Richard Stevenson - Chain of Fools

"Physical threats?" Timmy asked.

"No, just legal. But Chester can get himself worked up into a state. Everybody in town knows that. I was glad there were people right outside the door in the newsroom. Anyway, he gave me his whole Info-Com pitch-which we all know by heart by now-and next to nothing on the attacks on Janet and Dan, which he claims are either imagined or contrived. And as for Eric's murder, the very idea of family involvement is slanderous if spoken, Chester warned me, and libelous if the Herald prints it.

"The one possibly useful piece of information I got from Chester is this: He may not have an alibi for the time of the murder. He went into a three-alarm swivet when I asked him where he was on the morning of May fifteenth, and when I seemed to be calmly noting his hotheaded unresponsiveness, he made an effort to settle down, and he said, well, he was in his office. I asked him if I-or the police-could verify that with witnesses and appointment records, and then he totally lost it. He jumped up, and he was shaking and towering over me and yelling that I could just goddamn well accept his word for where he was if I valued my job. When I eased out of my chair and opened the door to the newsroom, Chester shoved his way past me and stormed out of the place. I really thought the next thing would be the sound of his Lexus doing a couple of donuts in the parking lot before he peeled out. But I guess that's not Chester's style. He just drove away normally."

I said, "All this is extremely helpful, Lee Ann. Who do you plan on interviewing next?"

"Tidy in the morning, if he'll talk to me, and-for the record-Dale and Skeeter McCaslin. I don't plan to be bound by conventional notions of family."

"Thank you, Lee Ann," Dale said. "I'll cooperate fully with your investigation."

"After that," Lee Ann said, "I'll talk to nonfamily peripheral people like Stu Torkildson and Parson Bates. I might also drive out to Attica and visit Craig Osborne. Janet filled me in on the jewel-robbery angle. It all sounds like a pretty wacky way to try to save the Herald. But the fourth generation of Osbornes produced some extremely wacky people, so-hey, why not?"

Janet asked me if Skeeter had been able to verify that in April Eric had spirited away his father's remains from the urn on Ruth Osborne's mantel, and I said Skeeter had. I told Janet, Dale, and Lee Ann that Skeeter, Eric, and the charter pilot had all remarked at the time on how glittery the falling ashes were, and I explained how Dan had later sought out the pilot wanting to learn where the ashes had settled to earth.

"So that must be where Dan is now!" Janet said. "Do you have the directions?"

I said I did and held up my map. "My guess is, he's out there sifting one more time through several square miles of wilderness that I'll bet he's combed a hundred times since April. He'd like to find the diamonds and make a last-ditch attempt to save the Herald for the Osbornes. And, I'm sure, Dan wants desperately to be able to tell Craig he recovered the jewels. He knows Craig is mad as hell and is starting to talk to people, foremost among them me."

"God," Janet said, "Dan is such a nitwit!"

"The robbery was bad enough," Dale said. "But you'd think he'd have had enough sense to stash the loot in a safe-deposit box."

We all speculated for some minutes on the practical, Freudian, and other reasons Dan might have had for mixing the stolen gems with his father's ashes in an urn on his mother's mantel.

We were about to make a plan for heading out to find Dan in the morning when headlights suddenly arched across the backyard and a car screeched to a halt in the driveway. The cop car must have pulled in directly behind the visitor, for three car doors slammed and then there were raised voices, one female.

While Timmy was reaching for his crutches, the rest of us moved fast. Dale barricaded herself at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor, where Mrs. Osborne was sleeping, and Janet, Lee Ann, and

I trotted out into the muggy night and found the two Edensburg cops attempting to subdue Pauline Osborne. Chester's wife was unarmed, as far as we could see, but she was unsteady on her feet and flailing at the two cops physically and verbally.

"What the hell are you gorillas bothering me for, when it's my husband who's a criminal! You want to arrest a criminal, arrest Chester Osborne-Chester Osborne, the big murderer! Why don't you go up there and arrest him right now? I'll testify! I'll go to court! I'll swear on a stack of Bibles that the day Chester's brother Eric was murdered, Chester came home covered with leaves and mud!"

The two cops, both young, baby-faced, and portly, were listening to this recitation with obvious interest while at the same time making occasional perfunctory grabs for the tanned and braceleted arms Pauline was waving around. In peach-colored slacks and a white halter top, Pauline was elegantly put together and nicely limber. But her mascara and green eye shadow had run down over cheeks that were flushed from alcohol and excitement, and her face looked disconcertingly like a summer storm system moving across the radar screen on the Weather Channel.

"Pauline, why don't you come in for some coffee?" Janet said. Then, maybe realizing that this casual invitation sounded too inane for the occasion, she added, "Or you could come in and suck down another half bottle of whatever's got you skunked, and then sleep it off under the kitchen table. Either way, we should talk."

The cops had been barking out things like "Hey, missus! Hey-hey, missus!" and they seemed to know that they should be taking matters in hand-there were murder accusations and drunk driving at a minimum here-but they also had figured out that this raving woman was Mrs. Chester Osborne, and this fact also must have carried weight with them.

I said, "I think you officers can see that Mrs. Osborne would do well to get off the highway, and we'd be happy to keep her car keys overnight and make sure she's safe-"

"No! No!" Pauline snarled. "I will not get off the highway-I will not rest until somebody arrests Chester Osborne for murder! That man is a killer, and I'll bet your bottom dollar Tacker Puderbaugh was in on it too! They're in cahoots-why else would Tacker be up at our house? He's supposed to be out of the country on his surfboard. Chester was covered with mud the day Eric got killed, and Tacker was in on it! Hey, I'm for bringin' in the bucks But I draw the line at murdering nice people like Eric. Chester and Tacker Puderbaugh have to be arrested right now! I demand it! As a taxpayer, I demand that you arrest my husband, who's that goddamn big murderer Chester Osborne!"

It was at this point that the other Osborne shiny Lexus, the black one, cruised noiselessly into the driveway, and Chester got out and walked over to us. His posture wasn't up to standard, the sweat on his big Osborne face glistened, and in shirtsleeves and no tie he looked vulnerable and a little desperate.

Chester said to all of us, "I can just imagine what kind of b.s. my wife has been spreading down here, and I'm here to tell you, it's goddamn not true. Pauline is inebriated, I'm goddamn sorry to say, and she's confused in the head. My attorney, Morton Bond, is on his way over here now. I just got off the phone with him. And if you officers will get somebody over here from the DA's office"-Chester glared at his wife bitterly now-"I'm prepared to make a statement"

"A statement about what?" Janet said, her face darkening. "A statement about Eric's murder'"

"Hell, no," Chester said, "not about Eric's murder, goddamn it! Do you really think I'd kill my own brother, Janet, even if he was some fruitcake eco-Nazi! Jesus Christ, Janet! No, I'll make a statement about Tacker Puderbaugh, my idiotic nephew, who was supposed to-to just do a couple of mischievous things to scare you and Dan into possibly changing your vote on the sale of the paper. But I'm goddamn sorry to say that Tacker Puderbaugh is out of control. He went way too far tonight, and he tried to involve me in what he did tonight, and I'm here to tell you I did not-did not — give Tacker an okay on that."