The Tenth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  “He could have,” Stilton said.

  “Sure,” I agreed. “But I timed the trip from bedroom to terrace. Walking along the hall and up the rear staircase. Less than a minute.”

  I didn’t have to spell it out for him.

  “I get it,” he said. “You want me to talk to the first cops on the scene and see if any of them remember where the elevator was when they arrived?”

  “Right,” I said gracefully.

  “And if it was on the ground floor, that shows that Mrs. Kipper brought it down, which proves absolutely nothing. And if it was on the sixth floor, it only indicates that maybe Sol Kipper took it up to his big jump from the terrace. Which proves absolutely nothing. Zero plus zero equals zero.”

  I sighed.

  “You’re right, Perce. I’m just grabbing at little things. Anything.”

  “I’ll ask the cops,” he said. “It’s interesting.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Josh, you sound down.”

  “Not down, exactly, but bewildered.”

  “Beginning to think Sol Kipper really was a suicide?”

  “I don’t know…” I said slowly. “Beginning to have some doubts about my fine theories, I guess.”

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t have any doubts. I told you I thought someone was jerking us around. Remember? Now I’m sure of it. Early this morning the harbor cops pulled a floater out of the North River. Around 34th Street. A female Caucasian, about fifty years old or so. She hadn’t been in the water long. Twelve hours at most.”

  “Perce,” I said, “not…?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said tonelessly. “Mrs. Blanche Reape. Positive ID from her prints. She had a sheet. Boosting and an old prostitution rap. No doubt about it. Marty’s widow.”

  I was silent, remembering the brash, earthy woman in The Dirty Shame saloon, buying drinks for everyone.

  “Josh?” Detective Stilton demanded. “You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Official verdict is death by drowning. But a very high alcoholic content in the blood. Fell in the river while drunk. That’s how it’s going on the books. You believe it?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I don’t either,” he said. “Sol Kipper falls from a sixth-floor terrace. Marty Reape falls in front of a subway train. His widow falls in the river. This sucks.”

  “Yes,” I said faintly.

  “What?” he said. “I can’t hear you.”

  “Yes,” I said, louder, “I agree.”

  “You bet your damp white fanetta!” he said furiously. Then suddenly he was shouting, almost gargling on his bile. “I don’t like to be messed with,” he yelled. “Some sharp, bright son of a bitch is messing me up. I don’t like that. No way do I like that!”

  “Perce,” I said, “please. Calm down.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yes, I mean. Yes. I’m calm now. All cool.”

  “You think the three of them…?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Why not? Kipper was the first. Then Marty, because he had the proof. Then the widow lady. It fits. Someone paid her for the files. The evidence Marty had on the Kipper estate. Then she got greedy and put the bite on for more. Goodbye, Blanche.”

  “Someone would do that? Kill three people?”

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s easy. The first goes down so slick, and so smooth, and so nice. Then they can do no wrong. They own the world. Why I’m telling you all this, Josh, is to let you know you’re not wasting your time on this Kipper thing. I can’t open it up again with what we’ve got; you’ll have to carry the ball. I just wanted you to know I’m here, and ready, willing, and able.”

  “Thank you, Perce.”

  “Keep in touch, old buddy,” he said. “I’ll check on that elevator thing for you. That cocksucker!” he cried vindictively. “We’ll fry his ass!”

  Powell Stonehouse lived on Jones Street, just off Bleecker. It was not a prepossessing building: a three-story loft structure of worn red brick with a crumbling cornice and a bent and rusted iron railing around the areaway. I arrived a few minutes after 9:00 P.M., rang a bell marked Chard-Stonehouse, and was buzzed in almost immediately. I climbed to the top floor.

  I was greeted at the door of the loft by a young woman, very dark, slender, of medium height. I stated my name. She introduced herself as Wanda Chard, in a whisper so low that I wasn’t certain I had heard right, and asked her to repeat it.

  She ushered me into the one enormous room that was apparently the entire apartment, save for a small bathroom and smaller kitchenette. There was a platform bed: a slab of foam rubber on a wide plywood door raised from the floor on cinder blocks. There were pillows scattered everywhere: cushions of all sizes, shapes, and colors. But no chairs, couches, tables. I assumed the residents ate off the floor and, I supposed, reclined on cushions or the bed to relax.

  The room was open, spare, and empty. A choice had obviously been made to abjure things. No radio. No TV set. No books. One dim lamp. There were no decorations or bric-a-brac. There was one chest of drawers, painted white, and one doorless closet hung with a few garments, male and female. There was almost nothing to look at other than Ms. Chard.

  She took my coat and hat, laid them on the bed, then gestured toward a clutch of pillows. Obediently I folded my legs and sank into a semireclining position. Wanda Chard crossed her legs and sat on the bare floor, facing me.

  “Powell will be out in a minute,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “He’s in the bathroom,” she said.

  There seemed nothing to reply to that, so I remained silent. I watched as she fitted a long crimson cigarette to a yellowed ivory holder. I began to struggle to my feet, fumbling for a match, but she waved me back.

  “I’m not going to smoke it,” she said. “Not right now. Would you like one?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  She stared at me.

  “Does it bother you that you’re very small?” she asked in a deep, husky voice that seemed all murmur.

  Perhaps I should have bridled at the impertinence of the question; after all, we had just met. But I had the feeling that she was genuinely interested.

  “Yes, it bothers me,” I said. “Frequently.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m hard of hearing, you know,” she said. “Practically deaf. I’m reading your lips.”

  I looked at her in astonishment.

  “You’re not!” I said.

  “Oh yes. Say a sentence without making a sound. Just mouth the words.”

  I made my mouth say, “How are you tonight?” without actually speaking; just moving my lips.

  “How are you tonight?” she said.

  “But that’s marvelous!” I said. “How long did it take you to learn?”

  “All my life,” she said. “It’s easy when people face me directly, as you are. When they face away, or even to the side, I am lost. In a crowded, noisy restaurant, I can understand conversations taking place across the room.”

  “That must be amusing.”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes it is terrible. Frightening. The things people say when they think no one can overhear. Most people I meet aren’t even aware that I’m deaf. The reason I’m telling you is because I thought you might be bothered by your size.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I understand. Thank you.”

  “We are all one,” she said somberly, “in our weakness.”

  Her hair was jet black, glossy, and fell to her waist in back. It was parted in the middle and draped about her face in curved wings that formed a dark Gothic arch. The waves almost obscured her pale features. From the shadows, two luminous eyes glowed forth. I had an impression of no makeup, pointy chin, and thin, bloodless lips.

  She was wearing a kimono of garishly printed silk, all poppies and parrots. When she folded down onto the bare floor, I had noted her feline movements, the softness. I did not know if she was
naked beneath the robe, but I was conscious of something lubricious in the way her body turned. There was a faint whisper there: silk on flesh. Her feet were bare, toenails painted a frosted silver. She wore a slave bracelet about her left ankle: a chain of surprisingly heavy links. There was a tattoo on her right instep: a small blue butterfly.

  “What do you do, Miss Chard?” I asked her.

  “Do?”

  “I mean, do you work?”

  “Yes,” she said. “In a medical laboratory. I’m a research assistant.”

  “That’s very interesting,” I said, wondering what on earth Powell Stonehouse could be doing in the bathroom for such a long time.

  As if I had asked the question aloud, the bathroom door opened and he came toward us in a rapid, shambling walk. Once again I tried to struggle to my feet from my cocoon of pillows, but he held a palm out, waving me down. It was almost like a benediction.

  “Would you like an orange?” he asked me.

  “An orange? Oh no. Thank you.”

  “Wanda?”

  She shook her head, long hair swinging across her face. But she held up the crimson cigarette in the ivory holder. He found a packet of matches on the dresser, bent over, lighted her cigarette. I smelled the odor: more incense than smoke. Then he went to the kitchenette and came back with a small Mandarin orange. He sat on the bare floor next to her, facing me. He folded down with no apparent physical effort. He began to peel his orange, looking at me, blinking.

  “What’s all this about?” he said.

  Once again I explained that I had been assigned by his family’s attorneys to investigate the disappearance of his father. I realized, I said, that I was going over ground already covered by police officers, but I hoped he would be patient and tell me in his own words exactly what had happened the night of January 10th.

  I thought then that he glanced swiftly at Wanda Chard. If a signal passed between them, I didn’t catch it. But he began relating the events of the evening his father had disappeared, pausing only to pop a segment of orange into his mouth, chomp it to a pulp, and swallow it down.

  His account differed in no significant detail from what I had already learned from his mother and sister. I made a pretense of jotting notes, but there was really nothing to jot.

  “Mr. Stonehouse,” I said, when he had finished, “do you think your father’s mood and conduct that night were normal?”

  “Normal for him.”

  “Nothing in what he did or said that gave you any hint he might be worried or under unusual pressure? That he might be contemplating deserting his family of his own free will?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Do you know of anyone who might have, uh, harbored resentment against your father? Disliked him? Even hated him?”

  Again I caught that rapid shifting of his eyes sideways to Wanda Chard, as if consulting her.

  “I can think of a dozen people,” he said. “A hundred people. Who resented him or disliked him or hated him.” Then, with a small laugh that was half-cough, he added, “Including me.”

  “What exactly was your relationship with your father, Mr. Stonehouse?”

  “Now look here,” he said, bristling. “You said on the phone that you wanted to discuss ‘family relationships.’ What has that got to do with his disappearance?”

  I leaned forward from the waist, as far as I was able in my semirecumbent position. I think I appeared earnest, sincere, concerned.

  “Mr. Stonehouse,” I said, “I never knew your father. I have seen photographs of him and I have a physical description from your mother and sister. But I am trying to understand the man himself. Who and what he was. His feelings for those closest to him. In hopes that by learning the man, knowing him better, I may be able to get some lead on what happened to him. I have absolutely no suspicions about anyone, let alone accusing anyone of anything. I’m just trying to learn. Anything you can tell me may be of value.”

  This time the consultation with Wanda Chard was obvious, with no attempt at concealment. He turned to look at her. Their eyes locked. She nodded once.

  “Tell him,” she said.

  He began to speak. I didn’t take notes. I knew I would not forget what he said.

  He tried very hard to keep his voice controlled. Unsuccessfully. He alternated between blatant hostility and a shy diffidence, punctuated with those small, half-cough laughs. Sometimes his voice broke into a squeak of fury. His gestures were jerky. He glanced frequently sideways at his companion, then glared fiercely at me again. He was not wild, exactly, but there was an incoherence in him. He didn’t come together.

  He had his father’s thin face and angular frame, the harsh angles softened by youth. It was more a face of clean slants, with a wispy blond mustache and a hopeful beard scant enough so that a mild chin showed. He was totally bald, completely, the skull shaved. Perhaps that was what he had been doing in the bathroom. In any event, that smooth pate caught the dim light and gave it back palely. Big ears, floppy as slices of veal, hung from his naked skull.

  He had tortoise-shell eyes, a hawkish nose, a girl’s tender lips. A vulnerable look. Everything in his face seemed a-tremble, as if expecting a hurt. As he spoke, his grimy fingers were everywhere: smoothing the mustache, tugging the poor beard, pulling at his meaty ears, caressing his nude dome frantically. He was wearing a belted robe of unbleached muslin. The belt was a rope. And there was a cowl hanging down his back. A monk’s robe. His feet were bare and soiled. Those busy fingers plucked at his toes, and after a while I couldn’t watch his eyes but could only follow those fluttering hands, thinking they might be enchained birds that would eventually free themselves from his wrists and go whirling off.

  The story he told was not an original, but no less affecting for that…

  He had never been able to satisfy his father. Never. All he remembered of his boyhood was mean and sour criticism. His mother and sister tried to act as buffers, but he took most of his father’s spleen. His school marks were unacceptable; he was not active enough in sports; his table manners were slovenly.

  “Even the way I stood!” Powell Stonehouse shouted at me. “He didn’t even like the way I walked!”

  It never diminished, this constant litany of complaint. In fact, as Powell grew older, it increased. His father simply hated him. There was no other explanation for his spite; his father hated him and wished him gone. He was convinced of that.

  At this point in his recital, I feared he might be close to tears, and I was relieved to see Wanda Chard reach out to imprison one of those wildly fluttering hands and grasp it tightly.

  His sister, Glynis, had always been his father’s favorite, Powell continued. He understood that in most normal families the father dotes on the daughter, the mother on the son. But the Stonehouses were no normal family. The father’s ill-temper drove friends from their house, made a half-mad alcoholic of his wife, forced his daughter to a solitary life away from home.

  “I would have gone nuts,” Powell Stonehouse said furiously. “I was going nuts. Until I found Wanda.”

  “And Zen,” she murmured.

  “Yes,” he said, “and Zen. Now, slowly, through instinct and meditation, I am becoming one. Mr. Bigg, I must speak the truth: what I feel. I don’t care if you never find my father. I think I’m better off without him. And my sister is, too. And my mother. And the world. You must see, you must understand, that I have this enormous hate. I’m trying to rid myself of it.”

  “Hate is a poison,” Wanda Chard said.

  “Yes,” he said, nodding violently, “hate is a poison and I’m trying hard to flush it from my mind and from my soul. But all those years, those cold, brutal scenes, those screaming arguments…it’s going to take time. I know that: it’s going to take a long, long time. But I’m better now. Better than I was.”

  “Oh, forgive him,” Wanda Chard said softly.

  “No, no, no,” he said, still fuming. “Never. I can never forgive him for what he did to me. But maybe,
someday, with luck, I can forget him. That’s all I want.”

  I was silent, giving his venom a chance to cool. And also giving me a chance to ponder what I had just heard. He had made no effort to conceal his hostility toward his father. Was that an honest expression of the way he felt—or was it calculated? That is, did he think to throw me off by indignation openly displayed?

  “Doubt everyone,” Roscoe Dollworth had said. “Suspect everyone.”

  He had also told me something else. He said the only thing harder than getting the truth was asking the right questions. “No one’s going to volunteer nothing!” Dollworth said that sometimes the investigator had to flounder all over the place, striking out in all directions, asking all kinds of extraneous questions in hopes that one of them might uncover an angle never before considered. “Catching flies,” he called it.

  I felt it was time to “catch flies.”

  “Your sister was your father’s favorite?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “How did he feel toward your mother?”

  “Tolerated her.”

  “How often did you dine at your father’s home? I mean after you moved out?”

  “Twice a week maybe, on an average.”

  “Do you know what your father’s illness was? Last year when he was sick?”

  “The flu, Mother said. Or a virus.”

  “Do you know any of your sister’s friends?”

  “Not really. Not recently. She goes her own way.”

  “But she goes out a lot?”

  “Yes. Frequently.”

  “Where?”

  “To the theatre, I guess. Movies. Ballet. Ask her.”

  “She’s a beautiful woman. Why hasn’t she married?”

  “No one was ever good enough for Father.”

  “She’s of age. She can do as she likes.”

  “Yes,” Wanda Chard said, “I’ve wondered about that.”

  “She wouldn’t leave my mother,” Powell said. “She’s devoted to my mother.”

  “But not to your father?”