“Let’s call on Addison Kirby,” Judith said, attempt-298
Mary Daheim
ing to sit up on her own. To her astonishment, she managed it. “Hey, look at me! I’m just like a real person!”
“So you are,” Renie said with an encouraging smile.
“Don’t get too frisky. I’ll help you into the chair.”
A few minutes later, the cousins were at Addison’s
door. He turned and grinned, apparently glad to see
them.
“I’m so bored I could start tweezing my beard with
ice tongs,” he told them as they moved to the bedside.
“Since I don’t watch much TV except sports, all I can
do is read, and it seems the hospital library is woefully
lacking in sex-and-violence thrillers.”
“That’s probably because the nuns are reading
them,” Renie said, only half joking.
Addison chuckled, then turned a more serious face
to Judith. “I guess you never had a chance to ask your
husband about those chocolates. I heard he got himself
stabbed. How’s he doing?”
“Better,” Judith replied, “though I still haven’t seen
him. My—
I hear from Mike—our son—I’ll try to see Joe. Right
now, I’ve got a couple of questions for you. They may
be painful.” She hesitated, then continued. “After
Joan’s death, when and where did you first see the
body?”
Addison looked surprised. “In her room. They
wouldn’t move her until I’d gotten here. I’d been covering a story downtown, and only found out she was
dead when I got here. I suppose it was at least an hour
after she . . . died.”
“Think hard,” Judith urged. “Was her wastebasket
empty?”
Addison Kirby gave Judith an odd glance, then
slowly nodded. “I know what you’re getting at. I re-SUTURE SELF
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member, because my first, crazy reaction was that Joan
wasn’t wearing her wedding band. She never took it
off, not even onstage.” He held up his left hand, revealing an intricately carved gold ring that caught the
sunlight coming through the window. “We had these
specially made. The masks of tragedy and comedy are
entwined with a pen, to symbolize both our professions. My first thought was that the ring had been
stolen, but somehow that seemed unlikely at Good
Cheer. Then I wondered if it had fallen off and was on
the floor or under the wastebasket. I looked around and
saw that the wastebasket was empty. And then I remembered that Joan had left the ring at home, on the
hospital’s advice.” Addison’s face clouded over at the
memory.
“Empty,” Judith echoed. “That makes sense. Can you
tell me the exact date that your wife died? I want to be
