Fed Up - By Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant Page 0,36
sorry! I didn’t mean that at all. It’s just, don’t they ask you family history stuff when you get pregnant? I didn’t know if there was anything you were worried about.”
“Oh. Well, no. There’s nothing. Not that I know of. Everyone in Owen’s family seems to live well into their nineties. They’re all healthy as horses. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Seriously, Ade. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to alarm you.” God, I was an idiot. “I know your baby is going to be the most gorgeous, healthy, bouncing baby in the world. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I hung up feeling appropriately mortified; I had really messed that up. In simply trying to find out whether Evan or Willie had had access to heart medication, I’d unintentionally suggested that there might be something frighteningly wrong with Ade and Owen’s baby.
Especially after that fiasco, I wasn’t about to call up everyone who’d been present at the filming to inquire about family health histories. Besides, the only person there I knew well enough to interrogate was Josh, who would be willing to answer any weird, prying questions I might ask but who would never, ever have poisoned food he was preparing. He’d never met Francie before and had had no reason to kill her. And if—inconceivably—he ever did decide to murder someone, he’d use a gun or a knife or any other weapon except the food in which he took such pride. I’d met Digger before the filming, but I knew him only as one of Josh’s chef friends. When I’d been with Josh and Digger, they’d traded anecdotes about restaurants where they’d both worked and about the local restaurant scene. It was possible, I guessed, that Josh knew something about Digger and his family. Not that I was aching to prove that Digger was a poisoner! But Francie’s death had been no accident. Furthermore, her killer had been willing to risk having any of the rest of us eat the poisoned food and die, too. Some us had been sick. For the first time, it occurred to me that the murderer had benefited from having people besides Francie get sick. When the police and the EMTs had arrived, it had been easy and natural for them to assume that the cause of Francie’s death and other people’s illness was food poisoning. I had a vivid image of Josh and me as we’d cleaned up the kitchen. Unknowingly, we’d been tossing out evidence! But the food wasn’t the only evidence. That annoying Nelson had had his camera going almost every second. Who had his film now? Nelson himself? Robin? Or maybe the police?
I called Josh while I was in the bathroom putting on makeup. Besides wanting to see what I could learn about Digger, I wanted to hear Josh’s voice.
“Yup?” Josh sounded as if we’d been in the midst of a conversation.
“Hi, honey. It’s me.”
“What’s up, babe?”
“Not much. Inga is going to the Fancy Feline later to get cleaned up. And I just wanted to thank you for dinner last night. Everything was delicious, as always.”
“Anytime. You know that.”
Josh clearly didn’t know that I’d paid for my dinner, and I wasn’t about to break the news to my overstressed chef that Gavin was no longer letting him comp food. “Hey, I heard someone from the health department was in to see you yesterday. How did that go?” Leaning against the basin, I practically had my face in the mirror as I tried to apply mascara without dropping the phone. Driving isn’t the only thing it’s risky to do while having a phone conversation. Applying makeup has its hazards, too. I should probably get a hands-free phone for the bathroom.
“Oh, fine. He asked me a lot of questions about the fresh herbs that I used on Monday. What kinds I bought, did I use them all, did I use anything from Francie and Leo’s house? Questions like that. Stupid questions, if you ask me, because there is no way anything I used was tainted. I told him the truth about everything, since obviously I have nothing to hide. I assume he’s going to go check out Natural High and pull some of their produce and herbs, though. Hold on a sec.” Josh must have covered the phone because I heard a very muffled “I told you not to dress the salads now because they’ll be wilted by lunch. Come on!” Then Josh said to me, “Sorry, I’m back. Hey,