The Sixth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  I went at it over and over again. The final thought as I pulled into the parking lot of the Coburn Inn: they couldn’t have known that he had written a letter, or they would have tossed the place to find it. And Al Coburn had said, “… the place wasn’t broken up, or anything like that.”

  I felt so goddamned smug with my brilliant ratiocination. My depression was gone. I walked into the lobby humming a merry tune. I should have been droning a dirge. I was so wrong, so wrong!

  But at the moment I was in an euphoric mood, bouncing and admiring the way the overhead fluorescent lights gleamed off the nude pate of the guy behind the desk. Another baldy!

  “Oh, Mr. Todd,” he called in a lilting, chirpy voice, and held up one manicured finger.

  In my new humor, I was willing to accommodate; I walked over for my message.

  “The Reverend Koukla has called you twice,” he breathed, in hushed and humble tones. “Such a fine man. Could you call him at once, please?”

  “I’m going in for lunch,” I said. “I’ll call him as soon as I’m finished.”

  “Please, please,” he said. “It sounded so urgent. You can talk to him right here on the desk phone. I’ll put it through for you.”

  “Okay,” I said, shrugging, “if it’s so important.”

  “I’m not supposed to let people use the desk phone for personal calls,” he whispered. “But it’s the Reverend Koukla!”

  “Have you caught his walking-on-the-water act?” I asked him. “A smash.”

  But he was already inside the office, where the switchboard was located, and I don’t think he heard me.

  Koukla came on immediately.

  “Mr. Todd,” he said briskly, “I owe you an apology.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes indeedy!” he said, then went on with a rush: “I’m afraid I was not as hospitable as I should have been to a visitor to Coburn, a stranger in our midst. As a matter of fact, I’m having some people in this evening for good talk and a buffet supper. No occasion; very informal. Just a friendly get-together. The Thorndeckers will be here, and Art Merchant, Agatha Binder, others you’ve met, and people who would like to meet you. Could you possibly join us? About sixish? For refreshments and talk and then a cold supper later? It should be fun.”

  That had to be the most quickly arranged buffet supper in the annals of Coburn’s social life. I figured Dr. Thorndecker had put the Reverend up to it, and sometime during the evening I’d get a casual explanation of what happened to Chester K. Petersen.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “Thank you for the invitation. I’ll be there.”

  “Good, good, good,” he gurgled, making it sound like, “Googoogoo.” “I’m in the Victorian monstrosity just west of the church. You can’t miss it; the porch light will be on.

  “See you at six,” I said, and hung up.

  I went into the bar a little subdued, a little thoughtful. It seemed to me Thorndecker was over-reacting. If there was nothing fishy about Petersen’s death and burial, he didn’t have to do a thing until I inquired, and then he could set me straight. If it was a juggle, then he had to go on the con, preferably in an atmosphere of good cheer, of bonhomie. That’s the way I figured he figured it, and I resented it. They were taking me for an idiot.

  The bar was full, and the restaurant was crowded: all seats taken. I gave up, came back to the lobby, and asked Sam Livingston if he could get me a club sandwich and a bottle of Heineken, and bring it up to my room. He said it might take half an hour, and I said no problem. He went immediately to the kitchen, and I tramped up the stairs to Room 3-F.

  Skinned off damp hat, damp trenchcoat, damp boots. Lighted another cigarette. Stood in my stockinged feet at the window, staring down at Main Street but not seeing it. Thinking. I wish I could tell you my thoughts came in a neat, logical order. They didn’t; I was all over the place. Something like this:

  1. Maybe they tried to take Scoggins’s car, but it was locked.

  2. Why didn’t they roll up the blood-stained rug and take it with them? I could brainstorm a lot of reasons for that. Maybe Al Coburn and other friends had seen that cheap scrap of carpet many times, and would wonder at its absence. Maybe it was just easier and faster to turn the carpet front to back. They figured no one would notice, and no one did. Not investigating officer Constable Ronnie Goodfellow, not best friend Al Coburn.

  3. Why was I using the mysterious pronoun “they,” when I had become so furious when Al Coburn used it?

  4. Those debts of Al Coburn at the bank … Was he afraid of Art Merchant? Or was it Thorndecker, working through Merchant?

  5. How could Nurse Beecham tell me Petersen died of cancer when the death certificate, signed by Dr. Draper, listed congestive heart failure as cause of death? Was one of them innocent, and one of them lying? Or were they both in on it, and just got their signals crossed?

  6. What color were Julie Thorndecker’s eyes?

  At this point Sam Livingston knocked and came in with my club sandwich and Heineken. I signed, slipped Livingston a buck, and locked the door behind him. I went back to my station at the window, chomping ravenously at a quarter-wedge of sandwich and swilling the beer. The rambling went on …

  7. If Al Coburn was right, and Ernie Scoggins was “buried somewheres around here,” where would be the logical place to put him under? Easy answer: in the Crittenden cemetery. Who’d go digging there?

  8. Something’s going on in that lab that’s not quite kosher, and Scoggins tumbled to it.

  9. Just what in hell was in that letter Scoggins left with Al Coburn? It couldn’t be a vague accusation; it had to be hard evidence of some kind if it had that effect on Coburn. A photograph? Something lifted from the Crittenden Research Laboratory? A photocopy of someone else’s letter? A microfilm? What?

  10. Was Julie Thorndecker really making it with her stepson?

  11. How was I going to get out of my promise to Millie Goodfellow?

  12. Who killed Cock Robin?

  I had finished the beer and sandwich, and was licking mayonnaise off my fingers, when the phone rang. I wiped my hands on the back of an armchair slipcover and picked up the handset.

  “Todd,” I said.

  “Nate Stern,” the voice said.

  “Nate. Good to hear from you. How’re the wife, kids, grandchildren?”

  “Fine,” he said. “You?”

  Nate Stern, a man of few words, was boss of Donner & Stern. Lou Donner had been shot dead by a bank officer who had been dipping in the till. Lou made the mistake of trying to get back some of the loot before turning the guy over to the blues.

  “I’m surviving, Nate,” I said.

  “Switchboard?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, beginning to talk just like him.

  “That sample …”

  “Yes?”

  “Olympia Standard, about five years old.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Any help?”

  “Not much. Be talking.”

  “Sure.”

  We both rang off.

  In case you forgot, we were talking about that anonymous note: “Thorndecker kills.” I had tried to get a look at the typewriters out at Crittenden. I hadn’t seen any in the nursing home. The two I saw in the research lab were both IBM electrics. So? So nothing.

  There was a telephone call of my own I had to make. I admitted that maybe I had been putting it off because I was afraid it might cause pain to the people I had to talk to. But I couldn’t postpone it any longer. It couldn’t go through the hotel switchboard, where the desk baldy might be listening in, nodding, and busily taking notes.

  So I pulled on damp boots, damp trenchcoat, damp hat again. I crossed Main Street to Samson’s Drugs, and crowded myself into an old wooden phone booth. I made a person-to-person call, collect, to Mr. Stacy Besant at the Bingham Foundation in New York City. I knew he’d be in; he never went out to lunch. He always brought a peanut butter sandwich from home in a Mark Cross attaché case.

 
; “Samuel,” he said, “how are matters progressing?”

  “Slowly,” I said, “but surely.”

  Something in my voice must have alerted him.

  “Problems?” he asked.

  Problems! The man asked if I had problems! I was selling problems.

  “Some,” I said, “yes, sir.”

  I heard a long, sniffing wheeze, and figured he had jammed that inhaler up his nose again.

  “Anything we can do at this end?”

  “Yes, Mr. Besant,” I said. “I have a few questions. You said the first Mrs. Thorndecker was your niece. Was she older than Thorndecker?”

  There was a silence a moment. Then, quietly:

  “Does that have a bearing on your investigation?”

  “Yes, sir, it does.”

  “I see. Well, the first Mrs. Thorndecker, Betty, was approximately ten years older than her husband.”

  It was my turn to say, “I see.” I thought a moment, then asked Besant: “Thorndecker inherited a great deal. Could you tell me the source of the first Mrs. Thorndecker’s wealth?”

  “Old money,” he said. “Pharmaceuticals. That’s how Thorndecker met Betty. He was running a research project for her company.”

  “That takes care of that. Could you tell me a little more about the circumstances of her death?”

  Again I heard the sniffing wheeze.

  “Well …” he said finally, “Betty had a drinking problem, and—”

  “Pardon the interruption, sir,” I said, “but did she have the problem before she married Thorndecker, or did it develop afterward.”

  Silence.

  “Sir,” I said. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” he said in a low voice. “I had never considered that aspect before, and I am attempting to search my memory.”

  “Take your time, Mr. Besant,” I said cheerily.

  “Do not be insolent, Samuel,” he said sharply. “I am not as senile as you sometimes seem to think. I would say that prior to her marriage, Betty was an active social drinker. Her marriage appears to me now to have exacerbated her problem.”

  “She became an alcoholic?”

  The old man sighed. “Yes. She did.”

  “And exactly how did she die?”

  “It was summer. The family went to the Cape. She had the habit, Betty did, when she was, ah, in her cups, so to speak, to take midnight swims. Or in the early hours of the morning.”

  “Cold sea at the Cape. Even during the day.”

  “Oh yes,” the old man mourned. “Everyone warned her. Husband, daughter, son—everyone. But they couldn’t lock her up, could they? When possible, someone went with her. No matter what the hour. But she would sneak away, go off by herself.”

  “Asking for it?”

  “What?”

  “Was she courting death, sir? Seeking it? Did she want to die?”

  Silence again. Then a heavy sigh.

  “Samuel,” he said, “you are a very old young man. The thought had never occurred to me. But perhaps you’re right, perhaps she was courting death. In any event, it came. One morning she wasn’t there when the household awoke. Her body was found in the surf.”

  “Uh,” I said, “any signs of—you know?”

  “Just minor bruises and scrapes. Things to be expected in such a death. No unusual wounds, no abnormalities. Salt water in the lungs.”

  “Was she a good swimmer?”

  “An excellent swimmer. When sober.”

  “How about Thorndecker?” I asked. “A good swimmer?”

  “Samuel, Samuel,” he groaned. “I have no idea. Must you be so suspicious?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, “I must. Any evidence of his having something on the side? You know—mistress? Girlfriend? Anything like that?”

  He cleared his throat.

  “No,” he said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, and I could almost see that tortoise head ducking defensively, “I made a few discreet inquiries of my own.”

  “Oh-ho,” I said. “And he was pure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Where was he the night his wife died? Home in bed?”

  “No,” he said. “At a medical conference in Boston. He had departed that evening. His presence in Boston that night was verified.”

  “Oh,” I said, deflated. “I guess he was pure. Unless …”

  “Unless what, Samuel?”

  “Nothing, sir. You’re right; I am very suspicious. I was just imagining a way he could have jiggered it.”

  The old man shocked me.

  “I know,” he said. “A drug in her bottle. He had easy access to drugs.”

  I sucked in my breath.

  “You’re right again, sir,” I said. “I do tend to underestimate you, and I apologize for it. Were the contents of her bottle analyzed?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Everything was done properly; I saw to that. The contents were just gin; no foreign substances. But, of course, by the time the body was found, the authorities called, and the investigation started, Thorndecker had been summoned back to the Cape from Boston.”

  “What you’re saying is that he could have switched bottles, or replaced the contents?”

  “There is that remote possibility, yes.”

  “Do you think he did?”

  The silence lasted a long time. It was finally ended by another deep sniff, then another: a two-nostril job.

  “I would not care to venture an opinion,” Mr. Stacy Besant said gravely.

  “All right,” I said. “It’s a moot point anyway. Barring a confession, we’ll never know, will we?”

  “No,” he said, “we never will.”

  “One final question, sir. I’m puzzled by the dates and ages involved. Particularly the ten-year difference between Mary and Edward, Thorndecker’s two children. A little unusual, isn’t it?”

  “A simple explanation,” he said. “Betty was a widow when Thorndecker married her. Mary is her daughter by her first husband. Edward is the son of Betty and Telford Thorndecker. So Mary and Edward are really half-brother and half-sister.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. “That explains a great deal.”

  “Does it?” he said surprised.

  “Mr. Besant,” I said, “I wonder if you’d be kind enough to switch me to Mrs. Cynthia, if she’s available.”

  “Of course,” he said. “At once. Hang on.”

  I’ll say this for the old boy: he wouldn’t dream of asking why I wanted to talk to the boss-lady of the Bingham Foundation. If she wanted him to know about her conversation with me, she’d tell him.

  He had my call switched, and in a few seconds I was talking to Mrs. Cynthia. We exchanged news about the states of our health (good), and the weather (miserable), and then I said:

  “Ma’am, just before I came up here, I met you in the corridor, and you mentioned you had known Dr. Thorndecker’s father.”

  “Yes,” she said, “so I did.”

  “You also said he was a sweet man—those are your words, ma’am—and then you added, ‘It was all so sad.’ What did you mean by that?”

  “Samuel,” she said, “I wish I had your memory.”

  “Mrs. Cynthia,” I said, “I wish I had your brains and beauty.”

  She laughed.

  “You scamp,” she said. “If I was only fifty years younger …”

  “If I was only fifty years older,” I said.

  “You will be, soon enough. Yes, I knew Dr. Thorndecker’s father. Gerald Thorndecker. Gerry. I knew him quite well.”

  She didn’t add to that, and I didn’t pry any deeper. The statement just lay there, given and accepted.

  “And what was so sad, Mrs. Cynthia?”

  “The manner of his death,” she said. “Gerald Thorndecker was killed in a hunting accident. Shocking.”

  “A hunting accident?” I repeated. “Where was this?”

  “In Maine. Up near the border.”

  �
��How old was his son at the time?”

  “Telford? Thirteen perhaps. Fourteen. Around there.”

  “Thank you,” I said, ready to say goodby.

  “He was with him when it happened.”

  It took me a second to comprehend that sentence.

  “The son?” I asked. “Telford Thorndecker? He was there when his father was killed in a hunting accident?”

  “That is correct,” she said crisply.

  “Do you recall the details, Mrs. Cynthia?”

  “Of course I recall the details,” she said sharply. “I’m not likely to forget them. They had flushed a buck, and—”

  “They?” I said. “Gerald Thorndecker and his son?”

  “Samuel,” she said, sighing, “either you let me tell this story in my own, old woman’s way, or I shall ring off this instant.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” I said humbly. “I promise not to interrupt again.”

  “The hunting party consisted of Gerald Thorndecker, his young son Telford, and four friends and neighbors. Six in all. They flushed a buck, spread out on a line, and pressed forward. Later, at the coroner’s inquest, it was stated that Gerald Thorndecker walked faster than the rest of them. Trotting, moving out ahead of them. I believe it. He was that kind of man. Eager. In any event, the others were behind him. They heard a crashing in the brush, saw what they thought was the buck doubling back, and they fired. They killed Gerald. Now you may ask your questions.”

  “Thank you,” I said, without irony. “How many of the hunters fired at Gerald?”

  “Three, I believe.”

  “Including the son, Telford?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were ballistics tests made?”

  “Yes. He had been hit twice.”

  “Including a bullet from his son’s rifle?”

  “Yes. And another.”

  I should have known. You think that in any investigation, criminal or otherwise, you get the facts, put them together, and the whole thing opens up like one of those crazy Chinese lumps you drop in water and a gorgeous blossom unfolds? Not so. Because you rarely deal with facts. You deal with half-facts, or quarter-, eighth-, or sixteenth-facts. Little bitty things that you can’t prove or disprove. Nothing is ever sure or complete.