Chapter Eleven
Jess woke up the next morning to Adam’s eyes on her face and his fingers smoothing the hair off her forehead. “I’m sorry for yesterday,” he said without preamble. “For treating you as less than a partner. For not trusting you.”
She pressed her face against his hand and smiled. “I know.”
“How? I didn’t say anything last night.”
Her smiled turned into a wicked laugh. “Words weren’t really necessary.” He might not have apologized aloud when they returned to the hotel last night, but he’d certainly showed her how he felt all night long. As soon as the door closed, his lips had been on hers and they’d tumbled into bed without talking. Turns out that her intense fear that he’d been poisoned and his happiness to be alive transformed into one hell of an aphrodisiac. They’d been insatiable.
He laughed with her for a moment, but then his face turned contemplative. “I’m serious, though. We need to figure out how to work together better. More patience and trust all around.”
“I know,” she said, reaching up and linking her fingers with his. “Not being aligned yesterday almost got you killed.”
He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them before sighing. “I wonder how Todd is doing this morning.”
Poor Todd. At first they’d left him in the billiards room staring at the sandwich and proclaiming Helen’s innocence in a broken voice.
But then Jess marched to the kitchen, grabbed a large Ziploc bag, and went back to Todd. “Get the mushrooms tested,” she said. “Then you’ll know. If they’re garden-variety, I’m nuts. But if they’re Amanitin mushrooms, your life is in danger.”
Rolling on his back, Adam stared up at the ceiling. “He’ll get them tested. He acts like an idiot, but he’s a smart man and he’ll get to the truth. Even if it breaks his heart.” Jess agreed. She’d seen the same thing in Todd’s face. He didn’t want to believe it, but part of him already did.
Jess had to hand it to Helen/Hisa; she’d really covered her tracks. Before leaving the Fielding mansion, they’d made one last trip to the kitchen to ask the baffled cook about the origin of the mushrooms. She consulted the estate’s weekly menu and confirmed that mushrooms were not in any other planned dish. As far as she knew, they’d just arrived with the weekly grocery delivery along with everything else. And no, she hadn’t noticed anything unusual about the packaging. Very crafty, Jess grudgingly admitted. Even if someone had figured out that Todd’s cause of death was mushroom poisoning, there was probably zero evidence connecting the mushrooms to Helen. His death might very well be ruled accidental. And if it was deemed a murder, she wouldn’t be alone on a list of suspects. Todd was a polarizing figure. It wouldn’t be hard for investigators to come up with a list of people who hated him.
“If we assume that the goal was to inherit Todd’s estate, she won’t get what she wants.” Jess sat up and looked down at Adam. “He’s alive and he’ll divorce her.”
Adam met her eyes. “But she won’t be punished for killing Celeste. She’ll walk away a free woman. Probably to run the whole same deal on some schmuck on the other side of the world.”
“True.” And that was definitely not okay. She got out of bed and reached for her laptop. “The problem is that everything is circumstantial. Poisonous mushrooms that can’t be traced to her, research on a suspicious death in another country. No direct testimony from Celeste.” She arched an eyebrow. “Maybe we could figure out a way to make Helen confess to the killing on a recording and then give that to the police?”
Adam scratched the back of his head. “That would certainly help. But there’s no guarantee a good lawyer couldn’t get it thrown out. It’s not like you and I are officers of the law. Frankly, we need to stay pretty far away from the law here. We don’t want Todd starting to question our covers or how we knew the mysterious woman his lovely wife killed. If he wasn’t in such bad shape, he’d already be wondering about our involvement in all of this.”
Ugh. Such a mess. Jess reached for the room service menu. “Maybe our brains will work better after some coffee and eggs.”
“We need Celeste’s body,” Adam said suddenly.
Jess winced and put down the menu. Not hungry, after all, she decided. But he was right. An autopsy would link Celeste’s death to the mushrooms, and she was seen by the Fielding staff eating the mushroom omelet in Helen’s presence. If you linked that with the fact that Helen created the menu for that meal and for the steak sandwiches, the case against her got better. It still wasn’t open and shut, but it was probably as good as they could get.
She took a deep breath and poised her fingers above her laptop keys. “Okay, how are we going to get her to tell us where the body is?”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to blackmail the bitch.”
* * *
Todd called just after noon. Adam put the phone on speaker. “This is Chase.”
“The mushrooms are deadly,” Todd choked out. “Your girlfriend was right.”
Adam and Jess exchanged glances. “I’m sorry, mate. How’d you find out so fast?”
Todd cleared his throat. “I donate a lot of money to UC Davis. I woke up the provost in the middle of the night and told him what I needed. He had a toxicologist meet me in a lab first thing this morning.”
Adam didn’t know what else to say. He and Jess were forming a plan on the best way to get Helen to confess to Celeste’s murder and where she dumped the body. But Todd was a total wild card in this equation.
“I don’t know what to do,” Todd said. “I guess I should probably go to the police, but...well, they’re not my biggest fans.” Adam could guess why. He remembered an obnoxious series of Todd’s Facebook posts ridiculing the effectiveness of local law enforcement. “If I show up and tell them I think my wife is trying to kill me with mushrooms, they’ll laugh me out of the station.”
Adam opened his mouth, but Todd spoke again first. “Helen’s been calling me every twenty minutes! She’s on her way back from Calistoga right now. I haven’t answered. What the hell do I say to her?”
Adam looked over at Jess. Her eyes roved between his phone and her laptop. “I have an idea,” she said.