Chapter 14 #2
“I check on her about once a month,” Owen said, though he frowned at the question.
“Sometimes more often if Porter calls and says she’s having a particularly difficult stretch.
I bring her supplements. Vitamins, mostly.
She doesn’t eat the way she should, and the nutritional gaps are significant.
I’ve been giving her over-the-counter vitamins and mineral supplements to fill in what her diet doesn’t provide.
A multivitamin and a jar of vitamin D, because she doesn’t get enough sunlight and she barely eats anything green. ”
“Mr. Pruitt, someone close to the situation has suggested that Gwenyth may be receiving prescription medications without a physician’s involvement. Are you aware of anything like that?”
Owen’s brow furrowed, and he leaned forward in the recliner as though he hadn’t heard her correctly. There was no stiffening, no defensiveness. Just confusion.
“Prescription medications? From whom?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t from me.” Owen shook his head. “I’m retired. I haven’t filled a prescription in over eight years. I don’t have prescribing authority, anyway. We dispense what a physician orders.”
He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The accusation had landed, and he wasn’t pleased with the turn of events. The pencil had rolled off the armrest and onto the carpet, but he didn’t reach for it.
“I bring that woman vitamins. That’s it. If someone is giving her something else, I don’t know about it, and frankly, that concerns me a great deal.”
There was no rehearsal in his response. No controlled delivery, no measured breathing, no careful selection of words.
Owen Pruitt was rattled, and not in the way a guilty man gets flustered when he’s been found out.
This was a man who had just been told that someone might be harming a person he cared about, and who was trying to process that information in real time.
“Who else visits Gwenyth regularly?” Sylvie asked.
Owen put his glasses back on and thought for a moment.
“Porter is there every day, obviously. Dale stops in when it suits him, though that’s been more frequent since the guardianship filing.
Cal Brennan, I’m sure. And a few others from town check in from time to time, I’m sure.
Nestor had friends who felt an obligation to look after his daughter after he vanished. Not many, but a few.”
“Could any of them have been providing her with something beyond vitamins?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Owen seemed to be at a loss.
“I only visit once a month. I’m not there to see what happens the rest of the time.
But if someone has been giving Gwenyth medications that are contributing to her symptoms rather than treating them, that would change everything I thought I understood about her condition. ”
The implications were working through him in real time.
If Gwenyth’s confusion, her hallucinations, her erratic behavior weren’t the result of dementia or psychosis but rather the product of something she was being given, then the woman Owen had been advocating to place in a facility might not be ill at all.
She might be a victim.
“One more question,” Sylvie tacked on. “Do you think Gwenyth is capable of making decisions for herself?”
Owen exhaled through his nose and directed his attention toward the window, where the afternoon light was falling across the carpet in long, warm stripes. The dog had returned from the kitchen and settled at his feet, his brown eyes half-closed, oblivious to the conversation.
“I thought I knew the answer to that question,” Owen replied quietly. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
Sylvie stood, extending her hand. Owen rose from the recliner and returned the gesture. She’d gotten what she’d come for and more.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Pruitt. If I have follow-up questions, I’ll be in touch.”
“Please do.” Owen held her hand a moment longer than necessary. “And if you find out that someone has been medicating that woman without her knowledge, I want to know. I may be retired, but I can tell you exactly what it is and what it’s doing to her.”
Nancy emerged from the kitchen to walk Sylvie to the door.
The baking smell was stronger now, something with cinnamon, and the warmth of it followed Sylvie through the narrow foyer and out onto the front step.
She thanked Nancy as she stepped onto the front walk.
The flag beside the door stirred in a breeze that hadn’t been there when Sylvie had arrived.
She made her way to the SUV.
She’d learned two important things today. The first was that Dale Ellingham had been sharing case details freely, which meant their window of discretion had effectively closed. The second was that Owen Pruitt wasn’t the person medicating Gwenyth.
His confusion had been genuine.
His concern had been real.
And his final answer about Gwenyth's capacity was that of a man beginning to wonder if he'd been wrong about her all along. But if Owen wasn’t the one providing the medications, someone else was. Someone who visited the estate regularly and who had a reason to keep her confused enough that she couldn’t clearly remember what had happened on that property thirty years ago.