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would be just like Alice to cause a ruckus even after she’s gone.” My mother ran a finger under her right eye. I wasn’t certain if there was really a tear there, or if she was just preparing for the onslaught. Neither was a great sign for a frank discussion.
    “What did you know about her food truck before she passed?” I asked, trying to get something more specific from my mother.
    Another deep sigh came. “She had trouble getting a permit. The city had some permits available; Alice was able to find that out from a friend. However, when she went to apply for one, the agency said they were out. Alice spent months going around and around with them over that. Finally, she took a count of the trucks in town, went back to the permit office and demanded to talk to someone about their lack of math skills. The Consumer Affairs Department was the one giving her trouble about the permit. Then she had to get a health inspection. They failed her the first two times. The third time, another vendor cleaned the place for her and the health inspector failed her again. That would have meant that she couldn’t apply for another permit for six months, but the other vendor went to bat for her and pointed out all the errors in the health inspector’s report.”
    “Wow, who did she piss off?” I knew Alice well enough to know that she wouldn’t take things lying down. She’d been a fighter all the years I’d known her, and she’d always encouraged me to be one as well. She could tilt at windmills when she felt like it.
    “That’s just it. Alice couldn’t figure it out. First, she just thought it was someone in the Consumer Affairs office, but then when the health inspector started pulling the same thing, she realized that it had to be someone higher up. She never mentioned if she’d figured out who it was, so I guess it was still a mystery to her.”
    “You wouldn’t happen to know the names of anyone she dealt with?” I asked. I needed to talk to someone, and their offices would be in the same government building that we parked across from. I could go during a break and ask questions.
    Mom nearly rolled her eyes back into her head, trying to recall what Alice had said. I could understand the feeling. Alice was a fast talker. She could speak faster than most people could think, and then add to that an Irish gift of gab, and she could talk until you tuned her out or went mad. I’d done it a number of times and so had my mother.
    “The Consumer Affairs person, I’m just not sure about, but the health inspector had a weird name. It started with a Q or X or Z, something like that. It was a weird word. I made her spell it the first time she told me about her.”
    “Her?”
    “The health inspector was a woman. Aren’t you the little sexist?” she said with a smile.
    “Not really. I just equate bureaucracy with men.”
    My mom laughed. She was not doing too poorly with the discussion of my aunt, so I decided to move forward. “Hey mom, the police mentioned that Alice’s death was suspicious. What does that mean?”
    “It means that medical science can’t figure out what she died of. They did the standard tests for cause of death and nothing came up. They ran some tests to see if it was drug-related. I knew better, but they did it anyway. They found nothing. They wanted to do more, but Alice had asked to be cremated and the ME had released her body. So she’s officially dead with no real cause of death listed. She stopped breathing and that was all that the medical examiner said. I guess it’s not all that uncommon, but it drove the police mad.”
    “Not breathing is usually fatal,” I agreed.
    “The police were very suspicious, but I had my doubts. For starters, she was in her car, apparently alone because the police, for all their scrutiny, never found any evidence of anyone else being in the car with her. No hair, no fiber, no DNA. I just can’t see Alice sitting by idly while someone sticks her full of drugs