Клэр Донелли - Last Licks

“Yeah.” Ollie grinned and then began to laugh. “But you forget who you’re dealing with. I think Frank Nesbit would much rather call this a medical mistake than any kind of murder.”

Will’s lips quirked. “Well, you’ve got a point there.” He stretched, trying to hide a yawn. “I figure I’d better make myself scarce while the sheriff absorbs these new developments. Do you mind an extended visit, Ollie?”

“More to the point, what about you, Ollie?” Sunny said. “You just dropped a big bomb here. It might not make you popular. Do you want to leave Bridgewater Hall and go somewhere else?”

“Why?” Ollie demanded. “It’s not as if they hand out poison nerve tonic every night. I’m settled here, used to the way they do things. I like the therapists. As far as I see it, the only problem is that witch Gavrik, and how often do I have to see her?”

“Soon you may not be seeing her at all,” Sunny reminded him. “She’s applying for that job down in North Carolina.”

“Even better.” Ollie rested back on his pillow with a satisfied smile.

“So you’re not actually going to press Nesbit on the death rate here?” Will asked.

“I was mostly just going for intimidation,” Ollie said. Then his eyes sharpened. “That might make a nice campaign issue for you—if and when you decide to run for sheriff,” he said thoughtfully. “But remember, I’ve been backing Nesbit all these years.”

“Sure you don’t want to switch horses?” This was the first politicking from Will that Sunny had ever seen. At least he kept it light.

“Not in midrace,” Ollie told him. “Besides, even Sunny had her doubts about those figures. I read somewhere there are four kinds of lies: lies, white lies, damned lies, and statistics. The numbers may not pan out, and I don’t see much percentage in stirring things up.”

“You told Dr. Gavrik you were going to go to the sheriff over it,” Sunny felt obliged to point out.

“Aaaaah, she got me annoyed.” Ollie waved it away and then gave her an impish grin. “It really did shut her up for once, though.”

“That it did,” Sunny had to agree. “That it did.”

*

Keeping low tothe ground, Shadow made his way unobtrusively but quickly down the hallway to the entrance to the kitchen. There he peered suspiciously around the doorway. The Old One sat at the table, drinking hot stuff out of a cup. Although it probably wasn’t so hot now. Shadow didn’t see any steam rising from the cup.

That was good. Things were normal. Too many odd things had happened since last night. Shadow didn’t like it when things changed—well, not unless he changed them.

Last night, however, had been more disturbed than in longer than he could remember. First, Sunny and the Old One had each gone to stand under water and then had left the house after eating when it wasn’t even eating time. That definitely wasn’t usual. Then Sunny had come back after dark with her He, and they’d tried to hide in the backyard. Very, very strange, even for two-legs. Shadow still hadn’t been able to figure out what they’d been doing out there. And, of course, it hadn’t gotten any better when he’d fallen on them. Then Sunny had gone off again, the Old One had come home late, Sunny had come back, and Sunny’s He had turned up again. All these comings and goings were enough to make a cat nervous.

Even this morning, Sunny had gotten up very early and left the house, moving in that funny way the two-legs did when they thought they were being quiet. Shadow hadn’t been fooled, of course. He’d been awake when she got out of bed and trailed after her through her whole morning routine. Even when Sunny left some food out for him, and Shadow’s stomach had rumbled at the sound of the dry food landing in his dish, he’d stayed where he was, watching the room and Sunny from afar instead of running in for a bite.

Shadow had considered trying to follow Sunny, discover where she went when she’d come home smelling of that She he found so interesting. But he’d given up the idea. Even if he managed to get outside, it was hard to sneak into her go-fast thing.

She’d even fooled him, going off with her He. So that hadn’t worked at all.

The Old One, though . . . he paid very little attention to Shadow. And he moved a lot more slowly than Sunny. Shadow was pretty sure he could get around the Old One’s legs and out the door before being noticed.

And the Old One drove a machine that was open in the back. An enterprising cat could jump up there and ride along.

So now Shadow watched Sunny’s father carefully as he sat in the kitchen. The Old One wore the loose, floppy clothes he put on before going out and coming back smelling worse than usual. Sometimes he really stank when he came home, but he never came home from wherever place he went to smelling of the She.

Shadow could be patient, though. When the Old One came back, stood under the water, and put other clothes on, Shadow would be ready . . .

17

“I have tosay, Sunny, I’m impressed,” Ollie said, shifting himself to sit higher in his bed. “To tell the truth, I was beginning to wonder if what I thought I overheard the night Gardner died was a dream after all. Figured I’d have to eat crow with these doctors. But you really came through. How did you get Luke to confess to you?”

By being nice to him, the hard-nosed reporter in the back of Sunny’s head commented. It’s a technique you don’t seem to have much of a handle on.

“I wouldn’t say he confessed to me,” Sunny said aloud. “He didn’t even realize that he’d done anything wrong. He just wanted someone to talk to after attending the memorial for his father. The gossip was flying, and he heard a lot of not-so-pleasant things about Gardner.”

“Oh, man,” Ollie said. “Like what?”

“A lot about his womanizing.” Will tried to hit the highlights without shoveling too much dirt. “His word wasn’t all that good, and whenever there was trouble, he tended to disappear.”

“Hmph.” Ollie frowned. “The guy I knew in the next bed seemed nice enough. Always ready to joke, looking on the bright side, cheerful . . .” He paused for a second. “He gave some people a hard time, but they were usually pains in the butt, like that nephew of his.”

“He wasn’t very decent to Elsa Hogue,” Sunny pointed out.

“Yeah,” Ollie admitted. “I never did understand that. She’s a nice lady. I figured Gardner must have been hurting when he started therapy with her, and he never got over it.”

“So you liked the guy to begin with, and then hear everybody saying nasty things about him,” Will said. “I can see it has you feeling a little funny even now. Imagine what it must have been like to know the guy was your father and to discover that the people who knew him best had such a low opinion of him.”

Sunny shook her head. “I can see why he’d want to talk it over with somebody.”

“And he chose you,” Ollie said.

She tried to shrug it off with a laugh. “I guess showing up for his gig at O’Dowd’s paid off. I have to admit, he just about floored me when he started talking about being Gardner’s son. I never saw that coming.”

“Obviously, he got his mother’s hair and eyes,” Will said. “We can’t tell about his chin, not with all those whiskers. But when you look at it, there’s a similarity around the nose.”

“How can you tell?” Sunny objected. “Gardner had his broken.”

“But Alfred didn’t,” Ollie pointed out. “And his nose pretty much matches Luke’s.” He shook his head. “I just didn’t think to compare them before.”

“Who would?” Will asked. “Luke was just a stranger from the other end of the country. Who’d expect him to be the lost heir to the Scatterwell fortune?”