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The shrill ringing of her house phone pounded in Michaela’s ears as she toweled dry her short dark hair still wet from her shower. It was Dottie. Mic shook her head and reached for the phone.
“Hello, Dottie. You’ve hardly given me a chance to get home. Where's the fire? I've just gotten out of the shower," Mic said, a note of irritation in her voice.
"Michaela, Michaela, why didn't you call me? I need to talk to you," Dottie said sharply.
Mic sighed. "Dottie, I just got home, I stopped at the grocery store, took Angel for a walk and hopped in the shower. Have a little patience,” Michaela admonished. She heard Dottie sigh angrily on the other end of the phone. Mic smiled to herself and added, “Patience, Dottie patience. Patience is a virtue. Even for the aristocracy. People like you need to practice patience.”
“Humph. Well, let me tell you one thing, Michaela McPherson, we’ll just see how much patience you have at the age of eighty-two. I don’t have that much time left and I’m certainly not gonna waste part of it by developing patience now.”
Mic rolled her eyes and said, "Okay, Dottie. I get it. Tell me what's up. Any news about Camilla?"
"Yes, yes, there is.” Dottie's voice was hushed. "The general is here with Adam and Kathryn at the hospital. She's not any better and Margaret's pretty upset about that. But the news is they think she was poisoned! What do you think of those apples, Michaela?"
"What do you mean they ‘think’ she was poisoned? Either she was poisoned or she wasn’t."
Dottie cursed under her breath and frowned into the phone. "I don't know. I'm just telling you what I heard. I guess all the blood tests aren’t back. The general was pretty upset about it. Margaret eavesdropped and heard him and Congressman Lee talking about retaliation of some kind against General Rothrock."
Michaela was quiet for a moment as she processed this information. "I thought Stuart Rothrock was retired and living quietly in Florida," she mused.
"That's what we've all been led to believe," Dottie said in a conspiratorial voice. "Perhaps he's not retired at all. Perhaps he's engaged in some secret mission and the bad guys are trying to stop him by killing his mother. Maybe it’s a message and his wife is next and then his kids," she added in a hushed tone. “You know as well as I do that terrorists do all kinds of crap like this."
Mic laughed briefly. "That's a bit far-fetched, Dottie. I see you have your royal imagination in overdrive. I'd rather believe this is just food poisoning or some underlying medical condition that Camilla has that was undiagnosed." Dottie could be on to something. She said early this afternoon that she thought Camilla had been poisoned.
Dottie sighed heavily and impatiently said, "I told you, Mic, they think she could've been poisoned. I’m thinkin’ real poison. Not bad crabmeat. I've never heard of people having poisoning as an underlying medical condition anyway or whatever you call it," she sniffed.
Mic was quiet for a moment. “My neighbor just told me three people became very ill in a restaurant downtown this afternoon. You heard anything about that?”
“Umm... No. Nothing. But, if that’s true, what other kind of proof do you need, Mic? There are too many coincidences.”
Mic didn’t respond. She was thinking.
“Michaela, whatever are you doing? We’ve gotta get on this! People are dropping like flies in Richmond’s best restaurants,” Dottie lamented. “This could be very bad. After all, you own a restaurant,” Dottie reminded her, like Mic didn’t remember her restaurant and pub, Biddy McPherson’s in Shockoe Bottom.
“You’re right. I’ll make some calls,” she promised.
“Call me back, Mic. Don’t try to bypass me on this one or you’ll be very sorry,” Dottie threatened.
Mic could smell her dinner in the oven and said, "I gotta go. My dinner's burning. Keep me in the loop because I truly want to know how Camilla is doing."
"Okay, will do, but don't say I didn't tell you so." Dottie snapped. “Hold on,” she said and paused for a moment to check her call waiting and said, "That's Margaret calling me on my other line. I'll get back with you later."
“Later,” Mic agreed as she clicked off. “Call me if you need me. I should be home.”
Mic moved into her kitchen and removed her mushroom casserole from the oven. The possibility of murder continued to play over and over in her mind. Crap, this could be bad. People poisoning people in restaurants. What a nightmare. She reached for her cell and called Lieutenant Steve Stoddard, her old boss from the RPD. He’d know what was up.