“I can’t say—but he did censor himself about something,” Will said.
No one had anything else to add, so they just talked around the subject, making mundane conversation as they rolled along to Room 114. Once they were inside, Ollie said, “Sunny, could you call for an aide? I’ll need some help getting back into bed.”
She did as Ollie asked, and moments later, Camille the aide came in.
“Why don’t you give us a couple of minutes while I get Mr. Barnstable straightened away here,” she suggested.
Sunny and Will stepped out into the hallway, where Will proceeded to give her the fish eye. “What’s the idea of you telling that Daconto guy you hoped to see him again?”
For a guy who’d rather spend a weekend getting sunburned than going out with me, he’s pretty quick on the jealousy trigger, she thought, but decided it wasn’t worth going into that. Instead, she said, “Luke’s one of the nicer people in this place. I’d definitely rather see him again than, say, Dr. Reese.” She shuddered. “Or Dr. Gavrik. She can really be nasty.”
“I’ve been thinking of the good doctor,” Will said. “Specifically, what Rafe the guard had to say about the way she turned up on the night Gardner died.”
“That’s right—he thought she’d been flying. She didn’t change her clothes, which is weird because any flight into Pease would have gotten her home hours before she was paged.” Using her tourist-information knowledge, Sunny considered other nearby airports. “Portland doesn’t have any red-eye flights. The latest arrival there is before midnight. Maybe Boston?” Sunny frowned. “Of course, maybe she flew in a lot earlier and was hanging around someplace. Otherwise, Logan Airport would have the latest flights in the area. Wherever she came from, Gavrik rode in a town car. Maybe that could tell us something.”
He nodded. “I’ve got an old buddy from my state trooper days who moved over to the Boston Police. Suppose I ask him to check the car services down there and see if any of them made a run from, say, Logan to Bridgewater? It’s almost a hundred-mile trip, so that should make it a fare to remember.”
“That’s a good idea,” Sunny replied. “No way am I confronting that woman without something I can hit her over the head with. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“On the other hand, Rafe might have a reason to try and distract us with the doctor,” Will said. “We’re getting to the end of our first full day here; that means only six to go. Time keeps ticking away.”
She nodded. “Much as I’d like to concentrate on Obnoxious Alfred—or the nasty doctor—we still have other people to question. I’m going to tackle Elsa Hogue tomorrow. And I think I should do it. Sounds like she had a hard enough time with Gardner. I think she’d react better to a sympathetic female ear.”
“Fine with me,” Will said. “I’ll spend the night going over those attendance lists that Rafe copied up.” He smiled, but with a little malice. “You can play with your cat.”
They went to sign out. Rafe nodded his good-bye, but Portia was more demonstrative, jumping onto the top of the desk and rubbing her face against Sunny’s shoulders.
When Will and Sunny stepped out of the rest home, they discovered that the weather had changed. A dome of dead air, hot and soggy, had settled over the area. Merely getting from the grand doors of Bridgewater Hall to Will’s pickup left Sunny’s suit wilted and sticking to her. Will yanked off his coat and opened the top two buttons of his shirt.
“Now I remember why I didn’t wear this outfit later than the end of May.” Sunny caught the front of her knit top between her thumb and forefinger and tried to pull it away. It still felt plastered to her. Will moved on ahead, climbing into the cab of the pickup, starting up the engine, and closing the windows. Sunny joined him to find the air-conditioning on, but not making much headway against the warm air trapped inside. They didn’t do well against traffic, either.
When they got onto the interstate, the usually brief ride seemed to drag on forever.
At last they turned onto Wild Goose Drive and followed the gently curving road to Sunny’s house. She thanked Will for the ride, and mentioned she’d take her Wrangler tomorrow. “Maybe we’ll be able to cover a little more territory.”
Will nodded. “You want to talk to the Hogue woman. I’ll see if I can get in touch with my friend in Boston tonight.”
“I’ll also talk to Mrs. Martinson again and see if she can come up with any dirt on Alfred Scatterwell . . . and Henry Reese.” Sunny paused for a moment. “Are any of your police friends veterans? Recent veterans, I mean? Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a picture of what Rafe Warner is like when he’s not behind the security desk at Bridgewater Hall.”
Will slowly nodded. “That’s probably something we should follow up. I’ll try to talk to some of the guys tomorrow. And you were right—we should have hit Ollie for expense money. Coffee and doughnuts don’t come cheap.”
They waved good-bye, and Sunny made her way through the thick air into the house. She could feel the air-conditioning on in the living room. When she looked in, she found Mike half-lying on the couch, his eyes closed, looking like a wrung-out washrag.
“I got caught in this lousy weather and got home as fast as I could,” he complained. “For a while there I wasn’t sure if I was breathing or sipping water through a straw.”
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Sunny asked worriedly.
“Yeah, I just feel tired,” Mike told her. “Give me a little more time here in the cold air to revive.”
Sunny went up to her room to peel off her suit. She left it on the bed and quickly changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.
When she returned downstairs, she found Mike watching the end of the weather report on television news. “It’s going to be miserable like this tomorrow,” he reported. “Maybe I’ll try to get in an early walk, or go up and do it in one of the malls. Otherwise, I think I’m going to stick close to home.”
“I wish I could do that, too,” Sunny said. One thing was certain—no dressing up tomorrow. A nice tee and a pair of light cotton pants would have to do.
She looked around the room. “Where’s Shadow?”
“He got out of here when it started getting cool. Maybe he decided it was unnatural to have that kind of indoor weather in summertime.” Mike shrugged. “You’d think he’d be happy for a chance to enjoy some cool air, stuck in a fur coat the way he is.” He gestured vaguely toward the rear of the house. “Try the kitchen.”
But when Sunny arrived there, she didn’t see Shadow, not even on top of the refrigerator, where she’d expected to discover the cat hiding out.
Looking in the fridge, Sunny shook her head. They were running low on supplies. But even her brief exposure to the weather had killed her appetite, and she was willing to bet her dad felt the same way, too. She gathered a large can of tuna from the bottom shelf, a Vidalia onion, and an avocado that had been taking its sweet time getting ripe. She chopped up some of the onion and mashed the other ingredients together with some lemon juice, a hint of oil, and a shake of pepper. After washing some romaine leaves, she arranged them on two plates and then scooped a healthy dollop of the tuna-avocado mixture in the middle.
Although Mike praised the salad—after first asking, “What is that?”—he just nibbled, making the most of the saltless saltines Sunny had added to the table, and drinking a couple of glasses of seltzer. To be honest, Sunny didn’t do too much better.
She kept checking for Shadow, looking toward the entrance to the kitchen, down the hallway and the foot of the stairs, even out the screen door, which she began to suspect Shadow had learned somehow to manipulate. If so, he’d be in trouble now. They’d shut the storm door to keep the air-conditioning in. Finally, Sunny tried the ultimate Shadow lure, getting up and rattling some cans of cat food together. But the cat declined to appear.