Last Licks (12 page)

“At least it’s permanent press,” she muttered as she started the cold water. Rummaging in the medicine cabinet, she found the old shaker of salt that had sat in there lord knew how many years, to use for gargling with salt water to treat a sore throat.

Sunny wet the area around the stain, then sprinkled salt on the spots and began rubbing them together. She kept at it until she couldn’t see the stain anymore.

It would have been a lot easier if she could have used both hands. But she had to be careful with her right, the one where Shadow had drawn blood. Sunny had carefully washed the gashes, spread on antiseptic ointment, and then covered them with gauze and some tape. They felt okay, but she had to be careful not to soak the pad in the water and start all over.

At last she held up the jacket, peering at the damp fabric for the stain. “Gone, I hope.” Sunny went back to get the pants and then brought them both to the basement for a gentle cycle through the washing machine.

“Decided to give these a wash,” Sunny told her dad, popping her head into the living room. “With this sticky weather, they need it.” Which was true, even if it wasn’t the full story.

She saw him looking at her bandage. “Little accident upstairs.” No sense giving Mike something else to complain about when it came to Shadow. She stayed downstairs while the suit was in the washer, and when she took the jacket out, the stain seemed completely gone. After running the suit through the dryer, Sunny breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t spot the spot at all. Putting jacket and pants on a plastic hanger, she started climbing the stairs from the basement. About halfway up, she realized a pair of eyes were watching her from the doorway to the kitchen.

“Shadow?” She almost whispered his name. He gave a brief, very quiet mew.

When she got up to the kitchen, he backed away from her, keeping his eyes on her face, almost as if he were afraid. “Oh, Shadow,” she said, “what happened?”

She hung the suit on one of the knobs for the kitchen cabinet. Shadow didn’t even glance at it. He only had eyes for her. The only thing dimming the moment was that his stomach suddenly rumbled.

“That’s right, you haven’t eaten.” Sunny replenished his water bowl and got a can of cat food. He watched her make the preparations but still wouldn’t come close.

“I hope I won’t regret this,” Sunny muttered, kneeling down beside the bowl and scooping up a bit of wet food on her left forefinger. Then she leaned toward him, extending the finger. Step by slow step he approached and delicately licked her finger clean.

“Now go eat the rest,” she told him gently, retreating to one of the kitchen chairs.

It was a slow process—Shadow spent more time glancing at her than he did concentrating on his food. But when he was finished, he got up and followed her out to the living room.

Mike was watching a mystery show, and Sunny settled on the floor, leaning back against a chair. They chatted for a little while, and Sunny asked if he would enlist Mrs. Martinson’s aid in getting the skinny on Alfred Scatterwell.

“I don’t see why not,” Mike said. “Helena may not have liked Gardner, but Alfred is a whole other kettle of fish to stick a spoon into.”

Right then, Shadow appeared beside her left thigh, pressing his furry body as close to it as he could.

Are you trying to say that you’re sorry, or are you just huddling for warmth?
As usual, Sunny’s wisecracking side had to have the last word—even if no one knew it but her.

But she gently reached down and petted her cat all the same.

*

The next morning,
Sunny woke to find Shadow plastered against her under the covers—although that might have been due to the fact that she had her air-conditioning unit on. She gave Shadow a careful hug, then got up and went to the bathroom. Peeling off the gauze, she flexed her hand and frowned. It hurt a little, but the real problem was that she didn’t want anyone to know that Shadow had scratched her, and the healing slash marks were too easily identified.

Guess I’m going to be wearing gauze for a while.
Sunny could only shrug.

She took a shower, put on a new bandage, and got dressed in lighter-weight clothes this time around.

When she got downstairs, she found a note from her dad, saying he’d set off for outlet-land to do his walk in air-conditioned comfort. He also warned her to take an umbrella, since the weather was supposed to break late in the afternoon, but there was a chance of showers. Sunny went to the phone, called Bridgewater Hall, and asked for Elsa Hogue. The occupational therapist said she’d be busy with clients, but agreed to meet with Sunny a little later in the morning.

Sunny had almost finished breakfast by the time Shadow came creeping in, the picture of subdued contrition.

“There you are.” Sunny had already cleaned and refilled his water bowl. Now she put some dry food in the other one. She knelt down to arrange the bowls, and Shadow came closer, his gold-flecked eyes seeming larger than usual as he gazed up at her.

“I can see you feel badly over what happened.” He made a little noise of distress and nudged her hurt hand. “What got into you?”

He licked her fingertips, something he’d never tried to do before.

“Okay, okay.” She scratched his head between his ears. “You’re forgiven. Just don’t start this humble act with Dad. He’ll think you’re sick and start pestering me to take you to Jane Rigsdale for a checkup.”

*

Sunny drove up
to Bridgewater Hall after the morning rush, which allowed her to avoid all traffic. With the windows down, the forced breeze kept the heavy, sultry air from feeling too horrible.

She signed in at the security desk and walked down to the rehab wing, arriving early for the appointment she’d made with Elsa Hogue.

And who was Elsa working with but Ollie Barnstable, urging him on with some good-natured banter as he complained about the number of reps he had to do, lifting a weighted bar. “Oh, we always ask you to do more than you want to do,” Elsa told him with a smile,
“but never more than you
can
do.”

Ollie didn’t notice that Sunny was there until he finished his session. When he did, his face tightened, his eyes going from Sunny to Elsa.

Yeah, you didn’t have any trouble with us going after Alfred, or Mr. Orton, or Dr. Reese,
Sunny thought.
But investigating means bothering people you like, too—like Luke Daconto . . . or Elsa.

Sunny patted him on the shoulder. “You’re doing wonderfully,” she told him. “I’ll be in to see you after I speak with Elsa.” Lowering her voice, she whispered in his ear, “I’ll be gentle.”

Then, to Elsa, she said, “Is there somewhere private where we can talk?”

They wound up outside in the garden. As they passed through the door, Sunny saw a notice warning residents about going out in extremely hot weather.

“I think we’ll live,” Elsa said, following Sunny’s gaze. Sunny could tell that since Gardner Scatterwell was no longer on the scene, the woman had changed. She’d let her hair down, falling softly around her face, and though she still wore her glasses, Sunny detected traces of makeup. And instead of the sloppy sweats Sunny had seen her in on the first day, today Elsa wore what looked like a tailored safari suit, the arms of her jacket rolled up to reveal well-toned arms.

“Is there something you need to tell me about Mr. Barnstable?” Elsa’s expression grew sympathetic. “You see a lot of men like him in rehab. They feel their body has betrayed them. They hurt. They’re scared. That’s pretty much standard. Usually it’s just a question of volume.”

“He gets loud when he’s frustrated,” Sunny admitted.

“But he’s settling in now,” Elsa said. “He’s working hard, and if he keeps it up, he may find himself better off than before.”

Sunny thought of her own dad, taking regular exercise, eating more healthily—even if she had to argue with him about it.
Wait a minute, we’re getting off the track.

She shook her head. “I have to ask you some questions about Gardner Scatterwell. Oliver and several other people here at Bridgewater Hall have asked me to look into the circumstances of Mr. Scatterwell’s death.”

Elsa’s expression became haunted. “All I can tell you is that Gardner Scatterwell was a vile sort of person. He began acting inappropriately almost as soon as I began working with him.”

“He had a reputation as a ladies’ man when he was younger,” Sunny offered. “I’m told he fell violently in love about every six weeks.”

“‘Violently,’” Elsa echoed in a bitter voice. “And it went on for more than six weeks. But then I suppose the pickings were slim around here.” She seemed to shrink in on herself. “He used to touch me when he thought he could get away with it.”

She looked Sunny in the eye. “Maybe I do the man wrong. He seemed cheerful and charming with everyone else. Strokes sometimes have psychological effects. If so, I took the brunt of a very nasty split personality.” From the look on Elsa’s face, she didn’t really believe that possibility. “Or maybe it’s a family trait. Alfred Scatterwell always claimed he was a very different man from his uncle, but he had the same cruel streak . . . or self-absorption to the point where it amounted to the same thing.”

Sunny wondered what had prompted Elsa’s low opinion, but after her few encounters with the younger Scatterwell, she couldn’t imagine Alfred improving with longer acquaintance. She decided to keep the conversation focused on Bridgewater Hall.

“But Gardner was your real problem. And you couldn’t do anything . . .” Sunny prompted.

“Because of his friendship with Dr. Reese. That’s why I was working late, getting my reports in order. I needed to maintain a good level of performance, because I’ve been looking for another job.”

I didn’t expect that,
Sunny thought.
But I guess it’s the only option Elsa had.
Out loud, she said, “It must be difficult, leaving a facility with such a strong reputation.”

“Not really,” Elsa shook her head. “Several therapists have left already. We’re all independent contractors, you know.”

“No, actually, I didn’t know that. You aren’t in the union?”

“Sometimes I wish we were,” Elsa said. “It might give us a little more bargaining power. As it is, we find ourselves working longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits. As do a lot of people these days. I guess that’s why Dr. Reese feels so free to press us—so far he’s pushed one person into retirement, and two others to new facilities.”

“And you were ready to vote with your feet, too,” Sunny said.

“I like this place, my colleagues, and most of my clients, but it’s not enough.”

I guess I can see why,
Sunny thought.

“To go back to the evening in question, did you see anything unusual?” she asked.

Elsa shrugged. “I was working in our office. We’re sort of in our own little world, between the clients’ rooms and our facilities.”

“You were here after lights-out for the patients.”

The therapist nodded. “But I didn’t see . . . Oh, wait. I went to the nurses’ station in hopes of getting a cup of coffee or tea, and bumped into Luke Daconto, who was there for the same reason. He’s a very sweet young man. The residents love him.”

She started to smile, but that faded away. “I’m sure a lot of people thought highly of Gardner Scatterwell, too. So many were shocked and saddened when he died.”

Elsa’s face was almost blank as she turned to Sunny. “But I was just . . . relieved.”

“One more question
I have to ask,” Sunny said as she absorbed what Elsa had to say. “I spoke to Luke Daconto as well. He mentioned being warned about Reese and the need for reports. Did that happen with you, too?”

Elsa nodded.

“Where did it come from? The head of therapy?”

She shook her head. “We don’t report to the same person—different kinds of therapy. I got the word from Rafe Warner. Guess the union has a mole in the administrative offices. The word went out that there was going to be a crackdown on overdue reports, so I made sure that everything I did was up to date.”

That sounded like the Rafe Warner whom Sunny knew. He rescued kittens; no doubt he’d warn people who stood to catch grief from the administrator, even if they weren’t in the union. It even made tactical sense—worker solidarity against Dr. Reese and so forth.

Elsa glanced at her wristwatch, and Sunny took the hint. “Thanks for talking to me. I know those memories can’t have been pleasant.”

“It’s okay now,” Elsa said. “Mr. Scatterwell can’t do anything else to me.”

They got off the bench they’d been sitting on and went back into the building, which was cooler. But after the heat and humidity, Sunny felt as if her hair had frizzed to about three times its normal size. That was annoying enough, but the tape holding the gauze pad over Shadow’s scratches was beginning to come loose. She used her left hand to hold it in place as she made her way to Ollie’s room, where she found Ollie had a new roommate, a pale-faced older man with crew-cut white hair. He lay very still in his bed, his breathing shallow and his eyes closed. But they opened as soon as Sunny came inside.

“Sunny Coolidge,” Ollie said with excessive courtesy, “meet Charlie Vernon. He’s having some breathing as well as walking issues.”

“You’re not going to talk too loudly, are you?” Vernon had an odd voice, hoarse yet breathy. “If I can just lie and take it easy, I’ll be all right. I need to sleep.”

Sunny and her boss exchanged glances. She knew Ollie wanted to talk, but that didn’t seem likely with Vernon there. She leaned over Ollie’s bed. “What do you say you get back in your wheelchair, and I take you for a spin?”

“Good idea,” he replied, reaching for the call buzzer. Camille appeared to help Ollie into his chair while Vernon pleaded that she do it with less noise.

The girl rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to be as quiet as possible,” she told him.

“I just want to rest,” Vernon whined. “It was a tiring trip from the hospital.”

As soon as she had Ollie settled, Camille left and Sunny rolled along right after her.
Hope these wheels are quiet enough for Charlie-boy.

Out in the corridor, Sunny asked Ollie, “Any particular direction you want to go?”

“Just get me as far from that moaner as possible,” Ollie directed. “They moved him in while my back was turned. Came in from therapy to find him lying there. The first thing he asked me was if I played the TV too loud. Honest to God, Sunny, I have to wonder if they stuck him in with me as a punishment—or maybe to drive me crazy.”

“I’m sure they’re just trying to fill the beds, not advancing some master plan by Dr. Reese.” She soothed him with a laugh, but Ollie was in a fussy mood.

He turned his pique on her. “Did you
have
to go questioning Elsa?”

“In a word, yes,” Sunny told him. “And I think she was glad to have someone to talk to, in a way. If you ask me, sounds like good old Gardner was a letch with a lot to answer for.”

But Ollie wouldn’t let it go. “That’s what I mean,” he said. “She’s been through enough. I think she deserved a break.”

“You can’t go exempting people from an investigation just because you like them or feel sorry for them, Ollie. Especially when we still have so little to go on. We have to concentrate on the people parts of the case—motive and opportunity—because we don’t have a clue when it comes to means.”

“I’ll give you means.” Ollie nodded toward a rattling sound coming around the bend from the nurses’ station. A moment later, a nurse appeared, pushing a cart that looked like a miniature pharmacy on wheels.

“That’s everybody’s meds,” he told Sunny in a stage whisper. “Probably enough stuff there to kill a dozen people.”

The nurse gave Ollie a pleasant smile. “Hang on, Mr. Barnstable. I have some things here for you.”

“They’ve got these horse-pill calcium tablets,” Ollie grumbled to Sunny. “Wouldn’t be surprised if ten percent of the death rate around here is from people choking on the damn things.”

Each patient seemed to have an inches-thick binder containing page-sized blister packs of pills, rows of plastic bubbles containing single doses backed with cardboard. The nurse consulted a list, popped the appropriate pills out of their bubbles, and presented them to Ollie.

“Blood pressure pill and your calcium tablets,” she announced.

Ollie grudgingly took a small blue pill and two amazingly large ones, along with the plastic cup that the nurse filled with water. He managed to choke down the big pills but told the nurse, “You should be giving people their calcium in ice cream sodas.”

The young woman laughed. “There’s a thought. But I don’t think it works that way.”

Now that Ollie had taken his medicine like a man, he was free to go wherever he wanted. But when Sunny turned to go down the hallway ending in the therapy room, her boss nixed the idea. “Not down there,” he said. “I’m beginning to think about that place like the line from the old movie.” He did a passable Bela Lugosi impersonation, intoning, “‘His is the house of pain.’”

Sunny noticed, though, that Ollie waved to Elsa Hogue when she briefly stepped into that hallway, and Elsa waved back.

Swinging farther around the nurses’ station, Sunny instead rolled Ollie down the hall to the solarium at the end of the residential ward on this floor. The various rooms were quiet, and Sunny caught glimpses of carefully made beds or a knot of older women watching something on TV. One of the residents sat in a wheelchair, reading a book by the light from her window. She looked familiar, and Sunny realized she was the lady who beat time to Luke Daconto’s music.

She also noted the paintings on the wall, some apparently done by talented amateurs.

Maybe there’s a painting therapy guy, too,
Sunny thought.
And maybe a needlepoint therapist,
as they passed some framed samples of that craft. Just as she was wondering if she’d end up in a place like this someday, the murmuring calm was shattered by a strident voice crying, “I’ve had enough of this crap!”

“Yep, sounds just like me, say, fifty years from now,” Sunny murmured.

Ollie glanced up at her. “What?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she told him. “Just a passing thought.”

Sunny wheeled Ollie away and back toward the nurses’ station.

“Have you made it to the front parlor?” she asked him.

“I got a glimpse of it while they were wheeling me in on a stretcher,” Ollie told her. “That’s about it.”

“I haven’t really examined it myself,” Sunny admitted, her steps taking them down the long hall that led to the front entrance. The sound of muffled bells came through the paneled wall stretching to their right. “I guess the auditorium or activity room or whatever they call it must be on the other side,” Sunny said. “Sounds as if Luke is rehearsing his bell ringers today.”

“Thank goodness you’re not trying to drag me into that!” Ollie gave a relieved sigh.

At last they reached the parlor, where some of the residents sat with guests, enjoying a visit. Sunny noticed that there was plenty of space around the spindly chairs and overstuffed couches to accommodate walkers and wheelchairs.

It was certainly decorated in eclectic (or more likely, donated) style. They passed a fine-looking grandfather clock in a dark walnut case,
tock
ing along in stately grandeur—and running about fifteen minutes behind. Several aquariums dotted the side walls, with rainbows of tropical fish swimming around. The far wall had an enormous, medieval-style fireplace with a make-believe fire dwarfed in the space. Ribbons of red, yellow, and orange cloth danced in a forced stream of air from a fan, their fluttering giving the impression of flames. On the mantel stood several very nice-looking figurines, and above them on the wall hung a slightly mangy hunting trophy.

Sunny peered up at it, trying to identify the species. Something African probably. Antelope? Hartebeest? Okapi? The taxidermy specimen stared down with an accusatory look in its glass eyes.

“Let’s go,” Ollie muttered. “That creepy thing is giving me the same look as the stupid deer that put me here.”

Sunny started moving again, taking the turn in the corner slowly to avoid an unoccupied armchair—or so she thought.

But a head popped over the side, masked in ginger and black fur.

Sunny stopped. “Hello, Portia.”

The cat took advantage of the pause to transfer herself from the chair to Ollie’s lap. He sat frozen in the wheelchair, his hands gripping the armrests. “Ah, jeeze.”

“Take it easy,” Sunny advised. “Portia is a friendly cat. You remember how she sat with Gardner.”

“Yeah,” Ollie muttered, “right before he went off to the big battle of the bands in the sky.”

Actually, Portia showed herself to be a pretty smart cat, resting her weight on Ollie’s unhurt leg. Maybe she smelled the surgical wounds on the broken one.

Ollie sat very still, looking down dubiously at the cat in his lap. Portia tipped her head back, staring soulfully at him with her emerald eyes.

Trust a cat to climb all over the person who’s not very sure with them,
Sunny thought.

“She wants you to pet her,” she told Ollie. “That’s her and her brother’s job here, to visit with the residents and let themselves be stroked.”

“Don’t say ‘stroke’ to an old person,” Ollie joked. “What do I do?”

“Bring a hand up, don’t stick your fingers out, let her sniff the back. When she’s comfortable with you, she’ll probably make the first move.”

Ollie extended his hand hesitantly. Portia sniffed it, examined it, and then stretched her head forward.

“Just pat her gently.”

Ollie followed her instructions, barely touching Portia’s head. “The fur’s so soft,” he said in almost a whisper.

Portia evidently thought his petting was nice, but she wanted something a bit more vigorous. She thrust her head against Ollie’s palm, and he quickly pulled his hand away.

“She liked what you were doing,” Sunny explained, reaching around the side of the wheelchair. “But she wants some of this.” She began to scratch Portia between the ears.

Ollie, though, stared at her hand, not at her technique. “What happened there? Did your cat do that?”

A bit belatedly, Sunny realized that her gauze pad must have fallen off somewhere along the way while she was wheeling Ollie around.

“It was an accident,” she told him.

He sat looking warily down at the cat. “And this is an accident waiting to happen. Can you get her off me?”

Portia wasn’t eager to leave Ollie’s well-padded lap. It took Sunny’s best cat-handling techniques to lure her away, and even they might not have worked if Portia hadn’t been eager to get a good sniff of her.

Good luck with that,
Sunny silently told the cat.
Shadow stayed away from me after I took my shower.

In the end, Portia wound up back in her armchair, looking rather disgruntled.

Ollie wasn’t too happy, either. He sat stiffly in his wheelchair, a faint look of pain on his face. Discussion time was over. All he wanted was to get back to his room and stretch out on his bed.

Sunny steered him back to the rehab ward. Just before they reached Room 114, they encountered Camille.

“Do you think you can help get Mr. Barnstable into bed—quietly, so we won’t upset Mr. Vernon?” Sunny asked.

Camille took on the challenge, setting Ollie safely back in bed. Sunny whispered her good-byes and left with the aide.

“He’ll be able to catch a nap until suppertime,” Camille said. “Then maybe he won’t be so tired.”

“Um . . .” Sunny showed the girl her scratched hand. “Do you think I could get a bandage to cover these?”

“Those aren’t from one of our cats, are they?” Camille asked, shocked.

“No, no, I got it at home,” Sunny assured her. “I had a gauze pad on, but I lost it.”

“Let me go and talk to the nurses,” Camille said.

Sunny watched from a distance as the aide walked up to the nurses’ station and started talking to one of the nurses on duty.

“Hey,” a voice said in Sunny’s ear. She turned to find Luke Daconto standing beside her, grinning. “I was just going over to see how Mr. Barnstable is doing.”

“By now, he’s probably asleep,” Sunny told him. “He had a difficult day today, since Portia the cat forced her attentions on him.”

“Oh, yeah,” Luke said. “It’s hard to escape when you’re in a wheelchair.”

Sunny nodded. “Especially when the cat is in the chair with you.”

He laughed. “Maybe it’s mean to say, but I’d have loved to see that.”

“Yeah, when he was trying to pet her . . .” Sunny tried to duplicate his awkward attempt. Luke caught her hand. “What happened here? Looks as though you had a run-in with a feline fiend yourself.”

“My own cat got a little too frisky, I’m afraid.” Sunny pulled her hand back. “Frankly, I blame Portia. My guy was zoning out on her scent.”

“As you say, that can make male cats a little frisky. We used to have a lot of them running around the house when I was growing up.” Suddenly Luke knelt to open his guitar case. “Yeah, I thought I had a little bottle in here.”

“Little bottle” was a perfect description. He held up one of those miniature booze bottles usually found in minibars or on airplanes. With this one, however, the label was long gone, as was the booze. Now the bottle held a thick, yellowish, viscous . . . something.

“Mom’s all-purpose lotion,” Luke explained. “I keep a bottle of this stuff and an emery board around to deal with torn calluses.”

He held out his hand. The fingertips he used on the fretboard of his guitar were all heavily calloused. “Screws up my chords and hurts like crazy, when one of these suckers tears free. So I use Mom’s lotion. She taught me how to make it over our stove. For a long time, she had a thing for guitarists, so she was very popular.” Luke laughed. “Mom used to call herself the ‘hippy-dippy chippie.’ We lived in a commune in California. She was the local healer, making all sorts of potions and lotions. When she passed away, she left me all her secret recipes.”