Клэр Донелли - Last Licks

“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?”