MARY DAHEIM
Suture
SELF
Contents
ONE
JUDITH GROVER MCMONIGLE Flynn took
one look at the newspaper…
1
TWO
JUDITH’S SURGERY WAS scheduled for
eight-thirty on Monday. Renie’s was…
16
THREE
IT WAS ALMOST a quarter of an hour
before
the…
33
FOUR
NO ONE HAD died by morning. Judith awoke
after
a…
49
FIVE
JUDITH WASN’T SURPRISED by Addison
Kirby’s declaration. It only confirmed…
68
SIX
JOE AND BILL arrived shortly after
three o’clock. Both had…
87
SEVEN
TEN MINUTES LATER, Dr. Garnett surprised
the cousins with a professional…
99
EIGHT
“HOW,” JUDITH DEMANDED, “does a car
that’s in for service…
118
NINE
“WHAT ELSE AM I supposed to do while I’m
lying…
137
TEN
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, breakfast
was again palatable.Dr. Ming and
Dr.
Alfonso…
150
ELEVEN
BOB JR. HAD scarcely been gone more than
a few seconds…
167
TWELVE
UNFORTUNATELY, BOTH JUDITH and
Renie began to suffer considerable pain…
187
THIRTEEN
THE WHEELCHAIR SAILED into Addison
Kirby’s room and bumped up…
206
FOURTEEN
HEATHER CHINN CAME running. It wasn’t
Renie’s insistent buzzer or…
222
FIFTEEN
“SO,” RENIE SAID after Judith had finished
speaking to Woody…
238
SIXTEEN
JUDITH WILLED HERSELF not to faint
twice in one day,…
251
SEVENTEEN
“I FOUND MR. FLYNN,” Margie Randall
announced with a triumphant expression.
267
EIGHTEEN
“MOM! WHAT’S WRONG?”
282
NINETEEN
RENIE WAS AMAZED by Judith’s theory.
She was even more…
294
TWENTY
JUDITH LET OUT a terrible cry of anguish.
Joe
tried…
308
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ONE
JUDITH GROVER MCMONIGLE Flynn took one look at
the newspaper headline, released the brake on her
wheelchair, and rolled into the kitchen.
“I’m not sure it’s safe to go into the hospital,” she
said to her husband, Joe Flynn. “Look at this.”
Joe, who had just come in through the back door,
hung his all-weather jacket on a peg in the hallway
and stared at the big, bold front-page headline.
ACTRESS DIES FOLLOWING ROUTINE SURGERY
John Fremont Succumbs After Minor Foot Operation
“Who’s John Fremont?” Joe asked after kissing
his wife on the cheek. “The explorer? No wonder he
wrecked his feet, going over all those mountains.
Huh. I thought he was already dead.”
“He’s been dead for over a hundred years,” Judith
replied. “It’s a—”
“A shame the local newspaper doesn’t jump on
those stories faster,” Joe interrupted. “What’s
Queen Victoria up to this week?”
Judith made a face at Joe. “It’s a typo,” she said
in a testy voice. “It’s supposed to be Joan Fremont.
See, there it is in the lead. You know who she is—
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we’ve seen her in several local stage productions. She
is—was—a wonderful actress.”
Joe frowned as he read deeper into the story. “Jeez,
don’t these people proofread anymore?”
“That’s not my point,” Judith asserted. “That’s the
second well-known person in three weeks to peg out at
Good Cheer Hospital. I’m getting scared to go in next
Monday for my hip replacement.”
Joe opened the cupboard and got out a bottle of
Scotch. “You mean Somosa, the pitcher? That’s no
mystery. He was probably full of amphetamines.” With
an air of apology, Joe gestured with the bottle. “Sorry,
I hate to drink in front of you, but I spent ten hours sitting on my butt for that damned insurance stakeout.”
“Never mind.” Judith sighed with a martyred air that
would have made her Aunt Deb proud. “I’m used to
sacrifice and self-denial. After a month in this stupid
wheelchair and taking all those pain pills, I suppose I
should be looking forward to surgery and getting back
to a normal life. How’d the stakeout go?”
“It didn’t,” Joe replied, dumping ice cubes into a
glass. “The guy didn’t budge from his sofa except to go
to the can. Then he used a walker. Maybe he’s legit.
The insurance company expected him to play a set of
tennis or jump over high hurdles or do the rumba. I
hate these alleged insurance-fraud assignments.”
“They pay well,” Judith pointed out, giving the
amber liquid in Joe’s glass a longing look.
“Oh, yeah,” Joe agreed, sitting down at the kitchen
table. “We can use the money with the B&B shut down
for five weeks. I’m expensive to keep, and you’re not
delivering.”
Teasing or not, the comment nettled Judith. Just
after Christmas, her right hip had deteriorated to the
SUTURE SELF
3
point that she’d been confined to a wheelchair. With
the help of Joe and their neighbors, Carl and Arlene
Rankers, Judith had managed to keep Hillside Manor
running smoothly through the holidays. But Carl and
Arlene had left the day after New Year’s for a vacation
in Palm Desert. And even though Joe was retired from
the police force, his part-time private investigations
had become almost a full-time job. It had been a difficult decision for Judith, but she had been forced to cancel all reservations for the first ten days of January,
until the Rankerses’ return. Her only consolation was
that the days in question were the slowest time of the
year for the Bed-and-Breakfast industry.
“We’ve lost at least four grand,” Judith said in a morose tone.
Joe gave a slight shake of his head. “Dubious. The
weather around here this winter isn’t exactly enticing
to visitors.”
Judith glanced up at the window over the kitchen
sink. It was raining. It seemed to have been raining for
months. Fifty degrees and raining. No sun breaks, no
snow, just relentless rain and gloomy, glowering skies.
Day after day of gray, gray, and grayer. Even a Pacific
Northwest native like Judith had an occasional hankering for a patch of blue sky.
“People still visit people,” Judith said, unwilling to
let herself be cheered.
Joe gave a solemn shake of his head. “Not in January. Everybody’s broke.”
“Including us,” Judith said. “Because of me. Renie
and Bill are broke, too,” she added, referring to her
cousin and her cousin’s husband. “Renie can’t work
with her bad shoulder. This is the busiest time of year
for her, with all the annual reports. She usually designs
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Mary Daheim
at least a half-dozen, which means big bucks. She’s out
of commission until March.”
“When’s her surgery?” Joe inquired.
“A week after mine,” Judith replied. “We’ll be like
ships passing in the night. Or should I say sinking?”
Judith emitted another heavy sigh as she rolled over to
the sink and took a Percocet. Then she took another
Percocet. It couldn’t hurt. Besides, she ached twice as
much as she had the day before.
As a distraction, Judith read the rest of the story
about Joan Fremont. The actress had been admitted to
Good Cheer Hospital the previous day. Her surgery,
pronounced successful, had been performed that afternoon. But at ten-thirty this morning, Joan had died
suddenly and without warning. She left behind two
grown children and her husband, Addison Kirby, the
city hall reporter for the evening newspaper.
“No wonder her name got misspelled,” Judith remarked. “Joan’s husband works for the paper. The staff
must be shaken by her death.”
“Oh?” Joe raised rust-colored eyebrows above the
sports section. “Kirby, huh? I’ve run into him a few
times at city hall. Nice guy, but strictly business.”
Judith put the newspaper’s front section down on the
table. “They’ll investigate, I assume?”
“Oh, sure,” Joe responded, his gaze back on the
sports page. “They did with Joaquin Somosa, they will
with Joan Fremont. It’s automatic when someone relatively young and in otherwise good health dies in a hospital. The county medical examiner has jurisdiction.”
“That makes sense,” Judith said as she rolled to the
stove. “I made beef-noodle bake. It’s almost done. I’ve
fixed a salad and there are some rolls I’ll heat up. Then
you can take Mother’s portion out to the toolshed.”
SUTURE SELF
5
Joe grimaced. “Can’t I phone it in to her?”
“Joe . . .” Judith stopped. Serving Gertrude’s meals
was a bone of contention since Judith had become
wheelchair-bound. Joe Flynn and Gertrude Grover
didn’t get along. An understatement, Judith thought.
How else to put it? If duels were still legal, they would
have skewered each other by the birdbath a long time
ago.
The phone rang just as Judith slipped the foilwrapped rolls into the oven. Fumbling a bit, she pulled
the cordless receiver out of the gingham pocket on her
wheelchair.
“Coz?” said Renie, who sounded excited. “Guess
what.”
“What? Make it quick, I’ve got my head in the
oven.”
“Coz!” Renie cried. “Nothing’s that bad! Hang in
there, you’re only a few days away from surgery.
You’ll be fine.”
“I mean I’m trying to put dinner together,” Judith
said, sounding cross. Her usual easygoing manner had
begun to fray in recent weeks.
“Oh.” Renie paused. “Good. I mean . . . Never mind.
I called to tell you that Dr. Ming’s office just phoned to
say that they’d had a surgery cancellation on Monday
and I can go in a whole week early. Isn’t that great?
We’ll be in the hospital together.”
Judith brightened. “Really? That’s wonderful.” She
paused. “I think.”
“You think?” Now Renie sounded annoyed. “We
could share a room. We could encourage each other’s
recovery. We could make fun of the hospital staff and
the other patients. We could have some laughs.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Judith said as she closed the
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Mary Daheim
oven door. “It’s just that . . . Have you seen tonight’s
paper?”
“Ours hasn’t come yet,” Renie replied. “You know
we always have a later delivery on this side of Heraldsgate Hill.”
“Well,” Judith began, then caught Joe’s warning
glance. “It’s nothing, really. You can see for yourself
when the paper comes.”
“Coz.” Renie sounded stern. “Tell me now or I’ll
have to hit you with my good arm. You can’t run away
from me, remember?”
Judith sighed. “There’s been another unexpected
death at Good Cheer Hospital. Joan Fremont, the actress.”
“Joan Fremont!” Renie shrieked. “Oh, no! Wait till I
tell Bill. I think he’s always had a crush on her. What
happened?”
Ignoring Joe’s baleful look, Judith picked up the
front section of the paper and read the story to Renie.
“That’s terrible,” Renie responded in a shocked
voice. “She was so talented. And young. Well—
younger than we are. A little bit, anyway. She’d probably had work done, being an actress.”
“That’s two deaths in three weeks,” Judith noted.
“Joaquin Somosa,” Renie murmured. “Younger still.
Elbow surgery. Supposed to be healed by the All-Star
break.”
“Won’t,” Judith said, suddenly feeling light-headed.
“Dead instead.”
“This is scary,” Renie declared. “Do you suppose we
should ask Dr. Ming and Dr. Alfonso to operate on us
in the privacy of our own automobiles?”
Judith started to respond, but just then the back door
banged open. Gertrude Grover stood in the hallway,
SUTURE SELF
7
leaning on her walker and wearing a very old and
slightly shabby wool coat over her head. Worse yet, Judith saw two of her. Maybe she should have taken only
one Percocet.
“Where’s my supper?” Gertrude demanded, thumping the walker on the floor for emphasis.
Judith spoke into the phone. “Gotta go. Mother’s
here.” She rang off. “I’m heating the rolls,” Judith said
with a feeble smile, trying not to slur her words.
“Mother, you shouldn’t come out in the rain. You’ll
catch cold.”
“And die?” Gertrude’s small eyes darted in the direction of Joe’s back. “Wouldn’t that suit Dumbo
here?”
“Mother,” Judith said with a frown, accidentally ramming the wheelchair into the stove. “Oops! ’Course not.
You know better.” She tried to ignore the puzzled expression on her husband’s face. “Hasn’t Joe taken good
care of you while I’ve been laid out? I mean, laid up.”
“It’s part of his plan,” Gertrude said, scowling at
Joe, who was still turned away from his mother-in-law.
“He’s waiting until you go into the hospital. Then,
when I’m supposed to be lulled into . . . something-orother, he’ll strike!” Gertrude slammed the walker
again. “He knows the ropes, he used to be a cop.
They’ll never catch him, and he’ll make off with all my
candy.”
“Mother . . .” Judith wished she didn’t feel so muddled. She wished she could walk. She wished her
mother wouldn’t insist on wearing a coat that was at
least twenty years old. She wished Gertrude would
shut up. She wished she didn’t have two mothers,
standing side by side.
Joe had finally risen from the chair. “I don’t eat
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Mary Daheim
candy,” he said in his most casual manner. “You got
any jewels stashed out there in the toolshed, Mrs. G.?”
“Ha!” Gertrude exclaimed. “Wouldn’t you like to
know?” It was one of those rare occasions when
Gertrude addressed Joe directly. As a rule, she spoke of
him in the third person.
Clumsily, Judith opened the oven. “Here, your dinner’s ready. Joe can help dish it up for you, Mother.”
“I’m watching his every move,” Gertrude said, narrowing her eyes. “He might slip something into my
food. I should have Sweetums eat it first, but that
ornery cat’s too danged finicky.”
Joe got the salad out of the refrigerator and removed
the beef-noodle bake from the oven. He filled
Gertrude’s plate with a flourish, added a roll, and
started for the back door. “At your service,” he called
over his shoulder. “Let me help you out.”
“Out?” Gertrude snapped. “Out where? Out of this
world?”
She was still hurling invective as the two of them
went outside. It was a conflict of long standing, a personal Thirty Years War between Joe Flynn and
Gertrude Grover. When Joe had first courted Judith,
Gertrude had announced that she didn’t like him. He
was a cop. They made rotten husbands. He was Irish.
They always drank too much. He had no respect for his
elders. He wouldn’t kowtow to Gertrude.
Judith and Joe had gotten engaged anyway. And
then disaster struck. Joe had gotten drunk, not because he was Irish but because he was a cop, and had
come upon two teenagers who had overdosed on
drugs. Putting a couple of fifteen-year-olds in body
bags had sent him off to a bar—and into the arms of
the sultry singer at the piano. Vivian, or Herself, as
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9
Judith usually called her, had shanghaied the oblivious Joe to Las Vegas and a justice of the peace. The
engagement was broken, and so was Judith’s heart.
Judith was still dwelling on the past when Joe returned to the kitchen. “She’s still alive,” he announced,
then looked more closely at his wife. “What’s wrong?
You look sort of sickly.”
“Nozzing,” Judith replied, trying to smile. “I mean,
nothing—except Mudder. Mother. It bothers me when
she’s so mean to you.”
Joe shrugged. “I’m used to it. In fact, I get kind of a
kick out of it. Face it, Jude-girl, at her age she doesn’t
have much pleasure in life. If it amuses her to needle
me, so what?”
Judith rested her head against Joe’s hip. “You’re
such a decent person, Joe. I love you.”
“The feeling is eternally mutual,” he said, hugging
her shoulders. “How many pain pills did you take?”
“Umm . . .” Judith considered fibbing. She was very
good at it. When she could think straight. “Two.”
Joe sighed. “Let’s eat. Food might straighten you
out a bit.”
“Wouldn’t you think,” Judith said halfway through the
meal when she had begun to feel more lucid, “that when
you and I finally got married after your divorce and
Dan’s death, Mother would have been happy for us?”
Joe shook his head. “Never. You’re an only child,
and your father died fairly young. You’re all your
mother has, and she’ll never completely let go. The
same’s true with Renie. Look how your Aunt Deb pulls
Renie around like she’s on a string.”
“True,” Judith allowed. “What I meant was that even
if Mother resented you at first, after I married Dan on
the rebound, and he turned out to be such a . . . flop,
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Mary Daheim
you’d figure that Mother would be glad to see me married to somebody with a real job and a sense of responsibility and a girth considerably less than
fifty-four inches. Dan’s pants looked like the sails on
the Britannia.”
Joe grinned and the gold flecks danced in his green
eyes. “Your mother didn’t want a replacement or an
improvement. She wanted you, back home, under her
wing.”
“She got it,” Judith said with a rueful laugh. “After
Dan died, Mike and I couldn’t go on living in that
rental dump out on Thurlow Street. The rats were so
big they were setting traps for us.”
It was only a slight exaggeration. After losing one
house to the IRS for back taxes, defaulting on another,
and getting evicted twice, Judith, Dan, and Mike had
ended up, as Grandpa Grover would have put it, “in
Queer Street.” Dan had stopped working altogether by
then, and Judith’s two jobs barely paid for the basics.
The Thurlow rental was a wreck, the neighborhood
disreputable. After Dan died, Judith and her only son
moved back into the family home on Heraldsgate Hill.
Her mother had protested at first when Judith came up
with her scheme to turn the big house into a B&B.
Eventually, Gertrude had given in, if only because she
and Judith and Mike had to eat. But when Joe reappeared in Judith’s life during the homicide investigation of a guest, the old lady had balked. If Judith
married Joe, Gertrude announced, she wouldn’t live
under the same roof with him. Thus, the toolshed had
been converted into a small apartment, and Gertrude
took her belongings and her umbrage out to the backyard.
She complained constantly, but refused to budge.
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11
Judith pictured her mother in the old brown mohair
chair, eating her “supper,” watching TV, and cursing
Joe Flynn. Gertrude would never change her mind
about her son-in-law, not even now in her dotage. But
at least some sort of truce was in effect, which made
life a little easier at Hillside Manor.
Shortly after seven, Judith called Renie back to get
the details on her cousin’s surgery. Neither of them
knew exactly what time their operations would be
scheduled and wouldn’t find out until Friday afternoon. Judith hunkered down and tried to be patient. It
wasn’t easy: Even in the wheelchair, she experienced a
considerable amount of pain and, due to the recent
news reports, it was accompanied by an unexpected
apprehension. Still, Judith could do little more than
wait.
The tedium was broken Friday morning when Mike
called from his current posting as a forest ranger up on the
close-in mountain pass.
“Guess what,” he said in his most cheerful voice.
“What?” Judith asked.
“Guess.”
The first thing that came to mind was that Mike had
been promoted. Which, she thought with plunging
spirits, might mean a transfer to anywhere in the fifty
states.
“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Judith said. “I’m an
invalid, remember?”
“Mom . . .” Mike chuckled. “It’s only temporary.
Which is good, because you’re going to have to be up
and running by the time your next grandchild gets here
around the Fourth of July.”
“Oh!” Judith’s smile was huge and satisfying.
“That’s terrific! How is Kristin feeling?”
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Mary Daheim
“Great,” Mike replied. “You know my girl, she’s a
hardy honey.”
“Hardy” wasn’t quite the word Judith would have
chosen. “Robust,” perhaps, or even “brawny.” Kristin
McMonigle was a Viking, or maybe a Valkyrie. Mike’s
wife was big, blonde, and beautiful. She was also constrained, conscientious, and capable. Almost too capable, it seemed to Judith. Kristin could repair a
transmission, build a cabinet, bake a Viennese torte,
shingle a roof, and balance a checkbook to the penny.
Indeed, Judith sometimes found her daughter-in-law
intimidating.
“I’m so thrilled,” Judith enthused. “I can’t wait to
tell Joe. And Granny.”
“That reminds me,” Mike said, “could you call
Grandma Effie, too? I don’t like making out-of-state
calls on the phone in the office. I’d call her from the
cabin tonight, but I’m putting on a slide show for some
zoologists.”
“Of course,” Judith said with only a slight hesitation. “I’ll call right now.”
“Thanks, Mom. Got to run. By the way, good luck
Monday if I don’t talk to you before you go to the hospital.”
Judith clicked the phone off and reached for her address book on the kitchen counter. She ought to know
Effie McMonigle’s number by heart, but she didn’t.
Ever since Dan’s death eleven years earlier, Judith had
called his mother once a month. But somehow the
number wouldn’t stick in her brain. Maybe it was like
Gertrude not speaking directly to Joe; maybe Judith
hoped that if she kept forgetting Effie’s number, her
former mother-in-law would go away, too, and take all
the unhappy memories of Dan with her.
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13
Effie was home. She usually was. A nurse by profession, she resided in a retirement community outside
Phoenix. In the nineteen years that Judith and Dan had
been married, Effie had visited only three times—once
for the wedding, once when Mike was born, and once
for Dan’s funeral. Effie was a sun-worshiper. She
couldn’t stand the Pacific Northwest’s gray skies and
rainy days. She claimed to become depressed. But Judith felt Effie was always depressed—and depressing.
Sunshine didn’t seem to improve her pessimistic
attitude.
“Another baby?” Effie exclaimed when Judith relayed the news. “So soon? Oh, what bad planning!”
“But Mac will be two in June,” Judith put in. “The
children will be close enough in age to be playmates
and companions.”
“They’ll fight,” Effie declared in her mournful
voice. “Especially if it’s another boy.”
“Siblings always fight,” Judith countered. “I guess.”
She had to admit to herself that she really didn’t know.
Judith and Renie had both been only children, and
while they occasionally quarreled in their youth, they
had grown to be as close, if not closer, than sisters.
“When are they coming to see me?” Effie demanded. “Mike and Kristy have only been here twice
since Mac was born.”
“It’s Kristin,” Judith said wearily. “I’m not sure
when they’ll be able to travel. With the new baby on
the way, they’ll probably wait.”
“Oh, sure.” Effie emitted a sour snort. “I haven’t had
a new picture of Mac in ages. I’m not even sure what
he looks like these days.”
“I thought Mike and Kristin sent you a picture of the
whole family at Christmastime.”
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Mary Daheim
“They did?” Effie paused. “Oh, that picture. It
wasn’t very good of any of them. I can’t see the slightest resemblance to my darling Dan in either Mike or
Mac. If they both didn’t have my red hair, I’d have to
wonder.”
As well you might, Judith thought, and was ashamed
of the spite she felt inside. “Mac doesn’t look like me,
either,” she said in an attempt to make amends.
“When are you coming down to see me?” Effie
queried.
“Not for a while,” Judith admitted. Indeed, she was
ashamed of herself for not having paid Effie a visit
since the year after Dan died. “It’s so hard for me to get
away with the B&B, and now I’m facing surgery Monday.”
“For what?” Effie sounded very cross.
“A hip replacement,” Judith said, gritting her teeth.
“I told you about it on the phone a couple of weeks
ago. I wrote it in my Christmas letter. I think I mentioned it in my Thanksgiving card.”
“Oh, that hip replacement,” Effie sniffed. “I thought
you’d already had it. What’s taking you so long?”
“It’s the surgery scheduling,” Judith responded patiently. “They have to book so far ahead. You know
how it is. You used to work in a hospital.”
“Hunh. It was different then. Doctors didn’t try to
squeeze in so many procedures or squeeze so much
money out of their patients,” Effie asserted. “Medical
practice today is a scandal. You’ll be lucky if you get
out alive.”
Judith glanced at the morning paper on the kitchen
table. It contained a brief item about an autopsy being
performed on Joan Fremont. In the sports section,
there was a story about possible trades to replace the
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15
Seafarers’ ace pitcher, Joaquin Somosa. At last Effie
McMonigle had said something that Judith didn’t feel
like contradicting.
Some people weren’t lucky. They didn’t get out of
the hospital alive.
All Judith could hope was that she and Renie
wouldn’t be among the unlucky ones.
TWO
JUDITH’S SURGERY WAS scheduled for eight-thirty on
Monday. Renie’s was set for nine-fifteen. Joe and
Bill delivered their wives to admitting at the same
time. The cousins had worn out the phone lines over
the weekend encouraging each other and trying to
make light of any potential dangers.
Their husbands chimed in. “Hey, Bill,” Joe said,
“we could have hurried this up by driving together
and dumping the old, crippled broads from a speeding car.”
“You already called the girls?” Bill said with a
straight face.
“You bet,” Joe replied. “Chesty and Miss Bottoms. They’re rarin’ to go.”
“Not funny,” Judith muttered.
“Nothing’s funny this early in the morning,”
snarled Renie, who usually didn’t get up until ten
o’clock.
Nor did Good Cheer Hospital’s forbidding exterior live up to its name. Built shortly after the turn
of the last century, the large, dark redbrick edifice
with its looming dome and wrought-iron fences
looked more like a medieval castle than a haven for
healing. Judith half expected to wait for a draw-SUTURE SELF
17
bridge to come down before driving over a moat into
the patient drop-off area.
Renie, who was bundled up in a purple hooded coat,
shuddered as she got out of the Joneses’ Toyota Camry.
“Why couldn’t we go to our HMO’s hospital? This
place looks like a morgue.”
“Don’t say that,” Judith retorted as Joe helped her into
the wheelchair. To make matters worse, it was a damp,
dark morning with the rain coming down in straight,
steady sheets. “You know why we’re here. Our HMO
doesn’t do orthopedic surgeries anymore. All the hospitals are consolidating their services to save money.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Renie said with an ominous glance at
the double doors that automatically opened upon their
approach. “It just looks so gloomy. And bleak.”
“It’s still a Catholic hospital,” Bill Jones pointed out
as he helped Renie through the entrance. “That should
be some consolation.”
“Why?” Renie shot back. “The pope’s not going to
operate on my shoulder.”
Bill wore his familiar beleaguered expression when
dealing with his sometimes unreasonable wife, but
said nothing as they waited for Joe to wheel Judith inside. The hospital’s interior looked almost as old as its
exterior. Over the years, the Sisters of Good Cheer had
put all their money into equipment and staff. As long
as the building was structurally sound and hygienically
safe, the nuns saw no reason to waste funds on cosmetic improvements. Thus, great lengths of pipes were
exposed, door frames were the original solid stained
wood, and though the walls had been repainted many
times, the color remained the same institutional shade
of bilious green that long-dead patients and staff had
endured almost a hundred years before.
18
Mary Daheim
There was no one around to meet the Flynns and the
Joneses. A wooden sign with flaking gold lettering and
an arrow pointed to admitting, on their right. They
turned the corner and almost collided with a robot that
was sending off loud beeping signals.
“That’s new,” Judith remarked. “I wonder what it does.”
“My name is Robbie,” the robot said in a mechanical voice. One metal arm reached out as if to snatch
Renie’s big black handbag.
“Watch it, Robbie, or I’ll FedEx you to the scrap
heap,” Renie threatened.
“My name is Robbie,” the robot repeated. The steel
creature kept moving, giving and asking no quarter.
“I hope he’s not one of the surgeons,” Judith said.
“We should ask if he’s covered for malpractice,” Joe
said as they approached the admitting desk.
A nurse in traditional uniform and white cap sat next
to a nun in a modified habit that consisted of a navy
blue suit, white blouse, and navy and white veil and
coif. The Sisters of Good Cheer were relatively conservative in their attitude toward apparel. As long as
they wore habits, the nurses who worked for them
would wear uniforms. “May we help you?” the nurse
inquired with a strained smile.
“Let’s hope so,” Joe replied. “We’re checking our
wives in.” He gestured at Judith and Renie.
“Jones,” said Bill. “Serena. Rotator cuff surgery.”
He pointed to the carefully lettered yellow Post-it note
on Renie’s sweater. Overcautious as ever, Bill had
written, “Serena Jones, right shoulder, allergic to nuts,
peanuts, and morphine, inclined to complain.”
“Flynn,” said Joe. “Judith. Right-hip replacement.”
He cast a worried look at Judith’s side. Maybe, she
thought, he was wishing he’d stuck a note on her, too.
SUTURE SELF
19
Renie nudged Judith. “I guess we checked our
voices at the door.”
The nun looked at a computer screen. “They’re
right,” she said to the nurse. “Jones and Flynn, Drs.
Ming and Alfonso.”
“Whew,” Renie said facetiously. “I’m sure glad
we’re the right people.”
Bill poked her in the ribs. “Don’t say anything. Let
them do their jobs.”
Renie scowled at Bill. “I was only trying to lighten
the—”
Bill poked her again, and Renie shut up.
The nurse handed several forms to Joe and Bill.
“Have your wives fill these out over in the reception
area. We’ll call their names when the doctors are
ready.”
“What are these?” Renie asked, despite the glower
from Bill.
“Medical information,” the nurse responded. “Consent forms. Releases.”
“Release from what?” Renie inquired, resisting
Bill’s efforts to propel her away from the desk.
“Consent to the procedure,” the nurse said, looking
impatient. “Releasing the hospital from responsibility
in case you expire.”
“Expire?” Renie blanched. “As in . . . croak?”
“Let’s go,” Bill muttered, his jaw set.
Joe had already wheeled Judith into the waiting
area. “Did Renie say ‘croak’?” she asked her husband.
“It sounded like ‘croak,’ ” Joe answered in his
breeziest manner. “Of course, it might have been ‘joke’
or ‘Coke’ or ‘cloak.’ ”
Judith looked down at the forms that Joe had put in
her lap. “She said ‘croak.’ If I croak, it’s not their fault.
20
Mary Daheim
I wonder how Joaquin Somosa and Joan Fremont feel
about that? I mean, I wonder how their families feel?”
“Glum,” Joe replied. “Just fill the damned things out
and let’s get on with it.”
“Aren’t you and Bill being a bit callous?” Judith demanded.
“No,” Joe asserted. “Those were flukes. Didn’t the
newspaper hint that Joan Fremont had been doing
some drugs? She was an actress, Somosa was an athlete. I once worked in Vice. I know how that goes. It’s
all show biz, and a lot of those people get involved in
drugs, both legal and otherwise.”
Judith wasn’t reassured, but she stopped arguing.
Renie had also gone silent, laboriously trying to sign the
forms with her crippled right arm. The cousins had just
finished when they were joined by a tall, handsome,
middle-aged man and a wispy blonde woman about the
same age. The man looked vaguely familiar to Judith.
Bill, who had an excellent memory for faces, caught
her curious glance. “Bob Randall,” he said in a low
voice. “Former Sea Auk quarterback.”
“Ramblin’ Randall,” Joe murmured, with an admiring glance for the three-time all-pro. “I’ll be damned.
Maybe I’ll shake his—”
“Judith Flynn?” a plump young nurse called out.
“Here,” Judith responded. “I think.”
“We’re ready for you.” The nurse smiled, then nodded at Joe. “Is this Mr. Flynn? He can come along, if
he likes.”
“He does,” Judith said firmly.
Joe lingered. “Can I catch up with you in a minute?
I’d like to introduce myself to—”
“Joe!” Judith cried as the nurse began wheeling her
away. “I really need you!”
SUTURE SELF
21
Reluctantly, Joe trudged after his wife. Judith arrived at a large room with several curtained partitions.
It looked like a busy day at Good Cheer. At least four
other patients were already being prepared for surgery.
Directly across the way from Judith’s cubicle, an elderly woman was making her confession to an equally
elderly priest. Judith’s spirits plunged.
“I should have had Father Hoyle anoint me or something,” she murmured. “Is it too late?”
“You mean before that old duffer keels over?” Joe
responded with a nod in the priest’s direction. “I don’t
know. He could go at any minute.”
Judith scowled at Joe. “I’m serious. Go ask him to
come here when he’s done with that woman’s confession.”
The nurse began to take Judith’s vital signs. Another
nurse arrived to draw her blood. A third nurse showed
up with a hospital gown, a paper hat, and a pair of
socks with treads on the bottom. The first nurse asked
Judith if she had voided.
“Voided?” Judith echoed in alarm. “Voided what?”
“Have you gone to the bathroom recently?” the
nurse inquired with a gentle smile.
“Oh. Yes, just before I left home.”
Judith tried to relax, but it wasn’t easy with all the
poking and probing. She had just put on the gown, the
hat, and the socks when the anesthesiologist arrived.
“I’m Dr. Bunn,” said the young man, who looked
too young to be on his own without his mother.
“Here’s what we’re going to do . . .”
The curtains had been opened again after Judith
changed. She could see Joe strolling casually up and
down the floor, still waiting for the elderly woman to
finish her confession. Judith wondered if the old girl
22
Mary Daheim
was recounting every sin since childhood. Finally the
priest appeared to be giving absolution. Judith sighed
with relief.
At that moment, Bob Randall entered, supporting
the wispy woman with his famous right arm. His wife,
Judith thought vaguely. The poor woman looked as if
she were about to meet the Grim Reaper. Maybe she
was. Judith said a quick prayer for Mrs. Randall.
Dr. Bunn had finished his explanation, which Judith
had only half heard. The priest was standing up. Well,
Judith noted, at least he was trying to stand up. The
poor man looked very unsteady.
Judith turned to see if Joe had noticed. He was
nowhere in sight. Then, on the other side of the curtain,
she heard her husband’s voice.
“Bob,” said Joe, sounding unusually hearty, “excuse
me, but I want to thank you for all the years of pleasure and excitement you gave us when you quarterbacked the . . .”
The priest was tottering away. Judith heard Bob
Randall’s booming voice in reply: “Flynn, eh? Great
to meet you. After fifteen years out of the league, you
sometimes think nobody remembers . . .”
Dr. Bunn had stepped aside as one of the nurses
began an IV in Judith’s left hand. “Doctor,” Judith said
in a plaintive voice, “could you get my husband from
the next cubicle?”
“Hold on there,” Dr. Bunn said in a soothing voice.
“He’ll be right along. At the moment, he’d be in the
way.”
“But I wanted to . . .” Judith began, then heard Joe
bidding Bob Randall good-bye.
“Good luck with the knee,” Joe said, and suddenly
appeared from the other side of the curtain. “Hey,
SUTURE SELF
23
Jude-girl, Bob Randall’s having knee surgery this
morning. You know how it is with quarterbacks. The
knees always seem to give out. He’s a really great guy.”
Judith felt for Joe’s hand. “I thought his wife was the
one who . . .” Judith felt drowsy. “Joe, can you find
that . . .”
Judith felt nothing.
She awoke nearly seven hours later in the recovery
room, staring at Renie. “Coz,” Judith said thickly.
“Hi.”
“Unh,” Renie replied and blinked twice.
“We’re . . . alive,” Judith said, her voice sounding
very strange.
“So far,” Renie replied, also unlike herself.
Judith’s eyes came into focus. Her gaze traveled to
the end of the bed. Joe was standing there, along with
a nurse Judith didn’t recognize.
“Hi,” Joe said. He sounded different, too, almost
shy. Judith concentrated harder on his face. He looked
pale. She looked in Renie’s direction. Bill was by her
bed, also looking pale. Both Joe and Bill had ruddy
complexions. Could they actually have been worried
about their wives?
“How do you feel, Mrs. Flynn?” the gray-haired
nurse inquired.
“Okay,” Judith replied, despite the fact that she was
too woozy to know. “Hi, Joe.”
With a quick glance at the nurse, Joe came around to
the side of the bed, almost bumping into Bill. “You’re
going to be fine,” he said, taking her hand. “I’ve already seen Dr. Alfonso.”
“Good,” Judith sighed, wishing she could feel relieved, but not feeling much of anything.
24
Mary Daheim
Across the aisle, Dr. Ming was hovering over Renie.
Judith tried to hear what he was saying, but couldn’t. A
moment later, Renie was being rolled out of the recovery
room, with Bill trailing an orderly, a nurse, and Dr. Ming.
“Where’s she gone?” Judith asked in alarm.
“To her room,” Joe replied. “Renie’s surgery was
only three and a half hours. Yours was almost six, plus
it was after nine before they actually started.”
“Ohmigod!” Judith shut her eyes. “What time is it?”
“Does it matter?” Joe smiled. “It’s going on four
o’clock. Here.” He proffered a plastic cup. “Drink some
water.”
Judith had trouble getting her lips around the straw.
“It’s hard,” she moaned.
Dr. Alfonso, looking as exhausted as Judith, approached the bed. Or was it a gurney? Judith couldn’t
tell; didn’t care.
“You’ll be up and dancing soon,” he said with the
hint of a twinkle in his dark eyes.
“Hunh,” said Judith.
“I’ve talked to your husband and given him all the
details,” Dr. Alfonso went on, pushing a swatch of silver hair under the shower-cap-like hat he still wore.
His blue scrubs were spattered with blood; Judith involuntarily shuddered when she realized the stains
probably came from her. “I’m taking a lunch break
now,” the doctor said, “but I’ll be in to see you before
I go off duty.” Dr. Alfonso jabbed at the plastic cup.
“Keep drinking as much as you can. You need plenty
of fluids to keep from becoming dehydrated.”
Dr. Alfonso had no sooner padded away than Judith
began to feel pain. She tried to crane her head to look
at the IV source, but her head wouldn’t move, her neck
wouldn’t swivel.
SUTURE SELF
25
“Joe, get a nurse,” Judith said, wincing slightly. “I
think I’m running out of pain medication.”
“The anesthesia’s probably wearing off,” Joe said.
“Hang on, I’ll find the nurse who was here a few minutes ago.”
The next half hour was taken up with the nurse’s attempts to make Judith more comfortable, with Joe
pressing fluids upon her, and with Judith thinking that
maybe she would be better off dead. At last the pain
began to ease a bit as a result of the increased morphine dosage. Judith felt more aware, but less content.
“We’re going to move you to your room now,” the
nurse said smiling. “Once we get you in bed, you’ll
feel better.”
“No, I won’t,” Judith muttered. “I feel like bird
poop.”
“You can sleep,” the nurse said. “It’ll be quieter
there.”
Judith had been vaguely aware of the comings and
goings in the recovery area. The surgeons must have
been busy that day, since at least a half-dozen patients
had been wheeled in or out while she emerged from
her anesthetic cocoon. The noise hadn’t really bothered her, but she’d be glad for some peace and privacy.
“I saw Bob Randall after his knee surgery,” Joe said
as Judith was being trundled down the hall. “He
seemed in pretty good spirits. But then he always was
a warrior.”
“I . . . didn’t . . . know . . . you . . . were . . . such . . .
a . . . fan,” Judith gasped as every buckle and bump in
the hallway floor seemed to set her teeth on edge.
“Randall played fourteen years for the Auks,” Joe
said, hurrying to keep up. “Those were the years I was
married to Herself. Watching Randall pass for a first
26
Mary Daheim
down on third and eight was a lot more fun than watching Vivian pass out over an empty fifth.”
“Yes.” It was all Judith could manage to say as they
turned a corner on what felt like two wheels. The lingering odor of food and antiseptic seemed to chase
her down the hall like a stale wind.
A sort of shrieking reached Judith’s ears as the gurney slowed. Judith frowned but couldn’t quite manage
to lift her head. “What’s that?” she asked as the noise
grew louder.
The nurse and the orderly didn’t reply but kept moving closer to the source.
“Joe?” Judith asked as a series of obscenities assailed her ears.
The gurney was steered through a doorway. The obscenities grew in volume and ferocity. “Joe?” Judith
repeated.
They had arrived in a two-bed room on the third
floor. The curses emanated from the other side of a
pale blue curtain. Joe didn’t respond. He didn’t have
to. Judith recognized the voice.
“Hi, Renie,” he finally said as Judith was flipped and
flopped onto an ancient hospital bed with a black iron
bedstead. “How’re you doing?”
Renie’s answer was unprintable.
Judith and Renie had requested sharing a room, but
the staff had made no promises. Good Cheer wasn’t a
hotel or a summer camp—it was a hospital.
“May I?” Joe asked in an unusually meek voice as
he gave the blue curtain a twitch.
“Why not?” Renie snapped. “You can set fire to the
whole damned place as far as I’m concerned.”
Judith moved just enough to see Renie, propped up
SUTURE SELF
27
on pillows with her right arm in a blue sling and her
shoulder sporting a bloody dressing.
“Hi, coz,” Renie said in a more normal tone. “How
are you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but let out a
bloodcurdling scream.
“What’s wrong?” Judith asked in alarm.
“It’s the only way to get attention around here,”
Renie said, then screamed again.
“Stop that!” Judith exclaimed. “It makes my head
throb!”
“I throb everywhere,” Renie shot back. “They
dumped me in here almost an hour ago, and I haven’t
seen anybody since.” She slapped with her left hand at
what appeared to be a buzzer button extending from a
thick rubber cord. “I’ve poked this stupid thing so
often I think I burned the light out over the damned
door. Now I’m getting hoarse from yelling.”
“Where’s Bill?” Joe inquired.
“He left,” Renie replied after taking a deep sip of
water. “He had to run some errands and then have dinner. He’ll be back this evening.”
Judith looked at Joe. “You ought to go, too. It’s been
a long day.”
Joe seemed torn. “Shouldn’t I wait until Dr. Alfonso
comes in?”
Judith gave a faint shake of her head. “You’ve already talked to him. You have to tell Mother I’m okay
and let Mike know I survived. Frankly, you look beat.
I’ll be fine, as long as Screaming Mimi over there shuts
up. I might be able to sleep a bit.”
“Well . . .” Joe’s green-eyed gaze roamed around the
room. “I suppose I should head home.”
“Of course you should,” Judith said, also taking in
her surroundings. The walls were painted a dreary
28
Mary Daheim
beige that hadn’t been freshened in years. A crucifix
hung over each of the beds and the only other furnishings were a pair of visitors’ chairs, a commode, and the
nightstands. A TV was mounted high on the far wall,
flanked by a small statue of Jesus revealing the Sacred
Heart and, on the other side, Mary holding the infant
Jesus. Two old-fashioned sash windows on Renie’s
side of the room looked out over one of the city’s residential areas. The roofs were gray, the houses were
gray, the skies were gray. Even the trees looked gray
on this late-January afternoon.
With a reluctant sigh, Joe leaned down to kiss Judith’s forehead. “Okay, I’ll check in at the B&B to
make sure that Carl and Arlene are getting along all
right. I’ll see you this evening.”
Despite her brave words, Judith kept her dark eyes
on Joe until he was out of the room. Indeed, he was
practically run over by a disheveled young man carrying a balloon bouquet in one hand and an almost lifesized cutout of a football player in the other.
“For Bob Randall,” Judith remarked, daring to gaze
at Renie.
“The ex-quarterback?” Renie snorted. “I swear, the
only time I ever watched him play, he always threw an
interception or got sacked.” She paused, then made a
futile attempt to snap the fingers of her left hand.
“That’s it! Ramblin’ Randall is getting all the attention
while we suffer and starve. I timed myself. I screamed
for eleven minutes nonstop. Nobody came. I think I’ll
set fire to the bed.”
“Coz—” Judith began to plead, but was interrupted
by a tall, handsome nun in an exceptionally well-tailored
modified habit.
“Mrs. Jones? Mrs. Flynn?” the nun said, standing on
SUTURE SELF
29
the threshold. “Which of you has been requesting
help?”
If not embarrassed, Renie at least had the grace to
look slightly abashed. “Yes . . . that would be me.” She
offered the nun a toothy smile. “I’m having quite a bit
of pain.”
You’re being quite a pain, Judith thought, but kept
silent.
The nun glanced at the IV. “I’ll see what I can do,”
she said in her crisp, no-nonsense voice. “By the way,
I’m Sister Jacqueline, the hospital administrator. I
should point out that our staff is extremely busy this
week. The surgery floor is full, and as usual, we’re a
bit shorthanded. The economics of medicine aren’t
what they used to be.” She gave the cousins a tight little smile.
“I understand,” Judith said. “It’s a terrible problem
that nobody seems able to solve.”
“It’s those damned insurance companies,” Renie asserted, lifting her head a few inches from the pillow.
“Let’s not even talk about the greedy jackasses who
run the pharmaceutical industry. What about the patient? I’m lying here in misery and half starved while
a bunch of bumbling morons in Washington, D.C., try
to figure out whether their pants get pulled up over
their fat butts or go down over their empty heads. Or
maybe they aren’t wearing any pants at all. Furthermore, if anybody had an ounce of—”
Sister Jacqueline cleared her throat rather loudly.
“Mrs. Jones. Ranting will do you no good. I suggest
that you exercise the virtue of patience instead.”
“I am the freaking patient!” Renie cried. “And I’m
not a patient patient.”
“I gather not,” Sister Jacqueline said mildly, then
30
Mary Daheim
turned to Judith and spoke almost in a whisper. “If
someone is discharged tomorrow, we might be able to
move you to a different room.”
Judith tried to smile. “It’s fine, Sister. Honestly. I’m
used to her. She’s my cousin.”
The nun drew back as if Judith had poked her.
“Really!” She glanced from Judith to Renie and back
again. “Then patience must be one of your outstanding
virtues.”
Judith looked sheepish. “Well . . . Many things in
life have taught me patience. In fact, my cousin really
doesn’t—”
A tall, thin middle-aged man who looked vaguely
familiar tapped diffidently on the open door. “Sister?”
he said in an uncertain voice.
The nun stepped away from Judith’s bed. “Yes?”
“I’m worried,” the man said, removing his thick
glasses and putting them back on in a nervous manner.
“My brother isn’t getting any rest. There are way too
many visitors and deliveries and I don’t know what all.
I thought since Margie volunteers at the hospital, she’d
keep things under control.”
“I haven’t seen Mrs. Randall since Mr. Randall was
in the recovery room,” Sister Jacqueline replied. “Even
though the post-op news was very good, she seemed
downcast. Perhaps she went home to rest.”
“I hope not.” The man who appeared to be Bob Randall’s brother gave a shake of his head. “There’s supposed to be a big snowstorm moving in. She might get
stuck at the house.” He uttered a heavy sigh. “Poor
Margie. She’s always downcast. I guess it’s just her nature.”
The nun turned back to Judith, but avoided looking
at Renie, who wore a mutinous expression. “Excuse
SUTURE SELF
31
me, I must get things straightened out. Keep drinking
those liquids, both of you. Come along, Mr. Randall.
Jim, is it?” She put a firm hand on Jim Randall’s elbow
and steered him out into the hall. “I agree, too much
excitement isn’t good for . . .”
Her voice faded as they moved down the hall. Renie
picked up a tiny digital clock from her nightstand. “It’s
going on five. I haven’t eaten since last night. When do
they serve around here?”
“I thought you hurt so much,” Judith remarked,
plucking listlessly at the white linen sheet. “Good
Cheer Hospital” had been stitched in blue on the hem,
but the letters had worn away to leave only “Goo . .
h . er Ho . p . . .”
“I do,” Renie said, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t be
hungry.”
Before Judith could respond, Dr. Alfonso reappeared, now dressed in blue jeans, a denim shirt, and a
black leather jacket. “You’re looking a bit brighter,
Mrs. Flynn,” he said, though his own voice was weary.
“Let’s take a peek at that dressing.”
“When do we eat?” Renie asked in a petulant tone.
“After a bit,” the surgeon replied without taking his
eyes off the loose bandage. “We’ll get the nurse to
change that. How’s the pain?”
“Awful,” Renie broke in. “Whatever happened to
Demerol?”
“It’s bearable,” Judith responded bravely. “Though
it hurts quite a bit to make even the slightest move.”
“We’ll take care of that, too,” Dr. Alfonso said with
a tired smile. “Now let’s talk about your rehab—”
“How can a person rehab,” Renie demanded, “when
his or her arm feels like it fell off? In fact, I think it did.
Do you want to check the floor for me?”
32
Mary Daheim
“We’ll have you try to sit up tomorrow,” the doctor
said to Judith. “Maybe later in the day, we’ll see if you
can take a few steps.”
“That sounds next to impossible right now,” Judith
said, though her weak smile tried to convey courage.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I’ll do my worst if somebody doesn’t put something besides corn syrup in this IV,” Renie snarled.
With shoulders slumped, Dr. Alfonso started to turn
away from Judith. “I’ll be by in the morning to—”
His words were cut short by screams and a large
thud from nearby. Judith stiffened in the narrow bed
and Renie’s expression went from grumpy to curious.
Dr. Alfonso picked up his step, but was met by a petite
Asian nurse in a fresh white uniform and cap.
“Come, please, Doctor,” the nurse urged in an anxious voice. “Something’s happened to Mr. Randall.”
“Randall?” Dr. Alfonso echoed, following the nurse
out into the hall. “Dr. Garnett’s patient?”
Judith’s jaw dropped. Surely not another local
celebrity had succumbed at Good Cheer Hospital. She
pricked up her ears, trying to catch the nurse’s fading
reply.
“Not Bob Randall,” she said. “It’s his brother, Jim.
He suddenly collapsed and is unconscious.”
Renie made an airy gesture of dismissal with her left
hand. “Maybe he’s dead. Can anybody around here tell
the difference?”
Judith stared incredulously at her cousin. “That’s
not funny.”
Renie’s face fell as she realized the enormity of
what she had just said. “No,” she agreed, a hand to her
head. “It’s not.”
THREE
IT WAS ALMOST a quarter of an hour before the
cousins learned what had happened to Jim Randall.
A simple faint, it seemed, according to the Asian
nurse, whose name tag identified her as “Chinn,
Heather, R.N.”
“He’s so different from his brother, the football
player,” Heather Chinn said as she adjusted Renie’s
IV. “They look alike, sort of, but they don’t act like
brothers, let alone twins.”
“Twins?” Judith said, comparing the gaunt, pale
Jim Randall with the robust, suntanned Bob. “As in
identical?”
Heather shrugged and smiled. She had matching
dimples in a perfect heart-shaped face. “I don’t
know about that. Their mannerisms are really at opposite ends, too. Mr. Jim is so shy and doesn’t seem
to have much self-esteem. Mr. Bob is full of life and
confidence. He’ll be out of here in no time.”
“What made Mr. Jim pass out?” Judith inquired
as the nurse added more painkiller to her IV.
Heather shrugged again. “Stress, maybe. Worrying about his brother. Though I don’t think Mr. Jim
is very well. He’s had several tests to determine
what’s wrong, but . . .” She finished with the IV and
34
Mary Daheim
grimaced. “I shouldn’t gossip like that. It’s unprofessional, and I’m merely speculating.”
The pain was beginning to ebb. Judith moved in the
bed, her gaze following Heather Chinn as she tried to
make Renie more comfortable.
“You’d have more room,” Heather said in a pleasant,
reasonable voice, “if you’d put some of these . . . items
in the drawers of your nightstand.” Her slim fingers
pointed to the paperback book, two magazines, pack of
gum, roll of breath mints, several spring fashion catalogues, and a small grinning doll with an equally small
suitcase.
“Don’t touch Archie,” Renie warned as Heather
started to move the doll. “He stays with me. My husband got him as a good luck charm. Archie loves hospitals.” Renie grasped Archie’s tiny hand. “Don’t you,
Archie? See how cheerful he is? Archie always looks
cheerful.”
While Judith was accustomed to Renie and Bill’s
proclivity for talking to inanimate objects, including
their car, Heather Chinn wasn’t. The nurse looked
askance.
Judith decided to intervene before Heather recommended committing Renie to the mental health wing.
“I don’t suppose,” Judith said in a manner that only
suggested a question, “you had either Joan Fremont or
Joaquin Somosa as patients.”
“The actress?” Heather responded, looking at Judith
over Renie’s tousled head. “No. But the other one—
was he some kind of ballplayer, too? I was on duty
when he flat-lined.”
Renie jerked around to look at the monitor beside
her bed. “Flat-lined? Is that what you call it? All those
funny squiggly marks are good, then?”
SUTURE SELF
35
“Yes.” Heather smiled, revealing her dimples.
“You’re doing fine, Mrs. Jones. In fact, we’ve noticed
that you’re unusually . . . resilient.”
Loud, Judith figured was what Nurse Heather
meant. And maybe nuts. “Mr. Somosa . . . flat-lined for
no apparent reason?”
“Not at the time,” Heather replied, checking Renie’s
IV. “I believe there was something in the postmortem
that indicated otherwise.”
“Drugs?” Renie put in. “I heard that might have
been the case with Joan Fremont.”
“I really can’t discuss it,” Heather asserted, the dimples now invisible and the brown eyes on the silent TV
set. “Would you like to watch the news? There’s a button on each of your beds.”
“No,” Renie said.
“Yes,” Judith replied. “I never get to see the early
news at home. I’m always working.”
“I almost never watch the news,” Renie said crossly,
“unless it’s sports.” She pulled herself up in the bed
and addressed Heather Chinn. “Are you saying Somosa did drugs? I don’t believe it. For one thing, the
Seafarers have a tough stand on drugs. So does major
league baseball in general. Not only that, but until he
blew out his elbow, Somosa had a 2.4 ERA and averaged ten strikeouts a game. How do you explain that?”
“I can’t,” Heather replied with the ghost of a smile.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t follow sports. I only know about Mr. Randall—Mr.
Bob—because somebody said he’d played professional football.”
“Hunh,” snorted Renie, and fell back against the pillows.
Heather had refilled the cousins’ water carafes, re-36
Mary Daheim
placing them on the old wooden bedside stands that
matched the room’s much-varnished door and window
frames. “Remember to keep drinking fluids. Dinner
will be along shortly,” she added as she exited the
room.
“It better be,” Renie muttered after taking a big sip
of fresh water. “Really, coz, I doubt that Somosa did
drugs. Or Joan Fremont, either. They didn’t call her the
First Lady of the local theater for nothing. She was a
lady, in every way.”
“Good Cheer is undoubtedly dodging a couple of
huge malpractice suits,” Judith said, clicking on the
TV. “Can you imagine? Not only the survivors, but
maybe Le Repertoire Theatre and the Seafarers’ ownership.”
Renie was silent for a moment as KINE-TV’s anchorpersons radiated their own type of good cheer by
rehashing humankind’s latest tragedies. “At least turn
down the sound,” she said crossly. “It’s Mavis LeanBrodie doing the news and she’s never liked me.”
Years ago, Mavis had been involved in a homicide
that had occurred in Judith’s dining room. Since then,
Judith had encountered her a few times, including a recent run-in during a murder investigation at an apartment house on Heraldsgate Hill. Mavis had featured
Judith in a well-intentioned TV interview that had
come off as awkward and inaccurate. Still, Judith held
no grudge.
“Mavis is okay,” Judith allowed, hitting the mute
button as the screen switched to a close-up of the governor in front of the state capitol. “She’s just aggressive. It comes with the job description.”
Dinner was brought in by a solemn young orderly.
Wordlessly, he set up Judith’s tray first. There were
SUTURE SELF
37
two covered dishes, a plastic container, a plastic cup,
packets of salt and pepper, silverware, and a napkin. A
whole-wheat roll wrapped in plastic rested on a plate
with a butter pat.
The orderly moved to Renie’s bed. “What the hell is
this crap?” she yelled, removing the metal cover from
the larger of the two dishes. “It looks like cat spit!”
The orderly, who sported a mustache, a shaved head,
and a gold stud in one ear, didn’t respond. Without
speaking, he left the room.
“I think,” Judith said warily, “it’s mutton.”
Renie’s brown eyes widened in horror. “No Grover
since our grandfather has ever eaten mutton, and he
only did it because he was English. I think I’m going
to be sick.”
“It’s not very good,” Judith allowed. “In fact, it’s
tasteless. I tried salting the gravy, but that doesn’t help
much. There’s a green salad, though.” She searched
around on the tray. “It’s under the other covered dish,
but I don’t see any dressing.”
“Rice,” Renie said, holding her head. “How can you
ruin rice? And why is it sort of beige?”
“Brown rice?” Judith suggested, taking a bite. “No,
maybe not.”
“This isn’t even wholesome,” Renie complained.
“Mutton is fatty. I’m going to call Bill.”
“What for?” Judith asked. “He’s not with the Department of Health.”
“No, but he can swing by Art Huey’s and pick us up
some Chinese. What do you want?”
Judith’s attention, however, had been caught by the
TV screen. Sister Jacqueline was in living color,
speaking in front of Good Cheer Hospital. Judith
turned the sound back on.
38
Mary Daheim
“. . . to clear our reputation,” Sister Jacqueline was
saying. “The general public doesn’t realize that every
time a person goes into surgery under a general anesthetic, they risk death. It’s simply a fact, which is why
hospitals require signed waivers before any procedure.
Sometimes, of course, there are extenuating circumstances.”
Mavis’s male coanchor reappeared, looking solemn.
“Statistically, the number of otherwise healthy patients
who die within a week of a surgical procedure is very
small. Good Cheer Hospital’s most recent deaths have
been local celebrities, thus bringing the long-time institution under scrutiny. It should also be pointed out
that Good Cheer is the only local hospital where orthopedic surgeries are performed. As chief of surgery
Dr. Peter Garnett said earlier, the statistics are bound
to be skewed when each hospital has its own specialties.”
The camera angle expanded to include Mavis.
“Thanks, Paul,” she said with a grim smile. “I guess
I’ll think twice before I get those bone spurs removed.”
Paul dutifully chuckled. Mavis announced they were
cutting to a commercial break.
“Face-lift,” Renie said. “She’s had two already.
Pretty soon her ears are going to be sticking out from
the top of her head.”
“The hospital had to expect some bad publicity,” Judith remarked, ignoring Renie’s comment and muting
the TV again. “I’m surprised there hasn’t been more
about it in the newspapers.”
“So am I,” Renie said, dumping her entire tray in
the wastebasket beside her bed. “I wonder if the
Times has muzzled Addison Kirby. You know, Joan
Fremont’s husband who covers city hall.”
SUTURE SELF
39
“You think so?” Judith remarked, then realized that
Renie had hung up the phone without speaking to Bill.
“Hey, what about your Chinese order?”
Renie let out an exasperated little sigh. “The anesthesia must have affected my brain. I’m told it can, especially your memory. I forgot that Bill never answers
the phone, especially around the dinner hour. Why
don’t you call Joe?”
Judith hesitated. Joe had plenty of responsibilities
on his shoulders now that Judith was completely incapacitated. “I kind of hate to. We don’t live as close to
Art Huey’s as you and Bill do.”
“Okay.” Renie picked up the phone again. “Art Huey’s
Restaurant,” she said. “Yes, you can dial it for me.”
“You’re going to have them deliver our dinner?” Judith asked, taken aback. “Is that allowed?”
“Who knows? Who cares? I’m paying for it. Yes,
this is Mrs. Jones, and I’d like to order the prawn chow
yuk, the wonton soup, the . . .” Renie listed another
half-dozen items, then gave some special instructions:
“Tell the people at the front desk you’re visiting Mrs.
Jones. Put the stuff in a plain cardboard box and throw
one of those plastic geraniums on top. There’s a big tip
in it for you if the food arrives hot.”
“If the food arrives at all,” Judith remarked as Renie
hung up. “Do you think whoever brings it can get past
the desk?”
“Yes,” Renie declared, clicking on the old-fashioned
gooseneck lamp next to the bed. “Now dump that crap
off your tray and settle back. I should have ordered a
couple of drinks while I was at it.”
“We can’t drink,” Judith said, taking yet another sip
from her plastic water glass, “except for stuff like this.
We’re on pain medication.”
40
Mary Daheim
“We are?” Renie harrumphed. “You couldn’t prove
it by me.”
The food did indeed arrive, along with Joe, Bill, and
the delivery boy. Renie had already managed to get out
her checkbook, though it was a struggle to write with
her left hand.
“Let me,” Bill sighed, tearing up the check. “This
looks as if you’d written it with your lips.”
“I should try that,” Renie murmured, struggling to
open the cartons. “Here, pass some of this to my roommate.”
Joe and Bill had come to the hospital together. The
guests were settled in, Carl and Arlene had things well
in hand, and Gertrude was spending the evening inside
Hillside Manor playing three-handed pinochle with Judith’s stand-ins.
“They’re so good to her,” Judith said, referring to the
Rankerses. “I try to ignore Arlene’s threats to move. I
couldn’t bear it if they weren’t next door.”
Taking a bite of Judith’s marinated steak, Joe
agreed. “By the way, I’ve accepted a new case.”
“You have?” Judith was surprised. “But you’re already overloaded.”
“I’m okay, I got most of the loose ends tied up before your surgery,” Joe said, sampling a sweet-andsour prawn. “But this is one I don’t feel I can refuse.
There was a call from FOPP waiting for me when I got
home from the hospital this afternoon.”
Judith’s forehead wrinkled. “FOPP? What’s that?”
“Friends of Powerless People, advocates for the
homeless,” Joe replied, eyeing another of Judith’s
prawns. “It seems that a couple of street residents have
been killed in the last month. Not that it’s unusual in itself, but these weren’t the typical murders. You know,
SUTURE SELF
41
a couple of the poor devils get into it, one brains the
other with an empty bottle of Old Horsecollar. Or
smart-ass kids hassle the homeless until it gets out of
hand. According to Steve Moeller at FOPP, the two
most recent killings appeared to be deliberate and were
committed out of sight. Both stabbings, maybe by the
same knife. I’ll get more details tomorrow.”
“What about the police?” Judith inquired. “Aren’t
they trying to find the killers?”
Joe gave a slight shrug. “Sure, but you know how it
is. Even when I was still on the job, if Woody and I got
a case that was more high-profile, then our homeless
homicide got put at the bottom of the pile. That’s why
FOPP has decided to hire a private investigator.”
Judith frowned. She’d always had a sense of security
during the years that Woodrow Wilson Price had been
Joe’s partner. A solid man of African-American descent with a walrus mustache and deceptively soulful
eyes that could wring a confession out of the most
hardened criminals, Woody had never let Joe down.
And vice versa. But that was then and this was now. “It
sounds dangerous. Furthermore, you don’t have
Woody for a partner anymore.”
Joe shook his head and grinned. “I’ll manage. The
worst of it is trying to make sense of what the witnesses will say. If I can find any witnesses.”
“Take someone with you,” Judith urged. “Bill, for
instance. He can tell who’s crazy and who isn’t.”
Joe made a face at Judith. “Bill has plenty to do, too.
He still sees some of his private patients and consults
at the university. Besides, on these investigations, I like
to work solo.”
Judith started to argue, but she was too worn out and
knew she’d lose. At the other bedside, the Joneses were
42
Mary Daheim
arguing, something about the assignments of their
three children while Renie was in the hospital.
“Why,” Renie was demanding, “should Tom wash
the windows in January? He needs time to work on his
Ph.D. thesis.”
“That doesn’t mean the windows aren’t dirty,” Bill
pointed out. “Besides, he’s been in graduate school for
eight years. I don’t see that he’s in any rush.”
“He has deadlines,” Renie countered. “You know
that, you’ve been through it.”
“Not in Babylonian history,” Bill pointed out, his
voice growing more heated. “What’s he going to do
with that degree when he gets it? How many recruiters
are out there looking for an expert on the Mushkenu
social class?”
“He can teach,” Renie retorted.
“He doesn’t want to teach,” Bill asserted. “He wants
to stay in graduate school, live in our house, eat our
food, and wait until we’re carried out feetfirst, just like
his brother and his sister are doing.”
Joe, who had been fidgeting, stood up. “Hey, Bill,
maybe we should head on out. It may snow tonight.”
Bill all but flew out of his visitor’s chair. “Good
idea. Heraldsgate Hill has some pretty mean streets in
bad weather.”
Joe and Bill kissed their wives and fled.
“Do you really think they have girls lined up?” Judith asked.
“No,” Renie answered. “They have basketball
games, though. Pro and college. Besides, we’re boring.”
“Joe ate half my dinner,” Judith said in dismay.
“Bill didn’t try to touch any of mine,” Renie said. “He
knows better.”
SUTURE SELF
43
Judith checked her watch, which was lying on the
bedside stand. “It’s almost eight. I could use some
more painkillers.”
“Me, too,” said Renie. “You buzz. They hate me.”
Judith pushed the button. “I have to admit, they
aren’t exactly killing us with kindness. Excuse the
phrase.”
But Heather Chinn appeared almost immediately.
“Sorry,” she apologized. “It’s been so busy on this
floor tonight. I’m behind in taking vitals.”
“How about victuals?” Renie said, indicating the
empty white boxes on her tray. “Could you get rid of
these for us?”
Heather hadn’t noticed the small cartons. “Oh, dear!
Did you two . . . ? Really, that’s not allowed. Lately,
our patients seem to think they can consume just about
anything they like. That’s not so. You have to keep to a
hospital diet while you’re with us. If we hadn’t been so
caught up with other patients, we’d never have permitted this.”
“Those aren’t ours,” Renie said, feigning shock.
“Our husbands brought their own dinner. We’ll both
speak severely to them about doing it again.”
Frowning, Heather removed the boxes, then began
taking Judith’s pulse and temperature. “What happened with Jim Randall?” Judith inquired after the
paper thermometer had been removed.
“Oh,” Heather said, wrapping the blood pressure
cuff around Judith’s arm, “he went home. I guess he
was upset about his brother.”
“Mr. Bob’s recovering nicely?” Judith asked.
Heather didn’t answer right away. She was listening
to the stethoscope and looking at the gauge attached to
the cuff. “Yes,” she finally said as she made entries on
44
Mary Daheim
Judith’s chart, “he’s doing fine, though I don’t think
he’ll like being on a walker and then a cane for some
time. He strikes me as a very active person.” Heather
moved to Renie’s bed. “Here, Mrs. Jones, let’s see how
you’re getting along.”
“I could have eaten more fried wontons,” Renie said.
“I think they shorted us on the sweet-and-sour
prawns.”
Heather shook her head in a disapproving manner,
then became involved in taking Renie’s vital signs. Judith watched until a wispy figure appeared in the doorway. It was Mrs. Randall, looking morose.
“Nurse Chinn?” she called in a soft, tentative voice.
“I’m leaving now, but I’ll be on duty at nine tomorrow.”
Heather Chinn finished taking Renie’s pulse, then
turned to the newcomer. “That’s fine, Mrs. Randall.
You must be very pleased with your husband’s successful surgery.”
Margie Randall hung her head. “Dr. Van Boeck says
I should be, but you never know. All sorts of things can
happen—pneumonia, a blood clot, an aneurysm. I’ve
seen it before, here in this very hospital, and recently,
too. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
“You need your rest,” Heather said, now working
with the blood pressure cuff on Renie. “You put in
such long days volunteering for us.”
“It’s such a source of comfort for me,” Margie
sighed, though she looked quite desolate. “It’s such a
blessing to be able to offer consolation to patients and
their families. Why, this very morning, while Bob was
in surgery, I counseled a family who had just lost an
elderly father. They’d been practically immobilized
with grief until I began telling them how soon any one
of them could be called to join him. A brief, deadly ill-SUTURE SELF
45
ness. An auto accident. Getting caught in the gunfire of
a drive-by shooting. They suddenly became energized
and all but ran out of the hospital.”
“Lovely,” Heather said absently. “Good night, Mrs.
Randall.”
Margie Randall drifted away. Judith leaned slightly
toward the nurse. “I was wondering, who operated on
Joaquin Somosa and Joan Fremont? Do you recall?”
Heather removed the blood pressure cuff from
Renie’s arm and looked at Judith. “It was Dr. Garnett,
the same surgeon who performed Mr. Randall’s surgery. I remember, because it’s sort of unusual. Surgeons specialize, like Dr. Alfonso for hips and Dr.
Ming for shoulders. But Dr. Garnett is the second in
command at Good Cheer, under Dr. Van Boeck, and he
likes to stay diversified.”
“I see,” said Judith, who wasn’t exactly sure what
Heather meant in terms of medical skill, hospital privilege, or professional hierarchy.
“The good stuff,” Renie put in, using her left elbow
to point to the IV. “Make me feel good. Or at least tolerable.”
Heather finished dispensing medication, a short,
stout woman with a blonde Dutch-boy bob drew their
blood, and, finally, the priest Judith had seen that
morning came by to visit.
“I’m Father McConnaught,” he said in a voice that indicated he wasn’t quite sure. “God bless you, Mrs. Flynn.
An Irish lass, perhaps?”
“No, actually I’m—”
He nodded at Renie. “And Mrs. Jones. Welsh, you’d
be, eh?”
“No, I’m pretty much the same as my—”
“Well, now.” Father McConnaught’s faded blue eyes
46
Mary Daheim
crinkled at the corners. He was almost bald, except for
a few strands of white hair that stood up on his head
like little wisps of smoke. “Let’s say a prayer of
thanksgiving that you both came through, eh?”
Judith and Renie dutifully said the Our Father and
the Hail Mary along with the priest, which was a good
thing because he seemed to forget some of the words
along the way.
“Now,” the priest said, smiling even wider, “how
many will this be, Mrs. Flynn?”
“How many what?” Judith asked, puzzled.
“And you, Mrs. Jones?” he inquired of Renie.
“Since I’ve only got one other arm—” Renie began.
Father McConnaught put up an arthritic hand.
“Never mind now, the Good Lord always provides
extra hands. Will we be seeing you both again next
year with another wee one?”
“I doubt it,” Judith said, finally enlightened and
smiling gently. “Ten’s quite a few, Father.”
The priest looked skeptical. “Twelve, and the archbishop himself will baptize the babe.”
“Will he raise the kid, too?” Renie asked.
Father McConnaught put his hand behind his ear.
“Eh?”
“Never mind,” Judith said kindly. “Thank you for
coming, Father. We’ll keep you in our prayers.”
“And so shall I with you and all the wee ones.” He
made a small, painful bow and departed.
“Deaf and blind,” Renie remarked after Father McConnaught had gone. “When are we going to get some
younger priests around here?”
“We should pray more for vocations,” Judith said.
“Nuns as well as priests. I’ll bet very few members of
the nursing staff are from the Sisters of Good Cheer.”
SUTURE SELF
47
“It’s like the teaching orders,” Renie said, then
stared at Judith. “Say—when you were talking to
Nurse Heather about who operated on Joan Fremont
and Joaquin Somosa, were you sleuthing?”
“What?” Judith feigned disbelief.
“You heard me,” Renie said. “Are you suspicious
about the cause of their deaths?”
“Well . . . you have to wonder.”
“You do,” Renie retorted, turning off the light by her
bed. “I don’t. In fact, I’m going to try to get some
sleep.”
“That’s a good idea,” Judith agreed. “Frankly, I’m
exhausted.” She, too, clicked off her light. “I guess I
was just curious.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, it’s got to be a coincidence, right?”
“Right.”
“If they hadn’t been well known, we’d probably
never have heard about their deaths.”
“Shut up.”
Judith obeyed, but couldn’t get comfortable. “I still
hurt like hell. This bed’s too narrow. I’ll never be able
to sleep.”
“Count sheep. Count Chinese food cartons. Count
all those imaginary kids you told Father McConnaught
you had.”
“I’ll try.”
Judith slept, but her dreams were disquieting in the
extreme. Joaquin Somosa appeared on the pitcher’s
mound, where an army of fried wontons marched onto
the field and savagely attacked him with chopsticks.
Joan Fremont, as Lady Macbeth, was wringing her
hands when Birnam Wood, in the form of towering bok
choy leaves, invaded the castle and crushed her to the
48
Mary Daheim
ground. Finally, Judith saw a third form, more shadowy than the others, wearing what looked like a cape
and pacing anxiously as a band of deep-fried prawns
lay in wait with a cauldron of boiling sweet-and-sour
sauce.
Judith woke up with a muffled gasp, but saw only
Renie, clutching Archie the cheerful doll, and snoring
softly.
FOUR
NO ONE HAD died by morning. Judith awoke after a
fitful night, not only of pain and discomfort and
nightmares caused by an overdose of Chinese food,
but of constant disturbances by nurses taking more
vital signs. Not only didn’t Judith feel rested, but
she was very stiff and sore. The weakness she had
suffered as a result of the surgery was still there,
leaving her limp and lifeless.
Breakfast turned out to be more palatable than the
previous meal. The cousins ate oatmeal, toast,
scrambled eggs, and bacon. There was apple juice
and coffee. Even Renie didn’t complain. Much.
“You get to go home in a couple of days,” Judith
said, pushing her tray aside. She’d eaten only half
the food; her appetite seemed to have shrunk. “Dr.
Alfonso said I’d be in here for almost a week.”
Renie was standing up, scratching various parts
of her anatomy with her left hand and trying to adjust the sling on her right arm so that it didn’t tug at
her neck.
“I have the feeling that if we were in any other
hospital,” Renie declared, finally managing to
loosen the sling an inch or so, “I’d be headed home
this morning. Good Cheer has held fairly firm in al-50
Mary Daheim
lowing longer patient stays. Maybe it’s got something
to do with the hospital being run by a religious order.”
“In other words, by people who have good sense?”
Judith said.
“Exactly.” Somewhat unsteadily, Renie went into
the bathroom and closed the door.
Judith felt envious. Her cousin was mobile; it would
be weeks before Judith would be able to get around
with ease. She’d be stuck using a bedpan or the commode. Doctors and nurses bragged of success stories
about eighty-year-olds who danced the fandango six
weeks after surgery. But Judith knew those tales were
the exception to the rule. Besides, she’d never known
how to dance the fandango with two good hips.
Renie emerged from the bathroom, a big grin on her
face. “That must be the original toilet,” she said, moving cautiously toward her bed. “It’s the old-fashioned
chain type. It’s so high off the floor that my feet didn’t
touch. By the way, we’re sharing.”
“We are?” Judith said. “With whom? Robbie the
Robot?”
Renie shook her head. “No, Robbie the Pro Quarterback. There’s a door on the other side. I could hear him
talking on the phone. He was thanking somebody
named Taylor for something or other. No doubt some
special treatment he’s getting that we are not.”
“Bob Randall’s famous,” Judith said. “He’s used to
five-star treatment. We are not famous, thus we are not
entitled to special treatment.”
“Doesn’t infamous count?” Renie retorted. “I’m
working on that one.”
Judith sighed. “So you are. And with great success,
I might add.”
Dr. Alfonso arrived on his rounds shortly before ten
SUTURE SELF
51
o’clock. He was full of encouragement for Judith,
though she remained skeptical. With the help of a willowy redheaded nurse named Appleby, he managed to
get Judith into a sitting position. She confessed she felt
dizzy, almost nauseous, and had to put her head down.
The faded linoleum floor swam before her eyes.
“Perfectly normal,” Dr. Alfonso assured her. “By tomorrow, you’ll hardly feel dizzy at all.”
After the surgeon had gone, Corinne Appleby informed Judith that they’d have her on her feet by late
afternoon. “You’ll be surprised,” the nurse said, a tired
smile on her long, freckled face. Like Heather Chinn,
Nurse Appleby wore a crisply starched white uniform,
spotless white rubber-soled shoes, and a perky cap
with a single black band. “You may feel weak now,”
Corinne went on, “but little by little, you’ll get your
strength back.”
“I hope so,” Judith said, trying to block out Renie’s
latest complaints to an orderly who was attempting to
straighten her bed and apparently had attempted to molest Archie the doll. Maybe it was a good thing that her
cousin would go home first. When Renie was in a
drawn-out bad mood, she could be nerve-racking.
“Did you bring a book?” Judith asked after the orderly had managed to flee.
“Yes, but it sucks scissors,” Renie declared. “I
started it last night, somewhere between the vital signs
and the nurses’ argument over who ate the last package
of M&M’s.”
“Oh.” Judith glanced at the paperback on her bedside stand. “I couldn’t even try to read last night, but
maybe I will now. Unless you want to watch TV.”
“During the day?” Renie was aghast. “There’s nothing on except the Weather Channel.”
52
Mary Daheim
“There’s CNN,” Judith said meekly.
“That’s just news, and it won’t be good,” Renie asserted. “I’d rather read. Maybe if I started this book
from the end and read it backwards, it’d be more interesting.”
“I brought a deck of cards,” Judith said, brightening.
“If you could sit by my bed, we could play cribbage.”
“I haven’t played cribbage in years,” Renie said. “I
don’t know how anymore.”
“I could teach you,” Judith said. “I play with Mother
all the time. She usually beats me.”
Raised voices and a sudden scurrying in the hallway
diverted the cousins’ attention.
“What’s that?” Renie asked, sitting up in bed.
Judith leaned forward as far as she could, which was
only a few inches. “I can’t tell. A couple of people—I
think Nurse Appleby was one of them—just ran by.”
“Code blue!” someone shouted.
“What was that?” Renie asked, clumsily getting out
of bed and trailing her IV stand behind her.
“It sounded like ‘code blue.’ I don’t think that’s a
positive phrase in a hospital.”
Renie padded across the floor in her baggy hospital
gown and brown-treaded bed socks. “I thought they
said ‘cordon bleu.’ I thought it sounded like something
good.”
“I think maybe it means . . . dead,” Judith said, gulping.
“Oh.” Renie sounded dismayed, but kept moving
until she was in the doorway. After a few seconds, she
turned back to Judith. “Whatever it is seems to be happening in Bob Randall’s room next door.”
“No!” Judith’s hands flew to her cheeks. “It can’t
be! Maybe I’m wrong about what the code means.”
SUTURE SELF
53
A large bald-headed man in a white coat came striding down the hall. He saw Renie halfway out of the
door and barked at her to get back. Startled, she took a
single step but remained on watch.
“Dr. Van Boeck,” Renie said over her shoulder to Judith. “I heard somebody say his name.”
“Who else do you see?” Judith asked, wishing she
could join Renie at the door. But just thinking about it
made her feel vaguely light-headed.
“I see the patient from across the hall looking at
me,” Renie said. “He’s a man.” She waved. “Hi, I’m
Serena Jones.”
“Hello,” Judith heard the man reply in a chipper
voice. “I’m Mumford Needles. Call me Mr. Mummy.
Everybody else does.”
“Sure, Mr. Mummy,” Renie said. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Mummy said. “I don’t think it’s
anything good, though.”
Judith had to strain to hear the last part of Mr.
Mummy’s sentence. “Do you see anybody else?” she
asked Renie.
“Umm . . . Here comes Margie Randall. Can you
hear her?”
Judith could, as Margie uttered a series of keening
noises that sounded like mourners at an Irish wake.
“That’s awful,” Judith said, putting her hands over her
ears.
“There must be a bunch of people in the room,”
Renie said, cautiously taking a couple of steps farther
into the hallway.
But suddenly, except for Margie Randall’s shrieks,
the commotion seemed to subside. Renie informed Judith that there were a handful of staffers milling about,
with anxious, curious expressions on their faces.
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Mary Daheim
“Here comes Sister Jacqueline,” Renie said. “She’s
with some guy who looks like Ronald Colman on a
bad day. What was that movie he made where he was
drunk all the time?”
“Never mind,” Judith responded. “What does the
guy look like? A doctor? Security? A wizard?”
“A doctor, he’s wearing a white coat,” Renie answered as the man quickly passed by. “He looks very
grim. So does Sister Jacqueline.”
For several minutes, nothing seemed to happen, at
least nothing that Renie could tell. Then, quietly and
somberly, several of the people who had been in Bob
Randall’s room came back into the hallway. They
spoke in hushed tones, shaking their heads and placing
hands on each other’s arms, as if to give comfort.
Margie Randall had finally stopped shrieking, though
she was nowhere in sight.
Mr. Mummy gave a sad shake of his head. “I don’t
like the looks of this, do you, Mrs. Jones? Or may I call
you Serena?”
“Mrs. Jones is fine. What did you do to your leg?”
“I broke it in several places,” Mr. Mummy said. “A
nasty fall off a ladder while I was taking down Christmas lights. I had surgery in the community hospital out
where I live, then they transferred me in here today. It’s
a very small town and a very small hospital, with only
one surgeon. Excuse me, I must lie down. Perhaps I’ll
see you again?”
“Probably,” Renie said in mild surprise. Mr.
Mummy returned to his room.
“Is Mr. Mummy going to ask you out?” Judith inquired with a quirky little smile.
“I hope not. He’s almost as old as I am, bald except
for two tufts of hair sticking straight up, glasses, and
SUTURE SELF
55
about a fifty-inch waist. Cute in a way, but not my
type.” Renie spotted Corinne Appleby. “Nurse?” she
asked, trying to sound humble but not succeeding.
“What’s wrong?”
Corinne’s face was very pale under her freckles.
“There’s been a . . . problem. An emergency. Don’t
worry, everything’s under control.”
“It doesn’t seem like it to me,” Renie shot back.
“Come on, we have a right to know. Whatever it is, it
happened right next door.”
With trembling fingers, Corinne tucked a red curl
under her cap. “Sadly, Mr. Randall expired. Excuse
me, I must get back to the desk.”
If pain and posture had permitted, Judith would have
fallen out of the bed. Instead, she stared at Renie, who
had turned back into the room. “Bob Randall’s dead?”
Renie gave a helpless shrug. “As a dodo, I gather.”
Awkwardly, Judith fell against the pillows. “I should
have known.”
And then she wondered why she’d already guessed.
Renie’s job as sentry wasn’t easy, but she remained
propped up at the door, clutching the pole that held her
IV, and keeping Judith apprised of what was going on
in the next room.
“I can hear Margie sobbing,” Renie reported, “but at
least she’s not yelling her head off.”
“Can you ask somebody what happened to Bob
Randall?” Judith urged, feeling supremely frustrated. The room seemed to be closing in on her; the
windows were shrinking and the walls were shriveling. Judith felt as if she were in a cage instead of a
bed.
Renie glared at Judith. “If I draw any more attention
56
Mary Daheim
to myself, they’ll probably make me go back inside
and close the door.”
Her cousin had a point. Judith tried to relax. She
could hear the distorted sounds of the hospital loudspeaker, summoning certain parties to specific places.
“Okay,” Judith inquired, “who do you think is in Randall’s room besides Margie and Dr. Van Boeck and the
other guy?”
“A couple of nurses, maybe,” Renie said. “What’s
her name? Appleby? Oh, and Sister Jacqueline, but she
just came out and is headed”—Renie paused—“right
past me. She’s going to the nurses’ station.”
The doctor who had reminded Renie of Ronald Colman came back into the hallway. He caught Renie’s
eye and scowled.
“Would you mind stepping back into your own
room, please?” he said in a cold, cultured voice.
“I kind of would,” Renie replied. “What about the
patient’s right to know?”
“Know?” snapped the physician, his fine silvery
mustache quivering with outrage. “What do you need
to know? Please go back inside and close your door.”
“Okay,” Renie said, but didn’t budge. Apparently the
doctor wasn’t used to being disobeyed, since he didn’t
look back, but resumed his quick pace down the corridor.
“Back to the play-by-play,” said Renie. “Coming in
out of the bullpen and onto the mound, otherwise known
as Bob Randall’s room, is Peter Garnett, chief of surgery.” She relayed the information she’d gotten off the
man’s name tag. “His ERA, otherwise known as Good
Cheer’s mortality rate, is way up. No wonder he looks
so bad.”
A moment later, two orderlies bodily carried Margie
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57
Randall out of her husband’s room. She looked as if
she’d fainted. The little group moved off in the opposite direction. Then, before Renie could recount what
had happened, two more orderlies appeared, on the
run.
“More action on the field,” Renie said. “Margie
struck out—as in out cold—and another pair of orderlies have been called in from the dugout.” She’d barely
finished speaking when the orderlies reappeared, pushing what looked like Bob Randall on a gurney. His face
was covered with a sheet, and Renie let out a little
squawk as the entourage all but flew down the hall,
then disappeared into an elevator that must have been
waiting for them.
“Oh, dear.” Renie gulped and crossed herself. “I
think Bob’s just been taken out of the game.”
“What’s the rush?” Judith asked. “Maybe he’s not
really dead.”
But Renie sounded dubious. “He looked pretty dead
to me.” She lingered in the doorway, but events seemed
to have come to a standstill. Several staff members
were still talking in groups of twos and threes, but the
high-pitched excitement of the past few minutes had
dwindled into muffled voices and slumped shoulders.
Robbie the Robot scooted down the hall, blinking and
beeping to announce his passage.
“Call for the nurse, any nurse,” Renie said, finally
returning to her bed. “They’ll come for you. Whoa.”
She collapsed, still clinging to her IV stand. “I’m not
ready for prime time. I feel all wobbly.”
Judith pressed the button. “I could use a dose of
painkiller,” she said. “It’s been a while.”
But it was almost half an hour before Corinne Appleby appeared, her face flushed and her manner still
58
Mary Daheim
agitated. “I’m supposed to be off duty at eleven,” she
said with a quick glance at her watch, “but as you
probably know, we have had an emergency. I have to
stay a bit longer. I’ll take your vitals now and then get
some more pain medication.”
The nurse’s fingers fumbled with the thermometer;
she gave herself a good shake. “Sorry. It’s been an upsetting morning.”
“What caused Mr. Randall to die so suddenly?” Judith asked.
Corinne didn’t look at Judith. “I don’t know. He
seemed to be doing quite well.”
“Why did they rush his body down the hall after he
died?” Judith queried. “I mean, he was already beyond
help, wasn’t he?”
Corinne gave a curt nod. “Yes. He must have been
an organ donor. The same procedure was followed
with Mr. Somosa and Ms. Fremont.”
Judith pressed on before Corinne could put the thermometer in her mouth. “Will they perform an autopsy
on Mr. Randall?”
“Yes, it’s required in such cases.” The nurse still
avoided Judith’s gaze as she began the pulse routine.
Renie had managed to get herself back under the
covers. “But how can they do an autopsy if he’s donating his organs? That doesn’t make sense.”
“They can take the corneas,” Corinne replied. “Eyes
aren’t part of a routine autopsy.”
“So they did autopsies on Fremont and Somosa?”
Renie asked, filling in for her cousin, who now had the
thermometer in her mouth.
“Yes.” Corinne kept focused on her watch. “As I said,
they have to when a patient dies unexpectedly. The
county automatically assumes jurisdiction in such cases.”
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59
“What did they find out with the first two?” Renie
inquired.
“I couldn’t say,” Corinne replied, removing the thermometer from Judith’s lips. “There, now let’s take
your blood pressure.”
“Couldn’t?” Judith smiled. “Or can’t?”
“Won’t.” Corinne wound the cuff around Judith’s
arm. “The hospital has made its public statement.”
“ ‘Extenuating circumstances’?” Renie quoted from
what she’d read in the newspaper. “As in, not the hospital’s fault?”
Corinne shrugged, but said nothing. Judith couldn’t
resist goading the nurse. “I saw the news last night on
TV. Good Cheer is being sued, I gathered.” It was only
an assumption, given the brief news bit the cousins had
seen, but it seemed a logical conclusion.
Corinne made no response of any kind, but removed
the cuff, made some entries on a chart, and started
working with Renie.
“Nope,” Renie said, rolling over away from the
nurse as far as she could. “I’m bored with vital signs.
You aren’t any fun, Appleby. Why don’t they let Robbie the Robot do this stuff?”
“Please, Mrs. Jones,” Corinne said severely, “don’t
act childish.”
“But I am childish,” Renie replied. “Often immature
and a downright brat. Come on, lawsuits are a matter
of public record.”
Corinne took a deep breath. “I really don’t know.
There have been some rumors.”
Renie didn’t budge. “There were other rumors, too,
about Fremont and Somosa being drug abusers. Is that
the hospital’s defense?”
Corinne Appleby made an angry gesture, her face so
60
Mary Daheim
flushed that the freckles disappeared. “None of that’s
any of your business. If you won’t let me take your vitals, that’s fine. But I intend to enter your lack of cooperation on the chart.”
“Be my guest,” Renie shot back as the nurse headed
for the door. “I’ll file a complaint. I’ll call you a big drip.”
Corinne was almost out of the room when a deep,
angry voice could be heard from the hallway.
“Don’t tell me who I can talk to and who I can’t!”
the man shouted. “I’m sick of this runaround! Where
the hell is Dr. Garnett?”
Startled, Corinne scooted away and closed the door
behind her.
“Drat!” Judith exclaimed. “She can’t do that! Coz,
could you . . . ?”
“Aargh,” groaned Renie. “I guess.” She struggled to
get out of bed again. “Who do you suppose that is?”
“I don’t know,” Judith replied. “I could only hear,
not see, him.”
Renie opened the door just in time to see the man,
who had a dark beard, accost two young people.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, “but I want to help. Let’s go
somewhere else so we can talk in private.”
Trying to get a better look at the newcomers, Renie
stepped farther out into the hall. From the bed, Judith
could see only Renie’s backside and the IV stand. She
gave a little jump when her cousin stumbled into the
room, propelled by the firm hands of Sister Jacqueline.
“We simply cannot have patients interfering or getting involved with hospital routine this morning, Mrs.
Jones,” the nun said in an emphatic tone. “Please remain in your room, and we’d prefer you to keep your
door shut. Remember, it’s for your own sakes as well.
You need to rest in order to make a quick recovery.”
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61
Perhaps it was all those years in parochial school,
but even Renie could comply with the wishes of a nun.
“I know that bearded man,” she said, back-pedaling in
a clumsy manner. “That’s Addison Kirby, the newspaper reporter. He was married to Joan Fremont.”
Sister Jacqueline merely gave a slight nod. “Please
get back in bed, Mrs. Jones.”
“Who are those two young people?” Renie persisted. “Are they the Kirby kids?”
The nun started to turn away, then paused. “No.
They’re Mr. Randall’s son and daughter. They came to
the hospital to be with their mother.”
“How is Margie Randall doing?” Judith asked with
genuine sympathy.
Sister Jacqueline had reached the doorway. “Not
well, I’m afraid. She’s a very emotional woman. Excuse me, I must go.”
Judith gazed at Renie. “It cannot be a coincidence
for three well-known people to die unexpectedly after
routine surgery in Good Cheer Hospital.”
Renie looked pained. “I never like encouraging you
to track down murderers, but I have to admit, this is
pretty weird.”
“More than weird,” Judith responded, remembering
to take another sip of water. “But what’s the connection? One actress. Two sports stars. One active, one retired. From different sports, too. Who could possibly
want all three of them out of the way?”
Staring out through the windows with their faded
muslin curtains, Judith grew thoughtful. It was another
gray day, with heavy, dark clouds hovering over the
city. Maybe it would snow. But the weather was the
least of Judith’s worries.
“There’s got to be a police investigation that hasn’t
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Mary Daheim
been made public,” Judith said after a long pause.
“Maybe Joe can find out from Woody.”
Lunch arrived, brought by a small Filipino woman
with silver streaks in her short, dark hair. Making each
of the cousins a little bow, she introduced herself as
Maya. Sitting up in bed, Renie bowed back.
“Such a morning!” Maya exclaimed in little more
than a whisper. “Did you hear about Mr. Randall?
What next, I wonder?”
Judith had an impulsive urge to hug the little
woman. At last, there was somebody on the floor who
wasn’t tongue-tied. “It’s terrible,” Judith said, putting
on her most sympathetic face. “It must be so hard for
the people like you who work here, Maya.”
Maya set Judith’s tray in place, then put a hand on
her breast. “It’s terrible,” she said, rolling her dark eyes
and then crossing herself. “All these deaths. Fine people, too, each one very nice.”
“You were on duty when all three of them died?” Judith queried, trying to contain her own excitement.
“Yes.” Maya uttered the word like a victory chant. It
was obvious to Judith that she reveled in high drama.
“Can you imagine? Every time, the same thing, the
same way. They do fine, getting better, then . . .” She
held up her small hands. “Poof! They go to heaven.”
“It must be very sad for you,” Judith said, “to see
these people and their families and then to have them
die so unexpectedly. I suppose all their loved ones
were extremely shocked. Did anybody say what might
have happened?”
Maya waved a hand in a vexed gesture. “They say
too little and too much. The doctors, they don’t understand what happens. Not their fault, they say. Can’t explain. Maybe patient have unknown sickness or take
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63
bad medicine. The families, they cry, they make
threats, they blame doctors, nurses, everybody in hospital. Why, right now, Mr. Kirby, the husband of the actress, he’s here again, making the big fuss.” Maya
shook her head. “What is fame, what is riches, if you
die too soon? So sad, so very sad.”
“Mr. Somosa left a wife, but no children, I believe,”
put in Renie as Maya delivered her tray. “The Kirby
children are grown, and I guess the Randall kids are,
too.”
Maya nodded several times. “Yes. Mrs. Somosa, so
pretty, so young, she had to be put in the hospital herself, she was so filled with grief. Now she has gone
back to her homeland, the Dominican Republic, I believe. Mr. Somosa was buried there, with his ancestors.
The Kirby children I never saw, they live far away, but
they must have come for the funeral, yes? And now
Mr. Randall . . . Oh, my! Mrs. Randall, she will be in
the hospital, too, if she doesn’t stop crying so.”
“Maybe the children can help,” Judith said. “I understand they’re at the hospital now.”
Maya’s dark eyes flashed. “That’s so.” She put a finger to her lips. “Know what? They are with Mr. Kirby.
Why do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Judith said.
“I do,” Maya said with an emphatic nod. “They talk
of a cabal.”
Judith stared. “A cabal? What sort of cabal?”
“A plot to kill these poor souls,” Maya declared with
a swift glance over her shoulder to make sure the door
was firmly shut. “What else?”
Judith made an extra effort to look impressed. “Who
would do such a thing?”
Maya waved her hand again. “The riffraff. The rab-64
Mary Daheim
ble. The kind of people who hate the rich and famous.
Communists, no doubt. It’s what you call a vendetta.”
She clenched a fist and made stabbing motions, as if
she held a dagger.
The door opened suddenly and Heather Chinn appeared, looking suspicious. “Your lunch cart is outside,
Maya,” said the nurse. “Is everything all right in here?”
“Yes, yes,” Maya said, smiling, her compact little figure all but bouncing toward the doorway. “These fine
ladies, they need what you call the pep talk. You know
Maya, she can give the good pep talk.”
Heather stepped aside as Maya made her exit. “I
hope she wasn’t pestering you,” Heather said to the
cousins, a faintly wary expression lingering on her
face. “Maya’s quite a talker.”
“She’s interesting,” Judith said.
“Yes,” Heather agreed, turning to leave, “but don’t
pay much attention to her. She likes to hear herself talk.”
The nurse departed, closing the door behind her.
“Well?” Judith said. “How much of Maya’s spiel do
you believe?”
“None of it,” Renie replied, lifting lids and looking
dismayed. “It seems we have bath sponge for lunch.”
Judith also examined the meal. Everything was a
pale yellow, including the lettuce leaves in the salad.
“It might be some kind of creamed chicken on . . .
something. Toast?” Judith prodded the gelatinous mass
with her fork. “Hunh. Whatever. We also have pears,
more apple juice, and a big, fat, unattractive cookie
with jaundice-yellow frosting. No wonder I don’t have
much appetite.”
“That makes two of us.” Renie sighed. “I was
starved last night, but Art Huey’s food is always terrific. Today, I feel sort of . . . blah.”
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65
“That’s not like you,” Judith remarked. Renie’s appetite was usually boundless. “I suppose it’s natural.
We’ve been through a lot.”
“True,” Renie said as someone knocked on the door
but entered before either cousin could respond.
“Mrs. Flynn and Mrs. Jones?” The man who spoke
was Addison Kirby, who closed the door behind him
and immediately introduced himself. He was hatless,
and wearing a classic trench coat over dark slacks, a
tweed jacket, and a light-brown flannel shirt. “May I?”
“You want to see us?” Judith asked in surprise.
The newspaper reporter gave a curt nod. “It’ll only
take a minute.”
“Okay,” Judith said, puzzled. “Have a seat.”
Addison started to sit down in Judith’s visitor’s
chair, then hesitated. “Are you sure?” he asked, his
penetrating hazel eyes darting from cousin to cousin.
“Positive,” Renie said, draining her apple juice. “I
recognized you out in the hall. Let me say right off,
I’m terribly sorry about your loss. Your wife was a
wonderful actress, and I’ve heard she was a fine person
as well. She always seemed active in helping raise
money for charity.”
Briefly, Addison hung his head. He was going bald,
but there were only a few strands of gray in his wellkept beard. “She was terrific in every way,” he said,
looking up. “On top of it, we managed to raise three
children who are now off and on their own. We have
two grandchildren, charming little twins. Joan was so
fond of them. We’d visit when Le Repertoire
wasn’t . . .” He stopped abruptly and bit his full lower
lip. “Sorry. I’m not here to talk about that.”
“That’s okay,” Judith said with sympathy. “Go
ahead, tell us whatever you want to.”
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Mary Daheim
“No, no,” Addison replied, now very businesslike. “I
have just a couple of questions.” Again, he paused, this
time to clear his throat. “This morning, before Bob
Randall died, did either of you see or hear anything unusual?”
Judith and Renie exchanged quick glances. “No,”
Judith finally said. “I don’t recall anything.”
“You’re sure?” Addison Kirby looked disappointed.
Renie’s expression was uncharacteristically diffident. “I did hear Randall talking on the phone this
morning while I was in there.” She gestured at the
darkly stained wooden door to the bathroom. “He was
talking about somebody named Taylor, or to somebody
named Taylor. I couldn’t catch much of it, though.”
Addison looked puzzled. “The only Taylor I know
was Joan’s eye doctor. But it’s a common name. That’s
all you heard?”
“I’m afraid so,” Judith responded with an apologetic
expression. “Why do you ask?”
Kirby shook his head. “I’m paranoid,” he said. “Obsessed. Nuts.”
“Who isn’t?” Renie offered.
Standing up, Kirby replaced the visitor’s chair and
jammed his hands into the pockets of his trench coat.
“I had an appointment this morning to meet with Dr.
Garnett, the chief of surgery. I’ve got a lot of unanswered questions about Joan’s death. Garnett had been
stalling me, figuring, I suppose, that anything he said
would be on page one of the Times’s next edition. But
he finally gave in, and we’d just gotten started when he
was summoned to this floor. I could tell it was urgent,
so I followed him, and learned that Bob Randall had
died. I didn’t really know Bob, but I’ve seen him
around town over the years. Anyway, it seemed
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67
damned peculiar, with Joan dying so suddenly and
Joaquin Somosa, the same way.”
“It’s incredible,” Judith declared.
“You bet it is,” Addison asserted, the hazel eyes
sparking. “I was already suspicious, that’s why I
wanted to see Garnett. If nothing else, I wanted to clear
Joan’s reputation.”
“In what way?” Judith asked.
Addison had turned to the door, but now he faced the
cousins again. “Because,” he said angrily, “the results
of the autopsy indicated she’d ingested a large quantity
of Rohypnol—one of those date-rape drugs—which
caused her death. That’s bull, Joan never did drugs in
her life. Even if she had, why in the world would she
take that one?” His voice dropped and his eyes sent off
more sparks. “It doesn’t make sense, which is why I
think my wife was murdered.”
FIVE
JUDITH WASN’T SURPRISED by Addison Kirby’s declaration. It only confirmed her suspicions about the
three deaths.
“So you think there may be something fishy
about Somosa and Randall as well?” she asked.
Addison shrugged. “Maybe. I can’t speak for Somosa, because I didn’t know him. But I heard
through my county sources that the autopsy indicated
he’d overdosed on some kind of street drug. Ecstasy,
I think. As for Randall—we don’t know yet, do we?”
Their visitor paced back and forth in front of
Judith’s iron bedstead. He seemed to be arguing
with himself. “I just spoke with Randall’s son,
Bob Jr., and his daughter, Nancy. They caught
snatches of conversation among the staff that indicated suicide.”
“What?” Judith couldn’t believe her ears.
“That’s right,” Addison said, nodding gravely. “I
can’t get to Mrs. Randall—she’s had some kind of
emotional collapse.”
“What about his brother, Jim?” Judith asked.
“Has he been notified?”
“Jim?” Addison blinked several times. “I didn’t
realize Bob Randall had a brother. Is he around?”
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69
“He was here last night,” Renie put in. “He was fussing because Bob had too many visitors and so much hubbub going on in his room.”
“Interesting,” Addison remarked. “I’ll try to get hold
of him.”
“Say,” Renie said, adjusting her sling and leaning
forward in the bed, “why haven’t you gone public with
any of the stuff about your wife and Somosa? I haven’t
seen a word about it in the Times.”
The journalist gave Renie a twisted little smile.
“You don’t understand the politics of publishing,
Mrs. . . . Jones, right? My superiors don’t want me ruffling feathers. Blanche Van Boeck is a powerful figure
in this community.”
Renie slapped at her head with her good hand. “Of
course! I didn’t make the connection with Dr. Jan Van
Boeck. That’s his wife, right? She’s on the city council and just about everywhere on the map in this town.
Oh, my.”
Addison’s smile became wry. “She certainly is. Rumor
has it she may run for mayor. She has powerful friends in
powerful places. Of course, she has enemies, too.”
Renie was suddenly wearing what Judith called
her “boardroom face,” the no-nonsense sharpening
of her features that she presented to corporate clients
in her graphic design business.
“Blanche has made some big waves in the past few
years,” Renie said. “She’s always struck me as putting
Blanche at the head of her agenda, rather than the social and political programs she espouses.”
Addison nodded. “That’s what many people would
say, which is why I have to dance all around her in
print. Which also means I have to dance around Good
Cheer Hospital, because her husband runs the place.”
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Mary Daheim
“But Good Cheer was on the news last night,” Judith
pointed out. “We missed the first part of the story.
What was that all about?”
“The Seafarers are calling for an investigation into
Somosa’s death,” Addison replied. “Apparently, they
think something’s wrong, too. I intend to meet with
Tubby Turnbull, the team’s general manager, this afternoon.”
Judith was shaking her head. “So I wasn’t wrong,”
she said faintly.
At the door, Addison frowned at Judith. “Wrong
about what?”
“About these deaths being linked,” Judith said.
“Frankly, the deaths of your wife and Somosa struck
me as more than a coincidence right from the start.
Now, with Randall’s passing, the situation seems
downright ominous.”
Addison’s expression was frankly curious. “Why
does it interest you so much, Mrs. Flynn?”
Judith felt the color rise in her cheeks. “Oh . . . You
might say that my hobby is snooping.” She uttered a
lame little laugh.
Addison now looked puzzled. “Snooping?” he said.
“It’d be more accurate,” Renie said, “to say that her
hobby is murder.”
“And to think,” Renie mused after Addison Kirby
had departed, “I wondered how we’d pass the time during our hospital stay.”
“I don’t think the deaths of those poor people were
intended to keep us occupied,” Judith said, feeling
glum and staring up at the mottled plaster ceiling.
The uncommunicative orderly of the previous day
came in to remove the cousins’ luncheon trays. If he
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71
noticed that neither of them had eaten much, he made
no comment, but stoically left the room without a
word.
“Can he talk?” Renie asked, getting up and heading
for the bathroom. “Or does he consider us unworthy?”
“The latter, I suspect,” Judith responded. “Maybe if
you didn’t trash your bed so much, we’d get more respect.
Where did that Falstaff ’s grocery bag come from?”
“Falstaff ’s,” Renie replied, turning around at the
bathroom door. “It’s my back-up food supply. Fruit,
cheese, crackers, Pepsi, popcorn. We’ll share when I
come back to bed. Now I’m hungry.”
“How did you fit that thing into your purse?” Judith
asked.
“Easy,” Renie replied. “I have a huge purse.” She
went inside the bathroom and shut the door.
The outer door opened almost simultaneously as
Heather Chinn entered. “Time to get you on your feet,”
she said in a cheerful voice. “How do you feel, Mrs.
Flynn?”
“Not like I want to get on my feet,” Judith said. “I
thought we’d do this later in the afternoon.”
“It’s almost two,” Heather said. “The more you lie
there, the weaker you’ll become. Here, let me help you
swing around to the edge of the bed.”
It took Judith a few moments to sit up straight. Then,
slowly and unsteadily, she let Heather help her move
her legs. Pain spread out from her hip to envelop her
entire body. “I feel dizzy already,” Judith asserted.
“You’re doing fine,” Heather soothed. “Now lean on
me and try to stand up.”
Judith could both feel and hear the artificial hip
move. She was frightened. “Is that . . . ?” she gulped,
still dizzy.
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Mary Daheim
“That’s fine, keep coming. You’ve got all your weight
on your good leg,” Heather coached. “Now put just a little on the other leg, okay?”
The worn linoleum was rising up toward Judith in
tired, wrinkled waves. She felt as if she were falling
overboard, into a murky yellow sea. Suddenly her
world went dark, except for shooting stars and trailing
comets.
“Coz!” Renie had just come out of the bathroom.
Moving as quickly as she could, she went to Judith,
who had, fortunately, fallen backwards onto the bed.
Heather was looking more annoyed than frightened as
she took Judith by the hands.
“It’s nothing,” the nurse said to Renie. “Maybe she
isn’t quite ready to stand. Still, if she doesn’t try . . .”
“If she doesn’t try, she won’t pass out,” Renie cut in
tersely. “Let me get somebody to help you put her back
to bed.”
Though Heather was stronger than she looked, she
didn’t turn down the offer. The nurse was a short, slim
size four; Judith was a statuesque size fourteen. Another strong body was needed for the task. Renie found
the silent orderly just outside the door, stacking trays
onto the meal cart.
Judith’s eyelids fluttered open as the nurse and the
orderly got her back into bed. “Oh . . . What happened?” she asked, her mouth dry and her eyes unfocused.
“You had a little setback,” Heather said, tucking the
covers around Judith. “We’ll try that again later.” The
nurse began taking vital signs.
Renie was standing by the windows. “Damn,” she
breathed, “I think it may snow. I wish Bill and Joe
would get here soon, while it’s still daylight.”
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73
“Joe said he’d be by around three,” Judith said.
“Bill’s coming with him, I think.” She took a deep
breath before Heather popped the thermometer in her
mouth.
“Right, there’s no point in taking two cars,” Renie
said, looking down at the hospital entrance’s graceful
landscaping and the adjacent parking lot. “Boy, it
looks really cold out there. I can feel the chill through
the windows.”
Judith couldn’t respond with the thermometer in
her mouth. The dizziness had passed, but she felt
weak as a newborn lamb. The idea of trying to stand
up later in the day sounded impossible.
“I need some water,” she said in a thick voice after
Heather had removed the thermometer. “I’m so dry.”
“You mustn’t get dehydrated,” Heather warned,
proffering the plastic glass. “Remember how we’ve
told you to keep taking in fluids.”
“Hey,” Renie said, “I see Addison Kirby heading for
the parking lot. I wonder if he’s off to see Tubby Turnbull at the . . . Look out!” She shuddered as her good
arm reached out toward the window in a pleading motion. “Ohmigod!”
“What?” Judith sputtered, choking on the water.
Horror-stricken, Renie staggered around to stare at
Judith and Heather. “It’s awful,” she gasped, leaning
against the window embrasure for support. “A car just
came from out of nowhere and ran over Addison
Kirby!”
Heather Chinn ran off to get help. Renie stood
rooted by the window. “The car took off,” she said in a
shaky voice. “Poor Addison’s lying there in a heap.”
Judith had rolled over onto her side, though she
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couldn’t get a better view of what was happening beyond the window. “Is he . . . ?” she asked in a fearful
voice.
“No, he’s moving,” Renie said. “Sort of.”
“Damn!” Feebly, Judith swung a fist in frustration.
“I feel so helpless!”
“Here comes a guy in a white coat and another guy in
some kind of uniform.” Renie was trying to open the
window with her good hand, but it wouldn’t budge.
“The white coat may be a doctor. Yes, I think it’s what’shis-name—Garnett, the second in command. The guy in
uniform may be security. Here comes somebody else, in
civvies. He looks sort of familiar.” She gave up trying to
open the window and flexed the muscles of her left arm
before rapping loudly on the wavery old glass. “Hey,
he’s looking up. It’s Jim Randall,” Renie said, breathless. “Here come some more people with a gurney.”
“Double damn,” Judith muttered. “I feel like an
idiot. Why couldn’t I at least be in a wheelchair?”
“You will be,” Renie responded. “Huh. They seem to
be paying special attention to Addison’s left leg.
Maybe it’s broken. Poor guy.”
“Where’s the car that ran him over?” Judith asked.
“I don’t know. It hit Addison and kept going, toward
the parking lot.” Renie paused, staring down below.
“Dr. Garnett and one of the others are hovering over
the gurney. Jim Randall is walking away. The security
guy is wandering around, like he’s looking for someone or something.”
“The car, I suppose,” Judith said. “You’ll have to tell
him you saw it. What color and make was it?”
“It was sort of beige,” Renie said, “fairly new, but
from up here on three, I couldn’t guess what make. All
I could see was the roof.”
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75
“Do you remember if there’s an outlet from the
parking lot?” Judith inquired.
“No, of course not,” Renie answered. “We pulled
into the patient admitting area on the opposite side of
the entrance.”
“Oh.” Judith rolled over onto her back. “I forgot.
That anesthesia has muddled my brain.”
“It does that,” Renie allowed. “They’re all going inside now, including the uniform.” She waited a moment, then went back to her bed. “Shall I phone
security and tell them I saw it?”
“Sure,” Judith said. “They’ll need a witness. Insurance,
and all that.”
Renie picked up the phone, dialed zero, and asked to
be connected to security. She was informed that security was out. “He’s it?” she said after leaving her name
and room number.
“Probably not, at least not at night,” Judith replied.
Renie began hauling food out of the Falstaff ’s bag.
“Let’s eat something before the nurses come around
with all their paraphernalia. I don’t want them confiscating my stash.”
“I might nibble on an apple,” Judith said.
“Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith,
Gala?” Renie offered.
“Red Delicious,” Judith said, gazing at the sack with its
Falstaff logo. “How much stuff have you got in there?”
“Plenty,” Renie replied, using her left hand to toss
Judith a shiny red apple. It was a surprisingly accurate
throw, considering that Renie was normally righthanded. “Hey,” she said with a grin, “maybe I could’ve
been a southpaw pitcher. Cheese? There’s Monterey
jack, Havarti, Brie, and a really nice Gouda.” She produced a small knife and held it up.
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Mary Daheim
“The apple’s fine,” Judith said with a slight shake of
her head. “I don’t see how you got all that stuff in your
purse, big as it is.”
“That’s because I took everything else out and put it
in my overnight bag,” Renie said. “Food first; the rest
is a distant second.”
The phone rang. Judith thought it must be security,
calling Renie back. But Renie gave a brief shake of her
head. It wasn’t her phone. Judith wrestled with the receiver, and finally managed to say hello.
“Hi, Mom,” Mike said, sounding vaguely apprehensive. “How are you getting along? Joe told me the surgery went fine.”
“It did,” Judith replied with a big smile on her face.
“I’m getting along just great.”
“That’s a huge relief,” Mike said, and Judith knew he
meant it. Her son was a worrier. “Kristin and Mac and I’d
like to come into town tonight to see you, but it’s snowing like crazy up here at the pass. I think they’re going to
close the highway pretty soon. It’s a regular blizzard.”
In her mind’s eye, Judith could picture the U.S. Forest Service cabin that Mike and Kristin called home. It
was small but cozy, and with a magnificent view of the
surrounding mountains and forest. At least when they
could see through the snow.
“Don’t even think of coming down until I get home,”
Judith said. “I’m not going to be here forever.”
“I know, but I’d still like to pay a visit before the
weekend,” Mike said. “Didn’t they figure you’d be
home about Saturday?”
“They didn’t make any promises,” Judith said.
“How’s Kristin? What’s little Mac up to?”
“They’re fine,” Mike said. “Kristin still has the
queasies sometimes, but basically, she feels strong.”
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77
Like a fifty-foot Douglas fir, Judith thought, picturing her daughter-in-law.
“Mac wants to go back outside to play in the snow,”
Mike went on, “but it’s blowing too hard. Kristin took
him out there a while ago, and the wind knocked him
over. He made a perfect snow angel when he fell,
though. Thanks again for the snowsuit you gave him
for Christmas.” He paused, and Judith could hear Mac
jabbering in the background. “Tomorrow, little fella,
okay? Say,” Mike said into the phone again, “I wasn’t
going to mention this until I saw you, but now that I
think about it, you’re probably pretty bored, huh?”
“Well . . .” Judith glanced at Renie, who was gobbling cheese and pear slices. “Not exactly, but I may be
later.”
“We’re going to put Mac in preschool this fall,”
Mike said, sounding like a typical proud papa.
“There’s a really good one about twenty miles down
the highway. Kristin’s been filling out the forms, and
one thing they’d like to have is a family tree. Then,
when the kid enters on the first day, there’s his picture
on this cutout of a tree, with information about all of
his ancestors. Cute, huh?”
“Cute,” Judith agreed, though her voice had gone
flat. “So you want me to put together a family tree.”
She caught Renie’s gaze; Renie choked on her pear.
“If you could,” Mike said. “Nothing fancy; I gather
the teachers do the artwork and arranging. No real
rush, either, though they’d like to have all this stuff by
the end of the month.”
“The end of the month?” Judith frowned into the
phone. “Why so soon? Mac won’t start school until
fall.”
“The teachers have to make the trees for about sixty
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Mary Daheim
kids,” Mike said reasonably. “Of course, they have to
decide if they’ll accept Mac in the first place. But the
earlier we get all this stuff done, the more likely he’ll
get into Little Einsteins.”
“That’s the name of the school?” Judith gulped.
“Right. They don’t take just any kid,” Mike said,
pride still evident in his voice. “Of course, it’s not
cheap, but we can swing it. Education’s so important
these days. I mean, it’s not like when I was a kid, and
you sent me to Ethel Bump’s place. All we did was
string beads and finger-paint her furniture and roll
around on our rugs.”
“That was day care, Mike,” Judith said over Renie’s
loud coughing fit . You were there so I could work two
jobs while Dan laid on the couch, starting his day with
an entire bottle of blackberry brandy and working his
way up to his first vodka at eleven in the morning.
“You did more than just play at Ethel’s,” Judith continued. “You learned your numbers.”
“Not all of them,” Mike responded. “I always left
out nine.”
“True.” Judith hung her head. “Okay, I’ll see what I
can do.”
“Great, Mom. Got to go. There’s a message coming
in on my fax. Love you.” He hung up.
“Family tree, huh?” Renie said, having conquered
her choking.
Judith grimaced. “I’ve dreaded this for years.”
Renie offered her cousin a sympathetic smile.
“Don’t you think Mike knows that Dan wasn’t his real
father?”
“Define ‘real,’ ” Judith said with a frown.
“I meant natural father,” Renie responded, eating a
piece of Havarti cheese. “Yes, I certainly know that
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79
Dan raised Mike, that in spite of being a lousy husband, he was a pretty good dad. I also know that Mike
has always felt that Dan really was his dad. But a year
or so ago, I got the impression that Mike had figured it
out. Do you remember? We were all having our pictures taken with little Mac, and Mike suddenly looked
from the baby’s red hair to Joe’s, and since Mike himself has red hair and Dan was very dark, I got the impression that Mike finally realized the truth.”
“He’s never said a word,” Judith asserted. “Not to
me, not to Joe. But you’re right, I think he must know,
deep down. How much denial could he possibly have?
I wanted to broach the subject with him then, but I kept
putting it off. We’d already had one big conversation a
couple of years ago, and it became clear to me that the
truth would have altered his memory of Dan.”
“He was younger then,” Renie pointed out. “That
was before he got married, wasn’t it?”
“I can’t remember,” Judith admitted. “I know, I tend
to bury things, hoping they’ll go away. But they don’t.”
The phone rang again, this time on Renie’s line. She
responded in monosyllables, then hung up. “Security.
His name is Torchy Magee. He’ll be up in a few minutes, along with a cop.”
“If Joe had never been a cop,” Judith sighed, “and
never gotten drunk that night in the bar with Herself, I
wouldn’t be in this quandary now.”
“Nonsense,” Renie retorted, cutting another slice of
cheese and popping it in her mouth.
Judith didn’t say anything for a few moments. She
was reliving that terrible time when Joe had suddenly
disappeared just weeks before their wedding. She’d only
heard secondhand that he’d been shanghaied to Vegas
by Vivian, and that, while he was still in a drunken stu-80
Mary Daheim
por, the pair had gotten married in a casino wedding
chapel. It wasn’t until many years later that Judith had
found out he’d tried to call her later that same day.
Gertrude had intercepted the call and never told Judith
about it. Not hearing back, and feeling compelled to
honor his commitment to Vivian, Joe had stayed married
to Vivian for over twenty years. He’d felt sorry for Herself, he explained to Judith after they were finally reunited. She’d had two unhappy marriages already, and
was trying to raise two small boys on her own. Then Vivian had given birth to their own daughter, Caitlin. Joe
felt stuck, and he knew that Judith had married Dan McMonigle on the rebound. It was only after the children
were raised and Herself had grown more passionate
about Jim Beam than Joe Flynn that he had finally decided to make a break. There had been no need for an
annulment. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Joe’s
marriage to Herself had never been valid. Taking vows
while not in his sane and sober mind was only part of it;
the Church didn’t recognize the union because Vivian
was still the wife of another man.
Meanwhile, Judith had lived a lie, at least as far as
Mike was concerned. Joe didn’t know that she was
pregnant when he ran off with Herself. Judith had
never told him, not until almost a quarter of a century
later. Dan had raised Mike as his own, and perhaps his
often antagonistic attitude toward Judith was a form of
punishment for bearing another man’s child. Whatever
the cause, Judith had suffered a great deal during the
nineteen years that she was married to Dan.
“But he was a good father.” She repeated the phrase
so often that it was like a mantra. She could never
make Dan happy, but she could honor his memory, especially in Mike’s eyes.
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81
“Yes, yes,” Renie said testily. “But Mike’s a grown
man now, he can handle the truth. It’s not fair to Joe. It
never has been, and I’ll bet my last five bucks he resents it, deep down.”
Judith heaved a big sigh. “Yes, I know he does. I
guess I’ll have to bite the bullet.”
“It’s about time,” Renie said, still testy. “Your problem, coz, is that you hate making decisions, you can’t
stand rocking the boat, you’re absolutely terrified of
change. Go ahead, make out that family tree, and fill in
all of Joe’s family. His brothers, his parents, the whole
damned clan.”
“I never knew his mother,” Judith said, as if her
early death might give some excuse for abandoning
the project.
“Do it,” Renie barked. “I’ll help.”
Before Judith could respond, a burly, uniformed
man in his late fifties poked his head in the door. “Mrs.
Jones?” he said in a gravelly voice.
“Here,” said Renie, raising her left hand. “You’re
Torchy Magee?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the security guard responded as another, much younger man in a patrolman’s uniform followed him into the room. “This is Johnny Boxx, that’s
with two xx’s, right, Johnny?”
“Right,” replied the young officer with a tight little
smile.
“He’s fairly new to the force,” Magee said, swaggering a bit as he nodded at Judith and approached
Renie’s bed. “Me, I was a cop for over twenty-five
years before I retired a while back. Arson, vice, larceny, assault—I did it all, and have the scars to show
for it.” He chuckled and gave Johnny Boxx a hearty
slap on the back. “Yessir, see this?” He pointed to a
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Mary Daheim
long, thin scar on his right cheek. “Attacked by a knife
there.” Magee rolled up his left sleeve to reveal another
scar. “Shotgun, just below the elbow. Hurt like hell. I
was wounded three times, here, in the shoulder, and
just above my ear. Got a plate in my head to prove it.”
“My,” Renie said, keeping a straight face, though Judith could tell it was an effort, “you’ve had some bad
luck.”
“Just doing my job,” Magee responded. “That’s not
all, either. I got my nickname, Torchy, when I was in
arson. Look, no eyebrows.”
Sure enough, Magee’s forehead stretched from his
eyes to the bald spot on top of his head. “What happened?” Judith asked.
“Let’s put it this way,” Torchy Magee responded
with a chuckle and a wink, “when you’re investigating
an arson case, you should make sure the fire is out
first.” He chuckled some more, a grating sound, then
turned to Renie. “Okay, little lady, let’s hear all about
what you saw from this third-story window.”
“ ‘Little lady’?” Renie curled her lip.
“Well . . .” Torchy shrugged. “In a manner of speaking.” He rested one foot on Renie’s bed frame. “So
what’d you see?”
“I was standing by the window,” Renie began, eyeing Torchy’s foot with annoyance, “when I saw Mr.
Kirby leave through the front entrance.”
Officer Boxx held up a hand. “How did you know it
was Mr. Kirby?”
“I’d just met him,” Renie replied. “He was wearing
a trench coat, he had a beard, it wasn’t that hard to
identify him three floors up.”
“Sounds right to me,” Torchy said. “Go on, Mrs. J.”
“Mrs. Jones,” Renie said with emphasis. “Anyway,
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83
he’d just started toward the parking lot when a beige
car, a mid-sized sedan, came from out of nowhere and
struck Mr. Kirby down.”
“Heh, heh.” Torchy chuckled. “Now, Mrs. . . . Jones,
a car can’t come out of nowhere. Which direction?”
Renie looked exasperated. “I was watching Mr.
Kirby. You know damned well a car can come from
three directions out there—the parking lot, the main
drive into the hospital, and the ambulance and staff
area off to the right of the main entrance. That is, my
right, from my point of view, through my window.”
Torchy’s expression had grown serious. “Through
this window.”
“Yes.” Renie’s patience appeared to be wearing thin.
“Tell us about the car,” Officer Boxx inquired. “It
was a beige medium-sized sedan. Any idea how old or
what make?”
“Very clean,” Renie answered, “so I thought it was
fairly new. It was shaped like so many cars these days,
especially the Japanese imports. Bill and I have a Toyota,
about the same color as the car I saw. In fact, our car
looks like every other car these days. Sometimes I get
mixed up in a parking lot and try to get into the wrong
one. My husband and I call our Toyota Cammy. Except
Bill says Cammy is a boy. I don’t agree. Cammy’s a girl.”
“Can’t you tell by looking underneath?” Torchy
laughed aloud at his joke.
“I never thought of that,” Renie said with a straight
face and a flashing eye.
“License plate,” Boxx put in. “Did you get any kind
of look?”
“Ah . . .” Renie bit her lip. “I didn’t notice.”
The young policeman frowned. “Do you remember
if it had in-state plates?”
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Mary Daheim
Her eyes half closed, Renie seemed to be concentrating. “Yes, I think so. I can see it from the rear as it
headed toward the parking lot. I’m a very visual person.”
“Huh?” said Torchy.
“I’m a designer, an artist by trade,” Renie explained.
“I see more than most people do, but sometimes I don’t
realize it until later.”
“But you didn’t see any letters or numbers,” the policeman prompted.
“No.” Renie looked chagrined.
“So this car went where after hitting Mr. Kirby?”
Torchy inquired.
“Toward the parking lot,” Renie replied. “You can’t
see much of the lot because of those evergreen trees
and shrubs. Anyway, I was riveted on Mr. Kirby.”
“How is he?” Judith broke in.
“Kirby?” Torchy turned around. “Broken leg,
bruises and so forth. Kid stuff.” The security guard
touched his head, presumably where he’d been shot.
“He’ll live.”
“That’s more than his wife did,” Renie declared.
“She never got out of this place alive.”
“Now, now,” Torchy said in a soothing tone. “That
was a different matter.”
“How different?” Judith asked.
“Well,” Torchy began, then paused and scratched his
bald spot, “she had an operation. And then . . . well,
maybe she was taking some stuff on the side. You
know.” He winked again.
“Actually,” Renie said, “we don’t know. Mr. Kirby
doesn’t think his wife was taking ‘stuff on the side.’
Have you talked to him, Security Officer Magee?”
Torchy gave a little jump. “Me? Why, sure. That’s
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85
my job. But what do husbands know about what wives
do when they’re not with the old man?” He winked a
third time. “Or the other way around, for that matter.
Besides, she was an actress. You know what those theater people are like.”
Renie held up a hand. “If you wink again, I’ll
have to kill you. Yes, I know something about theater people. But the real question is, what do you
know about the untimely deaths of three well-known
local residents in this very hospital? Isn’t that your
business?”
Johnny Boxx had strolled to the door, maybe, Judith
thought, in an effort to disassociate himself from
Torchy Magee. “If you think of anything else,” Boxx
said to Renie in a courteous voice, “let us know.” It was
clear he meant the police, not security.
“I will,” Renie promised.
Torchy lingered after Officer Boxx went out into the
hall. “Let me know first,” he said to Renie, his jocular
manner evaporating.
“Sure,” Renie said, her brown eyes wide with innocence.
Judith pushed herself up on the pillows. “Drugs,
huh?” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “Fremont and
Somosa both, I heard. And Bob Randall committed
suicide. How horrible.”
Torchy’s close-set gray eyes narrowed. “Where’d
you hear all that?”
Judith shrugged. “Hospital scuttlebutt. You know
how people like to gossip.”
The security man, who had been midway to the
door, stopped at the foot of Judith’s bed. “Don’t pay attention to what you hear. Of course,” he went on,
lightly caressing the iron bedstead rail, “sometimes
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Mary Daheim
truth has a way of getting out.” Once again, Torchy
winked.
“That’s so,” Judith said, smirking a bit and ignoring
Renie, who was making threatening gestures at Torchy
with her cheese knife. “It’s hard to imagine why Bob
Randall would kill himself. It’s even harder to imagine
how he did it.” She gave a little shudder, which wasn’t
entirely feigned.
Torchy frowned. “I’m not sure I know yet. That is, I
couldn’t say if I did, of course. That’d be telling tales
out of school.” Torchy gave the bedstead a quick slap.
“Gotta go. No rest for the wicked.”
The security man left. The cousins stared at each
other.
“What do you think?” Renie inquired.
“I think,” Judith said slowly as her eyelids began to
droop, “that no matter how Bob Randall died, it wasn’t
suicide. I’m willing to bet that it was . . .”
She fell asleep before she could finish the sentence.
SIX
JOE AND BILL arrived shortly after three o’clock.
Both had already heard about Bob Randall’s sudden
death. Joe was wild; Bill was thoughtful.
“I don’t get it,” Joe raged, pacing up and down the
small room. “There’s nowhere you can go in this entire world and not run into a dead body. If I shot myself right now with my trusty thirty-eight, and you
entered a cloistered nunnery tomorrow, the first
thing you’d find is the Mother Superior’s corpse,
carved up like a damned chicken!”
“Joe,” Judith pleaded, “you know I was apprehensive even before . . .”
“Post-op anxiety, depression, fear—it could play
out that way,” Bill was saying quietly to Renie, “but
I doubt it. On the other hand . . .”
“I’ll have you moved,” Joe said, suddenly stopping between the cousins’ beds. “To some rehab
place; I think there’s one connected to our
HMO . . .”
“. . . Bob Randall may have been overcome with
family difficulties,” Bill continued. “Maybe, when
he signed that release before surgery, he envisioned
his own mortality and . . .”
“No, what am I thinking of?” Joe said, catching
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Mary Daheim
himself. “There’d still be a damned body somewhere.
It’s hopeless, it’s beyond comprehension, it’s . . .”
“. . . given his other problems, Randall felt his life
was unbearable.” Bill turned his palms up in a helpless
gesture.
Judith turned toward Bill. “What did you say? About
Bob Randall’s family problems?”
Bill gave Judith a vaguely apologetic look. “Sorry. I
shouldn’t have mentioned it. You see, I’ve been treating Margie Randall for some time.”
“What?” Both cousins shrieked at Bill.
“Good God almighty!” Joe exclaimed under his
breath and fell into Judith’s visitor’s chair.
“You never mentioned Bob Randall’s wife as a patient,” Renie said in an accusing tone.
“Of course not,” Bill replied calmly. “I don’t disclose my patients’ identities to you unless it’s someone
you’ve never heard of and the name is meaningless. In
fact, I often make up the names.”
“Patient confidentiality,” Renie scoffed. “How come
you didn’t speak to Margie Randall in the waiting
room yesterday morning?”
“Because it would have frightened and embarrassed
her,” Bill said. “Besides, I don’t think she saw me.
Which is understandable. Part of her problem is that
she’s completely locked into herself.”
“So what awful problems—other than Margie—did
Bob Randall have with his family?” Judith asked, trying to ignore Joe’s angry glare.
Bill sighed. “Honestly, I shouldn’t say. But we may
be involved in a homicide here, and eventually, the
media will get hold of all the details. Besides, Margie
canceled her last two appointments and may not still
consider me her psychologist; I can allow that the two
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89
Randall children are deeply troubled. In fact, they’re a
big, fat mess.”
“That’s clinical enough,” Renie said, her annoyance
fading. “How so?”
As was his wont, Bill took his time to answer.
“Really, I can’t betray a patient’s trust. Nancy, the
daughter, and Bob Jr., the son, both have what you
might consider life-threatening problems. Let’s leave it
at that.”
“You’re no fun,” Renie said. “I want a divorce.”
“You can’t have one,” Bill responded. “But I can assure you that life on the home front wasn’t all highlight
reels. Bob might have had good reasons to do himself
in.”
“No such luck,” Joe said glumly with a dirty look at
his wife. “I’ll bet my old classic MG that he got himself killed. I should be so lucky to have my charming
bride run into a plain old suicide.”
Judith felt too tired to carry the fight any further.
“Knock it off, Joe, please.” She gave him her most
winsome look. “Be reasonable. I had to have this surgery, Good Cheer is the only hospital in town that does
it, I’m incapacitated, and it’s not—and never has
been—my fault that I keep running into dead people.
I’m just an ordinary wife, mother, and innkeeper.”
“You’d run into fewer dead people if you were a
coroner,” Joe muttered. “Okay, okay, your usual logic
has made a slight impression. For now. Here,” he said,
reaching down to the shopping bag he’d placed on the
floor. “I got you some books and magazines.”
Bill, meanwhile, had given Renie another Falstaff ’s
grocery bag. A veteran of his wife’s foraging, he
stepped back as wrappers ripped, paper flew, and liquid spilled from an unknown source. Renie removed
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Mary Daheim
sandwiches, peeled carrots, sliced cantaloupe, potato
chips, two packages of cookies, a box of graham
crackers, and more Pepsi, the beverage she claimed inspired her graphic designs.
“Great,” Renie enthused, opening one of the sandwiches, which was on a small baguette. “Lunch was
inedible.” She leaned toward Judith. “Ham or
chicken?”
“I’m not that hungry,” Judith admitted.
Joe was concerned, so Judith reluctantly related her
experience in trying to stand up. “I’ve got to do it again
this afternoon. I don’t suppose you could stick around
until they make me try it?”
Joe grimaced. “I can’t, Jude-girl. I’m really sorry. I
have to get back on this homeless homicide investigation. I finished the background this morning. Now I’m
going to check out the sites where the bodies were
found. Both of the murders occurred in the same area,
not far from here, under the freeway.”
Judith knew the area that Joe was talking about.
Many homeless people tucked their whole world beneath the city’s major north-south arteries. It wasn’t as
aesthetic as the local parks, but citizens and police
alike were less apt to hassle them. Still, their ragtag little neighborhoods were occasionally sent packing, a
caravan of bundles, bags, and grocery carts. And people. The thought made Judith sad.
But she wasn’t naïve. “Be careful, Joe. I don’t like
this assignment any more than you like me encountering murder.” She paused, a fond expression on her
face. “Joe, we have to talk.” Judith paused and swallowed hard. “About Mike. He wants a family tree made
up for little Mac’s preschool.”
“Oh?” Joe’s face was blank.
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Judith nodded. “He called just a while ago. I told
him I’d do it.”
“Preschool?” The word seemed to strike Joe as an
afterthought. “Good God, the kid’s only a baby. He’s
still wetting his pants.”
“They teach them to stop in preschool,” Judith responded with a glance for Renie and Bill, who suddenly, discreetly, seemed to be absorbed in their own
conversation. “Mac’s not going to enter until the fall.
He’ll be two this summer. Anyway, that’s not the point.
Don’t you want Mike to know the truth? The last time
we discussed this seriously, you seemed crushed because I wasn’t ready to tell him.”
Joe sighed and scratched at his thinning red hair. “It
almost seems like it’s too late.”
“What do you mean, too late?” Judith was taken
aback. “Mike’s over thirty, he’s matured, he ought to
know because you and he have never had that fatherson intimacy. You’ve been buddies, period.”
“That’s what I mean,” Joe said, ducking his head.
“He’s a grown man. He doesn’t need a father.”
“Oh, Joe!” Judith put her hands over her mouth
and stared wide-eyed at her husband. “I was still in
my teens when my dad died, and I miss him every
day. Your father lived much longer, until you were—
what?—almost forty. How can you say such a
thing?”
“Because,” Joe said slowly, “I wasn’t there for Mike
when he needed a real father. When Dan died, Mike
was about the same age as you were when your dad
passed away. I missed out on all those years. And I still
marvel at how well Mike turned out. Maybe I owe Dan
something, too.”
Judith bit her lip. “You can’t do this to me. Not after
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all the agony I’ve been through and the guilt and
the—”
Joe cut Judith off with a wave of his hand. “Stop.
This isn’t the time for a family crisis. You need to concentrate on getting well. Let me think it over.” He
stood up. “I don’t know why the hell a preschooler
needs a family tree. He’d be better off if I built him a
tree house.”
“Do it,” Judith said, forcing a small smile. “That’s
what grandpas do. If you weren’t around for Mike,
you’re here for Mac.”
“Right.” Joe’s shoulders slumped. “Got to go. Hey,
Bill—let’s hit the pavement.”
Bill, who had been plucking food particles from
Renie’s sling and other parts of her person, stood up.
“Okay.” He turned back to Renie. “Joe picked me up at
the Toyota place downtown. I left Cammy there to
have new windshield wipers put on, just in case it
snows.” Bill bent down to kiss his wife on the one spot
on her face that wasn’t covered with mayonnaise, butter, or bread crumbs.
The husbands, who seemed to exit at a rather brisk
pace, hadn’t been gone for more than five minutes
when Judith glimpsed a patient being rolled down the
hall.
“Who’s that?” Renie asked, following her cousin’s
gaze.
Judith didn’t answer right away, listening to see if
she could hear anyone speak. “I couldn’t see, but I
wonder if it’s Addison Kirby. I’m almost sure they
took whoever it was into Bob Randall’s private room.”
“How can they?” Renie demanded. “Isn’t that what
you’d call a crime scene?”
“Not as far as the hospital officials are concerned,”
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Judith said with a frown. “I don’t get it. Nurse Appleby
told us that the county has jurisdiction in a sudden hospital death. So why haven’t we seen the sheriff and his
men prowling around? The only real cop who showed
up was Johnny Boxx, who looks as if he hasn’t
sprouted a beard yet.”
“A beat cop at that,” Renie remarked. “Not a detective.”
“Exactly. Coz?” Judith leaned in Renie’s direction
and gestured toward the hallway with her thumb.
“Could you?”
Renie finishing cleaning up from her picnic lunch.
“Yeah, yeah, I can. I have to go to the bathroom anyway. I’ll do that first.”
“Good. See if you can hear anything through the
wall,” Judith urged.
Renie was in the bathroom for almost five minutes.
When she emerged, she looked triumphant. “It’s Addison Kirby, all right. I could hear a doctor talking to
him. A very humble doctor, I might add.”
“Which one?” Judith asked.
“I don’t know. Shall I?” Renie moved toward the
door.
“Please.” Judith tried to sit up a little straighter as
Renie peered out into the hall. “Anything?”
“Hold on.” Renie waited for at least a full minute before turning back to Judith. “It’s a damned parade,
coming from the other direction. TV people, with cameras and sound equipment, in apparent pursuit of a
woman in a sable coat.”
“Sable?” Judith was impressed.
“And a gold turban,” Renie noted. “I’m impressed.”
She turned to look at Judith. “It’s Blanche Van Boeck.
I recognize her from her photographs. They’ve stopped
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down by that alcove with the seats for visitors. It looks
as if there’s going to be a press conference.”
“Is Mavis there from KINE-TV?” Judith asked,
once again undergoing a bout of frustration.
“It isn’t KINE, it’s KLIP,” Renie replied. “I don’t
know any of these people, do you?”
“No. Can you hear them?”
Again, Renie didn’t answer right away. Finally, she
stepped back into the room. “They’re too far down the
hall. I don’t dare go any farther because Dr. Garnett
just came out of Addison’s room and he’s standing
about six feet from where I parked myself. He doesn’t
look very happy, I might add.”
“It was Garnett next door, huh?” Anxiously, Judith
pleated the sheet between her fingers. “Let me get this
straight—Van Boeck is chief of staff, Mrs. Van Boeck
is queen of the world. Peter Garnett, chief of surgery,
is second in command to Van Boeck. Thus, Dr. Garnett
has a stake in all this.”
“You might say that,” Renie conceded, glancing
back into the hall.
“Any sign of Sister Jacqueline?” Judith inquired.
“Not that I can see,” Renie replied. “She’s tall, too.
I should be able to spot her.”
“Yoo-hoo,” called Mr. Mummy from across the hall.
“Don’t we have excitement around here today?”
“Yes, Mr. Mummy,” said Renie. “Have you heard
anything about what happened to Mr. Randall?”
Mr. Mummy lowered his voice, and Judith could
barely hear him. “I heard he took poison. Isn’t that
dreadful?”
“Yes,” Renie agreed with a sad shake of her head
and a rise in her own voice. “Taking poison is a bad
way to kill yourself.”
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95
“It may not be true,” Mr. Mummy said. “What do
you think?”
“I think,” Renie said slowly and clearly, “that too
many healthy people die in this hospital.”
“Exactly.” Again Mr. Mummy’s voice dropped,
forcing Judith to lean far over to the side of the bed. “I
don’t believe a word of it. The poison, I mean. Where
would he get it?”
“Where indeed?” Renie said a bit absently as she
tried to keep track of what was going on down the hall.
“Can you move just a little closer?” Judith asked in a
humble tone.
“Well . . . Dr. Garnett is wandering off toward the
media,” Renie said. “I’ll try to sneak up behind him.”
As her cousin disappeared, Judith propped herself
up on the pillows and considered patience as a virtue.
But there wasn’t time to practice it. A moment later,
Renie back-pedaled into the room with Heather Chinn
right behind her.
“Please, Mrs. Jones!” the nurse admonished, shaking a slim finger. “How many times do I have to tell
you to stay out of the way?”
“Sorry.” Renie trudged back to bed. “I was curious,
that’s all. You can’t blame me when the guy next door
kills himself, another guy gets run over outside my
window, and Mrs. Van Boeck holds a press conference
just down the hall.”
Heather grimaced. “Yes, it has been an eventful day.
But you won’t make a good recovery unless you rest
more. Now let me take your vitals.”
“This,” said Renie, holding out her left arm, “is not
a restful place. On TV I’ve seen war zones in Bosnia
that were more peaceful. Speaking of TV, what’s the
interview down the hall all about?”
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“I’m not sure,” Heather answered a bit nervously. “I
gather Mrs. Van Boeck has taken it upon herself to speak
out on the hospital’s behalf.”
“In defense of Good Cheer, huh?” Renie said before
the nurse popped the thermometer in her mouth.
“Something like that,” Heather replied.
“Is Blanche Van Boeck on the hospital’s board of directors?” Judith inquired.
“No,” Heather responded. “Since Dr. Van Boeck is
chief of staff, that would be a conflict of interest.”
“How long has Dr. Van Boeck held that position?”
Judith asked.
Heather cocked her head to one side. “Mmm . . .
Nine years? I trained at this hospital, and he was chief
of staff when I started seven years ago.”
Raised voices could be heard in the hall. Heather
turned toward the door, her forehead furrowed in apprehension.
“. . . no right to speak out on this issue,” an angry
male voice shouted. “I’ll take this before the board.”
A woman’s shrill laugh cut through the air like
jagged glass. “Don’t be silly, Peter. As a member of the
city council, I have a right to speak out.”
Judith’s eyes widened as the backs of the sable coat
and gold turban filled the door. Apparently, the confrontation was taking place just a few feet away.
Heather had removed the thermometer from
Renie’s mouth and started for the door. Grabbing the
nurse’s wrist with her good left hand, Renie shot her a
warning look.
“Don’t even think about closing that door,” Renie
ordered.
“Mrs. Jones, you mustn’t use physical force,”
Heather reprimanded.
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97
“Yes, I must,” Renie declared. “Now shut up.”
The nurse gave Renie a helpless look as the wrangling between Blanche Van Boeck and her unseen
male opponent continued.
“. . . that you’re on TV?” Blanche said in her strident
voice. “Don’t be a fool, Peter. You’re not irreplaceable.”
“Garnett?” Judith mouthed at Heather.
The nurse gave a brief, single nod. The sound of a
struggle followed next, then what sounded like something breaking. Renie let go of Heather and hurried as
fast as she could to the door. She was nearly there
when Blanche Van Boeck stumbled backwards into the
cousins’ room, almost colliding with Renie.
“You’ll regret this, Peter,” she shouted as she caught
herself on Judith’s visitor’s chair and her turban fell off
onto the commode. Blanche whirled on Renie. “You
clumsy idiot, you almost killed me!”
“Gee,” Renie said, eyes wide, “I must be a real failure by Good Cheer standards. Usually, you come to
this place, you end up dead.”
“How dare you!” Blanche slammed the door behind
her, narrowly missing Dr. Garnett, who was standing
on the threshold. “See here, you little twerp, you have
no right to cast aspersions on this fine institution.
Nurse, put this creature back to bed.”
Heather placed a tentative hand on Renie’s left arm.
“Mrs. Jones, would you . . . ?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Renie snapped, shaking off
Heather’s hand. “Listen, Mrs. Big Shot, are you trying
to tell me that I can’t criticize a hospital where perfectly healthy people die within twenty-four hours
after surgery? Or some poor guy gets run down before
my very eyes?”
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“You saw that?” Blanche was taken aback. “Well,
he’s still alive, isn’t he?” She snatched the turban from
the commode and jammed it back on her platinum hair.
“Addison Kirby may still be alive,” Renie shot back,
“but his wife, Joan, isn’t.”
“That was tragic,” Blanche allowed, regaining her
composure. “Drugs are a terrible curse.” She spun
around toward the door. “As for Mr. Kirby, it’s too bad
his wife died instead of him. Nobody likes snoopy reporters. Or snoopy patients, either.” With a hand on the
doorknob, she threw one last warning glance at Renie
and Judith. “I suggest you two keep your so-called suspicions to yourselves.”
Blanche stormed out of the room as Renie glanced
at Judith. “Was that a threat?” Renie asked.
Judith winced. “Yes. All things considered, maybe
we should take Blanche seriously.”
“I would,” Heather said quietly.
The statement carried more weight than a loaded
gun.
SEVEN
TEN MINUTES LATER, Dr. Garnett surprised the
cousins with a professional visit. “Dr. Ming and Dr.
Alfonso are in surgery this afternoon. They asked
me to look in on you two.”
Peter Garnett wasn’t a true double for Ronald
Colman, but he did have the film actor’s distinguished air, along with silver hair, a neat mustache,
and a debonair manner.
“I think,” Judith said in her pleasantest voice, “we
could get more rest if it wasn’t so noisy around here.
It’s been a very hectic day.”
Dr. Garnett was checking Judith’s dressing.
“Yes . . . that looks just fine. Can you stand up?”
“Not very well,” Judith said.
“Let’s try,” Dr. Garnett said, smiling with encouragement. “Here, sit up and swing around to the edge
of the bed, then take hold of me.”
Painfully, Judith obeyed. The doctor eased her
slowly into a sitting position. “Now just take some
breaths,” he said, still smiling. “Good. Here we go.
Easy does it.”
Awkwardly, agonizingly, and unsteadily, Judith
found herself rising from the bed. At last, with Dr.
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Garnett’s firm grasp to support her, she managed to get
on her feet. Briefly.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, swaying a bit before sitting
down again. “I did it!”
“Of course.” The doctor patted her arm. “You’re
very weak, you’ve lost a great deal of blood. Tomorrow
we’ll see if you can take a few steps.”
“About that noise,” Renie said as Dr. Garnett moved
to her bedside, “what was that last to-do about with
the KLIP-TV people?”
Dr. Garnett’s smile evaporated. “Didn’t I see you out
in the hall earlier?”
“Probably,” Renie said. “I’m the designated observer. What gives with the TV crew?”
The doctor frowned. “Such nonsense. A hospital
ward is no place for the media. It should have been
handled in the lobby. Unfortunately, Mrs. Van Boeck
decided to act coy, so our patients and staff ended up
in the middle of a disruptive situation.”
“Isn’t it strange,” Judith queried, “for Mrs. Van
Boeck to be speaking on the hospital’s behalf?”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Garnett responded as he studied
Renie’s incision. “However, I must admit that she was
instrumental in getting the local hospitals to merge
their specialty fields. Still, since her husband’s in
charge here at Good Cheer, it would have been better
to let him do the interview.”
“Oink, oink. Blanche Van Boeck is a publicity
hog,” Renie declared.
Dr. Garnett didn’t respond to the comment. Instead,
he reaffixed Renie’s bandage and smiled rather grimly.
“You’re coming along, Mrs. Jones. You lost a lot of
blood, too. You shouldn’t be on your feet so much. I
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101
understand you’ll start physical therapy Friday morning, before you’re discharged.”
“Oh?” Renie looked surprised. “I didn’t know when
they planned to release me.”
Gently, Dr. Garnett flexed the fingers on Renie’s
right hand. “That’s what Dr. Ming told me. This is
Tuesday, you’ve only got two more full days to go.”
“What about me?” Judith asked from her place on
the pillows where she’d finally stopped quivering from
exertion.
“You’re another matter, Mrs. Flynn,” Dr. Garnett
said, his smile more genuine. “Saturday at the earliest,
Monday if we think you need some extra time.”
“Oh, dear.” Judith made a face, then tried to smile.
“Of course our house has a lot of stairs, so maybe it’s
just as well.”
The doctor patted Judith’s feet where they poked up
under the covers. “We don’t want to rush things. Besides, it’s starting to snow.”
Both Judith and Renie looked out the window. Big,
fluffy flakes were sifting past in the gathering twilight.
“You girls behave yourselves,” Dr. Garnett said, moving toward the door. “By the way, what did Mrs. Van
Boeck say when she was in your room a while ago?”
Judith grimaced. “She was rather rude.”
“She was a jerk,” Renie put in. “She threatened us.”
“Really?” Dr. Garnett’s expression was ambiguous.
“That’s terrible. Mrs. Van Boeck has no right to intimidate patients. I must speak to Dr. Van Boeck and Sister Jacqueline about her behavior. You’re certain it was
a threat?”
Judith nodded. “She also said that it was too bad that
Joan Fremont died instead of her husband, Addison
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Kirby. Mrs. Van Boeck remarked that nobody liked
snoopy reporters, especially her, I guess.”
“Yes.” Dr. Garnett seemed to be trying not to look
pleased at the cousins’ revelations. “I believe that Mr.
Kirby has been covering city government for many
years. He has been quite critical of Blanche Van Boeck
in some of his articles.”
“Maybe,” Renie said, “that’s where I got a poor impression of her.”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Garnett said in a noncommittal tone.
“Is she dangerous?” Judith asked, feeling rather
foolish for asking such a melodramatic question.
But Dr. Garnett seemed to take Judith seriously.
“Let’s put it this way—Blanche Van Boeck is a very
determined, ambitious woman. She has little patience
with anyone who stands in her way.”
The doctor’s assessment didn’t bring any comfort to
the cousins.
Renie was on the phone with her mother. Somehow
Aunt Deb, perhaps threatened by her grandchildren to
have the telephone surgically removed from her ear,
hadn’t yet called her only daughter.
“Yes, Mom,” Renie was saying after the first ten
minutes, “I promise not to let the doctors take advantage of me when I’m in this helpless condition . . . No,
I don’t have the window open . . . Yes, I realize it’s
snowing . . . Of course it’s warm in here . . . No, I’m
not going to wear three pairs of bed socks. One’s
enough . . . Really? I’d no idea Mrs. Parker’s brotherin-law got frostbite . . . After he was admitted to Norway General? That is unusual . . .”
Judith tried to turn a deaf ear, but the conversation
painfully reminded her of not having talked to
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Gertrude since she was admitted. Not that her
mother would mind; she hated the telephone as
much as her sister-in-law adored it. Still, Judith felt
guilty for not having called. In her heart of hearts,
she missed the old girl, and assumed that the feeling
was mutual.
She was about to dial the number in the toolshed
when the phone rang under her hand. To her surprise,
the caller was Effie McMonigle.
“I don’t much like paying these daytime long distance rates,” Judith’s mother-in-law declared in a
cranky voice, “but I have to go out tonight to the Elks
Club with Myron.”
Myron was Effie’s long-time companion, a weatherbeaten old wrangler with a wooden leg. His tall tales of
life in the saddle smacked of romance to Effie, but Judith had always wondered if the closest he’d ever gotten to a horse was taking his grandkids for a ride on the
merry-go-round at the county fair.
“It’s very sweet of you to call,” Judith said. “How’s
Myron doing?”
“As best he can,” Effie replied. “Which isn’t all that
good. Say, I got to thinking, how come you never had
an autopsy performed on Dan? He was pretty darned
young to pop off like that. I’ve always wondered.”
“You have?” Judith made a face at Renie, but her
cousin was absorbed in trying to explain to Aunt Deb
why it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to visit at the
hospital. “Well, you know,” Judith said in a strained
voice, “Dan was quite a bit overweight and he hadn’t
been well for a long time.”
“He looked fine to me the last I saw of him about six
months before he died,” Effie asserted. “ ’Course he
couldn’t work, he was too delicate.”
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Delicate. Judith held her head. “Actually, Dan
was—”
“So how come?” Effie barked.
“How come what?” Judith responded with a little
jump.
“No autopsy.” There was an ominous pause. “I used
to be a nurse, remember? Autopsies are routine in such
cases.”
The truth was that Judith had been asked if she
would like to have an autopsy performed on Dan. She
had refused. What was the point? Dan was over four
hundred pounds and lived on a diet of Ding-Dongs and
grape juice laced with vodka, so it hadn’t surprised her
in the least when he had expired.
“I wanted to spare him that,” Judith said, though her
thoughts were more complicated: I wanted to spare me
that. I just wanted it all to be over. Nineteen years is a
long time to be miserable.
“Hunh,” Effie snorted. “It’s been on my mind.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Judith said, trying not to sound annoyed. “It’s been a long time. What good would it have
done?”
“I was thinking about Mac and the one on the way,”
Effie said, suddenly subdued. “What if Dan had some
hereditary disease? Shouldn’t Mike and Krissy know
about it?”
“Kristin,” Judith corrected. Effie had a point, except
in Dan’s case, it didn’t apply to Mike or little Mac.
“It’s too late now.”
“Too bad,” Effie said. “These pediatricians today
can nip things in the bud.”
“I don’t think Dan had anything he could pass on,” Judith said, sounding weary. “Really, it’s pointless to fret
over something that happened more than ten years ago.”
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“Easy for you to say,” Effie shot back. “All I have to
do is sit here and think.”
“I thought you were going to the Elks Club with
Myron,” Judith said as Renie finally plunked the phone
down in its cradle and rubbed her ear.
“Once a month, big thrill,” Effie said with a sharp
laugh. “I’m not like you, out running around all over
the place and doing as I please.”
“Effie, I’m in the hospital.”
“What?” There was a pause. “Oh—so you are. Well,
you know what I mean. Think about what I said, in
case Dan had something hereditary. It’ll help kill time.
Thinking helps me keep occupied. I’d better hang up.
This phone bill is going to put me in the poorhouse.”
“Lord help me.” Judith sighed, gazing at Renie, who
was lying back on the pillows looking exhausted.
“You, too?”
“At least I love my mother,” Renie said in a wan
voice, “but having seen you break out into a cold sweat
indicated you were talking to Effie McMonigle.”
“That’s right,” Judith said. “She wonders why I
didn’t have an autopsy done on Dan.”
“Before he died? It might have been a smart idea.
Maybe you could have figured out what made him
tick.”
“Sheesh.” Judith rubbed her neck, trying to undo the
kinks that had accumulated. “To think I was putting off
calling Mother.”
The door, which had been left ajar, was slowly
pushed open. Jim Randall, dusted with snow and carrying a slightly incongruous spring bouquet, stepped
into the room and stopped abruptly.
“Oh! Sorry.” He pushed his thick glasses up higher
on his nose. “Wrong room.” He left.
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“What was that all about?” Renie asked.
“I don’t know,” Judith replied, sitting up a bit.
But Jim reappeared a moment later, looking flustered. “There’s someone in there,” he said, gesturing at
the room that had been occupied by his late brother.
“How can that be?”
“It’s Mr. Kirby,” Judith said. “The hospital is very
crowded. I guess they had to use your . . . the empty
room.”
“Oh.” Jim looked in every direction, cradling the
bouquet against his chest. Then, in a jerky motion, he
thrust the flowers in Judith’s direction. “Would you
like these? I don’t know what to do with them. I was
going to put them on Bob’s bed. You know, in remembrance.”
“Ah . . .” Judith stared at the yellow tulips, the red
carnations, the purple freesia, and the baby’s breath.
“They’re very pretty. Wouldn’t Mrs. Randall—
Margie—like them?”
“Margie?” Jim’s eyes looked enormous behind the
thick lenses. “Yes, maybe that’s a good idea. Where is
she?” He peered around the room, as if the cousins
might be hiding his sister-in-law in some darkened corner.
“We heard she’d collapsed,” Judith replied. “They
must have taken her home by now. The children, that
is. They were here earlier.”