The lawyer looked at me carefully and said, 'That kid has always been an asshole, and I'm sure he'll be looking for a way out of the deep pile of shit he's in now. But nobody in his right mind is going to accept some dopehead beach bum's word over Chester Osborne's.'
'Tacker's mother might,' I said. The lawyer looked bleak. The thought of tangling with June could not have made him look forward to the dawn. Chester looked somber too, and his face didn't brighten when I added, 'Pauline Osborne has some additional pertinent information ' I asked the DA, 'Are you going to be talking to her?'
'Sure,' the young woman said. 'Although I understand Mr. Osborne has initiated commitment proceedings against his wife on the grounds that she is a danger to herself and to others Mr. Osborne just informed me that a hearing is likely on Monday '
'Yes,' Osborne's lawyer said, 'it's unlikely that this tragically disturbed lady will have anything to say that could be used in anybody's investigation You've visited with her, I understand. You can see that she's well around the bend '
Timmy, Lee Ann, and I stared at Chester, who stood looking at us with no expression at all.
I said, 'Chester, what are you planning on doing? Having all the Osborne women who won't let you have your way locked up?'
He said, 'I would if I could.' But then his lawyer signaled for Chester to say no more, and they left
24
Dan and Arlene had leased a Range Rover to replace the one damaged when they'd been run off the road. I found the vehicle parked at the edge of an old logging trail on the mountainside where the ashes and diamonds had rained down in April. Their tent had been set up nearby, and their cooking fire appeared freshly doused when I discovered the campsite just after seven Saturday morning. I knew the tent was theirs because several items of clothing hanging on a branch looked like Arlene's, and the tent smelled of pot.
Neither Dan nor Arlene was present at the camp, and I tramped around in the nearby woods for the next hour without locating them- or finding millions of dollars' worth of jewels in the underbrush-before I wised up and hiked back to the campsite to await Dan and Arlene's inevitable return.
When I heard them approaching just after ten, I was inside the tent sitting on a campstool, trying to read Dan's copy of The Autumn of the Patriarch. It was in the original Spanish, but I grasped a word here and there: si, no, nada, muerto, etc.
'Yo, Dan. Hey there, Arlene,' I yelled, and Arlene shrieked. 'Hey, it's just me-Strachey.'
The tent flap was flung aside, and Dan stood there glaring and breathing hard. As Arlene came up behind him and leaned down to get a glimpse of the intruder, Dan snorted at me, 'What the fuck are you doing here!'
'Reading your book. I hope you don't mind. I saved your page. And I want you to know, I'm impressed. I couldn't even get through this one in English, and I'm a big Garcia Marquez fan.'
'Get out of my tent, goddamn it!'
I carefully replaced the novel where I'd found it on the ground cloth next to the double sleeping bag. Dan backed away as I came out into the dappled sunlight. The forest aroma was enchanting after the musty tent smell, but Dan's demeanor-I wondered if he might be going to heave again-meant this would be no time for enchantment.
'Why, Don,' Arlene drawled, giving me a forced look of hippie insouciance, 'how did you know — where to look for us? We were just up here in the woods chilling out for a couple days, and you knew right where to look. That is so weird!'
'I got the map from the charter pilot,' I said, and Arlene screamed again. Dan began to retch and staggered off behind some brush.
'Be careful not to puke on the diamonds!' I yelled, and then he really let loose.
Arlene started to follow Dan, but then thought better of it.
I said, 'Did he throw up in Cuba too?'
'Some from the turista,' she said. 'But mostly we just got diarrhea.'
'Ahh.'
When Dan quieted down, Arlene went to him with a bottle of water. I waited while he attended to his oral hygiene. They both came back a minute later, Dan wan and shaky, bits of his breakfast in his beard.
'I think we need to air some things out,' I said.
'I'll get you a clean T-shirt,' Arlene told Dan, but he looked at me and he knew what needed airing.
After he changed his shirt, Dan lowered himself to the pine-needled forest floor and leaned against a tree. Arlene and I sat on the two camp stools.
'I talked to Craig,' I said. 'I talked to the charter pilot. I drew conclusions. I knew to talk to the pilot because your mother discovered that your father's ashes were missing from the urn. If Eric had replaced the ashes with something more human-remains-like than cornmeal, your mother might never have noticed the loss. And none of us would have figured out what happened to the jewels.'
Exhaustedly, Dan said, 'I put the cornmeal in the urn. Eric had just left it empty. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.'
'God, I don't know either,' Arlene said. 'You put cornmeal in your father's urn? That gives me the creeps.'
'You didn't know about the jewels?' I asked Arlene.
His strength coming back now, Dan snapped, 'Arlene didn't know anything until yesterday! So don't go goddamn dragging her into anything. I didn't tell her about the robbery until we got out here, and by then you must have heard about it from Craig, so Arlene was really the last to know and she can't be legally implicated in any way. So just goddamn leave Arlene out of it'
'Sometimes it pisses me off that with Dan I'm always the last one to know anything,' Arlene said. 'But this time I guess I lucked out. Although, when you come right down to it, Dan didn't really do anything so terrible, and I sure hope the cops aren't going to hassle him. I mean, he didn't even know about the heist until the jewels came in the mail from Craig. By then, I mean, what difference did it make, since those oil sheiks have got diamonds up the wazoo anyway? Dan just thought, hey, he may as well put the jewels to good use and save the Herald, and also Craig could get even with his big asshole dad, Chester. So I certainly hope the cops aren't going to make some big fucking deal out of what Dan did.'
I looked at Dan, and he glanced at me, and he knew I knew he'd been in on it from the beginning. I said, 'It's over, Dan. It's all coming out now. There's no way it can't'
Dan looked away into the woods. Maybe he still thought he'd spot a diamond.
Arlene said, 'What's he mean by that, Dan?' He wouldn't look at her or me. She said, 'What else is there to come out? What's Don talking about?'
There was a silence, and then Dan said, 'Arlene, I need to talk to Strachey privately I know you're going to be pissed off-'
'I sure as hell am gonna be pissed-'
'But take my word for it, Arlene, you'll be better off if you don't know certain things. It's for your own sake, goddamn it!'
'What things don't I know? What? What?' she yelled, eyes blazing.
I said, 'About Eric's murder. Dan knows all about Eric's murder, and he's going to tell me about it, Arlene. Aren't you, Dan?'
Arlene looked aghast and said, 'No.'
Dan sat there and said nothing.
Arlene screamed, then said it again. 'No!'
Dan looked at her and said, 'I killed Eric.'
'You did not!' Arlene shrieked.
'I did, Arlene! I killed Eric!'
'Dan, you've gone over the edge!' Arlene cried out. 'You couldn't have killed Eric, and you know it! You were with me the day Eric was killed, and we were in the city picking up a delivery for Liver!'
