Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out (16 page)

The rabbi nodded to Lieutenant Jennings and took the seat proffered him. “I got a call from Stanley; Stanley Doble –”

“Oh, it was you he called. You want to see him?”

The rabbi laughed shortly. “It’s he who evidently wants to see me. I gather he’s been arrested. Could you tell me what for?”

The phone rang and Lanigan picked up the receiver.

“All right, put him on.” He cupped the receiver and said to Jennings, “Another Billy call.”

Jennings said, “That’s number seven.”

“This is Chief Lanigan,” he said into the instrument, and reached for a scratch pad. “What’s the name again? – How do you spell that? Two e’s? – Okay, Mr. Beech – This motel is where? Where are you calling from? – North Adams? – Uh-huh – Uh-huh – All right, and what did he look like? How tall would you say he is? – Five foot four? No, the man we’re looking for is quite a bit taller. Close to six feet – No. I don’t think that’s anything you can disguise, but thanks for calling, we appreciate it. Bye.”

To Jennings he said. “A motel operator from North Adams, a guy just signed in as William Grey; but Mr. Beech thought he hesitated before writing the e.”

“North Adams is the other end of the state. If the kid doesn’t show up pretty soon, we’ll be getting calls from Texas and California.” said Jennings.

“Even if he does show up,” said Lanigan, he brought a large, fleshy hand down across his broad face, as if to wipe out the lines of worry and tiredness. To the rabbi he said, “We’ve been at it since the first thing this morning. I had a sandwich for lunch and not much more for dinner. Gladys didn’t expect me home, and ten cups of coffee in paper cups, the news broadcast was an hour ago, and we’ve had seven calls from people saying they saw him. You sure it was seven, Eban? Seems like more.”

“Yeah, seven. I’ve been keeping count.”

“Plus other calls from people who had all kinds of suggestions and advice. None of it useful, and one from a nut who wouldn’t give his name but was sure that we were persecuting an innocent man, we’ll get a lot more of those before this is over, all that, in addition to the legitimate calls – from my own people on things and asking for additional instructions, calls from the D.A. –” He smiled broadly. “The hell with it. What can I do for you, Rabbi?”

“I came about Stanley. Remember? Am I to infer that his being here is because he’s mixed up in this murder in some way?”

“Stanley. Right, well, Jordon was shot around half past eight, about an hour before that. Stanley had a row with him at his house, he was finally pushed out, but he threatened to come back.”

“And that’s why you arrested him?”

Lanigan grinned broadly. “Not really, the boys found him sitting in his parked car dead drunk and pulled him in to sleep it off.”

“Well he’s slept it off by now, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, but there are some questions we’d like to ask him.”

“Then how about asking him the questions and letting him go? He’s got a job to do.”

Lanigan pressed his lips together as he considered. “All right.” He spoke into the phone to ask the desk sergeant to have Stanley sent up. “But don’t you say anything while I’m questioning him.”

“Of course not,” said the rabbi.

There was a discreet knock on the door, and the sergeant and a uniformed patrolman marched a woebegone, disheveled Stanley into the room. When the officers had been dismissed, Lanigan said. “Now. Stanley, I want you to tell me everything that happened when you came back to Jordon’s house last night.”

“What do you mean, came back?” demanded Stanley truculently. “I never came back there. I wouldn’t set foot in his lousy house. Does he say I did?”

“All right, then suppose you tell us what you did when you left Jordon’s. You did go to see him, didn’t you?”

“I did like hell. I got no business with him. I went to pick up Martha Peterson which I had a date with her, and they said she wasn’t there, that she was waiting for me down by the gate. So why didn’t I see her when I turned into the driveway? Or if I missed her on account I was looking out to clear the gatepost, wouldn’t she have seen me? And wouldn’t she have yelled out? But, of course, she could’ve walked a little away from the gate, so I went back down there, and she wasn’t there. So then I had to figure out was they lying to me, or did she put them up to it on account she changed her mind and didn’t want to see me.”

“So what did you do?” asked Jennings. “I went to get me a couple of beers.”

“To help you decide, I suppose.” said Jennings sarcastically.

“That’s right, and it came to me maybe she’d gone home even before I got there. So I went over to her place, and she was there.” He looked triumphantly from one to another of the three men in the room.

“Then what did you do?” asked Lanigan.

“Well, she wouldn’t let me in, and she wouldn’t go out, we were talking like through the door, she had it on the chain, see. But she as much as told me she’d lost her job on account of me. So I thought maybe I’d go back to Jordon’s and have it out with him.”

“And what time was that?” asked Lanigan casually.

“Oh, eight, eight-thirty, maybe even a little later. See, I thought I’d have another beer first, well, I came down by way of Elm Street, and I slowed down to make a left into his driveway, and then I noticed the place was dark. Not that the place is ever really lit up any time I’ve gone by there. Never enough light to draw mosquitoes, the old skinflint wouldn’t spend the money. But this time, it was dark like he’d gone out or gone to bed, and then while I was trying to figure was he maybe in bed, and should I ring or bang on the door so he’d have to get up at least to answer, this car comes tootling along from the other direction and curves into the driveway. So I thought, what the hell, there’s no use my going up there where he was having company. So I just went on away from there over to Salem to visit another ladyfriend of mine I got there.”

“This friend have a name?” asked Lanigan.

For the first time. Stanley showed reluctance, he glanced at the rabbi uncertainly. Finally, he ventured. “I don’t rightly remember her name, we always call her Frenchy, on account of she’s what you might call of French extraction.”

“This car you saw going into the driveway, what make was it?” asked Lanigan negligently: as though it had no interest for him and he was merely making conversation.

Stanley shook his head. “He was coming toward me and he had his high beams on.”

“And this was what time?”

“Like I said, it could’ve been half past eight, or maybe a little later.”

The phone rang, and as soon as Lanigan announced himself, an excited voice came from the other end. “Chief, the young fellow. Green, has just showed. Caught him trying to climb through the window in back.”

Both Lanigan and Jennings immediately became alert. Lanigan said. “All right, beat it, will you. Rabbi. I’m going to be busy for a while.”

“How about Stanley?”

“Oh, take him with you.”

The questioning went on for hours. When Lanigan and Jennings arrived at the Jordon house. McLure was already there and had already begun the interrogation, and Billy was sobbing and blubbering. McLure broke off long enough to nod the two men over to a far corner to get them current with the situation.

“He pretends he didn’t know about the murder until he got here,” he said, “but I’m sure he’s the one, and it’s only a question of time before I get him to admit it.”

“You ever hear of Miranda?” asked Lanigan coldly.

Instantly McLure was wide-eyed innocence. “I haven’t accused him. I’m just questioning him as a witness – just for information.”

“Then why’s he crying?”

“He feels bad about the death of Jordon – he says.”

“What was Jordon to him? Did he say?”

“Says he was just a friend of his mother’s.” McLure’s eyes sparkled with eagerness. “And do you know who his mother is? Hester Grimes, she’s his mother.”

“Who’s Hester Grimes?” asked Jennings.

“Oh, you must have seen her on TV, she’s a nightclub singer and entertainer. You see her on a lot of these talk shows.”

“Where is she?” asked Lanigan. “How do we get in touch with her?”

“She’s on tour in Europe. What I got out of him so far is –”

“Never mind. I’ll talk to him myself. If he changes his story, you can question him, but otherwise I’d appreciate it if you just sat quiet.” Lanigan went over to the boy and sat down beside him. “I’m Chief Lanigan of the police department here. Billy.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you around.”

“I’d like you to tell me what happened.” Lanigan went on. “This terrible thing that happened last night, we’ve got to investigate it. You understand that, don’t you?”

Billy nodded.

“Now, Mr. Jordon was killed with the gun that you brought home. Suppose you tell me about that. Did Mr. Gore ask you to take the gun with you?”

“Oh no, he asked me if I’d care to ride shotgun while he took the Peter Archer silver into Boston, but I knew he only meant that I’d be riding beside him. But I thought, what if someone – well, you know, that stuff is pretty valuable, and what could I do? I mean. I’m not one of these big, hefty guys, and Mr. Gore isn’t either. So I thought, if we should get stopped – well, I didn’t know about the special law here in Massachusetts. I knew you had to have a license, but I figured Mr. Gore must have one, since he’s president of the bank and is into handgun shooting and all, and I’d be with him all the time, and, of course, if nothing happened, I’d just put it back and who’d know.”

Lanigan did not badger him and he did not try to confuse him, but he was persistent. “Well, how soon after you were locked in did you leave?”

“Oh, right away.”

“How right away?”

For the first time. Billy grinned. “Well, when he said he was locking me in, I thought, Oh yeah? and I headed for the window.”

“All right, and where’d you go?”

“I went away from there as fast as I could. I went down the back driveway that we don’t use anymore, out to Elm Street.”

“Why did you go down there? Were you afraid you might be seen if you went down the regular driveway?”

“That’s right. I thought Mr. Gore might be coming out, and I didn’t want to see him.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it was embarrassing. I was good and sore. See. Mr. Jordon had locked me in my room before, and I’d always sneaked out. I didn’t mind that. It was like a game we played. See, that was his way of telling me I’d done something wrong. It never bothered me much. I’d just sneak out, and he knew it. It was like a game between the two of us. But he shouldn’t have done it in front of Mr. Gore. See. Mr. Gore is my boss, and he’s like a friend to me, and here Mr. Jordon was treating me like a little kid. It was awfully embarrassing, so I didn’t want to see Mr. Gore. I’d be – well – embarrassed, and I was wondering if I could even go back to the bank.”

“So then what did you do?”

“Well, I didn’t know what to do, because I sure wasn’t going to come back until late, maybe not till midnight. But I don’t know anybody in Barnard’s Crossing, and there’s nothing to do there anyway. So there’s a bunch of people waiting for a bus, and just then it came along, so I got on it.”

“Anybody you recognized on the bus?” asked Lanigan casually.

Billy shook his head. “No. I didn’t see anybody I knew.”

“I should think being a teller at the bank you’d recognize a lot of people.” suggested Jennings. “And even if you didn’t know them, they’d know you and maybe say hello.”

Billy shook his head again. “We’re in North Barnard’s Crossing. Down this end of town everybody banks at the Deposit and Trust.”

“What were you planning on doing in Boston?” asked Lanigan.

Billy shrugged his shoulders. “Just hang around and then take a late bus back. But I got to thinking. Mr. Jordon played me a dirty trick, so maybe I could pay him back one. So when I got to Boston. I went to the big bus station and took a bus to New York. See. I figured he’d know if I didn’t get back that night, and he’d get worried, and it would serve him right.”

“I guess you didn’t like him very much,” suggested McLure.

Billy looked surprised. “Sure I liked him. Why wouldn’t I like him?” His eyes began to tear. “He’d bring me stuff, you know, presents, whenever he came to visit us, from the time I was a little kid, and he invited me to stay with him, didn’t he? I remember once, when I’d been here maybe a couple of weeks. I got sick. It was this twenty-four-hour bug. But Mr. Jordon kept coming into my room practically all night to see how I was.”

“All right.” said Lanigan, “let’s get back to your travels. I don’t suppose you met anyone you knew on the New York bus?”

Billy shook his head.

“What bus was it, by the way?”

“It was a Greyhound. I took the nine o’clock, they leave every hour, actually; it was eight-fifty-five.”

“What did you do in New York?” asked Jennings.

“Well, it was pretty late when I got in, or rather pretty early in the morning. So I had a bite in the terminal, and then I thought maybe I’d go home. But then I thought the doorman would ask me all kinds of questions, we’re kind of friendly, me and the doorman. So then I thought maybe I’d hang around the city, or go to one of those all-night movies in Times Square. See, if I went to my house in the morning, or during the day, it wouldn’t be so, you know, funny, and the doorman who is on days I’m not so friendly with, so he wouldn’t be apt to ask me any questions. But I figured those all-night movie houses in Times Square, there’s apt to be a bunch of drunks in those places. So I didn’t know what to do, and just sitting there in the terminal trying to make up my mind, I fell asleep.”

“I should think you would have slept on the bus,” said Jennings. “I always do.”

“I tried but couldn’t.” said the young man. “I was like upset, maybe I did doze off and on. But later in the terminal building. I passed right out. When I woke up, it was morning, and I was stiff and felt kind of grubby. So I washed in the men’s room and I bought a comb at one of the stores in the terminal” – he fished in his jacket pocket and brought forth a comb – “see, here it is. Souvenir of New York, it says, then I had some breakfast, and then I took a bus downtown and just walked around.”