Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out (14 page)

“Because tomorrow They would be here. Today they went visiting and won’t be back until this evening.”

From previous visits, he had learned that in her style book, while her son was always My Herbie, his wife was She, and together, husband and wife, were They. “So?”

“Well, I must begin. Rabbi, by admitting that when My Herbie decided to get married. I was opposed.”

His lips twitched but he said soberly, “Was your opposition to marriage as an institution, or was it to the girl he chose?”

“Well, I thought he ought to wait a while.”

“But he’s a mature man, he’s in his thirties.”

“He was thirty-six at the time, he’s thirty-eight now. So having waited this long, I felt he ought to wait until the right girl came along. I felt that She was not the right girl for him.” Mrs. Mandell shook her head dolefully. “She says She’s thirty, although I think She’s more like thirty-two or thirty-three, that’s already not so young for a woman. My Herbie is tall and handsome, he could have had any number of girls –”

“But he chose this one.” the rabbi insisted. “Did he; Rabbi? Or did She choose him?”

He smiled. “It comes to the same thing in the end, doesn’t it? They’re happy, aren’t they? That’s what matters.”

“Oh, I guess She’s happy.”

“And he isn’t?” asked the rabbi, smiling.

“How can he be? She’s made a – dishrag out of him. Just because he gets home a little earlier, She has him fix the supper and set the table, afterward, she has him help in the kitchen with the dishes, she dominates him completely, and She makes love to him– right in front of me.”

The rabbi opened his eyes wide.

“I mean, She kisses him and fondles him like a kitten. Is that the way for a young married woman to act?”

“It shows she loves him, doesn’t it?”

“Does it. Rabbi? Or does it just show She likes men?”

“What are you suggesting, Mrs. Mandell?” the rabbi asked coldly.

But Mrs. Mandell did not feel in the least put out. “Last night, My Herbie had to be at the temple.”

“Yes, I know, he was chairman of the committee.”

“Now I can’t be left alone at night, there’s a danger –”

“Yes, yes, you’ve told me.”

“So when They have to go off together, My Herbie arranges for a woman to come and stay with me.” She smirked. “A mother-sitter, he calls it.” Mrs. Mandell lowered her voice. “Last night She volunteered to stay, she said She had some work to do for the bank.” Her mouth twisted in a superior smile. “What kind of work would a bank ask an employee to do after hours, Rabbi? And wouldn’t you think a wife would want to watch her husband being honored? But My Herbie is very trusting, and to tell the truth. I thought nothing of it, either. I went up to bed around eight, as usual, and I dozed off. I never sleep.”

“I know.”

“About half an hour later, just when the service was starting. I imagine. I was awakened by the phone ringing, she spoke for a couple of minutes and then I heard her coming up the stairs to see if I was asleep, so I pretended, she looked in at me and then tiptoed downstairs, then She left the house, and I heard her car start up. I got out of bed and watched as She drove off. What do you think of that?”

The rabbi was nonplussed. “You mean that where she had agreed to sit – What did your son say when he came home and found her gone?”

“Oh, She got back before he did, she came back about half an hour later and came up to look in on me again.”

“And again you pretended to be asleep?”

“Naturally. My Herbie doesn’t know unless She told him, and you can be sure She didn’t tell him.”

“Why are you so sure she didn’t?”

“Because he’d be furious. You see, there’s the danger –”

“Yes, yes. I know,” he said hastily.

“So you can understand why I couldn’t sleep a wink last night. Rabbi. Why I’ve been so upset all day. Where did she go? Who did She see?”

“Why did she have to have seen anyone? She may have gone out for a magazine or a pack of cigarettes.”

“At half past eight? The stores are closed, and how about the phone call?”

“It could have no relation to her going out. Or it could be some woman friend of hers.”

“So She could come over and get a cake recipe, maybe? No. Rabbi, it was a man who called, and She went to meet him. What shall I do: Rabbi? What shall I do?”

The rabbi took a deep breath. “I think you told me you had a sister out west –”

“In Arizona, she has been after me to come out there.”

“I think that’s what you should do. Mrs. Mandell, the climate would be good for you.”

“And leave My Herbie here trusting, believing, while She betrays him?”

“Mrs. Mandell, she is not betraying your son. It’s a terrible thing to say about a respectable married woman, especially your own daughter-in-law.”

“Oh, you’re like everyone else,” she said scornfully. “If it doesn’t concern you personally, sweep it under the rug and make believe it isn’t there.” She gave a cunning, calculating look. “But suppose I told you that you are concerned.”

“How am I concerned?”

“Because She’s plotting to get you out. What do you think of that?” she asked spitefully. “I’ve heard her on the phone talking to the president, Henry Maltzman, about how they can get rid of you. If I’ve heard her once. I’ve heard her half a dozen times. Now, what do you think of her? Now, what do you say?”

“I say you should go out to Arizona to visit your sister,” he said resolutely.

“Now suppose you tell us just what happened last night,” suggested Lanigan genially when Lawrence Gore was seated.

“But I told it all to the sergeant.” Gore protested, “and there was a policeman taking it all down in shorthand.”

“Well now, that was a statement you were making.” said Lanigan. “Sergeant McLure is a state detective and they have their regulations. But we’re the local police, and we’d like to hear it, too, not just read what the stenographer types up.”

“So you can compare the two statements and badger me if there’s a discrepancy?”

Lanigan smiled. “Something like that.”

“All right.” said Gore wearily. “I was invited there for dinner.”

“You go there often?” Jennings asked.

“No. Once before, a few months ago, almost every Thursday night Jordon would go out to the club, the Agathon, and if I were going. I’d drive him out and back, he didn’t like to drive, especially at night. But I’d just drive up to the door and honk the horn and he’d come out. But yesterday I called him to tell him I was taking the Peter Archer silver in to the museum – I expect you’ve heard about that – and it was his last chance if he wanted his soup tureen to be exhibited, he told me I could pick it up and invited me to dinner.”

Gore went on to tell his story without further interruption, although he went into considerable detail, he did not mention Molly’s visit to the Jordon house since he did not have personal knowledge of it, and in any case it was after the murder had occurred. It was only after Gore had finished that they questioned him.

“When you left, the boy was still in his room?” asked Lanigan.

“Jordon hadn’t let him out.” Gore answered with a shrug. “Since he got out, he must have let himself out –”

“How do you know that?” asked Jennings quickly. “When I got here this morning. I called out to him, there was no answer, then I knocked and listened at the door –”

“Did you open it?”

“Of course not.” said Gore. “That would have meant disturbing evidence, and –”

Lanigan cut in. “So you figure since he let himself out, he could have got out anytime, maybe even while you were still here talking to the old man.”

“He could have.” Gore admitted.

“What do you know about him?” Lanigan asked.

Gore spread his hands in a gesture of ignorance. “Not much. Jordon told me he had problems and didn’t want him pestered, that’s the way he put it, he didn’t specify what kind of problems, he’d graduated from a secondary school and had no police record, so I hired him, he seemed to be a decent enough kid, but kept pretty much to himself. I don’t know of any friends he had in town, he did his work well, and I liked him, he didn’t talk about his family or his background at all, maybe Jordon told him not to, and I didn’t press him. Oh, he did say once that his father had been killed in the war. Since he was too old to have been born during the Vietnam business and not old enough to have been born during the Korean War. I asked him what war, and he said, the Suez Campaign, well, that was the action in which England and France joined Israel against Egypt. Of course, his father might have been British or French. But he could also have been Israeli, and knowing how Jordon felt about Jews. I didn’t pursue the matter.”

“Just how did he feel about Jews?” asked Lanigan.

“I’m a banker.” said Gore, “and one man’s money is the same as another’s. So I don’t like to talk about religion, and I didn’t with Jordon. Once or twice I remonstrated with him when it interfered with business, like when he wouldn’t sell some land that the temple people wanted to buy, or once when Henry Maltzman had a customer for a piece of land, all he said then was that he wasn’t going to make it any easier for them. I guess he didn’t like them.” He smiled. “That didn’t prevent him from making a pass at my secretary a couple of times, and he knew she was Jewish, she called him a dirty old man.”

“That’s the one you phoned on your way to Boston?” asked Jennings.

“Uh-huh.”

“All right.” Lanigan looked up from the notes he had been making. “I guess that about does it. Oh yeah, what about the gun?”

“The gun is one of three that I bought for the bank, one for each teller’s cage.” said Gore.

“How come?” asked Jennings. “I didn’t think banks went in for that kind of thing anymore. I thought they relied on an armed guard nowadays.”

“That’s right. But we don’t have an armed guard, and the tellers have strict instructions not to use them.”

“Then what’s the point in having them?”

“It gives them a feeling of security. If someone comes in and holds up the bank, they’re not supposed to be heroes. But if things should get out of hand, and some wild shooting result –”

“Why didn’t you take it with you when you left?” asked Lanigan.

“Because I don’t have a license to carry a gun.”

“How come?” asked Jennings. “A crackshot like you, and a banker?”

Gore smiled. “For just that reason. I might be inclined to use it, and then be sorry for it afterward. So I eliminate the possibility by not taking out a license. I was planning on calling you people Monday morning so that you could send an officer to pick it up and return it to the bank.”

“Too bad you didn’t think to call last night as soon as you found the young man had taken it. Jordon might be alive today.”

“Was it anything serious? Was it really an emergence David?” Miriam asked when the rabbi returned.

He shook his head. “Just the sick fancies of a lonely and embittered woman.” He smiled. “Among other things, she accused her daughter-in-law of plotting against me. You know her at all?”

“Molly Mandell? Well, I see her when I take your check to the bank on the first of the month, and I see her at Sisterhood meetings occasionally, she’s apt to be rather outspoken there, mostly about women’s rights. From little things I’ve heard, she’s not one of your more ardent admirers.” She hesitated, and then added. “The Mandells are also supposed to be friendly with the Maltzmans.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“There’s nothing actually wrong with it. I suppose, but it is curious since the Maltzmans are so much older than the Mandells.”

“And what’s the significance of that?” he asked.

“Well, Henry Maltzman doesn’t like you. David. I can see it whenever he comes here. Can’t you sense it?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed it, as you pointed out, his attitude was like that of the officers, especially the line officers, when I was a chaplain in the army, and Henry Maltzman is still very much an officer, there was a grudging admission that maybe we in the Chaplain’s Corps might help maintain morale, and hence to that extent we were useful. But otherwise, there was no meeting of minds. I suppose they resented that they couldn’t give us orders when they outranked us. I think they felt that way toward the Medical Corps, too, a captain in the Medics once told me that whenever he told an infantry colonel to take his shirt off, he used to wait a minute or two so that the sound of teeth gritting didn’t interfere with the sounds he was trying to hear through the stethoscope. Yes, I think Henry Maltzman would prefer a more complaint rabbi to deal with, he may even be trying to do something about it. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.”

“And what are you planning to do about it?”

“Nothing,” he said simply. “There’s nothing I can do.” She was annoyed with him. “You mean, you’re giving up?

You’ve had trouble with previous residents, and you’ve fought them –”

“It’s different now,” he said.

“How is it different?” she challenged.

“Now that they’ve got an executive committee of fifteen, it only takes eight votes not to renew my contract.” He smiled ruefully. “Maybe I outsmarted myself when I turned down the lifetime contract, although if I had a life contract, they could get me out easily enough by voting something that I couldn’t possibly condone. Still. I’ll admit it’s easier for them now.”

“And you wouldn’t do anything about it?”

“What can I do about it? Ask the individual members of the board not to fire me? And what would my position be afterward?”

“So what will you do?” she asked, her voice betraying exasperation.

He smiled faintly. “I suppose this time I’ll have to leave it in the hands of God and hope for the best.”

“I hate this kind of case,” declared state detective Sergeant McLure. “It can drag on for months, and we can end up with nothing. Or we might be dead certain we know who did it, and the D.A, will find that we don’t have enough to go to court with.”

“What’s so different about this case?” asked Jennings defensively, as though McLure, from the big city, was casting aspersions on a local product. In any case, the question was rhetorical rather than because he was interested in any answer McLure might give, they were sitting along with Lanigan around the dining room table in the Jordon house, the three of them limp, rather than relaxed, feeling the letdown that followed the tensions and the hectic work of the day.