Last Licks (18 page)

Alfred turned to the urn and raised his glass. “And so, we’ll drink your liquor and use your house, and I think you’d probably like that.” He shrugged. “And if you don’t, it’s too late now.”

He stepped away from the lectern as the crowd burst into muttering, and then he came back, gesturing toward the bar. “Feel free to accept some Scatterwell hospitality. After all, it’s what Uncle would have done.”

“Hmmmmm, quite an interesting performance,” Chappie said as the crowd began murmuring again.

Mike turned to the back of the room. “I notice it’s not stopping some people.”

Sunny glanced over her shoulder. The bar now had people lining up to wet their whistles.

“What did you expect, after what Gardner did with Alfred’s fiancée?” Phoebe sniffed.

“They found them right upstairs, in the guest bedroom,” Tavvie said. “She had to leave town.” She gave a low laugh. “And, of course, so did Gardner.”

They rose from their seats, and stood in a small group with Mike, Helena, Will, and Luke. “Do you want to go?” Sunny asked.

“It’s a terrible thing to admit”—Helena at least had the grace to look embarrassed—“but I’d like to hear some more stories.”

So they circulated through the crowd, getting an earful of Scatterwell scandals, all of them starring Gardner.

And then they found themselves facing Alfred.

“What are
you
doing here?” he asked loudly with a slight slur to his voice. The conversations around them grew quiet as people turned.

Mike wasn’t about to take that comment lying down. “I knew your uncle before you were born.”

“Oh, yes, the townie boy playing in that half-assed band,” Alfred said. “Did practicing in Piney Brook get you a better class of groupie?”

He peered at Helena. “Now, back in the day, Uncle might have been interested in you.” He rounded on Sunny and Will. “And the gallant investigators. Have you found out the obvious yet? Besides being dead, my uncle is gone.” He laughed. “In a puff of smoke.”

And you’re stinking drunk,
Sunny thought.
Not that you’ll regret anything when you’re sober.

Alfred then looked Luke up and down with such scorn that the guitarist’s face, already flushed from the heat, went a bright red. “And what are
you
doing in my uncle’s house?”

But in spite of the heat, the shaggy hair, the mismatched clothes, Luke had a certain dignity as he said, “Gardner was my friend.”

But Alfred wouldn’t have any of that. He gestured with his drink, sloshing some on the carpet. “My uncle could be pleasant, genial, what you might call friendly. Why wouldn’t he be? You were giving him what he wanted for free. But most of the people in this family—in this room—knew how he could get if he wanted something you didn’t want to give. And I’ll tell you this. He was no friend, no uncle . . . not much of a human being.”

For a second,
Sunny thought that Luke Daconto was going to grab Alfred Scatterwell and break his storklike, potbellied body over his knee. Instead, Luke turned on his heel and strode off.

Without missing a beat, Mike followed him. He hadn’t gone two steps before Helena caught up with him, taking his arm.

Shrugging, Will offered his elbow to Sunny. “Might as well make this unanimous.”

By the time they got outside, Luke was gone. The only sign of him was the fading sound of a car engine.

“Maybe it’s just as well.” Helena Martinson peered into the distance, but the car was long gone now. “What could we say to him after suffering through a performance like that?” She shook her head. “Telling him his friendship was just a figment of his imagination.”

“Even if it was true,” Sunny said. “Walking around in that crowd, we heard enough stories to Gardner’s discredit. By the time Alfred started mouthing off, Luke had to be developing some doubts about his friend’s sincerity.”

“Alfred was close enough to the truth with me,” Mike admitted. “I was the townie kid getting into Piney Brook. It was pretty amazing. I’d never seen a house like this.” His face got grim. “But it’s not as though I was sponging off Gardner. We were making music, we had some good times together. I found out stuff I didn’t like about him, but the guy is dead now. I guess it’s true what they say, the good times are buried with people.”

“‘The evil that men do lives after them / The good is oft interred with their bones,’” Mrs. Martinson quoted. “Shakespeare.”

Sunny nodded. “
Julius Caesar
.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, Alfred told the truth about me, too.” Helena’s lips twitched. “Gardner was interested in me, and showed it in the most disgusting way.”

“What was it with that guy!” Mike burst out.

“He was good-looking, had a little charm, and a lot of money.” Helena did not make them sound like assets, but Will shrugged.

“With a start like that, I guess he figured he’d take every chance he could—the law of averages says he’d score often enough.”

“It seems to have worked with Alfred’s fiancée,” Sunny had to admit.

“Maybe she was lucky,” Helena said. “Looks like Alfred turned out to be a nasty drunk.”

That shocked a laugh out of them all.

“Nasty or not, he had us pegged. We’ve got maybe two days left before the deadline, and our investigation has got nothing.” Will turned to Sunny. “We have to map out what we want to do tomorrow.”

Sunny noticed a whispered conversation between Helena and Mike. “Sunny,” Mrs. Martinson said in her most guileless voice, “would you mind dropping me and your father off at my place for a while? You and Will are welcome, too,” she hurried on. “We could all have some coffee cake.”

“Thanks,” Sunny replied, biting back a grin, “but maybe it’s just as well if Dad visits with you alone for a while.”

“Yeah,” Mike put in. “You’ll have the house to yourself, except for the mange-ball.”

“Right,” Sunny teased back. “And you and Mrs. M. will have some privacy—except for Toby.”

That took some of the wind out of his sails.

In the end, Sunny drove the Buick back to Mrs. Martinson’s, with Will right behind them. She locked up the car and gave the keys back to Helena, who thanked her for chauffeuring. “No problem,” replied Sunny. “I’ll see you later, Dad.”

“Later,” Mike agreed, loosening his tie. “It’s already been a heck of a night. I don’t know what we can do to top it.”

Somehow,
Sunny thought,
I don’t think it will have much to do with coffee cake.

Will had the passenger door of the pickup open for her and exchanged “good nights” with Helena and Mike. He’d already ditched his suit jacket and tie.

“I should have brought a change of clothes,” Will said, then asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re making some interesting assumptions, just because my dad is staying awhile at Helena’s.”

“I just meant—well, how do
you
feel after spending time in the Scatterwell sauna?”

“Damp,” Sunny had to admit, picking at her own clothes. “Maybe we can sit outside on the deck and cool off a bit.” She took off her jacket and rolled up the sleeves on her blouse.

When they arrived at her house, she and Will went around the garage to the deck in the backyard. Sunny used the charcoal lighter by the grill to start the citronella candle on the small table back there, offering them a bit of light and some protection from the nighttime bugs.

“So,” Will said, settling into one of the webbed chairs, “as a cop, I’d say we’ve hit a dead end. If we look at the death of Gardner Scatterwell as a one-off murder, we have Alfred—someone with a very strong motive to do him harm, and no alibi—but no proof he was on the premises when Gardner died. We also have two individuals who happened to be working late in the facility, but one—Luke—has no discernible motive, and the other—Elsa—can only be placed near-ish the murder scene. Plus, if we go by the testimony of our eyewitness, Scatterwell accepted something to drink, and I can’t see him taking anything from a person he was tormenting.”

“But we have another possible theory,” Sunny pointed out.

“Yes, thanks to looking at some records we’re not legally supposed to be able to see, we can also theorize that Scatterwell’s death could possibly be one of a series of medical murders. A significant cluster of deaths seem to coincide with nights when Camille was on duty. However, while she had opportunity, we don’t have a strong motive—unless you think it’s worthwhile to match obituaries with dates of death and see if she had some sort of beef with the various deceased persons. And other than stroke, we still have no idea of means.”

“Not to mention the possibility that Gardner and the other folks did actually die of natural causes,” Sunny reminded him.

“Point noted, but we’ll put that aside for the moment.” Will looked at her expectantly.

“What?” Sunny burst out.

“I, as the cop, have laid out all the logical groundwork. This is the part where you, the amateur, come up with the unexpected plan, and I say, ‘It’s crazy, but it just might work.’”

Sunny gave him an incredulous look. “Has your TV been stuck on the channel with all the lame seventies mystery shows?”

“Hey, I’ve seen you pull this off a couple of times.”

She sat and thought for a moment. “Maybe we could . . .” Her voice died away and she shook her head. “That’s so crazy it
wouldn’
t work. Sorry, Will, not this time. I’ve got nothing.”

“Then I think you should use this conversation as the basis for writing up a report in the most persuasive language you can come up with,” Will said. “Maybe if you tease him with enough nagging questions, Nesbit might decide this situation warrants a closer look with a bit more legal oomph behind it.”

“Can I quote you on that?” Sunny asked.

Will made a face but then grew serious. “I think maybe we ought to meet tomorrow and work on a draft to run past Ollie.”

“He won’t like having to eat crow in front of Dr. Reese and the sheriff,” Sunny told him.

“Well, we can cite the usual constraints of time and the inability to compel the collection of certain evidence,” Will said. “Then Ollie can argue with Nesbit, lose, and it won’t be our fault.”

“Somehow,” Sunny told him, “I don’t think Ollie will see it that way.”

That idea was so depressing, they sat in silence for a minute. Then Will took Sunny’s hands. “We still have some time before your father gets back—” He broke off, suddenly pointing upward. “A shooting star!”

Sunny followed his finger, spotting a streak across the sky. “Oh, yeah, the summer meteor showers. It used to be easier to spot them before things got so built up.”

Will nodded. “Now they talk about light pollution. When I was a kid, I remember lying on the grass in the backyard with my dad, watching the sky.”

“I think we’re a little too well dressed to try that,” Sunny told him.

But Will moved his chair beside hers so she could rest her head on his shoulder, her eyes on the heavens.

It may not be moonlight, but I guess shooting starlight will do,
she thought.

“One in seventy-five million,” Will murmured.

“What?” Sunny said.

“The odds of being killed by a meteorite.” Will turned to look her in the eyes. “I read it somewhere. “You’ve got a better chance of being killed by fireworks—or a bee sting.”

“I know it goes along with your job, but I really think you should work on your sweet nothings,” she told him.

“Maybe this is a case of do, not speak.” His lips came toward hers.

But the kiss was interrupted, not by a falling heavenly body but by a yowling furry one that landed on their heads.

*

Shadow heard muffled
voices outside the house, but no one came in. Climbing on the couch, he saw a big car at the end of the driveway . . . no people, though. He went down the hall to the rear of the house, and the voices got louder. One of them seemed to be Sunny!

He boosted himself up onto the kitchen table and peered outside. Yes, it was definitely Sunny and her He, sitting on the deck.
Why are they keeping away and leaving me out?
Shadow wondered. It was probably the He, still angry about the boxes and the papers. Shadow stretched forward, one paw against the glass of the kitchen window. If he wanted to get out and join them, he couldn’t get through here.

Shadow set off on a determined march to the stairway, climbing up to the second floor, down the hall, and into the Old One’s room, worming his way through a door that was almost closed. He knew Sunny’s father wasn’t in there, and the window was open. Leaping up to the sill, he raised a paw, trying to catch his claws on the corner of the screen without getting them stuck in the screen itself. That’s all he needed, to be trapped in here when the Old One came back.

At last the screen moved and Shadow hooked a paw outside, budging the screen a little more until his head and then his shoulders fit through. The roof slanted under his feet, but he could manage that. The problem was finding a way down. Shadow knew the tree wouldn’t work. A cat’s claws worked fine on the bark going up, but they weren’t built for sliding down. That’s why he’d seen some friends trapped on branches, calling for help. Maybe he could jump down into one of the chairs or land on the table. It was still a long leap.

As he carefully made his way down to the edge of the roof, it got very quiet down below. Had they gone inside after all? He leaned out to see, his paw slipped, and all of a sudden he was flying through the air.

It could have been worse. He landed on their heads, not as far a fall as it could have been, and quickly bounced over to the table.

But from the noise Sunny and her He made, you’d think he’d dropped on them with his claws out and ready.

*

Sunny screamed, Will
yelled, and they both jumped up. It took them a moment to realize that the Unidentified Furry Object was actually Shadow, who now sat on the table, grooming himself. But while he tried to keep up the nonchalant act, Sunny noticed that the cat kept shooting worried glances at her.

“I think this is the first time I’ve heard of a game called on account of cat. Maybe we
are
stuck in a seventies mystery show,” Will groused, trying to recover some sense of humor. “One of the dopey comedy ones.”

They left Shadow and walked around to the driveway, where Will’s pickup was parked. “I don’t know if I should apologize or what,” Sunny said.

“Definitely not your fault,” Will replied. “Or mine. When this craziness is over, we’ll try for a little more shooting star watching—a private viewing, though, far away from that menace.” He leaned down, she raised her lips, and they kissed, but it didn’t hold the same promise as the one that got interrupted. After all, they were in front of the house, in public. Not the place for a clinch.

Will climbed into his pickup. “Till tomorrow,” he said. Then he drove off. Sunny waved until he was out of sight, then turned to walk to the front door. Shadow stood ready to greet her in the hallway. “Hey, spoilsport,” she told him. “Just because you don’t get to see your dream girl, you shouldn’t go around ruining other people’s fun.”

She went upstairs to put on something more comfortable, then came back to the living room to make up with Shadow over an exciting game of catch-the-string. By the time the house phone rang, Shadow was tired out and comfortably curled up on her lap. Sunny had to evict him to get up and answer the phone. “Hello?”

“’S Luke,” the voice on the other end of the line announced a little mushily. “Luke Daconto.”

“Luke?” Sunny said in surprise. “How did you get this number?”

“White pages,” Luke replied. “Remembered you lived with your father. Only one M. Coolidge in Kittery Harbor.” A crinkling of paper came over the line. “Is there really such a place as Wild Goose Drive?”

Of course,
Sunny thought, feeling a little foolish.
Why would Mike have any use for an unlisted number?

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You sound a little funny.”

“Not funny. Drunk,” Luke corrected. “I decided to act like Alfred. But now I need to talk to someone, and I hope I can ask a favor.”

“To talk?” Sunny said.

“Face-to-face,” Luke explained. “See, that’s a problem. I can’t drive out to While Gootch Drive. I’ll probably hit a tree trying.”

Sunny sighed, shooing Shadow out of her lap again. “Give me your address,” she said. “I’ll drive right over.”

Scribbling down the address on the notepad beside the phone, she hung up and rose to her feet. “Sorry, Shadow, no more alone time. I’ve got to go.” She looked down at the worn sweatshirt she was wearing. “And I probably should put on some better clothes.”

When she came back downstairs, Sunny had on jeans and a less disreputable T-shirt. She left a note for her dad in case he came home before she got back, gave Shadow a quick pet, and headed out to her Wrangler. Luke lived in Levett, in a much more built-up area than Sunny’s neighborhood. The buildings and the people were much more crowded there. So were the cars. Sunny circled around several blocks before she found a parking space. She got out of her SUV and walked the rest of the way to her destination, a modest three-story apartment house. As a nod to the old colonial architecture, some of the windows were surrounded by make-believe plastic clapboards. The rest of the walls seemed to be made of rough-cast concrete. She got buzzed in through the front door and mounted the steps to the third floor.