Chain of Fools - Stevenson Richard - Страница 21

"They are, aren't they?" Now he was alert.

"Three generations of American overachievers."

"I'd put it at about two-and-a-half," Stankie said. "And the fourth generation you can pretty much forget about."

"I haven't met any of the fourth generation yet."

"And chances are, you won't."

"Why's that?"

He eyed me grimly. "Dick and June Puderbaugh have two boys, Titus—he's called Tidy—and Frederick, who's better known as Tacker. Tacker left town four years ago, no loss to Edensburg. He was an aimless, slow-witted boy who always seemed to be in the vicinity of trouble—one of his best buddies is doing time at Ossining for dealing coke in a school zone. The last I heard of Tacker, he was a beach bum in Fiji or someplace out in the South Seas.

"Tidy, the older boy, is here in town, and theoretically he practices law, but if he's ever had a client, I couldn't tell you who it would be. Tidy and three other nicely manicured, underemployed youths with fat trust funds spend seven afternoons a week in an alcove off the grillroom at the Edensburg Country Club, where they have their own table for an ongoing bridge game. The only way you'll get to meet Tidy is by crashing his game or by ambushing him when he's on his way in or out of his condo at Pleasant Meadow Estates.

"Tidy lives out there in an apartment that adjoins the condo of Ann Marie Consolati, who runs a body-waxing and electrolysis hair-removal parlor in town. I've been reliably informed by a friend in the construction business that there's a hidden door that opens between Tidy's clothes closet and Ann Marie's—even though Tidy has been engaged to Debbie Stockton, the boat-cushion heiress, for six years. And I can also tell you—although I cannot divulge my source of information on this point—that Tidy Puderbaugh does not have a single hair on his body from the neck down."

Stankie colored a little as he mentioned this eccentrically lubricious detail and cracked a droll little smile. Then, looking instantly somber again, he said, "Tacker's a sad loser, and Tidy is ineffectual and a little bit comical, but Chester and Pauline Osborne's son, Craig, should not be taken lightly at all. Craig Osborne is highly intelligent, shrewd as they come, and altogether ruthless. He's in Attica doing twenty-five to life for killing a guard in a diamond heist last year. Before that, Craig had a record as long as your arm for robberies and assaults and god-knows-what-all, going back to when he was just twelve years old. Craig Osborne, I can tell you, is a thirty-year-old man with no moral conscience whatsoever, and I'd say he is capable of just about anything."

Stankie stopped talking and looked at me again—as if I were somehow supposed to supply the point of his discourse on Tacker, Tidy,

and Craig. I said, "Craig couldn't possibly have been Eric's killer, could

he?"

Stankie shook his head and kept watching me. "Nunh-unh," he

said.

"When was Craig sent up?"

"December tenth, and he'd been in custody since June of last year, when he was wounded in a shoot-out at the jewel heist in Tarrytown." He looked at me some more.

"Why are you telling me this?" I finally said.

Stankie leaned forward and said quietly, "Eric Osborne was a fine young man."

"That's what I keep hearing."

"If Grubb didn't kill him, I want the man who did kill him apprehended."

"Good."

He said, "A snitch at Attica reported that Craig Osborne talked about Eric's death and said there was more to it than the investigators knew." Stankie was motionless, but now he seemed to be watching two things: me and the door behind me, which opened into an outer office and was ajar.

Stankie said, "This got back to me through channels, and I asked that the snitch press for details. He claimed to the warden out there that he wasn't able to pry anything else out of Osborne."

"That's too bad," I said. "Maybe it was just talk, a sociopath's braggadocio."

"That could be. But Craig said one other thing to the snitch that might give you pause. It did me. On one occasion, Craig was talking about Eric's murder and how there was more to it than the investigation had turned up, and he made a crack to the snitch about his own murder conviction and how, 'Anyway, offing people runs in the Osborne family.' Those were the words he used: 'Offing people runs in the Osborne family.' "

"I've heard about a tendency toward violence in some Watsons and Osbornes. But the jewel guard's was the only actual homicide by an Osborne, according to Janet."

"It's the only one I know of," Stankie said. "Of course, Chester, Craig's father, has a couple of assaults in his record—or did, before they were erased."

"I heard about that too. And I've met Chester. He's creepy enough."

"There's an Osborne intrafamily fight going on," Stankie said in a matter-of-fact way. "It's over the ownership of the Herald. Eight million dollars is at stake, plus, of course, the paper's reputation. You're up-to-date on that, I take it."

"I am."

"And the ins and outs of the upcoming board of directors' vote, and how Eric's death means one less vote for selling the Herald to a quality newspaper chain at a loss to the family of eight million dollars."

"Funny you should mention that, Captain. It's exactly the angle on this whole thing—Eric's murder and the two Jet Ski attacks—that a number of people close to the situation are currently considering." I said, "Are Craig and his father close?"

"They seem not to be," Stankie said. "In fact, Chester disowned Craig a long time ago. But I can tell you confidentially, Mr. Strachey, that Chester Osborne has visited Craig in Attica twice in the past five months, once just before Eric's death in mid-May, and again on June fourteenth."

"I see. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me confidentially, Captain?"

"No. Just that I can't carry the Osborne-family angle of the investigation any further than I have. I can't question Craig without betraying the Attica snitch, who is considered too valuable an asset for the warden out there to transfer. I can't question Chester because I have no evidence whatsoever connecting anybody but Gordon Grubb to Eric's murder, and Chester is liable to accuse me of spreading false rumors about himself and the Puderbaughs. He'll have some State Street lawyer down in Albany visiting the commissioner and threatening to sue me for slander." Again, he waited.

"So what do you expect me to do?" I said. "The investigative work of the New York State Police?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of hoping you will," he said. "Of course, I can't be of any assistance to you, or be associated with your work in any way. Until, of course, you nail that arrogant asshole Chester Osborne. Then I'll see he's strung up real good."

"Oh, so you know Chester pretty well then?"

"We went to school together," Stankie said. "We played on the same varsity hockey team for three seasons, in fact—until the day at prac-

tice when I checked Chester for the third time that afternoon and he turned around and pounded me in the face with his stick so hard that he knocked all my teeth out."

Stankie opened his mouth and popped out a double set of dentures, uppers and lowers.

12

Stu Torkildson and Chester Osborne kept me waiting in Torkildson's outer office ten minutes past our 9:30 appointment time, giving me a chance to peruse that day's Herald. I looked over the thoughtful mix for which the Herald was esteemed—national and international news from The New York Times and Washington Post-L.A. Times news services, clearly written and carefully edited local stories on matters that affected people's lives, editorial and op-ed pages with commentaries that were both serious and lively. Parson Bates's column, "Our Eden," ran that day too. In it, Bates attacked the "multicultural-ist" Tex-Mex items cropping up in recent months on the menus of so many local restaurants. He wrote that he couldn't understand why people wanted to eat food that made their necks sweat. Public neck sweating was put forth as yet another symptom of the nation's moral rot.