Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red

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Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red Page 12

by Harry Kemelman


  The rabbi had not interrupted because he sensed Selzer wanted to talk, but now he brought him back sharply to the main issue. “So what happened, Mr. Selzer? Why did you come to see me?”

  “So this morning,” said Selzer in a flat monotone, “the pigs came and took him away. Who were the pigs? Lieutenant Tebbetts, who was his scoutmaster, who Abner would talk about so much I would get practically jealous. He was the pigs.”

  “In that case, I think you had better get in touch with your lawyer, Mr. Selzer.”

  “Two minutes!” cried Selzer. “Two minutes after my son was out the door, I contacted Paul Goodman. And half an hour later he came by—he wasn’t even dressed when I called—and picked me up and we went down to the police station.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. My son wouldn’t even talk to me, or to Goodman. Just, ‘Oh, it’s you.’ This is the way a boy talks to a father, Rabbi?”

  “So what did you say?”

  “Nothing! I was embarrassed in front of Goodman. So I didn’t show I was sore. I didn’t holler at him. I didn’t say anything, just told him this was Mr. Goodman who would be his lawyer. And I left them together. But later, when Goodman came upstairs—we saw him in his cell in the basement, you understand—he said the boy had refused to cooperate.”

  “But he agreed to defend him?”

  “Oh sure. What’s he got to lose? He won’t be sitting in jail.” He got up when Miriam entered the room. “Look, I’m keeping you from your dinner. I just came to ask you to go and see him. Talk some sense into him. I know he thinks a lot of you from when he was in your post-confirmation class. He’ll listen to you.”

  “He must’ve been terribly hurt,” said Miriam after Selzer had left.

  “What do you mean?” asked her husband. “By whom?”

  “By his father, of course. Suppose there was a rumor that you had done something terrible, something inherently abhorrent to you. And suppose if instead of knowing you could never do such a thing, I asked you if the rumor was true. You might sit down and patiently explain how unlikely it was. On the other hand, you might feel so terribly hurt, especially if you were a youngster of Abner’s age, that you just wouldn’t say anything.”

  “Yes, I see what you mean.”

  “Go and see the boy, David.”

  “And tell him what?”

  She smiled. “You could tell him to try to forgive his father, I suppose.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Boston police asked us to pick up the Selzer boy, so we picked him up,” said Chief Lanigan. He was sitting at his dining room table with the Sunday paper spread out before him.

  “Do they have any real evidence against them?” asked the rabbi.

  Lanigan shrugged. “You know how these things are. It’s the D.A. who looks over what they’ve got and who issues the orders. He certainly wouldn’t tell me. Even the D.A. of our own county wouldn’t necessarily take me into his confidence on a matter that occurred right here in my own bailiwick. But from what Schroeder said, what they have on him is obvious. He was one of a committee that met with the dean. They talk for a while and then one of them gets vituperative and the dean walks out. They wait around for her to come back, and when she doesn’t, they leave. A few minutes later a bomb goes off in her office. Now I put it to you, that’s certainly grounds for suspicion. Add a couple of other little items: one, there was a bombing in the school during the spring semester; two, a member of the committee, somebody called Ekko—I don’t know if that’s his real name or just a nickname—skips. That suggests guilt certainly.”

  “On the other hand,” the rabbi observed, “none of it is what you would call real evidence. The building is open and anyone can walk in. Dean Hanbury left her office unlocked, so anyone could get in after the committee left. From what little I myself know about conditions in the school, there are other student groups, more or less revolutionary, who are seemingly as opposed to each other as they are to the administration.”

  “Well, you don’t have to convince me, Rabbi. It’s the people in Suffolk County you’ve got to convince.”

  “Is it all right if I see the boy now?”

  “Sure. Let me get my shoes on and I’ll run you down to the station. You can talk to him in my office if you’d like.”

  The young man was visibly surprised when he saw the rabbi. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “I thought it was the lawyer guy again.” He walked the length of the room and looked out the window. Then he faced around. “Cops!” he exclaimed. “They’re not human. Do you think he’d bother to tell me who’s here? He just says somebody wants to see me in the chief’s office, and when I tell him I don’t care to go—thinking it was the lawyer or my old man—he says, ‘On your feet, bigshot,’ and practically hauls me up here.”

  “He probably didn’t know who it was either,” the rabbi said mildly.

  “Rabbi, you don’t know these guys. You just haven’t had the experience.”

  “All right,” he said good-naturedly. “Now what’s your objection to cooperating with the lawyer?”

  Abner Selzer spread his hands and let his shoulders droop in exasperation. “Goodman! He didn’t ask me a thing. He just said if I was planning on making a speech, forget it. I’d be standing before Judge Visconte and he’s hard as nails. He’d throw the book at me. If the judge asks a question, he says, I’m supposed to stand up and address him as Your Honor. Otherwise, keep quiet, don’t whisper with the others. Just sit up straight, look straight ahead at the judge, and look interested. That’s planning a defense? Then he takes a look at me and tells me he wants me clean-shaven and wearing a regular suit when I come to court tomorrow morning. Rabbi, how can I communicate with a man like that? So I asked him how would it be if I wore a kilt and crossed my legs and showed part of my behind to the jury.”

  The rabbi laughed and the young man grinned. “What did he say to that?”

  “He got sore and just said he’d see me in the court in Boston.”

  “I don’t suppose it makes much difference,” said the rabbi. “The arraignment is largely a formality. As I understand it, the law requires you to be brought before a magistrate within twenty-four hours of your arrest.”

  “But what if a guy’s innocent?”

  “That’s not the judge’s concern at an arraignment, Abner. He’s there just to determine whether the police have enough evidence to hold you for the grand jury. If they want you held, the judge will usually go along. All right, I can understand about your lawyer, but why don’t you want to see your father?”

  “So he can yell at me? We can’t talk for five minutes before he starts yelling.”

  “What does he yell about?” asked the rabbi curiously.

  “Oh, almost anything, but mostly—until now, at least—about marks. ‘Shape up,’ he’s always saying. Why don’t I shape up, or sometimes, ‘Shape up or ship out.’ He was in the naval reserve for a while. That’s where he got it. When I was in high school here, it wasn’t so bad. I was one of the smart kids, and besides the other kids’ fathers did the same thing. But at Harvard, I was up against all the other smart kids, and I wasn’t living at home where he could keep tabs on me every night—C or even B-minus wasn’t good enough for him. It had to be A’s. And for a while, I tried, but the competition was tough and I thought the hell with it.”

  “So you slacked off completely.”

  “Sure, why not? I was working so hard and got a B-minus, but it wasn’t good enough for him. So I thought it won’t be any worse if I have a little fun and get a C or even a C-minus.”

  “But you felt guilty about it.”

  The young man considered. “All right. I suppose I did—at first. I don’t now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll tell you something, Rabbi. My father didn’t care if I learned anything or not. He was just interested in my getting good marks so I could get into a good law school and get good marks there, even if I never lear
ned any law, so I could get into a big law firm.”

  “I suppose he’s trying to fit you for the world as he sees it.”

  “So what’s wrong with trying to change it?” demanded Selzer.

  “Well, you might change it for the worse,” the rabbi observed wryly. “But in any case, by your own admission, whatever your father is doing, whether he’s going about it the right way or not, he’s doing it for you.”

  “Rabbi,” said Abner solemnly, “this is going to shock you, but the fact is I don’t care very much for my father. I don’t respect him and—”

  But it was Abner who was shocked when the rabbi interrupted to say, “Oh, that’s perfectly normal.”

  “It is?”

  “I would say so. That’s why it’s one of the ten commandments. ‘Honor thy father and mother.’ If it were perfectly natural, it wouldn’t require a specific commandment, would it?”

  “All right, so why should I accept help from somebody I don’t respect?”

  “Because it’s childish and peevish to refuse help when you are in need,” said the rabbi. “You’re going to have a lawyer whether you want one or not. If you don’t use your own, the court will appoint one for you. He may be better than Mr. Goodman, but it’s not likely, and he’s certain to be less experienced. Common sense would suggest that you get the best you can.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  Judge Visconte’s head nodded slightly as he read the complaint. When he put the paper aside, his head continued to nod, for he was an old man, well over seventy, with snow-white hair surrounding a high, slanting forehead His handsome Italian face with its long Roman nose looked benign and grandfatherly.

  He turned to Bradford Ames. “The Commonwealth has a recommendation on bail?”

  “The Commonwealth has a recommendation, Your Honor,” said Ames. “It is the Commonwealth’s opinion that since a man was killed as a direct result of the explosion of a bomb, this is a case of felony murder and hence that bail should be denied.”

  The judge nodded vigorously in apparent agreement. Then he inclined his head and nodded at a somewhat different angle, which the clerk interpreted as a sign that His Honor wanted to confer with him. He leaned over the judge’s desk and they whispered together. It looked as though it was all over.

  Paul Goodman rose beside the attorney’s table. “May I be heard, Your Honor?”

  The judge nodded graciously.

  “To save the time of the Honorable Court, I am speaking not only for myself but for my three colleagues who are each representing one of these young defendants. It seems to me, Your Honor, that the recommendation of the Commonwealth is punitive rather than designed to insure the appearance of the defendants at their trial. These young people are not professional criminals; they have clean records. They are enrolled in college; if they are prevented from attending classes they will be unable to pass their courses. To hold them in jail pending their trial is to punish them before they have been proven guilty.”

  The judge nodded benevolently. “It’s always punitive, isn’t it?” he said gently. “A workman loses his wages; a businessman sometimes has to close down his business or office. And in every case, the family suffers.”

  “If I may, Your Honor,” said Goodman. “Isn’t that all the more reason not to hold these young people unnecessarily, since the danger of their not appearing for the trial is slight?”

  “But the charge is murder, Counselor.”

  “I recognize that it has been the prevailing practice in the Commonwealth to deny bail to prisoners charged with murder. But my understanding is that the rationale—”

  “Did you say rationale?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. I was saying that the rationale behind denying bail in such cases is that money becomes secondary when a man’s life is at stake. However, since the Supreme Court of the United States has held the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment that fear no longer obtains.”

  “On the other hand,” the judge interposed, “these young people—and I have had a lot of experience with them; oh yes—are apt to be rather cavalier about money. If I were to set bail, even very high bail, which their parents might arrange to meet, there is a strong possibility—and I speak from experience—that they may fail to appear, having no regard for the loss which their parents would thus incur. No, Counselor, I think I’ll go along with the Commonwealth recommendation and order them held without bail.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  When the rabbi arrived for class Monday morning, he found the flag on the administration building of Windemere College at half staff. All classes had been cancelled, and many of the students and faculty had already left. A memorial service was scheduled for Professor Hendryx in the chapel at noon, and those who remained behind were milling about on the Marble.

  The rabbi was undecided whether to return home or attend the service when Professor Place, whom he knew slightly, invited him to have a cup of coffee.

  It was the first time the rabbi had been in the faculty cafeteria and he looked about him with interest. It was a small room with two large tables, both of which were half occupied; the rabbi noticed that older members of the faculty sat at one and younger members at the other. Professor Place went over to a large coffee urn and poured a cup for the rabbi.

  “Ten cents a cup.” He dropped a quarter into a slotted carton. “The honor system. No, I’ve just paid for yours, and a little over,” he said, as the rabbi reached for some change. “Sometimes you forget. Our coffee committee reports that pennies, buttons, even unsigned I.O.U.’s appear from time to time, just as I suppose they do in your collection plate after a service.”

  “We don’t pass a collection plate. Our regulations forbid carrying money on the Sabbath,” said the rabbi.

  “Very commendable. Our method of collecting at each service smacks altogether too much of a business transaction, a quid pro quo of sorts with the Deity.” He led him to a table. “Let me introduce you to some of your fellow faculty members. Professor Holmes, Professor Dillon, and Miss Barton. Or is it Professor Barton or Dr. Barton, Mary?”

  “Dr. Barton at mid-years,” she said happily, “and probably Professor Barton shortly after, Dean Millie says. But right now it’s still officially Miss Barton.” She had a good-natured, homely face.

  “You shared Hendryx’s office, didn’t you?” asked Professor Holmes. His narrow face was accentuated by a long nose and pointed chin.

  “Yes,” said the rabbi, “although I didn’t use it much.”

  “Your trouble was that you didn’t come in at enough rank,” said Mary Barton. “What are you listed as? Lecturer? Instructor? If you had played hard to get, they would have hired you as associate at least and given you decent office space. Of course, if you had held out long enough, and they wanted you badly enough the way they did Professor Malkowitz, you could have come in as a full professor and then you would have got a private office with a secretary. A professor, Rabbi, is just an instructor who can strike a better bargain.”

  “Mary, as you can see, is cynical about professorships,” Professor Holmes said.

  “Well, I’d say she has reason to be,” commented Professor Dillon, a cheery, round-faced man with a walrus moustache. “She’s been teaching here for how long, Mary? Fifteen years?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “For sixteen years; and because she didn’t have her doctorate, she’s been kept an instructor. That, and because she’s a woman—in what used to be a woman’s school, mind you, and is still more than sixty percent women.”

  “Ah, the champion of Women’s Liberation,” murmured Professor Holmes.

  “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” demanded Dillon.

  “Of course it’s true,” said Holmes, “but you know the reason as well as I do. Mary chose to invest her energies in teaching rather than research and publication, and these days it just doesn’t pay off. You see, Mary, you made the natural mistake of assuming that college was a
place where students come to learn and the faculty teaches. It’s been years since that was true. As soon as the administration discovered there was more endowment money, even more student applications, when someone on the faculty made a discovery that hit the headlines, the old order was dead and you were one with dinosaurus rex.”

  “But she’s getting her doctorate,” Professor Place pointed out.

  “Well, of course,” said Holmes. “She finally surrendered. You can fight just so long. Right, Mary?”

  The rabbi had no way of knowing if they were teasing Miss Barton, and if she minded. He turned to Holmes and asked, “What about the students?”

  “How’s that?”

  “You said that before the order changed, the students came to study and the faculty taught. Now the faculty does research instead of teaching. What about the students who came here to learn. Did they also change?”

  “Of course,” said Holmes. “They now come to get credits, to get degrees for better jobs. It’s like green stamps. You save up a bookful and get a degree. And nowadays you don’t even have to earn the credits. Bookstores, even the college bookstores, openly sell detailed outlines of all the major courses. On a quiz you get the same answers, even the same phrasing, from all your students.”

  “They had those outlines when I was in college,” said Dillon.

 

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