Investigator Tom Schulz of the Furman County Sheriff's Department was introduced to us by another cop, whose reverential tone said, Here's God. Schulz loomed large in height and bulk. When he came striding through the door of Laura Smiley's house, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he looked like one of those old-time movie heroes who use sword and cape to threaten villains, to keep skeptics at bay, to summon up an imposing sense of self-importance. Only the investigator needed neither sword nor cape. He had his size.

In general, I felt powerful with hefty people. They held me in great esteem because I was an expert cook. But within five minutes of watching Investigator Schulz scan the tables, glasses, coffee cups, and the bevy of trembling faces, my confidence melted. He consulted a guest list given to him by Laura's aunt. Then he cocked an authoritative thumb at the first person to be questioned and hiked up his belt as if it were a holster before he banged through the door into the kitchen, the improvised interrogation chamber.

John Richard had insisted on accompanying Fritz in the ambulance to Lutheran Hospital, I had heard. Lutheran was located in Wheat Ridge, a suburb west of Denver that was forty-five minutes from Aspen Meadow. The Denver Poison Center had recommended this course rather than ipecac or any other treatment. The person who had called the Poison Center had made an announcement: within an hour of Fritz's entering the hospital, blood and urine tests would indicate the source of distress.

Vonette sat slumped in one of the wing chairs, overcome. I wanted to go and comfort her, tell her maybe Fritz had stomach flu. But the two uniformed policemen who had arrived with Schulz had commanded us not to touch anything and not to talk to each other.

"Us" at that point was the forty mourners for Laura, now witnesses to exactly what, I still did not know. But I was going to have to find out. I felt sorry for Fritz, anxious for him. He was in pain and possibly in danger. But there was something else. This incident could pose an acute threat to my business. Unfortunately, I could not determine anything when all of us were sitting around looking guilty and being silent, as if this were Adult Detention Hall. One policeman took me aside to say Investigator Schulz had ordered him to call the Colorado Department of Health so that all the food could be seized and analyzed.

Marvelous. What microbes might the Health Department detect? Before I could worry about that, Investigator Schulz called a second person to be questioned, then a third. Some people came out right away: they hadn't seen anything. Patty Sue went in and came out looking confused. Arch and I were last. When it was Arch's turn, Tom Schulz's thumb indicated that he wanted me, too.