Chain of Fools Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
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    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,"