Richard Stevenson - Chain of Fools

"Craig's motivation would be getting even with his father by bolstering the position of the liberal Osbornes who controlled the paper. Stu said I shouldn't mention his involvement to Craig because Craig knew Stu and Chester were friends, and that would make Craig suspicious."

I said, "Torkildson actually proposed a jewel robbery?"

Dan laughed sourly and said, "Hell, no. Do you think Stu Torkildson of the Glens Falls Torkildsons is a common criminal? What Stu had in mind was a multimillion-dollar drug deal. He said I had friends in Cuba, and he knew from reading The Wall Street Journal that Cuban officials deal coke big-time. This was Stu's idea of keeping the deal respectable."

"So you and Craig would be risking your necks, and Stu wouldwhat?" I asked.

"Stu would do nothing and risk nothing. He told me straight out that if the deal were ever exposed, he would deny any knowledge of it. He only wanted to save the Hera Id for the Osbornes, and he had to save himself for that noble pursuit."

"Right," I said. "The way he saved the Herald with the Spruce Valley project."

Arlene blurted out, "And you listened to that flaming asshole, Dan? I can't believe this shit! I just can't believe it!"

"Well, goddamn it, Arlene, how else was I supposed to save the Herald? You tell me!"

She shook her head and muttered something inaudible.

I said, "Whose idea was the jewel heist? Craig's?"

"He had this buddy," Dan said, "who'd worked for the hotel and who swore it would be easy to hold the place up in the middle of the night. Nobody would get hurt," Dan said, his pale eyes suddenly full of anguish. "And one job, if they hit the right night, could net over a million in cash and jewels, which I would then fence with my Cuban contacts. Nobody ever guessed that the one robbery alone would produce a haul worth an amount more than equal to the Herald's entire debt. And nobody guessed either that the hotel security man would turn up in the middle of the robbery. According to Craig's buddy, the guard was supposed to be in some other part of the hotel at that hour."

"Did Stu know about the robbery in advance?" I asked.

Dan shrugged. "Only after the fact. He still thought it was going to be a big drug deal, with the laundered cash arriving at the Herald by way of a so-called 'loan' from a bank in the Caymans. When he heard that Craig had been arrested for robbery and murder, he wasn't too wild about the news. It was obvious that Stu's going out on a legal limb to save the Herald was really to recoup his own battered reputation after the Spruce Valley debacle. A 'world-class' drug deal-that's what Stu said he had in mind-was one thing, but armed robbery was something else, and Stu was on the edge of freaking out when he heard about it."

I said, "And Chester knew none of this?"

"Not in the beginning," Dan said, looking away again.

"But he figured it out," I said. "Craig described that part to me."

Dan nodded grimly. "Fucking greedy, hothead Chester. We knew all along-I knew, Stu knew-not to get Chester involved."

"And Chester never tumbled to the fact that his good pal Stu was the man who had initiated the entire scheme?"

"No," Dan said, "Chester found out Craig and I had been spending time together before the robbery. And then when the stolen jewels failed to turn up, Chester was suspicious and went out and confronted Craig at Attica. Chester is such a total asshole. First of all, he threatened to blow open the whole deal if we didn't give him the jewels so that he and June could gain control of the paper. Craig just blew him off.

"Then in May, Chester gets it in his insane head that Eric and I are about to use the diamond money to squeeze him and June out of the paper, and he goes out and confronts Craig a second time. But by then I'd lost the jewels and I was frantically trying to find them up here in the woods, and I was too embarrassed to tell Craig where the jewels went. So when Chester goes out to Attica and says, 'Where are the jewels?' Craig, who's plenty pissed by now, he tells Chester, 'Ask Dan where they are.'"

Arlene said, "Jesus, Dan, what a bunch of fuckheads. Your family sounds like a bunch of people on a daytime TV talk show."

"Every family is a family from a daytime TV talk show!" Dan snapped. "Most families just don't happen to go on television and make fools of themselves in public."

I said, "In the nineties, we're a long way from Tolstoy in these matters, I guess, but let's get back to your interesting narrative, Dan. So Chester then came to you and asked where the jewels were?"

Dan shook his head in disgust. "I told Chester he was nuts and to fuck off, which he did. But what does Chester do next? He goes to Eric. Eric! Eric came to me, and he says, what's this about Craig and me and the jewel robbery? I said, God, Eric, don't be ridiculous, it's just Craig playing head games with Chester. Eric, who was so straight, so naive- Eric just says, oh, okay. And he went back and told Chester that Craig had made up the entire story, none of us had any jewels, and to forget about it."

"It is Craig's belief," I said, "that at that point Chester became so frustrated and angry that he flew into one of his violent rages and killed Eric."

Arlene let loose with another shriek. Dan looked at her and then at me and said quietly, "No. That's not the way it happened."

I said, "Torkildson?"

Dan nodded and Arlene shrieked again.

I said, "How? Why?" ^v

Dan took a deep breath. "By early May," he said, "I was fairly certain I'd never find the jewels out here. I'd spent weeks combing these woods without coming up with a single jewel, and meanwhile the ground cover was getting thicker and thicker."

"You bastard!" Arlene said. "That's the whole month I thought you were out fucking Patsy Livingston again. And here you were up here in the woods looking for diamonds. Dan, you asshole!"

"But the thing was," Dan said, "by that time the paper was up for sale and it already looked as if the board's choice would be either Griscomb or InfoCom. I had finally admitted to Stu that I'd stashed the jewels with Dad's ashes and Eric had unknowingly scattered the contents of the urn up here in the woods. So Stu was getting agitated and he was saying that if we couldn't save the Herald for the family-and restore his shattered reputation-then the paper would have to be sold to InfoCom so at least the family could come away with several million. I knew we had the board votes to approve a sale to Griscomb, but Stu started threatening legal action against any board member who blatantly voted against the company's best interests-he said Chester and June would both sue and he would join them-and that's when I panicked and made what turned out to be a terrible, terrible, terrible mistake."

Arlene sat looking frightened but said nothing. No one spoke until Dan took another deep breath, let out a long sigh, and went on.

"I decided to blackmail Stu," Dan said. "I told him that I had lied about Eric throwing the jewels away accidentally. I told him Eric had found the jewels and confronted me, and that I had confessed everything. I said Eric was threatening to go to the police and expose us all, Stu included, but that Eric had agreed to return the jewels to their owners anonymously if Stu threw his support to Griscomb and stopped Chester and June from suing us."

Dan paused and looked off into the woods thoughtfully. I said, "How did Torkildson react?"

"He followed Eric into the woods on the day of Eric's weekly trip to the beaver pond that Eric was writing about in his column and bludgeoned Eric to death. He described the whole thing to me the next day. Stu said he didn't plan to kill anyone else if he could help it, but that after the Spruce Haven bust he was already too embarrassed to show up at the country club on Friday nights, and he would not risk being exposed additionally as an accomplice in a jewel robbery."