MURDER TO GO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 1) by Chloe Kendrick Read Free Book Online

went back to work and handled the crowds with less stress than the day before. It’s amazing how people can get used to anything with practice. I handled more than 100 cups of coffee in the first hour alone, and several customers bought dogs at 8 in the morning. Land’s food is delicious, but hot dogs for breakfast are not my thing.
    When the crowd thinned out some, I hopped down from the truck and headed into the government building. I hadn’t had much of a chance to admire the building when Detective Danvers had marched me in there yesterday. The tall, imposing structure had a directory of offices in the lobby, and I took my time to find the offices for Consumer Affairs and the health inspector.
    I took the elevator up to the Consumer Affairs bureau first. They were on the tenth floor, and I decided to go sequentially. The bureau was liberally named. The lobby consisted of three hard plastic chairs in the center of a small square room. On the far wall were two windows. One had a woman on the other side that was helping someone with a question. The other window was vacant with no indication whether that was a temporary condition or if I should ignore it.
    When it was finally my turn, I cleared my throat and began the story I’d been working on while waiting. The beauty of the story was that it was fairly close to the truth. So I had very few lies to remember. “Hi, I just had some questions. I inherited a food truck. I wanted to find out about transferring the permits and licenses to me.” This was the lie, because my aunt had put all the permits in the name of the corporation for just this reason.
    “What’s the name?”
    I gave her my aunt’s full name, watching carefully to see if the name provoked any reaction from the woman. It didn’t. She looked just as bored with the name as she had with the customer before me. Either she was a good actress, or she hadn’t been involved in the perfidy that surrounded my aunt’s problems with the permits.
    She clacked away at the computer for a minute. “The permits were granted to a corporation, not to your aunt. So if you are in charge of the corporation, you’re set.”
    I gave her my best attempt at a relieved smile. “Thanks so much. Could you print off the history of the permits? I wanted to have that too, just for my records.”
    She hit a few keys and the laser printer by her desk began to whir. Several pages slid out of the machine before it stopped. “Looks like there were some issues with this permit,” she said. She scanned the sheet of paper and clucked her tongue several times. “Something about the number of permits being issued. Huh, I’ve never heard of that before.” She scanned the papers again, trying to find something.
    Finally, she handed the sheets of paper over to me. “Not sure I can tell what exactly happened here, but it looks like your aunt was denied a permit before she was allowed to have one. Not sure of the reason. I’ve never seen the excuse given.” She shrugged. “Eh, I’ve seen clerks get pissed off and just deny all the permits for a day. It’s not right, but it happens. I’m not their boss, so it’s not like I can do something about it.”
    I wasn’t satisfied with the answers, but I wasn’t about to share the story of the headless truck owner and the non-theft break-in of my apartment. They had their lives and their issues. I knew that this would just elicit another shrug.
    I took the papers and thanked her. The next stop was three floors up. The health inspector, Linda Zoz, according to the directory, appeared to be the same one that had given my aunt so much trouble. I remembered my mother’s vague mention of a weird last name that started with an X, Q or Z. At least here, a clerk couldn’t give half-explanations. This inspector would have to give me some answers.
    I knocked on the door before entering, the product of good manners and years of prodding from my parents. The door creaked open as I knocked. Figuring