Twisted Taste

by Michelle Dayton

  Wait, what did he just say? “You’re not married yet, mate.”

  Todd shrugged. “Technically, we are. The wedding and party are for fun, but Helen was so stressed out about her immigration status last month that we went to the courthouse and took care of it legally.”

  Oh Jesus, Adam thought. If they were already married, then the timing made a lot more sense. He’d bet a large sum of money that Helen had also convinced Todd to redo his will in the past month. If she was already his wife, she didn’t need to wait for the wedding celebration. Killing Todd right now would make her a very rich widow.

  “Did you ever see Kim again?” Jess asked quietly. “What was her last name? What did she do for a living?”

  Todd stared at her. “Why the hell are you asking about Kim? I’m telling you the story of me and Helen.”

  Adam took a deep breath, preparing to fill the room with bullshit. But Jess surprised him. “I’m listening to your story,” she said. “And it’s beautiful. But I love the nuances and details too.”

  Todd shook his head, like he couldn’t quite figure out how he came to be not-having-dinner with a crazy woman with a crooked red wig on her head. “Her last name was Ishikawa and she was a singer at a club called Spaces.” He looked down at the table. “I didn’t ever see her again. One—because I was 100% in love with Helen. But also, the text I got from her that night...well, it indicated that our time together had run its course.”

  Jess nodded across the table at the same time her fingers tapped on the keys beneath it. “So you and Helen...”

  Todd beamed. “I took her with me when I left Tokyo the next day! She’s been at my side from that moment.”

  Adam could see Jess typing furiously. What she was doing, he had no idea. But it would be brilliant. For a moment, his sympathy for Todd knew no bounds. He loved Jess like Todd loved Helen. If it ever turned out that Jess wasn’t who she seemed, he’d be damaged beyond repair.

  Todd put his wineglass on the table and reached for his sandwich.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Jess warned, not even looking up from her work.

  “And why not?” Todd jeered.

  Jess plunked her laptop on the table and swiveled it so both Todd and Adam could see the screen. “Because Kim’s dead.”

  “What?” Todd dropped the sandwich back on his plate and leaned forward over the table with an honest look of concern on his face. Adam craned his neck to read the article Jess had found. It was an English translation of a Japanese newspaper article from the spring, reporting on the death of a beautiful young nightclub singer. Her body was pulled from the Sumida River, but an autopsy revealed that she hadn’t drowned. Cause of death couldn’t be ultimately determined but severe liver and kidney damage was found. She’d been reported missing by her employers three days before her body was found in the river.

  “She was reported missing on March 15th,” Jess said. “When did you meet Helen?”

  Todd looked up, his face a mask of confusion. “March 14th.”

  Silence. Adam closed his eyes briefly, trying to line up his thoughts with Jess’s circumstantial evidence. He was so distracted he almost—almost—started speaking without his accent. “You’re thinking that Helen had a plan. That she knew Kim enough to get details on Todd’s personality and likes. That she killed her and took her place.”

  Jess nodded. “I didn’t know anything about this when I got here tonight, but Todd’s meeting with Helen sounded so lucky. But it’s really her preferred killing method that makes the pattern.”

  Adam looked at his sandwich on the floor. “The mushrooms.”

  “Yes.” She swallowed, looking a little nervous. “I think that’s why she had to get rid of Celeste’s body. If she intends to kill Todd using the mushrooms, she couldn’t have two people connected to her show up dead like that. She’d be a suspect.”

  Adam caught her drift. “If she was Celeste’s partner, she’d know she was using a fake ID and that she had no family. If she killed her and disposed of the body, there is no crime at all.”

  “Right.” Jess risked a glance at Todd, who’d gone still as a statue. “She’s completely alibied for Todd’s ingestion of the mushrooms as well, on the off chance that someone correctly diagnosed the cause of death this time.”

  “This is absolutely insane,” Todd whispered. It was the quietest Adam had ever seen him. “You’re saying that the woman I love, my wife, plotted to meet me by killing another woman to put herself in my path. Then, she killed some other woman—I have no idea who you’re talking about or why she would do that—and that she wants to kill me.” He took a fork and speared one of the mushrooms. “And this is the murder weapon.” He looked at Adam with desperation etched in every line of his suddenly old face. “You don’t believe this, do you, Chase?”

  Shrugging, Adam moved his head from side to side and thought through the story. It was far-fetched and he hadn’t heard half of how Jess came to her conclusions. Also—Wait a minute! He whispered to Jess, “How would Helen get rid of Celeste’s body? It would have been in the second hour of her own engagement party?”

  Jess’s brow furrowed and she bit her lip. “How did Helen like the glee club performance?” she asked Todd. Todd was looking down at the computer screen, re-reading the article on Kim Ishikawa. “What? Oh, unfortunately there was some emergency with dinner. She needed to work in the kitchen for the entire thing.” His voice lowered to a whisper again. “That’s how much she cares, you see? She left her own party for an hour to make sure our guests had a perfect dinner.”

  Jess whispered back to Adam. “You could get to Celeste’s apartment and back within an hour. She could have picked her up then and gotten rid of the body in the middle of the night after the party or on her way to Calistoga.”

  “Helen’s tiny,” Adam protested. “She couldn’t carry Celeste’s body.”

  Jess shook her head. “Maybe she didn’t need to carry anything. Maybe she just needed to lie. Celeste was conscious when she called you. Helen could have shown up and promised to take her to the hospital. Hell, she could have said she had an antidote in her car. Celeste didn’t know what was happening to her. She just knew she was dying. She would have used her last bit of energy trying to get to promised help.”

  But Adam had thought of another wrinkle. “Celeste said her partner was a man. Remember when we found her on the floor that day? She said she thought her partner had poisoned her and she was trying to tell us about him. She couldn’t get out the words, but she said ‘He’s a...’”

  Jess frowned for a second, but then her face cleared. “Todd, I understand that Helen isn’t her real name. What is it?”

  Todd was looking down at the computer screen again. “It’s Hisa. Why?”

  Adam closed his eyes. Hisa. He’s a...

  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.

  Chapter Twelve

  Showtime. Adam walked up the stairs to the second floor of the Fielding Mansion marveling at the butterflies in his stomach. He was never nervous when playing a role. Hell, before Jess, he’d spent more time undercover than not.

  Of course, there was a lot more at stake this time. He wasn’t trying to just blend in with the crowd or establish a cover. This time he was after justice for an old friend. He straightened his shoulders and pasted a relaxed expression on his face. He needed to strike the exact right balance with Helen. Sure, he was going in on the pretext of blackmailing her, but he also needed to be charming and entice her into confiding in him.

  “Act like you did the second night we met,” Jess had said dryly. “You blackmailed me that night, but I still kind of liked you.” Adam laughed. He remembered that particular evening quite well. He’d ambushed her, flirted with her, blackmailed her...and walked away already half-obsessed with her.

  The mansion was very quiet tonight. Due to the Labor Day holiday, all the staff was off. A quick stroll through the first floor had proven all the rooms were empty, so he assumed Helen was alone in the master bedroom.

  Todd was pretending to be in his office in the tasting room. After a long pep talk, he’d finally answered one of Helen’s calls and done his own bit of acting. “I’m sick, Helen. Really sick. Stomach flu. I’m going to take a sleeping pill and knock myself out on the couch in my office. Don’t come find me. It’s probably contagious.” Adam had to give it to Todd. He’d knocked the conversation out of the park. He sounded miserable and very ill. He supposed Todd wasn’t really acting, though. The man was awfully heartsick.

  Although Helen had cooed and made noises about contacting a doctor, she hadn’t ventured out to the office to check on him, and she certainly hadn’t contacted a medical professional. Given the timing, she clearly thought he was in Stage 2 of the amatoxin poisoning. She wouldn’t want him anywhere near blood work until the destruction of his kidneys and liver was too far gone for medical attention.

  In reality, Todd was at the local police station. It had taken some groveling (and a promised hefty donation) to get the police to listen and agree to what he wanted to do, but at this moment Todd was now sitting in a conference room with his lawyer and two detectives gathered around a laptop. A laptop installed with the audio transmission software connected to the microphone on Adam’s cell phone.

  Maybe that was another reason he was nervous. He didn’t usually perform for an audience.

  He hadn’t liked Jess’s idea at first. The idea of being recorded by law enforcement was actually kind of terrifying. Especially because he had no intention of being some sort of witness in a trial. But Jess had convinced him.
“Let’s get her to say what we need. Then the cops and lawyers and Todd will figure out how to handle the rest. There’s a delay in the transmission. As soon as she mentions where the body is, we’ll run. Even if the cops head here immediately, we’ll be gone.”

  So now Jess sat in their rental car on the driveway, waiting to run and no doubt listening on her own laptop. He didn’t like the idea of her being anywhere near Helen, but it also felt surprisingly nice to have someone there with him on such an important job. Someone who 100% had his back. A wry smile formed on his lips. He was getting better at this partner thing.

  The plush carpeting on the second floor muffled his footsteps as he walked toward the master suite. The doors were open and he caught his first glimpse of Helen. A small suitcase was open on the enormous bed and she appeared to be unpacking from her visit to the spa. She wore tailored white pants and a matching white cashmere turtleneck sweater. Her silky black hair fell in a straight curtain to her elbows. Not for the first time, Adam felt a twinge of sympathy for Todd. To believe that such a beautiful woman loved and liked him...and then to find out this horrible truth.

  He rapped on the door frame with his knuckles. “G’d evening.” He overplayed the Australian slant to the words.

  Helen paused, her eyes widening. She gave him a tight smile, clearly not pleased to find one of Todd’s loud friends wandering through her home. “Oh. Chase. If you’re looking for Todd, he’s a little under the weather tonight.”

  Leaning against the door frame, Adam crossed his arms, smirked a little, and dropped the Australian accent completely. “Interesting. My old acquaintance Celeste told me she wouldn’t be surprised if something unfortunate happened to Todd.”

  There was a long moment as Helen’s facial features froze and she placed the clothes in her hands on the bed. Adam could almost hear the gears cranking in her head as she tried to assess the situation.

  Finally, she crossed her own arms, mimicking his posture. “Your Australian accent always did sound a little off to me.”