Chapter 4 - The object was not a pill
The lab result came three days later.
The white object was not medication.
That surprised everyone.
It was a small dissolvable capsule shell designed to contain powdered material.
Empty now.
Food-grade gelatin.
Common.
Legally purchasable.
Not inherently sinister.
The champagne residue, however, contained something else.
A small quantity of propranolol.
A prescription beta-blocker.
Charles had a legitimate prescription for it.
He used it occasionally for tremor associated with public speaking and anxiety.
The amount in the champagne flute was low.
Not necessarily dangerous to a healthy adult.
But it had not belonged there.
When detectives asked Charles why his medication appeared in a guest drink, his attorney initially declined to answer.
Later Charles offered an explanation.
He said he had accidentally dropped one of his pills near the serving area and may have mistaken the champagne flute for a water glass when disposing of it.
The explanation was terrible.
Propranolol tablets did not arrive in empty gelatin shells.
The recovered capsule shell contained trace residue consistent with a crushed beta-blocker formulation.
Somebody had deliberately put powdered medication inside it.
Why?
The glass itself became the next question.
Who was supposed to drink from it?
The server could not identify one specific guest. Champagne had been poured and staged before circulation.
But seating-service notes showed that one tray was reserved for the family toast.
Charles had been standing beside that tray.
So had Mason’s younger sister, Laura.
And so had Caroline’s former business partner, Rebecca Hale.
That name changed everything.
Rebecca had been invited because the reception honored the sale of a historic Newport property Caroline once helped restore.
She had also been the last person outside the family to speak with Caroline professionally before her death.
When police interviewed Rebecca, she told them something Mason had never heard.
Caroline had been planning to confront Charles.
Not about money.
About Ava.
Mason stared at Rebecca.
“What about Ava?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Caroline believed your father was trying to turn her against you.”
That sounded small compared with poison.
But Rebecca continued.
“Not just emotionally. She thought he was interfering with her treatment too.”
Mason went still.
“What treatment?”
“Her migraines.”
Caroline had complained that Charles kept recommending an old cardiologist friend for medication reviews, despite the fact that Caroline already had her own physicians.
Rebecca remembered Caroline saying:
“Charles keeps acting like he knows what I’m taking better than I do.”
At the time it sounded like family annoyance.
Now police had found Charles putting his own medication into champagne.
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The past was no longer staying politely in the past.
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