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entirely to let them work at exacting jobs where . . .”
    Art had become adept at tuning Phyllis out when she got going on her soap box. Betty was right. Vik did deserve compassion. From the recent stories on the front page of the
Hamilton Spectator
, it was clear he’d been having a year filled with misery and irony. His son — the only survivor of the car crash that had killed Vik’s wife and daughters back in Yugoslavia — had been locked up for months in a Mexican prison, awaiting trial on drug charges. According to the
Spectator
, the young man claimed he was innocent, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the news stories left one wondering what a young fellow was doing in Juarez, a city known more for drug deals than the tourist trade. No one at Camelot, not even Phyllis, had dared ask Vik for clarification.
    No matter where the truth lay, Vik hadn’t been himself for a long time. Art hoped that hadn’t translated into any cock-ups with their medications. Except for Phyllis, almost everyone at Camelot took close to two dozen tablets a day, in a dizzying array of shapes, colours, and sizes. It was impossible to keep track of them all, especially when your eyesight wasn’t what it used to be.
    Art glanced around the room at his fellow residents, dozing and reading and chatting, trusting that people like Gus, Gloria, and Vik were taking care of them. He did his best to wave away a terrible thought by thumbing his notebook in search of a morale-rousing tune. But the thought kept coming back to him: if Vik, distracted by his son’s tribulations, put the wrong pills into their easy-open blister packs, they’d never know it.

CHAPTER 7
    At five p.m. on Thursday, Zol slid into his regular spot at the Nitty Gritty Café and caught the eyes of Colleen, Natasha, and Hamish, already sipping their lattes. It had been a long, painful wait — forty-eight hours — for the results of the Camelot samples they’d taken on Tuesday. Yesterday and today he’d thrown himself into the countless other matters stacked on his desk and in his email inbox, but found himself bracing at every knock at the door. He’d convinced himself the RCMP were on their way with orders from the Party’s faithful to give his investigation some muscle.
    â€œThanks for coming, everyone,” he said. “I know you’ve all put in a long workday already. I’m pleased to say that Dr. Trinnock is still in full support of your participation in solving what he calls
our situation
.” His boss had even told him to offer the team a light supper at the health unit’s expense. Nothing like the Prime Minister breathing down the old guy’s neck to get Trinnock to loosen the purse strings.
    â€œDon’t tell me he approves of my involvement,” said Colleen brightly, her hazel eyes dancing along with the glass-bead earrings she’d worn the first time he realized he was falling in love with her.
    â€œDoes he know she’s a —” Hamish coughed, and his voice descended into the raspy whisper that appeared whenever he was anxious. “— you know, a private investigator?”
    â€œGeez, Hamish,” said Zol. “Colleen has professional skills just like the rest of us.” He gave Colleen a reassuring smile. “And they come in very handy.” Trinnock had no idea that Colleen was a private eye. She was on the books as a consultant to the health unit and that was good enough.
    â€œOkay,” Zol began. “Natasha is going to give us an update. Thanks to Hamish, we got the microbiology lab at Caledonian University Medical Centre to process our samples in record time.” Normally, public-health specimens had to be sent to the government laboratory in Toronto. The people there worked at their own glacial pace, then reported their results by pony express. “What about the soup? Did it give us our pathogen?”
    Natasha bit her