The Sixth Commandment by Lawrence Sanders Read Free Book Online Page B

Todd?”
    So she had asked the desk clerk my name. I wondered if she had asked my room number, too.
    “Lousy town,” I said, watching her.
    “You can say that again,” she said, eyes dulling. “It died fifty years ago, but no one has enough money to give it a decent burial. Can I help you? Cigarettes? A magazine? Anything?”
    She gave that “anything” the husky, Marilyn Monroe exhalation, arching her back, pouting. God help Constable Ronnie Goodfellow.
    “Just information,” I told her hastily. “How do I get to Dr. Thorndecker’s place? Crittenden Hall?”
    I tried to listen and remember as she told me how to drive east on Main Street, turn north on Oakland Drive, make a turn at Mike’s Service Station onto Fort Peabody Drive, etc., etc. But I was looking at her and trying to figure why a hard, young Indian cop had married a used woman about five years older than he, and whose idea of bliss was probably a pound box of chocolate bonbons and the tenth rerun of “I Love Lucy.”
    When she ran down, I said, foolishly, “I met your husband this morning.”
    “I meet him every morning,” she said. Then she added, “Almost.”
    She stared at me, suddenly very sober, very serious. Challenging.
    I tried to smile. I turned around and walked away. I didn’t know if it was good sense or cowardice. I did know I had misjudged this lady. Her idea of bliss wasn’t the boob tube and bonbons. Far from it.
    I found my car in the parking area, and while it was warming up, I scraped the ice off the windshield. Then I headed out of town.
    I remember an instructor down in Ft. Benning telling us:
    “You can stare at maps and aerial photos until your eyeballs are coming out your ass. But nothing can take the place of physical reconnaissance. Maps and photos are okay, but seeing the terrain and, if possible, walking over it, is a thousand times better. Learn the terrain. Know what the hell you’re getting into. If you can walk over it before a firefight, maybe you’ll walk out of it after.”
    So I had decided to go have a look at Dr. Telford Thorndecker’s terrain.
    By following Millie Goodfellow’s directions, with a little surly assistance at Mike’s Service Station, I found Crittenden Hall without too much difficulty. The grounds were less than a mile east of the river, the main buildings on the hill that had once belonged to Al Coburn’s daddy.
    The approach was through an area of small farms: stubbled land and beaten houses. Some of the barns and outbuildings showed light between warped siding; tarpaper roofing flapped forlornly; sprained doors hung open on rusty hinges. I saw farm machinery parked unprotected, and more than one field unpicked, the produce left to rot. It was cold, wet, desolate. Even more disturbing, there was no one around. I didn’t see a pedestrian, pass another car, or glimpse anyone working the land or even taking out the garbage. The whole area seemed deserted. Like a plague had struck, or a neutron bomb dropped. The empty, weathered buildings leaned. Stripped trees cut blackly across the pewter sky. But the people were gone. No life. I ached to hear a dog bark.
    The big sign read Crittenden Hall, and below was a small brass plaque: Crittenden Research Laboratory. There was a handsome cast iron fence at least six feet tall, with two ornate gates that opened inward. Inside was a guard hut just large enough for one man to sit comfortably, feet on a gas heater.
    I drove slowly past. The ornamental iron fence became chain link, but it entirely enclosed the Thorndecker property. Using single-lane back roads, I was able to make a complete circuit. A lot of heavily wooded land. Some meadows. A brook. A tennis court. A surprisingly large cemetery, well-tended, rather attractive. People were dying to get in there. I finally saw someone: a burly guy in black oilskins with a broken shotgun over one arm. In his other hand was a leash. At the end of the leash, a straining German shepherd.
    I came back to