see you too.' She looked like an Osborne, big and open-faced and handsome, but with a tightness in her manner that was accentuated by a snood on the back of her head that suggested not so much provincial respectability as cerebral strangulation.
'Well, if it isn't the Herald's esteemed editor in chief!' the man in the boater hooted in a nasal baritone. He had on white slacks and a seersucker jacket, like a member of a barbershop quartet, and behind his spectacles he had a twinkle in one gray eye. The other eye looked appalled.
Janet handled the introductions all around, naming me but not my occupation. June watched me suspiciously, and Parson Bates, the man in the straw hat, grinned smarmily and said, 'Donald, may I be so bold as to inquire if you are-as you appear to be-a New York-uh?'
'Be so bold, Parson,' Dale said, but Bates ignored her.
'I live in Albany,' I said, 'which I'm afraid is where people usually say I appear to be from.'
'Oh, that other big city!' June said, her eyes bugging out in genial mock alarm.
'Are you up our way to take the waters?' Bates said, chortling.
'But there are no waters here,' Dale said. 'This is the desert.'
Janet said, 'Donald is working for me for a period of time. He's in Edensburg in a professional capacity, Parson.'
'Oh, yet another wretched scrivener!' Bates sputtered gaily out of one side of his mouth, and his twinkly eye twinkled and his other eye maintained its gorgonlike stare.
'Don's a private investigator,' Janet said, and we all watched June's face change expression a dozen times in fast forward.
Bates said, 'Gadzooks!'
'It has to do with Eric's murder,' Janet said. 'And another situation that's come up.'
'What on Earth is that?' June said.
'Attempts on my life.'
'Oh, Janet, no!' June clutched her head carefully.
Janet described the Jet Ski attacks of the previous week and of that afternoon, not mentioning anyone's suspicions that the attacks might be connected to the conflict over future ownership of the Herald.
'I would venture to opine,' Bates said, 'that such a matter might properly fall within the province of law enforcement. Would it not?'
'The sheriffs department has been notified,' Janet said. 'I take it, June, that no one has come after you or threatened you recently.'
'Me? Lord, no! Why in heaven's name would anyone?'
'Indeed!' Bates said, in high dudgeon at the very idea.
'Well, Eric was killed and now it looks as if somebody is trying to kill me. Maybe somebody has it out for some of the Osbornes-I don't know. That's why I've hired Don. To find out.'
Dale said, 'Actually, three of us hired Don to investigate Eric's murder and the Jet Ski attacks. Janet is one of the three, I'm another, and the third client of Don's is his own boyfriend, Timothy Callahan, who's an old boyfriend of Eldon McCaslin. In fact, Timothy was injured in the incident at the lake today, and he's over at Eden County right now having a broken foot set.'
June stared at me, working hard but not hard enough to keep from looking queasy, and said nonsensically, 'How nice.'
Parson Bates's look had darkened, and he started to speak but then appeared to think better of it, and his mouth clamped shut.
'We're going to have to lay this all out for Mom,' Janet said, 'as much as I dread upsetting her. How is she today?'
'Oh, she's-Mom,' June said, affecting nonchalance, although her snood constricted perceptibly. 'Now, has Chester been notified about your hiring an investigator?' June asked.
'No, not yet.'
'Chester will want to know.'
'Why don't you go ahead and fill him in, June? I've already spoken to Dan and Arlene. We're just coming from their place.'
'Oh, I'll be glad to. And of course Dick. Frankly, Janet, I'm surprised none of us was consulted before you hired an investigator to start rummaging around in the family's affairs.' She gave me a chilly smile. 'I'm sure you're extremely well qualified, Mr. Strachey, don't get me wrong. But, do you understand what I'm saying?'
I said, 'No, I don't.'
June flinched, and Bates gallantly stepped forward to deal with this damnable insolence. 'June was referring to the fact and the idea of discretion,' Bates harrumphed. 'It is a virtue that is rapidly disappearing from American life, where, thanks to the dominance of a vulgar and conscienceless electronic media, just about every citizen's bedroom and toilet habits are fodder for open and casual discourse. There are those persons, however, who bravely resist this social and moral degradation. June Osborne, I can state without fear of contradiction, is one of those good persons.'
June looked apprehensive over Bates's confrontational style, if not, I guessed, his sentiments. Janet and Dale both peered at me poker-faced and waited.
I said, 'You've missed the point, Parson. Number one, I'm not Diane Sawyer or Larry King. I'm a private-let me emphasize private-investigator. The results of my inquiries are seen only by my clients, two of whom in this case are members of the Osborne family.' June looked as if she didn't like the sound of that, and Bates, picking up on my reference to Dale as an Osborne, glowered theatrically.
'Secondly,' I went on, 'I'm interested in peering into Osborne family bedrooms and toilets-your linkage, not mine, Mr. Bates-only insofar as either might shed light on Eric's murder and the recent attacks on Janet. A more general rattling of family skeletons is not what I'm aiming at. Doing that would be-yes, I wholeheartedly agree-rude and indiscreet.' June's look softened a bit, but Bates, apparently anticipating a trap, still gave me the fish eye.
I said, 'But the question I want to ask you, June, is this: Why do you believe my investigating your brother Eric's murder and these apparent attempts on Janet's life would necessarily lead me into Osborne family affairs?'
'Oh,' she said, and then had to think about this. 'I didn't mean to say that you'd be probing into the entire family's affairs. Just Eric's and Janet's.'
'But Eric is dead and Janet is my client, so what's the problem?'
June just stared at me, but Bates came to her rescue again in what seemed to be the only way he knew: He perspired energetically in his seersucker jacket-the temperature had to be in the mid-eighties-and he puffed himself up and fumed. 'Osborne family matters are intertwined,' Bates declared. 'An investigation into the affairs of any one Osborne necessarily will impinge upon the business of other family members for whom discretion may be valued highly. The situation is not nearly so simple as you are making it out to be, Mr. Strachey. It is complex and demands attention to the opinions of others.'
Dale said, 'What do you mean the 'business' of other family members, Parson?'
'I don't catch your drift.'
'You said an investigation into the affairs of any one Osborne necessarily will impinge upon the 'business' of other family members. By business, do you mean the Herald?'
'Not the Herald in particular,' Bates sniffed. 'Have you drawn that inference? Be assured, no such implication was intended.'
Janet said, 'The thing of it is, Parson, that with Eric dead and if I were dead, it's almost certain that the Herald would be sold to Crewes-InfoCom and not Griscomb. So anybody investigating Eric's murder and attempts on my life would naturally want to look into the family business and its current turmoil. Catch my drift?'
Now June bridled. 'Janet, what do you mean by that?'
'I mean that the people with a motive to see me and Eric dead are the people who want to sell the Herald to InfoCom and the people at InfoCom who want to buy the paper. If you were the investigator and you were considering motives to murder Eric and me, isn't that what you would look at first?'
'But, my lord, Janet! Can you seriously consider that someone in the family would ever do such a thing?' June looked aghast as she said this, and then something seemed to hit her, and she looked aghast a second time.
