue pointed back to Christie who would be the person most likely to understand David’s tastes in condiments.

I barely made it home before my phone rang again. It had rung twice while I was on the way home. Carter had tried to call me both times. I figured that he was wanting a day off to deal with his mother and her health, so I saw no reason to risk driving on the phone. The old Buick that I drove had no hands-free driving unless you were also phone-free.

I answered the phone this time. “Carter, what’s so urgent?” I asked, hoping that the situation with his mother had not taken a turn for the worse.

“It’s Land. He called me. He’s been arrested.”

My heart stopped for a second. If there had been any doubt about my feelings for the man, they were answered in that second when I seemed to freeze. “What? That can’t be,” I replied, not wanting to believe this.

“The woman detective stopped by the truck and took him in. He called me to come and get the truck and close up the food truck for the night.” Carter sounded almost as frazzled as I felt. “I kept it open for a bit and then just cleaned up and drove it to the lot. Aaron took me back to my car so I could drive home.” His detailed rendition of events had the effect of making it seem more real.

In all of the cases, Land had never been a serious suspect for a crime. On more than one occasion, my mouth and my temper had made the police take a second look at me, but Land’s even temperament made him appear too aloof to stoop to crime. Now this detective had arrested him for a murder.

I tried to quell the panic in my chest, but I was having a hard time focusing on this news. I wanted to run in a thousand directions at once to fix this problem, but I knew that it would take more than a few interviews to get him released. “What can I do to help?” I asked, not feeling up to any task.

“Land said not to worry and to keep out of trouble. He’s got a lawyer, and Detective Danvers is helping him with something. He wouldn’t say what it was.”

I tried to puzzle out what Danvers might be helping out with, but I couldn’t come up with any scenario where Detective Danvers helped Land over the county police.

I was about to ask another question when the doorbell rang. I told Carter that I’d call him back in a few minutes, and I buzzed the people in without asking who it was. For all I knew, the county police were coming for me as well. I opened the door, but instead of Detective Green, it was Sabine Mendoza, Land’s sister. Her long, dark hair flowed behind her, and I could easily see the resemblance to Land in the long, straight nose and the skin tone.

“What the hell have you done with my brother?” she asked as she entered my apartment without asking. “He’s in jail now. You realize that, right?”

I took a deep breath and then found that I couldn’t talk. Land was in jail, and I blamed myself. Gina was my friend, and I had agreed to cater the wedding, dragging Land into the matter.

Sabine looked at me and realized the state that I was in. She stopped yelling and took me in her arms. “I’m sorry. I’m just upset – and you have a bad habit of getting involved in murder cases.”

I nodded and put my arms around her too. I was glad to have someone to console me. My parents would have been more worried about my involvement with Land if they heard about this. Their concern for Land would have been secondary. They would be more concerned about me than him. Right now, I wanted to focus on undoing this mess.

“I know,” I finally said. “But I don’t know how I could be blamed for this? I don’t understand at all. There’s no evidence against Land or me or the food truck. I don’t know why that detective would hone in on Land when I was already finding suspects to David’s death.”

“If I understood Land correctly, you just pissed the detective off, and she’s taking it out on him. When Land called me, he was more worried about the food truck than the charges. He was pretty confident that you’d find something to get him off.”

I sat down on the sofa and told Sabine what I’d learned so far. The fight near the restrooms made her raise an eyebrow, a trait that I knew all too well from Land. She agreed that there were too many other likely suspects to have settled on Land so early.

“Your evening’s about to get worse though. My grandmother wants to see you,” she said with her lips in a thin line.

I had never met Land’s grandmother before. I’d only met Sabine through finding another dead body and another investigation. In a normal day, I would likely have gone on oblivious to her existence. Now I was going to get to meet his grandmother because of another murder investigation. I wondered what would be required to go to a family reunion?

I was surprised because when Sabine started driving, we seemed to be going in the direction of Land’s apartment. I hadn’t realized that his grandmother had lived so close to Land, especially since he rarely talked about her. I had only known that Sabine had lived with her for a while and that grandma lived in town.

I was even more surprised when Sabine pulled into the lot for Land’s apartment complex. She swung the car wide into a spot right outside of his apartment. “Grandma wanted to meet you here. She thought it might be better.”

I wasn’t sure what better meant. It would be less intimidating to meet her in a neutral environment, but without Land present, the situation would be rather tense for me. I didn’t know if she would blame me for his arrest or not. I felt terrible at the moment, worried and heart-sick, so meeting new family members was not an experience I wanted to add to my life right now.

We got out of the car. An older woman, perhaps in her late 60s, stood in the doorframe. She stood very erect, almost like a mannequin. Her dark hair had mostly faded to gray, but I could still see the signs of her younger self. Her face was impassive, and I couldn’t read her emotions at all, which must be a Mendoza trait.

“Come in,” she said, standing aside for me to enter. “I’m Maria Mendoza, Land’s grandmother.” She watched me for a reaction, but I had none to give. I wasn’t sure what was going on here, or if I wanted any part of it.

I walked into the living room and was astounded to see that the room had been torn to shreds. Pillows had been opened. Papers lay strewn on the floor. It looked like a hurricane, or the county police, had been through here.

“Did the police do this?” I asked, wondering how Land would feel about this disorder. He was a private person, and this would be seen as a major intrusion.

Maria shook her head. “No, I’ve done this. I am looking for clues that will help you prove my grandson did not do this.”

I looked at her with shock. She’d made this mess by herself! She’s come into Land’s apartment and torn it apart. While I understood how you would want to help someone you loved, I also felt that I immediately had a better feeling for why Land tended to be so reserved. It would be natural to keep your emotions to yourself when your grandmother feels it’s okay to go through your things like this. I would have been livid if my parents had done such a thing.

Beyond the intrusion of privacy, I wasn’t sure what good this would do. Land would not be stupid enough leave incriminating papers just lying around for people to find. Granted, the police were unlikely to get a search warrant to look for papers here. If they would look for anything, it would be cyanide, if indeed that was the poison. However, the crime had taken place elsewhere so there was a limited amount of information that could likely be found at his apartment. I tried to explain this to Sabine and Maria, but they continued to look through all of his papers as I tried to rationalize with them.

Occasionally, they would stop and share a paper between themselves. I tried to glance at a few of those papers without appearing to condone what they were doing. Since Sabine had driven me here, I had little choice, but to sit and wait for it to be over.

After they’d finished the living and dining room, they moved on to the kitchen which went much faster. They practically sprinted into the bedroom, and I cringed, wondering what remnants of mine had been left there that I’d be confronted with later.

However, they came out with nothing from the bedroom. They sat down in the chairs opposite me and didn’t say a word.

I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was in this situation. I didn’t want to be a party of invading Land’s privacy, but at the same time, I was currently only sitting in a chair and saying nothing while his family watched me.

In that situation, I did the only thing I could do. I stood up and began tidying the mess that they’d made. Of course, it would never fool Land into thinking that someone had been through his things, but his apartment wouldn’t appear to be an outright disaster either.

I began stuffing pillows back into their covers. I put photographs back on the shelves. I thought about putting the images of Sabine and his grandmother backwards, but that maneuver wouldn’t solve anything. Having tidied the living room, I did the same for the kitchen and the bedroom.

After pulling up the covers and trying to make some military corners on the bed, I picked up a few things off the floor. I was trying not to read them, but one caught my eye. It was a wedding invitation, specifically an invitation to Gina and Trent’s wedding. I stood there, dumbstruck. I hadn’t received a wedding invitation to my friend’s wedding, mainly because she knew that I was serving as the caterer and had no choice. However, for some reason, Land had received an invitation to the wedding.

The most plausible inference here is that Land had a connection to the wedding couple that none of them had share with me. I was puzzled by this. We’d gone out to dinner a few times. How could they have missed the implication that he would be with me at the food truck? It seemed more likely that Trent knew Land, since Gina had met him early on and would have likely mentioned it to me when we met for a lunch or dinner.

This deserved an answer, so I took the embossed paper out of the bedroom and back to the living room where both women still sat.

“Do either of you know if Land knows a Trent Taylor?” I asked as I sat down opposite them. I threw the invitation on the table. Sabine picked it up immediately and skimmed through the text.

“The name doesn’t ring a bell with me,” she said, “but you know Land. He doesn’t talk much about these things.”

“Is this important?” Maria asked.

“It could be. It may be a tie-in between Land and the victim. I didn’t think he knew the bridal couple, but apparently he knew them well enough to get an invitation on his own. I’m trying to learn what that connection is.”

Before I could speak again, Maria took the invitation and strode quickly to the kitchen. Before I could catch her, I heard the whir of the garbage disposal. She turned around and looked at me. “Now there is one thing less to tie him to that crime.”

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. “That might have been something that we could use to get him off. Now it’s gone,” I protested. Land would never have condoned the destruction of potential evidence, and now the three of us were possibly guilty of obstruction. I was shocked by their behavior.

“If those people are your friends, then they’ll tell you why he was invited. They don’t need a piece of paper to prove that,” the older woman said. “The police are not dumb.”

I had to admit that she had a point, but I was concerned. I was going to be hampered if I helped these women look for clues. If I found anything, they would be destroyed immediately if Maria saw them to be a threat. I could never determine if a clue was beneficial or not in fifteen seconds or less. I needed time to think about it, but if Maria was around, I wouldn’t be able to get the time I needed to ruminate on it.

She did have a point. I could easily ask Gina why Land received an invitation – when I got a ride home.

Feeling as if they’d been successful, the two women plied me with other papers that they’d found in Land’s apartment. For the most part, I saw no value in them. I tried not to read much into the things I saw. Yet the women kept pushing papers at me.

Finally, I insisted that I’d had enough, and Sabine took me home. She wanted to come in and listen in on my conversation with Gina, but that wasn’t going to happen. I needed to come up with a way to broach the subject without alarming the bride. I didn’t want her to suddenly think that the information about Land and Trent was important to the police, important enough to tell Detective Green about it.

As I saw it, I was fairly limited in what I could do with this case. I’d already come to the distinct conclusion that I would not be able to skate around the outside of an open county investigation and get away with it – as I did in the city. I would be forced to nibble away at the edges of the case and hope that those clues led me to discoveries that would change the perspective of the police on the matter.

I had to do this on my own as well. Sabine had told me that Land was only allowed to see immediate family, so despite having dated for months, I would be denied any chance to see him while he was in jail. I knew that this was not a mistake or a coincidence. Green had stopped us from talking so that we couldn’t strategize on the case and how to approach the clues I’d uncovered.

So I was left to my own decisions. I had a few obvious paths to visit. The first was Aunt Eunice and the two maiden aunts, who had sat at the table with the mustard stain. The second was to learn how Trent and Land knew each other. I also wanted to talk to Felicity to see if she knew anything about David’s murder. Since she hadn’t been at the wedding, I couldn’t be accused of tampering with the investigation. Green couldn’t possibly tie me to the murder by asking routine questions about my business and my boyfriend.

The next day was problematic. We had no one to cover the other truck, so I had to make some decisions. I opted to work the original truck by myself, which freed up Carter to work the second truck. I wasn’t sure how well he’d be able to cook and take care of customers, but Carter assured me that if Land could do it, then he could as well.

I was so distracted that I nearly gave two customers ten dollars too much in change. I was glad when the lunch crowd was finished. I noticed that Danvers had not been by to see me, which didn’t bode well. He either knew something that he didn’t want to share with me, or the picture looked bleak and he didn’t want to be the messenger.

So I drove the truck back to the secured lot and made a call to Felicity. When I told her who I was and what I wanted, she agreed to see me. She suggested Government Square, so I drove back in the Buick and waited on one of the metal park-styled benches that dotted the pavilion.

I didn’t have any trouble in finding her when she arrived. Felicity was stunning. If this was the type of girl that David turned away, I wondered about the ones that he accepted.

She extended a hand to me. “I’m Felicity. You’re Maeve, right?”

I nodded and thanked her for meeting me.

“So you’ve heard about David and I, and you want to learn more, right?” she asked, making a grimace. “That was not my shining moment.”

“So what happened with the two of you?” I said, not wasting time on niceties. I wanted to know what had happened in order to get Land out of prison. Investigation etiquette did not compete with the desire to free my boyfriend.

She sighed. “The usual thing. David and I met at a wedding. He was alone; I was alone. We laughed and hung out at the bar afterwards. I got the impression he was interested, so I made a move on him.”

I nodded, trying not to be judgmental in this situation.

“He told me that he’d had a great time, but he was dating some woman and he wanted to be faithful to her.”

My head shot up, and I stared at her. “What?”

Felicity looked embarrassed; her face was slightly flushed, and she averted her eyes from mine. “He shot me down. He said he was happy. He left a few minutes later. He came back and had a few glasses of water, and then headed to his room.”

“Did you ever talk to a woman named Christie? The girlfriend?” I asked, not knowing what to investigate now. I had expected a fairly simple story of infidelity from her, but I had been confronted with something entirely different.

Felicity rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, the girlfriend. She must have called me three or four times. She’s a trip. She accused me of sleeping with David. She actually threatened to show up at my work and fight me. I mean, who does that? I finally had to block her number it got so bad.”

I just sat there with my mouth open. My brain was thinking of what I’d been told about David so far. I’d heard that he was a cheat and a philanderer, but now I was being told that he was faithful to Christie, who was actually an overly jealous girlfriend.

It added a lot to the idea of Christie as a murderer, but nothing to the motive. From the sound of this, she had been more focused on getting the woman out of the picture, rather than blaming David for his own infidelities. She’d lied to me about the situation, and I wondered how much of her story was being used by the police to make a case against Land. I wanted to wait until I had some more concrete proof to take the evidence to the police, but at least I had some hope that Land’s arrest could be rescinded.

With that in mind and having too much free time now, I decided that I would pursue the mustard lead next. Gina had given me her aunt’s contact information, so I called and made an appointment to see the older woman.

When I pulled up at the aunt’s house, I was shocked. I knew that Neighbors Hill, a rather well-to-do area of Capital City was known for its historic homes, but Eunice’s house was a showstopper. It was a three-story Victorian with the old-fashioned gingerbread molding. Given that she was getting on in years, I knew that she had to have a certain amount of cash to spend on the home.

However, even the outside didn’t prepare me for the inside of the home. I was greeted by an honest-to-goodness butler, who asked me to wait in the parlor, a large room with marble-topped tables and heavily cushioned furniture. I sat on the edge of the sofa and waited.

A larger woman swept into the room, and I immediately recognized her from the wedding. She’d been in the first few rows of chairs during the ceremony, and she’d only asked for one hot dog, plain. Funny how the mind can remember the things that you’ve trained it to handle. Even though I tried to practice my powers of observation, I still couldn’t keep track of everything that went on around me.

“How are you?” the woman said as she made herself comfortable in a Victorian chair. “Gina has spoken highly of you.”

I cleared my throat and began. “I’m fine, and I hope you’re well. Did Gina mention why I wanted to talk to you?” I asked, hoping that I could bypass the full-board explanation.

“Yes, someone made a mess of your tablecloth at the wedding. Gina indicated that you wanted to find out if those two women I sat with might have done it.”

I had to hand it to Gina. She’d couched the situation in a way that was pleasing to her aunt. She hadn’t been wanting to create a family argument by accusing her aunt, so she’d put the blame on the in-laws.

“That’s right,” I replied. “If you could tell me about your conversations there and who left first, I might be able to show that they did this.” I tried to remember my best etiquette from a workshop I’d taken on interviewing. We’d been schooled on the proper fork to use and how to sit on a piece of furniture. Those skills had not been used often with the food truck, but I felt that I was being judged now.

The woman sighed. “I only remember a few things from that evening. I walked around frequently and visited with the other tables, so I can’t tell you much about the other women. They were more inclined to sit at the table and let others approach them.”

I nodded. I vaguely remembered the other two women, who had come back repeatedly to the food truck for more hot dogs. They’d been the adventurous types who had tried one type and then the other. Yet I’d done little more than just notice them. I had no idea of a timeline of events at Table 15.

“The two women arrived before I did at the table,” Eunice remembered. “They took the seats with the best view of the bridal table. I had to sit with my back to my niece.”

I nodded, understanding now why she’d walked around so much at the reception. She had been in a less desirable seat, so she opted to not sit there. So much for seating charts.

“I assume you all ate together?” I asked, wanting to hear more about these women.

“Yes – if you can call it that,” she replied. “They were not very polite. The one chewed with her mouth open and the other got the glaze all over her dress. She just let it soak in. She didn’t blot it or anything.”

I nodded, knowing that the glaze could leave a stain. I had the t-shirts to prove it.

“Did they indicate anything about being in trouble or needing help?” I asked, wondering again about the message on the tablecloth and what it was supposed to mean.

“They were fine when I left. My ride wanted to leave early, because she’d only worn a sleeveless dress and wanted to get home. I had to go because I had come with her.”

“So they were there last,” I said, which answered my first question. “And they didn’t indicate any need for help?”

“Not unless you consider bad manner to be an emergency, no.”

I thanked her, and the butler returned to let me out of the house. I had the number for the two maiden aunts, but I hesitated to use it. The pair were likely to be home, and I could get answers. Yet at the same time, the more people who knew I was looking into this, the higher the chance that Detective Green would come after me for investigating. While it sounded harmless enough to look into the request for help, I strongly suspected that the message and the murder had to be related.

I remembered where Land was at the moment and steeled myself to call the other aunts. By all accounts, the women were somewhat eccentric, and so I hesitated to rely on them for a coherent account of what had happened or any type of clue that they might have seen. They would just have to serve as background information, if that. They were not going to be the star witnesses in saving Land from a jail term.

They were home and welcomed me over. I thanked them and headed back towards Capital City. The two aunts lived in an older neighborhood, one that had once been refined but was now mostly known for crime and drugs. I was guessing that the pair had started young here and kept the house despite the changing neighborhood.

I was right. The home looked clean and respectable, even though the home next to theirs had been marked condemned. One of the sisters came out to greet me as I got out of the car. I was a bit glad, because this was a rougher part of town. On a normal day, I would have brought Land, but that wasn’t possible.

The sister escorted me into the house, which was nearly as refined as Eunice’s home, despite the neighborhood. It was odd how the homes of these elderly women were so similar even though Eunice had looked down on the pair.

“Won’t you come in?” she said as she shuffled down the hall, leaving me to close the door. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Thank you.” I sat down in a room similar to Eunice’s parlor with older tables and overstuffed furniture. I didn’t worry as much here about the impression I made, because the woman plopped down in the chair and acted as though she might fall asleep.

“I’m sorry, dear. I’m just tired. My sister’s been ill, and I’ve been tending to her.” She did look tired at closer glance. She had dark circles under her eyes and a grayish complexion.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

The woman flushed before speaking again. I wondered what had bothered her with my statement, which seemed to be a relatively harmless platitude. “Well, dear, it’s actually one of your hot dogs that made her ill.”

My mouth dropped open. In all our time in business, we’d never had one complaint about food poisoning – until this wedding where one man had died of poisoning and now another was saying that she’d been made ill by our food. It was hard to believe.

“What happened?” I asked, really wanting to hear this story. I was shocked, but it had a ring of truth to it that made me worry.

“We’d finished eating, and Marie, that’s my sister, she complained of feeling ill. I felt fine, but as the night wore on, she grew sicker and sicker. I could tell that she wasn’t feeling well. She wasn’t like herself at all. Her color went bad, and her lips had an odd shade of blue to them.”

I sat up straight, thinking back to the corpse I’d found in the bathroom. He’d had a bad color and blue lips as well. I was concerned now. Had someone just put poisoned hot dogs out for the guests at the wedding? In that case, it was of no use trying to discern a motive, since the only ones who would suffer would be the unlucky souls who picked those hot dogs. I tried to think of anyone who would benefit from a scheme like that, but I couldn’t. It’s seemed too surreal to comprehend, random poisoning.

Yet that would explain how the poisoner was able to administer the poison. He or she just didn’t care who it went to – as long as someone suffered. I must have looked concerned or upset, because the woman cleared her throat twice.

“Are you okay, dear? You look flushed.” She leaned towards me as we spoke.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied. “What happened then?”

“I had driven us to the wedding so I took my sister to the hospital. They pumped her stomach there and kept her overnight.” She looked pleased with herself for some reason.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I was still shocked by this news.

The woman shrugged. “We did tell the nurses at the hospital, but – well, we’d eaten so many hot dogs that the nurses put the problem down to quantity and not a food poisoning issue.”