Suture Self : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery
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Judith could barely contain her excitement. “Who
was it?”
Mike gave his mother and his aunt an ironic smile.
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“That’s the weird thing. He didn’t look like most of the
homeless types.”
Judith nodded. “I’m not surprised.”
“Huh?” Mike looked puzzled. “What do you
mean?”
Maybe, Judith thought, it was only fair to enlighten
her son. But before she could say anything, Bill Jones
came through the door, panting mightily.
“Bill!” Renie cried. “You’re alive!”
Bill leaned one thermal-gloved hand against the
door frame and panted some more. “Huhuhuhuhuhu,”
he uttered.
“Did you bring me some snacks?” Renie asked,
smiling widely.
Bill, his tongue hanging out, shook his head.
“Uhuhuh.”
Renie’s face fell. “Oooh . . .”
“Why don’t you smack her, Uncle Bill?” Mike
asked, half serious.
Bill finally caught his breath. “The crowns in heaven
that await me . . . ,” he murmured, coming all the way
into the room and kissing his wife.
Renie appeared contrite. “Are you all right? Are you
cold? Are you tired?”
Bill nodded emphatically at each question, then
slumped into Renie’s visitor’s chair and removed his
snap-brim cap. “I came to find out how Joe was doing,
but the elevator’s broken. I couldn’t make it all the way
to the fourth floor on the stairs. What’s happening?”
“Joe’s much better,” Judith said happily. “Mike’s
seen him, but I haven’t yet. Because of the elevator.”
Bill nodded again. “You two seem to be doing okay.”
“We are,” Renie replied, patting Bill’s arm. “Are you
sure you don’t have frostbite?”
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This time, Bill shook his head. “It’s actually beautiful out there, with the sun shining and all the snow
that’s still left. I didn’t mind the walk at all.”
“Good,” Renie said, then turned serious. “Tell me,
what on earth are you doing with those blasted Chihuahuas? I was beginning to think you’d gone over the
edge.”
“Oh.” Bill chuckled. “This may sound whimsical,
but an occasional nonscientific experiment can prove
interesting, if not entirely valid. This was one I’d had
in mind for a long time. I became curious about animal
versus human behavior several years ago and—”
“Bill,” Renie interrupted, “spare us the background,
okay?”
“What?” Bill frowned at his wife. “Okay, okay. Anyway, you must realize that this wasn’t a controlled situation. But recently I’d read an abstract in one of my
psychology journals by Dr. Friedbert Von Schimmelheimer in Vienna, who had some fascinating ideas on
the subject, though his experiments involved—”
“Bill . . .” Renie broke in.
“What? Oh, all right, never mind. If you understand the
problems with replication, then you’ll appreciate how—”
“Bill!” Renie looked fierce. “Layman’s language,
please.”
Bill glared at his wife. “Okay, I’ll cut to the chase. I
would have preferred to do it with monkey siblings,
but then we found the dogs. Anyway, you know how
Oscar is about experimenting with apes.”
Renie nodded while Judith gazed at the ceiling and
Mike looked puzzled. Oscar was the Joneses’ stuffed
ape and was treated like a member of the family.
“So how did it turn out?” Renie asked, her patience
restored.
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“Fascinating,” Bill replied. “I called them John and
Paul. For the pope. John’s the one wearing Archie’s
tuxedo.” He paused to look at the doll on his wife’s
nightstand. “Hi, Archie. How are you doing? You look
really cheerful.” Judith and Mike exchanged amused
glances. “Anyway,” Bill continued, “Paul has on those
Wisconsin sweats, the ones that Clarence ate most of
the badger symbol off. John got the expensive dog
food, Paul got the cheaper kind. I made a bed for John
in the bottom drawer of my desk. I put Paul in a cardboard box. John drank Evian water; Paul had to make
do with water from the tap. Sure enough, after twentyfour hours, John started to become spoiled, while Paul
sulked. Then, this morning, when I gave John a leftover rib-steak bone, Paul pounced on him. The experiment proved what I thought would be true. Even
nonhuman siblings can suffer resentment and lack of
self-esteem when one of them gets preferred treatment
over the other. They can also exhibit hostility and aggression.”
Judith stared at Renie. “What do you think?”
Renie glanced at Bill. “I think my husband’s right.
As usual.”
Judith turned to Mike. “Go upstairs and get Woody.
The time has come to call in a consulting police detective.”
Sister Jacqueline telephoned a few minutes later.
The nun still sounded dubious about revealing the information Judith had requested, but when she finally
did, another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Feeling
as if she had a solid grip on the solution to the murders,
Judith smiled grimly.
Mike and Woody had their own way of making Ju-SUTURE SELF
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dith smile. When they entered the ward fifteen minutes later, they were pushing a wheelchair. Joe Flynn
offered his wife a feeble, though fond, grin.
“Joe!” Judith cried. In her excitement, she instinctively leaned forward to touch him, then screamed and
doubled over in pain. “Oh, my God!” she cried through
her misery. “I think I’ve dislocated my hip!”
TWENTY
JUDITH LET OUT a terrible cry of anguish. Joe tried to
reach out to help his wife, but weakness overcame
him. It was Mike who rushed to his mother’s side as
she moaned in pain.
“Mom!” He attempted to move her into a sitting
position, but she resisted.
“I can’t move!” she gasped through tears. “Get a
nurse! A doctor!”
Corinne Appleby and Heather Chinn both
showed up almost immediately. Then, in a haze of
agony, Judith saw Pearson, the orderly, arrive with a
gurney. Though the slightest movement was agonizing, she endured being moved onto the gurney,
rushed down the hall and into the elevator, which
obviously had been repaired, and hustled to a room
with bright lights. Staff members she’d never seen
before were at the ready.
Despite a fresh dose of painkillers, the next half
hour was a nightmare. At last, after X rays had been
taken and Dr. Alfonso had arrived, her self-diagnosis
was confirmed: She had indeed dislocated the new hip.
It would take only a couple of minutes to put it back,
but Judith would have to be virtually unconscious during the procedure. She welcomed the oblivion.
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An hour later, Judith awoke in her own bed on the
third floor. Th
rough a haze, she saw the same people
who had been there when disaster had struck.
“Joe . . .” she murmured.
“I’m here, Jude-girl,” he said, taking her hand.
“So cunning, so cruel . . .” she mumbled.
Joe looked at Renie, who was sitting in Judith’s visitor’s chair. “Does that mean me? ” he asked with a
worried expression.
Renie, however, shook her head.
“Threes . . .” Judith murmured, squeezing her eyes
shut against the bright, setting sun. “Everything in
threes . . . Three lives saved . . . three patients dead . . .
three homeless men stabbed . . . three inedible salads . . .”
“Salads?” Joe looked at Bill.
Bill shrugged.
“Is she delirious?” Woody whispered.
“Must be,” Joe muttered. “My poor little girl.”
“Planned in advance . . . Surgical instruments
stolen . . . Should have guessed . . . to kill homeless . . .
Poor souls, set up with bribes to provide iron-clad alibis and drive car . . . Bill and Renie’s car . . . stolen because the snow starting, couldn’t get to usual
vehicle . . .”
Renie glanced at Bill. “Poor Cammy,” she sighed.
Joe shot both the Joneses a quizzical look. “Your
Toyota?”
Bill nodded.
“Who’s Cammy?” Woody asked.
“Uncle Bill and Aunt Renie’s car,” Mike said
under his breath.
Woody looked befuddled.
“So sad, those homeless men . . .” Judith made a fee-310
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ble attempt to squeeze Joe’s hand. He made a feeble attempt to squeeze back. “Had to die, couldn’t be trusted
not to tell . . . Only organ donors need apply . . .”
“What?” Joe leaned closer to his wife. “Jude-girl,
what the hell are you talking about?”
“Definitely delirious,” Woody murmured. “Maybe I
should come back later.”
“No, please . . .” Judith opened her eyes and gazed
compellingly at Woody.
Woody stayed.
“So many odd little things . . .” Judith tried to sit up,
failed, and pointed to the water container on the nightstand. Mike filled a glass and handed it to her.
“Thirsty,” she said with a small smile of thanks. “After
surgery, fluids so important . . . Everybody must drink,
drink, drink . . . Why not put street drugs into IVs?
Simple, if you know how . . . not so simple if you
don’t . . . Everybody must drink, any fluids, all fluids . . . exotic juice, Italian sodas, booze . . . Just keep
pouring it down . . .” She paused to take another sip of
water. “The Chihuahuas, one in a tuxedo, one in a
sweatsuit . . . They clinched it.”
“I’m afraid,” Joe said, a note of alarm in his voice,
“that whatever they gave her when they put her hip
back in has fried her brain. Do you think we should
send for a psychologist?”
“I am a psychologist,” Bill reminded Joe. “She’s not
crazy. I think I know what she’s trying to say.”
Joe glanced at Archie, cheerfully smiling on Renie’s
nightstand, then gave both the Joneses a look that indicated he wasn’t convinced of their sanity, either. “O-oo-kay,” he said under his breath.
“All those years of being the opposite,” Judith said,
her eyes wide open and almost in focus, “of feeling in-SUTURE SELF
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ferior, of being a mirror twin, of suffering near blindness . . . That’s why Jim Randall killed his brother, and
several innocent victims along the way.”
The golden light from the fading winter sun bathed
the room in a tattered antique splendor. With the dark
wood, the wavery window glass, and the religious statues, Judith could almost believe she was in a nineteenthcentury hospital, where only gaslights and candles
provided illumination. The Demerol was working, and
so was her brain. A wondrous calm came over her as
she saw some of the people she loved most standing or
sitting around her bed. Then her gaze traveled from Joe
to Mike, and a surge of panic filled her. But she had
made her resolution to tell the truth. Not quite yet, but
later, maybe when she was home again.
“Jim Randall!” Woody exclaimed, his usual quiet
demeanor shattered. “You mean Bob’s brother?”
“His mirror twin,” Judith replied after drinking more
water. “They faced each other in the womb, they’re exactly opposite. Bob once saved Jim’s life, and I’m not
entirely sure Jim was grateful. Even as a child, he must
have sensed his physical inferiority. Then, when Jim
started to lose his sight—or maybe he never had full
vision—he brooded. Finally he got on a list for cornea
recipients. Even there, he knew that he probably
wasn’t high on the list, and in some twisted, deranged
way, decided to speed up the process. He found out—
probably from Margie, his sister-in-law—where he
stood on that list and which patients were organ donors
at Good Cheer. Obsessed with the concept of finally
being able to see clearly, he began to eliminate patients. Not just any patients, but successful ones, the
type of person he could never be. Yes, those victims
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were all organ donors, though he didn’t necessarily expect to get their corneas.”
Judith paused to pick up the notes she’d taken down
from Sister Jacqueline. “On each of the dates that Somosa and Fremont died, Jim had scheduled medical
tests, right up to Tuesday when Bob Randall had his
surgery. Jim didn’t strike me as a healthy person,
though he may also have been a hypochondriac. I suspect he faked that faint to allay suspicion. Anyway, he
talked his doctors into a CAT scan, an ultrasound, and
an MRI. But he never took those tests, he had a homeless person do it for him. Renie told me after she had
her MRI for her shoulder that all she had to do when
she went to the place where they did the test was hand
them some information in a folder she’d gotten from
the reception desk.”
“Judith’s right,” Renie chimed in. “I thought it was
odd at the time, and even asked the people giving the
test how they knew it was really me. They said they
didn’t, I could be anybody as long as I was female and
of a certain age.”
“This deception not only gave Jim an alibi,” Judith
went on, “but allowed him to get the homeless men to
drop off the special treats for his victims. Jim couldn’t
risk doing it himself, and he certainly never could have
put the drugs into the IVs. He couldn’t see well enough.”
“Hold on,” Woody interrupted. “How could Jim
know what special drinks Joaquin Somosa and Joan
Fremont wanted?”
“Margie,” Judith said simply. “She’d hardly be suspicious of such an innocent question. Even though she
may have delivered the drinks—though not her husband’s booze—it wouldn’t dawn on her that Jim had
purchased the stuff.”
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“Still,” Renie put in, “it must have occurred to
Margie that the lethal
drugs were in those drinks.
That’s why she referred to herself as ‘the vessel.’ ”
Joe was still looking skeptical. “How,” he asked,
“could Jim ensure that he’d actually get corneas if he
wasn’t at the top of the list?”
“He couldn’t,” Judith said. “First of all, he may not
have been down as far as you’d think. Even if the
medical tests showed that something was wrong, it
wasn’t really him undergoing the tests. If one of the
homeless men turned up with a problem, Jim could
simply ask to retake the test and claim a medical mistake. But another key was the weather. Organs are
flown in from all over the country. When we first met
Jim, he mentioned that he knew there was a big storm
coming in. That usually means the airport is closed—
and it was—so that if a local donor died, the corneas
could only be delivered by helicopter. And, having
maneuvered himself to the top of the city’s list, he
knew he’d be here to receive them. Even if he wasn’t
number one, he was at the hospital. Another recipient
might not have been able to reach a hospital in this
weather.”
“Taylor,” Renie murmured. “I overheard Bob Randall talking to someone named Taylor. Addison Kirby
said that was the name of his wife’s eye doctor. Maybe
he was Jim’s doctor, too, and Bob was thanking him
for good news, like Jim being near the top of the recipient list.”
“That would make sense,” Judith said.
Joe sucked in his breath, an effort that obviously cost
him pain. “So a cold-blooded killer with new eyes is
lying across the hall from us?”
Judith nodded. “I’m afraid he is.”
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Woody shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a
strange homicide case. All those innocent victims.”
“Three in the hospital,” Judith said. “The number
three was symbolic to Jim. His brother had saved three
lives—Jim’s, and two children who were rescued by
Bob from a house fire. It was as if Jim had to do just
the opposite—take three successful lives, including
that of the mirror twin who had saved him from drowning. The three homeless men may have—perhaps subconsciously—symbolized his own inferiority. Jim felt
like them—a loser.”
“I wonder,” Renie said, “if Bob was really as big a
jerk as Jim and the rest of the family indicated.”
“I’ll bet he was,” Judith replied. “Big sports stars