Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red

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Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red Page 11

by Harry Kemelman


  “That’s something for a trial judge to decide, Brad.”

  “Yes,” said Ames. “But these kids are in school. If we hold them without bail, they won’t be able to attend their classes.”

  Matthew Rogers smacked his hand on the desk.

  “As far as I’m concerned, kids that blow up their school with a bomb aren’t too interested in attending classes. I want those bastards held, understand? We’re in an adversary system. If their lawyers can get them out on bail, I got to go along, but I’ll be damned if I’ll help them. I’m pushing for no bail. And if the judge won’t go along on that then push for the highest bail you can get.”

  “If that’s the way you want to play it.”

  “I do,” said Matthew Rogers.

  “Look here, Matt,” Ames said earnestly, “the chances are that it was the missing one, the one they call Ekko, who did it and that the others didn’t know anything about it.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Well, he’s not like the others. He’s quite a bit older and has already served in the Army. He was in Vietnam.” He raised an admonishing finger. “In Ordnance. What’s more, on what we were able to gather from preliminary questioning, he was the only one who was alone in the dean’s office for any length of time; the others were searching for her all over the building. And he had a dispatch case with him. Finally, he was the only one who ran.”

  “Did any of them suggest that it might have been him?”

  “No, but—”

  “And if they don’t know for sure, it’s a cinch that they won’t say a word. Those kids stick together.”

  “So?”

  Matthew Rogers grinned. “So isn’t it to our advantage to keep them in jail? When this Ekko hears of it especially that we’ve got his girl, there’s a good chance he’ll give himself up.”

  “That’s like holding them for ransom, Matt,” Ames protested.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Matt, that’s a dirty Irish trick.”

  Rogers grinned broadly. “Uh-huh.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  The rabbi was dressing for the Friday evening service when the phone rang. The baby-sitter took the call, and as the rabbi came to the door of the living room, knotting his tie, he saw the girl’s eyes widen.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  She covered the receiver with her hand and whispered, “It’s the police, Rabbi! From Boston.”

  “All right, I’ll take it.” She handed him the instrument quickly as if eager to relinquish it.

  “Rabbi Small?” said a gruff voice. “This is Sergeant Schroeder of Boston Homicide.”

  “How do you do, Sergeant,” said the rabbi pleasantly.

  “What? Oh yes. Look, Rabbi, I’d like to ask you a few questions about Professor Hendryx.”

  “All right. Ask.”

  “No. Not on the phone. I want to talk to you, and I’d like to get a signed statement I’d like you to come down to headquarters here in Boston.”

  “That’s out of the question, Sergeant.”

  “I can send a car.”

  “I’m afraid not, Sergeant,” said the rabbi. “I’m on my way to the temple right now. This is the Sabbath and we hold an evening service.”

  “What time does it end?”

  “Around ten. Why?”

  “Well, suppose I come out to Barnard’s Crossing, say around ten-fifteen.”

  “There’s nothing I can tell you.”

  “You were probably the last person to see him alive, Rabbi.”

  “That may be true, but I left him shortly after two o’clock and he was alive then.”

  “I’d still like to talk to you,” the sergeant said.

  “Then I’m afraid it will have to wait until tomorrow evening. I don’t discuss business matters during the Sabbath.”

  “But this is a homicide, Rabbi.”

  “There’s nothing I could tell you that would justify my breaking the Sabbath.”

  “What if I came out there?”

  “I would not talk to you.”

  The receiver at the other end banged down. Rabbi Small listened for a moment and then gently hung up the instrument.

  Baffled and angry, Sergeant Schroeder sat staring at the phone. Then he remembered Hugh Lanigan, Barnard’s Crossing’s police chief, whom he had met at numerous police conferences and who had once invited him to come out sailing some Sunday during the summer.

  He called Lanigan. “I wonder if you’d do me a favor, Hugh. I’d like you to pick up somebody for me and bring him in for questioning…. Yeah, on this Windemere College thing…. No, there’s no charge against him. I just want him for questioning…. Who? A Rabbi Small. You know him? … Yeah, well, I asked him to come in, even offered to send a car out for him, but he said he wouldn’t talk to me because it’s the Sabbath.”

  “That’s in character.”

  “Oh? A tough guy?”

  Lanigan laughed. “Far from it, but he does observe his Sabbath. They don’t transact business or even talk about it from Friday to Saturday night.”

  “That’s what he said, but—”

  “Look, Bill, don’t let your pee steam. I wouldn’t intrude on the rabbi on his Sabbath any more than I’d interrupt Father Aherne during a mass. If I asked him to go, he wouldn’t come. And if I tried anything stronger, I could get into trouble. This isn’t the big city, Bill. We’re a small town and everybody knows everybody. We do things differently here. Tell you what, why don’t you drive down tomorrow afternoon and take Saturday night supper with us? It’s ham and beans and brown bread, but Gladys has a way with it. Then afterward, we’ll drop in to see the rabbi. I guarantee he’ll cooperate with you then a hundred percent.”

  The next evening Lanigan and Schroeder appeared at the Smalls’. Lanigan introduced the sergeant and said, “Why don’t you two start fresh?”

  The rabbi grinned. “Gladly.” And led them into the living room.

  The Sergeant said, “Sure. You understand, Rabbi, I didn’t want to interfere with your religious holiday, but with us homicide takes precedence over everything.”

  “With us too,” said the rabbi, “but I’m sure there is nothing I can tell you that will be of any help. Professor Hendryx was alive when I left him.”

  “And what time was that?”

  “Shortly after two. Ten after at the latest.”

  “Was he usually there then?” asked the sergeant.

  “I really couldn’t say. I have a class that ends at two, and afterward I stop into the office to pick up my coat and to leave my books. Sometimes, not always, he’d be there; I understand his cleaning woman comes to his apartment on Fridays so he escapes to the office—it’s only across the street, you know.”

  “Yes, Rabbi, we’ve got the setup.”

  “But yesterday,” said the rabbi, “he did say something about the dean having phoned him, asking him to stand by. She was scheduled to see a student committee and wanted him there in case they got obstreperous.”

  “Aha!” exclaimed Schroeder. “So you did have something important to tell.”

  “I did?”

  “Why sure. In her statement the dean didn’t say anything about phoning Hendryx and asking him to hang around.”

  “And how is that important?” asked Lanigan, interested.

  “Well, say she was involved.” He looked from one to the other. The rabbi’s lips were pursed in doubt; Lanigan was smiling. “I mean—” Then Schroeder surrendered completely and laughed. “Sorry, Rabbi, but I guess I was still a little sore because you wouldn’t see me last night” he said sheepishly. “So after you left on Friday, did you see anyone, anyone at all, on your way out?”

  “Well, the door of the dean’s office was closing as I came down the hall, so although I didn’t exactly see her I assume she was in her office. And then downstairs I saw Professor Fine in the English office. He said he was waiting for a phone call.”

  “What time did you get home, Rabbi?” aske
d Schroeder.

  “It was quite late,” the rabbi admitted. “About halfpast three.”

  Lanigan raised his eyebrows. “Have trouble on the road?”

  “No, I stopped for a cup of coffee.”

  “That shouldn’t have taken long,” said Schroeder.

  “Well, it was one of those places where you eat in your own car,” the rabbi explained. “I began reading a book and must have lost track of the time.”

  When they left, Schroeder asked, “What do you think of your friend’s story?”

  “You don’t know him,” said Lanigan. “I assure you it’s completely in character.”

  “Still …”

  “Look, Sergeant there never was an investigation without its little inconsistencies. And the quickest way to get bogged down is to concentrate on them instead of the main line. But I guess you know that better than I.”

  “Yeah,” said Schroeder, “but sometimes you can’t help being bothered by them. For example, why didn’t the dean tell me she’d phoned Hendryx and asked him to stand by?”

  “You find that hard to understand?” asked Lanigan. “She didn’t tell you because she forgot, and she forgot because she wanted to forget, and she wanted to forget because otherwise it would mean that she was responsible for his death.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  The Sunday morning minyan was usually well attended. For one thing, it was held an hour and a half later than on weekdays—nine instead of seven-thirty—for another, it was followed by a meeting of the board of directors at ten, so most of them came early and participated in the twenty-minute service.

  Although Malcolm Selzer rarely attended the weekday minyan—he was already in the warehouse at seven-thirty—he never missed the one on Sunday. He was one of the handful with a traditional upbringing who knew the liturgy and often was asked to lead the prayers. But this Sunday he did not show up. His absence did not pass unnoticed.

  Although the name was reported variously as Abner Seldar, Adam Sellers, and Aaron Selger, no one in Barnard’s Crossing, certainly no one in the Jewish community, had any doubt that the person referred to in the newspaper accounts of the bombing was Malcolm Selzer’s boy, Abner. And the somewhat larger attendance at the minyan that Sunday was no doubt due in part to the quite human desire for more information.

  The late Saturday night broadcast and the Sunday papers had provided a somewhat fuller account: that the dean, Millicent Hanbury, had met with a student delegation to discuss student grievances; that she had left the meeting—reason not given; that shortly afterward the committee of five had left her office and the building; that less than five minutes later the bomb had gone off. The district attorney’s office had issued a statement saying it was planning to question each of the students.

  As the men were folding up their prayer shawls, Dr. Malitz, one of the older men, remarked, “He was too embarrassed to come, I suppose.”

  Dr. Greenwood, a dentist like Malitz, shook his head. “Why does it have to be a Jewish boy?”

  “What do you mean a Jewish boy?” said Norman Phillips indignantly. “There were five of them and the Selzer kid was the only one who was Jewish. And what’s being Jewish got to do with it? He’s an American, isn’t he? He got the same rights as anybody else, hasn’t he?”

  Dr. Malitz came to the defense of his fellow dentist. He was a periodontist and Greenwood sent him patients. “You see in the papers that someone with a Jewish name has made some scientific discovery—you know, has done something good—you feel kind of proud it was one of ours, don’t you? We all do. So naturally when one of us sees something not so nice, we feel—”

  “You feel guilty. Right? Well, I don’t” said Phillips stoutly. “I feel that as an American citizen I got just as much rights as any other citizen, and that means I’m no more responsible for what someone named Cohen or Levy does than I am for someone named Cabot or Lodge. Naturally, I’m sorry for Mal Selzer, but you know, in a way he was asking for it.”

  Greenwood stared. “What kind of crack is that? What father deserves to see his son in trouble?”

  “Well look, my kid goes to college, Rensselaer Polytech. Doc Malitz here has a boy in college. I don’t know about your boy, Doc, but I know my kid acts up a little now and then. He’s a kid, see. Last year, for example, they had a riot at his school. The cops turn up, reporters, the works. My kid says he was just looking on, you know, watching the fun. Maybe he was; maybe he wasn’t I’m not one of those fathers that thinks their kid can’t do no wrong. Anyway, he gets pinched and he spends the night in jail and he has to pay a fine. He? Me. I had to pay it.”

  “So?”

  “So my point is, did I go around bragging how my kid was a big student leader?”

  “So you brag about something else that your boy did, maybe that he got into Rensselaer.”

  “I just mentioned that because—”

  “Makes no difference,” said Greenwood. “Fathers brag about their children. I’m sure Malcolm Selzer would rather brag that his boy was getting high marks and scholarships.”

  Dr. Malitz had a sudden thought. “How do we even know the Selzer boy had anything to do with the bombing? All the paper said was he was one of those at the meeting and the D.A. was planning to question him.”

  “When the D.A. questions somebody, like as not he ends up in jail,” said Phillips. “What I’d like to know,” he went on, “is what the rabbi knows about it. He teaches there. I notice he didn’t come today, either.”

  “He’s the guest speaker at the men’s bible study class at the Lynn Methodist church this morning,” said Dr. Malitz. “There was a notice in the Lynn paper.”

  “Just our luck,” said Phillips disgustedly. “So that means they’ll get the inside dope, not us.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  The rabbi arrived home shortly before noon to find an impatient Malcolm Selzer waiting for him. “Your wife said you’d be along any minute,” he said. “Besides, my wife was so sure you’d be able to do something I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d missed you.”

  “Just calm down, Mr. Selzer, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

  Selzer looked at him gratefully, then took the seat the rabbi offered. “Well, Friday I heard the news same as everybody did. And I’ll admit I had this little funny feeling maybe my Abner might be mixed up in it.” He held up a hand. “I don’t mean that I thought he could do anything like a bombing, a thing like that. I know my boy, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. But I thought maybe he knows about it maybe some group he could be connected with—You know how you think, how all kinds of funny ideas can come into your head?”

  “Of course. Take your time and tell me what happened.”

  Selzer nodded. “All day Saturday, I thought of calling Abner. You know, not asking him point-blank, but just how’s tricks, what’s new. That way, if he was involved he could say something. It wasn’t so much me as my wife who kept nagging me. ‘Call him up; you got a son; talk to him once in a while.’ And to tell the truth, I would have, except I was afraid it was like asking for it. My mother, may she rest in peace, always used to say, ‘Don’t start anything,’”

  “Like tempting fate,” said the rabbi with the ghost of a smile.

  “That’s right.” Selzer said, pleased that the rabbi understood. “So I suggested to my wife we go to the movies. You know, to give us something else to think about; besides, I know she’s not going to ask me to go out in the middle of the picture to make a phone call.”

  He looked off into space as if marshalling his thoughts. Then he continued. “I thought maybe we’d go out for a cup of coffee afterwards, like we always do, but my wife insisted we go right home, like her heart told her. As soon as we drive up to the house, I know there’s trouble because the light in the kitchen is on, which means Abner has come home, and why would he come home on a Saturday night if he weren’t in some kind of trouble? Nevertheless, my wife tries to act as though nothing happened. ‘Hav
e you eaten, Abner? There’s some chicken left. Let me make you a sandwich. He’s so thin. Look how thin he is, Malcolm.’ Of course, this doesn’t fool anybody; not me, not Abner, not even herself. She’s just stalling, putting off the time when we’ll have to ask him why he came home. But me, I’m a businessman and I don’t horse around. So I put it to him straight: ‘Are you in trouble, Abner? Are you involved in this bombing?’” Selzer raised a forefinger to call for special attention. “‘Involved,’ I said, Rabbi. Not did he do it. I just asked him if he was involved. What’s involved? Anybody can be involved. If it’s my son, I’m involved. My wife is involved. The police are involved. It’s no crime to be involved.”

  He shook his head sadly. “That started it. He starts yelling I don’t trust him. He comes home and all I can think is he must have bombed the school or done some terrible crime. That I’m part of the Establishment and the Establishment is trying to suppress the non-Establishment and they’re trying to make this a decent world and my generation is not letting them. And how we use the pigs to keep them in line. By pigs he means the police, you understand.”

  Selzer got up and began pacing the room. “He yells and I yell, I suppose, and my wife cries, and after an hour of it I know as much as I did before. Finally, we all quiet down, and I say to him nice, quiet, calm, ‘Look Abner, I’m not accusing you. I’m just asking, not because I’m nosy but just because I want to help. Do you want me to get in touch with my lawyer?’” He rapped the coffee table with his knuckles. “This table answered me? That’s how he answered me. Not a word, like suddenly he’s deaf and dumb. He just sits there smiling a little to himself like it’s all very funny, and then he finally speaks. What does he say? He says, ‘I think I’ll hit the sack. Tomorrow could be a long day.’ And he gets up and goes to bed. And my wife? She opens up on me. Why did I talk to him that way? Why can’t I believe in him? Why am I driving my son away from us? You know, my wife, God bless her; for her, Abner can do no wrong. Whatever he wants, give. Whatever he does, fine. When I try to get him to shape up, to study, to act like a responsible citizen, she accuses me of nagging him. He was an honor roll student in high school, so if I want him to get good grades in college, that’s nagging him. Why was he on the honor roll? Because I kept after him. I’m in business and I know what it takes these days for a young man to make it. You don’t go to a decent college, you’re nothing these days. So he gets into Harvard. That was bad? That was nagging? And if he had lived at home, like I wanted, instead of in the dorm, like he wanted and his mother went along with, he’d still be in Harvard right now. That would be bad? I tell you, Rabbi, the trouble with kids these days is their parents don’t nag.”

 

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