Chain of Fools (donald strachey mystery)

by Richard Stevenson

  “Last week, somebody tried to run Janet over with a Jet Ski,” Dale said, “and today he came back and tried to bash her again. There were four of us out in the lake this time, and Don’s boyfriend, Timothy, got whacked on the foot. He’s over at County right now having it set.”

  “That is too much!” Arlene said angrily.

  “This happened just now?” Dan asked, looking dazed. His surprise was understandable, although his mind may also have been mildly fuddled by marijuana. Its weedy aroma hung in the room, a sweet cloud of sixties deja vu for me and-judging from the numerous tiny roaches in the ashtrays-a routine nineties air freshener for Dan and Arlene.

  “It happened about an hour ago,” Janet said, “and the sheriff’s department is supposedly trying to track the guy down I’m alerting you two, for what it might be worth, and I really think I have to tell Mom because-well, you know. First Eric is killed and then this, and-it does seem possible that somebody is trying to change the outcome of the board vote on InfoCom and Griscomb.”

  Dan glanced at me uneasily-as if to say, This is private family business, and who is this bozo, anyway’-and then snapped at Janet “Why am I just now hearing about this?”

  “Because,” she shot back, “it just now happened, Dan. That’s why we’re here.”

  “But Dale said it happened lastweektoo I know nothing about that.”

  “Well, now you know, Dan. As I said, that’s why we’re here. That’s why we came here To tell you about it. Now the question is, What do we tell Mom?”

  “What makes you think,” he said, his beard flapping, “that this has anything to do with the sale of the paper? Where did you get that idea?”

  “I don’t know that there’s a connection,” Janet said in a sneering tone I hadn’t heard her use before she had come into the presence of her brother. “I am merely surmising it from the rather startling sequence of events over the past three months. The paper is put up for sale and two conflicting offers are made, putting the family at one another’s throats. Then Eric is killed. Then two attempts are made on my life. I’m just adding two and two together and coming up with four. When you add two and two, what do you come up with, Dan?”

  Making a show of struggling for control, Dan took a deep breath and said, “Yes, the timing is suspicious, Janet. That I can see. What I’m having a lot of trouble accepting is that InfoCom would go so far as to actually try to kill an Osborne. God, imagine how it would make them look if they were caught. Does the sheriff have any leads? Who’s investigating this, Ken Stone?”

  “It’s Ken,” Janet said, “but it looks as if the attacker got away both times. He’s obviously someone who knows the homes on the lake.”

  Arlene looked suddenly horrified and said, “It’s like Karen

  Silkwood! Dan, we’d better make sure your mother is safe. Crewes-InfoCom would off an old lady if they thought she was going to interfere with their bottom line. They’ll stop at nothing to protect their corporate profits.”

  Dan didn’t react to this. He just peered our way with his watery blue eyes. It seemed now as if they were no longer focused entirely on those of us in the room, nor was the mind behind them. Finally Dan said to Janet, “Tell me again what happened, and why you think these episodes were deliberate attempts to-to attack you. This Jet Ski run-over-attempt thing actually happened twice?”

  Dale nodded slowly and held up two fingers, and Janet described once again the attack the previous week and the attack a few hours earlier that had landed Timmy in the emergency room.

  “Now, who’s this Timmy again?” Arlene said. ¦

  Dale said, “He’s Don here’s boyfriend. Don is a private investigator from Albany who we’re hiring to clear everything up, including Eric’s murder. We’re giving him about four days to produce results.”

  “You’re a private eye with a boyfriend? How cool,” Arlene said. “Are you bisexual?”

  Before I could reply, Dan said without hesitation, “I’m not sure that’s such a great idea. I mean bringing in someone from outside.”

  This was addressed to Janet and I let her answer it. “Why is it such a terrible idea? The police have made no progress at all toward solving Eric’s murder. And if somebody is trying to kill me too, there’s at least a good chance that the same person is behind it-or people. But convincing Ken Stone of that, or even the staties, is going to be tough with no real evidence to go on. And Don has an excellent reputation, according to Eldon, who’s an old friend of Don’s boyfriend.”

  “How’s Eldon doing?” Arlene asked.

  “I’m sure Don’s C.V. is impressive,” Dan said to Janet, dismissing my resume with a little wave. “But that’s not my point. My point is, by bringing in someone who’s outside the paper and outside the family at this sensitive juncture-someone who’s going to take months just to gather background-you run the risk of having him going around stirring up people’s suspicions and exacerbating an already tense situation without gaining anything positive. If there is some kind of plot against you or me or even Mom, we can hire a security service to protect us. If anybody asks why, we can just say Eric’s murder freaked us out, and having protection for a while makes us feel more secure. Don,” Dan said, looking me in the eye for the first time since we’d been introduced, “are you associated with a firm that does security work? If you and your firm could confine your work to guaranteeing the safety of Janet and myself and our mother for a month or so, that could be extremely useful to our family, and I think we might be able to do business.”

  I was about to reiterate to Dan that I had already been hired by Janet, Dale, and Timmy to conduct a full investigation of Eric’s death as well as the two Jet Ski attacks on Janet, and that Dan’s view of the matter was interesting but of peripheral concern to me. Before I could, Janet, her face red and her neck muscles taut, laid into her brother.

  “Dan, if you’d quit being some kind of Osborne patronizing twit for one minute,” she sputtered, “you’d think about what this apparent attempt to kill me really means. It probably means that Eric wasn’t killed by a homicidal drifter but by someone in our family. Don’t you get that? It’s probably not InfoCom that’s behind this at all. I mean, how many corporations, no matter how cold-blooded and greedy they are, actually put out contracts on people who get in the way of their expansion opportunities? Let’s face it-what this is is probably more Osborne violent craziness. I have no idea who in the family might be doing it, and to tell you the truth, I’m trying hard not to think about it. But a skilled outsider is exactly what we do need at this point. Not a shopping mall guard, but an experienced investigator. I’ve done some asking around about Don, and he comes extremely well recommended. And Dale and Timmy and I are hiring him, whatever the hell you think. So get used to it.”

  Dan looked everywhere in the room except at his older sister as she told him, in effect, that he was a pompous man who struck silly poses, and his opinions were dumb and irrelevant. When she had finished, he reddened, but said only, “Do I actually have any goddamned choice in the matter?” It looked like the reenactment of an old familiar scene in Osborne sibling annals.

  “

  Arlene tried to help. “Kerr-McGhee put out a contract on Karen Silkwood, Janet. And what about Inslaw?”

  By now, Dan looked so cowed and miserable-his sister’s light was obviously hot and bright in his life-that I was happy to lessen the tension in the room marginally by acknowledging Arlene’s existence, which seemed to slip Dan’s mind when he was in the presence of his sister, and by reminding Janet that there was an aspect of the situation she seemed to have analyzed carelessly.

  I said, “I think Arlene might be right, Janet, not to rule out corporate involvement in any kind of conspiracy. If there is a murder plot, that ‘would be unique among assaults perpetrated by Osbornes, not characteristic. The examples of Osborne violence you described to me were spontaneous outbursts, never premeditated-as far as anybody knows-and not conspiratorial The victims were all nonfamily mem
bers. Which is not to say that one or more family members might not be conniving this time-with or without the participation of InfoCom. But there’s no evidence yet pointing to any Osborne-or, for that matter, anybody else. For an investigator, the family and InfoCom are simply logical places to start.”

  Janet eyed me stolidly and didn’t react. Dan had listened to my assessment with what looked like mounting apprehension as it dawned on him, apparently, that my digging into Osborne family conflicts might be both intelligent and dogged.

  It was Arlene, though, who said, “I’m just glad somebody is finally going to do a real investigation of Eric’s murder. I’m not saying the cops were covering up. But they sure haven’t done much beside sit on their fat asses. So good for you guys and Don’s boyfriend for hiring Don to do the cops’ job. Are you taking contributions? I’d like to help out if there’s a fund.”

  “See me afterward,” Dale said. “Your generosity is appreciated, Arlene.”

  “I’m also going to be sending Don lots of good energy.”

  Janet said, “Look, I don’t want to prejudge anybody, either, but what’s happening to the Osborne family now, and to the Herald, is not a soccer game or a barroom argument or some juvenile criminal escapade. Just about everything is at stake for the Osbornes this time-the family business, the family name, the family history, for chrissakes. So it’s possible that the particulars of past Osborne extreme behavior might be an inadequate guide.”

  “God,” Arlene said, “all the Osbornes are tantrumy, and June and Chester and their kids are all reactionary pigs. But the idea that somebody in the family that we all know might actually get in bed with a corporation and murder a relative, even if they hate their guts-that just makes me want to puke’”

  Arlene seemed to be speaking figuratively, but Dan looked suddenly queasy and bolted from the room He pulled the bathroom door shut after him, but not tightly, and we could hear him retching

  6

  That’s June’s car,” Janet said irritably. “What could she be doing here?”

  We had pulled into the driveway of the old Osborne house on Maple Street. The place was one of those grand old late-Victorian relics with a wraparound porch, turrets, and bow windows. The house obviously had been built back when coal, lumber, and Irish servants were plentiful and cheap, and when Americans aspired to large, prosperous families full of large, healthy people. Most of these big houses in Edensburg, as elsewhere, had long since been divided into more economical rental units, but Ruth Osborne had hung on to all of hers. The shade was inviting under the immense maples, and the well-tended clumps of larkspur, delphinium, bee balm, and coreopsis between the main house and the carriage house were as showy and robust as the age when the garden must have been first planted.

  Back by the carriage house, three cars were parked ahead of Janet’s, the one we arrived in.

  “June wouldn’t have heard anything yet, would she?” Dale said. “I don’t think she consorts with either criminal riffraff or law-enforcement riffraff. At least, not that I know of.”

  As we got out, the side door of the house opened and a man and a woman walked down the steps. “Oh, shit,” Janet said. “I hope they weren’t interrogating Mom.”

  The two figures who approached us were a large woman in a mauve silk dress and a dough-faced man with an odd, S-shaped mouth and a straw boater on his head. I assumed they were Janet’s sister, June, and her husband, Dick Puderbaugh, but I was only half right.

  “Hi, June, Hi, Parson,” Janet said. “What brings you two around Maple Street?”

  “Janet, hi, hi,” June crooned, and squeezed Janet’s hand and Dale’s elbow. “Dale, Dale, it’s awfully nice to see you too.” She looked like an Osborne, big and open-faced and handsome, but with a tightness in her manner that was accentuated by a snood on the back of her head that suggested not so much provincial respectability as cerebral strangulation.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Herald’s esteemed editor in chief!” the man in the boater hooted in a nasal baritone. He had on white slacks and a seersucker jacket, like a member of a barbershop quartet, and behind his spectacles he had a twinkle in one gray eye. The other eye looked appalled.

  Janet handled the introductions all around, naming me but not my occupation. June watched me suspiciously, and Parson Bates, the man in the straw hat, grinned smarmily and said, “Donald, may I be so bold as to inquire if you are-as you appear to be-a New York-uh?”

  “Be so bold, Parson,” Dale said, but Bates ignored her.

  “I live in Albany,” I said, “which I’m afraid is where people usually say I appear to be from.”

  “Oh, that other big city!” June said, her eyes bugging out in genial mock alarm.

  “Are you up our way to take the waters?” Bates said, chortling.

  “But there are no waters here,” Dale said. “This is the desert.”

  Janet said, “Donald is working for me for a period of time. He’s in Edensburg in a professional capacity, Parson.”

  “Oh, yet another wretched scrivener!” Bates sputtered gaily out of one side of his mouth, and his twinkly eye twinkled and his other eye maintained its gorgonlike stare.

  “Don’s a private investigator,” Janet said, and we all watched June’s face change expression a dozen times in fast forward.

  Bates said, “Gadzooks!”

  “It has to do with Eric’s murder,” Janet said. “And another situation that’s come up.”

  “What on Earth is that?” June said.

  “Attempts on my life.”

  “Oh, Janet, no!” June clutched her head carefully.

  Janet described the Jet Ski attacks of the previous week and of that afternoon, not mentioning anyone’s suspicions that the attacks might be connected to the conflict over future ownership of the Herald.

  “I would venture to opine,” Bates said, “that such a matter might properly fall within the province of law enforcement. Would it not?”

  “The sheriffs department has been notified,” Janet said. “I take it, June, that no one has come after you or threatened you recently.”

  “Me? Lord, no! Why in heaven’s name would anyone?”

  “Indeed!” Bates said, in high dudgeon at the very idea.

  “Well, Eric was killed and now it looks as if somebody is trying to kill me. Maybe somebody has it out for some of the Osbornes-I don’t know. That’s why I’ve hired Don. To find out.”

  Dale said, “Actually, three of us hired Don to investigate Eric’s murder and the Jet Ski attacks. Janet is one of the three, I’m another, and the third client of Don’s is his own boyfriend, Timothy Callahan, who’s an old boyfriend of Eldon McCaslin. In fact, Timothy was injured in the incident at the lake today, and he’s over at Eden County right now having a broken foot set.”

  June stared at me, working hard but not hard enough to keep from looking queasy, and said nonsensically, “How nice.”

  Parson Bates’s look had darkened, and he started to speak but then appeared to think better of it, and his mouth clamped shut.

  “We’re going to have to lay this all out for Mom,” Janet said, “as much as I dread upsetting her. How is she today?”

  “Oh, she’s-Mom,” June said, affecting nonchalance, although her snood constricted perceptibly. “Now, has Chester been notified about your hiring an investigator?” June asked.

  “No, not yet.”

  “Chester will want to know.”

  “Why don’t you go ahead and fill him in, June? I’ve already spoken to Dan and Arlene. We’re just coming from their place.”

  “Oh, I’ll be glad to. And of course Dick. Frankly, Janet, I’m surprised none of us was consulted before you hired an investigator to start rummaging around in the family’s affairs.” She gave me a chilly smile. “I’m sure you’re extremely well qualified, Mr. Strachey, don’t get me wrong. But, do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I said, “No, I don’t.”

  June flinched, and Bates gallantly stepped f
orward to deal with this damnable insolence. “June was referring to the fact and the idea of discretion,” Bates harrumphed. “It is a virtue that is rapidly disappearing from American life, where, thanks to the dominance of a vulgar and conscienceless electronic media, just about every citizen’s bedroom and toilet habits are fodder for open and casual discourse. There are those persons, however, who bravely resist this social and moral degradation. June Osborne, I can state without fear of contradiction, is one of those good persons.”

  June looked apprehensive over Bates’s confrontational style, if not, I guessed, his sentiments. Janet and Dale both peered at me poker-faced and waited.

  I said, “You’ve missed the point, Parson. Number one, I’m not Diane Sawyer or Larry King. I’m a private-let me emphasize private-investigator. The results of my inquiries are seen only by my clients, two of whom in this case are members of the Osborne family.” June looked as if she didn’t like the sound of that, and Bates, picking up on my reference to Dale as an Osborne, glowered theatrically.

  “Secondly,” I went on, “I’m interested in peering into Osborne family bedrooms and toilets-your linkage, not mine, Mr. Bates-only insofar as either might shed light on Eric’s murder and the recent attacks on Janet. A more general rattling of family skeletons is not what I’m aiming at. Doing that would be-yes, I wholeheartedly agree-rude and indiscreet.” June’s look softened a bit, but Bates, apparently anticipating a trap, still gave me the fish eye.

  I said, “But the question I want to ask you, June, is this: Why do you believe my investigating your brother Eric’s murder and these apparent attempts on Janet’s life would necessarily lead me into Osborne family affairs?”

  “Oh,” she said, and then had to think about this. “I didn’t mean to say that you’d be probing into the entire family’s affairs. Just Eric’s and Janet’s.”

  “But Eric is dead and Janet is my client, so what’s the problem?”