you to find out.”
“No,” said Judith.
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
After Judith hung up the phone, she gazed at Renie.
“We are in danger.”
“Yes,” said Renie, and took a big bite out of another
biscuit. “Ith thapend befwo.”
Judith nodded. She knew it had happened before,
but the thought didn’t make her feel any better.
NINE
“WHAT ELSE AM I supposed to do while I’m lying
here like a big lump?” Judith demanded. “At least I
can speculate.”
“Which, being in a helpless condition, you figure
is a harmless pastime,” Renie replied, finally finishing her meal and starting to clean up the mess.
“Meanwhile, I get to drag my battered body around
doing all the grunt work.”
Judith glared at Renie. “I thought you were encouraging me. What would you expect me to do
with people dropping like flies and the police not investigating? Don’t you find this whole situation
highly suspicious?”
“I do,” Renie admitted, shoving boxes and napkins and garbage into her now-overflowing wastebasket. As ever, Judith envied her cousin’s
metabolism, though sometimes she wondered—
perhaps with a touch of malice—if Renie didn’t
have a tapeworm. “You know,” Renie said with a
scowl, “we’re not in very good shape to defend
ourselves.”
“If somebody wanted us out of the way,” Judith
persisted, “we’d have been dead by now. We’re past
the deadline for early dismissal from Good Cheer.
138
Mary Daheim
Besides, what have we done except show a normal
amount of curiosity?”
Renie gave a shake of her head. “Curiosity killed the
you-know-what, and I don’t mean Sweetums, who appears to be an indestructible force of nature.”
“Do we look dangerous?” Judith shot back. “Here
we are, a couple of middle-aged matrons swathed in
bandages and looking like the you-know-what dragged
us in the you-know-whose small door.”
Renie climbed into bed. “There’s no dissuading you,
right?” She gave Judith a look of surrender.
“Let’s think this through,” Judith said, reaching for
her purse and taking out a small notebook and pen.
“Joaquin Somosa, Joan Fremont, Bob Randall. Except
for being well-known, the only connection is that they
all died in this hospital after routine surgery.” She
paused to finish writing down the trio of names. “All
three died in less than a month.”
