Richard Stevenson - Chain of Fools

Osborne dismissed this with a little wave of his brandy glass. "The financial loss is potentially considerable, but the rest of it, my friend, is just history. There's no point in getting sentimental over it. As a means of dispersing information, newspapers are all but dead. Half the people in the country own personal computers, and half of those are on-line. In another thirty years, newspapers will have disappeared, with books and magazines soon to follow old-time journalism into oblivion. By the middle of the next century, print on paper will be regarded as quaint, the way we look at gas lamps and phonograph records.

"The Herald's days are numbered, no matter what happened with the Spruce Haven investment, and the only smart thing to do now is for the family to sell to the highest bidder, then take the money and invest it in something with a future. If Janet, Dan, and Mother had a head for business, they'd see that. But they're stuck in the past. They like the word 'progressive' and that's how they think of themselves. But, believe me, they are anything but progressive. Strachey, the only violence associated with the sale of the Edensburg Herald is the potential that eight million dollars will be flushed down the toilet. And if you want to prevent a disaster, my friend, that is the one you should be trying to put a stop to."

He gazed at me with his cool, bloodshot eyes and waited.

I said, "In June, a month after Eric died, you told your mother, Chester, that in order to keep the Herald from being sold to Harry Griscomb, the more responsible newspaper chain but the lower bidder-and here I quote you, Chester-'Somebody else might have to get hurt.' What did you mean by that?"

He missed just a fraction of a beat before he said icily, "I said no such thing."

"Your mother says you did."

A slight trembling of the brandy snifter and an emphatic shake of the head. "No."

"You seemed to be saying that you knew that Eric's death was connected with the sale of the paper, and someone else might die if that would ensure a sale to InfoCom instead of Griscomb. Your mother told me that your remark was unmistakably a threat."

His eyes flashed for an instant, but his fight for self-control was constant and, with me so far, availing. He said, "Then my mother did not know what she was saying. She talks gibberish half the time. If you were in her house today, you know that my mother is mentally ill. She is suffering from severe Alzheimer's disease. In fact, soon she may have to be institutionalized."

What was this? "Institutionalized?"

"Yes," he said, "Mother is mentally incompetent. I know it, and if you were with her today for any length of time, then you know it too. It's tragic to see this happening to a woman who always took pride in her intellect. June told me how heartbreaking it was this afternoon to find Mother sitting like a zombie and staring into her garden. What Mother needs now is professional care. There's just no getting around it."

"That's your opinion," I said. "Have you discussed it with Janet or Dan? Or with your mother?"

"Not yet," Chester said in a matter-of-fact way. "But June and I talked it over, and I called Franklin Whately, mother's physician. Frank was negligent in not filling me in sooner on Mother's condition, but this evening he brought me up to speed. So it's not too late to see to it that Mother is placed in the appropriate setting for someone in her medical condition."

"You called a doctor when you heard about your mother's supposed poor condition-which, incidentally, is not nearly so dire as you're making it out to be, Chester. And did you call a lawyer too?"

He hadn't smiled once since I'd entered his house, but now he came perilously close to betraying what must have passed for amusement with him. Osborne's face relaxed just perceptibly and he said, "What do you mean, did I call a lawyer? It would have been wildly irresponsible of me not to."

Janet said, "I'd almost be in favor of stashing Mom somewhere until the day of the vote if I didn't think Chester and June would pull some legal stunt declaring her incompetent in absentia, or some damn thing, and therefore ineligible to serve on the board and vote."

"It does sound like a trap," Dale said. "As if hiding Ruth is exactly what Chester and June want us to try. Otherwise, why would they tip their hand to Don tonight? Why not surprise us all and just show up one day when Ruth's home alone with Elsie and wave a piece of paper, clap her in irons, and haul her off until the vote is over?"

It was just past midnight and the four of us were having a beer on the screened-in back porch at the Osborne house. Three of us were seated on chairs by candlelight, and the place was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner in the window of Ruth Osborne's bedroom up above us. Timmy was draped along a chaise, his fiberglassed foot shining in the flickering light.

"The other thing," Timmy said, "is that maybe everybody on the board who's planning to vote to sell the Herald to the good chain and not the bad chain is safe now, and there won't be any more murder attempts. Even if neither Chester nor June is involved in a murder plot, word will get around that they have a shot at neutralizing Mrs. Osborne legally, so anybody who'd planned on killing Janet, Dan, or Mrs. Osborne might be willing to adopt a wait-and-see attitude."

"Oh yes," Dale said. "We could take a chance and let our guard down. What have we got to lose but another human being?"

Timmy muttered something indecipherable, and I said, "I thought we had an agreement, Dale."

"Whoops."

Janet said, "I think Dale is right that since both the future of the Herald and people's lives are at stake, we have to hope for the best but plan for the worst."

"That's an extremely generous interpretation of Dale's remarks," Timmy said, and in the dim light I glared at him. He caught this, and added, "But I believe both of you are entirely correct in your estimation that continued caution is in order."

"What I'm going to do," Janet said, "is talk to Slim Finn in the morning. He was Dad's lawyer and he's Mom's. I'm sure Chester's got somebody else intriguing away, probably his golfing partner, Morton Bond, and Slim will know how to get a mental competency hearing postponed for the five weeks we need until the board meets, or-failing a postponement-have the hearing held on a day when Mom is compos mentis. Meanwhile, I guess at least one of us needs to be here with her at all times. Whenever possible, two of us."

We all looked at each other, aware of which two of us would be most often available over the next week for a watch over Ruth Osborne. I said, "This job is critically important," and Timmy and Dale both gave me an indignant look that said, There's no need to treat us like children.

"I'm also going to get Mom's physician, Frank Whately, over here," Janet said, "to get an updated evaluation of her Alzheimer's, and the best short-term prognosis he can come up with. God, I just hate it that Mom is facing this horrible thing-and I'm facing this horrible thing with Mom-at exactly the same time all this other putrid crap is happening with the paper, and Eric being killed, and the Jet Ski attacks, and Eldon being in the hospital. It's just-it's too damned much."

We all agreed that it was, but we sat there helplessly, making vague, useless, sympathetic noises. It "was Janet who finally said, "At least Eldon is recovering from the Pneumocystis, and he's no longer psychotic now that he's off the prednisone. There's that good news anyway."

"He was a little groggy when we saw him tonight," Timmy said. "And I got the impression he didn't remember anything he said to us last night. I mean, none of that nasty stuff about… what happened after high school. But he wasn't wild-eyed and crazy, and he did remember who I was, of course, and that I was there last night."