A GRAVE CONCERN (Food Truck Mysteries Book 8) (9 page)

“He stole money from the family firm to pay off some debts. He was engaged to some socialite, yet had a family on the side. When all that caught up to him, he left. Hasn’t been seen by the family since.”

“He would be an embarrassment to his brother then,” I said out loud, thinking of possible motives. “That’s more a motive for him to be killed than for him to kill someone.”

Danvers cleared his throat. “You do realize that this is an open police investigation, and you shouldn’t be sticking your nose into it?”

I’d heard this lecture often enough, so I excused myself and went to visit Land, who had arrived in the second food truck. I thought that Danvers and Sabine might use the time to make up from her reluctance to share information about the Preston family with him.

Land warmly greeted me at the door to the truck. After the evening and day that I’d had, I nuzzled into him and savored the moment. He must have sensed that I needed some support, and we stood there silently for several minutes.

Finally, he broke it off and looked down at me. “You’re okay, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, just all this has taken a lot out of me. Last night was heartbreaking. Thanks.”

He kissed me again and gave me a smile. “Always happy to help. What is Danvers doing over there?”

“Wooing Sabine, or yelling at her for being involved. I’m never quite sure which with him.”

Land smiled at my joke. “He has his hands full with this case. Usually the perps in a murder case are lower class or homeless. Now he has to tiptoe around one of the wealthiest families in Capital City while he’s working on a case that he doesn’t want to turn over to the Feds. It’s a fine line he’s walking.”

“Does he think that the family is involved?” I asked, thinking again of Carter’s father and that situation.

“That’s the impression I’m getting from him. He won’t come out and name a suspect, but Danvers isn’t all that hard to read. I would guess the homeless brother if I had to, based on what Danvers has told me.”

I nodded. I took a deep breath. “Well, I had a revelation last night. I went through Carter’s application to find out about his father, for custody purposes. Guess who happens to be the male parent of Carter Smith?”

“From the way you presented it, I’m guessing the brother. So what does that mean?”

He pulled me close, and I forgot my thoughts for a few seconds. “I’m more concerned about Carter and the kids and the custody. The Preston family might want to get involved, and I’d rather not see Carter have any more loss. He’s had enough recently.”

“So how are he and Aaron doing at the moment?” Land asked. I noticed that he was asking questions to get me away from talking about the murder.

I couldn’t share everything I knew about that situation, since I doubted that Aaron wanted me to share what I’d learned last night. So I just gave Land the short version of events.

He sighed. “I’m so glad that we’re not like that. It would drive me insane, but you better go back and check on Sabine. I worry about leaving her alone on her first day on the truck, but I’m more concerned that she’s there with Danvers.”

I nodded and headed back after making plans. Land was going to get caught up on his rest and I was going to help Carter with the plans for the visitation. I also was going to give him the information I had on a lawyer friend, so that the process of settling the estate and custody could begin.

Danvers was gone by the time I returned to Dogs on the Roll. I was glad about it. I wasn’t going to get any information from him about the murder, and apparently I was going to be forced to witness his courtship of Sabine, which I could do without.

Sabine had scrubbed the place in my absence. I was impressed, despite Land’s worries about leaving her alone in the truck by herself. We parted ways, and she assured me that she would be back in the morning.  I wondered what her hours were at the gallery, but they didn’t seem to be interfering with her shifts on the food truck, so I didn’t complain.

I called Carter when I got home and left all the information on voice mail. I’d just started making dinner, if you want to call a can of soup “dinner,” when he returned my call.

“Maeve, thanks for the information. I called the lawyer, and you’re right. He wants to learn more about my father. I’m not sure what to tell him since I have no way of contacting him.”

I took a deep breath. “If I were you, I’d contact the family then. They have a sister named Brianna, and I’ve talked to her. They may know where your father is.” I scrounged through my purse until I found the card with her number on it. I read it off to Carter. After a few more minutes of chatting, he hung up.

The next morning broke beautifully. I was awake early and actually had time to stop for a cup of coffee on the way to pick up the truck. It was heaven not to be rushed, but, of course, not enough so to make me get up earlier than I had to.

I pulled the truck into its normal place on Elm Street and began the prep work. I had about finished the coffee rituals when Sabine showed up. She looked beautiful, as always, and I was stunned by the fact that she was here early. Land had always called her lazy, and it didn’t match the woman who had been here early twice in a row. Granted, I’d only known her for a short time, but perhaps family doesn’t know you best.

We continued getting ready for work in silence. She definitely was someone who kept her thoughts to herself, but she did share at times. Today apparently was not one of those times.

We were almost prepped to open when we heard a loud crash from outside. I flipped open the window, having the foresight to lock the register almost simultaneously.  I looked down to Government Square and saw two homeless men arguing loudly. It appeared that one of them had knocked over one of the trash bins, the large metallic framed cans on each corner of the square.

I stared at the men for a moment, feeling a shiver go up my spine. The scene was just vaguely reminiscent of what I’d seen the other night, though it had been at the park and not in daylight.

I started to say something, but before I could, Sabine was at my side watching. She gasped as we watched.

One of the men was the manicured man I’d seen twice now. The other one I didn’t recognize. That wasn’t going to stop me. I headed to the door and was on my way to Government Square before I could talk myself out of doing something stupid. It was well lit and open. I figured that I would be safe there. A few pedestrians walked by, but they turned their heads away to avoid looking at the two men arguing.

However, as I approached, the manicured man saw me and ran. He sprinted across the square before I could say anything to him. The other man stayed where he was. He looked at me for a long moment and then collapsed on the ground.

I checked him for a pulse, careful to keep my fingerprints and DNA off of him. I couldn’t find a pulse on his wrist or neck. I stood up and walked quickly back to the truck.

I shouted to Sabine as I approached the food truck “Call 9-1-1. Now.”

She swallowed hard and nodded. Her phone was out and up against her ear in seconds. She disconnected and looked at me. “The ambulance is on the way, and so is Jax. He needs to be aware of this—now.” I noticed that she used the detective’s given name.

“Okay,” I said, leery of her motivations. From what it appeared, the man had died of natural causes. The other homeless man had sprinted off without making any contact with the dead man. Unless he’d been poisoned or I’d missed a wound mark, nothing had happened to make the man collapse.

“I need to tell you something—something I already told Jax,” Sabine said in almost a breathless voice. “The man who ran away, the other man. I know him. It’s the father of the Preston family.”

I nodded. “That would explain the manicure, but little else. Why would he be pretending to be a homeless man? He’s got more money than most of the city.”

“I don’t know why. Perhaps something to do with his son? But that’s him. I’d know him anywhere.”

Before I could respond, Carter had walked up to the food truck. “Hey, what’s going on around here?” he said, looking around. “I thought I heard sirens on the way up here. Are you okay?”

I didn’t get to answer, because the ambulance pulled up on the square before I could speak. I left Carter with Sabine and trotted back to explain what had happened. The two EMTs did a quick check, but there were no signs of trauma or wounds on the body. They obviously couldn’t rule out poison or other internal issues, but they put the body on the stretcher and slid it into the ambulance.

They’d just shut the doors when Danvers arrived. There was no sidling up to the food truck for a cup of coffee this time. He arrived in a patrol car with the lights flashing and siren blaring. He stopped the ambulance and spoke with the EMTs for a moment.

Then he turned his attention to me. “What do you know about all of this?” he said, more as an accusation than a question.

“Sabine and I heard some noise. I came out to investigate and found two men arguing. One ran off, and the other collapsed. I couldn’t find a pulse on him, so we called 9-1-1.”I had hoped that throwing Sabine’s name out first might minimize Danvers’s annoyance, but that wasn’t the case.

“It’s not enough that you feed these people. Now you’ve got to get involved in their problems?” he asked. “You’re not a counselor, and you can’t fix them.”

“I thought I might be able to help,” I replied, not entirely truthful. I had wanted to talk to the manicured homeless man to find out what he’d learned about Hamilton Preston pretending to be homeless. Now I had learned that the two were related. It was guaranteed that when I talked to Mr. Preston, he would definitely have something to tell me.

“You’re not supposed to help. You’re supposed to stay out of open police investigations,” Danvers said, almost at a yell. “We don’t need you.”

“And yet you seem to,” I added. I thought back over the cases that I’d helped the police with and the number of times that I’d beat the police department to the correct solution. They’d held me once and arrested Land another time. That certainly didn’t feel like a great track record for them.

I also thought that if Danvers didn’t want my help, I wouldn’t bother to tell him that Sabine had identified the other person at the scene of the crime.

“A woman named Delores indicated that the other man ran off in the opposite direction. Would you say that was true?” Danvers asked me, consulting a notebook. “Did you get a good look at him this time?”

“Yes, he ran away from us when he saw me approach. Then after he’d started to leave, the other man collapsed.” Given Danvers’s words, it sounded like he thought the same man had been at both scenes, but now I knew that it had been Carter at the park with Hamilton Preston. These were two different men.

Danvers scribbled something in the notebook. I really felt that sometimes he just did that to annoy me, but I couldn’t be sure. “Can you describe him?”

“Older, shaved, manicured. It’s the same man that I saw the last day of Hamilton Preston’s life.”

“So you’ve said. Anything more specific to appearance that the police might see from more than a foot away?”

I sighed. “He had grayish hair, short cut, maybe a buzz cut or one of those old 1950s haircuts. Stocky, but spry. I mean, he took off, and I questioned whether or not I could keep pace with him, much less catch him.”

Danvers shut the book. “Okay, that’s a little better. What’s the cook doing here? I thought that the whole reason Sabine is working for you is that he’s out on bereavement.”

I looked over at Carter, who was about to find out that he’d lost both parents in the course of a day and cringed. While Danvers hadn’t put the pieces together, I had. The family had been looking for a homeless man, and pretending to be homeless themselves. The only argument they were likely to have was with the missing brother. Apparently, Mr. Preston had found him today, but had sprinted off before his son had died, either of natural causes or in some manner that I hadn’t seen.

“I’m not sure what he’s doing here,” I said honestly. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him. He showed up just as the homeless man collapsed. Probably something for the funeral, though I really hope he’s not going to ask us to cater the visitation.” I thought of how well the wedding we’d catered had turned out. I was done with catering.

“Go talk to him, open the truck and get to work. I’ll likely be back later today to find out why he was down here.” Danvers shot a glance to Carter, who didn’t seem to be paying attention.

Since Danvers did not question Carter, I suspected that Sabine had not shared the identity of the man who had run away. It was only a matter of time until she did, and then Detective Danvers would have plenty of questions for Carter, who had mysteriously showed up at the scene where his father had just died.

I walked over to Carter and gave him a wan smile. He immediately knew something was up, but I couldn’t exactly tell him without gauging his mood. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked, giving me a look that meant he knew something was wrong. “I’m actually doing a bit better, so don’t worry about me.”

I explained the situation and the death of the homeless man. Nothing registered on Carter’s face as I told the story, meaning that he likely hadn’t put the pieces together.

“So why are you so glum? I mean, I get that someone just passed away, but it seems to have been natural causes, and you didn’t know him. It’s just the way that things happen in life.”

I cleared my throat. This wasn’t going to be easy under the best of circumstances, and this was not the time or the place to tell him, but I felt a need to do this before he heard it on the news—or worse yet, in an interrogation room at police headquarters. “Carter, I have every reason to suspect that the homeless man who passed away this morning was your father, Milton Preston.” I explained how Sabine saw Mr. Preston, how Hamilton Preston had been in poorly fitting garb prior to his death, and how his father had been traced back to Capital City. “I could be wrong, but I think not.”

He nodded as I spoke. I kept waiting for a response, but none came. “Okay, well thanks. That’s one thing you won’t have to do for me,” he said after a long pause.

I was surprised, to say the least. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected from an adult child and his estranged father, but this hadn’t been it. I would have sadly mourned my father, even though I’m out on my own and soon-to-be married. My dad helped mold me into the person I am, good with numbers and able to run a small business on my own. His input was important to me.

I knew that Carter hadn’t had that. For as long as I’d known him, he’d struggled to support his mother and his younger siblings. They didn’t have any money for luxuries, like computers. I’d bought an old desktop for Carter a while back. I wondered how much his mother had left in medical bills that would need to be paid from the estate. He had a hard road ahead of him. It would be natural to resent a parent who had left him in this situation without assistance.

I wondered how long it would be before the police got around to learning that Carter was the offspring to the dead man. Considering that he’d been here this morning, it would presumably raise some eyebrows on the force. I would have to find some other evidence soon in order to keep Carter out of jail, and act quickly to do so.

Land pulled up just then, and I forgot my line of thought. He stepped out of the car, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, but even then, he looked damned good. His hair was short enough that he could sleep on it without a case of bedhead. The scruffy look was definitely a good one for him, too.

He came up and gave me a quick hug, which lingered just long enough to let me know that he wished it could have been longer. “What happened? Sabine called me after she called for the police.”

I explained the situation as best as I could to Land. I didn’t leave out anything, since I assumed that Sabine had told him everything. He didn’t seem all that surprised to learn that the mysterious homeless man was none other than Mr. Preston, but he rarely showed shock or surprise.

“And Carter was down here this morning?” Land checked his watch. “The gallery doesn’t open for another three hours, at least. I’ll be back here at 11, and we can go ask some questions.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “And leave Sabine here all by herself?” I asked. “Yesterday you were worried about leaving her alone with the truck at the end of the day. Now we’re going to leave her for the lunch rush?”

He gave me a small grin. “I could take Sabine with me, and you could work the lunch.”

My first reaction was to shoot down the idea, but after giving it some thought, I agreed that the food truck situation might be better if I stayed back.

“Are you still Maeve Kinkaid, who bravely chases down murderers and villains?” Land asked, barely keeping the chuckle out of his voice.

“I’m trying to do what’s best for the food trucks and Carter. It might be better if Sabine went. She caught Mr. Preston’s eye. Maybe he’ll not be expecting her to be smart, too.”

Land agreed, and he and Sabine made plans to meet at 11 a.m. She gave him the keys to her apartment and a very specific list of what to bring for her to wear. I was shocked that an underemployed woman could own so many clothes, but apparently she did.

Land took notes on a scrap of paper and headed off.

***

He arrived back at the truck a few minutes before 11. I was surprised that he was that early, but he explained that Sabine would take her time in getting ready. She’d already scoped out a store that likely had a clean restroom for her to change in, and she headed off to clean up before going to the art gallery.

Land helped out with the start of the lunch rush, but he left it to me as soon as his sister returned. She looked stunning in a white dress that didn’t hide a thing. At least Mr. Preston would know that she wasn’t carrying a wire to record the conversation. There wasn’t enough room in the dress to conceal the wires, much less the recording device.