Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (20 page)

Lanigan pointed at the rabbi’s head. “What do you call that thing you’re wearing?”

The rabbi touched his black silk skullcap. “This? A kipoh.”

“Then forgive me, rabbi,” he said, grinning, “but you’re talking through your kipoh. Why would they be careful about opening and closing the car doors and keeping their voices down to a whisper when they had no reason to assume anyone was within earshot? If they were there before it began to rain, they would have lowered the windows. It was warm, remember. And if it was during the rain, Norman surely would have seen them. What’s more, there was no indication the girl had been in your car. Look here.” He opened his dispatch case and took out some papers, which he spread on the rabbi’s desk, and they all drew near to look. “These are the total contents of your car – a list of what was in every receptacle. Here’s a diagram of the interior of the car showing where each item was found. Here’s where the handbag was found, on the floor under the seat. Here in the plastic trash pocket were lipstick-stained tissues, but it was your wife’s lipstick. On the floor in the rear, right behind the front seats, there was a bobby pin but it was your wife’s. There were a number of cigarette butts in the front ashtray and one in the rear ashtray, and all were lipstick-stained with your wife’s lipstick, and it was the brand she smokes because they’re the same as the partially filled pack we found in the glove compartment.”

“Just a minute,” said Miriam, “that one in the rear ashtray can’t be mine. I’ve never sat in the back seat since we got the ear.”

“What’s that? Never sat in the back seat? That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” asked the rabbi mildly. “I have never sat in any seat but the driver’s seat. Actually, the back seat has never been used, come to think of it. Since we got the car, less than a year ago, I have never had occasion to transport anyone. When I am in the car, I am in the driver’s seat, and when Miriam comes along she sits beside me. What is so strange about that? How often do you sit in the back seat of your car?”

“But it must have got there somehow. The lipstick is your wife’s, the brand of cigarette is hers. Look here, here’s a list of what was in the girl’s handbag. No cigarettes, you notice.”

The rabbi studied the list. Then he pointed. “But there’s a cigarette lighter, and that would indicate that she smoked. As far as the lipstick goes, you said it was the same brand and shade as Miriam’s. After all, they’re both blondes.”

“Just a minute,” said Lanigan. “The bobby pin was found in the back of the car, so you must have –”

Miriam shook her head. “Sitting in the front seat, it would be in the back that the pin would fall.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Lanigan, “but it still doesn’t give us what you’d call a clear picture. She had no cigarettes – at least there were none in her purse, right?”

“Right, but she was not alone. There was someone with her – -the murderer – and he probably had cigarettes.”

“Are you saying that the girl was murdered in your car, rabbi?”

“Precisely. The lipstick-stained cigarette in the rear ashtray proves that a woman was in the rear seat of my car. The handbag on the floor in the rear shows that it was Elspeth Bleech.”

“All right, let’s say she was there. Let’s even grant she was killed in your car. How does that help Bronstein?”

“I’d say it clears him.”

“You mean because he had a car of his own?”

“Yes. Why would he drive into the parking lot with the girl, park alongside my car, and then change cars?”

“He might have killed her in his own car and then transferred the body to your car.”

“You’re forgetting the cigarette in the rear ashtray. She was alive in my car.”

“Suppose he forced her into your car.”

“For what reason?”

Lanigan shrugged. “Perhaps to avoid having any signs of struggle in his own car.”

“You’re not giving that cigarette its full weight as evidence. If she smoked that cigarette in the rear seat of my car, then she was at ease. No one had his hand at her throat – no one was threatening her. For that matter, if after taking off her dress she had to go back to Bronstein’s car for some reason, why would she have put on the raincoat?”

“Because it was raining, of course.”

The rabbi shook his head impatiently. “The car was right in front of the house. How far? Fifty feet? She had put on a topcoat to cover her slip, and that certainly was protection enough against the rain for such a short run.”

Lanigan rose and began to pace the floor. The rabbi watched him, unwilling to interrupt his train of thought. But when he continued silent, the rabbi said, “Bronstein should have come to the police as soon as he found out what happened, admitted. For that matter, he shouldn’t have picked up the girl in the first place. But even if you can’t condone it, it is understandable in the light of the situation at home. And again you can’t condone his withholding information from the police, but you can understand it. Arresting him for questioning, with its attendant publicity, is more than enough punishment, don’t you agree? Chief Lanigan, take my advice and let him go.”

“But that would leave me without a suspect.”

“That’s not like you.”

“What do you mean?” The chief’s face reddened.

“I can’t imagine you holding a man just so that you can report progress to the press. Besides, it will only hamper your investigation. You’ll find yourself thinking about Bronstein, trying to evolve theories that put him in the picture, checking his past, interpreting whatever new evidence comes up, from the point of view of his possible involvement. And that’s obviously the wrong direction for your investigation to take.”

“Well …”

“Don’t you see, you’ve got nothing on him other than his failure to come forward.”

“But the D.A. is coming down in the morning to question him.”

“Then tell him he’ll turn up voluntarily. I’ll go bond for him. I’ll guarantee his appearance when you want him.”

Lanigan picked up his dispatch case. “All right, I’ll let him go.” He went to the door, and with his hand on the knob he paused. “Of course, rabbi, you realize that you haven’t exactly improved your own position.”

Al Becker was not one to forget a favor. The morning after his partner was released, he went to see Abe Casson to thank him personally for his good offices in the matter.

“Yeah, I spoke to the district attorney but I didn’t get far. As I told you, this case is being handled pretty much by the local police, at least so far.”

“Is that customary?”

“Well, it is and it isn’t. The lines of authority aren’t clearly drawn. The state detectives usually come in on murders. The district attorney in whose county a major crime is committed and whose office will have to prosecute, he’s in on it. Then the local police, because they know local conditions, they have a hand in it. It depends a lot on the character of the local police chief and on the character of the D.A. and what men are available and what special issues are at stake. You take in a big city like Boston, it would be the Boston police who’d be running the show because they have the men and they’re equipped for it. Now down here, the investigation is being run pretty much by Hugh Lanigan. Mel was picked up on his orders and he was released on his orders. And I’ll tell you something else: Lanigan released him as a result of some new angle or some new interpretation of the evidence that the rabbi showed him. That’s not customary, if you like – I mean, a cop giving someone else the credit for some clever detective work – but then Hugh Lanigan is no ordinary cop.”

Al Becker did not take Abe Casson’s remarks at face value. He did not doubt that the rabbi had spoken to Lanigan about the matter – conceivably, in the course of the conversation, some chance remark of the rabbi’s may have given the police chief a different slant – but he did not believe the rabbi had been able to work out a convincing defense of his friend. Still, he supposed he ought to see the rabbi and thank him.

Once again, their meeting was not without its awkwardness. Becker came straight to the point. “I understand that you had a lot to do with Mel Bronstein’s being released, rabbi.”

It would have been easier had the rabbi made the expected modest disclaimer, but instead he said, “Yes, I suppose I did.”

“Well, you know how I feel about Mel. He’s like a kid brother to me. So you can understand how grateful I am. I haven’t exactly been one of your most active supporters –”

The rabbi smiled. “And now you are somewhat embarrassed. There’s no need to be, Mr. Becker. I’m sure your objection was in no way personal. You feel that I’m not the right man for the position I hold. You have every right to go on feeling that way. I helped your friend as I would help you or anyone else who needed it, just as I’m sure you would in like circumstances.”

Becker phoned Abe Casson to report on his conversation with the rabbi, ending with, “He’s a hard man to tike. I went there to thank him for helping Mel and to more or less apologize for having worked against him on the contract business, and he as much as told me he didn’t need my friendship and didn’t care if I continued to oppose him.”

“That’s not the impression I got from your story. You know, Al, maybe you’re too smart to understand a man like the rabbi. You’re used to reading between the lines and guessing what people really mean. Has it ever occurred to you that the rabbi might not talk between the lines, that he says pretty much exactly what he means?”

“Well, I know you and Jake Wasserman and Abe Reich are sold on him. The rabbi can do no wrong as far as you people are concerned, but –”

“He seems to have done all right for you too, Al.”

“Oh, I’m not saying that he didn’t do me and Mel a favor, and I’m grateful. But you know very well that Mel would have got off anyway, maybe in another day or two, because they didn’t have a thing on him.”

“Don’t be so sure. You don’t know how they play the game. In an ordinary case where a man is tried for some ordinary crime – sure, the chances are that if he’s innocent he’ll go free. But in a case of this kind there’s another element. It’s no longer just a case at law. Politics enters into it, and then they’re not so concerned about whether a man is guilty or not. They start thinking in different terms: have we got enough to go before a jury with? If the man is innocent, let his lawyer take care of him and if he doesn’t, it’s just too bad. It becomes a sort of game, like football, with the D.A. on one side and the defendant’s lawyer on the other, and the judge the referee. And the defendant? He’s the football.”

“Yes, but –”

“And another thing, Al, if you really want to see this in its proper perspective, just ask yourself what happens now? Who’s the chief suspect? I’ll tell you – it’s the rabbi. Now whatever your opinion of the rabbi, you can’t call him stupid. So you can be sure he knows that in getting Bronstein off the hook he was putting himself squarely on. Think about that for a while, Al, and then ask yourself again if the rabbi is such a hard man to like.”

Sunday it rained. the rain had started early in the morning, and the corridor and classrooms of the Sunday school were pervaded with the smell of wet raincoats and rubbers. Mr. Wasserman and Abe Casson, standing just inside the outer door, stared moodily at the parking tot, watching raindrops bounce against the shiny asphalt.

“It’s a quarter-past ten, Jacob,” said Casson. “It doesn’t look as though we’re going to have a meeting today.”

“A little bit of rain, and they’re afraid to go out.”

They were joined by Al Becker. “Abe Reich and Meyer Goldfarb are here, but I don’t think you’ll be getting many more.”

“We’ll wait another fifteen minutes,” said Wasserman.

“If they’re not here now, they won’t be here,” said Casson flatly.

“Maybe we should make a few telephone calls,” Wasserman suggested.

“If they’re afraid of a little rain,” said Becker, “your calling them won’t change their minds.”

Casson snorted derisively. “You think that’s what’s keeping them away?”

“What else?”

“I think the boys are playing it cozy. Don’t you understand, Al? They don’t any of them want to get mixed up in this.”

“Mixed up in what?” demanded Becker. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a girl who was murdered. And about the rabbi’s possible connection with her. We were supposed to vote today on the rabbi’s new contract, remember? And I imagine some of the boys started to think about the possibilities. Suppose they vote for keeping the rabbi, and then it turns out he’s guilty. What would their friends say, especially their Gentile friends? What would be the effect on their business? Now do you get it?”

“It never occurred to me,” Becker began slowly.

“That’s because it probably never occurred to you that the rabbi could have done it,” said Casson. He looked at Becker curiously. “Tell me, Al, didn’t you get any phone calls?”

Becker looked blank, but Wasserman’s face began to color.

“Ah, I see you got some, Jacob,” Casson went on.

“What kind of calls?” asked Becker.

“Tell him, Jacob.”

Wasserman shrugged his shoulders. “Who pays attention? Cranks, fools, bigots, am I going to listen to them? I hang up on them.”

“And you’ve been getting them, too?” Becker demanded of Casson.

“Yeah. I imagine they called Jacob because he’s president. And they called me because I’m in politics and so I’m known.”

“And what have you done about it?” demanded Becker.

Casson shrugged his shoulders. “Same as Jacob – nothing. What can you do about it? When the murderer is found, it’ll stop.”

“Well, something ought to be done about it. At least we ought to tell the police or the Selectmen or –”

“And what can they do? Now if I were to recognize a voice, that would be something else again.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s new to you, eh? And it’s probably new to Jacob. But it’s not new to me. I’ve had this type of call in every political campaign. The world is full of nuts – bitter, disappointed, disturbed men and women. Individually, they’re mostly harmless. Collectively, they’re kind of unpleasant to think about. They write nasty obscene letters to the newspapers or to people whose names are mentioned in the news, and if it happens to be someone local, they telephone.”