Last Licks (5 page)

Mike glanced dubiously at the cat as he signed himself out. “Nothing catching, is it?”

Rafe surprised them by answering, “Cancer. Poor Patrick had to go through chemotherapy.”

Now Mike gave Patrick a long, thoughtful look. “I’ve had friends who went through that. Guess all I can say is good luck, Patrick.”

“Thanks, sir.” Rafe gently petted Patrick as Sunny signed out.

“I hope he’ll be okay,” she said. Mike was already ahead of her, opening the big door.

When they were outside, Sunny grinned at her dad. “Still so eager to have Rafe as a son-in-law?” she teased. “Love him, love his cats.”

“Hmmph,” Mike said, considering that unpleasant prospect.

Sunny decided to push the subject. “And speaking of prospective sons-in-law, how about Luke? He’s more my age, and a very nice guy, even if he can’t open a bag of chips without disastrous results.” He even had a nice, dark tan—probably thanks to his Italian genes. No sunburn that Sunny could spot.

“A musician?”

From the tone of his voice, it might as well have been, “An ax-murderer?”
Sunny thought.

“Why not?” she said, rubbing it in. “Isn’t that what you wanted to be, back when you were with the Cosmic Rays?”

“The Cosmic Blade,” Mike corrected. “And I quickly gave that up.”

“Mom loved music,” Sunny pointed out.

“And your mom knew how hard it was to make money from music,” Mike replied testily. “She was always giving lessons to pay for that piano we got.”

“Sorry, Dad.” Sunny took his arm, genuinely penitent for upsetting him. “I was just teasing.”

For a second, Mike looked at her and then shook his head. “You had me going for a little while.”

“So I guess I’m stuck with Will for the time being.” She put her head on Mike’s shoulder with a wicked grin. “Unless Gardner Scatterwell offers to make me a rich widow.”

“If he ever became my son-in-law, I guarantee you’d soon be a widow,” Mike said in his sternest voice, but he was grinning, too.

*

When Shadow arranged
himself for his afternoon nap, he’d draped himself along the top of the sofa. That way he could keep a drowsy eye on all the comings and goings along the street. So, even before Sunny and her father parked, Shadow was at the doorway. The Old One, as usual, held no scents of interest. But Sunny . . . he worked his way around her ankles, inhaling deeply. The mysterious She had marked Sunny very thoroughly.

For a second, Shadow wondered if he should worry about that. He’d been in a lot of homes during his wandering days—before he’d found Sunny and decided to settle down. Sometimes, in those other places, when a new pet came in Shadow had found himself out on the street. Then he caught a whiff of that intoxicating fragrance again, and he stopped thinking at all.

Even when Sunny almost tripped over him, he couldn’t stay away. The scent kept drawing him. While she prepared food and even while she ate it, Shadow couldn’t keep himself from under her feet.

She actually scolded him, and the Old One rumbled at him, too.

But Shadow couldn’t stay away.

*

Sunny began to
suspect there might be a problem when Shadow arranged himself across her feet under the dinner table and just lay there, breathing deeply and purring. She reached down to stroke his fur, but he didn’t even raise his head to be petted.

Of course, I never got my hands on Portia today. She concentrated on my ankles—and now, so is Shadow.

He only stopped pestering her when she went up to her room and changed from the khakis she’d been wearing into a pair of shorts. And then he disappeared while Sunny and her dad watched some television in the living room.

Sunny decided on an early night, heading up the stairs to her room and yawning. Maybe she could make up some of the sleep she’d lost this morning.

She opened the door to her room and froze. Her khakis, which she’d hung from the back of a chair, were now on the floor in a heap. And lying on top of them, his head on the hems, was Shadow.

“Well, I guess I’m not wearing them again this week after all,” Sunny said. But the surprises weren’t over. When she tried to pull the pants out from under him, he looked up and actually hissed at her.

“Okay, buddy,” she told the cat, “you can have them for tonight. But after that outburst, don’t think you’re getting into bed with me.”

*

Sunny had a
dreadful night, her dreams confused and disturbing. She stood at the doorway to a church—or was it the splendid entranceway to Bridgewater Hall? Sunny wasn’t sure, but she knew she was in a wedding gown. Her father stood beside her, a look of disapproval on his face. She was getting married—but to whom?

Rafe Warner came up, dressed in his guard’s uniform. But he walked by, into the church. So did Luke Daconto, carrying his guitar case. Gardner Scatterwell came rolling up in a wheelchair pushed by Alfred. Both of them smirked at her as they went past. Then came Will Price in his constable’s uniform. But he only looked at her sadly as he went into the church, too.

So who was the groom?

A limousine pulled up, and the chauffeur hustled round to open the door.

Shadow hopped out.

Sunny tried to say something, but there was no time. Shadow ran past her, and then the organ music started and her father took her arm.

And all the way down the long, long aisle, Sunny watched as Shadow kept going from bridesmaid to bridesmaid, sniffing their ankles.

Then the wedding bells began to peal.

No, wait a minute, that wasn’t the sound of wedding bells. It was the telephone. Sunny’s eyelids seemed gummed together, but she finally got them open. Woozily, she groped around for the phone. The bedside alarm read a few minutes after four.

“H’lo?” she managed to croak into the phone. If this turned out to be a wrong number—

“Sunny, that you? It’s Ollie—Oliver Barnstable.” His voice was tight and trembling. “I need you up here right away. Something’s going on. Gardner is dead.”

“Wh-What? Ollie? What
happened? Hello?” Sunny realized she was almost shouting into the phone, but she got no answers. Ollie had already hung up. And when she dialed his number at Bridgewater Hall, she couldn’t get through. Instead, a recorded message came on, telling her that residents’ phones were not available from ten p.m. until nine a.m.

“Of course,” she muttered, staggering out of bed and heading for the bathroom. She almost stumbled over Shadow, who’d been awakened either by the ringing phone or by her end of the conversation. He hopped around her, obviously picking up on her anxiety.

“What is it? What’s going on?” Mike appeared in his doorway as Sunny stepped into the hall. Oh, wonderful. The ruckus had roused him out of bed, too. Sunny bit her lip, trying to decide on an answer. Early-morning alarms upset Mike, especially since over the past year he’d usually been the cause, awakening at ungodly hours suffering from angina attacks. But a phone call at four in the morning—he knew that meant bad news.

Finally, she decided to give it to him straight. “That was Ollie calling from Bridgewater Hall. Gardner Scatterwell passed away.” Slowly, the rest of what Ollie said percolated through her brain. “He said there was something wrong, and he wanted me up there right away.”

Sunny blinked. “Or did I dream that?”

“The phone definitely rang,” Mike told her. “So I guess the rest of it must be true, too. Can you call Ollie back?”

“No. I tried, but the system won’t let me call back for another five hours or so.” Sunny shook her head. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I suggest we wash up, have some coffee, and head up there.” Mike took it for granted that he would come, too. Sunny silently blessed the Kittery Harbor Way.

After they’d showered, dressed, and had a quick bite to eat, Sunny and her father got into her Wrangler, and they set off for Bridgewater Hall. They made good time in the predawn darkness; at this hour, traffic was almost nonexistent.

As they pulled into the parking lot in front of the nursing home, Sunny saw a lot more cars than she’d expected.
Either the night staff uses the visitor’s parking,
she thought,
or . . .

Then she realized one of the cars—parked at a sloppy angle in front of the door—was an official Sheriff’s Department vehicle. For a moment, she wondered if Will had responded to the call. Then she shook her head. He was on the day shift now. That didn’t start for hours yet.

Looks as if “or” is the answer I was looking for.
She carefully made sure her Wrangler was parked between the painted lines, and then she and Mike headed for the front entrance.

The elaborately carved door was locked, but Mike pounded on the heavy wood with his fist. After a moment, Sunny heard rattling, and then the door opened a slit to reveal Rafe Warner’s surprised face staring at them.

Down by Rafe’s ankles, Portia and Patrick peered out, too.

“Sunny! Mr. Coolidge! What are you doing here?” the guard asked.

“I got a call from Ollie—Mr. Barnstable,” Sunny explained. “He sounded pretty upset, and when I tried to call him back, I couldn’t get through. So we figured we’d better come up in person to make sure he’s all right.”

“Mr. Barnstable’s all right.” Sunny couldn’t help noticing the slight emphasis that Rafe put on Ollie’s name.

“But Mr. Scatterwell isn’t?” she said. “That’s the message I got over the phone.”

Rafe sighed. “Mr. Scatterwell—” He shook his head.

“Can we see Mr. Barnstable?” Mike broke in. “He sounded as though he needed some calming down.”

The usually obliging Rafe found himself on the spot. “I don’t think—it’s not the policy—”

“Can you call in to his room and see what he wants?” Sunny suggested.

Rafe shrugged. “Why not?” he muttered, “They’ve enough other people banging around in there.” Then he abruptly shut up, obviously regretting his words. “I’ll make the call, but you’ll have to stay outside, okay?”

He closed the door. Sunny turned toward the lightening horizon and asked Mike, “Do you think we’ll get in before the sun actually comes up?”

“Can’t say,” Mike replied. “Although I’ve got to wonder—does the sheriff send a car over whenever somebody kicks off in one of these places?”

The door opened wide, and a visibly relieved Rafe Warner beckoned them in. Obviously, the decision was off his shoulders. “Room 114,” he said. “You know the way.”

In late-night mode, Sunny and her dad discovered, most of the corridor lighting in Bridgewater Hall apparently got switched off.

Guess that makes sense,
Sunny thought.
Most of the residents should be sleeping.

But it did make for a shadowy, slightly spooky trip down the mostly silent hallway. There was a little more light at the nurses’ station, where the skeleton crew for the floor seemed to have huddled into a knot, the aides and nurses staring as Sunny and her dad passed by.

Unlike the other patient accommodations, light poured from the doorway of Room 114. Gardner Scatterwell’s bed wasn’t merely empty, it had already been stripped. But as Rafe Warner had suggested, there were lots of folks inside. Sunny didn’t recognize the tanned, lean man with the thinning blond hair and the gold-rimmed eyeglasses. But she certainly knew Dr. Gavrik, looking unexpectedly dressy for the early hour in a pale jade suit. Then, as he turned at their footsteps, she found the third face in the room all too familiar.

Frank Nesbit was the sheriff of Elmet County, the head of local law enforcement . . . not to mention being Will Price’s boss. No matter how rich he was, Gardner Scatterwell’s death didn’t merit that kind of attention. Not unless there was a smoking gun involved.

Nesbit’s green Sheriff’s Department windbreaker looked crisp and official, and his trademark silver mustache was as immaculate as ever, but his hair was mussed, and he had bags under his eyes. Not the kind of image he’d want up on local billboards during election season, telling voters how he kept Elmet County safe.

“Do you really want her in here?” The sheriff’s voice took on a pleading note as he turned back to Ollie Barnstable.

“Well, you’re not doing me much good.” Ollie’s voice was flat. “If you won’t look into it, who will?”

A light went off over Sunny’s head. Frank Nesbit might be a lawman, but at heart he was a politician, and Ollie was one of his few supporters down in Kittery Harbor. Mike and all his friends were staunchly anti-Nesbit. They’d even brought Will Price, the former sheriff’s son, back to the county as a town constable in hopes of unseating Frank in the next primaries.

She remembered how Ollie had once shown her a plastic courtesy card from the Sheriff’s Department, something that Mike had disparaged as a “get out of jail free” card. But Ollie had apparently played it as a “make the sheriff appear” card.

“Meester Barnstebble.” It sounded as though Dr. Gavrik’s attempt to restrain her temper made her accent thicker. “You are upset, I can see. It is a difficult thing, to have a person die.”

“In the next bed!” Ollie put in.

She nodded. “In the next bed. But you understand that Mr. Scatterwell was not well. He had not regained full function after his stroke. And there was always the possibility of another stroke, causing further damage—even death.”

“He was perfectly all right when he went to bed.” Ollie’s tone was gruff, but under that, he begged for an explanation.

Dr. Gavrik could only shake her head. “Do you know what they call strokes now, Mr. Barnstable? ‘Brain attacks.’ Like a heart attack, a person can seem perfectly healthy, even record a healthy electrocardiogram, and then go home to a fatal episode.”

Ollie slowly nodded. “That’s what happened to my father.”

“It can be a terrible surprise, happening without warning.” The doctor spread her hands in a “what can I say?” gesture. “Mr. Scatterwell, though, had some warning. He already had a stroke. And although I can understand you’re upset, I cannot stand here and let you suggest that this facility let him die.”

“I’m not suggesting that at all.” But if Ollie intended that as an olive branch, he undid that with his next words. “I think someone killed him.”

That got a sputtered chorus of “Mr. Barnstable!” from the three authority figures in the room—plus an “Ollie!” from Sunny.

Mike, though, stayed silent. “It sort of makes sense,” he finally said. “Gardner was a guy who traveled all over creation raising hell. And now, the first time he’s stuck in one place, it’s lights out for him.”

Dr. Gavrik appealed to the tall stranger. “Really, Dr. Reese, do we need to listen to this?”

So this is Hank Reese, Gardner’s boyhood friend in high places.
Sunny gave the man a long, hard look.
He doesn’t seem so broken up that his good buddy is dead. More like embarrassed, I’d say.

Ollie, however, had given up on the older and wiser heads in the room. He turned to Sunny. “So here it is. They’re trying to tell me that a patient kicking off in this joint is something that happens at least once a week and twice on Thursdays. Maybe that’s so in the wards where they keep the old crocks. Didn’t Gardner mention that the mortality rate was high here?”

Dr. Reese drew himself up to his considerable height. “I beg your pardon?”

“Apparently his nephew Alfred found the data somewhere on the Internet,” Sunny explained.

“But this is the rehab ward, where the people expect to get better and go home. How often do you have people popping off in here?”

Reese had to fumble for an answer. “We’ve had several patients who had to be returned to hospitals for various reasons.”

“And how many in this ward died in the middle of the night?” Ollie demanded, then shook his head at the lack of an answer. “That’s what I thought. When it happens in the bed next to mine, I want to know why.” He turned to Sunny. “And I want you to find out.”

“Me?” Sunny had to wonder if Ollie weren’t having an anesthesia flashback. “What makes you think—”

“It’s not the first time, is it? I’ve seen you figure out who killed those other folks,” Ollie pointed out. “Just do what you did with them.”

Sunny really didn’t like where Ollie was going here. “I didn’t have much of a choice in those cases.” Yes, she’d been involved in a few police investigations, but it had been a question of self-defense basically—protecting people she was close to from being accused of crimes they hadn’t committed.

“You work for me.” Ollie’s implication was clear. Either she agreed to play detective, or she wouldn’t work for him anymore—not a good thing in an awfully tight job market. Once again, she wasn’t getting much of a choice.

“Let me get his straight.” Mike suddenly spoke up. “You want my daughter to do the sheriff’s job.”

“I don’t think we have grounds here for an official police investigation,” Sheriff Nesbit said, stung. “Or even a reason for the medical examiner to proceed.”

Dr. Gavrik nodded forcefully. “Mr. Scatterwell had a preexisting condition and was already under my care. The cause of death is obvious. Any doctor would feel justified in signing a death certificate in such a situation.”

“So you’re just going to sweep everything under the rug and ignore what happened?” From the tone of Mike’s voice, this story was just going to grow—and it wasn’t going to make Frank Nesbit look very good.

“I’m not saying that,” Nesbit hurriedly replied. “In fact, I’d be willing to detail Constable Price to assist Ms. Coolidge in determining the circumstances of Mr. Scatterwell’s death.”

Sunny opened her mouth to object that everyone seemed to take it for granted that she’d whip out her magnifying glass and start looking for clues. But then she shut it with the feeling that she’d somehow gotten stuck on a train zooming off, already leaving the station of normal rationality behind. How else could she explain her boss threatening her job if she didn’t start snooping? And to tell the truth, she felt that little flutter deep inside, a reporter’s gut feeling that she might be on to something—although she had no idea exactly what that something might be. And there was the added appeal that she’d be dong it with Will.

However reluctantly, Sunny had to hand it to the sheriff. The man was a political animal. He’d just figured out how to placate one supporter (Ollie) by having a political rival (Will) personally investigate the death of someone from the wealthy enclave of Piney Brook. Whatever Will did, he’d make waves in that entitled community, closing some of the deep pockets he’d need to tap to finance a Will Price insurgency. Two birds with one stone.

Considering Nesbit’s offer, Ollie transformed into the master of the deal.

“Sunny and Price will need access to people and records here—not to mention the assistance of the administration.”

Dr. Gavrik’s lips compressed so tightly, they seemed to disappear. “This sounds to me like an attempt at blackmail by a patient who, perhaps, should find another facility for his recuperation.”

Ollie turned to Reese. “If there’s any attempt to throw me out of here, I’ll be a patient who definitely sues this facility. And I can make sure there’s a lot of publicity about it, too.”

Dr. Reese gave a small shudder. But his voice was steady as he said, “We might consider an arrangement along the lines you’re suggesting. However, we cannot violate patient confidentiality. You’ll all have to sign confidentiality agreements. Whatever Constable Price and Ms. Coolidge discover will be turned over to the sheriff. If he still finds no grounds to proceed, that will be the end of it.”

Ollie glanced over at Sheriff Nesbit, who shrugged. “Sounds reasonable to me.”

“One more thing.” Now Reese was in full negotiating mode. “We can’t have an endless fishing expedition going on. There should be a time limit. I suggest one week.”

“I can live with that,” Ollie replied.

Mike took Sunny by the arm and drew her outside in the hallway. “They’re making a lot of conditions in there that
you’ll
have to live with.”

“What can
I
do about it?” she asked. Whether it was the early-morning wake-up call or the shock of Gardner Scatterwell’s death, the whole situation still struck her as dreamlike, unreal. Her brain couldn’t seem to process it.