“Who was that?”
He sighed. “Sam Bailey.”
I went up on one elbow. “Sam Bailey? What on earth was he calling you for?”
Sam Bailey was the local chief of police. Alec had retired over a year ago from the police force because of him. The guy could be a control freak, and Alec had had enough.
He sighed and closed his eyes. “Richard Thomas is in a coma, and they don’t expect him to come out of it.”
I sighed. “He didn’t look good when they wheeled him out of here. What did he say was wrong with him?”
He shook his head, his eyes still closed. “They found a large amount of a sulfonylurea in his bloodstream.”
“Sulfonylurea? Why does that sound familiar?”
He looked at me. “It’s a diabetes medication.”
“So Richard is diabetic? Jodi said she didn’t know if he was, but if he had that in his system, he must be. Jodi and Lisa said he was having low blood sugar issues. Maybe he felt really bad, and he took too much of his medication?”
“According to Sam, Richard’s mother says that he isn’t diabetic. She has no idea why he would be taking a medication like that.”
I laid back down on my pillow. “So Sam thinks there’s something funny going on?”
He nodded. “He does.”
“And don’t tell me, he wants you to look into it?” When Alec had retired from being a detective on the police force, he had taken the exam to become a private detective. When Sam didn’t have time to look into certain crimes, he would refer them to Alec. So in one way, Alec hadn’t quite gotten rid of Sam Bailey. But because he didn’t actually work for Sam anymore, Sam treated him better than he had when he was on the police force.
“He thinks someone tried to murder Richard, and he would like me to take a look at the case, but I told him we were going on our honeymoon. And besides that, Richard isn’t dead yet. People sometimes recover, even when the doctors don’t think they will.”
Our honeymoon, since we hadn’t had much time to plan it, was just driving up and down the eastern coast and stopping in a few quaint towns along the way. It wasn’t fancy, but it was something we were looking forward to.
“And what did you tell him?”
He sighed. “I didn’t give him an answer one way or another. I told him I would talk to him later today.”
I groaned. “But we’re supposed to be leaving for our honeymoon.”
He turned and looked at me. “Do you want me to turn it down?”
I thought about this for a moment. Our wedding had been disrupted by what might turn out to be a murder. Knowing this would drive me nuts. “I suppose we could put the honeymoon off for a couple of days. Just to give you enough time to look into things and maybe determine if it really was murder.” I turned and looked at him. “I hope it wasn’t murder. I feel so bad that he passed out at our wedding reception.”
He smiled and leaned over, kissing me on the nose. “You worry too much about things.”
I nodded. “I know. I do.”
***
When I got showered and dressed, I went to the kitchen and made some coffee for us. I opened up the refrigerator and saw the leftovers from the reception, as well as the bottom layer of the wedding cake. I had wrapped up the top layer and stuck it in the freezer for our first anniversary, and there was a lot of cake left. I might have overdone it on the size of the cake. I sighed and shut the refrigerator as the coffee maker brewed away. There was a knock at the door, and I went to answer it.
“Good morning, Allie,” Lucy said, standing on my doorstep. She had a basket in her hands. “I thought I’d bring you a little something for your trip.”
I smiled and stepped back. “That’s sweet of you, Lucy. I was just making some coffee, let’s go have a cup.”
We headed into the kitchen, and she set the basket on the kitchen table. “It’s just some snacks and things for your trip so that you don’t have to stop when you get hungry unless you really want to.”
“That’s so thoughtful. We will appreciate that when we go on our trip,” I said. “Thank you.” I got out three coffee cups from the cupboard and set them down on the counter. Alec was finishing dressing, and he was going to head down to the police station. I turned and looked at Lucy. “I have to tell you something.”
She looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “Oh? What’s that?”
“Sam Bailey thinks that someone attempted to murder Richard Thomas.”
She gasped. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. “Yes, sulfonylurea. It’s a diabetic medication.”
She nodded. “Ed used to take that for his diabetes, but his doctor stopped prescribing it a few years ago. There are safer medications out there now.”
“Really? So that medication isn’t that safe?”
She nodded. “I was under the impression that doctors didn’t like to prescribe it as often as they used to. I’m sure some still do, though. So Richard was diabetic?”
I shook my head. “His mother said he wasn’t.”
“What?”
Alec came into the room, and we turned to him. I smiled. “Look who came to visit us,” I told him. “Lucy brought us a basket of goodies to take on our trip.”
He smiled at Lucy and then poured himself a cup of coffee. “Thank you, Lucy. That’s thoughtful of you.”
She
