“He had low-calorie gravy every time but the most recent,” said Sandra. “For the most recent, it shows regular gravy.”
The supervisor leaned in. “So it does.” She grinned. “Well, our low-cal stuff is pretty vile, if you ask me. It’s not even real gravy — it’s made from vegetable gelatin. Maybe he just decided to try the regular.”
“Or maybe one of your order takers made a mistake.”
The supervisor shook her head. “Not possible. We always assume the person wants the same thing they ordered last time — nine times out of ten, that’s the case. The CSR wouldn’t have rekeyboarded the order unless there was a specific change.”
“CSR?”
“Customer Service Representative.”
Ho boy, thought Sandra.
“If there’d been no change,” said Nadas, “the CSR would have just hit F2 — that’s our key for ‘repeat order’.”
“Can you tell who processed his most-recent order?”
“Sure.” She pointed to a field on the screen. “CSR 054 — that’s Annie Delano.”
“Is she here?” asked Sandra.
The supervisor looked around the room. “That’s her over there — the one with the ponytail.”
“I’d like to talk to her,” said Sandra.
“I can’t see what difference all this makes,” said the supervisor.
“The difference,” said Sandra coolly, “is that the man who ordered that meal died from a reaction to the food he ate.”
The supervisor covered her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said. “I — I should call my boss.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Sandra. “I just want to speak to that young lady over there.”
“Of course. Of course.” The supervisor led the way over to where Annie Delano was working. She looked to be about seventeen. She’d obviously just received a repeat order, and had done exactly what the supervisor said she would do — tap the F2 key.
“Annie,” said Nadas, “this woman is a police officer. She’d like to ask you some questions.” Annie looked up, eyes wide.
“Ms. Delano,” said Sandra, “last Wednesday night, you processed an order from a man named Rod Churchill for a roast beef dinner.”
“If you say so, ma’am,” Annie said.
Sandra turned to the supervisor. “Bring it up on screen.”
The supervisor leaned in and tapped out Churchill’s phone number.
Annie looked at the screen, her expression blank. “You changed his regular order,” Sandra said. “He always had low-calorie gravy before, but last time you gave him regular gravy.”
“I’d only have done that if that’s what he asked for,” said Annie.
“Do you recall him asking for a change?” Annie looked at the screen.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t recall anything about that order at all. I do over two hundred orders a day, and that was a week ago. But, honest, I wouldn’t have made the change unless he asked for it.”
Alexandria Philo went back to Doowap Advertising, co-opting one of the few private offices to do more interviews with Hans Larsen’s coworkers. Although her particular interest was Cathy Hobson, she first briefly reinterviewed two other people so as not to make Cathy suspicious.
Once Cathy had sat down, Sandra gave her a sympathetic smile. “I’ve just heard about your father,” she said. “I’m very sorry. I lost my own father last year; I know how difficult it can be.”
Cathy gave a small, civil nod. “Thank you.”
“I’m curious, though,” said Sandra, “about the fact that both Hans Larsen and your father died very close together.”
Cathy sighed. “It never rains but it pours, eh?”
Sandra nodded. “So you think it’s a coincidence?”
Cathy looked shocked. “Of course it’s a coincidence. I mean, goodness, I had only a peripheral involvement with Hans, and my father died of natural causes.”
Sandra looked Cathy up and down, assessing her. “As far as Hans goes, we both know that what you’re saying isn’t true. You had some sort of romantic involvement with him.” Cathy’s large blue eyes blazed defiantly. Sandra raised her hand. “Don’t worry, Ms. Hobson. How you choose to run your life is your own affair — so to speak. I’ve no intention of exposing your infidelity to your husband — or to Hans’s widow, for that matter. Assuming, that is, that you had nothing to do with his murder.”
Cathy was angry. “Look — in the first place, what happened between me and Hans was a long time ago. In the second place, my husband already knows about it. I told him everything.”
Sandra was surprised. “You did?”
“Yes.” Cathy seemed to realize that she might have made a mistake. She pressed on. “So you see,” she said, “I have nothing to hide and no reason to try to silence Hans.”
“What about your father?”
Cathy looked exasperated. “Once again, he died of natural causes.”
“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you,” said Sandra, “but I’m afraid that’s not true.”
Cathy was angry. “God damn it, detective. It’s hard enough going through the loss of a parent without you playing games.”
Sandra nodded. “Believe me, Ms. Hobson, I would never say such a thing if I didn’t believe it to be true. But it’s a fact that your father’s dinner order was tampered with.”
“Dinner order? What are you talking about?”
“Your father was on a prescription drug that had severe dietary restrictions. Every Wednesday when your mother was out, he ordered dinner — always the same thing, always safe for him. But on the day he died, his dinner order was tampered with, and he received something that caused a severe reaction, forcing his blood pressure to intolerably high levels.”
Cathy was flabbergasted. “What are you talking about, detective? Death by fast food?”
“I’d assumed it was an accident,” said Sandra. “But I did some checking. It turns out that the national MedBase was compromised a few days before your father died. Whoever did that could have found out that he was on phenelzine.”
“Phenelzine?” said Cathy. “But that’s an antidepressant.”
“You know it?” asked Sandra, eyebrows climbing.
“My sister was on it for a while.”
“And you know about the dietary restrictions?”
“No cheese,” said Cathy.
“Well, there’s a lot more to it than that.”
Cathy was shaking her bowed head in what looked to Sandra like very genuine astonishment. “Dad on an antidepressant,” she said softly, as if talking to herself. But then she looked up and met Sandra’s eyes. “This is crazy.”
“An access log is kept for MedBase. It took a lot of work, but I checked all the accesses for the two weeks prior to your father’s death. There was a bogus login three days before he died.”
“Bogus how?”
“The doctor under whose name the access was made was on vacation in Greece when it happened.”
“You can log on to most databases from anywhere in the world,” said Cathy.
Sandra nodded. “True. But I called Athens; the doctor swears he’s been doing nothing except visiting archeological sites since he got there.”
“And you can tell whose records were accessed?”
Sandra dropped her gaze for a moment. “No. Just when whoever was using the account logged on and logged off. Both accesses were at about four A.M. Toronto time—”
“That’s in the middle of the day in Greece.”
“Yes, but it’s also when the MedBase system is under the least demand. I’m told there are almost never any access delays at that time. If someone wanted to get on and off as quickly as possible, that would be when to do it.”
“Still, using food ingredients to trigger a fatal reaction — that would require a lot of expertise.”