“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 aâ”

“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 isâ
we've seen her in several local stage productions. She isâwasâa 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
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
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.”

Joe grimaced. “Can't I phone it in to her?”

“Joeâ¦” 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 foil-wrapped 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 meanâ¦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
oven door. “It's just thatâ¦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. Wellâyounger 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,
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 intoâ¦something-or-other, 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.”

“Motherâ¦” 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
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 barâand into the arms of the sultry singer at the piano. Vivian, or Herself, as
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, nothingâexcept 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?”

“Ummâ¦” 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?”

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