JUSTICE Is SERVED (Food Truck 7) Read Free Page A

go check this out.”
    The park was darker now, and I was glad to have his company on the walk back to the restrooms. They were just out of sight of the food truck, on the far side of a slight rise in the ground. I would not have wanted to go back to the restroom alone, knowing what waited for me there. I moved a bit closer to Land, and he gave me a kiss on the top of the head.
    He pushed open the door to the restroom and went in first. I followed along behind him. Land was already hunched down by the body and checking out the corpse.
    He looked serious. “Not natural causes. He’s got a lump on his head that happened before death. He may have choked to death on something. Or knowing you and your penchant for murders, he might have been poisoned. If I had to make a guess on a poison, I’d say cyanide.”
    Part of my mind wanted to ask him how he could possibly know all this from a quick examination, but this wasn’t the time to talk about his past or previous skills. I was standing in a men’s room with a dead body, and that took precedence.
    “Do you want to call Danvers?” I asked, not really wanting to call the detective who had worked against us on a number of murder cases.
    “We’re not going to call Danvers,” Land said.
    “We can’t just leave this guy here,” I protested, though part of me thought running away would be a great idea. “That’s a crime.”
    “Danvers doesn’t have jurisdiction. We’re in Siever Park, which is outside the city limits. So we have to call the county cops, not the Capital City guys.” Land pulled out his phone and started scrolling though his contacts. Who keeps the phone numbers of the various local police on their phone?
    He looked at me. “You’re going to want to call Gina,” Land said. “She needs to know.”
    “Land, it’s her wedding night. She has better things to do than worry about a dead guest.” I waggled my eyebrows and then regretted it. I’d picked up that bad habit from Carter, the man who worked with me on the food truck. He’d seemed to have perfected the maneuver since Land and I had started dating.
    “Don’t you recognize him?” Land asked, almost as a challenge. “Forget that he’s dead and take a closer look.”
    I bent over to take a closer look at the face of the man, but I didn’t recognize him. Honestly, I’d been busy serving food, and I hadn’t paid attention to many of the guests. Since I was happily ensconced in a relationship, I had no desire to check out the other men at the wedding. So I couldn’t see what Land was getting at.
    Before death, he would have been an attractive man. He obviously took good care of himself, though he was a bit doughy around the middle. Maybe he’d let himself go since college. His once-handsome face was framed by styled hair and his beard was close-cropped and well-groomed. Yet I was obviously missing what Land saw about him.
    I stood up and shrugged. “I still don’t know why I need to call Gina. Do you think he’s family?” I didn’t see a resemblance to Gina. He was dark-haired, and Gina was a natural blonde.
    Land shook his head. He pointed to the boutonniere, a single red rose, and said, “Member of the wedding party. Best man, if I remember correctly. So he’s a good friend of the groom. They’ll want to know about this.”
    I nodded. The flower in the lapel hadn’t made an impression with me, but Land was right. Only the wedding party would have worn those flowers, which matched Gina’s own bouquet. “I’ll call her now, but don’t be surprised if it goes to voicemail.”
    Land pressed dial on his own phone and turned his back to me. I could hear him request the number for a particular officer in the county police and waited. After a long pause, he began to talk.
    I called Gina’s number. I was shocked when she picked up on the second ring. “Maeve, what’s going on? Why are you calling me?” I had to say that her voice sounded as though she’d expected something bad to