Richard Stevenson - Chain of Fools

I said, "Of course."

Dale said, "Did either of you ask Eldon if he had any idea why Dan puked up his supper when he heard that there might be a connection between the sale of the Herald and Eric's murder?"

"Why would Skeeter know anything about that?" Timmy asked.

"Because he and Eric were sleeping together. Presumably they conversed about important matters."

Janet said, "Dan was completely devastated by Eric's death. I mean, we all were, and are-I still wake up in the night weeping when I dream about him. But at the time, it was Dan who really fell apart. And obviously he still hasn't recovered."

"Were Dan and Eric especially close?" I asked.

"In a messy, complicated way, they were," Janet said. "They'd been rivals for Dad's approval from the time they were toddlers. Of course, they were pretty much wasting their time in that department-Dad was not what you'd call warmly demonstrative with any of us. He saved his good opinions for the Heralds editorial page, and his emotions too. But Dan and Eric both loved Dad and they both became journalists because of him. That was a bond between them. But then, because they were so temperamentally different-Dan being more Watson-like in his passions and volatility-they often fought, with Dan starting the fights and Eric, who was always stronger and more sure of himself, finishing them. Believe me, it was a busy, complex household to grow up in. As most households with big families are, of course. And households with small families too."

I said, "When you say, Janet, that Dan and Eric fought, do you mean physically?"

"Until they were both well into their teens. It's a big joke in Edens-burg that this house full of pacifists used to erupt about once a week with crashing and banging and yelling, as if bloody murder was being committed inside." She caught herself, and when no one spoke, she added, "Please-don't even think it. Not Dan." More awkward silence. "It wouldn't make any sense," Janet said. "It just wouldn't. And I wouldn't be able to stand it."

After a moment, Timmy said, "It wouldn't make any sense, Janet, unless Eric's death and the Jet Ski attacks weren't even connected. And Eric's murder and the sale of the Herald had nothing to do with each other."

They all looked at me as if I, being a detective, might have an observation to offer that could clear the air a little, break the tension. But I didn't.

Thursday morning, Timmy, exhausted, slept in-we'd shared a frilly four-poster in what had been June's room-while Janet drove off to the Herald, Dale joined Elsie the housekeeper in keeping an eye on Ruth Osborne, and I left Maple Street at 7:45 in search of Captain Bill Stankie.

I drove out to the edge of town and found Stankie in his office at the State Police barracks, one of those characterless brick boxes that are representative of public architecture in the age of hate-all-government. Stankie didn't look as if he minded the lack of columns and a cupola framing his official presence. Squat, ruddy-faced, and agreeably unprepossessing in shirtsleeves and green suspenders, Stankie looked up at me placidly from behind his metal desk. I introduced myself and explained that I'd been hired by Janet Osborne to investigate any connection between her brother's murder and two apparent attempts on her life. For the moment, I left out the sale of the Herald, that day's edition of which lay open to the sports section on Stankie's desk next to his coffee mug.

"I doubt there's any connection, but I'd be interested to hear what you've come up with," Stankie said. "Have a seat."

I seated myself across from Stankie and told him that I was only just getting started and had come up with nothing of substance yet, and that was why I'd come to see him. I asked him to fill me in on the Eric Osborne murder investigation, and on anything Stankie knew about the sheriff's office investigation of the two Jet Ski attacks on Janet.

"Was that your boyfriend that got clipped yesterday?" Stankie asked. "My wife is a nurse at the ER, and she said a gay couple came in, and one of the guys had a broken foot from a Jet Ski incident out at Osborne's place on the lake."

"How did she know we were a couple?"

"Sue always knows. Our third son, Hank, is gay, and he and his partner, Ray, are both police officers in Cincinnati, Ohio-Ray's hometown. We don't see nearly as much of them as we'd like. We get out there once a year, but Hank and Ray are kept pretty busy with their off-duty gay-rights — work. Cincinnati is a pretty conservative town. Which is fine with me, overall. I'm conservative myself."

"Except in one way, it looks like."

"Oh no," Stankie said with a shrug. "If you mean gay rights, that's conservative as I see it. The government leaving decent, law-abiding people alone is conservative. People being treated fairly is conservative. No, I don't see that I'm being inconsistent at all. It's the Newt Gin-grichs that are being inconsistent." He paused, then added, "Not that I always saw it that way, I have to admit. I had to be educated on the subject."

"That's often the way it is. Although a lot of men your age are un-educable."

"I had no choice in the matter," Stankie said mildly. "It was come around or lose a son. So I came around. And it didn't take long, either."

"Then you had no problem with Eric Osborne's being gay. Or Janet's."

"Not in later years," he said, and I didn't probe into what that might have meant.

I said, "And when Eric was killed, you didn't immediately peg his male lover as the prime suspect, the way a lot of investigators might have."

"No, I knew Eric and Eldon well enough to see that their marriage was as good as mine is. But you shouldn't knock homicide investigators who take a close look at the spouse or lover first. Straight or gay, when a bed partner is murdered, often it's the other partner who did it. The statistics bear this out. In any case," Stankie said, looking a little embarrassed, "Eldon McCaslin had an alibi. When Eric was killed, Eldon was on a special assignment up near Watertown with two other forest rangers. Checking that out, of course, was a matter of routine."

"Of course."

"And anyway, on the second day of the investigation we started hearing about this Gordon Grubb character. Janet's filled you in on him, I take it?"

"She told me that he exists and you think he's the killer."

Stankie hesitated no more than a second, and said, "He's my candidate, yes."

"How come?"

Stankie pulled a folder from a stack on the side of his desk and extracted a rap sheet, photo attached, of a blank-eyed, thirty-seven-year-old man with a dirty beard and a jagged scar on his left cheek. "This is one of sixteen people who were known to have been, or could have been, on the trail Eric was hiking on the morning of the day he was killed. The other fifteen were upstanding citizens who had no connection with Eric that we could establish, or that any of them would admit to. Grubb had no known connection with Eric, either. But you'll see there that he's had two earlier arrests, including one conviction, for assaulting and robbing campers near Saranac Lake.

"A general store manager up where the hiking trail crosses Route 418 used to live in Saranac, and he recognized Grubb when he'd come into the store a day or two earlier. Later, other people who'd been on the trail that week picked Grubb's mug shot out of a series, and they said they'd seen him and he'd made people nervous on account of his looks. A week later, Grubb turned up in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, where he allegedly savagely assaulted and robbed three campers while they slept, shoving their bodies in a ravine. Two of the three died in the attack-they were all stabbed repeatedly with a hunting knife. But one survived, and he ID'd Grubb, who'd already been arrested in the next county for breaking into a vacation cabin. I drove down there and interviewed Grubb, but by then a lawyer had been at him. He refused to talk about anything at all, other than that he'd been up this way camping-he said he couldn't remember when. But is he our man on the Eric Osborne homicide? I'd say yes."