Last Licks

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.”

For Sunny, the words “coffee shop” evoked loud, crowded places that served quick, cheap eats, with linoleum-topped tables and waitstaffs rushed off their feet. But Bridgewater Hall’s so-called “coffee shop” reminded Sunny of one of those tearooms of yesteryear—a throwback to an age of more gracious living. It was small, just a dozen or so tables, but each one was decked out with a white tablecloth; embroidered banquettes surrounded slightly larger tables; and for the lone or rushed eater, a few tall chairs faced a highly polished mahogany counter.

“Nicer than a lot of the eateries in town,” Sunny said.

“A better bar, too,” Ollie muttered, taking in the lunch counter. “I wonder if I could get a beer here.”

An older woman with permed white hair approached them with some menus. “Is this the Barnstable party? I can seat you here over by the window.” She led the way to a table with a splendid view of the gardens. Will parked Ollie’s wheelchair facing the window, and he and Sunny sat down flanking him.

“Elsa wasn’t kidding,” Sunny said. “It looks lovely out there.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ollie griped, already done with small talk. “What kind of progress have you made?”

Sunny was about to protest that they hadn’t had time to do anything yet, but Will jumped in with, “I tracked down Alfred Scatterwell and gave him a call.” This was news to her. “He was definitely not happy to hear that you had doubts about his uncle’s death, but he agreed to speak to us tomorrow morning,” Will reported.

Ollie grunted and turned to Sunny, but she started talking before he could ask any embarrassing questions. “What we really need to hear is what happened this morning. Start from the beginning, and tell us what you saw and heard.”

Before Ollie could start, the permed manageress returned to take their orders. “You’re our first customers of the day,” she said, nodding toward the empty tables around them. “You beat the rush.”

Sunny and Will both ordered the hamburger platter. Their choices arrived quickly, along with Ollie’s lunch. Sunny looked at her boss’s slivers of meat in a reddish sauce. “What is it supposed to be?” she asked, lowering her voice. “Pulled pork?”

“According to the menu I signed off on, it’s turkey tetrazzini.” Ollie unenthusiastically poked at it with his fork. “They give you a lot of choices for each meal, but one always seems to be baked fish. On paper, this looked the least bad.” He raised a forkful to his mouth and began chewing.

“So how is it?” Will arranged the tomato and onion slices on his burger and took a bite.

“Better than yesterday’s Salisbury steak. I guess a lot of the old folks’ teeth probably aren’t up to anything more solid than ground or chopped-up meat. I just wish that they didn’t always seem to have run out of salt in the kitchen.” He watched greedily as Sunny sprinkled salt and pepper on her fries, then dumped a blob of catsup on the side. “I could kill for one of those fries.”

“Are you allowed to have them, though?” Will asked.

Ollie’s expression fell somewhere between annoyed and heartbroken. “They gave me some with the Salisbury steak. Eighteen, to be exact. I counted each one as I ate it.”

Well, the visitors obviously get a more generous portion of French fries. Sunny turned her plate toward Ollie, who reached over to grab a fry—the biggest one, of course—dunked it in the catsup, and then just about inhaled it.

“Well, they don’t stint you on the food,” Will said, not turning his plate to share. “I see green beans, pasta, bread, coffee, milk, and both fruit and Jell-O.”

“Yeah.” Ollie’s eyes followed Will’s burger as he brought it up for another bite. “I’m just a lucky fella.”

“So tell us what happened.” Sunny wanted to get this meeting back on track before Ollie made a grab for her pickle.

“Specifically, why do you think something’s wrong?” Will put in.

“I didn’t want to say it in front of the doctors.” Ollie leaned forward in his wheelchair, his voice low. “They’ll say I was crazy, or dreaming, or blame the pain pills. I’ve been cutting down on them, but I do take one the last thing at night. Makes it easier to sleep.”

“I can understand that,” Will said. “But what did you see?”

“It was more like what I heard.” Ollie shifted uncomfortably in his wheelchair. “Somebody was definitely in the room, with Gardner. I don’t know if what I heard woke me up, or if my eyes just popped open, and that’s why I heard it. But I know I woke up all of a sudden, in the dark, and I heard rustling and low voices over by Gardner’s bed.”

“What were they saying?” Sunny asked.

Ollie shrugged. “I couldn’t make it out. Just a mumble of voices, then a cough—that was Gardner, I think. And then . . .” Ollie groped for a word. “It sounded like someone smacking their lips. I know, that doesn’t make much sense. But at the time I thought, Gardner’s been here awhile and knows everybody. He’s got connections. Maybe somebody’s smuggling in a glass of something for him. He told me once that given the choice, he’d prefer a snifter of brandy to a pain pill. And frankly, I agreed.”

“It certainly might make you cough,” Will said.

“And you might smack your lips afterward,” Sunny added. “But it’s something you wanted, so you could be projecting. Or you might’ve been dreaming.”

“That’s not the kind of thing I usually dream about.” Again, Ollie paused, trying to put his feelings into words. “It felt . . . real.”

I don’t think I want to know what Ollie usually dreams about, Sunny thought, and then found her mocking inner voice chiming in. Says the woman who had a dream about marrying her cat.

“I debated speaking up but decided against it.” Ollie shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I mean, whatever was going on, Gardner was doing it on the sly. I figured if I heard it going on for a couple of nights, I’d ask him about it quietly. Now I wish I’d made a stink—at least found out who was with him.”

“That might not have been the smartest thing,” Will told him. “If it was a killer, what do you think would have happened to you?”

Ollie opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, then shut it with a snap. “I didn’t think of that.”

“So what did you do?” Sunny asked.

“I closed my eyes and must have drifted back to sleep. The next thing I hear, Gardner is moaning. I sat up and got a light on. He tried to talk, but I could barely understand him. Said his face was numb. When he tried to get the beeper for the nurse, he couldn’t handle it. I don’t know if you noticed it, but after his stroke, he was weaker on his left side. Now his right side wasn’t working right, either.”

He shook his head. “I called the nurse, and while I was doing that, Gardner puked. He was choking on the stuff when the nurses arrived. They worked on him, and then Dr. Gavrik charged in. Within a couple of minutes, they were calling for an ambulance. The paramedics came and rushed him off.” Ollie sagged back in his chair. “From what I heard, he was gone before they even got him in the ambulance.”

“And you started raising hell,” Sunny said.

A bit of Ollie’s normal hard edge came back. “I told everyone who’d listen that something was wrong. That Gavrik woman wanted to give me a tranquilizer, but by then I’d already called Frank Nesbit.” He smiled grimly. “Sometimes it’s handy to have the sheriff’s home number.”

Will leaned across the table. “Did you tell him what you heard before Scatterwell’s attack?”

“I didn’t get the chance,” Ollie said. “Dr. Gavrik was all over me, and then they brought in the muckety-muck, Reese. He runs this joint.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I was lucky enough to convince Frank through other means.”

Political means, Sunny thought.

“Do you think this is enough for Nesbit to open an official investigation?” Ollie asked.

“I figure he’s already got me—us—on the hook,” Will quickly said, frowning. “According to your agreement, he’s the one who sits in judgment as to whether there’s a case or not.”

“Well, yeah,” Ollie said. “But—”

“And you know that he doesn’t like to admit that crimes ever happen in his jurisdiction,” Will went on.

Ollie looked so woebegone, Sunny let him have the rest of her French fries. Apparently, chewing helped his thinking process. “Do you know if it’s usual for stroke victims to throw up?”

Will shrugged.

“My dad’s doctor, Dr. Collier, may be able to help,” Sunny suggested. “His practice treats heart ailments and strokes.”

Sunny looked at Ollie’s plate. In spite of his complaints, he’d made good inroads on most of the food there. The turkey was completely gone.

It didn’t seem like there was much else to discuss about the case, so Sunny asked how Ollie’s rehab therapy was going. “Elsa had me working while I sat down,” he said. “She wants me to work my upper body and arms so I can deal with this thing.” He reached for the walker they’d put off to the side. “Now I can look forward to an hour of PT—or as Gardner used to call it, painful torture. I don’t know which is worse, the pain from my leg, or the fear of falling.”

The reminder of Scatterwell’s sometimes sharp tongue stirred a memory for Sunny. “Did Gardner ever say anything about Elsa Hogue?”

Ollie stared at the unexpected question. “No. Why should he?”

“Just wondering. Did he have a nickname for your physical therapist?”

Grinning, Ollie nodded. “He called him Jack the Gripper, from the way he steadies people by holding on to the seat of their pants.”

“Well, that one makes sense.” Sunny glanced around to see that the room was starting to fill up. It looked like the customers were mainly long-term residents and members of their families. “Maybe we should get a move on. Looks as though they could use the table.”

Sunny and Will settled their bills and then set off for the rehab ward, wheeling Ollie along. When they reached Room 114, the pungent smell of disinfectant leaked out into the hallway. Ollie vigorously fanned his hand in front of his nose. “Maybe we should go straight to the therapy room.”

“Just give me a minute.” Will stepped inside. Gardner’s bed still remained stripped, and the drawers on the chest at the foot of his bed all stood open.

“They don’t waste much time, do they?” Ollie muttered to Sunny. “A real sentimental bunch.”

Sunny just nodded. It seemed odd to erase Gardner’s presence so thoroughly, considering that the administrator here was an old friend of his. Or so Gardner believed when he was alive, she couldn’t help thinking.

Will came back out. “Looks like the Ritz, compared to some of the state police barracks I’ve lived in,” he said with a grin. “Generally, they kept out the snow but were a bit on the Spartan side.”

He took command of the wheelchair again, and they headed back to the therapy room. Jack the Gripper (as Sunny would now forever think of him) stood just inside the door. He had to be in his forties, shorter than Will but with a lot more muscle on a stocky frame, his reddish-blond hair gelled up in spikes.

If somebody had to hold up Ollie the Barnacle, this would be the guy to do it, Sunny thought.

“You can cancel the search party,” the therapist told the volunteer who was just leaving.

Then he looked down at Ollie with a smile. “How are you doing today?”

“As well as can be expected after having turkey tetrazzini for lunch,” Ollie told him. Catching the man’s inquisitive glance at his companions, Ollie said, “Sunny Coolidge here works for me. She and her friend Will took me out for lunch.”

Sunny had expected a different introduction from Ollie, but apparently he thought people might speak more freely if they didn’t know that she and Will were snooping around. Well, maybe it was better to keep their investigation on the down low—at least as long as they could.

“Jack Quentin.” The therapist extended a powerful hand to Sunny.

“We’ll leave you to it,” Sunny said, sure that Quentin and probably a lot of other people remembered the uproar from Ollie when she’d come into this room just yesterday. She patted Ollie on the arm. “Be in touch with you soon.”

“Yeah.” Ollie gave her a look. “Let me know what you hear from that doctor.”

“Will do,” Sunny promised. Then she and Will got out of there.

Will waited until they reached the parking lot before speaking. “If there had been a glass beside the bed, it’s gone now. And after the bucket-and-mop brigade got done in that room, I don’t expect there’s any trace of physical evidence left.” Cold anger made his face all sharp angles. “I didn’t think it was worth getting Ollie all riled up, especially when he’s apparently hoping we can stay undercover.”

“Thanks—I could do without another tantrum.” Sunny didn’t mention whether she expected it from Ollie or Will.

Will didn’t holler, but he obviously had someone to blame. “At least Nesbit could have asked the folks here to hold off until I’d gotten a look around.”

“Do you think he’s stacking the deck against us?” Sunny scowled at the idea. She hadn’t expected this job to be easy, but people didn’t have to go out of their way to make it harder.

“We should have probably taken that as a given,” Will said with a sigh. Then he began to look more thoughtful. “If this is standard operating procedure, Bridgewater Hall seems to make the dear departed disappear awfully quickly.”

“That could make sense among the older residents,” Sunny said. “It might upset them, being reminded of absent friends.” She shrugged. “Maybe they’re trying to be businesslike, getting things ready for the next customer.”

“Or maybe there are some guilty consciences at work, who don’t want to leave any evidence of incompetence or malpractice lying around,” Will suggested.

“When Alfred Scatterwell was trying to get his uncle to shift to a less expensive facility, he claimed that the mortality rate at Bridgewater Hall was higher than average,”

“That would be a good reason to make any evidence disappear, wouldn’t it?” Will said. “Especially if someone screwed up Scatterwell’s treatment.”

“Ollie didn’t notice anything go wrong while they were working on Gardner,” Sunny objected. “But maybe we should file the facility’s mortality rate under motive. When I first met him, Gardner Scatterwell seemed like kind of a cheerful boob, rich and clueless. Then I saw his not-so-nice side, the way he treated his nephew and Elsa Hogue. If he found out that something wasn’t up to snuff at Bridgewater Hall, I have a feeling he wouldn’t be above a little blackmail.”

Will nodded. “The problem with blackmail is that it rarely stays little. Someone could have decided to get rid of Scatterwell instead of paying up.”

Behind them, the door swung open and a tall, distinguished figure stepped out into the sunshine. But Dr. Henry Reese missed a step when he saw them. “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Sunny said. “This is my partner in this investigation, Constable Price.”

Reese didn’t offer to shake hands, but it looked as though Will was pretty used to that. “Actually, Dr. Reese and I have met before,” he said. “He’s another Saxon alum from the class of ’66 that I tracked down for fund-raising. The name didn’t spark anything, but I definitely remember the face.”

The chief administrator of Bridgewater Hall showed no trace of recognition . . . and not much in the way of manners. “You’ll have to excuse me,” Reese said, frozen-faced. “I have an appointment.” He headed for his car as if he were afraid that Will might tackle him.

*

Shadow was not happy. He’d managed to get out while Sunny and the Old One were both busy, which was good. But the sun was hot, and even the shady patches were uncomfortably warm. He’d tried all the windows, even the ones to the Dark Place underneath the house, again without any luck. The only loose screen he found was for the little house behind, where all the boxes lived. That didn’t help at all.

He’d lain down to think about it but had fallen asleep instead. When he awoke, the patch of shade he’d picked for his rest had moved away. Shadow stood. He felt hungry, and his food dish was inside the house—inside the house he couldn’t find a way into. He sat on his haunches, looking up. There were windows he hadn’t been able to reach from the ground, windows on the second floor.

If I could fly like a bird, I could go up and look.

But that was a stupid thought. He pushed it away.

There was another way up, of course, but it meant climbing. Shadow could see the route. Up the trunk of the tree behind the house, out on that branch, and that would bring him to the roof, where the upstairs windows jutted out. Could he do it? There was only one way to find out.

Shadow went to the tree and leaped up, his claws catching in the bark. At least he didn’t fall. It was hard work and unpleasant, hanging by his claws, forcing his way up . . . hard and thirsty work, too. He thought longingly of his water bowl, hidden in the kitchen . . .

Something flashed past him. Instinctively Shadow ducked and slid back several inches, scrabbling frantically to keep a hold. He didn’t like to think what it would be like to fall from this height. It was many-many times the length of his whole body. He continued his ascent, and the flash came again—this time with a peck! Shadow clung precariously to the tree trunk, trying to look around. It was a bird, the stupid bird he’d chased. Now it was chasing him, darting at him, trying to keep him from climbing.

Stupid, stupid bird, he thought, freeing one paw while digging in with the rest of his claws as best he could. When she came diving at him this time, he swatted out with the paw that wasn’t clinging to the tree bark for dear life. It didn’t hit the bird, but it did scare her away.

It scared Shadow, too, as a chunk of bark tore loose, nearly sending him tumbling to the ground.

His claws scraped long scratches, but he managed to hang on. After that, it was like a bad dream, toiling endlessly upward, watching out for sneak attacks. Shadow was so distracted, he almost missed the branch he was aiming for. But once there, it was more like walking than climbing, and that dumb bird stopped bothering him.

Shadow made it to the roof. It hadn’t seemed to slope so steeply when he’d been looking at it from the ground, but he could walk on it—if he was careful. He carefully skittered along to the nearest window. It was open, and he saw Sunny’s room, but he couldn’t budge the screen.

This is getting very, very bad, he thought. If he couldn’t get in, he’d be stuck up here on the roof. The sun was beating down, and the shingles were burning hot under the pads on his paws.

Shadow scrambled along to the next available window. He let out a mew of relief. The glass was up, and this screen was older. It rattled when he touched it. Extending his claws, he scratched at the frame around the screen. It moved!

It took patience, but he carefully shifted the screen until he could get a paw around the edge. Then things got easier. Shadow tugged and pushed at it until he had a space large enough for his head, his shoulders . . .

Bursting through, he flopped down into dimness. He was in!

And then, sniffing, he realized which room in the house this was—the one room he rarely, if ever, wanted to be in . . .

*

Sunny watched Henry Reese pull away in his late-model Mercedes. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask about why the room got cleaned,” she told Will. He shook his head. “No use crying over spilled milk—or in this case, disinfectant. I’d prefer to talk directly to the cleanup crew first, and then work my way up to the big boss.” He glanced at his watch. “In fact, I might do that now unless you want to set up something with your dad’s doctor.”

Taking that as a hint, Sunny got out her cell phone and called her dad. When she explained why she wanted to talk with Dr. Collier, Mike got enthusiastic. “Let me call the doc and see if I can get you in. This is his short day—he should be finishing his office hours, but it’s still a while before his tee time.” Mike gave a brief snort of laughter. “It’s kind of a sad thing when you’re at the doctor’s so much, you know his schedule.”

Mike called her back within minutes.

“Okay, the doc says he can see you right away,” he reported. “You’re pretty close to his office, too.”

Dr. Mark Collier was at Cardiovascular Associates of Elmet, which operated from a small medical building on the outskirts of the county seat, about eight miles from Bridgewater Hall. When Sunny and Will arrived, they were brought in immediately to Dr. Collier’s office. He was a trim man with salt-and-pepper hair, glasses, and a no-nonsense expression. The only clue that he might be off duty was the fact that he’d loosened the tie he wore with his cream-colored short-sleeved shirt.

“Sunny,” he said, rising to shake hands. After she’d introduced Will, the doctor motioned them to the seats in front of his desk. “Mike tells me you’ve got some questions about strokes.” He grabbed his phone, pressed a button, and said, “Craig, can you come in for a moment?”

Another doctor, similarly dressed but with whiter hair, came in.

“This is my partner, Craig Snow,” Dr. Collier said. “He’s the vascular part of Cardiovascular Associates. Craig, these people have some questions about a possible stroke.”

“Early this morning, a patient died at Bridgewater Hall,” Will began, describing the symptoms that Ollie had seen. He was brief, to the point, and very coplike.

Dr. Snow obviously caught that. “Are you an investigator, Mr. Price?”

“I’m a Kittery Harbor town constable,” Will replied, “assigned to help Ms. Coolidge look into this death.”

“I’m not going to comment on any questions of treatment,” Snow warned. “That wouldn’t be proper.”

“We’re just trying to get some basic information,” Will said, relaxing his cop mask.

“Okay. Well, basically, there are two types of strokes. In one case, something in the blood—a clot, usually—blocks a blood vessel feeding the brain and causes damage to brain cells.”

“Much like the heart attack your father suffered, Sunny,” Dr. Collier said. “Except his blockage caused damage to the heart muscle.”

Dr. Snow nodded. “In the other general type of stroke, a weakened vessel ruptures, literally bleeding into the brain, and the pressure damages brain cells.”

“When Dad had his heart attack, you gave him stuff to thin his blood.” Sunny frowned. “Does the same thing happen with strokes?”

“For ischemic strokes, the ones caused by blockages, yes,” Dr. Snow replied.

“But if a person thinned the blood and it turned out to be the other kind of stroke, that would make them bleed more,” Will pointed out.

“I wasn’t in the room,” Snow said stiffly. “As I said, I cannot comment on treatment.”

“Well, based on what you heard, do you think Gardner—the patient—had a stroke?” Sunny asked.

“Considering that I’m working from hearsay, a layperson’s observations, without test results or personal examination . . . but I can at least say that the symptoms are not inconsistent with a stroke.”

“There was one other symptom,” Sunny said. “He began vomiting. Is that unusual for a stroke?”

“Vomiting is not unknown,” Snow said. “In fact, some studies now suggest that vomiting can be a sign of a more severe stroke.”

Will absorbed that, then said, “So, considering that the patient had had a stroke previously, there’s no reason that this attack wouldn’t most likely be considered another stroke.”

“As you say, most likely.”

“Are there any drugs or substances that might create the same symptoms? Something that might look like a stroke?”

Dr. Snow shook his head and rose from his chair. “I really don’t—”

“Arsenic,” Dr. Collier interrupted. “It’s an oldie, but there’s a reason why people stay with the classics.” He smiled at the aghast expression on his partner’s face. “Some of us enjoy reading or watching mysteries, and some don’t. I do.”

“I think I’m done here.” Dr. Snow gave them all a disapproving look and left the office. Collier laughed.

“Sometimes it’s not a bad thing to have a careful doctor,” Will said.

“It doesn’t hurt to consider possibilities.” The cardiologist shifted back in his seat. “Snow’s the expert, of course, but basically any drug that has a neurological effect could possibly be mistaken for a stroke. There are certain kinds of shellfish poisons, even a drug used to treat breast cancer.”

“Is there anything that could be swallowed?” Sunny asked, remembering Ollie’s story about being awakened.

“Some of the heavy metals, perhaps,” Dr. Collier replied. “Mercury, lead, cadmium, they all have toxic and neurological effects. But they’re usually eaten or breathed in. You can get cadmium from cigarette smoke—the lungs absorb it better than the stomach. Arsenic, though, that’s been a favorite since before the Renaissance. Its symptoms mimicked cholera, which was widespread up to the 1800s, when arsenic got the nickname ‘inheritance powder.’ And it’s still used today—an old reliable.” He got a little more serious. “It would require special tests—tests that a medical examiner might not perform if he thought the cause of death was a stroke.”

“Just for the sake of argument, let’s say the patient we described was being cared for by you and your partner. Given the situation, would you be asking the medical examiner to do those extra tests?”

Dr. Collier silently regarded him for a long moment, and then finally said, “No.”

Will gave him a glum nod. “That’s pretty much what I was thinking, too.”