JUSTICE Is SERVED (Food Truck 7) (6 page)

I remembered what Eunice had said about the women eating too much, and now I understood why. Without a tox screen, there’d be no way to tell if the food had been poisoned, and even if the evidence was still available, Land had indicated that cyanide dissipates quickly. I wondered if it would disappear from the food as well as the body, but the answer really was moot without evidence.

“So when did you leave the wedding? Was it towards the beginning or the end of the reception?” I asked, wondering if the sick woman had written on the tablecloth before she’d left. Had the word “help” been a cry for medical assistance? I wondered.

“It was probably about seven pm or so. Most of the event was over, but there were still a number of people there.”

“Was Eunice gone by then?” I asked. The timing was too close for me to make a decisive call on who was there last, and therefore able to write on the tablecloth without being seen.

“I think not, dear. She was flitting around the entire area, so I can’t say for sure, but I was pretty certain that she was still in the area. Is that important?”

I wondered now what had really happened with the tablecloth. Eunice had made it sound as if she’d left earlier, but these women were telling me that they’d left earlier than their tablemate. Eunice would certainly have made a fuss if someone had written on the tablecloth with mustard, or so I thought. I was struggling to learn what had happened. It had seemed so easy, but now it was becoming a convoluted mess.

I decided to level with them. Worst case scenario was that they’d tell someone, but I doubted that many people took them seriously. The nurses at the hospital seemed to have made up their minds without listening to the women.

“Someone made a huge mess on the tablecloth,” I said. “Mustard all over the place. I was just wondering if you saw who did it.”

“Mustard?” the woman asked. “How odd. Marie, my sister, she didn’t eat any hot dogs with mustard – nor did I.” I listened to a litany of the various types of hot dogs they had eaten during the reception, and Eunice was right. They had eaten quite a few different types. Yet they hadn’t had mustard, and Eunice had eaten hers plain. That meant neither party had mustard on their dogs.

I wondered again who had written the word “help.” Now it was looking as though none of the people at the table had written it. So I was back to trying to figure out who out of the 100 guests had ruined the tablecloth.

When I returned home, there was a message from Gina on the machine. I listened carefully to it twice, trying to catch if there was anything else in her voice. She seemed fine, which meant that she likely hadn’t heard from her aunts, but at the same time, she seemed more reserved than she usually did.

“Maeve, it’s Gina. I need to talk to you about something. Call me when you have some time, okay?”

I wondered about her message. While it would sound okay to most people, her typical messages asked me about any deaths around me and any murder investigations. Perhaps being at the center of such an investigation had put her off the jokes.

Since I wanted to ask about Land’s invitation – and since I’d had so little luck with the mustard, I decided to call her back immediately.

It rang several times, and I got ready to leave a message when she answered. “Maeve, is that you?”

Of course she knew it was me, because my number would have come up on the phone. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“I need to talk to you. Can you come over?” she asked. I was starting to wonder what was up.

“Sure, right now?” I asked, wanting to see if this was related to Land being in jail. I hoped that I’d learn enough to get him out, though so far, I had not learned anything worth a dime.

She agreed, and I headed over to their apartment. I knew the place well, because the apartment had been Gina’s before the marriage. It only took me a few minutes to get there; traffic was light.

Gina was waiting at the door for me. Her normally perky self had been replaced by a sad woman who looked defeated. Maybe I wouldn’t be so fast to rush into marriage.

“So what’s going on?” I asked.

“I just found out something, and I need to tell you first. It’s about Land,” she said, looking like she might cry.

“He’s in jail,” I said, hoping that this was the worst of the news.

“No, it’s not that. There’s more. Trent has been worried about his two aunts, the ones who sat at Table 15. They’ve been more and more odd in the past few months. Before we knew that Land was your boyfriend, Trent wanted Land to keep an eye on them at the wedding. So we hired Land.”

I nodded. This wasn’t as bad as I thought. “What is so odd about them that they needed to be watched?”

“It’s been bad. They do odd things. They make comments. They go to the hospital all the time. We wanted to make sure that they didn’t do something at the wedding to embarrass themselves or anyone else.”

I told her my story about how the sisters had told me that they’d gone to the hospital the evening of the wedding. “Do you think that’s true?” I asked, wondering if I’d been taken in by the women.

“Probably, but I would think that the nurses are right. They likely just ate too much and got sick. No one was out to poison them. But the tablecloth is just like something they would do. I knew you’d been looking into that. Trent and I decided to come clean about it and offer to pay for the tablecloth.”

“That was it. What about the business arrangement with Land?” I asked. “How did you hear about him?”

I was curious about this. As far as I knew, Land had only worked as a part-owner and operator of a food truck. Nothing more. Now I was being told that he was doing some freelance sleuthing on the side – without me, no less!

She took a deep breath. She turned her face to the wall. “Land apparently knew David, and David recommended him to us. I don’t know any details, but that’s why the police arrested him. Land had access to the food. He knew about the event far in advance, so he could plan – and he knew David and possibly had a motive to kill him.”

“What motive would that be?” I asked. If it wasn’t my virtue at stake, which only had cropped up on the evening of the wedding apparently, then Land would have had no motive to poison David – and certainly no time in which to prepare for the deed.

“This is what I didn’t want to tell you. The police are going on the theory that David and you were having an affair.” Gina flushed up to her ears as she said the last words.

My flush nearly eclipsed hers. “What?” I asked, sure that I’d heard her wrong. That wasn’t possible. Detective Green thought that I would prefer David to Land? I was stunned to hear this.

“It’s true. Look, I don’t believe it for a minute, but I heard that detective talking to Trent, and he told me that she implied that Land’s motive was you cheating on him with David.”

I froze, trying to think of the potential headlines. I’d been worrying about the damage to the business, but now I’d be labeled a cheater, making it much more personal than before. I could advertise or have a sale to bring back business. Life offered no marketing to make you sound like a faithful girlfriend. Once the word was out, no matter how silly the gossip might be, that rumor was spread too far and too wide to ever be brought back.

Of course, there was no way for me to contact Land and tell him that this was false. I had to just hope that he knew it. I did make a mental note to tell Sabine that about this, so she could pass the message along.

‘What else did Trent say? I’m kind of confused about this.” I was somewhat embarrassed to be admitting to Gina that I didn’t know these facts about the event and that I didn’t know about Land’s deal with Trent.

“That was the gist of it,” she replied. “You didn’t know that Land had been hired to watch the aunts, did you?”

I shook my head. “He hadn’t mentioned a word about it to me.”

“Well, he can take outside work, can’t he?” I could definitely tell that Gina was one of my business school classmates. Her answers were focused on employee law, not our relationship.

“Sure, there’s no problem there. I know he’s done things with the police before. So that’s not an issue.” I thought back to the times when Land had helped Detective Danvers in a stake-out. Would Danvers help Land out in this matter, or would he be more likely to cover his own butt and not put in a good word for Land?

From what I knew about Danvers, I suspected the latter. He was more likely to be fretting about Land’s role in previous cases and how Land’s arrest might affect their outcomes than to be worried about the guy who helped him out.

“And this wouldn’t have been a conflict-of-interest, since he could both watch Trent’s aunts and serve food. So that’s not a problem.” Gina shrugged as if her worries ended with that pronouncement. Mine had just begun.

“I’m not worried about that,” I explained to her. “I’m more worried about this whole David connection. I didn’t know Land knew him or that he’d gotten Land this job.”

Gina nodded. “I thought you might want to know, so I reached out to Christie to see if she knew anything. She said that Land and David had worked on some project about five years ago. Land had been doing some freelance investigatory work for David’s firm, and he’s interviewed David several times. David kept his card. It wasn’t like they were good friends. Christie had never met Land through David, and only heard him mention Land when Trent wanted to hire someone.”

“So it’s a weak connection, at best,” I said, feeling a little more mollified about the revelation. It would be hard for Green to prove that David and Land had been in contact since there would be no phone records and their respective significant others would indicate that they’d never met up.

Although I could see the elaborate case that Green was building, I still felt that I was missing something. Even though she’d created the narrative, the facts didn’t seem to fit that narrative. There was no real connection between the two men. Nothing could be proved there.

“So did Trent know why the police think that I was having an affair with David?” I still couldn’t get my mind around that lie.

“Apparently David made it pretty clear that you and he had been intimate at the wedding.”

“What?” My mind tried to get acclimated to that idea. The best man had indicated that we’d been intimate at the wedding. How could that have happened when I was elbow deep in hot dogs and condiments? I was usually such a mess by the end of a work shift that I didn’t even want to be around me.

“Trent said that David lied all the time about this kind of thing, but he told a few of the ushers that he’d ‘nailed’ you earlier in the day.” She air-quoted “nailed” so that I would know it wasn’t her word.

I knew that men like this existed; they liked to brag about their conquests to appear more manly to their friends. I’d just never been the object of such a campaign before.

I had an idea. “Can’t the police do some sort of test to see if the victim has had sex?” If David had been lying then the test should come back negative and ruin the whole motive for the police.

“That’s what made the police ask those questions to begin with. Apparently David had been intimate with someone in the last twelve hours of his life. Christie swears that it wasn’t her, so that made the police wonder who it could have been.”

I groaned. This was a trap that I didn’t see an answer for. I couldn’t prove a negative. How could I possibly show that it wasn’t me who had slept with David? He’d said I had, and I said I hadn’t. He’d had sex, and I couldn’t prove that I hadn’t.

Gina cleared her throat. “There’s one way to find out the truth. We’ll need to find out who had sex with David in the last few hours of his life. It can’t be that hard to do, right?”

At that moment, I appreciated Gina so much. Not only had she taken me at my word, she’d offered to help with her use of the word “we.” That’s a friend.

I took her hand and squeezed it to show her my appreciation. “We need to start with the groomsmen, right? They were the ones who heard David say that, so we need to find out exactly what was said and start asking questions of them. Rick seemed to act as though Jason had been the one who was tell stories about David.”

Gina smiled. “We’re having a little get together tonight for the wedding party. It was supposed to be the day after the wedding, but we pushed it back for obvious reasons.”

I agreed to come and make some appetizers for the party. I had no idea how that was going to work, since I had no recipes for appetizers, but I’d have to make do somehow.

In the meantime, I had a visit to make. I had a few questions for Sabine Mendoza, which I thought that she could answer for me since Land was unavailable.

After my first meeting with Sabine six months ago, I’d learned that Sabine had found an apartment in the same complex as Land. That made things easy for family visits, but harder for him to keep us separated before we’d finally met.

However, now that we had met, I knew easily how to find her. I drove over to her place without announcing myself.  I thought that the element of surprise might get some answers out of her.

She answered the door as if she was expecting me. Sabine worked second shift at the secured lot where we park our food trucks, but it was nearly 6pm and Sabine was not at work. I wondered if she judged me for working today as I was judging her for not working. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she’d made no efforts to put on make-up.

“What’s up?” she asked by way of a greeting. She looked down. I could definitely relate, as I was upset and frantic about these latest revelations.

“I wanted to see how Land is doing. They won’t let me see him.” I walked into her apartment and sat down at the kitchen table, like I did this all the time.

She nodded. “I had to show two types of ID to get into the jail to see him. He asked about you. He said to tell you that he’s alright.”

“I wish I could see him myself,” I added, thinking of how much he must be hating this. He was usually such a man of action, and now he was locked away waiting for others to decide his fate. I knew it would be grating on his nerves.

“You could always marry him. Then you could go see him whenever you want,” she said with a smirk. Damn those Mendozas, I could never decide when they were joking and when they were serious. Sabine seemed like she was in a serious frame of mind, but it was hard to read her. I’d only met her a few times, and she had that same taciturn nature as Land. She could know something that Land said, or she could just be pulling my leg to get a reaction.

I was too tired and stressed to play along. “Do you know something that you want to tell me?” I asked.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Know something – perhaps. Tell you – I’m not sure yet.”

“Does it have something to do with Land picking up some freelance work on the side? One of the things that the police are holding against him is the fact that he was doing some off-the-books surveillance.” I wondered how much Trent had paid for this endeavor. How much did a good sleuth net these days? I usually worked for free – to obtain something, like Land’s freedom, that I wanted. The idea of getting paid as well made me curious.

“Land said you were a nosy one. He was right,” Sabine said, sitting down across from me. She offered me nothing to drink or eat. She just sat there. “No, it has nothing to do with Land’s

Maybe it was my Irish temper or my ginger appearance, but I’d frankly had enough. “Sabine, what do you know? If I want to get Land out of jail before I’m 40, I have to find another motive and another killer. You can help me, or you can tell me nothing, but I will find out. I guarantee you that.”

“But Land –” she began.

“I don’t give a damn about what Land wants at the moment. He can be humiliated. He can feel exposed, but he’s damned well going to do it in my presence and not sitting behind bars. What do you know? Why was Land taking on outside jobs?” I knew exactly how much Land made, and despite his penchant for sports cars, he lived frugally for the most part. So he should have a sizable amount saved. Of course, a lawyer would take a big chunk of his savings, but he had to have several thousand stashed away – for what?

Then it hit me. The one reason that Land would not want to tell me why he needed money would be if it was for me. The thought that both thrilled me and scared the crap out of me was that he was saving for an engagement ring.

Sabine didn’t speak for a long minute and then looked me straight in the eye. “I didn’t tell you a thing. When you tell Land and I’m guessing that you’ll have to, you tell him that I refused to speak a word about it.”

I nodded. They would already be in trouble for going through Land’s thing. Dropping a bomb like this on me would likely get his family cut off forever. “Has he bought it yet?” I asked, wondering what it would look like.

“No comment,” she said plainly.

“He told you?” I asked, thinking that it was uncharacteristic of Land to tell people his private business.

Sabine smiled. “In a way. We found the receipt when we were going through his place. He really needs to be more careful with his things.”

I thought about what David had said and what the police thought. “Did you leave the receipt for the police to find?” I asked. I thought that Land being more serious about me would make for an even greater motive for jealousy.

“Of course not. It’s in my purse,” she said with a smile. “I figured out in about two seconds that Green was going to try to use the hot Latin lover angle. It’s really insulting these days. Such a stereotype. So I wasn’t about to help her uncover a damned thing to help her case.” Sabine threw her head back and looked remarkably like Land’s twin for a moment.

“Good. That’s one thing taken care of,” I said.

From the next room, an older man stepped into the living room. “You must be Maeve Kinkaid,” he said without emotion. “We need to talk.”

I felt trapped at the moment. I wasn’t sure what was going on. Sabine had no idea that I was coming over, and yet there was a man here who wanted to talk to me. I stammered out a reply. “Yes, that’s me.”

“I’m Mike Vinton, Mr. Mendoza’s attorney. I was here discussing the case with Ms. Mendoza and you arrived. I had specifically wanted to talk to you about Mr. Mendoza’s case.”

“Can you do that?” I asked, remembering that I had no standing in the legal world. Girlfriends fell into the same category as the accused’s garbage man in terms of legal standing.

“Yes, Mr. Mendoza has told me that I may. He trusts you implicitly, he says.” The man’s countenance showed no expression, so I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not in his opinion.

“Good, because she’s likely to be Mrs. Mendoza soon,” Sabine piped in.

“What do you need?” I asked, hoping that I would be given some task to help Land get out of his current predicament.

“Mr. Mendoza asks you to stay out of this. He doesn’t want you to get hurt. Barring that, when you find evidence, you’re to give it to Detective Jax Danvers and allow him to handle the details of admitting it into evidence. Don’t try to take too much on by yourself.” He stopped. I waited a minute to see if he would continue, but he just stood there, still as the furniture in the room.

“Did Land suggest any particular evidence that I should be looking for?” I missed having Land make suggestions and listen to my suppositions. Even if it was second-hand, I was hoping for the chance to work with him on this case.

“Break the story about your reputation and having sex with David. He did not believe it to be true, and he suggested that you try to trace the rumors to their source. That might point you to who was involved in the murder.”  Vinton looked like he was swallowing cough medicine as he spoke.

I nodded and looked at Sabine. I had been wanting to find an opening, trying to approach my next subject. I needed a helper for tonight’s party. I was going to spy on the gathering of bridesmaids and groomsmen at Gina and Trent’s home, and I needed eyes and ears that I could trust. I could have asked Carter, but he was already taking care of Basque in the Sun by himself, by which he meant he’d made Aaron take off work to handle the money.

“I’d do anything to help my brother,” she said with her dark eyes flashing.

I explained what I needed from her. She jumped at the chance, expressing her desire to save Land from whatever fate befell him. I wasn’t sure from her wording if that was either an engagement to me or imprisonment.

When I picked up Sabine two hours later, she’d gone all out. She was wearing a little black dress that caught my breath. She was stunning in it, and she wore short heels that made her appear even more svelte. Sabine would be the belle of the party. She wouldn’t fade into the background, but I was certain that she could get any man to confess to her.

I had spent the hours buying some hors d'oeuvres for the party. I wanted it to appear as if I’d spent the day cooking, even though I had not. I was dressed up as well, but the overall effect was different. I didn’t want to be seen as a seductress, which would only lead to more rumors and innuendo. I wanted to be seen as professional, but aloof. An image of purity and restraint would make the bridal party more inclined to see me as innocent, and I hoped that this image would lead to their testimony that I was not a cheater. I’d had enough experience in marketing to know how to display an appropriate image.

I arrived early. I’d stopped at Sabine’s and taken her with me. Not only was she going to be working with me, I wanted to use her as a shield to avoid any embarrassing questions. Plus she had to help me contain my excitement about an engagement ring. I kept wanting to tell Gina that the bouquet had been right, and I would be next. I didn’t need time to think. I knew my answer would be yes.

I wondered if Gina had known about the ring, which is why I’d felt she’d aimed at me. If that was the case, then the police likely already knew about the engagement and the stronger motive of a cheating fiancé.

I sighed as I took some of the appetizers out of the oven. Sabine arranged them on little trays to carry around.

“What exactly should I be looking for?” she asked. “Clues or confessions or what?”

I gave her a grin. “A confession would be nice, but I’m not counting on us having such luck. I’d really just like you to keep your ears open and listen for anything that might have to do with the wedding, Land or David. Anything that might be related could end up being important. Land suggested the source of the rumors about me cheating.”

She nodded. “I have a good memory, so I’ll do the best I can to keep things word for word if I can.”

I nodded in approval. Just then the first of the guests rang the doorbell, and Sabine and I began moving around the kitchen at a rapid pace. I’d watched Land do this a thousand times, but frankly, he’d made it look easy. Now that I had to do it on my own, I saw it for the complex set of procedures that had to be timed more carefully than a military invasion. I sent Sabine out with the first tray of hors d'oeuvres.

I waited patiently while I scurried around, trying to get the punch finished. I’d picked a fairly easy recipe which included champagne, triple sec, and brandy. However, this crowd was in a festive mood, and I had to prepare two more batches of it in the first hour. At the same time, I had to prep two more trays of appetizers and finger sandwiches to soak up the booze being consumed. I crossed my fingers that the alcohol would loosen some tongues in the room.

By the end of the second hour, the kitchen activities had been reduced to clean-up, so I carefully stood by the kitchen door that led to the living room. I wanted to eavesdrop on any conversations that I could hear. Two women by the door were gossiping, and I chose to focus in on them. I was quickly unhappy that I had, since I was the topic of conversation.

“I can’t believe that Gina would invite her here. After what her boyfriend did to poor David, I’d think she would be ashamed to show her face at a wedding celebration.”

I couldn’t see either woman, but I could easily tell their voices apart. The one who had just spoken was louder and shriller. The other woman’s voice was barely audible, as if she didn’t want to be heard – or overheard. I smiled, thinking how right she was to be concerned.

“She didn’t kill anyone Women shouldn’t be judged for their poor taste in men.”

“I’ll drink to that – were you talking about the caterer or Christie? They both chose David for some reason.”

“More Christie, I would suppose. How horrible it would be to find out that your boyfriend was doing the caterer.” There was a hint of resignation in her voice, as if this was the status quo for male-female relationships. I knew that it wouldn’t be mine, though I had friends who had stayed with a cheater.

I also knew that most people didn’t treat the hired help like real humans, so I was hoping that Sabine and I would hear things that normally people wouldn’t share. I’d been privy to a number of conversations where the customer forgot that I was in earshot, just because I was serving him food.

“Someone told me that David bragged about having relations with the caterer at the bridal table at the reception. I don’t understand men who think that sex is some sort of conquest thing.” Since there had been nearly 100 people at the reception, I couldn’t see why anyone would believe that, but apparently these women did.

“Do you think that the boyfriend heard? Is that why he killed David?”

“It’s possible. I mean, David told Trent and Jason with Christie definitely in earshot. He wasn’t trying to hide it.”

I knew the groom and the victim, but the Jason person was new to me. I was unsure which guy in the bridal party he was, but I knew I’d try to find out more from him before the evening was up. I’d traced the rumors back another level to this man – or Trent.

I had to step back from my perch as Sabine entered the kitchen. She raised an eyebrow, which reminded me of Land. I felt immediately heartsick that he was in jail. I missed him, and seeing someone who had the same mannerisms only made my feelings more intense.