The Sixth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

I took a deep breath.

  “All right, Dr. Thorndecker,” I said, “I appreciate your honesty. But why in hell didn’t you spell all this out in your application? Why did you base it all on that crap about exposing human embryo cells to electromagnetic radiation?”

  “First of all, that was accurate. We intend to do exactly that, in our effort to isolate the X Factor. Second of all, if I had stated in the application that my ultimate aim was to make humans immortal, would the Bingham Foundation even have bothered to process the application, or would it have been immediately consigned to deep six?”

  “You know the answer to that,” I said. “If you had stated your true reason for requesting the subsidy, I wouldn’t be here now.”

  “Of course not,” he said.

  I looked at him in wonderment.

  “So why are you telling me now?” I asked him. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll roll up my tent and go home?”

  “It’s a possibility,” he acknowledged. “You could tell your superiors I misled the Bingham Foundation. I didn’t, of course. But I admit I was not as totally forthright as I might have been. Still, my application is entirely truthful. It is not dishonest.”

  “You draw a fine line,” I told him. I stared at that handsome, brooding face a long time. “And you’re confessing,” I said, still marveling. “Are you that sure of me?”

  “I’m not sure of you at all,” he said, somewhat testily. “But I think you’re a shrewd man. I’m paying you the compliment of not trying to deceive you. You can report this conversation to your superiors or not, as you please. The decision is yours.”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Mr. Todd, I care a great, goddamned deal. That grant is important to me. It’s essential I get it. And it’s vital, as I’m sure you’re aware, to all of Coburn. But as I say, the decision is yours.”

  I drained my plastic cup, struggled out of that creaking armchair.

  “You’re certain,” I said, “that the X Factor, the aging factor, will be found in human body cells and not in the genetic code?”

  He grinned at me. “I’m certain. No one else is.”

  “Dr. Thorndecker, you stated there is hard statistical evidence to back up your belief in the existence of the X Factor in human body cells.”

  “That’s correct; there is.”

  “Could I take a look at it?”

  “Of course,” he said promptly. “It consists not only of my work, but the work of others in this field. I’ll have it collected and prepared for you. It will be ready in a day or so.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s let it go until then. You’ve given me enough to think about for one day.”

  He walked me out onto the second-floor landing, chatting amiably, hand on my shoulder. He held me fast, went on and on about this and that, and I wondered—why the stall? Then I saw his eyes flickering to the lobby below. Sure enough, when the white-jacketed goon-doorman appeared, Thorndecker released my shoulder, shook my hand, told me how much he had enjoyed our palaver—his word: “palaver”—and gave me a smile of super-charm. I was becoming impervious to it. You can endure just so much charm in a given period. After that, it’s like being force-fed a pound of chocolate macaroons.

  I ambled slowly down that sweeping staircase. I was handed my coat and hat. I was ushered out the front door of Crittenden Hall.

  I stood on the graveled driveway a moment, belting my trenchcoat, turning up the collar. Something odd was happening to that day: it was going ghostly on me. There was a cold mist in the air. At the same time, a whitish fog was rolling down.

  Everything was silvered, swathed in the finest chain mail imaginable. It was a metallic mesh, wrapped around the physical world. I could see my car looming, but dimly, dimly, all glitter and glint. Beyond, even dimmer, the bare trunks of trees appeared, disappeared, appeared again, wavery in the hazy light. I could feel the wet on my face, and see it on my black leather coat.

  I heard a weird chonking sound, and turned toward it. Then it became clopping. I heard the whinny of a horse, and out of the shivery mist, coming at a fast trot, rode Julie Thorndecker, sitting astride a big bay gelding. She pulled up alongside me. I stepped back hastily as the horse took a few skittering steps on the gravel, his eyes stretched. Then she quieted him, stroking his neck, whispering to him. I moved closer.

  They had obviously been on a gallop. Steam came drifting from the beast’s flanks and haunches; its breath was one long plume of white. It still seemed excited from the run: pawed the driveway, moved about restlessly, tossed its head. But Mrs. Thorndecker continued her ministering, solid in the English saddle. That was one hell of a horse. From my point of view, it seemed enormous, with a neck that was all glistening muscle, and a mouthful of teeth as big as piano keys.

  Julie was wearing brown boots, whipcord jodhpurs, a creamy flannel shirt, suede jacket, gloves. There was a red silk scarf about her throat: the only splash of color in that somber scene. Her head was not covered, and the mist had matted down her fine hair so that it clung to her skull.

  Before I could say, “Hi,” or “Hello,” or “Does he bite?” she had slipped from the saddle and landed lightly on her feet alongside me. She flipped the reins over the horse’s head, then wrapped them around her hand.

  “You always ride in the rain?” I asked her.

  “It isn’t raining,” she said. “Just dampish. When the ground freezes, and the snow comes, I don’t ride at all. Today was super.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I have to cool him off,” she said. “Take a little walk?”

  “Sure,” I said. “You walk between me and the horse.”

  “Are you afraid of horses?”

  “Lady,” I said, “I’m afraid of cocker spaniels.”

  So off we went, strolling slowly, that great beast following us like an equine chaperon.

  “Have a nice visit?” she asked.

  I hadn’t forgotten that husky voice, that throaty, almost tremulous voice. It still seemed to promise everything a man might desire, and more. I began to warm under my trenchcoat.

  “I like your hat,” she said suddenly.

  “Thanks,” I said, flipping the limp brim at her. “It was made in Ireland, so I suppose it loves weather like this. Might even begin to grow. How long do we walk before that monster cools off?”

  “A few minutes,” she said. “Bored with me already?”

  “No,” I said. “Never,” I vowed.

  She laughed, a deep, shirred chuckle.

  “Aren’t you sweet,” she said.

  “I am,” I acknowledged.

  It seemed to me we were walking down a narrow road of packed earth. On both sides, indistinct in the fog, were the black trunks of winter-stripped trees, with spidery branches almost meeting overhead. It was like walking into a tunnel of smoke: everything gray and swirling. Even the light seemed to pulse: patches of pearl, patches of sweat.

  “Did you have a good visit?” she asked again.

  “Very good.”

  “And did you like what you saw?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Glad to hear it. You had a talk with my husband?”

  “I did. A long talk. A long, interesting talk.”

  “Good,” she said. “Perhaps he’ll forgive me.”

  I turned to look at her. “Oh? For what?”

  “For sending Ronnie Goodfellow to see you. I did that, you know. From the best motives in the world.”

  “I’m sure they were,” I said.

  “You aren’t angry, are you?”

  She stopped, I stopped, the horse stopped. She put a hand on my arm. She came a half-step closer, looked up at me.

  “It won’t hurt Telford, will it?” she breathed. “My sending Ronnie to see if you were settled in? It won’t hurt our chances of getting the grant?”

  That young face was as damp as mine. I remember seeing tiny silver beads of moisture on her long, black lashes. Her cheeks were still flushed from the gallop, and those ripe l
ips seemed perpetually parted, waiting. Everything about her seemed complaisant and yearning. Except the eyes. The eyes were wet stones.

  Why, I wondered, with hard eyes like that, should she seem so peculiarly vulnerable to me? It was her crackly voice, I decided, and the little boy’s hair-do, and the warmth of her hand on my arm, and the loose, free way she moved. The giving way.

  “Of course not,” I said. “You didn’t do anything so awful. As a matter of fact, I liked Goodfellow. No harm done.”

  “Thank you,” she said faintly. “You’ve made me feel a lot better.” She came another half-step closer. “It’s so important, you see. To Telford. To me. To all of us.”

  If, at that moment, she had looked into my eyes, batted her lashes, and murmured, “I’ll do anything to get my husband that grant—anything,” I think I would have burst out laughing. But she wasn’t that obvious. There was just the warm hand on my arm, the two half-steps toward me, the implied intimacy in that furry scene of smoke, lustrous mist, shadowy trees, and a steaming horse making snorting noises behind us and beginning to paw impatiently at the earth.

  We turned back, slowly. We walked a few minutes in silence. She hauled on the reins with both hands until the gelding’s head was practically over her shoulder. She reached up to stroke that velvety nose.

  “You darling,” she said. “Darling.”

  I didn’t know if she meant the horse or me. But then, at that moment, I suspected I might be happy.

  We were about halfway back to the Hall when faintly, from far off, I heard the cry, “Julie! Julie!” Dimmed by distance, muffled by fog, that wailed cry stopped us dead in our tracks. It seemed to come from everywhere, almost howled, distorted: “Joo-lee! Joo-lee!” We looked around in the tunnel, trying to determine the direction. “Joo-lee! Joo-lee!” Louder now.

  Then, first a drifting shade, then a dark presence, and then a figure wavering in the putty light, came running Edward Thorndecker. He pounded up to us, stood accusingly, hands on waist, chest heaving.

  “Where were you?” he demanded of his stepmother. “You didn’t come back from your ride and, my God, I was so worried! I thought you might have been thrown. Hurt. Killed! Julie, you’ve got to—”

  “Edward,” she interrupted sweetly, putting a hand on his arm (the same goddamned hand that had been on my arm!), “say hello to Mr. Todd.”

  “Hello, Mr. Todd,” he said, not bothering to look at me. “Julie, you have no idea how frantic I was. My God, I was ready to call the cops.”

  “Were you, dear?” she said with that throaty chuckle. “You must have been upset if you were ready to call the cops.”

  I guessed it was an inside joke, because they both started laughing, he hesitantly at first, then without restraint. I didn’t catch the enormous humor of it all, but it gave me a chance to take a closer look at him.

  He was wearing a prep school uniform: dark blue blazer, gray flannel slacks, black shoes, black knitted tie. No coat, no hat. He was a beautiful, beautiful boy, clear cheeks flushed from running, red lips open, blue eyes clear and sparkling. And those crisp black curls, glittering with the wet.

  “Julie,” he said, “I’ve got to talk to you. Do you know what father—”

  She leaned forward and pressed a gloved forefinger softly to his lips, silencing him. If she had done that to me, I’d have—ahh, the hell with it.

  “Shh, Edward,” she said, smiling with her mouth but not with her eyes. “We have a guest, and I’m sure Mr. Todd is not interested at all in a minor family disagreement. Mr. Todd, will you excuse us, please?”

  Both looked at me, he for the first time. Since neither showed any indication of moving, I gathered I was being given the bum’s rush.

  “Of course,” I said. I removed my sodden tweed hat and held it aloft. “Mrs. Thorndecker,” I said. “Edward,” I said.

  I replaced the lid, turned, and plodded away from them. I trudged back to my car, resolved that I absolutely would not turn around to look back at them. I did about twenty steps before I turned around to look back at them.

  I could see them glimmering through that scrim of fine chain mail. They were framed in the billowing fog between the rows of black trees and veiny, arching branches. Their figures wavered. I wiped a hand across my eyes, hoping to get a clearer look. But it was not clear. It was all smoke and shadow. Still, it seemed to me they were in each other’s arms. Close. Close.

  Somewhere, on the way back to Coburn, I pulled off the road. I left the motor running, the heater on. I lowered the window a bit so I wouldn’t take the long, long sleep. I lighted a cigarette, and I pondered. I’m good at that. Not concluding, just pondering. In this case, my reflections were a mishmash: objective judgments of things I had observed that afternoon interspersed with subjective memories of parted lips, silvered hair plastered flat, husky laughs, and a loose, yielding way of moving.

  Conclusions? You’ll never guess. The only hard fact I came up with was that Al Coburn was a wise old owl. He had guessed Julie Thorndecker had sicced Constable Goodfellow onto me, and he had been right. Decision: cultivate Al Coburn and see what other insights the old fart might reveal.

  As for the rest: all was confusion. But if you can’t endure that, you shouldn’t be in the snooping business. Sooner or later (if you’re lucky), actions, relationships, and motives get sorted out and begin to make sense. It might not be rational sense, but I was dealing with human beings—and who says people have to be logical? Not me. And I speak from self-knowledge.

  But there was one thing I could nail down, and had to. So I finished my cigarette, flicked the butt into what was now a freezing rain, and completed my drive into Coburn. It was about four-thirty, and I hoped I’d get there before the place closed for the day.

  I made it—but not by much. Art Merchant had been right: the Coburn Civic Building was definitely not a tourist attraction. It was a two-story structure of crumbling red brick, designed along the general lines of an egg crate. The fire department occupied the ground level in front, the police department the ground level in back. The second floor was the City Hall: one big, hollow room. A bronze plaque on the outside wall stated: “This building erected by the Works Progress Administration, 1936; Franklin D. Roosevelt, President.” Some loyal Democrat should have destroyed that.

  I tramped up a wooden stairway, steps dusty and sagging. The wall was broken by tall, narrow windows affording a splendid view of the boarded-up A&P. At the top of the stairs were frosted glass doors bearing the legend: “oburn ity all.” The lettering was in black paint, which had lasted. I figured the capital letters had been in gilt which had flaked off years ago and had never been replaced.

  In all that cavernous room there was one middle-aged lady spraying her blue hair with a long aerosol can that could have been “Sparkle-Clear” or “Roach-Ded,” for all I knew. She looked at me disapprovingly.

  “We’re closed,” she yelled at me from across the room.

  I made a big business of looking at my watch.

  “Nah,” I called, smiling winsomely, “you wouldn’t do that to me—would you? You’ve got to finish spraying your lovely hair, and then the nails to touch up, and a few phone calls to your girlfriends, and it’s only fifteen minutes to five, and I swear what I want won’t take more than two minutes. Three maybe. Five at the most. Look at me—a poor traveler from out of town, come to your fair city seeking help in my hour of need. Can you turn me away? In your heart of hearts, can you really reject me?”

  I don’t apologize for this shit.

  “Real estate?” she guessed. “The plats are over on the left, and if you—”

  “No, no,” I said. “Something much sadder. An uncle of mine passed away in Coburn only last night. Poor man. I need copies of the death certificate. You know—for insurance, bank accounts, the IRS and so forth. I need about ten copies.”

  “Sorry,” she sang out. We were shouting at each other across at least fifty feet of empty office. “Death certificates go to the county seat. T
he Health Department. They have fire-proof files.”

  “Oh,” I said, deflated. “Well, thanks, anyway.”

  “Of course, we keep photocopies of Coburn deaths,” she said. “They’re in the Deceased file on your right, between Bankruptcies and Defaults.”

  “May I take a quick look, ma’m?” I asked politely. “Just to make sure there is a certificate filed on my uncle?”

  “Help yourself,” she called. “I have to make a phone call. Then I’m locking up, so don’t be long.”

  “Won’t take a minute,” I promised.

  She got busy on the phone. I got busy on the Deceased file. The photocopy of Petersen’s certificate was easy to find; it was in front, the most recent Coburn death. Chester K. Petersen, 72, resident of Crittenden Hall. The certificate was signed by Dr. Kenneth Draper.

  But that wasn’t what I was looking for. My eyes raced to find Cause of Death. There it was:

  Congestive heart failure.

  I glanced at the blue-haired lady. She was still giggling on the phone. I fumbled through the file as quickly as I could. I managed to go back through the previous two years. There had been twenty-three death certificates filed that listed Crittenden Hall as place of residence. The certificates were signed by Dr. Kenneth Draper and several other doctors. I guessed they were the resident MD’s in Crittenden Hall.

  Item: Two years ago, there had been six certificates filed, signed by four different MD’s, including Draper. There had been a variety of causes of death.

  Item: During the past year, there had been eighteen certificates filed, including Petersen’s. Of these, fourteen had been signed by Draper, the others by residents.

  Item: Of the fourteen death certificates in the past year signed by Dr. Kenneth Draper, eleven listed congestive heart failure as cause of death. The other three noted acute alcoholism, emphysema, and leukemia.

  Nowhere, on any of the death certificates, did the name Dr. Telford Gordon Thorndecker appear.

  “Finished?” the blue-haired lady called.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Find what you wanted?” she yelled.

  I smiled, waved, and got out of there. Did I find what I wanted? What did I want?