Chain of Fools (20 page)

They looked at me.

Dale said, "Donald, are you shitting us?"

"No."

"A jewel thief!" Timmy said. "Holy mother! Do you believe it, Don?"

Janet had gone white, and now she said, "I can almost believe it."

"Almost?" Dale said.

"I mean, I believe it. I mean, on the one hand I believe it, and yet on the other hand—Craig is probably the biggest pathological liar the family ever produced. So you have to take that into consideration."

I said, "Why might Craig make up a story like that about Dan?"

Janet thought this over. "I don't know," she said finally. "There was never any bad feeling between them that I'm aware of. They never had a whole lot to do with each other, but I don't think Craig ever particularly disliked Dan, either. They just lived very different, separate lives—Dan the political and social rebel, Craig the antisocial mischief maker and eventual criminal. It's possible, I suppose, that Craig har-

bored some terrible resentment against Dan for being the type of rebel that American society reserves a small, grudging place for that isn't jail. But that's just a guess. Anyway, Craig's story that Dan was in on the robbery—even that the idea for the robbery was Dan's—that part of it rings all too true. Dan always believed that a moral end justified immoral means It's a point we always disagreed on. Back in the movement days, Dan did some things he admitted to me that would have landed him in federal prison if he'd ever gotten caught. That's all I'm going to say on that subject, but I think you get my point."

We all said we got it

"But then, where are the stolen jewels'" Janet asked "Dan told Craig they 'got away' from him? What does that mean'"

"That's what I planned on asking Dan, but it seems I can't, because he's gone. My guess is, Dan was afraid Craig might be going to tell me about Dan's involvement in the robbery, and that's one reason he bolted minutes after I left for Attica."

"And maybe the other reason he left," Dale said, "was to try again to locate and retrieve the jewels."

I said I guessed that was the case too.

"Jesus," Janet said, and took a long swig of beer.

"This is just too friggin' much," Dale said.

I said, "And there's more."

They gawked at each other as I repeated Craig's theory—his gut conviction—that after Chester Osborne had learned of the plot to save the
Herald
with the jewel-robbery proceeds, he wrongly accused Eric of participating in the scam and then killed Eric when Eric refused to substitute Chester's fence for Dan's and allow Chester to use the sixteen million to gain control of the
Herald
for Chester, June, and Stu Tor-kildson.

Both Timmy and Dale were gape-jawed, but Janet said flatly, "There's something wrong with that."

"I think so too," I said.

"I
can't believe Chester would ever think Eric was involved in a robbery where two people were killed. Chester knew how straight Eric was. He'd believe it of Dan, but not of Eric "

"On the other hand," Timmy said, "Chester is the brother with the history of violence, not Dan."

"On the third hand," Dale said, "it's Dan who pukes his guts out

whenever the subject of Eric's murder comes up. Chester doesn't do that—or does he?"

"Not in my experience," Janet said.

I said, "Nor mine. It's possible, though, that Dan retches at the mention of Eric's murder not because he committed the murder, but because he knows who did. He can't announce to anyone that he knows who did it because the murder was somehow connected to the save-the-
Herald
-with-a-jewel-heist conspiracy, and Dan can't talk about that without risking exposure of his complicity in a crime where an innocent security guard died. Dan is surely grown-up enough now to understand that no cause justifies the murder of an innocent. I suppose he's also sickened by the thought that both the guard and Craig's accomplice in the stickup died uselessly, as far as Dan is concerned. The jewels got away from him somehow—he lost them or they were stolen from him in some kind of double cross or whatever—and the jewels haven't been used by anybody to save the
Herald
from either the good chain or the bad chain."

Timmy said, "That makes sense, but if Dan does know who killed Eric, why couldn't it have been Chester? It might not have been rational for Chester to accuse Eric of being involved in the robbery, but Chester sounds to me like a man with an irrational streak a mile wide."

I asked Janet: "Where were the various members of the Osborne family on the day of Eric's murder? Has this ever been determined? Where were Dan, Chester, June? Where was Tidy? Tacker, we assume, was on an island in the South Pacific, but I'm checking on that. How about Stu Torkildson? He's not family, but he's got a direct interest in the disposition of the
Herald.
Where was Arlene? Or Pauline? Where was your mother? Where was Dale? Where were you?"

Janet said, "The police never questioned all of us. There seemed to be no point in doing so at the time. Some of those people can certainly be ruled out on the grounds that they'd never walk more than ten feet into the wilderness. Pauline, for example. Incidentally, she called me today, and she was looking for Dan too. She said she had to talk to him about something, but she wouldn't say what. She sounded as if she'd had a few drinks, but she wasn't hysterical and didn't sound as if she might be waving a gun around."

"Craig told me today he'd phoned his mother on Wednesday," I said, "and informed her that Chester had killed Eric for not turning over the

stolen diamonds. My guess is, that's why Pauline was unhinged when I stopped by her house yesterday. What are the chances she would have believed Craig's malicious story?"

Janet looked deeply skeptical. "Pauline knows better than anyone what a liar Craig is, and how much he despises Chester. Although, even if she didn't believe it, the story is so ugly it could have set Pauline off."

Dale said, "Maybe Pauline is trying to reach Dan to check out the jewel-heist story with him."

"Right," Timmy said. "Maybe she asked Chester about it, and she knows him well enough to have been unconvinced by his denial."

I said I would talk to Pauline Osborne at the first opportunity. Without bringing up Craig's inflammatory phone call, I said, I could approach Pauline under the guise of interviewing all the Osbornes regarding their whereabouts on the morning of Eric's murder. Each Osborne 'would take umbrage, but none could claim to have been singled out. I said, "In the next forty-eight hours I'll try to get a fix on where each Osborne was at the moment Eric was killed. I'll check on each family member, and Stu Torkildson, and—who else is there? Have I left anybody out?"

"Skeeter," Dale said. "He's actually family too, if your list is going to be inclusive."

Timmy said, "Skeeter? That's absurd."

"The State Police checked his alibi," I said. "Skeeter was in Water-town all day on May fifteenth."

"Yes, they would do that," Dale sneered. "Homophobic twits."

Timmy started to speak, hesitated, looked wary, then opened his mouth anyway. "The idea of Skeeter as a murderer is ridiculous, but generally it is not necessarily homophobic when a gay man is murdered to check his lover's alibi. When a straight woman in this country is murdered, nearly half the time it's her husband, ex-husband, or boyfriend who did it."

Dale looked surprised and said, "You're quite right in your statistical observation, Timothy. It's also true that in most jurisdictions I'm familiar with, when a homosexual man is murdered, the police immediately assume the crime was committed by another homosexual because they can't imagine a straight man wanting any physical contact whatsoever with a gay man, even for purposes of homicide."

She looked at Timmy drolly—I wasn't always certain when Dale was putting him on and when she was hectoring him sincerely—and Timmy said, "That's the biggest load of psychobabble horseshit you've dumped over me since we first met, Dale. I'm speechless "

A faint smile flickered on Dale's lips, then disappeared. "Speechless again, Timothy? Where have I heard that before?"

Timmy screwed up his face and stared at Dale, who stared back, tight-lipped

Janet said, "I'm not at all that surprised that the police checked Skeeter's alibi for the day Eric was killed—that is routine stuff. But they didn't check out any other Osborne that I'm aware of. I'm trying to remember where everybody was. It happened on a Monday, and I was in the office all day. The murder took place in the morning, the police said. But Eric's body had been dragged off the trail and wasn't discovered by another hiker until late afternoon. And by the time the police notified me it was after five, maybe even closer to six. I know I was just getting ready to leave the
Herald
I went right to Mom's house and told her—the very, very worst thing I have ever had to do.

"The cops asked me to notify June, Dan, and Chester too, which I did. I phoned them all—June at home, Chester at home too I know I tried Chester at his office, and then at the club, but he'd gone home early that day. Dan I didn't track down until later. He and Arlene weren't home when I called and I left a message on their machine to phone me at Mom's as soon as he got in. He finally called around eight, I think, and he'd been—I can't recall where. Out of town is all I can remember."

Dale said, "Isn't it time to bring the cops back into this? This is what they're paid to do. Why should Don do their job? Let Bill Stankie round up all the Osbornes and drag them into his back room and grill them one by one, and then go out and check out their stories. That should narrow down the list of family suspects fast enough."

I explained that it was of limited use to repeat to the police either Craig's story of the jewel robbery to save the
Herald
or his accusations of homicide against his father because Craig had vowed to deny to the police and the prosecutors that he had told me anything at all. I said, "I could fill Bill Stankie in confidentially, but at this point there isn't much he can do with the information He certainly can't put the interrogatory thumbscrews to Chester—or June, or Tidy—on the word of a

convicted murderer and jewel thief and notorious liar."

Janet, Dale, and Timmy were listening solemnly as I laid out this frustrating addendum to my revelations of the past hour—when we heard a sudden shriek from inside the house

A cop car was supposedly parked across the street, but my fear was that somehow an attacker had entered the house and gotten to Ruth Osborne. I led the way as we hurtled through the kitchen—Timmy not so fast on crutches—and down the dim hall and into Tom Osborne's study.

But no intruder was present. Ruth Osborne stood alone at her husband's library table The urn with the label that read
"William
T.
"Tom" Osborne
—1911-1989" was resting on the table. The lid had been removed and lay next to the urn. Mrs. Osborne stood staring with a look of horror into the urn. Her eyes came up to us, and she cried out, "Where is my husband! This urn contains cornmeal! Where is my husband!"

20

At first I thought Mrs. Osborne's mind was faltering again. But when I looked down at the brass container on the table, its contents were indeed fine-grained and pale yellow.

Looking both disgusted and fearful, Janet said, "Mom, how do you know that's cornmeal? It doesn't look like bone fragments, but. . . how can you tell what it is?"

"I tasted it." Mrs. Osborne's big hands were trembling and her face twisted with grief. "It looked like cornmeal, so I tasted it, and please take my word for it, that's what it is. But where are Tom's ashes? Someone has taken Tom's ashes and substituted cornmeal. Why in God's name would anyone do something so cruel? Is this—is it some pathetic joke one of you has pulled on me?"

"Of course not, Mom! We'd never do anything as ridiculous as that. What were you doing getting into Dad's ashes anyway? I know you like having them around, and I can more or less understand that. But why do you want to look at them? I really can't see how that gravelly stuff can ever remind you of Dad."

Looking flustered and annoyed, Mrs. Osborne said, "I decided to scatter the ashes out-of-doors, as your father said he wanted done, and as you and Eric and Dan always said I should do. Well, I was finally going to let you all have your way. I called Slim Finn a while ago and asked him if there was any legal reason I couldn't spread Tom around in my herb garden. Slim said not if it would make me feel better, and not if word didn't get around Edensburg, and not if nobody ever found out he expressed an opinion on the subject So forget I ever mentioned Slim."

Janet said, "In your herb garden, Mom? Mom, Dad wanted his ashes dropped over the mountains from the air. Isn't spreading him in the backyard a little—shall we say—more
domestic
than what Dad had in mind?"

"It seemed to me a reasonable compromise," Mrs. Osborne said. "In marriage there's always give-and-take."

I asked, "When was the last time, Mrs. Osborne, that you looked inside the urn and saw what appeared to be your husband's actual remains?"

She grimaced and stared into space. Remembering was a struggle for her, and she seemed to be laboring almost physically "Quite a while ago," she said after a moment. "A year or two, I suppose. It's been a while since I actually lifted the lid and looked in. It's true that all that stony stuff just looks like stony stuff, and it doesn't help much in summoning up Tom's memory and spirit."