Chapter 4: Every Plate

"What did he mean?" Rocco asked when the front door had closed.

The hall was empty except for him, me and the rain on the glass.

"He meant my life before him," I said. "It's in the terms. I don't tell you until I decide to."

"He thinks it matters."

"He thinks it matters to him."

Rocco was quiet for a moment.

"I'm not a man who likes a closed door in my own house," he said.

"I'm not asking you to like it."

He almost smiled, and then his hand started to shake and he put it in his pocket.

I saw it.

He saw me see it.

"Go to bed, Mrs. Rensselaer," he said. "The east wing has a lock on the inside."

I slept four hours in a stranger's guest room with a chair under the door handle.

At six I was in the kitchen.

It was a huge old kitchen with copper pots and a stone floor, and a stout cook in a white apron stood at the stove with her arms folded.

She had been told to let me do whatever I wanted, and she hated it.

"The don eats what I make," she said. "For thirty years, I make it."

"I'm sure it's wonderful," I said. "That's why I'm going to open every tin in this room."

She said something in Italian that I didn't need translated.

I opened every tin.

I smelled the coffee, the sugar, the flour, the salt, the olive oil and the dried herbs.

I read every label and checked every date.

I took the tea out of the caddy and spread it on a clean plate to look for anything that didn't belong.

It all looked ordinary.

That told me the poison was something small, tasteless and slow.

It could be in anything, and I couldn't test for it with my eyes.

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