MURDER TO GO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

investigate, and at least the bit of information that you took over this location is accurate. So I want to ask you a few more questions.”
    I leaned back into the truck and told Land to manage without me for a while. He looked out the door, saw Danvers and nodded. I wondered if he was mentally saying, I told you so. I know I would have if our roles had been reversed.
    The station turned out to be inside the government building that we faced across the plaza. We walked across the square and into the front doors. We had to submit to a security search before entering the lobby. I noticed that Danvers was able to skip the check, which only served to highlight the difference in our statuses. Danvers punched a button for the elevators and soon we were shooting up to the ninth floor.
    We walked across a rather crowded and noisy office to a conference room. He indicated that he wanted me to sit, so I did. The only nice part of this experience was that I got a break from standing up for a while.
    I didn’t kid myself about the room though. I knew that there were cameras in the room and there were likely recording devices as well. There was a table in the center of the room, and Danvers sat down at the opposite side of the table from me.
    “Now, about this location?” he asked. He took out his notepad again and flipped through a few pages.
    “Like I explained, most of the operators stay in one place. Their customers look for them at that location, and they want the repeat business. It makes life easier. However, I knew that it would be weeks before the Meat Treats truck would be operational again, so I decided last night that we’d use the spot until their truck came back. It’s close enough to our old location that we didn’t lose any existing business, and we picked up some of the other truck’s customers.”
    He nodded. “And how well did you know Fred Samples?”
    “Not at all, really. I could have picked him out in a crowd, but we rarely spoke. We were both busy and didn’t have time for chit-chat.”
    “So you’d be surprised to hear that our tip indicated that you and he were seen arguing last week and he told you to get away from his location and truck?”
    I thought back last week, but I knew that nothing like Danvers’ account had happened. “I would be very surprised. I’d bet that I haven’t said 20 words to Fred in the time since I took over my aunt’s business.”
    Danvers looked at his notes again. “That would be Alice James, your mother’s sister?”
    “That’s right.”
    “The one who died under mysterious circumstances a few months ago,” Danvers said, echoing Land’s comments.
    I had a sinking suspicion all of a sudden. Land’s desire to own my aunt’s truck tied to his comments yesterday made me wonder if Land had called in the anonymous tip. Had he been the one to put me in this predicament? This was definitely his chance to get the business and the new location, all without getting his hands dirty. He’d have to step in and take over if I was arrested or, worse yet, convicted of a crime. I knew that if I was convicted of killing Alice, I wouldn’t be able to profit from her death and the estate would be apportioned in another way.
    He continued, “It certainly seems like it doesn’t pay to get in your way these days, does it?” Today there were no smiles, no flirts and certainly no dimples. I also realized with a sinking feeling that a person who was a suspect in a murder case could never date the detective. That was all kinds of wrong.
    The similarity to Land’s comments immediately made me sure who had called in the tip. The Benedict Arnold had likely called it in after he left the truck yesterday, thinking he could have it all if I went to prison.
    However, in my mind, I wondered if he’d just used a convenient set of circumstances to move his agenda, or if he’d been the killer who set this fiasco in motion. I tried to imagine Land as a cold-blooded killer, but honestly, I