Palate Memory

[SFX: Wine pouring. Glasses clink]

NARRATOR: Tomas served Bea samples from the suspect cellar. One rare bottle tasted of young wine, oak chips, and the confidence of an expensive label. He admitted blending counterfeits but blamed Ellen.

TOMAS GREY: She bought empty bottles at auction. I filled what ownership demanded.

ELLEN WARD: He proposed the scheme.

BEA HOLT: Joint fraud is not joint murder by default.

NARRATOR: Pike's cut came from a broken tasting glass at another restaurant that afternoon. Only the person monitoring his inspection route could know about it. Tomas followed inspectors through a hospitality group chat. His phone contained a photograph of Pike's bandaged hand.

[SFX: Camera shutter]

TOMAS GREY: I needed to know whether he visited competitors.

BEA HOLT: You needed skin solvent because poison in food would reach every diner.

NARRATOR: Before police arrived, every counterfeit bottle in the cellar shattered when a rack collapsed. The support pins had been replaced with sugar rods designed to dissolve under a timed drip.

MINA ROSE: That is pastry engineering.

CHEF LUCA VENN: Which makes you useful and suspicious.