The Tenth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  “What is so urgent that it couldn’t wait until I had a chance to inspect my fish?”

  I laid the Times column on his desk. I had boxed the Reape item with a red grease pencil.

  Mr. Tabatchnick removed a heavy pair of black hornrimmed glasses from his breast pocket. He took out a clean, neatly pressed handkerchief and slowly polished the glasses, breathing on them first. He donned the spectacles and, still standing, began to read. He read it once, looked up and stared at me, then read it again. His expression didn’t change, but he lowered himself slowly into his swivel chair.

  “Sit down, Mr. Bigg,” he said. The voice wasn’t irritable anymore. In fact, it sounded a little shaky. “What do you think happened?”

  “I think he was murdered, sir. Pushed onto the tracks by that other customer or customers he was going to see.”

  “You have a vivid imagination, Mr. Bigg.”

  “It fits, sir.”

  “Then wouldn’t he have had the money on him if he had sold the information? The paper mentions nothing of that. Or if he hadn’t made the deal, wouldn’t he have had the information on his person?”

  “Not necessarily, sir. First of all, we don’t know that his information was physical evidence. It may have been just something he knew. And it’s possible he went to see his other customers just to discuss the details of the deal, and no exchange took place prior to his death. But after talking to him, his customers feared the payment would be only the first of a series of demands, and so they decided his death was the only solution.”

  He exhaled heavily.

  “Very fanciful,” he said. “And totally without proof.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, “I admit that. But during my meeting with Reape, I said something to the effect that fifty thousand was a lot of money, and he said, quote, It’s worth fifty grand to make sure it goes to the right people, ain’t it? Unquote. He was speaking of the estate, sir. So perhaps his other customers were the wrong people. You follow, Mr. Tabatchnick?”

  “Of course I follow,” he said furiously. “You’re saying that with Reape out of the picture, the wrong people will profit. That means that the beneficiaries named in the existing will may include the wrong people.”

  He didn’t like that at all. He leaned forward to read the Reape story for the third time. Then he angrily shoved the paper away.

  “I wish,” he said, “that I could be certain that this Reape person actually did possess what he claimed. He may merely have read the news story of Sol Kipper’s suicide and devised this scheme to profit from the poor man’s death. It might have been just a confidence game, a swindle.”

  “Mr. Tabatchnick, did the news story of Sol Kipper’s suicide mention the value of his estate?”

  “Of course not!”

  “During my meeting with Reape, he said, quote, How much is that estate—four mil? Five mil? Unquote. Was that a close estimate of the estate, Mr. Tabatchnick?”

  “Close enough,” he said in a low voice. “It’s about four million six.”

  “Well, how would Reape have known that if he hadn’t been intimately involved with the Kipper family in some way? Surely his knowledge of the size of the estate is a fairly solid indication that he had the information he claimed.”

  Leopold Tabatchnick sighed deeply. Then he sat brooding, head lowered. He pulled at his lower lip. I was tempted to slap his hand and tell him his lips protruded enough.

  I don’t know how long we sat there in silence. Finally, Tabatchnick sighed again and straightened up. He put his thick hands on the tabletop, palms down.

  “All right,” he said, “I realize what you are implying. You feel that if Martin Reape told the truth and had evidence to upset the will of Sol Kipper, then an investigation into Kipper’s suicide would be justified.”

  “The alleged suicide,” I said. “Yes, sir, that’s the way I feel.”

  “Very well,” he said. “You may conduct a discreet inquiry. I repeat, a discreet inquiry. To avoid prejudicing your investigation. I will not disclose to you at this time the principal beneficiaries of Sol Kipper’s estate.”

  “As you wish, sir,” I said. “But it would help a great deal if you would give me some background on the man and his family. You mentioned that he had been a personal friend of yours for fifty-five years.”

  “Yes,” he said. “We were classmates at CCNY together. I went on to law school and Sol went into his father’s textile business. But we kept in touch and saw each other frequently. He was best man at my wedding, and I at his. Our wives were good friends. That was Sol’s first wife. She died six years ago and Sol remarried.”

  Did I detect a note of disapproval in his voice?

  “Sol was an enormously successful businessman. After his father’s death, he became president of Kipmar Textiles, and expanded to include knitting mills in New England, South Carolina, Spain, and Israel. They went public ten years ago, and Sol became a wealthy man. He had three sons and one daughter by his first wife. All his children are grown now, of course, and married. Sol had eleven grandchildren. Shortly after his second marriage, he semiretired and turned over the day-to-day operations of Kipmar Textiles to two of his sons. The third son is a doctor in Los Angeles. His daughter lives in Boca Raton, Florida. What else would you care to know?”

  “The second wife, sir—what can you tell me about her?”

  “She is younger than Sol was—considerably younger. I believe she was on the stage. Briefly. Her name is Tippi.”

  Now I was certain I heard that note of disapproval in his voice.

  “Yes, sir. And now the man himself. What was he like?”

  “Sol Kipper was one of the dearest, sweetest men it has ever been my good fortune to know. He was generous to a fault. A fine, loving husband and an understanding father and grandfather. His children worshiped him. They took his death very hard.”

  “Why did he commit suicide, sir—if he did? Was there any reason for it?”

  Tabatchnick wagged his big head sadly. “Sol was the worst hypochondriac I’ve ever known or heard about. He was continually running to doctors with imaginary physical ailments. It was a joke to his family and friends, but we could never convince him that he was in excellent health, even when doctor after doctor told him the same thing. He had only to read a medical article on some obscure illness and he was certain he had the symptoms. He dosed himself with all kinds of nostrums and, to my personal knowledge, swallowed more than fifty vitamin pills and mineral capsules a day. He was like that when he was young, and it worsened as he grew older, sometimes resulting in extreme depression. I assume he committed suicide while in that condition.”

  “After making an appointment with you to execute a new will?”

  “That’s the way it happened,” Mr. Tabatchnick said crossly.

  “I think that’s about all, sir,” I said, standing. “I’ll report to you if there is anything you should know.”

  “By all means,” he said. “If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. You may call me at home, should that become necessary. I am in the book. I am depending on you, Mr. Bigg, to conduct your investigation quietly and diplomatically.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand. I’d like to start by talking to that officer who investigated Mr. Kipper’s death. Do you happen to recall his name?”

  “Not offhand, but Miss Potts has his name and phone number. I’ll instruct her to give them to you.”

  “Mr. Tabatchnick, the detective will probably want to know the reason for our interest. May I tell him about Martin Reape?”

  He pondered that for a while.

  “No,” he said finally, “I’d prefer you didn’t. If nothing comes of this, the role of Reape will be of no significance, and I don’t wish anyone else to know of our willingness to deal with him. If the detective asks the reason for our interest, tell him merely that it concerns the estate and insurance. I am sure that will satisfy him. You might take him to lunch or dinner. I suspect he may be more forthcoming over a
few drinks and a good meal. I will approve any expense vouchers. Any reasonable expense vouchers.”

  Detective second-grade Percy Stilton was the cop on the Kipper case. I got his number from Thelma Potts. I called him the moment I returned to my office, but the man who answered said Detective Stilton would not come on duty until 4:00 P.M. I said I’d call him then.

  I started typing notes of my conversation with Mr. Tabatchnick, leaving out all mention of Marty Reape. When I had done that I phoned the Stonehouse apartment; a very throaty voice answered. I assumed that it was the maid, Olga Eklund. Mrs. Stonehouse came on in that trilly voice. I asked her questions about her husband’s health. He had been well at the time of his disappearance but had recently been ill.

  “It started late in the summer,” she said. “But it got progressively worse. October and November were very bad. But then he just snapped out of it. He was a Scorpio, you know.”

  “October and November?” I repeated. Then he must have recovered about a month prior to his disappearance.

  “What was the nature of his illness, Mrs. Stonehouse?”

  “Oh, I don’t really know,” she said blithely. “My husband was so tight-lipped about things like that. The flu, I suppose, or a virus that just hung on. He simply refused to go to a doctor, but then he got so weak and miserable he finally had to go. Went several times, as a matter of fact, and the doctor did all kinds of tests. He must have discovered what it was, because Yale recovered very quickly.”

  “Could you tell me the doctor’s name, Mrs. Stonehouse?”

  “His name?” she said. “Now what is his name? Morton, I think, or something like that.”

  I heard her call, “Olga!” and there was confused talking in the distance. Then Mrs. Stonehouse came back on the phone. “Stolowitz,” she said. “Dr. Morris Stolowitz.”

  I looked up the phone number of Dr. Morris Stolowitz. He was on West 74th Street, within easy walking distance of the Stonehouse apartment. I called, and a woman’s voice answered: “Doctor’s office.” Doctor was busy with a patient. I left my name and number and asked that he get back to me.

  I had my doubts that Dr. Stolowitz would ever return my call. I was debating the wisdom of asking Mrs. Stonehouse to intercede for me, when Hamish Hooter came barging into my office and threw my pay envelope onto the desk.

  “See here,” he said.

  “What is it now, Hooter?”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you in a nice way,” he said, sucking his teeth noisily. “But apparently you’re not catching on. Yetta Apatoff and I are an item. I want you to stop bothering her.”

  “If I am bothering her,” I said, “which I sincerely doubt, let the lady tell me herself.”

  He muttered something threatening and rushed from my office, banging the door.

  So, of course, I had to call Yetta immediately.

  “Hi, it’s Josh,” I said, wondering why my speech became so throaty and—well, intimate, when I spoke to her.

  “Hi, Josh,” she said in her breathy, little girl’s voice. “Long time no see.”

  Now did that sound like a woman I was bothering?

  “How about lunch today?” I suggested. “Just to celebrate payday?”

  “Ooh, marvy!” she said. “Let’s go to the Chink place on Third.”

  When I went out to her reception desk at noon, she was waiting for me, her coat on her arm, a fluffy powder-blue beret perched enchantingly on her blonde ringlets. She was wearing a tightly fitted knitted suit of a slightly darker blue, and when I saw that divine topography, I felt the familiar constriction of my breathing and my knee joints seemed excessively oiled.

  While we walked over to Third Avenue, she took my arm, chatting innocently, apparently unaware of what her soft grip was doing to my heartbeat and respiration. As always when I was with her, I was blind and deaf to our surroundings. All my senses were zeroed in on her, and once, when she shivered with cold, said, “Brrr!” and hugged my arm to her yielding breast, I almost sobbed with joy.

  In the restaurant all I wanted was to look at her, watch those perfect white teeth bite into a dumpling, note how the soft column of her throat moved when she swallowed, and how she patted her mouth delicately with a paper napkin when a small burp rose to her lips.

  “Oh, Josh,” she said, between bites and swallows, “did I tell you about this absolutely marvy sweater I saw in this store on Madison? I’d love to get it, but it’s soo expensive, and also it’s cut way down. I mean it really is a plunging neckline, and I suppose I’d have to wear a scarf with it, something that would cover me a little if I wore it to work, or maybe a blouse under it, but that would spoil the lines because it’s sooo clinging, and it’s like a forest green. Do you like green, Josh?”

  “Love green,” I said hoarsely.

  “It costs sooo much, but maybe just this once I’ll spend more than I should because I believe that if you really want something, you should get it no matter what it costs. I have this saying, ‘I don’t want anything but the best,’ and that’s really the way I feel, and I suppose you think I’m just terrible.”

  “Of course not. You deserve the—”

  “Oh well,” she said, giggling, “maybe I’ll buy it as a birthday present to me from myself.”

  “It’s your birthday?” I cried.

  “Oh not yet, Josh. Not until next week. But I certainly hope you don’t think I’m, you know, telling you that for any, you know, ulterior motive like I was angling for a present or anything, because I’m certainly not that kind of a girl.”

  “I know that, Yetta.”

  She reached across the table to put a hand briefly on mine.

  We got fortune cookies with our ice cream. Yetta’s fortune was A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU. Mine read: A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU. Yetta stared at me, suddenly solemn.

  “Josh,” she said, “isn’t that the strangest thing that ever happened to you? I mean, we’re both going to have a new life. I certainly think that’s strange. You don’t suppose—?”

  She broke off, glanced at her watch.

  “Goodness,” she said, “look at the time! I’ve really got to get back. Duty calls!”

  We strolled back to the office together. Just before we got there I said, “Yetta, that store where you saw the sweater you liked…”

  “Between 36th and 37th,” she said. “On the west side. It’s in the window.”

  I resolutely stayed in my office all afternoon and worked hard on routine inquiries from the junior partners and associates. A few minutes after four o’clock, I called the officer who had investigated Sol Kipper’s suicide. He answered the phone formally.

  “Detective Percy Stilton.”

  “Sir,” I said, “my name is Joshua Bigg. I work for the legal firm of Tabatchnick, Orsini, Reilly, and Teitelbaum. Mr. Tabatchnick gave me your name and address. He said you investigated the suicide of Solomon Kipper.”

  “Kipper?” he said. “Oh yes, that’s right. I caught that one.”

  “I was hoping I could talk to you about it,” I said. “This concerns a matter of estate and insurance claims.”

  “I can’t show you the file,” he said.

  “Oh no,” I said hastily. “Nothing like that. I mean, this isn’t official. Very informal. You won’t be asked to testify. I just wanted to ask a few questions.”

  “You say this concerns insurance?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. He was silent a moment. Then: “Well, I guess it wouldn’t do any harm. You want to come over here?”

  “I was wondering if we might meet somewhere. Dinner perhaps?”

  “Dinner?” he said. “You on an expense account?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Great,” he said. “I’m getting tired of pizza. Want to make it tonight?”

  “That would be fine.”

  “I have to do some work later at Midtown Precinct North. That’s on West 54th Street. I should be finished about eight o’clock, and be able to break loose
for a while. I’ll meet you at eight or thereabouts at the Cheshire Cheese on West 51st Street between Eighth and Ninth. It’s veddy British.”

  I was tidying up my desk, getting ready to leave, when my phone rang. That was a welcome change.

  “Joshua Bigg,” I answered.

  “Just a moment, Mr. Bigg,” a woman’s voice said. “Dr. Morris Stolowitz calling.” When he came on he was loud and irascible. “What’s this about Professor Stonehouse?” he demanded.

  I told him who I was and whom I worked for, and explained that I wanted to talk to him. He wanted to know where I got his name and snarled that the doctor-patient relationship was confidential. In the end he said he could see me for five minutes the next day. He slammed down the phone and I decided to call it a day.

  Since my route home took me to Madison Avenue, I found the store Yetta Apatoff had mentioned. The green sweater was in the window, displayed on a mannequin. Yetta hadn’t exaggerated; that neckline didn’t plunge, it submerged. About as far down as my spirits when I saw the price: $59.95. Maybe she’d like a nice handkerchief instead. I decided to think about it for a while; after all, her birthday wasn’t until next week. I continued down Madison to 23rd Street, took a crosstown bus to Ninth Avenue, then walked home from there. Captain Shank wasn’t on the third-floor landing to greet me, but I could hear his TV set blaring behind his closed door. I sneaked into my own apartment and shut my door ever so softly. I liked the old man, I really did, but I was not partial to muscatel.

  At 7:30 I took the Eighth Avenue bus uptown and arrived at 51st Street ahead of time. I found the Cheshire Cheese, a few steps down from the sidewalk. It was, as Stilton had said, an English-style restaurant with a long bar on the left as you entered, and small tables for two along the right wall. In the rear, I could see a larger dining room with tables for four.

  It was a pleasantly dim place, redolent with appetizing cooking odors and decorated with horse brasses and coats of arms. The theatre crowd had already departed, and there were few diners: two men together, two couples, and a foursome. No Detective Stilton.