Chain of Fools Read online

  I said, “Any questions of slander could keep a couple of law firms’ meters running indefinitely, but I’m more interested in finding facts, Chester. The police think a drifter killed your brother, and I’ll be look­ing into that shortly. There is some evidence that somebody is trying to kill Janet, and with millions of dollars hanging on her vote on the Herald’s sale, any prudent investigator is going to consider a connec­tion. Of course, as an experienced investigator, I know enough to keep an open mind and I’ll follow any trail of evidence wherever it may lead. Do you have any idea, Chester, why anyone might want to kill Janet?”

  He stared down at me, still holding, but not drinking, his brandy. “No. I don’t,” he said. “You’ll have to ask Janet about that. Or Dale Kot­lowicz.”

  “Why Dale?”

  “Dale and Janet are dykes—husband and husband. You didn’t pick up on that?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “They have their private lives, which I know very little about and which I try not to think about. If someone is trying to kill either one

  of them, that’s what I would look at, the lesbian angle. What I would not do is, I would not go poking into the Osborne family’s business affairs, if I were you. You won’t learn anything useful in your investi­gation, and you’re liable to make some people mad who are people it would be better for you not to get mad.”

  “You, for example?”

  “Me, for example.”

  Violent history or no violent history, what a twit he was. I said, “What are you, some kind of small-bore mobster, Chester, and you’re threat­ening to smash my liver with a tire iron? Or do you talk like that be­cause you spend too much time watching old Louis Calhern pictures on the Nostalgia Channel? Either way, I’m unimpressed.”

  He flushed and glared hard, and it occurred to me that Osborne was going to fling his drink in my face. But he maintained control—I had a feeling he devoted much of his energy in life to maintaining his emo­tional and physical equilibrium—and after a moment of what looked like bitter reflection, Osborne said, “And I’m unimpressed with you, Strachey. You think you’ve got me pegged as some small-town, country-club blowhard, but your impression is too limited to do you any good, and I’m not going to correct it. That’s because, for one thing, I’m not given to psychobabble. For another thing, who or what I am is none of your goddamned business. And for a third and very impor­tant thing, you’ve got a lot of gall coming into my house and insinu­ating that I would kill anybody, let alone my own brother or sister. It’s not an accusation I feel I need to dignify with a response. Now, I asked you up here for a briefing on this investigation you’re supposedly con­ducting, and you agreed to fill me in, so let’s stick to that. It’s possible, but not likely, that someday you’ll be experienced enough in life and wise enough in the ways of the world to understand my background as Tom Osborne’s son. But in the meantime, I would be very careful about any assumptions you make about me, if I were you.”

  He was still hovering over me with a brandy snifter in his hand, and this was making me nervous. I said, “Chester, I think you’re right that maybe we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here. Sit down and let me bring you up to speed on the investigation—which I can tell you has only just begun, and there’s not a whole lot to tell. I especially don’t want you to think I came here to threaten you. And I don’t recall in­sinuating that you ever killed anybody or ever gave a thought to homicide. But do understand, your threatening me is a poor way to either gain my cooperation or affect the way I approach the Osborne fam­ily’s personal or business activities. Your threats, as a matter of fact, serve mainly to pique my interest.”

  Osborne took this in with a show of fierce concentration, looking as if I were speaking in Esperanto and he was trying to follow some­body’s simultaneous translation. Then he seemed to decide something, and he relaxed. He lowered himself into a wing chair, threw back the glass, and swallowed a slug of his brandy.

  He said, “I don’t like you, and I don’t like what you’re doing, Stra­chey. But I also know that refusing to cooperate with you is not the way to go. We’ll just get each other riled up that way. I’m better off staying in touch, keeping tabs on you. So, with that in mind, I’ve set up a meeting for you tomorrow at nine-thirty with Stu Torkildson. You’re to come by the Herald office. I’ll also be present.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Stu will reassure you as to any suspicions you may have regarding a connection between Eric’s death and the sale of the Herald, or any connection between the sale of the paper and this ridiculous Jet Ski business. You need to be set straight on that score, and Stu can do it.”

  “How can he?” I asked.

  Osborne looked nettled. “How can he what?”

  “How can he reassure me that there’s no connection between the sale of the paper and these other events unless he knows who killed Eric and why, and who tried to run over Janet with a Jet Ski and why?”

  Osborne snorted once and looked at me as if I were a pathetic dunce. “You’ve never met Stu Torkildson, have you?” he said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Stu is a persuasive man.”

  “So I’ve heard. But I hadn’t heard he was all-seeing, all-knowing. Torkildson certainly lacked clairvoyance on the Spruce Haven resort project. After that bust—which is finishing off one of the more distin­guished chapters in American journalism—I’m surprised you take this guy’s judgments seriously at all.”

  Osborne dismissed this with a little wave of his brandy glass. “The financial loss is potentially considerable, but the rest of it, my friend, is just history. There’s no point in getting sentimental over it. As a means of dispersing information, newspapers are all but dead. Half the

  people in the country own personal computers, and half of those are on-line. In another thirty years, newspapers will have disappeared, with books and magazines soon to follow old-time journalism into obliv­ion. By the middle of the next century, print on paper will be regarded as quaint, the way we look at gas lamps and phonograph records.

  “The Herald’s days are numbered, no matter what happened with the Spruce Haven investment, and the only smart thing to do now is for the family to sell to the highest bidder, then take the money and invest it in something with a future. If Janet, Dan, and Mother had a head for business, they’d see that. But they’re stuck in the past. They like the word ‘progressive’ and that’s how they think of themselves. But, believe me, they are anything but progressive. Strachey, the only violence associated with the sale of the Edensburg Herald is the po­tential that eight million dollars will be flushed down the toilet. And if you want to prevent a disaster, my friend, that is the one you should be trying to put a stop to.”

  He gazed at me with his cool, bloodshot eyes and waited.

  I said, “In June, a month after Eric died, you told your mother, Chester, that in order to keep the Herald from being sold to Harry Griscomb, the more responsible newspaper chain but the lower bid­der—and here I quote you, Chester—‘Somebody else might have to get hurt.’ What did you mean by that?”

  He missed just a fraction of a beat before he said icily, “I said no such thing.”

  “Your mother says you did.”

  A slight trembling of the brandy snifter and an emphatic shake of the head. “No.”

  “You seemed to be saying that you knew that Eric’s death was con­nected with the sale of the paper, and someone else might die if that would ensure a sale to InfoCom instead of Griscomb. Your mother told me that your remark was unmistakably a threat.”

  His eyes flashed for an instant, but his fight for self-control was con­stant and, with me so far, availing. He said, “Then my mother did not know what she was saying. She talks gibberish half the time. If you were in her house today, you know that my mother is mentally ill. She is suffering from severe Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, soon she may have to be institutionalized.”

  What was this? “Institutionalized?”
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  “Yes,” he said, “Mother is mentally incompetent. I know it, and if you were with her today for any length of time, then you know it too. It’s tragic to see this happening to a woman who always took pride in her intellect. June told me how heartbreaking it was this afternoon to find Mother sitting like a zombie and staring into her garden. What Mother needs now is professional care. There’s just no getting around it.”

  “That’s your opinion,” I said. “Have you discussed it with Janet or Dan? Or with your mother?”

  “Not yet,” Chester said in a matter-of-fact way. “But June and I talked it over, and I called Franklin Whately, mother’s physician. Frank was negligent in not filling me in sooner on Mother’s condition, but this evening he brought me up to speed. So it’s not too late to see to it that Mother is placed in the appropriate setting for someone in her medical condition.”

  “You called a doctor when you heard about your mother’s supposed poor condition—which, incidentally, is not nearly so dire as you’re mak­ing it out to be, Chester. And did you call a lawyer too?”

  He hadn’t smiled once since I’d entered his house, but now he came perilously close to betraying what must have passed for amusement with him. Osborne’s face relaxed just perceptibly and he said, “What do you mean, did I call a lawyer? It would have been wildly irrespon­sible of me not to.”

  10

  Janet said, “I’d almost be in favor of stashing Mom somewhere until the day of the vote if I didn’t think Chester and June would pull some legal stunt declaring her incompetent in absentia, or some damn thing, and therefore ineligible to serve on the board and vote.”

  “It does sound like a trap,” Dale said. “As if hiding Ruth is exactly what Chester and June want us to try. Otherwise, why would they tip their hand to Don tonight? Why not surprise us all and just show up one day when Ruth’s home alone with Elsie and wave a piece of paper, clap her in irons, and haul her off until the vote is over?”

  It was just past midnight and the four of us were having a beer on the screened-in back porch at the Osborne house. Three of us were seated on chairs by candlelight, and the place was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner in the window of Ruth Osborne’s bedroom up above us. Timmy was draped along a chaise, his fiberglassed foot shining in the flickering light.

  “The other thing,” Timmy said, “is that maybe everybody on the board who’s planning to vote to sell the Herald to the good chain and not the bad chain is safe now, and there won’t be any more murder attempts. Even if neither Chester nor June is involved in a murder plot, word will get around that they have a shot at neutralizing Mrs. Osborne legally, so anybody who’d planned on killing Janet, Dan, or Mrs. Os­borne might be willing to adopt a wait-and-see attitude.”

  “Oh yes,” Dale said. “We could take a chance and let our guard down. What have we got to lose but another human being?”

  Timmy muttered something indecipherable, and I said, “I thought we had an agreement, Dale.”

  “Whoops.”

  Janet said, “I think Dale is right that since both the future of the Her­ald and people’s lives are at stake, we have to hope for the best but plan for the worst.”

  “That’s an extremely generous interpretation of Dale’s remarks,” Timmy said, and in the dim light I glared at him. He caught this, and added, “But I believe both of you are entirely correct in your estima­tion that continued caution is in order.”

  “What I’m going to do,” Janet said, “is talk to Slim Finn in the morn­ing. He was Dad’s lawyer and he’s Mom’s. I’m sure Chester’s got some­body else intriguing away, probably his golfing partner, Morton Bond, and Slim will know how to get a mental competency hearing postponed for the five weeks we need until the board meets, or—failing a post­ponement—have the hearing held on a day when Mom is compos men­tis. Meanwhile, I guess at least one of us needs to be here with her at all times. Whenever possible, two of us.”

  We all looked at each other, aware of which two of us would be most often available over the next week for a watch over Ruth Osborne. I said, “This job is critically important,” and Timmy and Dale both gave me an indignant look that said, There’s no need to treat us like chil­dren.

  “I’m also going to get Mom’s physician, Frank Whately, over here,” Janet said, “to get an updated evaluation of her Alzheimer’s, and the best short-term prognosis he can come up with. God, I just hate it that Mom is facing this horrible thing—and I’m facing this horrible thing with Mom—at exactly the same time all this other putrid crap is hap­pening with the paper, and Eric being killed, and the Jet Ski attacks, and Eldon being in the hospital. It’s just—it’s too damned much.”

  We all agreed that it was, but we sat there helplessly, making vague, useless, sympathetic noises. It “was Janet who finally said, “At least Eldon is recovering from the Pneumocystis, and he’s no longer psychotic now that he’s off the prednisone. There’s that good news anyway.”

  “He was a little groggy when we saw him tonight,” Timmy said. “And I got the impression he didn’t remember anything he said to us last night. I mean, none of that nasty stuff about… what happened after

  high school. But he wasn’t wild-eyed and crazy, and he did remember who I was, of course, and that I was there last night.”

  I said, “Of course.”

  Dale said, “Did either of you ask Eldon if he had any idea why Dan puked up his supper when he heard that there might be a connection between the sale of the Herald and Eric’s murder?”

  “Why would Skeeter know anything about that?” Timmy asked.

  “Because he and Eric were sleeping together. Presumably they con­versed about important matters.”

  Janet said, “Dan was completely devastated by Eric’s death. I mean, we all were, and are—I still wake up in the night weeping when I dream about him. But at the time, it was Dan who really fell apart. And obviously he still hasn’t recovered.”

  “Were Dan and Eric especially close?” I asked.

  “In a messy, complicated way, they were,” Janet said. “They’d been rivals for Dad’s approval from the time they were toddlers. Of course, they were pretty much wasting their time in that department—Dad was not what you’d call warmly demonstrative with any of us. He saved his good opinions for the Heralds editorial page, and his emotions too. But Dan and Eric both loved Dad and they both became journalists be­cause of him. That was a bond between them. But then, because they were so temperamentally different—Dan being more Watson-like in his passions and volatility—they often fought, with Dan starting the fights and Eric, who was always stronger and more sure of himself, finishing them. Believe me, it was a busy, complex household to grow up in. As most households with big families are, of course. And households with small families too.”

  I said, “When you say, Janet, that Dan and Eric fought, do you mean physically?”

  “Until they were both well into their teens. It’s a big joke in Edensburg that this house full of pacifists used to erupt about once a week with crashing and banging and yelling, as if bloody murder was being committed inside.” She caught herself, and when no one spoke, she added, “Please—don’t even think it. Not Dan.” More awkward silence. “It wouldn’t make any sense,” Janet said. “It just wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”

  After a moment, Timmy said, “It wouldn’t make any sense, Janet,

  unless Eric’s death and the Jet Ski attacks weren’t even connected. And Eric’s murder and the sale of the Herald had nothing to do with each other.”

  They all looked at me as if I, being a detective, might have an ob­servation to offer that could clear the air a little, break the tension. But I didn’t.

  11

  Thursday morning, Timmy, exhausted, slept in—we’d shared a frilly four-poster in what had been June’s room—while Janet drove off to the Herald, Dale joined Elsie the housekeeper in keeping an eye on Ruth Osborne, and I left Maple Street at 7:45 in search of Captain Bil
l Stankie.

  I drove out to the edge of town and found Stankie in his office at the State Police barracks, one of those characterless brick boxes that are representative of public architecture in the age of hate-all-government. Stankie didn’t look as if he minded the lack of columns and a cupola framing his official presence. Squat, ruddy-faced, and agreeably unprepossessing in shirtsleeves and green suspenders, Stankie looked up at me placidly from behind his metal desk. I intro­duced myself and explained that I’d been hired by Janet Osborne to investigate any connection between her brother’s murder and two ap­parent attempts on her life. For the moment, I left out the sale of the Herald, that day’s edition of which lay open to the sports section on Stankie’s desk next to his coffee mug.

  “I doubt there’s any connection, but I’d be interested to hear what you’ve come up with,” Stankie said. “Have a seat.”

  I seated myself across from Stankie and told him that I was only just getting started and had come up with nothing of substance yet, and that was why I’d come to see him. I asked him to fill me in on the Eric Osborne murder investigation, and on anything Stankie knew about the sheriff’s office investigation of the two Jet Ski attacks on Janet.

  “Was that your boyfriend that got clipped yesterday?” Stankie asked. “My wife is a nurse at the ER, and she said a gay couple came in, and

  one of the guys had a broken foot from a Jet Ski incident out at Os­borne’s place on the lake.”

  “How did she know we were a couple?”

  “Sue always knows. Our third son, Hank, is gay, and he and his part­ner, Ray, are both police officers in Cincinnati, Ohio—Ray’s hometown. We don’t see nearly as much of them as we’d like. We get out there once a year, but Hank and Ray are kept pretty busy with their off-duty gay-rights -work. Cincinnati is a pretty conservative town. Which is fine with me, overall. I’m conservative myself.”

  “Except in one way, it looks like.”