Jan smiled patronizingly, like a True Believer. “He never understood. About Rufus and me. My father and Rufus were great friends. Until we fell in love. Daddy was furious. Jealous, I think. I tried to ignore it.”
Jan stopped. Fiddling with the tape on her arm, she looked at them. Tears welled up and threatened to spill.
“Three nights ago — the Friday before the party — Daddy came to visit. He implied...” She bit her lip, took a deep breath. “He implied that Rufus was having an affair. I was very upset. Rufus came home late, called Daddy, and told him he wasn’t welcome in our house any more. So of course he wasn’t at the party.”
She twisted the IV line back and forth between her thumb and forefinger. “Today I thought he’d come to apologize. But it was just more of the same.”
“This must be very difficult for you,” Ian said.
Jan nodded and blinked quickly, but failed to catch an escaping tear.
The door swung open, and the charge nurse poked her head inside. “I’m sorry, but visiting hours are over. I’ll have to ask you gentlemen to leave.”
“If you want a good crab Louis, don’t skimp on the mayonnaise,” Mrs. Reiss preached. “These days, so many people are concerned with lowering fats that they use too little. And the green pepper can be overpowering.”
“It certainly can,” Cal agreed.
“What’s that?” Mrs. Reiss fiddled with her hearing aid until feedback squealed from her ear.
“I said, it certainly can,” Cal shouted.
She was looking much better. Plato was amazed at what a couple of good autopsies could do.
It promised to be a long interview, though. He had been up all night with a rough delivery that led to a Caesarean section. His brain was an expanding glacier inside his fragile head. The shouting match would crack his skull like an egg.
Plato glanced out the window of Mrs. Reiss’s kitchen. Tuesday morning had dawned bright and clear. At the back of the yard, a whitewashed fence marked the edge of the cliff high above the Tecumseh River. Just inside it, a perfectly tended garden glittered with dew. Beans, tomatoes, and romaine lettuce stood in tight ranks, as though waiting for dress inspection. Even the violets and daffodils fringing the yard were meticulously arranged.
The caterer’s kitchen was equally precise. Two ovens, wide oak counters, and stainless steel sinks glistened under bright fluorescent lights. A menagerie of pots and pans with burnished copper bottoms hung from a rack over the window. Beside the deep freeze gleamed a collection of knives that surely rivaled Galen’s.
“Is there any way that the mayonnaise you used Sunday could have been spoiled?” Plato cringed, waiting for her reply.
“I understand, Dr. Marley, that you have to ask that question. Still, I tolerate it only to preserve the good name of Reiss’s Nice Foods. It’s a scandal for my business.” She pressed a plump hand to her chest and sighed. “You can’t imagine how embarrassed I was Sunday night when people started getting ill. I hope you catch the scoundrel who’s responsible.”
From the tone of her voice, she seemed to feel that apprehending a murderer was purely incidental.
“Still, we all make mistakes,” Cal said. “Sometimes the unavoidable happens — power failures, for instance. What about last Thursday? Wasn’t there a thunderstorm then?”
“Oh, my dear! Of course I couldn’t make the mayonnaise on Thursday! You know that.”
Cal gazed at her blankly.
“Under those conditions, the mayonnaise simply won’t bind.” Mrs. Reiss’s pencil-thin brows formed a
“I’ve been lucky that way, I guess,” Cal admitted, casting a warning glance at her husband. She hadn’t made mayonnaise during snow, heat, or gloom of night, either.
“Ordinarily, I make fresh mayonnaise on Thursdays because Francella brings the eggs straight from the hens that day.” She touched Cal’s arm. “I’ve found that the freshest eggs make the smoothest mayonnaise. In fact, when Francella delivers them, they’re often still warm and there’s no need to bring them to room temperature.”
“So you made the mayonnaise on Friday,” Plato concluded.
“No. Friday was the University Club luncheon. I didn’t need mayonnaise for that, so I made it Saturday morning.” Mrs. Reiss thought for a moment. “Even if my refrigerator was off a few degrees, mayonnaise doesn’t spoil that quickly. And it certainly didn’t smell bad.”
“Staph food poisoning can be very subtle,” Cal explained. “Especially with such a flavorful food as crab Louis.”
“My, my, my. This is certainly complicated.”
“Is there any way someone could have tampered with it Saturday? Did you leave the house at all?”
“No, I didn’t,” she assured them. “I’m certain of it.”
“You had visitors?” Cal asked.
Plato was shocked. Stern, broad shouldered, competent, and practical though she was, Mrs. Reiss actually blushed.
