Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red (27 page)

Ames beamed. “I’m rather pleased with myself on that score. I questioned the cleaning woman again, and it seems it was her custom to leave the door unlatched while she went in and out, emptying wastebaskets and things, she simply forgot to reset the latch when she left. Quite characteristic of cleaning women. I assure you.”

“But how would Fine know that? Or is it your theory that he just took pot luck?”

“Ah, we have evidence from other people in the department that Hendryx was always complaining about his cleaning woman, about the way she always left the door unlocked, among other things.”

The rabbi was silent and Ames waited a few seconds before going on. “So there we have it: opportunity, motive, weapon – the last peculiar to the accused. So we picked Fine up and questioned him, he denied everything, of course, and refused to give an account of his actions for that afternoon.”

“He’s within his rights, isn’t he?” asked the rabbi.

“Of course. But why should he refuse? If he has an alibi, he has only to tell us, we’d check it out, and if it stands up we’d release him. But if it’s not a very good alibi, a rigged alibi, say, that he intends to spring on us at the trial so that we couldn’t check it out in advance – and that sort of thing might occur to a smart young man like Fine – well, Rabbi, you’d be doing him a favor to convince him of his folly. Because we’d break that alibi, believe me. But the fact that he tried it could have a very serious effect on the judge and on the sentence. I’ve talked to Winston about it.”

“And what does he say?”

Ames smiled. “Oh, defense lawyers never admit anything. It’s part of the game. Even when they’re plea bargaining, they don’t admit that their client is guilty. I don’t think Jerry would go for an alibi if he knew it was rigged, but he might if he didn’t know for certain.”

“Can I see him?”

“Fine? I think so. I’d like to clear it with Jerry Winston first, though. I’ll call him tomorrow, and you can see him Tuesday.”

She was small and thin, she was wearing a long cotton maxi-dress that all but trailed the ground. It was gathered under the breasts and served to emphasize them, especially since she was obviously not wearing a bra. Dangling against her cleavage was a large silver crucifix on a black velvet ribbon, her brown hair was combed straight down and held away from her face by the bows of her granny spectacles, she had large dark eyes and was attractive in a sad, subdued way.

“Rabbi Small?” She was waiting for him outside his classroom.

“Yes?”

“I’m – my name is Kathy Dunlop, and I wonder if I could speak to you for a few minutes.”

“Certainly, Miss Dunlop.” He looked at her inquiringly. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

“Well, it might take a little more than a few minutes. I thought if you had some time…”

“By all means. Why don’t you come to my office?”

She nodded gratefully and followed him down the corridor, he offered her the visitor’s chair and then sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk and waited.

She fingered the cross at her bosom and then took courage to begin. “Well, this friend of mine, this girl friend. Rabbi, she’s Christian like me, she doesn’t go to school here, but I told her about you. I mean about you being a rabbi and giving a course here, and she asked me to ask you.”

“I see.”

“Well, like I say, she’s Christian and she’s in love with this Jewish boy.”

“And they want to marry?” prompted the rabbi.

“Well, not right away, you understand. I mean, she loves him and he loves her, she’s sure of it. I mean. I know them both and there’s no question about it.”

“All right,” he said softly. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Well, what I want to know, that is, what she wants to know, what she wanted me to ask you, is if she should want to change over –”

“To convert to Judaism?”

“That’s right,” said Kathy. “What would she have to do?”

He smiled. “Well, she’d have to see a rabbi.”

The girl dropped the cross. “Of course. I know a rabbi would have to do it, but what would she have to do?”

David Small leaned back in his chair. “I suppose it would depend on which rabbi she went to see. Most rabbis would tell her that she should give up the boy and look for someone of her own faith.”

“You mean the rabbi wouldn’t do it?” she said with surprise. “But that’s not fair. I mean if you believe yours is the true religion. I think you’d owe it to anyone who was interested to – well – to show them the way; to convince them, to offer them salvation.”

“But we don’t deal in salvation. Miss Dunlop,” he said.

“You don’t? But you do convert people, because I know someone who was.”

“Yes, we do, but we don’t encourage it,” he said. “It is not easy to be a Jew, so the rabbi usually discourages them, for their own sake. In theory we’re not supposed to convert for any reason other than conviction, not just because someone wants to marry a Jew, for example.”

“Well, if someone is in love with a Jew, and wants to – you know, share with him and think the way he thinks – I don’t think it’s fair!” she repeated. “I mean, if you know something that I don’t know, and you think it’s the truth, shouldn’t you want to tell me? Couldn’t this girl being in love with this boy; couldn’t that be what gets her started in being convicted, I mean convinced?”

“Yes,” he said. “In fact, I suppose that’s the rationale used by most rabbis in these cases.” He sighed. How to deal with this girl, so intense, so serious, he wondered if she was pregnant and if what he would say was necessary to help her decide what to do about her immediate problem. “Why do you wear that cross?” he asked.

“Oh, does that bother you?”

“No. I just wondered. Do you wear it all the time, or did you just happen to put it on today?” He wondered whether she regarded it as a kind of talisman to protect her when talking to a rabbi.

“I wear it because I’m a Christian,” she said. “I told you that.”

“Yes, but most Christians don’t wear large silver crosses.”

“Well, it’s a gift, a special gift from my father, he’s a minister,” she said. “He converts people all the time. I mean, that’s really part of his ministry, to bring people to Jesus.”

“And how does he convert them?” the rabbi asked.

“He preaches to them, of course, he convinces them that the way of Jesus will make them into better people, that they’ll be like born again, and they’ll be rid of their sins.”

“And what do they have to do?”

“They’ve got to just accept Jesus, that’s all it takes – they’ve got to be willing to accept Jesus, to open their hearts and let Him come in, because if someone has faith in Him, that’s pretty much all that’s required.”

“Well, it’s a little different with us,” he said. “You see, ours is not a religion in that sense, the things we believe in, I suppose many people who are not Jews also believe, that doesn’t make them Jews, though, and there are many Jews who don’t hold these beliefs and are still Jews, the rule of thumb is that anyone born of a Jewish mother who did not convert is a Jew. It’s more a matter of belonging to the Jewish people, the family, than of accepting certain specific beliefs.”

“But I don’t understand. If it’s a religion –”

“Did you ever study Roman history?”

She seemed surprised. “Yes, in high school, but what’s that got to do with it?”

“Do you know what the lares et penates were?”

“Oh, let me see,” she said, as if called on to recite in class. “Weren’t they like idols or statues that the Latins or the Romans had in their houses?”

“Something like that,” said the rabbi. “They were the household gods, the family gods, the gods that particular family took with them wherever they went, well, Miss Dunlop, it’s a little that way with us. Judaism is a family religion. It’s a set of beliefs, practices, rituals, a way of life, that is peculiar to our people, to our family: to the descendants of Abraham. Conversion is like being adopted into the family, the convert even takes a new name, a Jewish name, usually Abraham for a male and Sarah for a female.”

“So what do you have to do?” she asked, impatient now. “To be adopted that way; I mean?”

“First of all,” he said. “You have to learn the practices and the rituals.”

“Do all Jews know them?”

“No,” he conceded, “but converts must.”

“Does it take a long time?”

“Months, sometimes years.”

“Years? But that doesn’t seem fair. I mean where some Jews don’t know them.”

“I suppose the idea is primarily to discourage conversion,” he said. “But there is also the theory that anyone who was born a Jew acquired the knowledge and the way of life subconsciously; imbibed it with his mother’s milk, so to speak. Someone else would have to work at it.”

“But years!”

The rabbi nodded sympathetically. “It hardly seems worthwhile, does it? Why don’t you suggest to your friend that she try to forget this boy., give him up? At first it may seem impossible, that she can’t live without him, but she’ll find that she can. You know, people are always falling in love with people they can’t marry, they may already be married, for instance.” He smiled. “Well, they usually live through it.”

She remained silent, making no move to leave.

“Does this, what I’ve told you, does it come as a shock to you?” he asked kindly.

“No, it’s what he said.” She drew a deep breath, and her face took on a new determination. “Rabbi, you know Professor Fine, don’t you? The one who was arrested?”

“Yes,” he said. “I know him. Why?”

“Well, he didn’t do it, he couldn’t have because he was with me. When it happened. I mean.”

Slowly the rabbi brought the chair to an upright position. “Yes? And where was that?”

“It was at a motel, the Excelsior, on Route 128.1 got us a room and then I phoned him here at the school to tell him the number and he came right out.”

“And what time did he leave?”

“A quarter past two.”

He looked at her. “How do you happen to be so sure of the time?”

“Because after I took the room I – I wasn’t sure,” she said. “I mean I was kind of scared. I’d never done anything like this before, and the way the motel woman looked at me when I told her my husband had stopped off to pick up some things and would join me later…See, it’s right next to like a shopping center. So I thought maybe I’d go back to the office and tell her I changed my mind and ask for my money back, then I thought I’d just get into my car and drive off without saying anything and just forget about the money, then I thought I’d wait until a quarter past two.”

“Why a quarter past?”

“Because it was a few minutes after at the time and a quarter past seemed a good time to decide definitely. My watch just shows the quarter hours. It doesn’t show the minutes in between. See?” She held her wrist out to him.

“And that’s when you called him?” She nodded.

“Is there a switchboard at the motel, or can you call outside directly?”

“Oh, I didn’t use the phone in the room, there’s a pay station just outside in the parking lot. I used that. I thought the motel woman might listen in.”

“I see. How did you happen to pick that motel in the first place?” he asked.

She dropped her eyes. “One of the girls in the dorm said it was a good place.”

“I see, and what time did Professor Fine get there?”

“I – I don’t know exactly. But he said he was starting right out, and he wouldn’t – I mean, if he were coming out to me: he wouldn’t –”

“No, I don’t think he would, either.” said the rabbi kindly, then. “Did you have any occasion to notice the time when he arrived?”

She shook her head slowly. “Not until later when I thought it might be late for him, but he said he had plenty of time. His wife was going to some party and he’d told her he’d be staying in town.”

“Do the police know any of this?”

“Of course not, or he’d be free now, wouldn’t he?”

“If they believed him,” he said. “Did anyone see you together at the motel?”

She shook her head vigorously. “I’m sure they didn’t, we were very careful, that’s why we arranged that I should take the room, he didn’t want to be seen, he was afraid, with his cane and his red hair and all, that the manager would remember him and someday it might come out.”

“I see.”

“He wouldn’t tell them,” she insisted, “because he wouldn’t want to involve me.”

“Even though it means staying in jail?”

“Oh yes,” she said positively.

David Small filled out his permit form and slid it into the shallow tray under the thick glass bullet-proof shield.

“Just like a bank,” he said.

The guard laughed automatically, the remark was made dozens of times a day. “Yeah, it’s a bank all right. Now if you’ll empty your pockets and walk through the scanner.”

The rabbi deposited his wallet, loose change, and wristwatch in a little pile and stepped under an archway.

“Now back.”

The needle on the dial moved.

“You still got metal on you.”

The rabbi patted his pockets, he inserted his hand in the side pocket of his jacket and felt the tear in the lining he was always forgetting to ask Miriam to mend, he came up with a stub of pencil. “It fell down inside the lining,” he explained. “I forgot I had it.”

“All right. Now walk through again. Okay now.”

“You mean the pencil registered?”

“The metal eraser holder.” said the guard.

Rabbi Small collected his belongings and was directed down a short corridor and through a heavy door of steel bars which clicked closed behind him. “First door on your left.” the guard called after him. “You wait there.”

It was a small room with only a few chairs and a table as furniture, as he waited, the rabbi wondered what he would say. Did Fine know what had happened at the temple Friday night? Should he ask him about it? Should he mention that he was here at Ames’ suggestion? The door opened and Roger Fine entered. Behind him was a middleaged black prison guard.

“I have to wait out here. Professor Fine.” said the guard, “but you can close the door.”

“Okay. John, thanks. By the wav, this is Rabbi Small, he also teaches at Windemere. John Jackson. Rabbi. His boy is a student at Windemere.”