“There was no breakthrough at the plant, was there?” Cal asked rhetorically. “The celebration at your house was just an excuse. While Rufus and Jan were swimming, you switched the pills in her purse. I’m sure Rufus had told you how he hid the ginger root in Gage’s bottle. Another ‘little secret’ you shared. When he got sick the next day, he took one. And probably offered one to Felicia as well.
“Unfortunately for you, your plane was delayed. You probably planned to switch the pills back again during the confusion at the party. But you couldn’t.”
“Hold on, lassie.” Ian turned to Callahan, began searching his pockets. He pulled out a small plastic bag. Inside were several capsules identical in appearance to those Cal held. “Is this why you came today? And why you were leaving in such a hurry?”
Callahan ignored him. Like a patient martyr, he looked up at the ceiling, then out the window at the mist clearing in the valley.
“There’s only one thing I can’t figure out,” Cal concluded. “Martin Callahan wasn’t at the party. How did he contaminate the food?”
“I can answer that.” Jan Thorndyke’s voice was clear and confident. She stood just inside the room.
Gage was beside her, an arm over her shoulder.
“Salad spray?” Plato cried. “Never heard of it. Who’d want hair-spray on their salad, anyway?”
“Not hairspray,” Cal corrected him. “Salad freshener. All the good restaurants use it these days. Keeps the lettuce from wilting.”
“I still don’t get it.” Plato rummaged through the freezer. It had been another long day. But Callahan was safely in the county hotel, so it looked as if Plato was done with the case. “We need a vacation. Maybe a cruise. There’s good food on cruise ships, isn’t there?”
“Yeah. But you’d be too seasick to eat.” Cal sat before the portable electronic typewriter on the kitchen table. One finger at a time, she plinked out the final draft of her coroner’s report.
“Mmmph.” Her husband made a fist and hammered at the ice inside the freezer. With a satisfied grunt, he wrestled a plastic bag free. Inside, barely discernible through a coating of frost, were breaded chicken fillets. “Explain it to me again.”
“Well, the day before the party, when Jan and Rufus went over to Callahan’s, he’d made a salad.” Plink, plonk. “He’s quite a gourmet, you know. Anyway, he was raving about this salad freshener, and how it keeps the lettuce from wilting. Jan was interested, since their party was the next day. He gave her his bottle. Jan agreed that it might offend Mrs. Reiss, so she added it herself. Of course, it was full of live staph.”
“So why didn’t they get sick on Saturday?” Plato dumped the bag’s contents into a bowl and placed it inside the microwave. “For that matter, why didn’t
“Yes, but staph needs something to grow on. Crab Louis is a sauce over a base of lettuce.” Plink-beep. “It grew in the mayonnaise of the crab Louis, but not in the ordinary salad.”
He opened the microwave, turned the bowl, then closed it again. “So how did Callahan know what crab Louis contained? And how could he be sure they were serving it?”
“Silly,” she chided him. “He’s a gourmand. And in case you haven’t noticed, that dish is Mrs. Reiss’s specialty. She’s made it for the hospital appreciation dinner for years now.”
“No. I hadn’t noticed,” Plato pouted. “If you’ll recall, I didn’t have any. I just had salad.”
“Uh-huh.” Cal stretched her arm, patted her husband’s ample waistline. “Salad and prime rib — don’t act so shocked. It’s my job to notice things.”
“Well, fine, Sherlock. Just fine.” Plato couldn’t think of a better rejoinder until he recalled his own bit of deductive genius. “Going back over the case today, I figured something out. About Felicia.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, she must have realized that she and Rufus were the sickest. And she must have wondered about it.” Plato gave a satisfied smile. “See, she wasn’t saying ‘Jan’ at all when she died. She was saying ‘ginger.’ ”
“Good work,” Cal praised. “Well, aren’t you going to put that in your report?”
She hesitated, then pointed at one of the sheets. “It already is in. On page four.”
“Oh.”
“Cheer up, honey. At least you’re a better cook than I am.”
She was right. The chicken smelled wonderful. Plato pulled the bowl from the oven again. Inside, the breaded fillets floated in a bath of melted frost.
“Chicken soup,” he announced.
“Really? I’m famished!” She tore the last sheet from her typewriter, peered at the concoction. The breading had separated from most of the pieces, leaving a crusty scum on the surface of the water.
She squeezed his shoulder gently.
“We haven’t saved enough money for a vacation yet.” Cal smiled at her husband. “But I think we can afford a new microwave.”
