The Sins of the Fathers

Page 20

"So after the case was marked open, my partner and I, we couldn't get it out of our heads. Just couldn't get it out of our heads, there wasn't a day one of us didn't bring it up. So eventually we went to this Ruddle and asked him if he'd take a polygraph test. You know what that is?"
"A lie detector?"
"A lie detector. We were completely straight with him, we told him he could refuse to take the test, and we also told him it couldn't be entered in evidence against him, which it can't. I'm not sure that's a good idea, incidentally, but that's the law.
"He agreed to take the test. Don't ask me why. Maybe he thought it would look suspicious of him to refuse, although he must have known we damn well knew he killed her and nothing was going to make him stop looking suspicious to us. Or maybe he honestly thought he could beat the machine. Well, he took the test, and I made sure we had the best operator available to administer the test, and the results were just what we expected."
"He was guilty?"
"No question about it. It nailed him to the wall, but there was nothing we could do with it. I told him the machine said he was lying. 'Well, those machines must make a few mistakes now and then,' he said, 'because it made one right now.' And he looked me right in the eye, and he knew I didn't believe him, and he knew there was nothing on earth I could do about it."
"God."
I went over and sat down next to her again. I sipped some of my drink and closed my eyes for a moment, remembering the look in that bastard's eyes.
"What did you do?"
"My partner and I tossed it back and forth. My partner wanted to put him in the river."
"You mean kill him?"
"Kill him and set him in cement and drop him somewhere in the Hudson."
"You wouldn't do a thing like that."
"I don't know. I might have gone along with it. See, he did it, he killed that girl, and he was an odds-on candidate to do it again sooner or later. Oh, hell, that wasn't all of it. Knowing he did it, knowing he knew we knew he did it, and sending the bastard home. Putting him in the river started sounding like a hell of a good idea, and I might have done it if I hadn't thought of something better."
"What?"
"I had this friend on the narcotics squad. I told him I needed some heroin, a lot of it, and I told him he would be getting every bit of it back. Then one afternoon when Ruddle and his wife were both out of the apartment I let myself in, and I flaked that place as well as it's ever been done. I stuffed smack inside the towel bar, I stuck a can of it in the ball float of his toilet, I put the shit in every really obvious hiding place I could find.
"Then I got back to my friend in narcotics, and I told him I knew where he could make himself a hell of a haul. And he did it right, with a warrant and everything, and Ruddle was upstate in Dannemora before he knew what hit him." I smiled suddenly. "I went to see him between the trial and the sentencing date. His whole defense was that he had no idea how that heroin got there, and not too surprisingly the jury didn't sit up all night worrying about that one. I went to see him and I said, 'You know, Ruddle, it's a shame you couldn't take a lie-detector test. It might make people believe you didn't know where that smack came from.' And he just looked at me because he knew just how it had been done to him and for a change there was nothing he could do about it."
"God."
"He drew ten-to-twenty for possession with intent to sell. About three years into his sentence he got in a grudge fight with another inmate and got stabbed to death."
"God."
"The thing is, you wonder just how far you have a right to turn things around like that. Did we have a right to set him up? I couldn't see letting him walk around free, and what other way was there to nail him? But if we couldn't do that, did we have a right to put him in the river? That's a harder one for me to answer. I have a lot of trouble with that one. There must be a line there somewhere, and it's hard to know just where to draw it."
A LITTLE while later she said it was getting to be her bedtime.
"I'll go," I said.
"Unless you'd rather stay."
We turned out to be good for each other. For a stitch of time all the hard questions went away and hid in dark places.
Afterward she said that I should stay. "I'll make us breakfast in the morning."
"Okay."
And, sleepily, "Matt? That story you were telling before. About Ruddle?"
"Uh-huh."
"What made you think of it?"
I sort of wanted to tell her, probably for the same reason I'd told her the story in the first place. But part of what I had to do was not tell her, just as I had avoided telling Cale Hanniford.
"Just the similarities in the cases," I said. "Just that it was another case of a girl raped and murdered in the Village, and the one case put me in mind of the other."
She murmured something I couldn't catch. When I was sure she was sleeping soundly, I slipped out of bed and got into my clothes. I walked the couple of blocks to my hotel and went to my room.
I thought I would have trouble sleeping, but it came easier than I expected.
Chapter 15
The service had just gotten under way when I arrived. I slipped into a rear pew, took a small black book from the rack, and found the place. I'd missed the invocation and the first hymn, but I was in time for the reading of the Law.
He seemed taller than I remembered. Perhaps the pulpit added an impression of height. His voice was rich and commanding, and he spoke the Law with absolute certainty.
"God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments…"
The room was not crowded. There were perhaps eighty persons present, most of them my age or older, with only a few family groups with children. The church could have accommodated four or five times the number in attendance. I guessed most of the congregation had made the pilgrimage to the suburbs in the past twenty years, their places taken by Irish and Italians whose former neighborhoods were now black and Puerto Rican.
"Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
Were there more people in attendance today than normally? Their minister had experienced great personal tragedy. He had not conducted the service the preceding Sunday. This would be their first official glimpse of him since the murder and suicide. Would curiosity bring more of them out? Or would restraint and embarrassment-and the cold air of morning-keep many at home?
"Thou shalt not kill."
Unequivocal statements, these commandments. They brooked no argument. Not Thou shalt not kill except in special circumstances.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery… Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor…"
I rubbed at a pulse point in my temple. Could he see me? I remembered his thick glasses and decided he could not. And I was far in the back, and off to the side.
"Hear also what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
We stood up and sang a psalm.
THE service took a little over an hour. The Old Testament reading was from Isaiah, the New Testament reading from Mark. There was another hymn, a prayer, still another hymn. The offering was taken and consecrated. I put a five on the plate.
The sermon, as promised, dealt with the proposition that the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. It was not enough for us to act with the best and most righteous goals in mind, Martin Vanderpoel told us, because the highest purpose could be betrayed if it were advanced by actions which were not good and righteous in and of themselves.
I didn't pay too much attention to how he elaborated on this because my mind got caught up in the central thesis of the argument and played with it. I wondered whether it was worse for men to do the wrong things for the right reason or the right things for the wrong reason. It wasn't the first time I wondered, or the last.
Then we were standing, and his arms were spread, his robed draping like the wings of an enormous bird, his voice vibrant and resonant.
"The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be amongst you, and remain with you always. Amen."
Amen.
A few people slipped out of the church without stopping for a few words with Reverend Vanderpoel. The rest lined up for a handshake. I managed to be at the end of the line. When it was finally my turn Vanderpoel blinked at me. He knew my face was familiar, but he couldn't figure out why.
Then he said, "Why, it's Mr. Scudder! I certainly never expected to see you at our services."
"It was enjoyable."
"I'm pleased to hear you say that. I hardly anticipated seeing you again, and I didn't dream of hoping that our incidental meeting might lead you to search for the presence of God." He looked past my shoulder, a half-smile on his lips. "He does work in mysterious ways, does He not?"
"So it seems."
"That a particular tragedy could have this effect upon a person like yourself. I imagine I might find myself using that as a theme for a sermon at some later date."
"I'd like to talk to you, Reverend Vanderpoel. In private, I think."
"Oh, dear," he said. "I'm quite pressed for time today, I'm afraid. I'm sure you have a great many questions about religion, one is always filled with questions that seem to have a great need for immediate answers, but-"
"I don't want to talk about religion, sir."
"Oh?"
"It's about your son and Wendy Hanniford."
"I already told you all that I know."
"I'm afraid I have to tell you some things, sir. And we'd better have that conversation now, and it really will have to be private."
"Oh?" He looked at me intently, and I watched the play of emotions on his face. "Very well," he said. "I do have a few tasks that need to be attended to. I'll just be a moment."
I waited, and he wasn't more than ten minutes. Then he took me companionably by the arm and led me through the back of the church and through a door into the rectory. We wound up in the room we had been in before. The electric fire glowed on the hearth, and again he stood in front of it and warmed his long-fingered hands.
"I like a cup of coffee after morning services," he said. "You'll join me?"
"No, thank you."