Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home (18 page)

“You bothered about something, lover?” asked Samantha as she sipped her coffee.

“Troubled? No. Why?”

“Well, you’ve been pretty quiet all evening.”

“Oh, I was just wondering how Ben made out with the rabbi.” said Roger Epstein. “I thought he might call and tell me about it.”

“Well, they were going to her sister’s in Lynn. Sarah mentioned it the other night when they were over. I suppose he just explained to him what the new policy of the temple was and told him that he expected him to go along with it.”

“That’s just the point. From what I’ve seen of him, the rabbi isn’t the sort of man you can just tell what to do.”

Samantha looked up from her glass. “You mean he’s stubborn?”

“No-o, not exactly stubborn. Maybe it’s just that he knows just what he believes. Most people don’t, you know. And he isn’t the sort to do something that he believes wrong.”

“But if Ben tells him –”

“All right, suppose he tells him and he refuses?”

“Well, gosh, doesn’t he have to go along with Ben? Or is there some Jewish law about it? I mean, he isn’t like a priest who is put in a parish by the bishop. You can ask him to leave, can’t you?”

“Yes, we can. And that’s what we agreed at the meeting. Ben was to spell it out for him, and if he refused to go along or if Ben decided that he wasn’t going to go along – we left it up to Ben to use his judgment – why then, he was to tell him that a motion would be brought up before the board calling for his resignation.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But I’ve been thinking about it, Sam, and I’m not so sure it was such a good idea. The way Ben explained it at the time, he could use the pulpit to help the opposition every chance he got – the Sabbath services, the community seder next week, there’ll be a lot of people attending that, the holiday services the following week – besides all kinds of people who come calling on him or who he sees, like the kids yesterday, which precipitated the whole business. If we couldn’t neutralize him, it would be better to fire him before he could do much damage. That was Ben’s view, and we all went along with it.”

“Well, it seems reasonable.”

“Maybe it is, but I can’t help feeling that maybe Ben exaggerated what the rabbi might do, and even more –” he hesitated.

“What?”

“I personally feel funny about it.”

“How do you mean, lover?”

“Well, here I am – new to this whole game. I became a member of the temple only a few years ago, partly because Ben Gorfinkle urged me and partly because I thought, as an institution, I could use it to further the things that mean a lot to me – the Social Action Fund, for example. But I’m still only a new man. Before that, I never entered a temple from one year to the next. And here I am, one of the group who’s laying down the law to the rabbi, even firing him maybe, and he’s been in it all his life.” He shook his head. “Well. I’m beginning to think it’s damn presumptuous of me.”

“All right, so it started to rain and you ran up to the house.” said the rabbi, “and then what happened?”

“Well.” said Bill Jacobs, “at first we tried to take shelter under the eaves – there was no porch – but it started to thunder and lightning, and the girls got frightened. It was awfully close. You can tell by how soon the thunder follows the lightning. You count –”

“I know how it’s done.”

“Yeah, well, so Moose suggested we go inside.”

“It was Moose’s suggestion? You’re sure?”

“That’s right.” said Didi. “I remember one of the boys – I think it was Adam Sussman – asking how we were going to get in, and Moose in that very superior way of his said he’d show us. He puts the palms of his hands against the windowpane, and he sort of rotates it, and that causes the catch to loosen. Then with something thin and stiff – a little plastic ruler he had – you can stick it up between the window sashes and push it back.” She demonstrated the technique.

“But weren’t you worried about being seen?”

“Well, there’s only this other house where this guy Begg lives, the one that notified the police, I understand.” said Bill, “and Moose was sure he wouldn’t bother us.”

“Then one of you climbed in and let the others in –”

“Adam Sussman. He was the smallest and the lightest. The girls refused.”

“You are talking about the window in the rear and the back door, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But you all went into the living room, which is in front of the house. Why was that?”

“We didn’t want to put on a light. Rabbi, and that room got some illumination from the streetlamp across the way. Besides. I guess that was the one room that had plenty of chairs.”

“And you all stayed together in that room?”

“More or less. There was some wandering around when we first came in, and a little later a couple of people went looking for the John, but mostly we just stayed in the living room, all except Moose, of course.”

“Why do you say ‘of course’ ?”

“Because he came back with this bottle of whisky. So I guess he’d done some exploring.”

“How much was in it? I mean, was it a full bottle?”

“Oh, it was full all right. He had to take the seal off to open it. And he offered it around first, but none of us took any, so he drank it down same as he did the beer down at the beach – showing off.”

“And then?”

“Then he started to act up.”

“What do you mean by that, Bill?”

“Oh, he was sort of chasing after the girls, especially

Betty Marks and Didi here.”

“And what did the rest of you do?”

Jacobs reddened. “Well, he was pretty drunk. I mean, he couldn’t catch them or anything like that, so I guess we thought it was funny. Once or twice we told him to cut it out and sit down, but most of the time we were laughing. You weren’t bothered, were you. Didi?”

She shook her head.

“Then it suddenly hit him, and he got all red and just sat down. He was sweating, and he looked terrible. So I suggested he lie down for a while. I guess he thought it was a good idea, because he tried to get up. Then he just sat down again, so I helped him up, and me and Adam tried to walk him to this room I had noticed off the hall. But Moose is – was – I mean, Adam is pretty small, and Moose was a big guy. So I called to this guy Jenkins, the colored fellow, and the three of us got him into that room and laid him on the couch.”

“I see.”

“When we laid him down, he saw Jenkins and he started in on him again – you know, calling him names and saying things like he didn’t need no help from no goddam nigger – that kind of thing. He was throwing himself around and trying to get up. The couch had this big sheet of plastic draped over it, like the rest of the furniture, so I suggested we wrap it around him. And almost immediately he fell off to sleep.”

“How do you know he was asleep?” the rabbi demanded sharply.

“Because he was snoring.”

“All right. Then you went back to the living room?”

“That’s right. And then Stu came along.”

“And then you came back to get Moose?”

“That’s right,” said Bill. “We went into the room where we had left him. I had the flashlight –” He paused and licked his lips. He looked questioningly at Stu and Didi.

“Go ahead.” said Stu hoarsely. “Tell it all.”

“Yes, I’ve got a key to Hillson House.” said Meyer Paff guardedly.

“And you were there this evening?” asked Lieutenant Jennings.

“I was there, but I didn’t go in. Say, what’s this all about?”

“There was a little trouble, and we’re just checking it over.” said Jennings easily. “Now, what time were you there?”

“Look, I was supposed to meet somebody at half past eight. I was a little late, and it was raining so hard I thought this party might not show. So when I got there and I saw that no one was around. I just drove on.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that this party you were supposed to meet might also be late? I’m surprised you didn’t wait a while.”

Paff shrugged. “Originally there were four of us supposed to meet. So first one calls and tells me he can’t make it.

And then another calls, and he can’t make it. So I was bothered to begin with – you know, disgusted – and I half had the feeling that the third one would have begged off if he could have reached me in time. So like I said, it was raining and there was thunder and lightning, so I thought. What the hell, two of them have disappointed me, so I’ll disappoint a little on my end. Good tiling, too. It turns out when I got home and called him, he said he thought he had a cold coming on and wasn’t about to go out in that kind of weather.”

“Well, that’s clear enough.” said Jennings, closing his notebook. “However, just to get things all cleared up. I’d appreciate it if you’d come down to the station house and make a statement.”

“So what do you call this?”

“Oh, I mean a regular statement that a stenographer can take down and you can sign.”

“Well…”

“It won’t take long, maybe half an hour or so.” Jennings assured him.

“All right, I’ll drop by in the morning –”

“I think the chief would like to have it tonight.”

“You mean right now?”

“Why not? You’re dressed. I can drive you down in ten minutes, and I’ll bring you back afterward.”

Paff was reluctant, but he could think of no reason to refuse. “Well, all right,” he said, “I’ll just tell my wife, and I’ll put on a pair of shoes. I don’t suppose I need to wear a tie,” he added with feeble humor.

“Beauty,” said Jennings appreciatively.

Paff headed for the door, then stopped. “Say, what happened down there? Was the place broken into, or – ?”

“Why do you think that?” asked Jennings quickly. “Well, I understand it happened once before.”

Jennings nodded. “Yeah, it was broken into again, but this time it was a little more serious. Someone was found dead there. An employee of yours, as a matter of fact,” he added placidly.

“I hate to say it to a man of the cloth…”

“I’m not a man of the cloth.”

“… but you’ve got an awful nerve. Rabbi. These kids tell me they find one of their friends murdered, and you ask me to let them go.”

“Why not?”

Lanigan ticked off the points on his fingers. “First, because they’re guilty of breaking and entering –”

“Not Stu Gorfinkle.”

“He did the second time.”

“The door was ajar.”

“Let’s not quibble. Rabbi. So it’s illegal entry. Second, they were present in the same room with someone who had narcotics in his possession.”

“They didn’t know that.”

“The law doesn’t differentiate – not here in Massachusetts, it don’t. Third, they were present in the same house where a man was murdered. Fourth, they could have committed the murder. And fifth, they did not report it to the proper authorities. And you ask me to release them!” Lanigan’s face was red with indignation.

“Yes, I ask you to release them,” he said soberly. “These are not vagabonds; they are respectable children of respectable parents, residents of this town. If you need them for questioning, they will be available. They are obviously guilty of the breaking and entering charge – they admit it, even though it’s fully understandable in view of the storm. Still, if you should decide to prosecute them on that charge, they will appear. As for the narcotics charge, it is based on a law which obviously was never intended to be taken literally – would you arrest everyone on a streetcar, for example, if one passenger was carrying narcotics? No, it is intended to enable you to prosecute someone you have reason to believe is involved in narcotics, even though the actual possession may be with a companion. Are you suggesting that while they were waiting for transportation home they were smoking this drug?”

“And the murder?”

“That they didn’t report it immediately – that was wrong of them but I think understandable. They’re youngsters, and they were worried about what they should do. They were aware that suspicion could fall on them, and they wanted to discuss it among themselves – not whether to report it or not, but how. If you honestly think that one of them, or all of them, were actually involved in the murder, then again, they will be available for questioning.” He smiled. “In the past, you have been receptive to suggestions that I have made that are based on Talmudic law –”

“You going to try to hornswoggle me with that pil – what do you call it?”

“Pilpul? No, but there is the principle of miggo.”

“I don’t think you ever tried that one on me before. How does it go?” asked Lanigan, interested in spite of himself.

“You might call it a principle of inferring credibility. The rabbi would use it when sitting in judgment. It is based on the general psychological principle that a man will not plead to a greater crime if a lesser or more advantageous plea is available to him, for ‘the mouth that bound is the mouth that loosed.’”

“I don’t get it.”

“Let me give you a classic example. A marriageable woman coming from a distant land to a place where she is not known says that although she had been married, she is now divorced and free to marry again. She is to be believed both as to the marriage and the divorce, since she could easily have said that she had never been married at all and have no questions raised about her status.”

“All right, and how does it apply here?”

“Once the youngsters unwrapped the body; there was no evidence that a murder had been committed. They could have remained silent, and you would have assumed that it was a natural death. After all, there were no marks visible on the body. But they made no attempt to conceal what they found. They told you, and so I say that under the principle of miggo, they are to be believed both on their testimony and on their innocence.”

Lanigan rose from his chair and paced the floor while the rabbi maintained a watchful silence. Finally, he stepped in front of the rabbi and spread his hands in exasperation. “What do you want me to do. Rabbi? I called their parents and not one of them was home. The girl says her folks are at a movie; she doesn’t even know which one. You want me to call all the local movie houses and have them paged? That Gorfinkle boy, he finally told me his folks were at his aunt’s house, but when I called, they had left. And Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs – why, they’re in Boston at some party. He doesn’t know the name of the people – or he says he doesn’t. You know I can’t let them go until I get hold of their parents. They’re minors.”