Chain of Fools (15 page)

I said, "Were you able to get a look at the truck and driver? I realize your focus was on the road in front of you and trying to stay on it."

"That's right, it was," Dan said sarcastically. "Taking notes somehow slipped our minds."

"The truck was red," Arlene said. "That much I can remember. Dan had his eyes glued to the road, naturally, but I looked back a couple times, and the truck had a black grill with horizontal bars. I couldn't see the driver because the truck was right on top of us, and our back window is low, and he was too high up. And then when we ran off the road we were bouncing all over the place, and by the time we got stopped, the truck had gone around a bend. But I do remember that it was big and it was red."

"Like the pickup somebody saw speeding away from the lake yesterday with the Jet Ski in the back," Janet said, and we all nodded gravely and considered this data.

Dale asked, "Who knew you'd be out on that road early this morning, Arlene?"

"Just Liver," Arlene said.

When she seemed to have nothing to add to that, Timmy said, "Your marijuana dealer's name is Liver?"

"Liver Livingston. His real name is Samuel. He told us his family used to have a railroad or a canal or something, but now he says they all sell dope."

Dale said, "Was he nicknamed Liver because he loves life, or after the organ?"

Arlene made a "beats me" face, but Dan said, "I once heard his nickname came from his favorite food. In any case, I doubt that Liver would appreciate our sitting around discussing him in connection with somebody trying to kill Arlene and me. In fairness to Liver, let's just try to leave him out of this." Arlene relit the joint while Dan held it with a roach clip he'd pulled out of the pocket of his work shirt.

I said, "Are you telling us, Dan, that if somebody asked Liver for a schedule of when you might be traveling the isolated road out to his place, he'd have refused to provide it?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you. Yes."

"You have every reason to trust him, and no reason not to?"

"Liver Livingston and I," Dan said solemnly, "have been friends for more than twenty years. Not just friends—brothers. We've worked in the cane fields of Cuba together. We went to the mountains of

Nicaragua together. We are
companeros
Does that answer your question?"

I said, "I can understand why you trust Liver. But the man is in what I think you'll concede is an iffy line of work. Rightly or wrongly, Liver's trade is a criminal enterprise in the state of New York. People who do what he does make enemies. Even if you accept the idea that there's no chance he would ever have set you up, isn't it possible that another dealer might be attempting to muscle in on Liver's territory by scaring away his customers?"

Arlene blurted out, "What an asshole that would be!"

Dan seemed to roll this idea around in his head for some seconds, as if he was interested in the sound of it but couldn't quite bring himself to endorse the theory. Finally, he said, "No, I would seriously doubt that. Liver is a small-time guy whose gross is peanuts. He takes in enough to get by—it's just Liver and Patsy and their old dog out there— and he sees himself predominantly as a good citizen providing a public service. Who could possibly want to use violence to take over an operation like that?"

I caught Timmy's eye—I guessed we were both wondering what Liver's dog's name might be—and then I looked at Dan and said, "Given what's happened to you and Janet lately—and to Eric in May— I share your opinion that the incident today had nothing to do with Liver. What it looks an awful lot like is another episode in a plot to alter the
Herald
board of directors' vote on September eighth. But to be sure, I wish you'd get in touch with Liver, Dan, and describe your close call today and ask him if anything like it has happened to any of his other customers. Ask him too whether he's heard anything like what happened to you and Arlene happening to other people who travel that road."

Dan sniffed and said, "Oh, sure. I'll call him. Why not? Since you and Janet are running the Osbornes' family affairs now, I guess I'd better just do as I'm told."

Janet slapped the wicker table next to her and barked, "Damn it, Dan, that is
so
unfair—"

But Dale was holding up a traffic-cop hand and saying, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute."

Janet shut her mouth and sat back stewing while Dale went on to make the case that we were all in this together, and ultimately our best

interests and highest goals were the same: staying alive and saving the
Herald.
Dale argued that she and Timmy once had had "an ugly run-in with grim consequences for American society," and that since they were managing to get along despite the "moral chasm" that separated them, the rest of us could damn well find a way to get along too.

"What did you two guys fight over?" Arlene asked Dale and Timmy. "I'm surprised. You're both such nice people."

Timmy said, "Good question, Arlene."

"I'll fill you in later, Arlene," Dale said. "Right now we need to concentrate on what happened to you and Dan today, and on how we're going to make sure nothing else like it happens to any of us. Don't you agree, Don?"

I said I agreed, and everybody else nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Dale looked at Dan and Arlene, who were attempting to get one last ignition out of their reefer, and said, "I think you two ought to consider staying here in the house with us until this thing is over and we can be sure all of us are safe from whoever's been trying to knock off Osbornes. There's plenty of room, we can ask the cops to keep an eye on this place, and if anybody shows up and tries anything here on the premises—well, Don's got a gun, Janet told me, that Timmy brought back from Albany last night."

Arlene screamed. Everybody else jumped, and when they'd collected themselves, I said, "It's a precaution. I've had the NRA firearms safety course—and the United States Army's—and there's no need to be concerned."

Dan said, "I've spent some time around people who found themselves in a position where it was necessary for them to carry weapons, and I understand that this is sometimes unfortunately the case. So if you want to arm yourself, Strachey, and turn this house into a fortified position, that's up to you and Janet. But I can't see that anybody is going to be stupid enough to come after a member of the Osborne family right here in Edensburg. Arlene and I will be safe enough in our apartment. And while I can see the point in keeping an eye on Mom, I think you're in danger of overreacting quite badly otherwise. For what little my opinion is worth, of course."

Arlene gawked at him and said, "Speak for yourself, Dan. I'm scared shitless. I think we should all stay here together where we can take

care of each other and share our thoughts and concerns. And, hey, it could even be fun. Corn is in, and we could get some ears and make a big batch of corn chowder. Brownies too. Come on, Dan, let's do it. Don't be such a big drag."

Dan looked directly into Arlene's face and said coldly, "I am not staying here overnight. We've all got more important matters on our minds than some goddamn corn roast."

Arlene sneered and snapped, "Asshole!" Then she shrugged and said, "Well, I'm staying."

"That's up to you," Dan said sourly, but he made no move to depart without Arlene.

While I had them all in one place—and to help get our unruly little band focused on the big picture—I summed up my investigation as it had progressed over the previous thirty-six hours. I described my encounter with June and Parson Bates; my conversation with Ruth Osborne in which she revealed Chester's warning that "somebody else might have to get hurt" to keep the
Herald
from being sold to Griscomb; my visit with Chester, during which he threatened me with legal action for spreading slurs against the Osbornes, and he threatened to have Ruth Osborne declared legally incompetent and removed from the
Her-aldboard
of directors; my meeting with Bill Stankie, where he cast new doubt on the supposed guilt of Gordon Grubb in Eric's murder, and at the same time revealed that Chester had twice visited Craig in prison (again I left out Craig's remarks to the snitch concerning Eric's murder); and my meeting with Chester and Stu Torkildson, where Tor-kildson kept referring to my suspicions of a conspiracy to commit murder when I had not mentioned these suspicions to either Torkildson or Chester Osborne at all.

As I laid out my findings, everyone on the porch listened with great interest, even Dan. He seemed at several points to be breathing heavily and erratically—particularly when I mentioned Chester's visits to Craig in prison. And as I concluded my remarks, Dan got up quickly and made for the first-floor bathroom just down the hall from the porch.

I was about to ask Arlene why Dan vomited every time the subject of an Osborne violent conspiracy came up, but just then the front doorbell rang and seconds later June was inside the house with a deputy sheriff.

15

How did we ever get mixed up in this?" Timmy said morosely.

I said, "Let me think."

He was laid out on the four-poster in June's old room, and I was at the desk nearby updating my notes. Lunch was to be served in another ten minutes. June had departed an hour earlier, after watching her mother be served with an order to appear for a court proceeding the following Monday, four days away. June and Chester contended that Ruth Osborne was mentally incapable of carrying out her duties as a Herald Corporation board member, and Mrs. Osborne would be expected to demonstrate that she was of sound mind. When she accepted the papers, Mrs. Osborne had looked at her daughter and asked pleasantly, "Are you wearing your retainer, June?"

Timmy said, "My foot is hot and it itches."

"Sorry."

"I don't mean to whine. I realize there are people in this house with bigger problems than a broken foot."

"Go ahead and whine. I would."

"No, you wouldn't. Anyway, we've got enough whiners in this house. What a jerk Dan Osborne is. And Janet is perfectly rational except when she and Dan are in the same room together. Then both of them sound like a couple of twelve-year-olds."

"Dan can bring that out in anybody," I said. "But it's not his pomposity that's the most interest to me. It's his sensitive stomach. Every time the subject of an Osborne family conspiracy to commit murder comes up, Dan heaves."

"I couldn't help noticing that too. Bui; you don't suspect Dan of killing Eric, do you? Why would he?"

"Right. Why would he?"

"I can't think of any reason having to do with the sale of the
Herald, "
Timmy said. "Or any other reason, either."

"According to Janet, the Osborne household harbored more than the average amount of emotional deprivation when she and her brothers and sister were growing up. Emotional deprivation led to emotional warfare, and emotional warfare sometimes leads to physical violence. Still, fratricide is extreme and extremely rare, I know. So, no. I don't have any real reason at this point to suspect Dan. But I do plan on gleaning his whereabouts on the afternoon Eric was murdered. And I'd sure like to find out why Dan vomits at the mention of his brother's death. Is it the shock and terrible loss that hits him hard all over again? Is he squeamish? Or does he have some guilty knowledge of the event?"

"Why don't you just ask him?"

"I'm considering doing that, Timothy. I need to get him alone first. I also need to come up with a sufficiently delicate way of phrasing my interrogatory. It won't do to ask, 'Why does mention of your brother's bludgeoning make you puke your guts out, Dan?' "

"That sounds good enough to me, Don. Euphemisms for vomiting are for kindergarten teachers to use, and euphemisms for murder are for heads of state. Just ask him directly, is my advice. Dan's a grownup."

"He's a grown-up, but he's also a grown-up who acts like he's got some guilty secret that's eating away at his insides. When I confront Dan, I don't want him to clam up even tighter than he is now, and I don't want him to bolt."

"He's highly indignant over being stuck here, he says, but he's not making any move to leave either. I wonder if he
wants
you to find out something important he knows. Maybe he's trying to work up the courage to tell you something, and it's when he gets close to saying it that he throws up."

"Possibly."

"On the other hand, maybe Dan is simply scared to death he's going to be attacked and killed, and that makes him heave. Having somebody try to run your car over a cliff is bound to unsettle your break-

fast. I know I'm nervous about all this, and I'm not even on the
Herald's
board. Here we are, like Chinese Gordon at Khartoum, the Mahdi's turbaned hordes out there just beyond the perimeter tightening the noose, getting ready to come charging in for the coup de grace. It
is
frightening."

"That's a little overly vivid, Timothy. But I get your point."

"And then there's Dale," he said, throwing his arms back in a gesture of despair. The pom-poms on June's snowy white bedspread trembled.

"Aren't you glad she's on our side?" I said.

"I'll say. I'd hate to have her across the Nile in Omdurman sharpening her panga."

"I like her," I said, "and I thinkyou would too, Timothy, if she hadn't somehow confused you with Jesse Helms or Richard Speck or whoever it is, and treats you accordingly. She's prickly and blunt in ways you'd find refreshing if you weren't the one getting prickled and pum-meled. And Dale can obviously spot a phony a mile away."