Chain of Fools

12

Stu Torkildson and Chester Osborne kept me waiting in Torkildson's outer office ten minutes past our 9:30 appointment time, giving me a chance to peruse that day's Herald. I looked over the thoughtful mix for which the Herald was esteemed-national and international news from The New York Times and Washington Post-L.A. Times news services, clearly written and carefully edited local stories on matters that affected people's lives, editorial and op-ed pages with commentaries that were both serious and lively. Parson Bates's column, "Our Eden," ran that day too. In it, Bates attacked the "multicultural-ist" Tex-Mex items cropping up in recent months on the menus of so many local restaurants. He wrote that he couldn't understand why people wanted to eat food that made their necks sweat. Public neck sweating was put forth as yet another symptom of the nation's moral rot.

Chester Osborne was there in his stockbroker's outfit when I was ushered into Stu Torkildson's office. Osborne gazed at me morosely and didn't get up from his chair, but Torkildson came over and twinkled with approval at the sight of me.

"It's the investigatory man of the year," he said, and squeezed my hand and grinned as if I were a long-lost Dartmouth fraternity brother.

"That's a view not unanimously held in Edensburg," I said, tossing Chester a quick look. "But thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr. Torkildson."

"I'm Stu," he said.

"I'm Don."

And that was Chester over there sulking.

"Coffee?" Torkildson said.

"Black," I said.

He didn't buzz for his secretary, as many men of his station might have, but personally maneuvered a carafe and a mug with the Herald's logo on it. Torkildson was sixty or so, starting to settle around the middle, but still solid looking in a well-cut dark suit, blue shirt, and polka-dot bow tie. His black loafers gleamed, as did his pate, which was as bald as a rapper's and as carefully waxed and tended. He was a phrenologist's dream-not that I was tempted to ask him to bend down so that I could study his bumps. He had a wide, pleasant face that was as hairless as his head, and a warm, steady gaze that could have meant he was without guile, or it could have been the practiced affectation of the craftiest man in Edensburg. I wondered, but not for long, which it might be.

"I was sorry to hear about your friend Timothy hurting himself yesterday," Torkildson said. He took the one empty chair by the coffee table-Chester occupied the other one-and I got the low couch. "I was happy to hear that the injury wasn't serious, but the incident must have been frightening for both of you."

"It was. It looked as if the Jet Skier was trying hard to run somebody down-almost certainly Janet, since the same thing happened last week when she was on the lake herself."

"Janet always did have an overly active imagination," Chester said sourly.

Torkildson gave me a genial don't-mind-him look and said, "Chester is the skeptic in the Osborne family."

A tendency he'd been known to express with a hockey stick. I said, "The police are taking the incident seriously, as they ought to. It was either gross negligence or attempted murder-serious stuff, either way."

"I couldn't agree more," Torkildson said, and Osborne sniffed and shook his head. "I saw Janet when she came in this morning," Torkildson ^, went on, "and while she's one tough cookie, she's been badly shaken by yesterday's events. I've known Janet for more than thirty years, and I think I know when that girl is hurting. I talked to her, and I hope I was able to pep her up some."

"Did Janet discuss her suspicions with you?" I said. "That Eric's murder and the Jet Ski attacks might be related to each other and to the fight over control of the Herald!"

Osborne slumped low in his seat looking glum, but Torkildson said conversationally, "No, Janet and I spoke only briefly, but Chester has filled me in on that aspect of the story. It's pretty lurid stuff for Edens-burg, I have to tell you." He grinned and made mock shivering noises. "Sounds more like a thriller you'd pick up at the airport than real life, to be perfectly candid."

I said, "No, it sounds to me more like real life-a valuable family asset being fought over by too many heirs, all of whom have different values, and varying motives for either holding on to an asset or disposing of it in one way or another, and some of whom are desperate in their need for one outcome or another. And once in a while, in situations like this one, that desperation turns murderous. It happens. History is full of it, and newspapers are too. Even the Herald, I'll bet, sometimes reports on family members obliterating other family members over money."

Osborne glared at me and said, "This is actionable. Strachey, if you talk garbage like that outside this room, I'll see you in courtl"

Torkildson must have been used to Chester's eruptions and appeared unfazed. He said, "Chettie, I can see why you're ticked off-I'm sure I would be too if I were in your shoes. But try to understand that Don here is an outsider coming into a situation where he's unfamiliar with the lay of the land, and he's feeling his way. The first people he talks to are people who've suffered a tragic loss, and on top of that they've had the daylights scared out of them by some nitwit on the lake who ought to be barred for life from going anywhere near a device with an internal combustion engine attached to it. Naturally this one-sided combination is going to suggest that the Herald's current situation will represent a legitimate line of inquiry into these other difficult matters.

"So, on the one hand, Don's pursuing that line of inquiry is entirely understandable. While on the other hand, however, there's the indisputable fact that no evidence exists tying these violent acts to the Osborne family's disagreements over the Herald's disposition. There's been a lot of emotion, and that's led to certain fears, but a professional investigator like Don here, Chettie, is not about to be swayed by fear and emotion." Torkildson looked me in the eye and smiled and said, "For a pro like yourself, it always has to be, 'Just the facts, if you please, ma'am.' Have I got it right, Don?"

It was like listening to the Okefenokee Swamp talk. I was surprised Torkildson had never run successfully for national office. Nor could I

Chain of Fools

Chain of Fools respond to Torkildson's verbal miasma with crisp candor. Bringing up Chester's ominous and suggestive threat to his mother-in order to prevent the Herald's sale to the good chain, "somebody else might have to get hurt"-would only have provoked a furious denial from Chester. And Captain Bill Stankie's report on Chester's two prison visits to the son he had supposedly disowned-and who had hinted to another Attica inmate that an Osborne family member had been involved in Eric's murder-was confidential. My repeating the report would both betray Stankie's trust and trigger who knew what kind of unwanted-at-this-point hysterical reaction on the part of Chester Osborne.

So I said to Torkildson: "Stu, you make an excellent case for open-mindedness, and open-minded is what I plan to be. But tell me, besides the conflict over the Herald, can you think of any other reason why anyone would try to kill Janet? There is evidence that the Jet Ski attacks were not accidental. The skier came at her on two separate occasions. He made repeated runs at her the first time-last week-and two runs yesterday, which I witnessed myself. Why might anybody do that, do you think?"

Osborne shifted in his seat and muttered, "Jealous dykes, if you ask me."

"I'm wondering what Stu thinks," I said. "He knows Janet wellworks with her every day."

Torkildson screwed up his face. "Of course, I don't keep an eye on Janet's private life at all, you have to understand. And at the Herald the business and editorial sides of the paper are separate, so days will go by when we don't even see one another. But my impression is that Janet and Dale are a devoted couple. So it seems unlikely that these attacks-and I'll take your word that that's what you think they were- were the work of some type of crazed lesbian. Otherwise-what? A disgruntled former employee? I suppose the Herald has a few of those out there… every business does. Janet herself would be the one to ask about that, I would guess. Or Bob Comongore, our director of human resources. Perhaps it was an outraged reader." Torkildson chuckled and said, "I know we've got one or two of those. Although generally a testy letter to the editor lances any boil growing on the average incensed reader's butt. Attempted murder by an irate reader would be a first, in my experience."

I said, "What about Eric's murder?"

"It broke our hearts," Torkildson said without hesitation. "Eric Osborne was one of the finest human beings it has ever been my honor to know."

"Why is he bringing that up?" Chester whined. "Do you see what I mean, Stu? Let's put this all in the hands of a good attorney before this guy runs roughshod."

"Don, why are you bringing Eric into this?" Torkildson said coolly. "In his case, there couldn't have been any connection to the Herald situation. Eric was murdered, according to the State Police, by a serial killer who went on to attack other outdoors people in Pennsylvania. Are you suggesting there's even the possibility that this Gordon Grubb character was an agent of one of the parties in the disagreement over the Herald's disposition?"

"No," I said, "that sounds farfetched. But the evidence against Grubb is sketchy and circumstantial. He was actually last spotted near the murder scene a full two days before Eric was killed. The police say that Grubb admits to nothing, and the case is still open. I met with the investigating officer, Bill Stankie, earlier this morning, and while he considers Grubb his prime suspect, that's all Grubb is. Stankie is open to following any actual evidence that turns up, wherever it might lead."

I watched Chester Osborne when I mentioned Stankie's name; his face tightened and his mouth formed a hard little button.

"Don, now that's exactly my point," Torkildson said. "Legally the case against Grubb is circumstantial, yes-as are most murder cases that result in convictions. But the police suspect Grubb because there is no evidence whatsoever, circumstantial or otherwise, linking anyone else to the crime. I wouldn't go so far as to term any linkage between Eric's death and the Herald's situation a paranoid fantasy-or, as Chester seems to regard it, a malicious and actionable accusation. But the idea does necessitate a quite severe stretch of the imagination, considering that not a shred of evidence exists to support such an egregious criminal linkage.

"In journalism, as you may have heard, Don, we take immense care to check our facts before we send them out into the world. At the Herald, we have a three-independent-sources rule on matters as important as-conspiracy to commit murder is what we're talking about here, and that's a capital crime in the state of New York. Now, you're going here and there spreading this idea of members of the Osborne family involved in a conspiracy to murder without-correct me if I'm wrong-even a single source to support your speculation? That's thin, mighty thin, and it would not pass muster even at newspapers with ethical standards one heck of a lot lower than the Herald's. This I can tell you without fear of contradiction by the Pulitzer board. It's an awfully slender limb you've climbed out onto, ethically speaking, and I think the question you've got to be asking yourself, Don, is this: 'What dire result might accrue, to the Osbornes, to the Herald, or to myself?'

"You know, Don, an awful lot is at stake in the outcome of the disposition of the Herald. On that point, you're right on the money. And as you may know, I favor the paper's sale to Crewes-InfoCom. Harry Griscomb's is a fine organization, but with newspaper publishing costs escalating the way they are, Griscomb won't survive for long in this climate. So why shouldn't the Osbornes come out of this unhappy situation with a few dollars to the family name? I'd say, after more than a hundred years' dedicated effort and high-minded community stewardship, they've earned it. Both InfoCom and Griscomb, I should also point out, are sensitive about their public images-Griscomb maybe even more so than InfoCom-and either buyer could become suddenly skittish if word got back to them that a business deal they were attempting to complete involved-or suddenly was reported to have involved-a conspiracy to commit murder. Neither bid is binding, and I personally wouldn't want to wake up one day to discover that all bids had been withdrawn and that Griscomb and InfoCom had stopped taking my calls. The tragic upshot of that would be the Herald company's creditors would seize the paper in September and sell it to the highest bidder-probably InfoCom-and the paper would be gone and the family would end up with zip.

"Now, do you want that to happen, Don? Does Janet? Talk to her, is my best advice. Explain the situation, and see if Janet doesn't agree that the best course for both the Herald and all the Osbornes at this point is for you to drop your well-intentioned but potentially explosively disruptive investigation, and for you to pack your bags and head on back down to Albany. If Janet is afraid for her safety or her mother's or Dan's, a good private security firm can be brought on board to allay their fears until the Herald directors meet on September eighth. But as for this Oliver Stone-style conspiracy-to-murder scenario that's boiling away and threatening to blow up in everybody's face, I'd put a lid on that real fast if I were you. This may not be what you want to hear from me, Don. I realize that. But it's my best advice, and I'd be an s.o.b. if I didn't give it to you straight. That's what I do. It's what I'm paid for. It's how I've made my way in Edensburg, and I think Janet will tell you, what I have to say is as worth listening to today as it was back when Tom Osborne was winning Pulitzers and the Herald was the envy of American journalism Do you hear what I'm saying, Don? Do you catch my drift? Do you comprehend the extraordinarily high risks here for so many good people, and for yourself?"

The swamp thing ceased burbling and sat watching me with an unctuous grin Chester sat there looking sly, as if finally I had been boxed up and sealed for delivery out of Edensburg I thought, Why had Tor-kildson rattled on and on about a conspiracy to commit murder? I hadn't mentioned anything about a plot involving more than one person. I'd thought it, but I hadn't mentioned it.

I did not speak my thoughts aloud. Instead, I said to Torkildson, "If your advice is so wise and farseemg, Stu, how come your advice in 1988 resulted in the Herald sliding into the ugly fix it's in now' You're the last man in the world I'd come to for advice about the Herald, or about anything else-except, maybe, where to shop for a bow tie. But thanks, anyway."

Chester sat twitching with rage. But Torkildson gazed at me thoughtfully as I bade them so long until we met again, which I knew beyond a reasonable doubt that we would.