Chain of Fools (26 page)

"That is correct," Timmy said. "ACT-UP and other better-behaved

groups—each group in its own way—got their points across. They made a big difference."

Dale seemed to relax a bit. She gulped some beer down, then said to Timmy, "Okay, Timothy, my man. You passed the test. You're it."

"Gee whiz, thanks."

" 'Gee whiz.' There's another one of those old-timey exclamations you like to use that we hardly ever hear anymore. Sort of like 'golly gee.' Or 'gee willikers.' I don't suppose, though, that there would be a genetic predisposition to those funny expressions in any of your progeny. So, Timothy, you're it."

Timmy shifted uneasily on his chaise. "What do you mean, 'it'?"

"Janet and I decided several months ago to have a child I'll be the biological mother. We need a sperm donor, and with Janet's endorsement I've been testing you to see what you're made of. You've passed the test. We need to get to it soon, if you're healthy and it's okay with you, because my clock's running out. And let's not fool around with turkey basters, either. That's so cold and clinical for such an intimate— sacred really—ritual of creation. So Whaddya say, Tim, old man? Are you up to it? Ready for some fructification?"

Timmy stared at Dale, and even though it wasn't, his look was that of a man whose hair was standing on end.

Later that night, in June's four-poster, Timmy said, "I hope you're not hurt that they didn't ask you, Don "

I said, "No, their reasons for chosing you are perfectly valid. They think you would be the more loyal and loving and attentive father— or father figure, as Dale insists on calling it—and they're right. If they had asked me, I'd have said no thanks, I've never had the urge. But you knew right away it was something you'd missed in life, and you wanted deeply to do it, even though you'd never realized it before."

"That's right."

"But I'll be interested to be the father-figure-in-law-once-removed, or whatever you call it."

"I know you will."

"I don't know about those names they've picked, though. Shira Osborne-Kotlowicz? Yussie Osborne-Kotlowicz?"

"That's up to them. The names sound fine to me."

"You're not going to press for Sean Callahan-Kotlowicz-Osborne? Or Heather Kotlowicz-Osborne-Callahan?"

"No, I don't care what the name is. I'm just—
exhilarated
is the only word for it—at the idea of creating a human being that's part of me and yet will have a life—a life!—that's all its own."

"I understand that, Timothy. It's not what I want, somehow, but I hear you, and I love it that you're thrilled."

"I am relieved, though, that Dale relented and is willing to use indirect means for the impregnation. I guess I could have managed it, but—really. Geez."

"She's still threatening to jump you some night, though. And, hey, you might be surprised. There might be another revelation in store."

"I have a feeling," Timmy said, "that I would have figured that one out earlier in life. It isn't as though I wasn't encouraged to do so."

"Just think," I said, "you're going to make a human life, and the whole story of that life started with Skeeter back in high school in Poughkeepsie. I'll bet he'll be happy when he hears about it, and even proud."

Timmy became thoughtful at the mention of Skeeter. After a moment, he said, "Maybe Eldon would make a good name for a baby."

"Yeah," I said. "Or Eldona."

We talked for a long time under June's canopy, and decided that one day Eldon or Eldona would be editor of a great newspaper, or— if great newspapers didn't exist anymore in the twenty-first century— a series of feisty pamphlets passed from hand to hand.

Epilogue

Dan Osborne plea-bargained a sentence of one year for his role in the jewel robbery. Tacker Puderbaugh and his Jet Ski-riding accomplice in the arson and the other intimidating "pranks" were convicted and drew sentences of twelve to fifteen years. Chester, charged with conspiracy to commit mayhem, copped a plea and escaped with probation. June got off free too, although the county art museum suspended her for one year as the curator of the annual canoes-at-sunrise show. Parson and Evangeline Bates turned against June and Dick Puderbaugh, and Parson wrote a column in the
Herald
attacking the "liberal judge with his own agenda" who let June off.

Suddenly preoccupied, Chester Osborne canceled the proceeding to have his wife committed. Pauline soon left Edensburg in her Lexus— with a trunk full of bearer bonds, it was rumored—and moved into a hilltop house with a tennis court in La Jolla, California. Arlene Thurber visited Dan once a week in the year he spent in prison and brought homemade brownies for Dan and some of the other inmates.

Stu Torkildson was convicted on Dan's testimony and the DNA evidence on the camera tripod. I visited him in jail while he was awaiting trial, and I asked him how he could have blundered so stupidly in launching the jewel-heist scheme—or big drug deal, as he had originally proposed, according to Dan. I said I thought the Spruce Haven disaster would have dissuaded Torkildson from doing anything hugely risky ever again.

Torkildson gave me his most ingratiating sneer and said, "The drug deal that was going to save the
Herald
—which editorializes against the scourge of drugs, what a laugh—wasn't my idea at all. I argued against

it strenuously, Strachey, and if I hadn't given in, against my better judgment, this entire fiasco—Dan's absurd accusation that I murdered Eric, as well as all the rest of it—could have been avoided. I'm not admitting anything in court, mind you. But if I said something to Dan that he construed as my recommending a big drug deal that could save the
Herald,
I will tell you confidentially that I was urged to do so by another party who was determined at any cost to keep the
Herald
in the Osborne family."

He watched me with his eyes that gave nothing away, and I said, "All right, who? Who urged you to save the
Herald
'with a big drug deal, Stu?"

"Ruth Osborne. Who else? Doesn't it just sound like Ruth?"

"No."

"Then you don't know Ruth Watson Osborne."

"What proof have you got?"

He shrugged. "None."

"You're lying. You've got the morals of a virus. You're
making this
up."

He just grinned and slowly shook his gleaming head.

The judge at Ruth Osborne's mental competency hearing found her "understandably sad" but sane enough to remain on the
Herald
board of directors After the September eighth vote, however, her mental condition deteriorated rapidly, and three months later she suffered a stroke and, after a -week of hospitalization, moved into an Edensburg nursing home I never told Janet what Stu Torkildson had said about the idea of saving the
Herald
through a big drug deal having originated with Mrs. Osborne I ran it by Timmy, who just waved it away.

The
Herald
board voted, three to two, to sell the paper to Harry Griscomb. The deal was consummated within days. Griscomb assumed the
Herald's
huge debt, so each Osborne shareholder received, after taxes, just $12,114 Janet said hers would help pay for rebuilding the lake house, and adding a nursery. The other shareholders no doubt spent theirs on legal bills.

The following spring two things happened. Erica McCaslin Kotlowicz-Osborne was born on May 30th at Edensburg County Hospital Skeeter was there—his T-cell numbers were ominous but his health was holding steady, and he'd returned to work for the New York State Forest Service. Timmy was there too, pacing in the waiting room

while Skeeter and I played hearts. Janet was present for the delivery— a highly unorthodox arrangement, hospital officials insisted, but they weren't about to tangle with Janet and Dale.

The other event that May was this: Harry Griscomb Newspapers suffered a financial near-collapse and the third generation of Griscombs seized control of the chain and sold it to the new newspaper division at United States Tobacco. Janet was fired a day later, as were two-thirds of the paper's reporters and all the copy editors. Tidy Osborne Puder-baugh was named publisher of the
Herald
—"to maintain the respected Osborne family traditions," the new owner said—and a new editor was brought in from the Maryville, Missouri,
Epworth-Tribune
The features and standards that had made the
Herald
great soon vanished from its pages—but it did gain a bridge column.