Chain of Fools

4

He came tear-assing out of a cove about a mile up that way," Dale Kotlowicz said, gesturing dramatically, "and zoomed straight at Janet, as if he was some heat-seeking missile and Janet was an F-l6's jet exhaust."

"When he was closing in, I heard him coming and took a quick look," Janet said, "and then dived deep, and when I surfaced he'd made a sharp U and was headed straight at me a second time. I waved like crazy-at first I figured the numbskull just wasn't paying attentionand when he just kept coming, I dived again, straight down and kicking hard, and I was saying to myself, 'Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic'"

Janet was tall and rawboned, like all the Osbornes I'd seen in Herald photos, so it was hard to imagine a Jet Skier not noticing her big head and long arms, even at dusk, especially a second time. We were standing at the end of the wooden dock behind the Osborne lodge on Stilton Lake where Janet and Dale lived. Dale was smaller and probably ten years younger than Janet and was topped by what looked like ten or fifteen pounds of black-and-gray tight curls. And inasmuch as both Janet and Dale radiated alertness, strength, and blunt intelligence, it made sense that anyone daring to attack either of them could only hope to get away with it with the help of high-horsepower machinery.

"And then," Dale said, "the asshole turned around and came barrel-assing back a third time, and that's when I ran out from the porch and started screaming, 'You dumb son of a bitch! You dumb son of a bitch!'"

"But by then I'd gotten the picture," Janet said, "that either the guy was blind and couldn't see me or-what it actually looked like-his eyesight was perfect and he meant to run me over. So the third time I dived I took a deep breath first and just headed back for the dock underwater. I didn't come up until I saw these pilings on my right. And by then, Dale was down here yelling her head off and the guy had doubled back again and was gone, back around the bend."

Timmy said, "How far did you have to swim underwater?"

"She was sixty or eighty feet out, for chrissakes!" Dale said. "If that maniac had hit her, I don't know if I could have gotten out there in time to drag her back-assuming she hadn't been killed by the impact and gone straight to the bottom "

"I know the water here," Janet said, "and my lung capacity is probably better than the average forty-six-year-old's. But I'll tell you, I was damn shaky when I climbed out of the water that night. The thing is, the one time I caught a quick glimpse of the guy's face, he seemed to be looking right at me. And he didn't look confused; he looked mean and purposeful."

I said, "Had the sun set yet? Is it possible the setting sun was shining directly in his eyes and the look on his face that you saw was actually some combination of disorientation and fear?"

Dale gave me a "duh" look. "Donald, do you think the sun might have been jumping back and forth from one side of the lake to the other? The guy went after Janet three times "

Janet said, "Anyway, the sun had already set. It was dusk with some red in it, and just a couple of low, dark clouds in the southwest. It's a perfect still time for an after-dinner swim, or a slow canoe ride. Once you get out a ways, you're only aware of the water around you and the sound of your own motion through it, and then as the light fades and the stars come out, the sky. It's always been my favorite time of day or night on the lake "

"The other nice thing about that time," Dale said, "is that you see fewer power boats after sunset, and hardly ever Jet Skis It's the time of day when the owners of such devices tend to be enjoying their cocktails-which more often than not come in packs of six and are bound with thin strips of plastic."

Timmy said, "It's tempting to place a Freudian interpretation on men achieving a sense of power by v-room-v-rooming around a body of water with internal-combustion engines wedged between their legs "

"That's right," Dale said, "when the only thing most men need to do to achieve the same effect is to eat more beans, sit in their bathtubs, and blow it out their butts."

I said, "Janet told us you were a doctor, Dale. What are you, a gas-troenterologist?"

"No, I'm a heart surgeon "

"Ah."

Timmy said, "Where do you practice, Dale? At Albany Med?"

"Yes, I'm on vacation for the month of August. The rest of the year I work seventy to ninety hours a week, but I do make it a point to stay up here all of August every year and rediscover nature and literature and my lover. So, what's the deal? Are you guys going to find out who's after Janet and protect her' Eldon said you were some kind of hot-shit private eye in Albany, Don."

Timmy said, "Yes, he is."

"Let's slow down for a minute," Janet said. "It does look as if someone tried to run me over with a Jet Ski. But that was over a week ago, and nobody has come after me since then. I've been wary and alert, but there haven't been any suspicious or threatening incidents at all. So the Jet Ski thing could have been a weird, isolated event with no explanation we'll ever have. Or is that wishful thinking?"

"What it is, is bullshit," Dale said.

Janet gave Dale an affectionate look, as if Dale had just uttered a familiar endearment, and said, "I admit that the Jet Ski scare coming on top of Eric's being killed makes me nervous. I'm just not sure, Don, what you or anybody else can do about it. The sheriff sent a deputy over, and he checked out the cove the skier came out of. There was no sign of the guy an hour later, and a couple of the people who live up that way said they did notice a skier that evening, but they didn't register where he'd come from, or where he went, or anything unusual about him. So going after the rampaging Jet Skier looks to me like a probable dead end."

I said, "What did the man on the Jet Ski look like? You said you saw his face."

"White, male, big, stocky, sandy hair pulled back, probably in a ponytail, broad face," Janet said. "I couldn't have gotten a close look at his face, but somehow I have it in my head that he looked cool and ferocious, as if he knew exactly what he was doing."

"That may sound like your typical outdoors internal-combustion overenthusiast," Dale said. "But this one was even worse than most. Homicide is a little much even for the crotch-rocket crowd."

We all peered out at the area of the lake where Janet apparently had been attacked. It was midafternoon-Janet had left the office early and we'd followed her the twelve miles out to the lodge-and the sun was still strong in a cloudless blue sky. On the far side of the lake, a mile or two away, I could make out several old wooden docks like the one we were on as well as newer, lower floating docks moored in front of the cabins and lodges that were back in the shadows of the pines. A cigarette boat buzzed up and down the far shore pulling a figure on water skis. Closer to our side, a lone man wearing a baseball cap paddled a canoe.

I said, "I'd like to talk to the deputy who came out last week, and to whoever investigated Eric's murder. Are they out of the same office?"

"You mean out of the same Cub Scout pack," Dale said.

"The deputy was Fulton Poorman," Janet said. "He's not terribly swift as a criminologist, but they sent him because he lives out this way. He's entirely approachable and actually a pretty nice guy. As for Eric's case, the sheriff, Ken Stone, doesn't have the resources, outer or inner, to handle a murder investigation. So he brought in the staties and they pretty much took over. See Captain Bill Stankie at the Edensburg barracks. He strikes me as competent, if unimaginative, but I'll be interested in getting your take on him. Dale thinks he's lazy, but I'm not sure about that. I think maybe he has his own tempo that he thinks is right for any particular investigation. And for Eric's case, apparently, it's a slow one."

Dale said, "Stankie's theory is it was a homicidal drifter-some twitchie dork by the name of Gordon Grubb who was in the area at the time and is now in jail down in Pennsylvania, where supposedly he shoved three campers off a cliff. Stankie's not trying to extradite him because there's no real evidence tying Grubb to Eric's death. Anyway, if he's convicted down there, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will no doubt want to send him spinning off to kingdom come expeditiously. My parents had a friend who went to Penn State in the forties, and she said whenever they threw the switch on 'Ol' Ben's Kite,' as they called it, at Rockview State Penitentiary, the lights dimmed up and down the Nittany Valley. Just your average inadvertent public execution."

Timmy said, "These days executions are so tasteful, and medically approved-lethal injections and all that."

"I don't believe there have been any 'medically approved' state executions in this country," Dale said. "Oh, in Texas maybe."

We were all sitting along the edge of the dock now. Janet and Dale had their sandals off, their feet dangling in the cool water.

Timmy said, "Why do you think Skeeter is so sure there's some connection between Eric's death and the Jet Ski incident and the situation at the Herald? He was acting pretty crazy at the hospital last night, but he seemed so certain about that-as if the drug that made him psychotic also heightened his powers of intuition."

Janet slumped a bit and looked rueful at this turn in the conversation. It was Dale who said, "Skeeter?"

"Eldon was called Skeeter when Timmy knew him in high school," Janet said, perking up at the chance to change the subject. "Where did his nickname come from anyway?" she asked Timmy.

"I don't know. He had it from when he was a little kid."

"The Eldon I know is hardly mosquitolike," Dale said. "He's more ursine. But I guess it would make some people nervous having a tot around nicknamed Grizzly."

"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!"

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.