Last Licks

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.