Free The Body in the Cast by Katherine Hall Page

much smoke in the air, nobody could taste much of anything.”
    Tom and Ben had departed for their respective morning activities—sermon writing and Play-Doh—and at least one of them wanted to switch. Amy was asleep.
    Faith had offered the chief some breakfast, but he had declined with unaccustomed haste. He opted for the sofa instead of the large Windsor chair, his usual choice. His face was a study in contrasts: affection for the woman sitting next to him struggled with animosity. Faith watched in alarm.
    â€œCharley! You know I wouldn’t have put a laxative in any soup I’d made, especially Chocolax, which must bear no more resemblance to real chocolate than Styrofoam to meringue. That means somebody else put it in. The question is, who and when?”
    â€œAll right, let’s start from the beginning.” Affection triumphed and Charley managed a weak smile. He took a small, creased spiral notepad from his, jacket pocket, along with a sharp number-two yellow Dixon pencil. Faith expected him to lick the tip before commencing to write, and he did.
    â€œWhen did you make the soup?”
    â€œWednesday afternoon.”
    â€œAnd it sat in your refrigerator until you brought it to the set yesterday?”
    â€œYes, but …”
    â€œHold your horses, Faith. Now who besides you and probably the Reverend has keys to the place?”
    â€œPix and Niki, but …”
    â€œNo spares hidden under the mat or in a flowerpot?” he asked doggedly.
    â€œCharley, I’m trying to tell you something! Nobody could have put anything into the soup at the kitchen. It was fine when we arrived at the set, because I tasted it to check the seasonings when we first heated it.”
    â€œAll right, now we’re getting somewhere.” The chief gave
her a baleful look, suggesting that she had hitherto been throwing sand in the gas tank of justice. “When, as near as you can remember, did you do the tasting?”
    â€œIt was before we heard the fire alarm, and that was about quarter after twelve. We normally serve lunch at twelve-thirty, and I was watching the time pretty closely.”
    â€œSo let me get this straight. The soup was fine before the fire broke out.”
    â€œYes, which could mean the fire was set to get us out of the way while the soup was doctored. Sorry, poor choice of words.”
    â€œAll the soup was in one big pot?”
    â€œNo, there were two tureens. We serve from two stations so the lines go faster.”
    â€œI’m sure they kept the samples separate, but, in any case, everyone who had the soup got the runs, so they both must have been tampered with.”
    Faith had not been ill, nor had the rest of the Have Faith staff, since they normally ate after everyone else. After Evelyn’s pronouncement, nothing passed anybody’s lips. No, it was only the cast and crew of A, the entire fire department, and both police and fire chiefs who had been felled.
    Something was nagging at Faith. Something was wrong, besides what was so obviously wrong—that person or persons unknown had deliberately set out to destroy her reputation and business.
    â€œCharley, wait. Whoever dumped the Chocolax in the soup had to have done it earlier, because it was in the portion on Evelyn’s tray and we sent that to her trailer before the fire.”
    â€œBut after you tasted it?”
    â€œYes. Just after. I remember thinking how good it was,” Faith declared staunchly. It had been good—she’d used hickory-smoked ham hocks for flavor, plus two kinds of onions and a touch of dry sherry before pureeing it all into a smooth liquid.
    Charley looked tired. Up and down all night perhaps? “Then
what we have here is a situation where someone comes into the tent in broad daylight and empties God only knows how many packages of the stuff into two soup pots in front of you, Niki, Pix, and the rest of the bunch.”
    â€œPlus a dozen or so crew