Chain of Fools (5 page)

"Eldon was big and already had hair on his chest even when I first met him in seventh grade," Timmy said. "He was in my gym class, and I think it might have been my first locker-room erotic response."

"Mine was similar," Dale said. "Renee Boulanger was a French exchange student. She didn't have hair on her chest, to the best of my recollection, but she had it under her arms down to her hipbones, and I still get weak in the knees at the thought of her. I wonder what old Renee is up to now."

Janet suddenly hopped up and said, "How about a swim? Aren't you two ready to cool off?"

We'd brought our bathing suits along, although Timmy had said earlier in the car: "I know at some point they're going to whip off all their clothes, dash through the trees, and plunge into the lake—I guess you can't call it 'buck naked.' And they're going to expect us to do the same. Believe me, this is going to happen. I have a feeling about Janet Osborne and about any woman she might choose to live beside a lake with."

I told him that if he was going to be involved in the investigation of a crime—which he still insisted he was—he'd have to quit being so prim. So he buttoned his lip on the subject of our skinny-dipping with

lesbians, obviously a complex circumstance for him.

Now, as Janet began to speak eagerly of watery recreation, Timmy said, "I'm really enjoying just sitting here, even with so many people living around the lake."

"Stilton is big enough," Janet said, "to accommodate quite a crowd. Although if tranquility is what you're after, stay away from here on holiday weekends. It's Orlando-in-the-Adirondacks."

"She's referring to the Florida city specializing in industrial tourism," Dale said to Timmy and me, "not the Virginia Woolf novel."

Timmy said, "Oh, I see. Thank you."

"Have you read it?" Dale said.

"Orlando the city," Timmy asked, "or
Orlando
the novel?"

"The great novel."

"No, but I read
To the Lighthouse.
By the time. I'd finished it, I was experiencing the actual physical sensation of having multiple personalities. Only the greatest literature can do that."

At this, Dale cracked an enigmatic little smile.

Not daring to look at Timmy, I gazed out across the lake. The cigarette boat across the way was still zooming around with a skier in tow— a young man in multicolored boxers, it looked like—and a man in a baseball cap still paddled his canoe along the shore a quarter of a mile away.

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!"