The Sixth Commandment Read Free

nursing home had been operating at a loss for several years prior to Thorndecker’s purchase. This may have been due to its isolated location, or perhaps simply to bad management.
    In any event, Thorndecker showed an unexpected talent for business administration. Within two years, a refurbishing program was completed, a new, younger staff recruited, and Crittenden Hall was showing a modest profit. All this had been accomplished in spite of reducing occupancy to fifty beds and converting one of the buildings to a research laboratory that operated independently of the nursing facility.
    Thorndecker managed this by creating a haven for the alcoholic, mentally disturbed, and terminally ill members of wealthy families. The daily rates were among the highest in the country for similar asylums. The kitchen was supervised by a Swiss cordon bleu chef, the staff was large enough to provide a one-to-one relationship with patients, and a wide variety of social activities was available, including first-run movies, TV sets in every room, dances, costume balls, and live entertainment by visiting theatrical troupes. No basket weaving or finger painting at Crittenden Hall.
    As chief executive of this thriving enterprise, Dr. Thorndecker paid himself the relatively modest salary of $50,000 a year. All profits of the nursing facility went to the Crittenden Research Laboratory which was, according to the prospectus distributed to potential donors, “Devoted to a continuing inquiry into the biology of aging, with particular attention to cellular morphology and the role it plays in productive longevity.”
    The Lifschultz Associates’ report concluded by stating that the Crittenden Research Laboratory was supported by the profits of the nursing home, by grants and contributions from outside donors, and by bequests, many of them sizable and some of them willed to the laboratory by former patients of Crittenden Hall.
    Dr. Thorndecker, I decided, had a nice thing going. Not illegal certainly. Probably not even immoral or unethical. Just nice.
    I flipped the stack of records on the hi-fi, visited the can, mixed a fresh highball, lighted the last cigarette in pack No. 1, and settled down to read the original application submitted to the Bingham Foundation by the Crittenden Research Laboratory.
    The petition was succinct and well-organized. It made it clear from the outset that despite similar names, the connection between Crittenden Hall, the nursing home, and the Crittenden Research Laboratory was kept deliberately distant. Each facility had its own building, each its own staff. Lab employees were not encouraged to associate with those of the nursing home; they even lunched in separate chambers. What the application was emphasizing was that no Bingham Foundation funds, if granted, would be used in support of Crittenden Hall, a profit-making institution. All monies would go to Crittenden Research Laboratory, a non-profit organization performing original and valuable investigation into the basic constitution of mammalian cells.
    The specific purpose for which a million dollars was requested was a three-year study on the effects of the entire spectrum of electromagnetic radiation on human embryo cells in vitro. This would include everything from radio waves and visible light to infrared, X rays, ultraviolet, and gamma rays. In addition, the cells’ reaction to ultrasound would be explored, as well as laser and maser emissions.
    Preliminary experiments, the application stated, indicated that under prolonged exposure to certain wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, human cells underwent fundamental alterations of their reproductive capabilities, the nature of which the basic research had not clearly revealed. But, it was suggested, the thorough study for which funds were requested could conceivably lead to a fuller understanding of the cause of senescence in mammalian cells. In effect, what the project was designed to discover was the cellular clock