I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone 9)

"He must have felt like shit. Why didn't he try to get some help?" I asked.

"It's hard to know. Severity of symptoms probably depends on how much he ate. He might have tried some, decided it was spoiled or something, and tossed the rest in the trash. You ever watch Morley eat? He was quick. Man prided himself on how fast he could put food away."

"Somebody knew him pretty well," I said.

"Not necessarily. He made no secret of it. Same with his health. He was always talking about his heart problems and his weight."

"What about the mushrooms? Can they be identified on sight?"

"Not unless you know what to look for. I'll read you what it says. 'A. verna is pure white. A. phalloides is yellowish green to greenish. Spores in both are white and not attached to the stem.' Yada, yada, yada. Let's see. This particular type of mushroom starts out enclosed in what they call a universal veil that leaves a cup at the stem base. When you're picking mushrooms, you have to dig around some because it's sometimes hidden in the dirt. The illustration looks like a toadstool busting out of an egg. Says it's slimy, too. You want more?"

"I got the basics. If the killer had a batch of 'em growing in the yard, the rest would be gone by now anyway. What happens next?"

"I've sent the pastry up to Foster City, the Chemical Toxicology Institute, for analysis. Might be a while until we hear back from them, but I have a feeling they're going to confirm our suspicion. I've put a call through to Homicide, but you might want to talk to Lieutenant Dolan yourself. Believe me, the hard work has just started. Tough thing about homicidal poisoning is proving legally that a crime was committed. You have to demonstrate that the death was caused by a poison that was administered with malicious and evil intent to the deceased by the accused. And that means 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' How are you going to link the killer to the crime in this case? Somebody bakes a cake and drops the damn thing off. Morley gets to his office, 'Oh, hey, is this for me?' Odds are nobody even saw where it came from, so what the whole thing's going to boil down to is all circumstantial. We don't even have a suspect."

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"Well, you have to start someplace. I'll give you a call as soon as we have more. In the meantime, I wouldn't eat anybody's home-baked goodies."

"I'll try not to. And thanks, Burt."

By the time I hung up the telephone, my hands were cold. In the past several months, Morley had talked to a number of people associated with the murder of Isabelle Barney. What had he discovered that precipitated his death, too? It must have been significant. A poisoner is considered one of the smartest and most devious of murderers, largely because poison, as a method, requires knowledge, skill, premeditation, and cunning. One doesn't poison in the heat of passion. Poisoning is not an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment crime. The covertness and deliberation suggest the kind of cruelty that makes a charge of first-degree murder nearly automatic in such cases. Morley Shine had died of an internal violence that probably left no outward mark, yet his death had been as agonizing as a stabbing or gunshot wound. I had a sudden flash of the killer with a supply of deadly mushrooms, leafing through a cookbook for a little appetizer Morley might enjoy. I pictured pastry dough being rolled out, the filling gently sautéed with butter, the strudel lovingly assembled, packed in a bakery box, and delivered to Morley's doorstep. The killer might have sat and chatted with him while he ate the lethal savory. Even if it had tasted strange, Morley might not have complained. Too hungry from his diet. Too polite to protest. And then the hours that had passed while he became aware that he wasn't feeling well. He probably didn't even associate the nausea and the stomach pain with the pastry he'd consumed so many hours before…

I'd seen toadstools somewhere. The image flickered in my memory… a wooded area… toadstools growing in a circle…

There weren't that many places it could have been. Simone's… the house where David Barney had lived at the time of Isabelle's death, though I didn't remember anything about the landscaping there. The house had overlooked the ocean-few trees in the vicinity. The Weidmanns'. I'd accompanied Yolanda to the patio where Peter Weidmann was napping-a formal garden with the lawn stretching off toward the trees.

Methodically, I removed the index cards from my bulletin board and put them up again. What had Morley seen that I wasn't seeing? I pulled out his Month at a Glance from one of the stacks of files sitting on my counter. I started with the month of October, trying to get a feel for what he'd been doing the last two months. Most squares were empty. November was similarly blank except for a couple of notations: two doctor's appointments, a haircut one Wednesday afternoon. This month, December, had been slightly busier and it looked like he'd actually conducted a couple of interviews. Lonnie would be thrilled to hear he'd done something for his pay. Yolanda and Peter Weidmann's names appeared twice. The first appointment must have been canceled because he had a line drawn through the time and a big penciled arrow extended from that date to the same day and time a week later. I remembered Yolanda complaining about what a pest he'd made of himself, so he must have been there more than once.