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you’re thinking and don’t ask,
then squared his shoulders and turned to Natasha.
    â€œListeria is a bacterium, of course,” Hamish told her in his professorial voice. “It lives harmlessly in the gut until it sneaks into the bloodstream of anyone with a depressed immune system and causes —”
    â€œIt’s okay, Hamish. Natasha knows all about listeria.”
    It bothered Zol that Hamish patronized Natasha because she wasn’t a physician. In many ways she was better than an MD. She was committed to the job without pretence or ego. Since starting at the health unit two years ago, she’d proven herself repeatedly, but Hamish didn’t get it.
    â€œIn fact,” Zol continued, “your hospital lab reported both those cases to us.” Doctors, hospitals, and laboratories were required by law to report every listeria case to their local health unit. “And with all that diarrhea going on at Camelot, we looked into them carefully.”
    â€œThere’d been no reports of listeria at Camelot Lodge in the previous five years,” Natasha added, her face the picture of sincerity. “And we verified that Gus and Gloria were following Ministry of Health guidelines about not serving deli meats to seniors.”
    Listeria was notorious for contaminating cold cuts then infecting the frail, the pregnant, and the elderly. It was one of those quirks of clinical medicine, a food-borne illness that didn’t cause vomiting or diarrhea. The germ went in for the big kill — bloodstream infection complicated by shock, meningitis, and organ failure.
    Hamish swept the crumbs from the scone he had ordered into his napkin and folded the paper into a perfect square. He placed it on his plate. “So what’s the explanation for all that food-borne illness at the Lodge if there’s nothing wrong with the food? Is it the water? The staff? The cutlery? The china? A faulty dishwasher? A wonky fridge? A resident with a grudge? You’ve got to check out everything.”
    â€œOkay, okay,” said Zol, exchanging glances with Natasha. “We know the drill. Been through it already.” Hamish’s input had been disappointing. No new ideas to chew on. “We’ll go in again. Find what we’ve missed, one way or another.”
    â€œTry going in unannounced,” said Hamish. “Catch them before they have time to clean up their indiscretions.” He paused, as though struck by an idea. “You know, when I was there giving all those rabies shots, the old folks were always dunking their doughnuts in their coffee. I thought it had something to do with their teeth. But I tried a couple of honey glazed. Darn things were hard as rocks.”
    â€œArt Greenwood says the doughnuts at Camelot must have fallen off an ox cart, back in biblical times,” Zol said. “He and his pal Earl only eat them when they’re desperate. Usually, they send their friend Phyllis Wedderspoon out to Tim’s for fresh ones. In her Lincoln.”
    Zol had told Art to ask Gloria to bring in fresher doughnuts, but Art was afraid of upsetting her. Beneath Gloria’s smarmy smile was a tyrant. Zol could see how the residents wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her, not when she lived on site and was watching them twenty-four hours a day. Gloria’s husband, Gus, was another matter. He always seemed to have a genuinely happy grin on his face. Nothing was too much trouble for him, and he appeared incapable of passing judgment. Art said the residents loved the way he always called them Mister and Miss. A few times Zol had seen Gus look uneasily at Gloria, as if he knew the consequences of provoking her fury. Surely, he would stand up to her if he thought she were placing the residents at risk.
    â€œGus and Gloria are definitely getting their baked goods on the cheap,” Hamish said. “Through a back door someplace. If they were younger and dressed like