Last Licks

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, tocking 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.