Текст книги "Chain of Fools "

Автор книги: Richard Stevenson

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"It seemed to me a reasonable compromise," Mrs. Osborne said. "In marriage there's always give-and-take."

I asked, "When was the last time, Mrs. Osborne, that you looked inside the urn and saw what appeared to be your husband's actual remains?"

She grimaced and stared into space. Remembering was a struggle for her, and she seemed to be laboring almost physically "Quite a while ago," she said after a moment. "A year or two, I suppose. It's been a while since I actually lifted the lid and looked in. It's true that all that stony stuff just looks like stony stuff, and it doesn't help much in summoning up Tom's memory and spirit."

"Who has access to this study besides yourself, Mrs. Osborne? Who's gone in here in the past two years? From the look of the place, I'd guess the traffic hasn't been heavy."

"No, no, hardly anybody comes into this musty old room. Just myself, and Elsie to clean. The children, I suppose, from time to time, to look at their father's books and papers. Janet, you've been in, of course—but you didn't get into the urn, did you?"

"Mother, of course not!"

"Dan comes in once in a while—and June once in a blue moon. June's husband, Dick, perhaps. Chester? I don't believe so. Chester generally comes in the back door, shakes his fist at me in the kitchen, and leaves by the same route " Then she seemed to go blank.

Timmy said, "What about workmen or other outsiders, Mrs. Osborne? Have you had any electrical or telephone or other work done in this room in the last few years?"

Both the old black Bakelite telephone and the wall sconces, as well as the metal gooseneck desk lamp, looked as if they dated to the first Roosevelt administration, and Mrs. Osborne said, "Does this room look as if anyone has replaced a single item in it in the last half century? We should have done some modernizing—I always approve of technological progress if it frees people up to get on with what's truly important—but I can't recall anybody coming in here to fix or replace anything in years and years. No, no workmen stole Tom's ashes, I don't

think, and filled the urn up with cornmeal. It must have been someone in the family, is all I can think. Tidy has been in the house from time to time—and Tacker before he flew the coop. But why would either of them do such a thing?"

Dale said, "What about Eric?"

Mrs. Osborne's face drooped, and she said, "Well, naturally Eric came in here often. He borrowed books—which he always was careful to return—and he read Tom's files and papers. He liked being around Tom's things, just as I do. Eric loved his father and enjoyed being around him so terribly much, and after Tom was gone Eric liked coming in here and regaining a sense of the man. But why would Eric steal Tom's ashes without telling me, and what in heaven's name would he ever do with them?"

Janet gave Dale a quick glance, and Timmy gave me one. Janet said, "Mom, did Eric know that you sometimes actually looked inside the urn at Dad's ashes?"

"Of course not. There was no need for him to know. Not that he would have found it peculiar, I'm sure Lord knows what June would have said, or Chester—it was just too morbid, those two would surely insist. Eric, on the other hand, would have understood—as I'm sure you do, Janet And Dale, of course. But, still, there was no need, really, to tell him I ever looked inside the urn, so I didn't."

"Mom," Janet said, "Eric was the one of us who was most upset when you didn't follow Dad's wishes and scatter his ashes over the mountains. Don't you remember what a pain in the neck Eric was over that?"

"Yes, he was upset with me."

"He nagged at you for months."

"Years."

"He saw it as some kind of betrayal of trust."

"Yes, Eric made a moral issue out of it. He thought gravel tossed to the winds was more important than my mental comfort We disagreed about that."

"So maybe Eric took the ashes," Janet said, "and scattered them over the mountains himself. He figured—you know—what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you."

Mrs. Osborne's face tightened. She said, "What a dishonest thing to do. It doesn't sound at all like Eric "

"I suppose his rationale would have been that since you went against

Dad's wishes in this one matter, he could go against yours."

Looking hurt, she said, "But I'm not dead."

Janet sighed deeply. "You're right, Mom. If Eric did take the ashes, he should not have done it without at least admitting it to you afterward so you wouldn't open the urn one day and find this . . . stuff. That was wrong."

"Well," Mrs. Osborne said, "I suppose what's done is done. If indeed that's what happened. Is there some way we can verify that it was Eric who took the ashes? I do need to know that, if only for my own peace of mind. Eric I can forgive, of course, but I do need to know for certain exactly what has become of my husband's remains."

"Mrs. Osborne, I think I can do some detective work on the ashes," I said. "In fact, the mystery of the missing ashes may be directly related to another puzzling disappearance I was about to begin working on." Janet looked at me expressionlessly and nodded. She knew. Dale and Timmy looked my way too, and lightbulbs went on over their heads.

"I'll eagerly await the results of your investigation, Mr. Strachey. For now, I guess I won't be spreading my husband's ashes in my herb garden. But I am going to put out some sweet corn and tomatoes on the table in a little while. I've got some barbecued beef in the freezer I can zap and heat up. And how would you all feel about some fresh corn bread to go with it?"

Janet said, "Oh, you don't need to bother with the corn bread, Mom. I can pick up a couple of sourdough baguettes." The relief in the room was palpable.

21

We wondered why Mr. Osborne's remains glittered the way they did," Skeeter said. "It was just after sunrise on a Sunday morning during the first week in April. The pilot circled around after Eric emptied the urn out the side window of the plane, and we all said, hey, look how Mr. Osborne's ashes are glimmering and glittering in the sunlight. Isn't that beautiful!"

Timmy and I were seated next to Skeeter's bed in his room at Albany Med. Janet and Dale had remained behind with Mrs. Osborne with two Edensburg police officers watching over them, one in the front of the house, one in the rear.

Skeeter had been off the prednisone for ninety-six hours, and his sanity was pretty much back. He was also recovering well, he told us, from the Pneumocystis pneumonia, and he expected to be out of the hospital in a day or two. Some Edensburg friends of his and Eric's had been looking after him and planned on taking him into their home until he was back on his feet. Skeeter had lost weight, but his strength was returning and he hoped to be back on the job with the park service in a few weeks. When we described the hotel robbery to him and told him of the likelihood that Dan had hidden the stolen jewels in the urn with Tom Osborne's ashes, Skeeter was stunned at first. Then he remarked on how the ashes glinted in the sunlight as they drifted down. He also added, "God, I wonder if Eric knew."

I looked at Timmy, who was seated beside Skeeter holding his big hairy hand. Timmy looked at me, and we both looked back at Skeeter.

I said, "How might Eric have known the jewels were in the ashes?"

"I don't know, and I think he would have told me if he'd known

there was anything valuable in there. We always told each other really important stuff. But maybe Eric wanted to protect me from guilty knowledge that could get me in trouble with the park service. That's something old Eric might have done for me," Skeeter said bleakly, the grief showing in his face all over again.

"You two were really a great pair," Timmy said. "I'm so, so sorry you lost Eric, Skeeter."

"Eric was the great love of my life," Skeeter said, his voice quavering. "Until I met Eric, I never knew how strong and real love could be between two men. If I'd never met Eric, I might have gone my entire life without loving and being loved by another man."

Timmy colored a little, squeezed Skeeter's hand, and said, "Oh."

"Before Eric there was all that great sex, of course," Skeeter said. "And I can't say I didn't love it. Most of it, anyway. But by the time I met Eric I wanted more than that. Jeez, I was so lucky I found him."

Releasing Skeeter's hand, Timmy said, "Where did you two meet, anyway?"

Skeeter chuckled. "Under a bush in Washington Park in Albany."

"Very romantic."

"It really was," Skeeter said, grinning through his thick beard. "Winter wasn't so great, but those summer nights were pretty wonderful sometimes."

"Timothy and I met under similar circumstances," I said, and Timmy smiled weakly.

"Was Don your first great love?" Skeeter asked.

Timmy stared at him and his lower lip twitched.

I said, "Not the first for either of us, Skeeter, but the deepest and longest."

Timmy said, "True, true."

While Timmy sat pensively, I told Skeeter I thought it was likely that Eric's murder was in some way connected with the lost jewels, since their purpose had been to generate cash that would save the Herald for the Osbornes.

"Damn, yes, that must be it!" Skeeter said. "But who besides Dan and Craig would have known that Eric knew about the jewels—if he did? Or do you think"—his dark eyes hardened—"do you think Dan could have had something to do with Eric's murder?"

I said I didn't know, that Dan was missing and I was unable to question him.

"Dan is moody and weird," Skeeter said, "but I really can't imagine him hurting anybody physically. Especially Eric. They were different, but in a 'way they understood and appreciated each other amazingly well. And I certainly can't see Dan trying to get Janet run over by a Jet Ski. Anyway, if somebody tried to run Dan and Arlene off a cliff, then somebody's after them too Unless he faked all that. Which, according to Eric, is the type of thing Dan used to do in his anti-Vietnam War days."

I told Skeeter that Arlene at least seemed to be a reliable witness to the road incident. Then I laid out Craig's theory that Chester had assumed Eric was in on the jewel-theft plot and killed Eric when he refused to acknowledge his complicity and turn over the proceeds from the heist to the conservative side of the Osborne family.

Skeeter's face tightened and he shifted angrily in the bed. "Chester! That jerk. Maybe it was him."

"Craig thinks so," I said, "but this is the speculation of a son who has apparently despised his father since childhood and isn't as objective as he could be."

"But Chester was always violent. You must have heard the stories."

I reminded Skeeter that Chester's outbursts had always been spontaneous, not premeditated, and I asked, "Would Chester have been out on a hiking trail where he might have run into Eric? Or would he actually have gone hiking with Eric?"

Skeeter shook his head morosely. "As far as I know, Chester hasn't been out on a hiking trail in years. In family pictures you can see him in the woods as a kid, but that was just because he had to. Chester was an Osborne, so he went into the wilderness. But as soon as he could choose, he headed for the country club."

Timmy said, "Skeeter, is there some chance that Eric was in on the jewel-theft plot? Not that he would want anybody to get killed. But maybe Craig had promised him and Dan nobody would get hurt and the robbery was a foolproof way to keep the Herald out of the hands of the bad chain, and Eric was naive enough to believe him."

"Out of the hands of what?" Skeeter looked deeply bewildered.

Timmy forced a little smile and said, "There are two newspaper

chains competing for the Herald. One's a good chain, and one's a bad chain. One's a daisy chain—that's a metaphor for the more socially enlightened, pro-environmentalist chain—and one's a chain of fools, so-called. The chain of fools is purely profit-oriented and environmentally and otherwise socially indifferent. It was you, Skeeter, as a matter of fact, who first explained this situation to Don and me and pointed out the likelihood that one of the Osborne factions competing over the future of the Herald had concocted a murder plot that resulted in Eric's death and presented great danger to Janet prior to next month's Herald board meeting."

Timmy fingered the two crutches—his own—leaning against Skeeter's bed. I wondered if he might pick one of them up and swat Skeeter with it, but he didn't. He said, "You were heavily medicated when you expressed your concerns to Don and me Tuesday night, Skeeter. So I guess all this has slipped your mind."

"You're right, it has," Skeeter said, looking embarrassed. "I remember that you and Don were here on Tuesday, or whatever day it was. And even though I was kind of out of it, I also remember from when you and Janet stopped in on Wednesday, I guess it was, Timmy, that you told me you and Don have been helping out around the house. And also, Don, that you've been playing detective. Hey, good for you. Thanks a lot from all of us. And Timmy, I want to tell you it's really great to be in touch with you again. Since my folks moved to Arizona, I'm hardly in touch with anybody back in Poughkeepsie. But you were always one of my favorite high-school classmates. It's really nice to see you."

Timmy smiled just perceptibly. He said, "It's really nice to see you too, Skeeter."

Skeeter had given us the name of the air service Eric had used for scattering his father's ashes over the mountains, and as we headed back up to Edensburg, and to the airport there, Timmy was silent for the first ten miles.

Finally, I said, "I think he was just being considerate of me—of both of us. Or maybe he thinks you never told me that you two were once a red-hot item."

After a moment, Timmy said, "That's pretty far-fetched."

"Why? Some people are just very discreet about their pasts."

He said nothing for a mile or so. Then: "Could I have imagined the

whole thing? Am I delusionary? Or was I delusionary in high school? Maybe my whole two-year sexfest with Skeeter took place entirely inside my own head. It was just tortured, conflicted, wishful thinking."

"Not according to what Skeeter was saying Tuesday night when he OD'd on prednisone," I said. "The drug seemed to be working as a truth serum on Skeeter, and the affair was certainly real enough to him then."

"Maybe the prednisone worked as a truth serum, or maybe it made him temporarily insane too, and he was imagining it all."

"Timothy, I can see how you're feeling disoriented and confused at this point, but keep in mind that it's Skeeter who's more likely to be delusionary. His brain was given a ferocious whack by a heavy-duty steroid drug. And I hate to say it, but there's also the possibility of the onset of HIV dementia. I doubt very much that it's you who is mixed up about the past."

Timmy shook his head fiercely, as if to try to loosen a mental ice jam. He moaned, "I don't know!" and then slumped in his seat.

After we'd sped up the Northway another mile, I said, "So where was Skeeter's birthmark?"

Timmy shifted, sat up a little, gazed over at me. "How did you know about that?"

"Skeeter mentioned it Tuesday night while you were out of the hospital room. He mentioned that you were once mighty pleased with that birthmark of his, but he didn't tell me where it was. Where was it?"

Timmy grinned. "I guess I'm not crazy."

"Of course not. Did you really think you were?"

"No. But I am confused, and it helps that you've come up with actual incontrovertible evidence that I'm not hallucinating. It all did happen, and it's Skeeter who's losing his mind. Poor Skeeter."

"So where is it?"

"The birthmark?"

"The birthmark."

"It's on the back of his dick. When it's limp, the birthmark has no particular discernible shape. But when Skeeter's penis is erect, the birthmark is shaped exactly like the state of North Carolina. If it was standing on end, of course."

"I guess you would tend to make a mental note of something like that. Is Skeeter originally from the South?"

"No, he was born in Poughkeepsie and grew up about a mile from our house."

"I'll bet the McCaslins were originally from Dixie. How else to explain this remarkable phenomenon? I think Skeeter should send an inscribed photo of his erection to Jesse Helms."

After a moment, Timmy said, "So if I didn't ruin the first half of Skeeter's adulthood—or if I did but he's actually forgotten all about it, I guess I didn't really have to drag you—drag both of us—into this whole Osborne family morass of murder and intrigue. I didn't have to get you involved, I didn't have to get my foot broken, and I didn't have to get into a situation where I'm maligned and abused by Dale Kot-lowicz every time I'm in the room with that merciless, unrelenting, sarcastic harpie."

"Much of what you say is true, Timothy, although I'm confident your opinion of Dale will go up once the air has been cleared on your alleged transgression. Surely it's all a simple misunderstanding. So, are you removing me from the Osborne case? Am I fired? Shall we drive past Edensburg and up to Montreal for a relaxed weekend of jazz and French food and afternoon strolls along the waterfront?"

"Of course not. Jeez. Janet is depending on us now. And so is Mrs. Osborne. And even—other people."

"Dale."

"Yes, Dale too. Dale, Dale, Dale, Dale."

He shifted in his seat again, careful not to get conked on the head by his crutches.

I'd phoned Eden County Air Service from Albany. The pilot who had taken Eric and Skeeter up the previous April to scatter Tom Osborne's ashes over the Adirondacks was away for the day, ferrying a canoe-company executive to Rochester and back. He was expected in around 11:30 p.m., so Timmy and I had time for a sandwich at a diner near the Edensburg airport before we met the charter pilot on his late-evening arrival.

The pilot, a placid, alert-looking man in his late twenties, remembered Eric and Skeeter well—he'd known the Osbornes by reputation for years—and when I told him I was working for Janet, he told me how much he respected and admired her and the Herald. Then he went on to tell me everything he knew about the April excursion.

The pilot did recall the "glitter" of the ashes as they drifted down toward the forest just after sunrise on April 4th. He said he had spread ashes on three previous occasions for other mourners and had never seen ashes sparkle before. He said both Skeeter and Eric seemed as surprised as he was by the glittering display.

The pilot also told us, in answer to a question of mine, that Dan Osborne had—a month or so after the dispersal of the ashes—tracked the pilot down, questioned him about the scattering of the ashes, and paid him to fly Dan over the precise spot where the ashes had been tossed from the plane.

The pilot had done so and had, at Dan's request, marked the area on a topographical map where the ashes would likely have landed in the forest. Because of the relatively low flying altitude of about 1,500 feet, as well as the calm air that day, the probable landing area for the ashes could be narrowed down to about three square miles. Dan had told the pilot he was interested in the ashes' location "for sentimental reasons," which the pilot had had no reason to disbelieve. The pilot helpfully provided me with a map showing the area he had directed Dan to, about twelve miles west of Edensburg.

22

It was close to one a.m. when Timmy and I returned to Maple Street, and while the rest of the neighborhood was dark, the Osborne house was ablaze with light. A police patrol car was parked in front of the house, with two officers visible in the front seat, their foam coffee cups on the dashboard.

Inside the house, I was relieved to find that Mrs. Osborne was safe and had gone to bed, and that Janet and Dale were safe and still up; I wanted to recruit them for an expedition early the next morning to visit the three square miles of mountainside west of Edensburg where I was certain we would find Dan Osborne combing the woods for the $16 million worth of jewels, and where we could use our knowledge of Dan's aiding and abetting a felony to extract from him answers to questions about the sale of the Herald, Eric's murder, and Dan's hypersensitive stomach.

Janet and Dale, however, were not alone on the back porch. "Don, Timmy, I want you to meet Lee Ann Stasiowski," Janet said, and introduced us to the woman who had stuck her head in Janet's office door with a message from Dale the day before. Lee Ann was a tiny, hazel-eyed middle-aged woman with a gray-blond pixie cut, a reporter's notebook in one hand and a bottle of Sam Adams in the other. She was the Herald's reporter, Janet told us, who had once covered police and the courts and now wrote about business. Lee Ann had been reporting in recent months—in a circumspect way—on the Herald's own financial difficulties and impending sale to a chain.

"And now," Janet said, "it's time for Lee Ann to prepare a story on the latest developments in the situation—that is, attempts on the lives

of pro-Griscomb family members and a developing connection between the sale of the paper and Eric's murder."

Lee Ann said, "I'm amazed to hear about all this wild stuff. Well, I'm amazed and I'm not so amazed."

This exercise in aggressive good journalism struck me as premature and maybe reckless. I said, "I don't know. Is this for Sunday's paper or Monday's?"

"It's for later," Janet said. "It'll run sometime next week, or the week after—whenever Lee Ann's got the entire story, including who's been arrested for murder and/or attempted murder."

"What I'm gathering right now," Lee Ann said, "is background, most of which I'm getting from Janet and Dale. I'm also—on Janet's excellent suggestion—using your involvement in the case, Don, as an excuse to grill Osborne family members on Eric's murder. I'm telling any Osborne I talk to that since a private detective is investigating them, I'm reporting on his activities as much as I am any possible family connection to Eric's death. That way they'can vent about you—and, believe me, they do, they do—and at the same time I can ask them, almost in passing, where they were on the morning Eric was murdered, and do they have an alibi, should they need one."

Dale said, "Cagey, huh?"

"Very clever," Timmy said. "Good for you, Janet."

"It was Dale's idea," Janet said. "Chester and June are both fuming, naturally. And Stu Torkildson called me a couple of hours ago and said he would never dream of interfering in the editorial side of the paper, and if he did, at least three Osbornes would be spinning in their graves. But wasn't it likely, Stu suggested in his oleaginous, vaguely threatening way, that Lee Ann's investigation at this point might spook Info-Com or Griscomb or any other potential buyer, and the family might get left in the lurch altogether?"

"Torkildson took that line with me too," I said. "What did you tell him?"

"That the news is the news," Janet said, "and the Herald reports the news. Stu didn't see it that way, but it's not my impression that when Lee Ann's story is set, Stu will hurl himself bodily into the presses to sabotage the run. That's not the way he operates."

"How does he operate?" I said.

"Legally. He's greedy and he's cunning, but Stu comes from a Glens

Falls family that's produced judges and brain surgeons and even some honest politicians, and his name and reputation mean as much to him as money does. So I don't think he'll interfere. But Stu will bear watching, of course," Janet said, and we all agreed solemnly with that.

I asked Lee Ann which Osbornes she had interviewed and what she had learned.

"I just got started around five this afternoon," she said, "so I've only seen three so far. June and Dick Puderbaugh had plenty of opinions– about the Herald's editorial page, about the paper's future ownership, and about you, Don—but nothing that sounded to me especially useful in the murder investigation. They both had alibis that could easily be checked out. Dick spent the morning, he said, in his office with his secretary and bookkeeper, as he does every weekday morning. And June was at the art museum with Parson and Evangeline Bates helping hang the canoes-at-sunrise show.

"I had trouble getting Chester to talk to me at all. I called his home, and he answered, and I described to him as best I could the story I was working on. But he kept interrupting and telling me how irresponsible it would be for me to be quoting slanderous statements from family members and from people he called 'outsiders.' My conversation with Chester was also confusing and hard to sort out because all the time Chester was talking, I could hear Pauline yelling at him and carrying on something awful in the background."

"What "was she yelling?" I asked. "Could you make it out?"

"Not much of it," Lee Ann said. "Sometimes she just seemed to be screaming uncontrollably. But I could decipher a word or sentence now and then. I caught, 'She's your fucking mother!' and something about 'fucking muddy feet!' And once I'm sure she yelled, 'I ought to get another gun and blow your fucking brains out!' My impression was, Pauline had had a few drinks."

I said, "Chester must have taken the gun she waved at me away from her. Which was a good idea. So you were only able to interview Chester on the phone?"

Lee Ann chugged from her beer bottle and said, "No, he actually agreed to meet me. He said his nephew was visiting and the television was on loud at his place—as if he lived in a studio apartment—so he said he'd meet me at nine at the Herald, which he did. He sounded real rattled, and I kept remembering all those stories about Chester's

violent temper, which I've never seen. But he showed up on time, and we talked in the conference room after he shut the door with a do not disturb sign he wrote and taped on the outside."

"Who would the nephew be?" I asked Janet. She looked back at me blankly.

"My impression was that was just a line," Lee Ann said. "The 'noisy television' was Pauline hollering, and Chester wanted to get the hell out of there. And I think also that he wanted to get me alone, in the flesh, so he could make a lot of veiled and unveiled threats that would make me back off the story."

"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