Free THE REAL GYRO (Food Truck Mysteries Book 4) by Chloe Kendrick Page B

me. “You’d like a chance to show me up, wouldn’t you? I just wonder what you know about this matter that I don’t.”
    You bet I would, I thought. I noticed that he hadn’t said no. He’d just expressed his frustration at not getting results. “Just offering to help. If you don’t want my help, that’s fine too. I have some hot dogs to sell.”
    There had been a time when I would have jumped all over a chance to check out the surveillance photos for a spy operation, but maybe because I’d been involved with so many murders, I was more blasé about the opportunity now. I was also more than a little nervous about getting involved in a case that was above my level of expertise. I could handle myself against a single person who was killing with a personal motive. I wasn’t sure how I could take on an entire organization of people who were willing to kill.
    I knew that Detective Danvers would include us in the investigation somehow. We’d been the first people to the scene of the murder. Finders, keepers? Did that even apply to police investigations?
    Danvers was studying me, but he apparently got no answers from me. “I’ll drop some by before you leave today. Two sets: one for you and one for Land. You have my cell in case you see someone you know.”
    I had a good idea that I would see someone my mother wanted to set me up with.
     
    True to his word, Danvers sent out a patrolman with two thick packets of photos. He’d even gone to the lengths of writing our names on each one. I recognized his handwriting and thought he must be desperate if he was actually printing and labeling for us. I stuffed the envelope into my backpack and handed the other to Land, who threw it on the back counter. His mood had not improved since he’d learned that the sale had been postponed again. I could understand his impatience, even if I couldn’t do anything about it.
    Carter eyed the two envelopes but didn’t say a word. I hadn’t really talked about our role in solving any murder cases when I’d hired Carter. The situation had developed out of circumstance, and I realized that at any time, we could go years without seeing another dead body. In their entire lives, my parents had never seen a corpse that wasn’t in the funeral home. Several of my college cohorts would never see anyone die. So I felt that it would be wrong to point out this aspect of the job to Carter when it might not ever happen again. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about someone who wanted this job for the adrenaline rush of seeing people murdered. This wasn’t a video game. It was real life, and there were consequences to murder here.
    So I left the truck at two without a word to Carter as to why we were being given photos to look at. I did my usual after-work errands: the bank and the secured lot for the food truck. Then I went home.
    While I wouldn’t have admitted it to Land, I wanted to see some spies. I still had the vision of James Bond in my mind of what they looked like. Dapper, tall, good-looking and wearing a fitted tuxedo—the sort of man you saw in the movies.
    I was disappointed from the first photo. It was a photo of an older woman wearing sensible shoes and a woolen skirt. I started a pile of photos for people I didn’t recognize. The first 20 photos all went into that stack. I hadn’t recognized a soul until Sam’s photo came up.
    He was talking to Janelle in the photo, and the discussion looked heated. Both had fingers pointing and mouths open. He looked like a prime suspect to me; however, I just put him aside for the moment.
    I wasn’t sure what to do with the photo of Sam. If I lied outright to the police, they’d likely never ask me to help again with an investigation. It was one thing to hold back a piece of information that they hadn’t specifically asked for, or not to share a conclusion I’d made based on the evidence. However, they’d asked me to identify people in the photographs, and I knew one of them.