“How was your lunch?” Tara whispered, looking at her in alarm.
“I got food poisoning. Or something.”
Tara gasped. “That’s horrible. Where did Greg take you?”
Charlie told her the name of the restaurant. “I suspect everyone who had the mousse got it. Greg called in sick, too, I guess,” she said, lowering her voice.
On impulse, she looked up the restaurant online and called the number. “This is a crazy question and one you might not even honestly answer, but did you get any complaints about the mousse making people sick?”
“The chocolate mousse? It’s our specialty. No one ever complains.”
“So no one called to say it made them sick?” Charlie prodded.
“No, but you’re welcome to speak to our manager.”
She was looking at Tara who was now wide-eyed. “No, thank you.” She disconnected. “I think Amanda put something in my dessert that made me deathly ill. It’s possible she doctored Greg’s as well. She was drinking and upset because she wasn’t getting enough attention from Greg.”
Tara rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to tell me about it before the shower.”
For a moment the word shower didn’t make any sense. “Oh, your baby shower.”
“You forgot.”
“No, not exactly.” Charlie groaned. “Yes. I’m sorry. I’ve had so much on my mind.”
“It’s all right. On top of that, you ate something that made you sick.”
“What does anyone carry in her purse that could cause that kind of nausea if mixed with a food like mousse?” Charlie asked.
Tara, whose whole family was involved in the health profession, thought for a moment. “Something small that anyone might carry...” She burst into a grin. “Eye drops.”
“Eye drops?”
Her friend shook her head. “I know it sounds odd, but my uncle the pediatrician was telling me about a toddler who got into his mother’s eye drops. Made him sicker than a dog.”
“Eye drops,” Charlie repeated, wondering how she could get a look inside Amanda’s purse. Maybe at the shower. That’s when she realized she had also forgotten her baby shower present. She’d purchased it weeks ago. She’d have to go home and get it. “I am sorry I forgot about your shower.”
“Don’t be silly.” Tara hugged her huge protruding belly. “You haven’t been lugging around a constant reminder like I have. Charlie, I’m worried about you. If you’re right...” She made a motion toward the front of the office.
“It’s fine. I’ll deal with it.”
“Well, at least you have job security. Greg seemed over the moon about your presentation. Are things with Daniel okay?”
Charlie shrugged. “It’s a long story.” She knew she had to tell Tara something. The woman was one of her best friends. “An old boyfriend has come back into my life. Literally. He’s...staying with me.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “What does Daniel think of that?”
“He doesn’t know yet. I’m trying to figure out how to tell him.”
Her expression said good luck with that. “This was a serious boyfriend?”
Charlie nodded. The explanation wasn’t completely true but it covered at least part of it. “Daniel knows something’s wrong, but not all of it.”
“You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?”
She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “I’m worried he won’t understand.”
“I guess it depends on how serious things are with the old boyfriend now.”
Just then Amanda walked through on her way to the ladies’ room.
Charlie turned back to her desk and so did Tara.
“Come to the shower early if you want to talk about it,” Tara whispered over her shoulder.
* * *
BACK AT THE apartment, Shep looked up the design company where Charlie was employed. Under Contact Information, he found the names of the administrative staff. Gregory Shafer, CEO and owner. Amanda Barnes, office manager. At the top of a list labeled Creative Design Team was Charlie Farmington.
He felt a wave of pride. Charlie had succeeded against odds that someone half as strong would have crumbled under. The woman amazed him.
He studied the photograph of Amanda Barnes for a moment before going online to see what he could find out about her. He found nothing in her background on social media to raise any red flags. She appeared to come from a middle-class family and had majored in history and English. She’d taught one year, English as a second language at an alternative school. The job apparently hadn’t worked out, and she’d fallen into administrative jobs until she went to work for Greg Shafer at a design company in Colorado as an office manager.
There was much less information available on Greg Shafer. He appeared to be a self-made man, majoring in design at Colorado State, opening his first company right out of college. By Shep’s count, the Bozeman design company was his fourth. On paper, he appeared to be a successful man. The kind a woman would be attracted to, maybe especially a woman like Amanda.
Shep looked up the restaurant where Charlie had been served chocolate mousse. The call went through. He inquired about anyone calling in to say the mousse had made them sick. A woman assured him that they’d had no report of anyone getting sick.
Placing another call, this one to Paul Wagner, the man who had lived down the street from Charlie fifteen years ago, Shep’s mind buzzed with worry about her. Someone had doctored her mousse. If not Amanda, then who did that leave?
A thin elderly voice answered the call. “Hello?”
Shep introduced himself and then said, “I need to talk to you about the murder of Lindy Parker. Do you mind if I come over?”
“I’ll be here,” Wagner said and Shep headed for his pickup.
Like Edna Trenton, Paul Wagner still lived in the same house he had fifteen years ago. Having an unsolved murder just doors away hadn’t seemed to worry either of them. Probably because most everyone believed the killer had been a vagrant passing through town. Except for Mulvane. And possibly Kat Ramsey.
The farmhouse back off the street had seen better days. It looked odd with all the new development around it. Bozeman had always been a desirable city to live in, hitting a lot of the Ten Best Places to Live lists over the years. Recently the city had taken off again with home prices shooting skyward.
Shep wondered why Wagner hadn’t cashed in yet. His large piece of property was worth a small fortune.