Poison in the Truffle Oil
Chapter 09 - Poison in the Truffle Oil
Cal Mercer’s statement reached the media within hours.
Headlines declared that Claire Moretti had killed herself and attempted to frame Vincent. Commentators transformed a frightened woman gathering evidence into an unstable wife consumed by revenge.
Vincent announced a memorial scholarship in Claire’s name.
Mason watched the broadcast with disgust.
“He steals her story and then puts his name on it.”
Elias did not answer.
The possibility that Claire started the fire had shaken him. He remembered her final week: locked doors, whispered phone calls, a packed suitcase he assumed was for vacation.
Nora insisted Cal’s version was incomplete.
“Claire may have started a small fire to trigger evacuation,” she said. “She believed the alarm would bring firefighters before Vincent’s men arrived. She did not know the battery had been removed.”
The fire grew because someone poured accelerant in the hallway.
Laboratory records confirmed two ignition points.
Claire had created smoke as a signal.
Someone else turned it into a murder.
The board ordered Bellamy House reopened under a temporary executive chef appointed by Vincent. On opening night, dozens of influential guests became violently ill after eating truffle risotto.
Vincent blamed Elias.
Security footage showed Elias entering the kitchen earlier that afternoon, though he denied being there. Police found his fingerprints on the truffle oil bottle.
Detective Brooks arrested him in front of cameras.
Mason followed the officers to the curb.
“He didn’t do it!”
Vincent stood beneath the Bellamy awning, wearing concern like another tailored suit.
“The boy has been manipulated enough,” he told reporters.
Mason looked at the footage later.
The man entering the kitchen wore Elias’s coat and cap. His face was hidden. He favored his right leg.
Cal Mercer had the same limp.
But Cal was in police custody.
Someone else had copied it deliberately.
Mason returned to Bellamy House with Nora and studied the contaminated bottle. The wax seal had been replaced.
He remembered Ruth teaching him to open jam jars by warming the lid. The poisoner had heated the bottle neck to remove the seal, then cooled it quickly. A faint ring of cracked glass remained near the top.
Mason checked the kitchen camera angles.
One section of the prep counter was hidden behind a hanging copper pan. Only a person familiar with the old kitchen design would know the blind spot.
Vincent had designed the renovation.
Mason found a smear of blue wax beneath the counter. The same custom blue wax sealed bottles in Vincent’s private wine collection.
Dana obtained a warrant.
In Vincent’s penthouse, officers discovered matching wax, Elias’s missing chef coat, and a box of nitrile gloves.
But Vincent was prepared.
He claimed someone had planted the items.
Then the independent DNA laboratory called.
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The confirmation test did not match.
According to the new report, Elias Moretti was not Mason’s father.
