Chain of Fools (9 page)

"We go weeks without seeing June," Elsie said to me, clearly hopeful that I might become an ally in her disapproval of a daughter who didn't visit her mother often enough. To Janet, she said, "June and Parson both wanted to talk about selling the
Herald
to that big company that sounds like somebody sneezing."

"InfoCom?"

"Yes, they wanted Mrs. Osborne to vote for that one."

"Parson too?"

"Both of them did, yes. They tried to get Mrs. Osborne to come in here with them and shut the door, I suppose. But she wouldn't budge from the breakfast nook, so I heard a lot of what was discussed. I had baked corn to get in the oven, you know."

Janet picked up the cue and said, "Mom sure loves your baked corn, Elsie."

"Oh yes, she enjoys it when I cook."

"So what did Mom say about InfoCom and her vote?"

"Why, she didn't say anything at all. She said hello and how do you do and not a word more, as far as I'm aware. Several times while they were here, June said, 'Mom, what's the matter?' Or, 'Mom, are you listening to me?' She knew your mother wasn't right, Janet. She saw that it was more than just forgetfulness this time."

"Did June say anything about it to you?"

"No, but she gave me a look on the way out—like I knew all the time your mother's mind was going, and now June knew it too. Parson Bates was all smiles, but he was right there the whole time, so he got the picture too, you can bet your boots on that."

"I
ran into them on their way out," Janet said, "but neither one of them mentioned anything about Mom's being different."

"Those two are up to something," Elsie said ominously, and no one in the room contradicted her.

Janet told Elsie she would contact Mrs. Osborne's physician, who had diagnosed early stages of Alzheimer's disease a year earlier, and

find out if anything should or could be done at this point. Dale said that was wise, but in her medical opinion little could be done with Mrs. Osborne beyond help, patience, and kindliness. Experiments were underway with drugs, but so far the benefits were far from certain.

We were about to leave the study when the door suddenly opened and there stood Ruth Osborne smiling in at us. "I was wondering where you all had got to," she said pleasantly. "It looks as if you must have gone looking for something to read."

"Mom, hi!"

Dale said, "We weren't reading, Ruth, just visiting the family museum."

"Well, this is certainly it I'm Ruth Osborne," she said to me, extending her hand. She looked fully alert.

"Don Strachey. I'm honored to meet you."

"My husband could never part with a book, and neither can I. It's just acquisitiveness and a minor variety of greed What good's a book if it's not passed around and read? All these books being held captive here—for what? It's one of my six or eight moral weaknesses."

I said, "You always think you're going to reread them."

"Oh, not me. I have no illusions about that. I just like knowing they're in here gathering dust. The only ones I look at anymore are my son's books. Eric was a marvelous writer Have you read him'"

"My lover and I sometimes read Eric aloud to each other when we're in the mountains It's like having a companion with us who has a sixth sense for understanding the wilderness and who can put it into English "

"Yes, he was extremely gifted. Eric was murdered in May, however."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Elsie eased out the door of the study and threw an astonished look back at us as she went.

Mrs. Osborne said, "The police say it was some mysterious drifter who did it, but I wonder. The Osbornes have been a progressive force in these parts for a good, long time, and it wouldn't surprise me if somebody decided to get even with me or my husband by murdering Eric. Tom's dead, of course—that's him on the mantel—but Janet and my son Daniel and I are carrying on the family's progressive traditions, and some of the reactionary forces we've taken on over the years are ruth-

less people with long memories. And I've got another theory too that's even uglier than that one."

"Mom," Janet said, "Don is a private investigator, as a matter of fact. He's going to be looking into Eric's murder. He's also investigating something else that's come up. I don't want you to worry, because I can take care of myself, but—well, the thing is, somebody may be trying to get at me too."

Mrs. Osborne's brow furrowed and she said, "I'm not surprised to hear it."

"You're not?"

"No, not with the vote approaching on the sale of the
Herald.
With you or Dan or me out of the way, the vote would shift from a majority for Griscomb to a majority for InfoCom. Millions of dollars are at stake, and, of course, control over the soul of the paper. Bloody murder has been committed over a lot less. I've thought about warning you, Janet. But when you're my age you hesitate to tell people—even family, or
especially
family—that you suspect plots. People are liable to think you're losing your marbles."

Janet blushed. "Oh, Mom, you know you can always talk to me and Dale about anything."

I said, "Was there anything in particular, Mrs. Osborne, that set off your suspicions of a plot?"

Janet gave me a quick glance that I took to mean it might not be wise to encourage her mother's imaginings. But Mrs. Osborne said somberly, "Yes, it first hit me that something might be afoot about a month after Eric's death when Janet's older brother Chester came by and tried to persuade me to change my vote to support selling the
Herald
to InfoCom. Chester threw a fit—he's always had a vicious temper, which I'm sorry to say comes to him by way of the Watsons, my family—and he whooped and hollered about the family losing so much money in a sale to Griscomb that in order to keep that from happening, somebody else might have to get hurt."

We stared at Mrs. Osborne, who looked at us miserably. Dale said, "Somebody else?"

"That's what Chester said. 'Somebody else might have to get hurt.'"

"Mom, for chrissakes, why didn't you tell me this?"

"Janet—does this make any sense? I think I forgot. I know I meant

to tell you right away. But . . . crazy as this sounds, I think I just forgot to."

The phone next to me rang, but no one in the room moved to pick it up and I heard Elsie answer it in the kitchen.

I said, "Mrs. Osborne, did you ask Chester what he meant by his threat?"

"No," she said, "I was so mad at Chester, I just told him to pick up his bundle of papers and to get out of my sight. Which he did. Mad I was, and a little bit frightened of him too. It's a terrible thing for a mother to think about, but I know from painful experience that Chester can hurt people "

"Did you think he was threatening you?" Janet said.

Mrs. Osborne shrugged and looked profoundly sad. Elsie had appeared beside her, and now she said to me, "Mr. Strachey?"

"Yes?"

"There's a man on the phone for you. I think it's important."

"A man by the name of Callahan?"

"Yes. Mr. Callahan. He sounded tetchy."

"That's because he broke his foot, and the hospital has probably finished with him and is about to shove him out to the curb in a wheelchair and leave him there. Maybe one of you could wait here," I said to Janet and Dale, "and one of you could drive me over to rescue Timmy."

"Sure, let's go," Dale said. "The ER staff won't abandon him at the curb, but they'll park him in a corridor somewhere and treat him like a misplaced cadaver on a gurney. He won't like it."

"And then," I said, "I'd like to track down Chester and ask him some questions. Is he in town?"

"Yes, and probably out at the club by now," Mrs. Osborne said, checking what looked like a huge Timex on her wrist. "But it wouldn't be a good idea to go interrogating him there. You could probably catch him at home after seven. He and Pauline generally watch the CNN business report over drinks at seven and sit down to dinner at eight. Are you going to question June too, Mr. Strachey? That's my other daughter. She doesn't have the history of violence that Chester does, but she's a treacherous piece of work in her own right."

We all looked at her. "I'm sure I'll be talking to June too," I said.

"Good. Be careful of them both."

"Okay."
                       
                    

"I haven't seen June in weeks," Mrs. Osborne said, "but I'm sure she's out there somewhere conniving to destroy the wonderful institution that was built by her grandfather and her father. That's my husband right there on the mantel," she said, "in that urn that could stand a good polishing. Tom was a remarkable man, and I miss him with such hurt. Maybe I'm nuts—it runs in the family—but I like to come in here and sit by that urn once in a while, especially in the evening. And believe it or not, it helps. Tom had requested that his ashes be scattered over the mountains, and Eric and Janet were shocked when I refused to let them do it. But I happen to draw comfort from Tom's gravelly presence up there. And he's not in any position to mind, so what's the beef?

"Of course, I wanted to stash Eric up there too, beside his father. But Eldon was sure Eric would want to be left out in the woods where he was happiest, so I acquiesced. Oh, it's all so hard and complicated. Mr. Strachey, don't outlive the people you love—that's my advice. It's just way too hard. I want to live until September eighth, when I can vote to save the
Herald,
but after that—well, we'll see."

"Mom, what do you mean!"

Mrs. Osborne let out a mordant little laugh. "Oh, don't get excited, Janet, I'm not about to pull a plastic bag over my head, and of course I'd never own a gun. I'm just talking."

In the awkward silence that followed, I could just barely make out the distant sound of a man's raised voice coming out of the telephone receiver down the hall in the kitchen. I couldn't pick up his words, just his plaintive tone.

8

I think I might be revising my position on capital punishment," Timmy said. He was in the front passenger seat of Janet's car, which Dale was driving, heading back to the Osborne house. I was behind him massaging his neck. He smelled of lake water and sweat and the fiberglass cast on his broken foot.

"What has your position been on capital punishment?" Dale asked.

"Against it. It morally demeans the state that carries it out, it has no demonstrable deterrent effect, and since the justice system is imperfect, it's inevitable that innocent people will be executed. But that asshole on the Jet Ski could have killed me, and now I'm mad."

"If he was tied down," Dale said, "and you were there with a Ton-galese pigsticker, would you slice his guts open?"

Turning, Timmy couldn't get around quite far enough to catch my eye. But I caught his meaning: What is
with
this woman? Instead, he said, "I was speaking rhetorically."

"Oh. Oh, I see," Dale said blithely.

I had told Timmy about the visit to Dan and Arlene's, and Dan's vom-itous reaction to our speculation that an Osborne might be plotting to murder—or to have murdered—another Osborne over the
Heralds
sale to a good chain or a bad chain. I also filled him in on our unsettling encounter with June Puderbaugh and Parson Bates, and on Ruth Osborne's thirty-hour lapse into insensibility and subsequent recovery.

"Of course," Timmy said, "I'm doing my level best trying to keep some kind of rational perspective on this whole frightening business. I realize that my injury was inadvertent—a line-of-fire unlucky accident. And a broken foot is paltry next to murder. And it certainly does sound

from what you've discovered just in the past couple of hours, Don, that any number of people in this whole rat's nest that you've uncovered are capable of murder."

Dale said, "Are you saying, Timothy, that to you the Osbornes are a family of rodents? That seems rather sweeping."

I saw the blood rise in the back of his neck as he snapped, "Dale, you seem to have some kind of hair across your ass in regard to me. Why is that?"

By shifting a little, I could see her face in the rearview mirror. Her eyes narrowed and she said, "I do believe you're imagining that, Timothy."

"Hey, do you think I have some vital parts missing, or what? I am not imagining that no matter what I say to you, you are sneering and sarcastic, and you talk like I'm some kind of half-wit. Which I am not. Now, 'what exactly is the problem?"

For a long moment she just watched the road and drove, and said nothing. Then she said coolly: "You really don't remember me, do you, Timothy?"

"No, Dale, I am not aware that we were ever acquainted."

"Well, you should be aware."

"Oh," he said, "let me think. What could it have been? Now,
did
we sleep together once in the seventies? Were you ever a man?"

She made a face that said, "Oh, please."

"If you think," Timmy said, "that I'm the one who gave you
anal herpes,
be assured that you are mistaken. I've never had it."

"He's right about that, Dale," I said.

She looked for a brief instant as if she might crack a smile, but her control was sure and none appeared. She said, "I want you to think about it, Timothy. It was not a friendly encounter. If you think hard, it will come back to you."