FIVE WILL GET YOU TWENTY (Food Truck Mysteries Book 9) (2 page)

Carter took the truck back to the secured lot, where we now rented a decent chunk of territory with three trucks. I had driven the Buick, since there was barely room in Land’s sport car for two of us, much less three.

The evening was over early, for which I was grateful. The new week started tomorrow, and not only would I be working with Sabine instead of Carter, I was keyed up about the new truck, its location and its ability to make a profit.

Land kissed me at the door to the building, long and passionate, reminding me of what I was giving up by going to bed early and alone. I sighed as I went upstairs to prepare for a new week.

***

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well that night. I had terrible dreams about our trucks being driven over a cliff by Curry in a Hurry as Ryan Pohler laughed at us. The smell of acrid smoke and our cuisine filled my nose, even though it was all in my head. I woke feeling grumpy and resentful.

Since I was awake, I made myself some coffee and reviewed the initial figures I’d drawn up for the truck. Everything was fine as far as I could see, but I was still concerned. While the earlier trucks had been an adventure and a lark, I was feeling the pressure of knowing that now my business decisions affected not only me, but also Land and others. The days of my moving home to live on my parents’ couch were long gone. That was an option I could no longer fall back on. I had responsibilities, and sometimes they weighed upon my mind.

I picked up the truck early. The other two trucks were right in place, and I knew that my fears were likely unfounded, so I made my way to Elm Street. I pulled into our normal space and began the morning’s preparation of coffee for the businesspeople who worked at nearby Government Square. The early morning crowd was the group that typically put us over the top in terms of profitability.

A key part of that was Land’s special blend of coffee, which he still wouldn’t share with me even though we were to be married in a few months. Sabine had told me that Land refused to share it with her either, even though they were blood. Land’s grandfather had come up with the particular ratio of beans and had sworn Land to secrecy for some reason. He did promise me that he’d tell our children, which I think was just his way of finding out if I wanted children—which I do.

Land always made it in bulk, sharing some with his family and the rest with the food trucks. It was a habit he’d started when he’d worked for my aunt, and he’d continued to make it for our ever-growing fleet of trucks.

Sabine turned up shortly after I arrived. Even though Land had expressed his doubts about his sister’s reliability, she’d been a model employee for the truck. She poured herself a large mug of the coffee, which she liked to say was her due since it was a family recipe. She put on an apron and got to work.

I opened the window and started filling coffee orders. Sabine had begun work on the condiments for the day, which typically would not be required until nine or so. It was the rare customer who wanted a hot dog for breakfast.

Sales were brisk that morning, and I kept busy. I was glad of the work, because I would have otherwise worried myself sick about the opening of the new truck. The plan was for it to be in place and operational by 9a.m., and so I was glad when that time came and I hadn’t heard from Carter. That meant that all was well—or he’d slept in and missed the whole thing. Thoughts like that made me want to check up on him.

I took a deep breath and exhaled before I fully jumped into the day. I checked on the hot dogs, which were cooking, and ran an eye over the condiments. I hadn’t had to do that in a long time, but with a new chef, I wanted to make sure that everything went right. If there weren’t enough dogs or toppings, then the customers would likely forego a wait. They were on the quick lunchtime clock and didn’t have time to wait as long as they would for a sit-down meal.

We’d nearly finished the shift when I got a call from Carter. “Hey, got a minute?” he asked. His tone was casual, but I knew that he would only call if something was wrong. My chest constricted in panic.

“Sure, for you, always,” I said, trying to sound equally breezy. “What’s up?” My stomach was in knots, waiting to hear what calamity had befallen the new truck so soon. Had I forgotten a permit, and the truck had been shut down? Had someone run into the truck and totaled my investment?

“Take a deep breath,” Carter said with a laugh. “It’s not that bad. It’s just that the truck has a flat tire. Can you send a tow truck over to fix it?”

I exhaled, realizing exactly how tense I’d been. The worries of the new truck were apparently getting to me. “What happened?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I just noticed a slight list to the truck and went out to check things. I noticed the tire at once. I didn’t hit anything on the way here, and I don’t remember a tilt this morning.”

I’d just bought new tires for the truck before we took it to the festival last weekend. These were not tires that went flat so easily. I wondered what Carter wasn’t telling me.

Even though I had my concerns, I made the call to the service and arranged to have someone come out and fix the tire after the shift. I called Carter back and told him what I’d done.

“Great. I’ll call you at the end of shift and report out on the day’s sales,” he said with a laugh. “I know that’s why you really want to hear from me and not my sparkling personality.”

I thought back to my realization that this truck represented my ability to make my own way as an adult, an employer, and a spouse. I laughed, but it was an uneasy one, knowing that he was all too right. Sabine gave me an odd look, but I just shrugged and got back to work.

The tow company called me back shortly after that. I hated to take calls during work hours, since it was hard enough to take orders when I was giving it my full attention. The man told me that the tire had been fixed, but then he said, “I wanted to let you know that the tire was slashed. It wasn’t a matter of the driver hitting something or a pothole. This was done on purpose. I’ll back you up if you need to make a police report for insurance purposes.”

The words cut through me as the knife had cut through the rubber tire. I was shocked. We’d never had any incidents of vandalism or animosity while the trucks were parked on the streets during the day. I felt violated that someone had taken my truck and tried to render it inoperable. I was grateful that it had been so easily fixed, but given the size of the bill from the towing company, it was not going to be cheap. I was watching every cent with this new truck, and I didn’t want to be paying for needless expenses.

I also knew that I wouldn’t be making a police report or telling the insurance company. The former would bring about too much unwanted attention, and the latter would raise my rates, something I didn’t want.

I asked to speak to Carter. The tow truck driver handed him the phone, and I spoke, “Did you see anything this morning?” I wondered if I would notice if someone came around to the back of the truck and slashed the tire.

“No, I’ve been too busy. I’ve been rushing around trying to make sure that everything’s okay.” He sounded freaked. He probably thought that I was going to blame this on him.

“I’m not blaming you for anything. You didn’t do this to the tire. Someone else did. I was just wondering if you could give me a timeframe for the incident.”

“No clue. Sorry. You can bet that I’ll be on the lookout tomorrow,” he said, sounding relieved that I wasn’t going to yell at him.

I had a strong suspicion that Ryan Pohler was behind the vandalism. We expanded our territory into areas where his had historically been the only food trucks. He’d been unctuous and overly magnanimous at the festival, which had done nothing to endear him to me. Now that our truck was having minor problems, I automatically thought
who would be most likely to gain from it
. His name came to mind, though I could hear Land’s voice telling me not to jump to such wild conclusions.

There was no more criminal activity in the area of town with the new truck than we had here. It was only a few blocks from where we parked. Of course, given that I’d witnessed a few murders on Government Square, I wasn’t sure that I’d made the best analogy there. Perhaps I should have raised the bar to only want fewer crimes for the new truck than the other two.

The rest of the shift was quiet for us. My nerves were shot, thinking of all the things that could go wrong with a food truck manned by only one person, but I didn’t receive any other calls or updates, so I assumed that things were going well.

We had almost finished for the day. Sabine was cleaning the last of the prep area surfaces, and I was counting the cash for a second time. The day’s tallies were great. So at least nothing was wrong with sales.

The extra money could come in handy. I’d had my eye on a wedding dress that cost more than I’d like to admit. I’d never thought of myself as the frilly bride type. Some of my friends had been offered a choice of cash or a wedding from their parents. I knew that I would have taken the cash in a heartbeat. Yet they’d all wanted the wedding. Now I wondered what I would choose in the same circumstances.

I was starting to feel the allure of the event. I was trying to keep things under budget so that we could start off with a nice nest egg, but the dress, which cost far more than I’d planned, kept popping into my brain when I wasn’t thinking about it.

However, the timing was such that I had to worry about the finances. I’d been putting off buying much for the wedding because we had purchased a new food truck and paid for some targeted marketing in the area. Wedding details seemed like a luxury at the moment, though I knew I’d have to get moving on those things soon.

I was feeling an immense amount of pressure to make this third truck a success, and my thoughts were a jumble as I took the food truck back to the secured lot. I drove home in silence, not even listening to the stock reports on the radio. I wanted the quiet time to reflect on things and go over in my mind what, if anything, I needed to do in order to make this new truck work.

When I got home, I decided to go for a run. I was in desperate need of some physical activity to still my mind. So I took off across the park; though I’d recently seen a murder there, I didn’t worry about my safety. My main goal was just to relax.

I made it home without any incidents and took a shower. When I finished and changed, I noticed that I had two messages on my phone. The first was from the bank, indicating that my deposit had errors in it. Since I knew that wasn’t the case with the bag I’d dropped off, I suspected that it was the deposit for the new truck. The timing was about right to indicate the deposit had been made by Carter. I ignored the other call for the time being and dialed the bank.

A clerk answered, put me on hold for an interminable amount of time, and finally a woman answered and introduced herself as the branch manager. “Ms. Kinkaid, I’m glad you called. This normally isn’t a problem with your deposits, but today there were five $20 bills that were counterfeit in the bag.”

I scrunched up my face. For the most part, we had not had any problems with being passed fake currency. I didn’t want to have to start doubting every customer that came through the line, as many of them had been loyal customers for years now.

I asked a few questions and learned that it was indeed the other truck. I wasn’t blaming Carter for this either. He’d never collected cash before. He’d always been the cook at the original truck, and I’d dealt with the money and coffee. Now he had to do it all, which included making sure that we weren’t being robbed. In the rush, it would be easy to accept some counterfeit bills without noticing.

However, coming on top of the flattened tire today, I was beginning to sense a pattern here. These were not individual acts in my mind, but were perhaps a concerted effort to hurt my business. And again my mind came back to the same man I’d suspected for the slashed tire.

I had to wonder if I was just too stressed. I had absolutely no proof that these were anything other than the misfortunes that could befall any business in the first few days of operation.

However, I was still suspicious of Ryan Pohler. I couldn’t put my finger on the reasons why I thought he was behind the incidents, but I felt that way—strongly. Part of it boiled down to the fact that I couldn’t make his numbers work. No matter how hard I tried, the expenses for the truck had to be criminally low in order for him to show the profits and expansion he had made in the past three years. I wasn’t being envious. I wanted to grow, but I wanted to follow the rules. My dad had always made a point of abiding by the tax code and the licenses needed to work, and he’d passed that on to me.

I learned from the bank manager that the counterfeit bills would be turned over to the police for investigation, and my deposit would be $100 less than what we posted. So profits would be down for the day.

I grumbled to myself, because the police would obviously start with the business being the source of the bad bills. We had nothing to show them to prove otherwise. The new truck had a security system, but we didn’t run it during the day. So we had no way of knowing who had passed those twenties to us. “I don’t know,” was not going to be a great answer to tell the police.

Having dealt with the first issue, I decided to listen to the other call on my voicemail. Not surprisingly, it was Carter who gave me a total for the day and a good report on business. I didn’t have the heart to call him back now and tell him that he’d been conned. He’d been through a rough patch over the last few months, and this was the happiest I’d seen him in that time. I hated to bring him down.

Of course, he’d know about it soon enough, since the police would want to ask some questions, but I decided to give him an evening of happiness before the investigation started.

Land came over, and I told him the news. He brought me a dinner from the Basque food truck, so I dined well as I shared all the things that had happened. We had an early night since I had to get up early. He didn’t like to stay over if I had to wake him at 4a.m., so he said goodnight, and I toddled off to bed.

***

The next morning, I was the first one to the food truck. I texted Sabine to tell her to meet me at Elm Street, and I started getting things ready for a new day. I had ordered a few of the highlighters that detect counterfeit bills and expected them in a few days.

I’d developed an idea last night that I knew Land wouldn’t be happy with, but he’d likely go along. Once the highlighters arrived, then I was going to help Carter for a few days at the new truck. That would leave Sabine by herself at the original truck, but she’d shown herself to be a model employee so far. So I didn’t worry about it. However, I did know that Land was concerned about his sister’s professionalism since he’d mentioned it so many times in the past. He’d been right about people in the past, so I knew that I would risk ignoring him at my own expense.

Even so, I wanted to be on the new truck for just a few days. I knew that Carter would be doing the best he could, but if he were to look out for counterfeiters and vandals, he’d be doing the work of three people on the truck. That was asking a bit much of him.

I heard a tap on the door to the truck. I thought that Sabine must have forgotten her keys, but when I looked out the peephole in the door, it was Detective Jax Danvers. I groaned for a second and then opened the door. There was only one thing that would get Danvers here before the crack of dawn, and that was crime. He didn’t even arrive this early to get Land’s coffee mix.

“So, I hear you had a little problem with fake twenties yesterday?” he asked without preamble. “Five of them in one deposit. That’s a good run for anyone.”

“And if you know that, you also know that those came from the new truck and not Dogs on the Roll,” I added. My mood was taking a dive, and it wasn’t even five o’clock yet. By the end of shift, I would be majorly put out. “So I can’t add much to that statement.”

“Yeah, I heard, but the trucks belong to you, so I thought I’d start with you.” He had a smile on his face that told me he was enjoying this far too much. Perhaps it was because I had shown him up in investigating some open crimes over the past few years, but he knew me better than to think I’d started printing my own cash. I was making enough legally.

“So what am I supposed to know about this?” I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. Even though he was not high on my list of favorite people, he was dating Sabine, which meant that I had to play somewhat nice with him. “I only talked to the bank yesterday afternoon. I haven’t talked to Carter yet. I ordered a highlighter so that I can check the twenty dollar bills we accept. If someone is passing us bad money, it’s not our fault. It’s just our bad luck.”

“The funny thing is, though, that we didn’t get any other reports of phony twenties being passed yesterday in all of Capital City. Just your new truck. Interesting, isn’t it? I’m going to talk to Carter later today,” Danvers said. “I thought you might want to give him a head’s up that I’m coming by. He spooks easy, and I don’t want to freak him out.”

I had to admit that I was shocked and surprised by Danvers’ thoughtfulness in the matter. He’d never worried about upsetting me, but he was concerned for Carter. Maybe Sabine was having a good influence on him.

However, that theory was quickly put to rest. Sabine walked into the food truck, saw Danvers, and walked out. No words, no recriminations, just an exit. I was stunned. No one had said a word to me about there being any bad blood between them. As far as I knew, the pair was still dating.

Yet, even I could see that there were some bitter feelings at the moment. I chose to ignore the incident and continue the conversation. “So, I don’t suppose there’s any way that we can get back the money we lost?” I knew the answer, but if Danvers wanted me to participate in this matter, I thought that some payback would be nice.

“Dream on,” Danvers said, not even referencing the incident with Sabine. Given his tone, I would think that nothing had happened. So he was obviously aware of what was going on and why. Now I wanted to call Land, because I figured that he knew all the details, but had not seen a reason to share them with me, likely thinking that my future sister-in-law would tell me all while we were working together closely. “You might want to let Carter know that we’ll be over later today. I’m probably going to have someone go through all the twenties in the drawer too.”

I swallowed hard, thinking of how it would look to have uniformed officers standing inside the truck and counting the money. That was not the type of reputation I wanted for the first week of operations. Word would spread fast that something was wrong about the new food truck if warrants were being executed against the operator. “Could you send a plain-clothes guy to do that?” I asked, hoping to alleviate some of the situation. A man in street clothes was less likely to turn off customers, even if they were able to infer what the officer was doing. “Policemen in the truck counting the cash might stymie business.”

“Yeah, sure,” Danvers said, trying not to look annoyed. “Maybe I’ll do it. I can spend a little time helping Carter and checking bills.”

For a moment, I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not, but given his mood, I would have to take him at face value. “Thanks,” I offered, hoping that his relationship troubles wouldn’t be taken out on the food trucks—or me.

He left, and within two minutes, Sabine had returned to the truck. She must have been standing within a certain perimeter, feeling that 5a.m. in downtown Capital City had to be better than being in the truck with Detective Danvers. That told me a lot about where they were in the relationship at the moment.

“What did he want?” she said petulantly. She took her long hair and wrapped it into a ponytail and pushed it under the hat she used to prepare food. She didn’t make eye contact with me, which was suggestive.

“Five bad twenties got passed to Carter in the new truck. He was asking questions about the money and what we knew about it. But there’s not much to tell. We don’t know anything.”

She nodded. “That type of operation is hard to pin down, especially if they move around a lot. I’m surprised that Carter had five of them. That’s a lot, which means probably five customers used them. No one buys $100 worth of tacos for lunch. That would be too obvious. It’s just not normal for a gang to target the same business on the same day.”

I wondered where she’d gotten her knowledge of counterfeiting operations, but like her brother, I doubted if I would get an answer if I asked. She would make some generic statement that would leave me knowing nothing more than I did before. Given that she had yet to tell me a word about what was going on with Danvers, I doubted that she would be in the mood to share her knowledge of felons with me either.

I continued to prep the coffee, and I counted out the money as I worked. I looked at the bills as I counted them, but I couldn’t see any obvious flaws in the currency. It wasn’t like FDR or Obama was on the twenty. They all looked perfectly normal to me.

I finished what I was doing and opened the window for business. Sabine continued to prep for the day’s menu. She was slicing whole dill pickles into spears and chopping up tomatoes and onions for the Chicago dogs. She told me that she’d eaten hot dogs made in that manner in the Windy City, and I believed her. She had traveled around nearly as much as her brother had.

Now I was curious about the counterfeiting operation. I’d never really encountered anything like this, and I wasn’t sure how the operation worked. I just assumed that people paid with bad bills and received change for their bad money. Yet a taco and drink order would likely take about half the twenty, so I wasn’t sure they were getting the most for their money. It seemed more likely that they’d get the most inexpensive thing on the menu, a plain coffee, or an inexpensive small drink.

I could easily tell Carter to pay more attention to the people who bought small orders with large bills. That would reduce his workload, since he wouldn’t have to look at all the twenties involved. He would just be interested in certain orders and certain transactions.

His truck didn’t open until about nine since it was parked downtown among a number of trendy shops and boutiques. Capital City had been trying to entice more people downtown with the trendy stores to match the new places to eat, and Carter’s truck sat in the middle of this refurbished area of town. He opened early enough to get the employee business, and then stayed open until nearly dinnertime. I had several hours before I could call him with my ideas on the matter.

The shift went fast. I called Carter around 9a.m. and he didn’t answer. I tried again at 10:30, and he picked up on the first ring. “What’s up?” he asked cheerily.

I explained my reasoning and told him to keep an eye out for counterfeit twenties especially on small orders. I also told him that Danvers would likely be over today to check the cash drawer.

“I suppose he doesn’t trust me?” Carter said. “Goodness knows, I’ve been suspected of worse by him.”

I agreed with him. Of course, there had been a few times when I’d been suspicious of Carter and his actions—like now, for instance. I was dying to know why he hadn’t answered at nine but was ready and available at 10:30. While I wasn’t checking up on him, I was calling with a good purpose at an early time. So why hadn’t he answered?

Carter had always been a bit on the lax side when it came to start times, and I wondered if he’d kept that same attitude even when he was the only one in the truck. I cringed to think that we would be missing sales because the truck sat in the secured lot instead of on the street.

I didn’t mention the incident to him though. I trusted Carter, even though I was concerned about the fact that he hadn’t answered the phone. I knew that I’d be able to see for myself in a day or two when I worked at the new truck.

I worked the rest of the morning shift with Sabine in silence. She hadn’t mentioned her argument with Detective Danvers, though I could see it was serious. However, she didn’t mention it, and I didn’t ask. I’d learned to wait for the Mendoza family to tell me things in their own time—or to have it blow up in their face in a bad way—but I tried not to pry.

Land pulled up in the other truck at two that afternoon, and Sabine gave me a knowing smile to say that she had things under control. I walked over to Basque in the Sun and entered the truck. Per our tradition, Land pulled me into a hot kiss. I never got tired of this routine, which left me tingling all over.

“How are you today?” Land asked, keeping an eye on me.

I told him about Detective Danvers showing up at 5a.m., the scene with Sabine, and calling Carter and receiving no answer.

Land shrugged. “I’m actually surprised that we don’t get more counterfeit bills, given that none of us check the bills as they come in. It’s more common than you might think.”

I told him that I’d ordered enough markers for all the trucks and they would be here in the next day or so. I also told him that I’d be working with Carter for a few days until we fixed this issue.

“You’re okay leaving Sabine with the truck by herself?” he asked, furrowing his brow. Land was of the firm opinion that she was not the type to be trusted with a major operation. When I’d first met her, she worked as a guard at the secured lot where we kept the trucks—and Land thought that position had taxed her level of commitment to a job. He shared a few stories of her irresponsibility, but the tales were years old and sounded more like teenaged hijinks rather than adult carelessness.

“I’ll be at our truck until 9, then I’ll go over to the other truck and come back after lunch to help with clean up and counting the money. She’ll only have three to four hours by herself.”

“But those hours are the lunch rush,” Land pointed out. “If she screws up, it could be a bad day for sales. I know you’d be upset with that.”

I nodded. “But we have to come up with a back-up plan for operating all three trucks without us before the wedding. I want a few days off, and I’d rather not spend it selling hot dogs.”

Land pulled me close again. “That sounds fantastic.” His lip brushed my ear and I shivered.

“Who knows?” I added. “Maybe Danvers will come help her out.”

He laughed. “You’re not going to let this go until I say something.” He took a breath. “Fine, Jax asked Sabine to move in with him, and my grandmother got wind of it. She can be very old-fashioned, and she put her foot down. No ring, no cohabitation. Jax balked at that, and Sabine had one of her famous fits. So now they’re not talking.”

I looked up at him. “Thank you for telling me.”