A GRAVE CONCERN (Food Truck Mysteries Book 8) (6 page)

I shrugged. “I’m not sure,” I said, thinking that I’d just told his aunt about the situation. I thought that perhaps he was thinking of his immediate family or his grandparents. I turned to look around, wondering where Sabine had gone to, but I couldn’t find her.

Barton sensed my desire to leave, and he excused himself. “I love food trucks. I’ll have to come check out your truck sometime soon.”

Having accomplished my goal for the evening, Land and I were ready to go home. I had to be up and at the truck by 5 a.m., which meant up by 4 a.m. for me. However, Sabine was nowhere to be found.

We walked around the various museum exhibits, managing to see the original paintings that had been donated to the facility, along with some of the newer works, before Land finally caught sight of her. Sabine was standing with a group of men near a display of Grecian statues. The men were rapt with attention, and I sighed. I would never be stunning in the same way that she was. Of course, I’d never look that way in my little black dress, either.

Land gave my hand a squeeze and then cleared his throat. “Sabine, are you ready to come home?” He gave her a broad, brotherly smile that told the men that they should be on their best behavior with his sister.

She gave a dramatic sigh to the men. “I have to go. The old folks need to go to bed.” She spun around deftly and followed us.

Grinding my teeth, I didn’t say a word. I wanted to yell at her, since she was only a couple of years younger than me, but I knew that wouldn’t work. She enjoyed being the center of attention, even when it wasn’t a good attention.

She turned her head quickly, which snapped her hair around her artfully. It looked natural, but I had a hunch she’d practiced that move before. “Mr. Preston, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave him a finger wave as we headed out the door.

The man she waved at must be the Preston patriarch. He had stooping shoulders, but a powerful build that exuded energy. Black eyes danced under their thick brows. I understood who ran the family business, just from looking at him. He wouldn’t let go of control of the gallery—and likely his children—until he was dead.

“So what did you learn tonight?” she asked with a challenging grin as we left. “I learned that I have a job at the Preston Gallery, if I show up tomorrow.”  She quickened her step so that we had to rush to keep up with her. “I should be able to clear up this entire matter in a day or two,” she added as she headed back to the car.

On the way home, we learned that Sabine had found out that Mr. Preston was the head of the local chamber of commerce, and his attendance at the event had practically been required. As a result, she found him quickly and gave him her undivided attention. The ploy had netted her a job interview and then a job offer.

“Not only can I keep an eye on the family,” she said, “but I’ll have better pay and benefits.” I could tell that she felt accomplished in that moment, and I let her enjoy it. I left it to Land to tell her that she was walking into a dangerous situation.

I wasn’t sure if the idea had been her own or Detective Jax Danvers’s, but Land would not be happy with it either way. He wasn’t in favor of the people he loved deliberately putting themselves in danger, and that’s what Sabine would be doing if the murderer turned out to be a member of the family.

Land didn’t speak at all on the way home, even after we dropped Sabine off at her apartment. It was still early, and I wondered if she would be calling Danvers to let him know the developments in the case.

He excused himself from spending the night, but he made up for it with a passionate kiss that nearly made me forget why we’d gone out tonight. He waved good-bye and headed down the hall. I closed and locked the door before heading to find my tablet.

My first search was on the name of Hamilton Preston’s brother. It only took three articles to find it. He was Milton Preston, Hamilton Preston’s rarely mentioned brother. The article gave a little bit of background on the black sheep of the family. Like the rest of the family, he’d been born into money. The Prestons had been in Capital City for nearly a century. No one knew where they’d been before moving here, but since then, they had made a mark on the city and its culture and politics.

Except for Milton. He’d been involved in some banking scandal. I wished that the article had spelled out the details of the crime. It was just the type of thing that appealed to a money nerd like me. Whatever the indiscretion, he’d been forced out of the bank, and the family had sent him to a friend’s real-estate business out of town. The job didn’t stick, and he’d arrived back home like the proverbial bad penny a few years later.

Things had gone downhill from there. He’d lost three more jobs in quick succession. The last job he’d had was with the gallery. While the article didn’t spell it out, I assumed the incident was the embezzlement mentioned by his sister, and he’d been asked to leave his family’s business.

From there, he’d lived with various friends and relatives. My impression was that he stayed until they couldn’t take it anymore. Then he moved on to the next. He’d been engaged to one of the Chesterfields, but the engagement had been called off after he’d left the family firm. I hadn’t recognized the woman I’d seen tonight, but apparently she was related to one of Hamilton Preston’s rivals for the city council seat. I wondered if that added even more acrimony to the relationship between the families. No wonder this was a heated race for council. If the Chesterfields felt that the Prestons had betrayed them with the broken engagement, there would be some emotions at work beyond what was best for Capital City over the next two years.

Milton had eventually run out of friends and money, and he’d hit the streets. The Prestons were mortified to learn of his homelessness, but by that time, he had dropped out of sight. I couldn’t find any recent mentions of him in the press. He’d entirely vanished from the city, and I was sure that the candidate would have appreciated that.

A means of committing the crime started to occur to me. What if Milton had contacted Hamilton? Perhaps he knew of some youthful indiscretion on the part of his brother, or maybe he just didn’t think it would go over well for Hamilton to be advocating for moving his brother off to parts unknown? Certainly that would have been a strong motive to bump him off.

Hamilton had dressed the part of a street person in order to avoid detection. The truth was that few people bothered to look at the homeless people. They thought to make eye contact was to offer the person money, or to perhaps realize that anyone could be on the streets without the help of family and friends.

When I first graduated college, which now seemed like a lifetime ago, I hadn’t been able to find a job. I’d been praised for my interview skills and my articulation of my life goals, but none of the interviews ever transformed into job offers. So six months after my college graduation, I still sat on my parents’ couch, watching TV.

Had it not been for my aunt’s bequest to me in her will, I might still be there, or working in a mindless job that didn’t allow me to use my business skills. Her will had left me the original food truck, though Land still insisted that she had promised it to him. These days, I tell him that my aunt’s plan all along had been to leave the truck to him via me. He’s rather skeptical of my aunt’s prescient abilities, but he allows me my romantic fantasies.

So no one would likely remember either Milton Preston or a disguised Hamilton Preston. If it hadn’t been for the man getting hot dogs from me, I doubt that I would have put the recipient of the daily menu and the politician together as I had.

The other thought I had led to even more possibilities. What if someone else had contacted Hamilton, pretending to be Milton Preston? Obviously, he’d need to be a man to meet the basic criteria, but even then, a woman might be able to pull off a dark meeting with Hamilton if the initial contact had been via a letter rather than a phone call. It would mean that anyone who knew the Preston family history could have made the contact and encouraged Hamilton to dress as he had.

So the opportunity meant little to the case. The ME had not released a report to the press, so I wasn’t sure when Hamilton had been killed. I had no questions to ask about alibis. I made a note to myself to ask Sabine to ask Danvers for information on the autopsy. I wondered if I would get a straight answer from her if I asked her in a manner that presumed she could get that information.

I had a feeling that motive would drive this case. Whoever had wanted to kill Preston had a reason to do so. I hadn’t found the most compelling reason yet, and I wasn’t even sure that I would recognize it if I came across it. The son of a prominent family might have multiple reasons for people to want him dead.

I went to bed still thinking about this and didn’t sleep well. The wine, the late night, and the endless thoughts running through my mind kept me awake throughout the night. I thought about letting Carter get the truck and set it up on Elm Street, but since I hadn’t heard from him, I had no idea how his mother was doing today. I couldn’t expect him to show up on time.

When my alarm finally rang, I rolled out of bed with a groan, threw my hair into a ponytail, and headed off to get the truck. I made it to Elm Street ahead of schedule and was working on the second urn of coffee when Carter arrived.

If anything, he looked worse than I did. He had dark circles under his eyes and he obviously had not showered since the last time I’d seen him. His T-shirt had a stain from yesterday, and his jeans held multiple blemishes from condiments across the front.

“Bad night for you, too?” he asked as he grabbed a coffee from the urn.

“No news?” I asked. Usually Aaron stopped with Carter to pick up coffee in the morning. The cup of Land’s special blend meant that Carter had come by bus, which didn’t bother to stop and allow Carter to get his caffeine fix.

“No, things are the same.” He looked at me through hooded eyes. “Has Aaron talked to you since yesterday?”

I shook my head. “Not at all. But to be fair, I wasn’t home last night. We went out to a party.”

He snorted. “I’m betting it was related to that guy’s murder, right? Otherwise, you’re in your jammies by 8 p.m.”

I admitted that he was right. “Were you expecting Aaron to call me?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

I had a sneaking suspicion that Carter had dumped Aaron with the idea that he would come pleading to friends and family for help in persuading Carter to marry him. That plan had apparently backfired in a big way. I’d heard nothing from him, even though we were on good terms.

“Nah, just wondered if he would. He’s done stuff like that before.” Carter turned and started shredding ginger for today’s condiments.

I had a déjà vu moment in the truck. I stared at Carter while I tried to make sense of it. The movement and the tone were so familiar, and I immediately placed it. Carter reminded me of Barton Preston, Hamilton’s son. I was dazzled by the revelation. All of the men in that family bore a strong resemblance to each other, and Carter did, as well. I strongly suspected that I knew more about Carter’s father than he did at this point. I could easily learn the truth. “Carter, if you’re changing your mind about your decision, you should call Aaron and tell him how you’re feeling.”

“No,” he said emphatically. “Things are too complicated. He doesn’t know what he’d be getting into.”

I was beginning to suspect that Carter’s hesitancy came more from his desire not to have Aaron jump into Carter’s chaotic situation more than from a reluctance to marry the guy. I began to wonder about what I could do to help. Taking on the responsibility of three children was more than I could do, but didn’t they have a father somewhere? I had never heard Carter talk about his father, but wouldn’t he be the logical choice for the parent in this situation, rather than Carter? I wondered if Carter saw or spoke to his father on a regular basis.

Given Carter’s mood and the amount he had on his plate, I thought that I’d do a little bit of private investigating before broaching the subject. I had his application forms on file, and made a note to myself to look at the papers tonight. Perhaps I could help work the situation out for everyone.

The morning shift went quickly. The big surprise was that Brianna Preston stopped by around 9:30 a.m. “Hi, hi,” she said with the perkiness of someone who had slept until 8. “How are you today?”

Carter gave her a once-over before getting back to his work. For some reason, we’d had a run on hot dogs before 9 a.m. this morning, and he was in the midst of making more condiments. I wondered now if the uptick in business had to do with our appearance at the party last night. Was schmoozing still the best way to get more business?

Brianna just ordered a coffee, though. She was dressed well in a navy business suit that looked about as far from artsy as my own attire. “Do you have a minute?” she asked quietly.

I nodded, and Carter gave me a lackluster thumbs-up. I stepped outside of the truck and looked at her. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Would you have a moment to show me where you believe you saw my brother?” she said, scanning the square repeatedly.

I nodded. In the light of day with a request like this, it seemed almost unbelievable to think that a future city council member could be traipsing around town dressed down to the level of homelessness, but I still maintained that I knew what I’d seen. The resemblance was there, and the telltale signs of a well-lived life were there.

We walked over to the stone orbs and sat down on one of the benches on the square. From there, I pointed out the area where I’d given her brother a free hot dog a few days before. Since he’d been found in the park, no one questioned my word on whether or not I’d actually seen him there. It was only here in this place where there were questions.

We sat together in silence for a moment, and then she stood up. “I’m still thinking that it might be my other brother. I’ve hired a private investigator to see if we can find him.”

I was surprised to hear that. Not surprised that a rich family could afford their own investigation, but just that she was sharing this piece of family scandal with a virtual stranger. This was the type of information I was hoping to get from Sabine in the next few days at her new job at the gallery.

As if conjured by magic, Sabine appeared. She was wearing a subtler outfit today—a dark green dress that almost reached her knees and covered her shoulders. She waved to Brianna as she passed.

“That’s my new employee,” Brianna said, rolling her eyes. “My father hired her last night. We’ll see how this goes.” The tone in her voice made it sound as if her father had done this before with less than wonderful results.

I knew that Hamilton was divorced, but his father was still married with an eye for women, apparently. I wondered if perhaps that was the reason for Hamilton’s divorce, as well. If so, it would provide one more possible motive for murder—the ex-wife with a grudge or the mistress who had never been upgraded.

Brianna stood up, smiled and trailed off behind Sabine. I wondered if Brianna would be mollified to learn that I strongly suspected that her new employee was involved with a certain police detective. That would definitely change her perspective on what to expect.

I went back to the truck and got back to work. Carter had been handling the customers quite well without me, and for a second, I felt redundant. Perhaps it was time for an additional business interest if I could be so easily replaced. I pondered the options again, which made me have to ask a few customers to repeat their orders.

As soon as I had gotten back into the groove, Detective Danvers arrived. He hadn’t waited for the lull in business that came in the early afternoon, so I figured this wasn’t good news.

“How could you let Sabine go work at that gallery? It’s bad enough that you put yourself in these situations, but now you have her doing the same?” he started without preamble. He had an unhealthy flush to his skin, which made me suspect that he’d been building up to this for a little bit of time. This was not a spur of the moment rant, but a well-rehearsed performance.