Last Licks

17

“I have to say, Sunny, I’m impressed,” Ollie said, shifting himself to sit higher in his bed. “To tell the truth, I was beginning to wonder if what I thought I overheard the night Gardner died was a dream after all. Figured I’d have to eat crow with these doctors. But you really came through. How did you get Luke to confess to you?”

By being nice to him, the hard-nosed reporter in the back of Sunny’s head commented. It’s a technique you don’t seem to have much of a handle on.

“I wouldn’t say he confessed to me,” Sunny said aloud. “He didn’t even realize that he’d done anything wrong. He just wanted someone to talk to after attending the memorial for his father. The gossip was flying, and he heard a lot of not-so-pleasant things about Gardner.”

“Oh, man,” Ollie said. “Like what?”

“A lot about his womanizing.” Will tried to hit the highlights without shoveling too much dirt. “His word wasn’t all that good, and whenever there was trouble, he tended to disappear.”

“Hmph.” Ollie frowned. “The guy I knew in the next bed seemed nice enough. Always ready to joke, looking on the bright side, cheerful . . .” He paused for a second. “He gave some people a hard time, but they were usually pains in the butt, like that nephew of his.”

“He wasn’t very decent to Elsa Hogue,” Sunny pointed out.

“Yeah,” Ollie admitted. “I never did understand that. She’s a nice lady. I figured Gardner must have been hurting when he started therapy with her, and he never got over it.”

“So you liked the guy to begin with, and then hear everybody saying nasty things about him,” Will said. “I can see it has you feeling a little funny even now. Imagine what it must have been like to know the guy was your father and to discover that the people who knew him best had such a low opinion of him.”

Sunny shook her head. “I can see why he’d want to talk it over with somebody.”

“And he chose you,” Ollie said.

She tried to shrug it off with a laugh. “I guess showing up for his gig at O’Dowd’s paid off. I have to admit, he just about floored me when he started talking about being Gardner’s son. I never saw that coming.”

“Obviously, he got his mother’s hair and eyes,” Will said. “We can’t tell about his chin, not with all those whiskers. But when you look at it, there’s a similarity around the nose.”

“How can you tell?” Sunny objected. “Gardner had his broken.”

“But Alfred didn’t,” Ollie pointed out. “And his nose pretty much matches Luke’s.” He shook his head. “I just didn’t think to compare them before.”

“Who would?” Will asked. “Luke was just a stranger from the other end of the country. Who’d expect him to be the lost heir to the Scatterwell fortune?”

“That’s not the reason he came all this way,” Sunny said. “After growing up in the commune, he said all he wanted was to get to know his real dad.”

“Of course, Gardner would still be alive and Luke would probably be a lot happier if he hadn’t found him.” Ollie frowned. “Ain’t that a kick in the head.”

“Mr. Barnstable?” a voice came from the doorway. It was one of the Bridgewater Hall volunteers. “Ms. Elsa says it’s time for your therapy.”

“Then I guess it is,” Ollie said mildly, inching his way to the edge of the bed. “Can you get my wheelchair ready?”

He made the transfer smoothly, then looked up at Sunny and Will. “Want to come and see what we do?”

This is a big change from the way Ollie acted at the beginning, Sunny thought.

“Come on,” Ollie said with a big show of generosity. “I’ll give you the rest of the day off.” He paused for a second. “That girl Annie is taking care of everything, isn’t she?”

“It’s Nancy,” Sunny told him. “And she hasn’t called in with any disasters lately.” She stopped when she saw the look on Ollie’s face. “Oh, take it easy, boss. I do check in with her, and she’s doing fine.” So far, Sunny added silently, her fingers crossed.

With Ollie safely in his chair, the volunteer began wheeling him toward the therapy room. Sunny and Will followed.

They arrived to find Elsa waiting in the doorway. In the week since Gardner Scatterwell had left this world, Elsa had continued the transformation Sunny had noted earlier. She’d had her hair done, was wearing makeup and some tasteful jewelry, and today wore a soft sweater over slacks that showed off her figure modestly but quite nicely. Rubbing her arms in the air-conditioning, Sunny wished she had a sweater, too.

“How are you doing today, Ollie?” Elsa asked.

On a first-name basis now, are we? Sunny thought—but said nothing.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Ollie said. “What’s the torture de jour?”

“We’ll try you with some table games.” Elsa had the volunteer bring him to a table that would normally accommodate six. Two people in wheelchairs and one standing with a walker surrounded it, working on various tasks. “You can take a whack at this.”

As soon as Ollie was situated and the volunteer had locked the wheels on his chair, Elsa got a metal box, perhaps a foot square, with dowel handles sticking out of the sides and placed it in front of Sunny’s boss.

“You’ve done this before,” Elsa said. “Remember?”

Ollie nodded. “Push it all the way forward, bring it all the way back.”

“But to make it a little more interesting, we’ll add some more weight.” From a pile in the middle of the table, Elsa began adding beanbags to the empty box. But from the way they thumped into place, Sunny realized that they had to be filled with lead shot.

“Can you handle that?” Elsa asked.

“Yes,” Ollie replied, moving the box—with effort.

“Okay,” the therapist said. “Three sets of ten repetitions.”

Ollie set to work, pushing to the limit of his reach and then pulling the box to the edge of the table. He got through the first set of repetitions fairly easily but was obviously feeling a bit of strain as he went through the next ten. Elsa meanwhile went around the table checking on the progress of the other patients. One was working on her grip with some sort of putty, while another was picking up what looked like golf tees and putting them in a large pegboard. The man with the walker was engaged in the same exercise as Ollie, but with an even bigger pile of soft weights in his box.

“Y’know,” Ollie said, a little breathless from the exertion, “I keep saying you should put some lamb’s wool or fleece on the bottom of these things. Then at least we’d be doing something useful—polishing the table.”

Will grinned. “Or maybe they could put you to work rolling out pie dough.”

Ollie and his tablemate laughed, and Elsa joined in. “Sorry, boys,” she told them. “It’s all in the friction.”

Like most of life, Sunny thought.

The man with the walker finished his stint with the weighted box, and Elsa moved him over to what looked like a modified captain’s wheel set in the wall. Instead of the usual radiating handles, this one had a single handle sticking out from the face of the wheel.

“Very good for the range of motion through the shoulders,” Elsa said when she noticed Sunny looking with interest.

“And a real pain to do,” the man said, taking the handle in his right hand. “We call it the Wheel of Misfortune.” Wincing, he set the wheel in a slow revolution. “There’s one.”

“Nineteen to go,” Elsa told him. “And then you can work the other hand.” She watched for a few more turns of the wheel and then came back to the table. Ollie’s box sat at the edge of the table, and he dangled his arms over either side of his chair, shaking them out.

“Three sets of ten, accomplished,” Will reported. “I counted.”

“We’re going to try something a little more interesting,” Elsa said. “Let’s see how you do in bed.”

“Excuse me?” Ollie said.

He took the words right out of Sunny’s mouth.

Elsa only shook her head. “Come on.” She looked at Will. “Could you do the honors with the chair?” Then she led them to a low, padded platform that filled one corner of the room. “This is the area where people do exercises lying down. It’s also where we practice getting into bed—and out.”

She helped Ollie to a seated, then a lying position. “How’s that?”

“Wonderful,” he replied. “Where are the blankets? They had me up very early this morning.”

“Well, we’re going to get you up again,” Elsa told him. Then she took him through a series of movements that brought him to the edge of the platform. “Now you want your hands beside either hip,” she instructed, setting a walker in front of him. “Push up. I know Jack has been working your opposite leg, so if you need it to, that can take some of the weight. Okay, up, nice and easy.”

It definitely wasn’t easy, but Ollie managed to rise from the platform, stand, and then take hold of the walker.

“Very good work,” Elsa praised him, and Ollie’s face flushed with pleasure.

Elsa beckoned Will forward with the wheelchair. “Lock the wheels,” she instructed. Then, turning to Ollie, she said, “Do you remember the steps for sitting in a chair?”

“Don’t flop.” Ollie seemed to be quoting.

Elsa nodded. “That can end up jostling things and being more painful for you. Slow and steady, that’s the way.”

Sunny watched as Ollie backed the walker in careful steps. It had only been a week, but he was light-years ahead of where he’d been the last time she’d seen him attempting to walk. He transferred his hands from the handles of the walker to the armrests on the chair and then let himself down in the seat.

“Good,” Elsa pronounced. “Now you can rest for a few minutes. I figure if I let you lie down on our make-believe bed, we might never get you up.”

*

Shadow kept a baleful eye on the Old One. Ever since he’d come back home and stood under the water, Shadow had expected Sunny’s father to leave the house and go to wherever the elusive She might be found.

But the Old One hadn’t done that. He’d gone into the room with the picture box, but he hadn’t put the picture box on. He’d picked up a paper thing with pictures and paged through that. His movements had gotten slower and slower, until at last the Old One had gone to sleep. That wasn’t uncommon. Sometimes the Old One took naps on the couch, and Shadow often joined in. It was one of the few activities they could share without annoying each other.

Today, however, Shadow didn’t want to close his eyes. What if he fell asleep, and the Old One somehow managed to escape? So Shadow lay glaring up at the sleeping two-leg, who snored away, oblivious, while the cat did his best to hide his impatience, except for the occasional flick of his tail.

The phone rang, and the Old One jerked awake. He spoke for a few minutes, then put the phone back down and pulled himself more upright, rubbing his face with his hands. With a groan, he pushed himself off the couch and went to the kitchen, sticking his face in the box that made things cold and coming out with a bottle. The Old One looked at it, shook it, and then drank from the bottle, emptying it. Shadow took advantage of the distraction to get down a bite or two of dry food and a swallow of water.

As Sunny’s father went to toss the bottle away, he stared up at the round thing on the wall. Shadow went on the alert. He wasn’t sure what the thing was, but he’d seen similar ones in other human homes. For some reason, the two-legs would look at it and then start rushing around. Still, he expected the Old One to take time checking for his keys and walking to the front door. Instead, the older human was out with the door shut before Shadow could even make a dart for his legs. Frantically, Shadow began leaping up the stairs. He had one chance . . .

Shadow raced along the upstairs hall, into the Old One’s room. He struggled with the screen, pushing his way out, and began climbing the roof. This was the hard part. He had to get around to the front of the house, where the human kept his vehicle.

It was scary, especially the trip down the roof. Shadow feared his paws were going to slip out from under him. But the sound of the truck’s engine starting brought him scrambling to the edge. The ground seemed a long way down, but Shadow gathered himself for a leap.

After all, it wasn’t so bad when you landed on Sunny, he told himself. Down, down he went, landing with a jarring impact that took his breath away. He crouched nervously in the big open space in the rear of the truck. Nowhere to hide. Had the Old One seen anything? Heard anything? But the go-fast merely rumbled and rolled away. Shadow settled down in a more comfortable position, letting his tail encircle his paws.

Wherever we’re going, we’re on our way.

*

Ollie returned to his room and his bed just in time for the arrival of lunch. Since Mr. Vernon seemed to alternate between carving his chicken cutlet and staring at them, conversation suffered. Finally, Will suggested that he and Sunny go down to the coffee shop and grab a bite to eat.

“Before we go, though, I want to call into headquarters and find out what’s happening—and what they want to do with me.”

He stepped over to the doorway, took out his cell, punched in the number, and had a brief, one-sided conversation, hanging up with a sour look. “Well, at least I’m free for lunch.”

They stepped into the hall, and Sunny said, “Okay, I’ll bite. What did they say?”

“They said the sheriff is coming over here this afternoon to see me, and Ollie, and probably Dr. Reese,” Will replied. “Until then, I’m supposed to stay put.”

Behind him, Sunny saw Camille Thibaud stop dead, her face going chalk white.

“Um, Will, can you give me a couple of minutes? I have to use the restroom. In fact, why don’t you go ahead and get a table? I’ll catch up with you.”

She left Will going around the nurses’ station while she walked farther up the ward, but the visitor’s restroom wasn’t her target. Sunny opened out her stride and caught up with Camille. “What’s going on?” she asked the girl. “You looked as though you were going to jump out of your skin.”

“The sheriff is really and truly coming?” The words came out in a rush, and a bit too loud. Camille bit her lip and tried again. “People have been talking all morning, saying the worst things, that half the nurses and aides are going to be fired, that we’re being taken over by the state . . .” She gulped a breath. “That the sheriff is coming over to close us down.”

Obviously the Bridgewater grapevine had been working full-blast, and the gossip hadn’t shrunk in the telling.

“I don’t think any of that is going to happen,” Sunny told the girl. “He needs to talk to some people, that’s all.”

But instead of calming down, the girl’s face only got scareder. “It’s me,” she whispered. “He’s coming to talk to me.”

“And why is that?” Sunny wanted to know.

“That night when everything happened, when Mr. Scatterwell passed,” Camille said, “it was my fault.”

Sunny stared. “Mr. Scatterwell was your fault?”

The girl quickly shook her head. “No, I mean the other patient, the one who got sick and messed the bed. He kept asking and begging for chocolate. I knew he wasn’t supposed to have any, but I felt sorry for him. So, on my break, I got a bar of chocolate.” A spasm of guilt went over Camille’s plain features. “I should have known there’d be trouble from the way he gobbled it up. But he looked so happy. But then a while later, it went right through him. He was so badly off. And now I hear people whispering about patients getting something they shouldn’t. It’s going to be me. I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

Sunny did her best to calm Camille without adding any more fodder to the gossip grapevine. “Mr. Barnstable has something he needs to discuss with Sheriff Nesbit, and since he’s laid up, the sheriff is coming here.” Camille nodded, but Sunny wasn’t sure how successful she’d been in soothing the girl’s jitters. She headed off to the coffee shop and told Will about her conversation with Camille.

“Poor kid,” he said. “She must be really scared about this job.” Then he grinned. “But she’s got a lot to learn if she thinks a visit from Frank Nesbit is the same as the Last Judgment.”

*

It seemed that they had finally stopped moving. Shadow crouched down, breathing deeply through an open mouth, testing the scents around him. He found an odd combination, catching country smells, grass, trees—and was that a squirrel?—but also the stink of smoke from the go-fast things that humans liked to ride around in. He’d encountered that mix of smells before in his wanderings, usually on heavily traveled roads that went through woods. If only he could look . . .

Instinctively, he pushed upward, aiming to hook his forepaws over the wall beside him. Then he’d be able to see where he was.

But he ducked back down at the sound of the door opening, staying frozen until it thumped shut. He listened carefully—yes, the scraping noises the Old One made as he walked were receding. When they got faint enough, Shadow boosted himself up for a look around.

Now everything made sense. He could see country-stuff all around, the source of the green smells he’d inhaled. But they were in the middle of one of those places where the humans left their go-fast things to rest. Even when there was a breeze, bad smells lingered.

Dropping down to the floor again, he pushed with his rear legs as hard as he could, surging upward, clearing the metal side, and then landing on that weird pebble-stuff that humans liked to surround their houses with.

Shadow hid behind the front wheel of the truck, watching the Old One open a door—a very big, heavy door. This wasn’t like the screen door at Sunny’s house, where he could climb up, hang on, and make it swing open. It would take patience and luck to get in.

Once the door swung closed, Shadow crept up to inspect it, scratching gently at the wood. No, it definitely wasn’t going to shift.

So he went onto the grass at the side of the door and hunkered down. His fur blended with the stone in the wall—at least to a casual glance. After a while, another go-fast thing appeared and rolled to a stop. A pair of two-legs got out—male and female. They were younger than the Old One, but older than Sunny. Shadow kept still until they had the big door open, then he darted in between their legs.

He found himself in a large, echoing space with many-many smells. Shadow got a strong whiff of the She he’d come to find—but that was mixed with the sick tomcat smell he’d also found on Sunny. Shadow crouched, forcing an angry hiss back down his throat.

No noise. Don’t make people look at you. Besides, if and when he had to deal with that male cat, he didn’t want any two-leg poking into the middle of things.

Shadow trotted along, getting more confused the more he sniffed. He kept catching traces of Old Ones—many Old Ones, more than he’d ever imagined could be in one place.

I lived with an Old One who had many-many cats, he thought. Could the She live here with many-many Old Ones?

He had no answer. You could never tell what those two-leggity types got up to.

Now he didn’t just smell Old Ones, he heard them . . . and saw them, too. They sat in chairs and couches in a large room. Some even sat on chairs that rolled! Many of them were females, making cooing noises and reaching out to him. One even got up from a chair and tottered toward him, trying to pick him up.

When he lived with the Old One and all the cats, some of them would fawn and let themselves be petted to get more food. Shadow never sank so low, no matter how hungry he felt. Not that petting was a bad thing. He quite liked it when Sunny stroked his fur. But these grabbing hands . . . Shadow ducked and dodged, finding himself beside one of those chairs with big wheels. A bony, gnarled hand landed on his back. He almost flew into the air, darting away and then skidding to a stop under one of the strange chairs with wheels.

He shuddered a little, trying to get his fur to lie flat again. And then the chair began to move. Crouching low, he slunk along with it, peeking skittishly forward, back, and side to side through the wires of the big wheels. Nervous as he was, he couldn’t control his tail. It kept lashing around as if it had a mind of its own—putting itself in danger from the rolling wheels and passing feet.

His mobile piece of cover moved into another room, small and rather crowded. Now there were feet standing all around him.

That was bad enough. But then Shadow had to swallow a real yowl of fright, sinking down to cling to the floor below him. That just meant he felt the vibrations even more strongly.

Shadow knew he’d gone faster, riding with Sunny and even the Old One. On the way to this place, crouched in the back of the Old One’s truck, he’d felt the wind from their motion ruffling his fur. No, moving wasn’t the problem. It was the fact that a whole room full of people had suddenly decided to move upward like a bird.