Page 10 of Trick of Light
“I’ll think about it,” Barnaby growled as he hefted his shovel back into position.
Luke’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it and frowned. “Shit.”
“What?”
“It’s Marigold. Someone else is having an attack like Safiya’s. Coughing up blood, hallucinating. Will you come? You handled the last one.”
Without a word, Barnaby tossed his shovel to the ground and the two of them ran to Luke’s truck.
They found Buzzy O’Keefe on his knees in his potato patch, retching and spitting blood into the dirt. His wife Ruth stood a few feet away, her face as white as the laundry she’d been hanging on her clothesline. They were an older couple who’d been on the island ever since Barnaby could remember.
“Buzzy has heart issues, AFib, but it’s never made him like this,” Ruth said, shaking. She made a quick sign of the cross and muttered something under her breath. “Think it’s some kind of plague?”
“No, nothing like that,” Barnaby reassured her as he helped Buzzy to his feet.
“We need to get him to the wharf,” Luke said. “The fire boat’s going to take him to the hospital.”
In Barnaby’s opinion, that was a mistake. A helicopter would be much faster. But this wasn’t Lightkeeper property, so it wasn’t his call.
“Has he eaten any strange plants lately? Or come into contact with any?” Luke asked her.
“Plants? Why would he eat a plant?”
“Like a vegetable, salad, you know…”
“The only vegetable he eats is a potato, or maybe a carrot. Nothing green.”
Poor Buzzy retched again and moaned something incoherent.
“What about any home remedies?”
Her expression shifted, indignation chasing away the fear. “You’re saying this is my fault?”
“Of course not. I’m just trying to get a picture of what he might have ingested recently.”
“Well, if you want the answer to that, you’ll have to ask the Clambake Grill. He used to spend all his time at the Eyeball, but now it’s the Clambake. He doesn’t like my cooking.” She shrugged. “Just as well by me, since it saves me the time. I can open a can of soup and be happy. You think it’s food poisoning?”
“No,” Luke said quickly. “We don’t know what it is, but please keep this to yourself while we try to figure it out. We don’t need a panic on our hands.”
“I ain’t panicking. He’ll be back in no time gettin’ on my nerves again.”
At least she’d gotten over her shakiness.
After they’d gotten Buzzy onto the fireboat, Barnaby and Luke spent some time reassuring the onlookers that there was no infectious bloody-vomit plague sweeping the island.
“Or maybe there is,” Barnaby murmured to Luke when they were finally headed up the gravel road away from the dock. “Are they a hundred percent sure it isn’t something contagious? You have to admit, the two cases are very similar.”
“All I know is what the hospital said. I’m no doctor.”
The road took them right past the Bloodshot Eyeball, otherwise known as Buzzy’s former hangout. Before fire had destroyed its kitchen, the Eyeball had served the island’s best coffee. Now it was a construction site with a soundtrack of power tools and music blasting over someone’s speaker.
And two women in paint-spattered t-shirts and shorts, grooving to Cardi B as they painted boards laid out on two sawhorses behind the structure.
“I’m going to say hi to Heather, do you mind?” Luke murmured.
“I’ll wait in the truck.”
“Whatever suits you.”
