Last Licks

“Recuse, hell,” Sunny told him. “Who’s going to help me investigate this can of worms?”

“What do you figure our first step should be?” Will asked.

“Talk to Ollie,” Sunny quickly responded. “See what he can tell us about what happened this morning.”

“Right.” Will rose to his feet. “Well? Shall we?”

Sunny tilted her head at him. “You might want to change your outfit.”

“Why?” Will looked down at his uniform.

“My dad has what they call ‘white coat hypertension’—his blood pressure goes up when he goes to the doctor,” Sunny said. “I’m afraid we may encounter some people with a similar problem—‘blue coat muteness.’ Just a guess, but maybe you’ve encountered it.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t rub it in.” Will headed for the office door. “I’ll go home and change. What’ll you be doing?”

“I’ll be on the phone to Ken Howell,” Sunny answered. “He uses a lot of summer interns to get the newspaper out. I’m hoping he’ll have someone dependable enough to let me get out of the office.”

6

By the time Will returned, Sunny had gotten Ken to loan her a young woman spending an unpaid summer working in the office of the Harbor Courier. The intern had walked over to the office, and Sunny was busily bringing her up to speed on the duties to keep MAX going. “Remember, Nancy, whatever you do, don’t install any upgrades on any components in the system. As soon as that happens, it fouls up the way everything else works.”

As they went over the remainder of the points in the checklist Sunny had worked up, she noticed that Nancy kept glancing over her shoulder at Will. Lounging against the wall of file cabinets in sunglasses, a tight gray Henley shirt, and a pair of black jeans, he made a pretty good distraction.

Sunny finished with Nancy’s orientation, then left her to go through the morning’s e-mails.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she told Will. “You’re looking pretty casual.” She fingered the short-sleeved jacket she wore with matching slacks—simple, but businesslike.

“You’ve heard of good cop–bad cop? We’ll try well-dressed cop versus scroungy cop.” Will grinned. “Once you’re out of uniform, crime-busting has no dress code.”

Rolling her eyes, Sunny stepped outside to her Wrangler while Will climbed aboard his pickup. They drove up to Bridgewater Hall, arriving around eleven in the morning. That turned out to be lucky timing, as they encountered a volunteer just rolling Oliver out of the therapy room. Ollie held a rolling walker balanced on the footrests while Elsa Hogue walked beside the wheelchair, talking. Even though the therapist wore another dumpy-looking sweat suit, she seemed to move more naturally, even smiling at Ollie. “It gets easier the longer you work at it,” she assured him.

“Thanks,” Sunny heard Ollie reply. “It’s nice to know I can do something right.”

He smiled hopefully as he looked up at Elsa. But his expression instantly hardened when he spotted Sunny and Will. “About time you got here,” he said gruffly.

“I had to get things squared away,” Sunny told him. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Elsa spoke up. “If you call down to the coffee shop, you can reserve a table, and they’ll have Mr. Barnstable’s lunch waiting when you get there. It’s a nice, quiet place where you can order a meal and chat.”

“Thanks,” Ollie said. “That’s very nice of you to tell us.”

“And have you tried the gardens?” Elsa went on. “They’re really beautiful this time of year.” She smiled down at Ollie the Barnacle and tried to look strict. “Just make it back by one thirty—Jack has big plans for you today.”

“With advance warning like that, I might not come back at all,” Ollie said.

“I know it’s hard, especially to start, but I think you’re one of the patients who takes the work seriously.” Elsa frowned. “Some don’t, and they never regain full function again.”

Ollie nodded. “It’s tough. The little I did yesterday just about knocked me out,” he admitted.

She patted his shoulder. “It really does get better. Believe me.” Then she turned to leave. “Now, let’s see if I can convince Mrs. Jaspers of that.”

Will took over the wheelchair from the volunteer, and Sunny directed him down the hallway. “So, Ollie, do you want to try this coffee shop?”

“Yeah,” Ollie said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to hang around in the room anyway. They had somebody coming in with all kinds of disinfectant sprays when I was leaving.”

Will glanced at Sunny, his expression showing that his worst fears had come true regarding their potential crime scene. He could only raise his shoulders in a hopeless shrug. “They’ve probably contaminated the place already.” He glanced down at Ollie. “Maybe it’s better to let the fumes evaporate before you go back in.”

They stopped at the nurses’ station, and a helpful nurse made the call to the coffee shop for them. “Take the hallway to the front door and make the first turnoff,” she said when they asked how to find the place. “You’ll pass the entrance to the auditorium, and a little farther on you’ll find the coffee shop. You can’t miss it.”