“We bumped into Luke Daconto in the corridor,” she told Ollie. “He was bringing his guitar to that sing-along thing he does, and he specifically asked me to invite you to come. Would you like to go?”
Ollie shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I’m already in the wheelchair, and Judge Judy is just about over.”
Sunny took command of the chair and wheeled Ollie toward the solarium. Will walked alongside. As they came closer, they heard Luke noodling away on the strings, one of those snatches of songs he did between sing-alongs.
“That’s the intro to ‘California Dreamin’,’” Ollie said, glancing up at Will.
“You really know your music.” This was a side of Ollie that Sunny had never seen before. Luke was happy to see them arrive, his white teeth showing through his beard in a smile.
“Since we have a couple of guys here today, what do you say we go with something more manly?” Luke strummed his way into “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” and Ollie picked it up immediately. His singing voice was deep and surprisingly powerful.
“Let’s take it around again,” Luke said, still strumming. Now everybody in the room was singing, even the lady who Sunny had previously seen just beating the time with her hand. When she heard Will chime in, Sunny smiled.
The song ended to rousing applause. “Good singing,” Luke complimented the group, then looked over at Ollie. “Very good singing, Ollie.”
Ollie grinned a little awkwardly, patting his belly. “Back in the day, they used to tell me I had an opera singer’s diaphragm.”
“I wish I had that,” Luke confessed. “Some gigs I’ve played, I’ve gone hoarse trying to put a song over to a crowd that’s busy talking.”
He played a couple more moldy oldies that Sunny’s grandfather would have known, then he swung into a completely unexpected rendition of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” complete with a phony Scots accent. The older members of the audience fumbled with the song, but picked up on the chorus. Ollie enjoyed bouncing his voice off Luke’s.
For a finale, Luke suggested that Sunny, Ollie, and Will try a little harmony on “You Are My Sunshine” while the others sang as a chorus. It took a little while for Ollie to learn to moderate his voice, but when he did, the song sounded pretty decent.
“Thank you, everybody,” Luke told the group. “Really great job.”
The little old lady who tapped in time to the music turned to Ollie. “You really have a beautiful voice. Do you sing in a choir?”
“Uh, no,” Ollie replied, abashed. “I just sing for fun.”
The ladies started moving off in their walkers and wheelchairs, but Will approached Luke as he put his guitar in its case.
“It’s pretty sad, what happened to Ollie’s roomie,” Will said. “And it just seemed to happen out of the blue.”
“Yeah.” Luke kept his eyes on the case, making sure the clasps snapped shut. “That’s the thing about strokes. You never expect them.”
“Sunny was pretty shocked to get the news. She’d been visiting with Gardner that afternoon, and he seemed his usual self.”
Sunny wanted to give Will a kick, but she followed his lead, giving Luke a sad look.
“You saw him pretty often,” Will went on. “Did you think he was getting better?”
Luke looked up from his guitar case to meet Will’s eyes. “I’m a music therapist, so I’m not the guy to talk to about Gardner’s physical progress. You should talk to Jack and Elsa about that—or even Dr. Gavrik. All I can say is that I’m glad that Gardner seemed happy in the time before he passed away.”
“But he didn’t seem weaker or sicker lately, did he?” Will pressed.
Luke looked from Will to Sunny and back. “Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that we had an odd conversation with Gardner’s nephew, Alfred.”
“Ah.” It was hard to tell with that big, bushy beard, but Sunny thought she caught a brief flicker of distaste from Luke at the mention of Alfred’s name.
“Yeah, he talked a lot about the Scatterwell name and the Scatterwell fortune, going to the right schools and knowing the right people.” Luke’s lips definitely twisted under all that facial fur.
“But he didn’t really talk much about his uncle, except for the inheritance,” Will continued.
“I don’t think they got on that well.” Luke could only shake his head. “It’s a shame, really. From what I heard, it’s not as though they had a lot of relatives.”
“I guess family feeling doesn’t mean much to Alfred.” Will watched Luke carefully as he said, “He just had his uncle cremated, barely a day after Gardner died. We went over to see Alfred, and he already had the little box in the middle of his living room table.”
“That’s . . . kind of quick, isn’t it?” Luke looked as though he wanted to say something else but reconsidered it.
“We thought the same thing. Makes us wonder if Alfred was covering up anything that might have happened to Gardner. I heard you were around kind of late that night. Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”
“I saw a lot of paper that night.” Luke gave them a sheepish look. “Playing guitar and singing with the residents is the fun part of the job. But I also work with a lot of people, getting them to play simple instruments. We have a bell chorus, and other musical programs, and I’m supposed to write reports on all of it.”
He shrugged, patting his guitar case. “I’m a music maker, not a report writer, so I’m usually pretty far behind. But this new administrator is very results oriented. A little bird told me that if I didn’t get up to date, there’d be trouble. So when I finished the day’s work, I holed up in an office and ground out the paperwork to make Dr. Reese happy.” Luke grimaced. “I put in, like, a whole extra shift on that nonsense. Didn’t get done until sometime after midnight. I was glad to get home—my neck was hurting from bending over the computer keyboard.” He sighed. “And then I heard about Gardner.”
“Did you do a report about him?” Sunny asked.
Luke’s reply was a sad laugh. “No. Gardner was a freebie. I’m supposed to work with the permanent residents, keep their spirits up over the long haul. Gardner wasn’t a client.” Luke paused for a long moment. “He was a friend.”
9
“Gardner will be missed,” Ollie said as Luke hefted his guitar case.
Luke smiled and patted Ollie on the shoulder with his free hand. “I know, Mr. Barnstable. Just hang in there. Try and sing a little more.”
“Thanks, Luke,” Ollie said. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“I hope I’ll see you, too,” Sunny said, earning herself a look from Will.
Luke headed off with his guitar, and Will went to take the handles of Ollie’s wheelchair. But Ollie waved him off. “What the hell were you doing?” he demanded in a low, venomous voice. “Why were you giving that kid the third degree?”
“For one thing, that was hardly the third degree,” Will replied. “I just asked him a couple of questions. We know he was here late, after lights-out, which is when you told us Gardner had his mystery visitor.”
Ollie looked as though he wanted to argue but was aware that he was awfully short of ammunition.
“Second, at this point our strongest suspect is Alfred Scatterwell. So I wanted to see how Luke felt about Alfred, how he’d react when I talked about him, especially the cremation. I’ll admit I hit him a little hard, but I hoped to shock a reaction out of him.”
“And did you get what you needed?” Ollie asked.
Will’s expression changed a little. “I’m not sure. He was a tad off, not forthcoming. I think Luke was going to say something, but changed his mind.”
“Maybe he was going to curse out Alfred,” Ollie suggested, “but didn’t because Sunny was here.”