Free Chain of Fools by Richard Stevenson

the museum together."
    I said, "Has Bates ever been known to turn violent?"
    "Not physically," Janet said. "Anyway, I know he's ambivalent about the Herald's being sold to InfoCom He's loyal to June and he'd love to see the paper's liberal traditions interred, but he also hates ruthless, amoral big business. So it's hard to imagine Parson involved in a plot to do away with me or Dan or Mom. On the other hand, it's also true that Parson and Eric couldn't stand each other "
    "They fought?"
    "Avoided each other, mainly. Eric had no patience with the way Parson used nature in his writing to support his prejudices, including a raging homophobia that's just barely under wraps. And Parson was jealous, I think, of Eric's talent and success as a nature writer. Also, Eric's and Eldon's being casually out as a couple drove Parson gaga. He was always fuming to people about them—an affront to nature, and all that. Dale and me he tolerates more easily. First of all, we're women, and not to be taken so seriously as men. Also, I think, he sees us as a 'Boston marriage,' one of those nineteenth-century eccentric institutions even
    the religious Emersonians made room for in their expansive universe. But two men together? The horror, the horror."
    Dale was about to add something to this when the side door of the Osborne house opened again, and a stout, middle-aged woman in powder-blue slacks and a peach-colored blouse came out and, looking distressed, called Janet's name.
    "Elsie, hi, we'll be right in. How's Mom?"
    "Not good. You'll see as soon as you get in here. She's not good."
    "What's the matter?" Janet said, looking alarmed.
    "It's her mind," Elsie said, tapping the side of her head with her finger. We followed Janet quickly into the big house.
    7
     
    The woman seated in a bay-window breakfast nook just off the kitchen looked up at us and smiled uncertainly but did not get up. In her early eighties, Ruth Osborne was still tall and sturdy looking—"statuesque" in the parlance of her young adulthood—with sun-bronzed rough hands and a long face with large curious eyes, as in a painting of a Bloomsbury figure. She had a big head of Gravel Gertie hair and "wore a shapeless green shift. Lying alongside, but not on, her bare feet were a pair of worn leather sandals.
    "Hi, Mom," Janet said, and kissed her mother on the cheek. "How are you doing? Dale and I brought a friend along."
    Mrs. Osborne looked at Dale without apparent recognition and then at me. As Mrs. Osborne studied me, Dale leaned down, kissed her on the cheek, and said, "Hi, Ruth," but the old woman stiffened and looked embarrassed.
    "I'm Don Strachey," I said, and Mrs. Osborne extended her hand, which I grasped. Her skin was dry, her grip firm.
    Without enthusiasm, she said, "I always enjoy meeting my daughter's friends."
    "Don's up from Albany," Janet said. "He's a private investigator down there."
    She took this in, smiling tentatively, and said, "Oh, that's nice." Then she turned and looked out the window. We followed her gaze and all of us peered out at the backyard, where the sun shone down on the freshly mowed lawn and beyond the trees there were shadows.
    "Mrs. Osborne, that's Dale there," Elsie said. Janet had introduced Elsie   Fletcher to   me   on   the   way   in   as   her   mother's   longtime
    housekeeper She said, "You know Dale, don't you? That's Dale there." But Mrs. Osborne did not respond and continued gazing into the backyard.
    "I'm the mouthy one," Dale said. Then Dale looked at me. "Ruth and I always hit it off," she said, "on account of we're both—as people around Edensburg like to call it—'outspoken.' If we hadn't seen eye to eye on so many things, we'd probably have strangled each other."
    I said lamely, "I'll bet."
    Ruth Osborne was now somewhere else, and when Janet said, "Mom?" she got no response.
    "We'll be back in a few minutes, Mom," Janet said, and indicated for us to follow her.
    Dale, Elsie, and I went with Janet down a dim,