Chain of Fools

16

With fewer than ninety-six hours to go before Monday's court hearing, the pressure was on. Ruth Osborne's mental state was unpredictable; we knew she might show up and argue eloquently on her own behalf that she was as sane as a NASA flight commander, or she might stare vacantly at the judge for half an hour and then remark on the resemblance of a mole on the side of his neck to the star Sigma Octantis.

After a tense lunch where no one but Arlene had much to sayhoisting a sandaled foot onto the edge of the table, she explained to us what each of her Tibetan toe rings signified-I tried to lure Dan aside for a private talk. But he said he and Arlene had to leave immediately to deal with car insurance matters and to rent a "vehicle" until they could buy a new one. They also needed, he said, to drive out to the scene of that morning's car crack-up and retrieve their stash of "buds." Dan did agree to spend the night at the Osborne house, and when I said I'd like to speak with him privately later in the day, he got a queasy look and said sure, maybe, if he had a chance, he'd see.

Both Janet and Bill Stankie had spoken with the Edensburg chief of police, and he agreed to have a patrol car cruise Maple Street periodically during the day and to watch the house from sunset to sunrise. The chief also offered to provide an escort for Dan and Arlene as they went about their errands, but they said no thanks.

After lunch, I went into Tom Osborne's study, cleared a space on the library table, and worked the phone for an hour. Janet had obtained from Tidy an address in Papeete for his brother, Tacker. A Los Angeles investigative agency I'd done business with on a number of occasions had South Pacific contacts, I knew, and the agency agreed, for a fee, to track down Tacker Puderbaugh and establish his whereabouts, currently and on May 15.

I called another contact, a business reporter for The New York Times with whom I'd had a brief, hectic affair of between forty-eight and seventy-two hours in the early seventies and been friends with since then. He told me Crewes-InfoCom had a reputation for being stingy and mean, but he'd never heard of them using violent tactics. Its bullying, in acquisitions and as an employer, stayed within the law, as far as the Times reporter knew. But he said he'd ask around and get back to me. Harry Griscomb, the owner of the "good chain," had a reputation in media business circles, I was told, for excellent journalism and "unattractive" profit margins. What was "unattractive"? I asked. "Ten percent instead of twenty or thirty," was the reply.

Then I made several calls to the New York State Department of Correctional Services. After forty minutes in and out of telecommunications computer limbo-"Press forty-one to descend from the Purgatoria to the Inferno"-I reached the appropriate office at Attica State Correctional Facility and was able to set up a meeting for the next morning at ten o'clock with Craig Osborne.

Dan and Arlene were off on their car-related errands, and Janet went back to work at the Herald. With Timmy and Dale to watch over Ruth Osborne, and a cop car patrolling the neighborhood, I had the rest of the afternoon to roam Edensburg.

The town was, if not an idyllic Rockwellian piece of small-city Americana, still reasonably healthy for the unstable age it had survived into. The (so far) locally owned canoe manufacturing company that had been Edensburg's economic mainstay for over one hundred years had not moved its factory to low-wage, long-hour Ciudad Juarez or Kuala Lumpur; in fact, Janet had told me, the company was doing reasonably well, having diversified into the production of fiberglass bodies for Jet Skis, ORVs, and light-truck bumpers. Tourism brought seasonal work into the area too in summer and during the ski season. Even the Herald would have been making a go of it, had it not been for Stu Torkildson's Spruce Haven debacle.

Edensburg's Main Street had only a few vacant storefronts. The four-story department store had been carved up into smaller businesses a comic book store, Betty Lou's Hairport, a New Agey place called Crystals n' Constellations, among them-and J. J. Newberry's looked as if it was still going strong despite the competition from the Kmart at the edge of town. A battle to keep Wal-Mart out of the county was hard-fought and ongoing, Janet said. The Gem Theater on Main Street had been triplexed, but at least it was still open. It was showing one film that had the word "fatal" in the title, one with "deadly," and one with "mortal."

I had a town map and an Edensburg phone book with me and had no trouble locating Dick Puderbaugh's fuel-oil distributership. I thought he might be willing to talk with me in a general way about the Os-bornes' intrafamily feuding over the future of the Herald and I'd pick up an odd, useful nugget on the family dynamics, particularly the propensity among some Osbornes for violence. But as soon as I introduced myself, Puderbaugh, a whey-faced little man with what looked like a rodent insignia on the left breast of his golf shirt, turned hostile.

Puderbaugh fumed that he and June had both been insulted by Janet's "accusation" that a connection existed between Eric's murder and the pro-InfoCom Osbornes. He said it was "a goddamn shame" that people like himself and his wife could have their "private rights" interfered with by people like me. Puderbaugh was barely coherent and bordering on the hysterical as I backed out the door and said, "Have a good one, Dick."

Following Janet's directions, I drove the four miles out of town to Parson Bates's spats museum and pear orchard. I thought I might chat him up too on the split among the Osbornes. Bates was up in a tree when I pulled in, sitting on a branch about eight feet off the ground. I walked up a knoll toward him, and when he recognized me he glowered. Perched up there, Bates looked like a man who might be going to tell me that he had just been taken for a ride by space aliens.

Instead, he yelled down at me, "I do believe I detect a detectiveor would I be venturing too far afield in my verbal perambulations if I began again and put it thusly: I do believe I detect a defective." Bates said this with the type of loony-eyed jovial sneer rarely encountered outside state mental institutions prior to the deinstitutionalization consent decrees of the 1960s and '70s. Here was a man you might have expected to be arrested in a midtown Manhattan subway station for sticking his face down the bosoms of young matrons while he whistled "Heartaches," and up here in Edensburg he was considered by many to be a solid citizen. So much for rusticity as an inducement to clear thought.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Bates," I yelled up at him. "I just thought I'd drop by and see if you might give me a few moments of your time. I'm interested in hearing as many points of view as possible on the conflict over the disposition of the Herald, and I know you've had a long association with the paper and the Osborne family."

That seemed like an innocuous enough opener, but Bates made no move to climb down and stand on the same ground I stood on. "The disposition of the Edensburg Herald is none of your concern," he said, giving me his fish eye. "It is solely the concern of the Osborne family. Not that family life is a subject you would know anything about, I believe I have been reliably informed."

"Oh, I come from a family too, Mr. Bates. And I have observed others. They're all over the place. Anyway, the Osbornes', like all families, is made up of individuals. One of those individuals has been murdered, and attempts have been made on the lives of other Osbornes. Did you know that this morning someone tried to run Dan Osborne's car off a rural road?" A quick glance at Bates's parked Hillman Minx helped eliminate him as a suspect.

"Yes," Bates said testily, "I am aware that Dan drove his car into a ditch earlier today. As for the precise circumstances of the mishaplet's just say that his sister June relayed to me Dan's version of the incident. But it is June's belief, and mine, that dubiety is in order. Item: Dan Osborne is a marijuana addict. Most of the time, he and Arlene Thurber are stuporous. Surely, safe driving is a stranger to the both of them. Item: Dan Osborne can be ruthless and conscienceless on behalf of his causes. In his youth-and I mean his actual youth, not his latter-day infantilism-Dan Osborne was found to have planted an explosive device in the offices of an antiwar organization in an attempt to create the appearance that the FBI was persecuting war protestors. Conclusion: both Dan Osborne's mind and morals are impaired. I would be strongly inclined to await the outcome of a thorough police investigation before I drew any conclusion that this morning's event constituted an actual attempt on Dan's life. A more likely verdict will be trickery."

"I heard the story from both Dan and Arlene," I said, "and whatever their moral and other habits, their version of this morning's incident rings true."

Bates sniffed and said, "I remain unconvinced. You don't know those two. All this talk of murder afoot is nonsense. Eric, poor lost lad, was slain by a homicidal maniac on the loose, according to the State Police. And as for Janet's contention that she was menaced by a Jet Skier, my estimation of the event is that she misperceived the motorized behavior of some doltish and unmannerly youth-suchlike are everywhere these days, heaven knows-and she became unstrung over it. You know how women can be."

One phone call to an old friend of mine active in the Albany chapter of Lesbian Avengers might have further interfered with Bates's lazy afternoon among his pear crop, but I had more pressing concerns. I said, "I was present for one of the Jet Ski attacks, Mr. Bates. In fact, my partner, Timothy Callahan, was injured. His foot was broken when he was hit by the skier. Everyone who witnessed this incident-and there were four of us-agreed that what it was was attempted murder."

"I doubt that very much. In my estimation, you and your cohorts simply saw what suited your agenda."

It was probably his use of "agenda" that did it-the term had come to be used by the loony right more or less interchangeably with "flamethrower"-and the words flew out of my mouth before I could snatch them back. I said, "You're a blithering idiot, Bates."

He shot back, "As of this moment, you are trespassing on my property!"

I reached down, ripped a dandelion leaf out of Bates's meadow, and stuffed it in my mouth. I looked up at him, munching.

Red-faced, Bates stammered, "Begone! Begone!"

I went.

Timmy's Aunt Moira had a favorite piece of advice she gave herself and others when faced with one of life's passing irritants: Get mad; then get over it. It drove Timmy crazy when Aunt Moira came out with this- not because it wasn't often sensible advice, but because he knew she would have said the same thing to Mahatma Gandhi. Parson Bates did not represent one of the major evils of the century, however, as far as I knew, so the scale of my situation with him brought to mind Aunt Moira's generally wise counsel, and I had little trouble abiding by it.

At the Edensburg Country Club, Tidy Puderbaugh wasn't any happier to see me than his father had been at the fuel-oil office or Parson Bates had been in his tree. A pear-shaped, prematurely jowly, immaculately groomed man of thirty or so in a rep tie and blue blazer, Tidy was in the middle of a bridge game with three young men similarly gotten up. Unlike his father and Parson Bates, however, Tidy appeared unflustered by my unplanned appearance. He said cordially, "My mother's attorney has advised me not to talk to anyone in regards to the Herald. As an attorney, I would have given me the same advice." Tidy seemed to think of that as a witticism; he grinned slyly at his bridge partner, who grinned slyly back.

I said, "The conflict over the Herald is an incidental part of what I'm looking into. I'm investigating a murder and two or three instances of attempted murder. All the victims and intended victims were members of your family. Could we get together for a few minutes after your game, Attorney Puderbaugh?"

The four bridge players frowned over this, but none lunged at me. They watched their cards serenely. Tidy appeared to be the most placid of all. Whatever the mental idiosyncrasies of his branch of the Osborne clan, attention deficit disorder did not appear to be one of them.

"After this game," Tidy said, "I've got another game scheduled. If you'll call my office and talk to Lillian, she'll set you up for something next week or the week after, over at the office." He fished in a side pocket, came up with a business card, and held it out to me. I accepted the card, considered chewing it up and swallowing it, but stuffed it in my pocket instead.

I said, "If there's an ongoing violent plot to eliminate an anti-InfoCom Osborne from the Herald board of directors, next week or the week after might be too late. I was hoping to pick your brain sooner than that on any background or insights you might have that could aid my investigation, however indirectly."

Tidy shrugged lightly and said, "I wouldn't worry about murder plots if I were you, Mr. Strachey. I've heard that's the story you and my Aunt Janet and some other people are spreading around Edensburg. But the only thing you're achieving by spreading this crap around is, you are embarrassing my family."

"I'm trying hard to achieve more than that. But few members of your family are giving me much help."

Tidy peered purposefully at his cards, not at me, and said, "And I'd be surprised if that situation changed anytime soon."

I waited, and when he continued to ignore me, I said to him over his shoulder, "Too bad you're playing bridge, not hearts." Then I left.

Having spent what felt like a useless afternoon getting stonewalled by anti-Griscomb, pro-InfoCom Osbornes and their allies, I was about to head back to Maple Street and report my futile wheel spinning to Timmy, Dale and-if they were back at the house-Janet, Dan, and Arlene.

But when I came to the turnoff for Summit Road, I hung a left, on impulse, and drove up the long hill to Chester and Pauline Osborne's house. As I had hoped, only one shiny Lexus, the teal one, was parked in the cul-de-sac. I left my dusty Mitsubishi next to it, walked over, and rapped on the main door of the big house. The bronze knocker made an impressive racket, but half a minute went by and no one responded. I knocked again and was about to give up, when the door suddenly opened and I was face-to-face with a woman I assumed to be the blonde I'd caught a quick, back-of-the-head glimpse of when I'd called on Chester the night before.

"Yes?"

Like everybody else that afternoon, she wasn't happy to see me. The tension in her narrow tanned face was partly from obvious subcutaneous cantilevering for cosmetic purposes, but the wiring couldn't have been responsible for the fear in her hazel eyes.

"How do you do. I'm Don Strachey. Are you Mrs. Osborne?"

She was dressed in tennis whites, though the object in her hand aimed at me was not a racket but a. 38 caliber revolver. In a flat, tight voice, she said, "I'm Pauline Osborne. Are you the detective?"

"I might be, or I might not be. Which is the answer you'd like to hear?"

She didn't chuckle. Not moving, she stared at me for a long moment, apparently trying to decide something about me-Shoot me? Trust me? Ask me in for a drink? — or about something or someone else. Her eyes were full of indecision and pain and-even though my manner was unthreatening-fear.

Finally, she said, "You are the detective. I saw your car last night when you came here to see my husband."

I said, "It sounds like you've been doing some detective work yourself, Mrs. Osborne." She flinched when I said this, and I quickly added,

"But I am the private investigator from Albany you might have heard about. I've been retained by Janet to investigate Eric's death and attempts on the lives of two other Osbornes, Janet and Dan."

"Dan too?" she said, and her eyes widened.

"This morning someone tried to run his car off the road. Arlene Thurber was riding with him, and they barely avoided being shoved over a cliff. The State Police are investigating too. I'm surprised the police haven't been up to see you already."

This startled her, and I said, "Would you mind pointing that gun somewhere else? I'm harmless, and if you inadvertently blew bits and pieces of me all over that fine automobile of yours, it could badly interfere with your tennis schedule."

She looked down at the. 38 for the first time, shuddered, lowered it, then looked back at me. Suddenly, Pauline Osborne shrieked at the top of her lungs. Her face twisted with rage, and I hoped nothing inside it snapped. Then she slammed the door in my face. She shrieked again, then, some seconds later, a third time. I listened for a gunshot and thought about smashing my way into the house. But I waited, and after five or ten minutes went by, I got into my car and drove away. In those five or ten minutes, there had been no gunshot, just the occasional shriek from somewhere deep inside Chester and Pauline Osborne's house. A half mile down the hill, I thought I heard still another shriek, but that one I probably imagined.