Richard Stevenson - Chain of Fools

Arlene and I sat looking at Dan, who leaned comfortably against his tree but whose eyes were full of terror. Arlene did not exclaim this time, she just sniffled quietly.

I said, "Is there any way it can be proven that Torkildson killed Eric?"

"Sure, I've got the proof," Dan said. "Stu told me he killed Eric with a camera tripod he borrowed from the Herald's picture department. I found the tripod that night and took it home. Stu had washed it off, but there were still traces of blood on it and presumably Stu's fingerprints and other DNA traces."

"Why didn't you turn Torkildson in?" I said. "Dan, the man murdered your brother."

"Well," Dan said, "for one thing, I just wanted to save the paper. I figured Stu would help me do that, considering what I knew. It turned out I was wrong about that. Torkildson is a psychopath. And of course the other thing was, it was my fault. I triggered Stu into killing Eric. I was just as guilty as Stu was."

With that, Dan stood up, walked over, and lifted the tent flap. He went inside, and a thought hit me hard and I stood up abruptly.

I spoke rapidly to Arlene. "He doesn't have a gun or anything in there, does he?"

"No," she said, "Dan's just getting his stash. Sounds like a good idea, huh? Don, I'll bet right about now you could go for a smoke too."

Late Saturday afternoon, Bill Stankie arrested Stu Tor-kildson for murder. A magistrate ordered Torkildson held in the Eden County Jail pending forensic tests on the camera tripod Dan had produced. When he was picked up, Torkildson lost his customary cool. Vehemently denying guilt, he railed against the police and the Os-bornes He kept yelling, "After everything I've done for them!" But Stankie said a preliminary lab examination of the tripod supported Dan's story. Plus, it turned out, Torkildson had no alibi for the time of the murder.

Chester had no alibi either, but now he didn't need one. Chester told Stankie that on the morning of Eric's death he had been out examining some woods and pastureland he had been looking at on behalf of the Wal-Mart company, and that's how he'd gotten muddy. He said Pauline's accusation of murder was a result of her mental instability (Craig's malicious phone call to Pauline never came up), and that instability was the subject of an upcoming court hearing.

Chester did admit that he had brought Tacker Puderbaugh back from Tahiti to "play some pranks" on the pro-Griscomb Osbornes. But Tacker and a friend of his from Lake George had "gone too far," Chester said, when they committed arson and then demanded that Chester pay them $150,000 in hush money so that they could open a surfboard rental business on Okinawa.

Both Tacker and his friend were picked up at the friend's house and charged with arson and attempted murder. Janet identified Tacker's friend as the man who attacked her-and later attacked her, Dale, Timmy, and me-on a Jet Ski. At first, Timmy wanted to charge the Jet

Ski maniac with assault too for breaking his foot, but after thinking it over decided to let it go.

For the moment, Chester escaped being slapped behind bars-the DA was considering what charges to bring against him-and Chester's dodging a murder rap was the one disappointment suffered by full-dentured Bill Stankie. Stankie did get to see Torkildson and Tacker occupy adjoining cells (having admitted complicity in the jewel robbery, Dan was released on bond), and Stankie took satisfaction in Tacker's determination to incriminate Chester to the utmost extent. Stankie and the DA were also interested-as was I-in Tacker's assertion that "Mummy"-i.e., June-knew all about Tacker's campaign of terrorism against the pro-Griscomb Osbornes.

When she was informed of all these developments Saturday night, Ruth Osborne seemed unsurprised to learn that Dan, Chester, Tacker, and possibly even June had been involved in criminal activities that grew out of the battle for the soul of the Herald. "The Osbornes have always tended toward ruthlessness in support of their causes," she said. But the news of Stu Torkildson's arrest for Eric's murder was even more deeply shocking. Mrs. Osborne began to tremble when Janet told her, and she went up to her room soon after.

"The family always relied on Stu," Janet told Timmy, Dale, and me on the Osborne back porch later that night. "Stu was the man Dad depended on to keep us all both solvent and honest. So to Mom what itu did must feel like the ultimate betrayal."

"Was the ultimate betrayal," Dale said, and we all agreed solemnly with that.

Both Janet and Dale were exhausted from working to salvage belongings from the half of the lake house that remained standing after the fire that Tacker set, and from the shocks of the previous thirty-six hours. They weren't too tired, however, to speculate on the upcoming family board of directors' vote.

"The outcome," Janet said, "is going to depend on which board members are behind bars on September eighth, and which ones will be available to vote. If Dan is still out on bail, that should seal it for Griscomb. If Chester is unable to vote and Tidy comes on to the board, that won't change anything one way or another."

"And certainly your mother should survive the mental competency hearing on Monday," Timmy said. "She's understandably devastated by all this rotten stuff coming out about the family and the fight over the paper. But at this point, anyway, I don't think anybody can deny that her faculties are intact."

"It's also to Ruth's credit," Dale said, "that she hasn't been arrested."

Janet tried to smile but couldn't. "That does seem to be a rarity among Osbornes these days." Janet had spent two hours earlier in the evening giving interviews to reporters from The New York Times and the Boston Globe, who were preparing big stories on the dissolution of one of the great families of American journalism.

"Have either of you ever been arrested?" Dale asked Timmy and me. It seemed an odd question to ask, but Dale's tight look and bright eyes suggested she had something in mind.

I said, "I've been manhandled a few times in the line of duty by the Albany criminal justice establishment, Dale, and I wear every scar from those encounters as a badge of-not honor, I guess. Bemusement would be more like it, mixed with disgust."

"And what about you, Timmy?" Dale said. "Have you ever been arrested?"

His fiberglass-encased foot bobbed once, his face went white, and sweat popped out on his forehead. Timmy stared at Dale and said, "No. I've never been arrested."

"But I have," she said with a look of triumphant contempt. "Haven't I, Timmy?"

He said, "Oh, hell. You were in that ACT-UP group Oh, hell."

"Yes, I was in that ACT-UP group, oh, hell. In April 1987. I see it all is starting to ring a bell now somewhere deep inside your big, adorable head. Bong, bong, bong."

"Jeez. I felt bad about that. It was after the Health and Human Resources Committee vote on AIDS home-care funding, right?"

"Right you are, Tim."

"And your group thought Assemblyman Lipschutz shouldn't have compromised so much with the Republicans on the budget. You all came over to the office and wouldn't leave-there were forty or fifty of you, as I recall-and you demanded to see Myron."

"Asked nicely to talk to him," Dale said. "Forcefully but nicely."

"No, you demanded to talk to him. Except, as I remember it, he was off in a meeting somewhere with the Speaker."

"That's what you told us at the time. That was all bullshit, of course."

"And you refused to leave the office. Your whole group sat down on the floor, and you said you weren't leaving until Myron heard what you had to say. You were the spokesperson for the group. That's when I left. I went over to the Speaker's office to see if I could pry Myron out of the meeting."

"Uh-huh. So you said."