Chain of Fools - Stevenson Richard - Страница 6

Most of the Osbornes loathed the Republican president that one of the Herald's 1986 editorials referred to as "an amiable blowfish," as they did "the country-club piranhas who swarmed in his wake." But the Spruce Haven design won prizes for both its esthetics and its uncompromising environmental sensitivity. And if cashing in on the Reagan boom could protect the paper's traditions against the general ongoing dumbing down of American journalism—now often combined with advertising and public relations in a watery porridge called "communications"—then it made sense to borrow the $16 million the family would need to see the project through and plunge boldly into the new millennium.

Tom Osborne, exhausted and near death from liver cancer, reluctantly endorsed Spruce Haven, as did Ruth, June, Chester, and even Dan. Janet and Eric voted no—they argued that the idea might be sound, but the size of the loan was too risky. And when the Reagan boom went bust, it turned out that Eric and Janet had been right. The customers didn't come—there was no theme park, no casino, no Frank, no Liza—and the resort consistently ran at a third of its capacity and lost money. The Boston bank that had loaned the Osbornes the $16 million got fed up with late or nonexistent mortgage payments and finally declared that if the family company refused to sell its assets—including the still-profitable Herald—then the bank would seize those assets and sell them to the highest bidder.

That's what had led to the family's decision to sell Spruce Haven for whatever amount they might squeeze out of it—a few million had been the broker's prediction, and it was accurate—and to sell the Herald to

either (a) the highest bidder, no matter how sleazy the buyer or (b) the bidder most likely to keep the Osbornes running the paper or, failing that, likely to retain the large, excellent staff and maintain the paper's ever-fussy journalistic high standards and unreconstructedly liberal editorial page.

In early March, Crewes-InfoCom, whose reputation was for stripping newspapers and reducing them to little more than shoppers' guides, made an offer that would have left the Osbornes, after taxes, with roughly $8 million to divide. A week later, Harry Griscomb Newspapers, a Portland, Oregon, chain, offered several million less; in selling to Griscomb, the Osbornes -would escape with only a few hundred thousand dollars after paying off the bank and the Internal Revenue Service. Harry Griscomb, however, saw the Herald as a treasure of American journalism whose traditions he vowed to uphold, and for several of the surviving Osbornes that promise was worth more than money. Several other offers fell in between InfoCom's and Griscomb's, all of them from chains whose journalistic standards ranged from the elastic to the unlocatable.

Janet, Dan, Ruth, and Eric planned to vote for selling the Herald to Harry Griscomb. June and Chester were for Crewes-Infocom. The deadline for bids had been August 1, with a sale deadline of September 10 imposed by the Spruce Haven mortgager, which was itself in trouble and itching for its money.

Then on May 15, Eric was killed, by a deranged drifter, police believed. In his will, Eric left his personal belongings and cash assets to his lover, Eldon McCaslin, with his share in the paper—which could be transferred only to another family member—going to his mother. But the company by-laws said no member of the board of directors got more than one vote, so after Eric's death the pro-good-chain margin dropped from 4 to 2 down to 3 to 2. If somehow Janet, Dan, or Ruth died or became too incapacitated to participate, the board would be split, and—with the by-laws requiring that the size of the board never fall below five members—a fifth member would be added to break the tie. The antiquated board rules stipulated that the new member must be the eldest offspring of the eldest third-generation Osborne. Eric and Janet had had no children; Janet and Dale were planning either to adopt a child or for Dale to bear one, but that hadn't happened yet. So if a new member were to come on to the Herald's board of

directors, it would be June's attorney son, Titus—or "Tidy," as he was known around Edensburg. And, as his mother had made plain, he would vote to sell the paper to Crewes-InfoCom, the bad chain.

Therefore, Janet told us, it was critical to the Edensburg Herald's future that she and Dan and Ruth Osborne survive at least until September 8—when the board of directors' vote was scheduled—with their hearts beating and their faculties intact.

4

He came tear-assing out of a cove about a mile up that way," Dale Kotlowicz said, gesturing dramatically, "and zoomed straight at Janet, as if he was some heat-seeking missile and Janet was an F-l6's jet exhaust."

"When he was closing in, I heard him coming and took a quick look," Janet said, "and then dived deep, and when I surfaced he'd made a sharp U and was headed straight at me a second time. I waved like crazy—at first I figured the numbskull just wasn't paying attention— and when he just kept coming, I dived again, straight down and kicking hard, and I was saying to myself, 'Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic'"

Janet was tall and rawboned, like all the Osbornes I'd seen in Herald photos, so it was hard to imagine a Jet Skier not noticing her big head and long arms, even at dusk, especially a second time. We were standing at the end of the wooden dock behind the Osborne lodge on Stilton Lake where Janet and Dale lived. Dale was smaller and probably ten years younger than Janet and was topped by what looked like ten or fifteen pounds of black-and-gray tight curls. And inasmuch as both Janet and Dale radiated alertness, strength, and blunt intelligence, it made sense that anyone daring to attack either of them could only hope to get away with it with the help of high-horsepower machinery.

"And then," Dale said, "the asshole turned around and came barrel-assing back a third time, and that's when I ran out from the porch and started screaming, 'You dumb son of a bitch! You dumb son of a bitch!'"

"But by then I'd gotten the picture," Janet said, "that either the guy was blind and couldn't see me or—what it actually looked like—his

eyesight was perfect and he meant to run me over. So the third time I dived I took a deep breath first and just headed back for the dock underwater. I didn't come up until I saw these pilings on my right. And by then, Dale was down here yelling her head off and the guy had doubled back again and was gone, back around the bend."

Timmy said, "How far did you have to swim underwater?"

"She was sixty or eighty feet out, for chrissakes!" Dale said. "If that maniac had hit her, I don't know if I could have gotten out there in time to drag her back—assuming she hadn't been killed by the impact and gone straight to the bottom "

"I know the water here," Janet said, "and my lung capacity is probably better than the average forty-six-year-old's. But I'll tell you, I was damn shaky when I climbed out of the water that night. The thing is, the one time I caught a quick glimpse of the guy's face, he seemed to be looking right at me. And he didn't look confused; he looked mean and purposeful."

I said, "Had the sun set yet? Is it possible the setting sun was shining directly in his eyes and the look on his face that you saw was actually some combination of disorientation and fear?"

Dale gave me a "duh" look. "Donald, do you think the sun might have been jumping back and forth from one side of the lake to the other? The guy went after Janet three times "