The Sixth Commandment (21 page)

I tried to imagine all that, but it didn’t work. It was like trying to imagine what war was like if you had never been there.

I went through the Grand Rapids dresser but found nothing of interest. A pair of torn longjohns, some gray, unpressed handkerchiefs, a blue workshirt, wool socks that needed toes, junk. I figured Constable Goodfellow or Al Coburn had taken the old man’s papers away, if there were any. I found nothing.

I poked around in the cabinet over the sink. All I found were a few cockroaches who stared at me, annoyed at being interrupted. One interesting thing: there was an eight-ounce jar of instant coffee, practically new, with no more than one or two teaspoonsful taken out. The jar still bore the supermarket pricetag: $5.45. Odd that a poor old man would take off for parts unknown and leave that treasure behind.

I didn’t unlatch the bed, let it down, and paw through it. I just couldn’t.

So that was that, I figured. Nothing plus nothing equals nothing. I stood in the doorway, my finger on the light switch, taking a final look around. My God, that must have been a cold place to live. There was a small electric heater set into one wall, and I suppose he used the propane stove for added warmth, but still … The chill came right up through that bare, sagging plywood floor and stiffened my toes inside my boots.

Maybe the trailer had been carpeted when it was new. But now the only piece of rug was under the old man’s armchair. It was about a three-foot square, with ravelled edges. It looked like a remnant someone had thrown out, a piece left over after a cheap wall-to-wall carpeting job had been completed.

I stared at it, wondering why I was staring. Just a ragged piece of rug in a shit-brown color. It was under the armchair and stuck out in front where his feet would rest when he gummed his hamburger and watched TV. Keep his tootsies relatively warm while he stared at young, handsome people winning Cadillacs and trips to Bermuda on the game shows.

It made sense; that’s why the rug was there. So far so good. But why wasn’t the rug scarred and scuffed and stained in front of the armchair, where his feet rested and he dribbled food while guffawing at the funny, funny Master of Ceremonies? It wasn’t scarred or scuffed or stained. It looked new.

I took my finger off the light switch. I went back to the armchair, got down on my knees, peered underneath. The portion of the rug
under
the chair was scarred and scuffed and stained.

“Shit,” I said aloud.

I stood, lifted the armchair, set it aside. He could have turned the rug, I acknowledged. Shortly before he departed, he noticed the rug under his feet was getting worn and spotted. So he just turned it around. Then the worn part would be under the chair, and he’d have a nice, new, thick pile under his feet in front of the chair.

Except … Except …

There were special stains on the portion of the rug that had been under the armchair. I got down on my knees again, put my nose right down to them. They didn’t look like food stains to me. They were reddish-brown, crusted. There were several heavy blobs with crowns of smaller stains radiating around them. Like the heavy blobs had fallen from a distance and splashed.

I smelled the stains. It wasn’t a scientific test, I admit, but it was good enough for me. I knew what those stains were. They weren’t Aunt Millie’s Spaghetti Sauce.

I replaced the armchair in its original position, switched off the light, got out of there. I didn’t look toward the manager’s mobile home. I slid into the Grand Prix, jazzed it, spun away.

They didn’t have much time: that’s what I was thinking as I drove back to the Coburn Inn. They were in a hurry, frantic, afraid of being seen by Manager Morty or some other denizen of the New Frontier Trailer Court. So they did what they had come to do. And then they got him out of there—what was left of him—with some clothes thrown hastily into his old suitcase, trying to make it look like he had scampered of his own free will. And because the blood was ripe and thick and glistening in front of the armchair, they had turned the rug around so the stains would be hidden under the chair.

Time! Time! They were working so fast, so anxiously. Maybe even desperately. They just wanted him snuffed and out of there. What about his car? Maybe it was one killer, and he couldn’t handle the VW and the car he came in. Maybe it was two killers, and one couldn’t drive. Fuck the car. And fuck the helmet; they didn’t know it was his most prized possession. And they didn’t have time to search the place and find that almost-full jar of coffee. They didn’t have time, they didn’t plan it well, they weren’t thinking. Amateurs.

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.”