Last Licks (7 page)

“They don’t waste much time, do they?” Ollie muttered to Sunny. “A real sentimental bunch.”

Sunny just nodded. It seemed odd to erase Gardner’s presence so thoroughly, considering that the administrator here was an old friend of his.
Or so Gardner believed when he was alive,
she couldn’t help thinking.

Will came back out. “Looks like the Ritz, compared to some of the state police barracks I’ve lived in,” he said with a grin. “Generally, they kept out the snow but were a bit on the Spartan side.”

He took command of the wheelchair again, and they headed back to the therapy room. Jack the Gripper (as Sunny would now forever think of him) stood just inside the door. He had to be in his forties, shorter than Will but with a lot more muscle on a stocky frame, his reddish-blond hair gelled up in spikes.

If somebody had to hold up Ollie the Barnacle, this would be the guy to do it,
Sunny thought.

“You can cancel the search party,” the therapist told the volunteer who was just leaving.

Then he looked down at Ollie with a smile. “How are you doing today?”

“As well as can be expected after having turkey tetrazzini for lunch,” Ollie told him. Catching the man’s inquisitive glance at his companions, Ollie said, “Sunny Coolidge here works for me. She and her friend Will took me out for lunch.”

Sunny had expected a different introduction from Ollie, but apparently he thought people might speak more freely if they didn’t know that she and Will were snooping around. Well, maybe it was better to keep their investigation on the down low—at least as long as they could.

“Jack Quentin.” The therapist extended a powerful hand to Sunny.

“We’ll leave you to it,” Sunny said, sure that Quentin and probably a lot of other people remembered the uproar from Ollie when she’d come into this room just yesterday. She patted Ollie on the arm. “Be in touch with you soon.”

“Yeah.” Ollie gave her a look. “Let me know what you hear from that doctor.”

“Will do,” Sunny promised. Then she and Will got out of there.

Will waited until they reached the parking lot before speaking. “If there had been a glass beside the bed, it’s gone now. And after the bucket-and-mop brigade got done in that room, I don’t expect there’s any trace of physical evidence left.” Cold anger made his face all sharp angles. “I didn’t think it was worth getting Ollie all riled up, especially when he’s apparently hoping we can stay undercover.”

“Thanks—I could do without another tantrum.” Sunny didn’t mention whether she expected it from Ollie or Will.

Will didn’t holler, but he obviously had someone to blame. “At least Nesbit could have asked the folks here to hold off until I’d gotten a look around.”

“Do you think he’s stacking the deck against us?” Sunny scowled at the idea. She hadn’t expected this job to be easy, but people didn’t have to go out of their way to make it harder.

“We should have probably taken that as a given,” Will said with a sigh. Then he began to look more thoughtful. “If this is standard operating procedure, Bridgewater Hall seems to make the dear departed disappear awfully quickly.”

“That could make sense among the older residents,” Sunny said. “It might upset them, being reminded of absent friends.” She shrugged. “Maybe they’re trying to be businesslike, getting things ready for the next customer.”

“Or maybe there are some guilty consciences at work, who don’t want to leave any evidence of incompetence or malpractice lying around,” Will suggested.

“When Alfred Scatterwell was trying to get his uncle to shift to a less expensive facility, he claimed that the mortality rate at Bridgewater Hall was higher than average,”

“That would be a good reason to make any evidence disappear, wouldn’t it?” Will said. “Especially if someone screwed up Scatterwell’s treatment.”

“Ollie didn’t notice anything go wrong while they were working on Gardner,” Sunny objected. “But maybe we should file the facility’s mortality rate under motive. When I first met him, Gardner Scatterwell seemed like kind of a cheerful boob, rich and clueless. Then I saw his not-so-nice side, the way he treated his nephew and Elsa Hogue. If he found out that something wasn’t up to snuff at Bridgewater Hall, I have a feeling he wouldn’t be above a little blackmail.”

Will nodded. “The problem with blackmail is that it rarely stays little. Someone could have decided to get rid of Scatterwell instead of paying up.”

Behind them, the door swung open and a tall, distinguished figure stepped out into the sunshine. But Dr. Henry Reese missed a step when he saw them. “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Sunny said. “This is my partner in this investigation, Constable Price.”

Reese didn’t offer to shake hands, but it looked as though Will was pretty used to that. “Actually, Dr. Reese and I have met before,” he said. “He’s another Saxon alum from the class of ’66 that I tracked down for fund-raising. The name didn’t spark anything, but I definitely remember the face.”

The chief administrator of Bridgewater Hall showed no trace of recognition . . . and not much in the way of manners. “You’ll have to excuse me,” Reese said, frozen-faced. “I have an appointment.” He headed for his car as if he were afraid that Will might tackle him.

*

Shadow was not
happy. He’d managed to get out while Sunny and the Old One were both busy, which was good. But the sun was hot, and even the shady patches were uncomfortably warm. He’d tried all the windows, even the ones to the Dark Place underneath the house, again without any luck. The only loose screen he found was for the little house behind, where all the boxes lived. That didn’t help at all.

He’d lain down to think about it but had fallen asleep instead. When he awoke, the patch of shade he’d picked for his rest had moved away. Shadow stood. He felt hungry, and his food dish was inside the house—inside the house he couldn’t find a way into. He sat on his haunches, looking up. There were windows he hadn’t been able to reach from the ground, windows on the second floor.

If I could fly like a bird, I could go up and look.

But that was a stupid thought. He pushed it away.

There was another way up, of course, but it meant climbing. Shadow could see the route. Up the trunk of the tree behind the house, out on that branch, and that would bring him to the roof, where the upstairs windows jutted out. Could he do it? There was only one way to find out.

Shadow went to the tree and leaped up, his claws catching in the bark. At least he didn’t fall. It was hard work and unpleasant, hanging by his claws, forcing his way up . . . hard and thirsty work, too. He thought longingly of his water bowl, hidden in the kitchen . . .

Something flashed past him. Instinctively Shadow ducked and slid back several inches, scrabbling frantically to keep a hold. He didn’t like to think what it would be like to fall from this height. It was many-many times the length of his whole body. He continued his ascent, and the flash came again—this time with a peck! Shadow clung precariously to the tree trunk, trying to look around. It was a bird, the stupid bird he’d chased. Now it was chasing him, darting at him, trying to keep him from climbing.

Stupid,
stupid
bird,
he thought, freeing one paw while digging in with the rest of his claws as best he could. When she came diving at him this time, he swatted out with the paw that wasn’t clinging to the tree bark for dear life. It didn’t hit the bird, but it did scare her away.

It scared Shadow, too, as a chunk of bark tore loose, nearly sending him tumbling to the ground.

His claws scraped long scratches, but he managed to hang on. After that, it was like a bad dream, toiling endlessly upward, watching out for sneak attacks. Shadow was so distracted, he almost missed the branch he was aiming for. But once there, it was more like walking than climbing, and that dumb bird stopped bothering him.

Shadow made it to the roof. It hadn’t seemed to slope so steeply when he’d been looking at it from the ground, but he could walk on it—if he was careful. He carefully skittered along to the nearest window. It was open, and he saw Sunny’s room, but he couldn’t budge the screen.

This is getting very, very bad,
he thought. If he couldn’t get in, he’d be stuck up here on the roof. The sun was beating down, and the shingles were burning hot under the pads on his paws.

Shadow scrambled along to the next available window. He let out a mew of relief. The glass was up, and this screen was older. It rattled when he touched it. Extending his claws, he scratched at the frame around the screen. It moved!

It took patience, but he carefully shifted the screen until he could get a paw around the edge. Then things got easier. Shadow tugged and pushed at it until he had a space large enough for his head, his shoulders . . .

Bursting through, he flopped down into dimness. He was in!

And then, sniffing, he realized which room in the house this was—the one room he rarely, if ever, wanted to be in . . .

*

Sunny watched Henry
Reese pull away in his late-model Mercedes. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask about why the room got cleaned,” she told Will. He shook his head. “No use crying over spilled milk—or in this case, disinfectant. I’d prefer to talk directly to the cleanup crew first, and then work my way up to the big boss.” He glanced at his watch. “In fact, I might do that now unless you want to set up something with your dad’s doctor.”

Taking that as a hint, Sunny got out her cell phone and called her dad. When she explained why she wanted to talk with Dr. Collier, Mike got enthusiastic. “Let me call the doc and see if I can get you in. This is his short day—he should be finishing his office hours, but it’s still a while before his tee time.” Mike gave a brief snort of laughter. “It’s kind of a sad thing when you’re at the doctor’s so much, you know his schedule.”

Mike called her back within minutes.

“Okay, the doc says he can see you right away,” he reported. “You’re pretty close to his office, too.”

Dr. Mark Collier was at Cardiovascular Associates of Elmet, which operated from a small medical building on the outskirts of the county seat, about eight miles from Bridgewater Hall. When Sunny and Will arrived, they were brought in immediately to Dr. Collier’s office. He was a trim man with salt-and-pepper hair, glasses, and a no-nonsense expression. The only clue that he might be off duty was the fact that he’d loosened the tie he wore with his cream-colored short-sleeved shirt.

“Sunny,” he said, rising to shake hands. After she’d introduced Will, the doctor motioned them to the seats in front of his desk. “Mike tells me you’ve got some questions about strokes.” He grabbed his phone, pressed a button, and said, “Craig, can you come in for a moment?”

Another doctor, similarly dressed but with whiter hair, came in.

“This is my partner, Craig Snow,” Dr. Collier said. “He’s the vascular part of Cardiovascular Associates. Craig, these people have some questions about a possible stroke.”

“Early this morning, a patient died at Bridgewater Hall,” Will began, describing the symptoms that Ollie had seen. He was brief, to the point, and very coplike.

Dr. Snow obviously caught that. “Are you an investigator, Mr. Price?”

“I’m a Kittery Harbor town constable,” Will replied, “assigned to help Ms. Coolidge look into this death.”

“I’m not going to comment on any questions of treatment,” Snow warned. “That wouldn’t be proper.”

“We’re just trying to get some basic information,” Will said, relaxing his cop mask.

“Okay. Well, basically, there are two types of strokes. In one case, something in the blood—a clot, usually—blocks a blood vessel feeding the brain and causes damage to brain cells.”

“Much like the heart attack your father suffered, Sunny,” Dr. Collier said. “Except his blockage caused damage to the heart muscle.”

Dr. Snow nodded. “In the other general type of stroke, a weakened vessel ruptures, literally bleeding into the brain, and the pressure damages brain cells.”

“When Dad had his heart attack, you gave him stuff to thin his blood.” Sunny frowned. “Does the same thing happen with strokes?”

“For ischemic strokes, the ones caused by blockages, yes,” Dr. Snow replied.

“But if a person thinned the blood and it turned out to be the other kind of stroke, that would make them bleed more,” Will pointed out.

“I wasn’t in the room,” Snow said stiffly. “As I said, I cannot comment on treatment.”

“Well, based on what you heard, do you think Gardner—the patient—had a stroke?” Sunny asked.

“Considering that I’m working from hearsay, a layperson’s observations, without test results or personal examination . . . but I can at least say that the symptoms are not inconsistent with a stroke.”

“There was one other symptom,” Sunny said. “He began vomiting. Is that unusual for a stroke?”

“Vomiting is not unknown,” Snow said. “In fact, some studies now suggest that vomiting can be a sign of a more severe stroke.”

Will absorbed that, then said, “So, considering that the patient had had a stroke previously, there’s no reason that this attack wouldn’t most likely be considered another stroke.”

“As you say, most likely.”

“Are there any drugs or substances that might create the same symptoms? Something that might look like a stroke?”

Dr. Snow shook his head and rose from his chair. “I really don’t—”

“Arsenic,” Dr. Collier interrupted. “It’s an oldie, but there’s a reason why people stay with the classics.” He smiled at the aghast expression on his partner’s face. “Some of us enjoy reading or watching mysteries, and some don’t. I do.”

“I think I’m done here.” Dr. Snow gave them all a disapproving look and left the office. Collier laughed.

“Sometimes it’s not a bad thing to have a careful doctor,” Will said.

“It doesn’t hurt to consider possibilities.” The cardiologist shifted back in his seat. “Snow’s the expert, of course, but basically any drug that has a neurological effect could possibly be mistaken for a stroke. There are certain kinds of shellfish poisons, even a drug used to treat breast cancer.”

“Is there anything that could be swallowed?” Sunny asked, remembering Ollie’s story about being awakened.