Chain of Fools (donald strachey mystery) Read online

Timmy said, “Janet, you were going to tell us about Skeeter’s suspicions surrounding Eric’s murder and the Jet Ski attack, and how they could be connected to the Heralds situation. Does Skeeter have particular people in mind-in your family or at one of the newspaper chains-who might actually try to change the outcome of the vote by murdering people on the board of directors? Murdering Eric or you or your mother or your brother Dan?”

  Janet stood motionless, outlined against the sun, and said nothing for a long moment. Fit and rangy as a basketball pro in blue shorts and a lemon-yellow T-shirt, she was remarkably sturdy for a woman in early middle age, but now her fear made her seem vulnerable. She suddenly looked so anxious that I half expected her to dive off the dock and speed away in no particular direction.

  Dale said, “Some of the newer Osbornes have a part or two missing. Or six or eight. The gene pool got spread thin or something.”

  Janet lowered herself to the dock again and sat beside Dale, who squeezed Janet’s hand, then let go. Janet smiled weakly and said, “The

  Osbornes have always advocated peace and love.” She forced a laugh and added, “But they haven’t always practiced it.”

  Dale said, “Present Osborne company excepted, of course.”

  “I have a temper too,” Janet said. “You guys haven’t seen it, but Dale can tell you.”

  Dale rolled her eyes. “I can, but I won’t. Anyway, what we’re talking about here is more than the odd hissy fit. It wasn’t Janet who killed her brother. And Janet didn’t get mad at herself and try to bash her own head in with a speeding Jet Ski last week. I know that because I was there.”

  I asked, “Do some Osbornes have a history of violence?”

  As Dale watched her, Janet said to me, “Some do, yes.” She took another breath and said, “My mother’s brother Edmund once nearly beat a man to death with a walking stick. Uncle Edmund is dead now, but I mention this because there seems to be-a pattern, a predisposition to violence among the Watsons, my mother’s family. It’s probably not genetic-the best science on the subject comes down against that possibility. But the tendency nevertheless is there. A therapist I once talked to about it called it image copying. That’s where someone internalizes the image of a relative and consciously or unconsciously follows a kind of life script where she or he emulates a bad relative’s bad behavior. There are several examples of it in my family. Among my generation, my cousin Graham, Edmund’s son, has been in prison since 1992 for stabbing a man in a bar in Lake Placid and nearly killing him.

  “Eric was never violent, and Dan’s not, and I’m not-so far-and neither is June. We’ve all been known to yell and storm around, Dan especially. But the only one of the siblings who’s shown any of the Watson tendencies is my brother Chester. When he was an adolescent, he lost it twice at hockey matches and bashed guys on the opposing team with his hockey stick. The second time he did it, he beat a boy so badly that Chester was charged with criminal assault. It was only his age and Slim Finn, Dad’s lawyer and Edensburg’s Mr. Fixit, that got Chester probation instead of juvenile detention. Chester hasn’t hurt anybody since then, that any of us knows of, but Chester’s son, Craig, is in prison too. Last year he shot and killed a guard in a jewel robbery.”

  Janet paused here to take another deep breath, and maybe to get a reaction. Timmy said, “So it’s a kind of Watson-Osborne floating bad seed. Not genetic, but persistent nevertheless.”

  Dale gave Timmy a look and said, “That’s certainly tactless.”

  Timmy stiffened-tact and discretion were among his strong points, he correctly believed. But Janet smiled reassuringly and said, “No, that’s exactly what it is. I’ve used the same terminology. In fact, so has Dale. There does seem to be a kind of bad seed on the loose-at least metaphorically speaking-in the Watson-Osborne clan’s psychological makeup.”

  “It’s different when I use the term,” Dale said. “I’m family.”

  Recklessly, Timmy opened his mouth again. “Are you two in a formal union?” he asked.

  “Yes, the ILGWU,” Dale said.

  “No, our union has been blessed by neither church nor insurance company,” Janet said. “But Dale’s been around for eight years, and she’s a family reality.”

  “Some of the Osbornes can even stand to be in the same room with me,” Dale said.

  “Eric and Dale adored each other,” Janet said, “and Dan and Mom like her a lot. June and Chester don’t have what it takes to appreciate Dale, I have to concede that.”

  Dale said, “One time somebody told us that when he’s among his golfing buddies, June’s husband, Dick Puderbaugh, refers to me as Janet’s Jewess.’ June once asked me if it was hard for me to adjust to living in the Adirondacks instead of the Catskills.”

  “This from the enlightened Osbornes,” Janet said. “Some of the family’s seeds are bad, and some apparently are just dumb and mean.”

  I said, “Who among the bad ones is pro Crewes-InfoCom to the point where he or she might try to change the outcome of the board vote next month by killing Eric or you or Dan or your mother?”

  They all looked at me, and then we all looked at Janet. She had sat down again and had been absently kicking the surface of the water with her foot. But she stopped now and gave me a strained look. “I don’t know,” she said. “Chester? Conceivably. I’m never sure what’s going on in his head. I can’t quite make myself believe that Chester would hurt any of us. And yet I know how bitter he can be about those of us-especially Dan and me-who have kept up the Herald’s liberal traditions, which Chester despises. June has never been physically violent, and yet I know how badly she wants both the money from the sale of the paper and for the paper to fall into the hands of a chain whose reactionary politics are closer to her own.

  “So who does that leave? Neither Chester’s nor June’s spouse has any history of physical violence. Nor do their kids-except for Chester’s boy Craig, and he’s been in prison for more than six months. Tidy, June’s boy, seems to take out his minimal frustrations in bridge tournaments. And her other son, Tacker, went surfing in the South Pacific four years ago and hasn’t been seen since. He sends Dick and June an Australian Hallmark card every Christmas and Easter. That’s it. There’s nobody left. So who could it be? Chester? Nobody? Is this some paranoid delusion I’m having? Or that Eldon’s having? Of course, Eldon started in on this conspiracy-theory stuff before he went into the hospital and went psychotic. Almost from the first, he thought the timing of Eric’s murder was cause for suspicion, and then, in Eldon’s mind, the Jet Ski incident clinched it that something truly hideous was happening.”

  I said, “Have Dan and your mother reported any threatening incidents?”

  Janet shook her head. “No, but I’ve wondered if I should talk to them about Eldon’s suspicions. I don’t want to freak anybody out-especially not Mom. Yet on the other hand, what if there really is some danger?”

  “How much do you know about Crewes-InfoCom?” I asked. “Have you ever heard of them using strong-arm tactics, or worse, in order to pull off a deal where some of the owners of a paper were resistant to selling?”

  “The company is known for ‘playing hardball,’ to use the eighties macho-man vernacular,” Janet said. “But actual violence, no. There’s no history of bludgeoning balky shareholders to death, that I know of, if that’s what you mean. Talk about your hostile takeover.”

  Timmy piped up and said, “It sounds as if someone well-qualified does need to investigate this thing, though-either to expose and finish off any plot against you or your mother or your brother, or to reassure you that no such plot exists so you can relax and get on with the job of saving the Herald. Don’t you agree, Janet?”

  She hesitated for just an instant, then said, “I think so. It looks that way.”

  “Well…” Timmy began. His voice faltered suddenly, and he looked away, overcome with emotion. We waited, awkwardly, Janet and Dale looking surprised and concerned. Then Timmy cleared his throat and went on. “The thing
of it is,” he said with effort, “helping you and keeping you safe and saving the Herald are the main things Skeeter cares about right now. It’s probably the main thing he wants to stay alive for. And because I care about Skeeter, and I, uh, owe him something, I think… I’d, uh… I’d like to finance the investigation. For Skeeter. And for you. And in Eric’s memory.”

  We all looked at him and waited for someone else to react. Dale started to open her mouth, then apparently thought better of it.

  Janet finally said, “Timmy, that’s a generous and touching offer. And while I’d love to accept it-and I do accept and appreciate the sentiment behind it-I have to tell you that I believe this is an Osborne family matter that the Osbornes ought to take all the responsibility for, including financial. I’d never accept money from Eldon for this, and so I really can’t accept any from you. And the Osbornes can handle it, believe me. As for a gift in Eric’s memory, there’s a fund in his name at the Wilderness Society and I’m sure they’d be extremely happy to hear from you. I’m sure that Eldon would be touched too by any donation to the society that you’d like to make.”

  Timmy looked disappointed and was about to speak, but Dale cut him off. “Wait a minute. Don, how much do you charge, anyway?”

  “Four hundred a day, plus expenses, and a retainer of twelve hundred dollars is customary.”

  “That sounds reasonable if you’re any good,” Dale said. “But if this thing drags on, Janet could end up coughing up quite a wad. I want to contribute too, so let’s go threesies. Janet pays a third, I pay a third, and, Timmy, you bring up the rear. Come on, Janet, we all want to help, so don’t be such a hard-ass. Let us help out. I love you and I want that you should be well, and Timothy here wants to help because he’s still carrying a torch of some kind for his old high-school hump buddy. Plus, the Herald is a good cause. Anyway, if you spread the expense three ways, and Mr. One-Man-Mod-Squad Strachey here doesn’t produce, there’ll be three of us to jump him and give his balls a good twist.”

  Janet looked uncertain but seemed to be mulling this over. Timmy glanced at my lap, then back at Dale. I said, “That sounds like a workable arrangement, Dale, for the most part.”

  Janet said, “The company is in no position to pay for this, and I’ve already taken two pay cuts. So I guess I’d better go along with this generous arrangement, at least for now. So, thanks. Believe me, I appreciate it.”

  We all looked at Timmy, who finally said, “Okay. But I want to help not just with money I really want to be involved. I really need to be doing this. For Skeeter.”

  Ol’ Hump-Buddy Skeeter.

  An hour later, the four of us were fifty or sixty feet out in the lake. We were all wearing bathing suits. Almost simultaneously, we heard a deep buzzing noise that got louder and louder very fast-too fast. I heard Janet scream, “It’s him! Dive!”

  Timmy and Janet were about twenty feet farther out than Dale and I. I thought I heard a light whomp as I dived, and when I surfaced, about halfway back to the dock, Janet was nowhere in sight. But I saw Timmy and Dale come up and take a quick look around-the skier had made a U, spotted us, and was speeding back our way-and then Timmy and Dale gulped in air and dived again. I did the same. My heart was pounding and I was sick with fright for Janet as I swept through the murky lake water, but when I broke the surface again ten feet from the dock, Janet came up ahead of me, unhurt, and scrambled gasping up the ladder onto the dock. The Jet Skier was zooming away now, up the birch-lined shoreline. Timmy and Dale shot up like two whales dancing, though not so gracefully, and swam toward the dock-Timmy lagging behind a bit-where I joined them.

  “It was that guy!” Janet yelled. “It was that same mean-eyed homicidal creep!”

  I clambered onto the dock and hollered to Janet, “Let’s go! Up the shore! In my car!”

  We sprinted up past the lodge and jumped into my Mitsubishi. Janet directed me out the driveway and up the shore road. The clutch pedal was sharp under my bare left foot, and the gas pedal felt weightless and weird under my right. We could hear but not see the skier, and then Janet caught a glimpse of him through the trees, and she yelled, “He’s cutting out across the lake! Shit, we’ll never catch him now!”

  I said, “Who lives over there? Anybody you know?” I did a quick, gravelly turnaround in somebody’s driveway.

  “The Stebiks ^1 I’ll call the Stebiks and tell them to see where the guy docks that thing.”

  Back at Janet’s, she tore into the house, me at her heels. She leafed frantically through her address book, then punched in a number. She waited, pacing, peering out at the kitchen window, dripping lake water.

  “Hell. No answer. They’re not home.”

  “Do you know anybody else over there?”

  “No. Not in that area. Shit.”

  We raced back outside and saw the maurauding Jet Ski disappear behind a long dock a good two miles on the far side of the lake. We picked out landmarks-a house with white dormers, a red outbuilding-for locating the dock where the Jet Ski landed.

  I said, “Don’t you have a power boat?”

  Janet shook her head. “Don’t let Dale hear you say that.”

  We headed back out toward the dock, where Dale yelled at us, “Hey, I could use a little assistance here!”

  Timmy was still in the water, clinging to the ladder, shivering and grimacing with pain.

  “The thing hit his foot,” Dale said. “Apparently when he dived to get out of the way, the side of the Jet Ski hit his foot. I’ve been down to check, and it’s intact, but I think it’s broken.”

  Timmy gasped out, “That jerk!”

  Dale and I hoisted him up onto the dock and helped him lie on a towel Janet had spread out. Janet said, “I’ll call the ambulance.”

  Timmy said, “What for?”

  “You’re going to have to get this foot set and immobilized,” Dale said, “if you ever hope to do the hokey-pokey again.”

  “That guy was actually trying to kill us!” Timmy blurted out. Under his sunburn, he looked pale and feverish and as vulnerable as I’d ever seen him. A wave rolled through me, and it occurred to me that one day Timmy would die.

  Janet, slumped and gray-faced too, said, “I think that vicious jerk was trying to kill one of us. Me, obviously.”

  None of us contradicted her, and it was Dale a moment later who went inside to report the attack to the sheriff’s office and to request an ambulance for Timmy.

  Janet said, “I guess I’d better go talk to Dan fast-and to Mom.”

  Squatting by Timmy, my hand behind his wet head, I told Janet, yes, she should get to both of the pro-good-chain Osbornes-the sooner the better.

  5

  We followed the ambulance in two cars to the Eden County Hospital. By the time Timmy was wheeled into the ER, his right foot was the size and color of a small warthog, and the ambulance crew had him so drugged up against shock and pain that he had begun to babble.

  He told the nurse, “I’d like to be in Skeeter’s room.”

  I said, “Okay, but that’s down in Albany, and you’ll have to hop there on your right foot.”

  “What’s your name?” a man with a clipboard yelled in Timmy’s ear.

  “Timothy Callahan.”

  “Have you got any coverage?”

  “I prefer to pay cash.”

  I said, “He has excellent insurance,” and showed the man Timothy’s New York State Assembly employee’s health insurance card, which I had located easily in his wallet, the slender purse of a fiscal ascetic.

  A physician showed up, groped around, ordered X rays, and told us in due course that Timothy’s injury appeared to be a simple fracture. If the X rays confirmed that, the fracture would be set and Timmy would be shoved out the door with a fiberglass cast and a pair of crutches in a matter of hours. I asked, Didn’t they want to keep him for a week or ten days? But they said no. I told Timmy I’d be back to collect him later and left him with a copy of Guns and Ammo that I’d found in the waiting ro
om.

  I rejoined Janet and Dale in the parking lot, and rode in Janet’s car to her brother Dan’s apartment in a building next to the Eden House, the old Victorian hotel in the center of town. Dan Osborne and his girlfriend, Arlene Thurber, lived on the second floor in what had been two apartments. They had knocked down a wall to create a long, high-ceilinged salon with six windows overlooking Edensburg’s Main Street and enough shelf space to hold their sizeable collection of leftist political history and analysis, from Bukharin to Fanon to Carlos Fuentes. There were lots of posters and photos too of Che and Fidel and a recent selection of Zapatistas wearing masks, but no Erich Honecker or Mengistu Haile Mariam that I was able to make out.

  When we arrived, Dan and Arlene were just about to leave to drive down to Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs to see that evening’s double feature in a Godard series, Alphaville and Les Carbiniers. Dan and Arlene seemed happy to have Janet and Dale show up, and they tried to persuade us to join them at the movies-until Janet told them why we had come by unannounced.

  “It looks as if somebody is after me,” Janet said. “And I guess it stands to reason that they might try to get at you too, Dan. I think you’re going to have to be on your guard.”

  When Dan and Arlene looked more bewildered than alarmed, Dale spelled it out. “Not ‘after’ her, not ‘get at.’ What Janet means is, somebody is trying to kill her. And if the whole thing has anything to do with you-know-what, they might try to kill you too, Dan. Arlene, you’re probably safe, theoretically, since you haven’t got a vote on the Herald’s board of directors. But since you two are joined at the hip, Arlene, you could conceivably suffer what the Pentagon likes to refer to as collateral damage-that is, end up just as dead as Dan.”

  Dan was tall and gangly, like all the Osbornes, and he slumped a little when he heard this. He had a Fidel-style beard that was honey colored with some gray in it, making him look less like Castro than Gerry Mulligan, and his wide mouth dropped open beneath it. Arlene, busty, braless, and languid in purples and reds and Navajo silver, stiffened and exclaimed, “Dale, what kind of crazy shit are you laying on us? Are you serious?”