The Day the Rabbi Resigned

by Harry Kemelman

  “On the other hand, both of them might have been injured,” Lanigan offered.

  “Oh no. Uncle Cyrus wouldn’t have let him drive if he thought he wasn’t, you know, up to it.”

  “And you? You didn’t care to go?”

  “Oh, it was only for the faculty, teaching faculty. No spouses, no administrative people, not even deans. As I understand it, they have like a business meeting afterward and have a chance to air their complaints.”

  “But Cyrus Merton—”

  She giggled. “They made him an honorary member of the faculty a couple of years ago. Very proud of it, Uncle Cyrus was. And they send him a ticket to the dinner each year. He’s never gone, but this year he decided to. Because Victor was going, I suppose.”

  They heard Amy coming down the stairs, and they reentered the living room.

  By the way Amy hurried the visit, Lanigan suspected that she wanted to tell him something. She had poured herself only half a cup of tea, and as soon as she finished it, she looked at her watch and said, “You said you had to get back, Hugh.”

  He picked up the cue and said, “Yeah, that damn conference.”

  When they were in their car, he said, “Well, what is it?”

  “What is what?” she asked innocently.

  “C’mon, you know you want to tell me something. What is it?”

  “Oh, Hugh, I was upstairs, and as I passed by the bedroom door, there was a sliding bolt on it.”

  “On the bedroom door? You’re sure it was the bedroom door?”

  “Oh, yes, I looked in.”

  “You snooped,” he accused.

  “Well, it wasn’t closed. I mean it was open a crack, and all I did was push it open a little more. You know what that means.”

  “I can imagine,” he said dryly.

  “It means they were sleeping apart. They weren’t having, you know, relations.”

  “How can you know that? Maybe she used it as a kind of double protection on those nights when he came home late.”

  “That’s silly,” she declared. “And how would he get to bed when he got home? Anyway, I looked in the room across the hallway.”

  “Good lord, Woman, don’t tell me that door was ajar, too.”

  “Well, it wasn’t closed. And it was his room. All his things, his suits and things, were there.”

  “You mean you went in and opened the closet?”

  “It was open and I could see it from the doorway,” she said defiantly.

  “The poor devil,” he murmured.

  “The poor girl, you mean.”

  “All right then, both of them.”

  Not for a moment did Lanigan believe that one of his men might have stolen the watch. But neither did he believe that the shock of the crash had sent it flying off the man’s wrist. It was possible but not much more. He was more inclined to think that Joyce may not have been wearing the watch. If the man drove down Pine Grove Road at breakneck speed, then there was a good chance that he had been drinking, and heavily. Lanigan knew drunks; they misplaced things; they lost things; worse, when momentarily short of cash, they might offer a bartender a ring or a watch as a surety or pawn for another drink.

  Nevertheless, when he returned to the station house, he told his lieutenant to send someone out to the scene of the accident and have him go over the ground carefully. He described the watch. “And have him take a rake with him. Oh, and who was on duty Saturday night? Was it Bob Pierce? Is he around? Send him in.”

  When Sergeant Pierce presented himself, Lanigan said, “There wasn’t much on the blotter on that business Saturday night, except the accident on Pine Grove. Dr. Gorfinkle called you. What did he say?”

  “Well, he said he’d seen this accident and he told me it was on Pine Grove Road and how far it was from the Breverton Country Club. He’d been to a formal dinner there. So I checked the mileage on the map and—”

  “Never mind that. Did he say anything about the victim? What he looked like? What shape he was in?”

  “Oh, yeah. He said he was unconscious but he took his pulse and it was pretty normal.”

  “He said he took his pulse? You’re sure?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m sure of that because I remember wondering how the guy could be unconscious and still have a normal pulse.”

  “He can.”

  “Yeah, I guess he can, but I remember wondering about it at the time.”

  “Okay. Well, get me the pictures that were taken, will you?”

  The police photo showed the victim behind the wheel of the car, his head lolling back just below the headrest, his left hand on the rim of the side window, which still retained some jagged pieces of shattered glass. The blood-soaked sleeve of his jacket covered the wrist, so that even if he had been wearing a wrist-watch, it would not have shown in the photo. It occurred to Lanigan that if the watch was a large one, and if it had been worn on the inside of the wrist as his wife had insisted, Dr. Gorfinkle might very well have removed it in order to take his pulse. Where would he have put it? Perhaps on the dashboard, perhaps on the victim’s lap, or perhaps he had just dropped it into his pocket and then forgotten it.

  Later, when the policeman returned and reported he had found nothing, Lanigan flipped the intercom on his desk and said, “I saw Bill Dunstable pouring himself a coffee in the wardroom when I came in, so he’s probably still there. Would you please ask him to come in to see me?”

  Detective Sergeant William Dunstable did not wear a uniform, which made him useful to Lanigan when he wanted to minimize police concern in an inquiry. When he entered the office, Lanigan said, “Sit down, Sergeant. You know about the accident on Park Grove Road the other night?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It was reported by a Dr. Gorfinkle. You know him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He’s been living in town for some years. His office is in Salem. He’s an eye doctor. Now, Bob Pierce was on the desk that night. He says the doctor told him he took the pulse of the victim and it was pretty normal for all that he was unconscious. I went over to see the widow today to pay my respects and offer my condolences. She was terribly upset that her husband’s wristwatch was not among his effects. As she described it, it’s largish for a wristwatch, and he always wore it inside the wrist.”

  “The English did that, at least in World War Two. I saw a movie—”

  “Yes, it’s a little unusual, but not uncommon. The watch has no great monetary value, but it has great sentimental value for her. It was her father’s watch, and it had the relic of a saint set into the dial.” He looked at the sergeant severely as though daring him to make a joke or even manifest incredulity.

  But Dunstable kept a straight face and said, “I see.”

  “And it has the Sacred Heart painted on the dial. I thought the band might have snapped open from the impact, and I sent Phelps up to comb the area. Zilch. Then it occurred to me that the doctor might have taken it off in order to feel the pulse, and put it in his pocket and forgotten about it.”

  “I can see where it might get in the way, especially if it were largish and he wore it on the inside.”

  “Right. So what I’d like you to do is to go and see the good doctor and ask him for the watch.”

  “Wouldn’t he have come across it by this time if he had it in his pocket since Saturday night?”

  “I understand he was coming home from some formal dinner at the Breverton Country Club. So it would be in the pocket of his tuxedo and he might not come across it until the next time he went to some formal function.”

  “Yes, I see that. I’ll get on it right away.”

  “Oh, no need to see him tonight. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. Tomorrow will do.”

  26

  The Board of Directors of the Barnard’s Crossing temple met regularly on Sunday shortly after the end of the shachriss service. Because there was nothing of importance on the agenda, there was little urgency to get the meeting started. Those who had children in the Sunday scho
ol had brought them to their nine o’clock class and then attended the morning service, perhaps the only time they ever did. Now they were standing around in groups of two or three talking about baseball, their golf scores, their children, the weather, about almost anything except matters relating to the temple.

  “How about getting started?” asked Al Bergson, the president. “If you guys want to shmoose, do it after the meeting.”

  Reluctantly, they took their places around the large oblong board table. One said, “The rabbi is not here yet. Wasn’t he at the service this morning?”

  “Sure he was. He led the prayers today. But I guess he’s not coming to the meeting.”

  “He’s got a guest from out of town,” another explained. “A relative.”

  “The tall old geezer who sat in the back row?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “All right, so let’s get started already,” said Bergson. He rapped on the table. “This meeting is now called to order.”

  “Gee, if the rabbi was planning on not coming, I should think he would have told someone.”

  “He told me,” said Bergson. “C’mon, let’s get started. Will the secretary please read the minutes of the previous meeting.”

  “Hey, don’t we vote on the rabbi’s contract about now?” asked Dr. Halperin.

  “No, Doc,” said the secretary. He leafed through his notebook to the calendar at the back. “I got that marked for next week.”

  “We could take it up today,” suggested the president. “It would save me asking him not to come to that meeting.”

  “Why do we have to vote on his contract?” asked Myron Levitt. He was a new member of the board who had moved to Barnard’s Crossing only the year before.

  The president explained. “The rabbi has a one-year contract, so it has to be voted each year.”

  “He doesn’t have a lifetime contract?” Levitt’s tone registered disbelief.

  “Uh-uh. Just year to year.”

  “Gee, that’s funny. I’ve belonged to quite a few temples. Working for G.E., you get moved around a lot. Every place I’ve been, what they do, when they hire a new rabbi, they give him a one-year contract, like a trial period. If he’s okay, they give him maybe a five-year contract. Then, if they want him to stay on, they give him a life contract. If something has come up, and they don’t want him, they sometimes—at least one place I was at—give him another one-year contract so he can look around for another temple.”

  “Our rabbi wants us to vote each year,” said Bergson. “It’s like a vote of confidence.”

  “But hasn’t he been here quite a while?”

  “Almost from the beginning. I think he came here the year after the temple started, in ’sixty-two. That’s—hey guys, want to know something? The rabbi’s been here twenty-five years.”

  “Hey, that’s right. Twenty-five years! That calls for some kind of celebration, doesn’t it?”

  “Like what?”

  “How about a dinner dance, a real fancy one, maybe at a hotel in Boston.”

  “You know how many dinner dances the rabbi and his missus are invited to each year? Half the weddings, yes, and the Bar Mitzvahs, too, they hold in fancy hotels in Boston.”

  “Yeah, I guess so, but this would be different. I mean, he’d be the guest of honor, and we’d give him like a gift.”

  “What kind of a gift?”

  “Well, say a gold watch. A really good one, I mean.”

  “He might take that as a kind of hint that maybe he ought to be more careful to be on time, like for meetings, if he doesn’t forget altogether.”

  “I tell you what. It’s twenty-five years, right? So what’s a twenty-fifth anniversary? It’s the silver anniversary. So, how about we give him and the rebbitzin a set of sterling silver?”

  “And when would they use it? How much entertaining do the Smalls do?”

  The much-traveled Myron Levitt offered a suggestion. “In this temple I belonged to out in California, there was some kind of celebration for the rabbi, and they gave him a car.” He smiled. “Of course, the chairman of the committee being in the auto business may have had something to do with it.”

  “What kind of a car?”

  “A Buick.”

  “Did they take the rabbi’s old car in trade?”

  “No … I don’t think so. They had a banquet and there were speeches. And then they gave him the keys to the car. It was like a surprise.”

  “If we did that with our rabbi, he’d have two cars. What would he do with two cars?”

  “The rebbitzin could have the old one.”

  “She doesn’t drive.”

  “So his son, Jonathon—”

  “He’s away at law school in Washington.”

  “So he could come home by plane and then drive it back.”

  “You know what I think, guys? I think if we spring for a big-ticket item like a car or even a set of sterling, it ought to be only if the rabbi signs a lifetime contract. I mean, what if the very next year some temple comes along and offers him a big increase in salary?”

  “You got a point there.”

  “You bet. No sense in—”

  “Damn right. No lifetime contract, no present.”

  “And how would we work that?” asked the president.

  “What do you mean?”

  The president explained. “The present is supposed to be a surprise, right? So we hold this banquet, and then what do we do? Do we hand him a contract and the keys to the car and say, ‘You sign this, Rabbi, you get these. And if you don’t, you get nothing.’ Is that what you’d like us to do?”

  “Well …”

  “Look, Al, you and the rabbi are pretty friendly. I mean you people see the rabbi socially. They’ve had dinner at your house.”

  “Yeah, now and then.”

  “They’ve never accepted an invitation to dinner at our house,” Dr. Halperin remarked. “Whenever Rachel has invited them, they always had some prior engagement. How come they dine at your house?”

  “Because we keep kosher, I suppose.”

  “I suppose that’s it. So why don’t you invite them over some evening, and while you’re shmoosing over your roast chicken or whatever, you could ask them what they’d like for a gift.”

  “Then they’d think that was why we invited them,” said Bergson.

  Myron Levitt spoke up. “Look, I’m not one for pussyfooting. What’s involved is a big-ticket item, and that means it’s serious business. And serious business should be conducted in a serious, businesslike way. So I suggest, and I’ll make it a motion if you like, that the chairman appoint a committee to go and see the rabbi and put it to him straight.”

  “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

  “That’s what we ought to do.”

  “Right on.”

  “All right,” said Bergson, “who’d like to serve on this committee?”

  No one raised his hand.

  “How about you, Ed?”

  “Aw, I couldn’t. Me and the rabbi are like this and that. We say hello when we see each other, but we aren’t what you could call friendly.”

  “Ben?”

  Ben shook his head. “The guy taught me my Bar Mitzvah. He did that kind of thing back then. So I always feel a little like I’m just a kid when I’m with him.”

  “I don’t mind going to see him,” said Myron Levitt. But this was received with little enthusiasm. Not only was Levitt a new man, but he was also inclined to be outspoken. On the other hand, no one else appeared to be willing to serve.

  Then someone suggested a possible solution. “Look, if Al goes with him …”

  “Yeah. How about it, Al?”

  The president shrugged. “Okay by me.” And to Levitt, “How about sometime today?”

  “But he’s got a guest from out of town.”

  “That’s right. Maybe—how about next week, say, after the board meeting?”

  “You mean while he’s having his dinner?”

&nb
sp; “No, of course not. I was figuring on around two o’clock.”

  “Okay with me,” said Levitt. “Matter of fact, there was something I wanted to do this afternoon.”

  “Look,” said Ben Halperin, “if Al and Myron are going, I don’t mind going along.”

  “Fine,” said the president. “So we’ll be a committee of three.”

  27

  As soon as her husband came in the door, Mimi Gorfinkle could see that something was amiss. He seemed worried and ill at ease. She always felt a little guilty on the rare Wednesday afternoons when she left him to his own devices, and always tried to make amends by preparing one of his favorite dishes for supper.

  “Guess what I prepared for supper,” she said with forced gaiety.

  “Gee, Mimi, I’m not very hungry,” he said.

  “You had a hamburger before coming home,” she accused.

  “No, it’s just that I’m not particularly interested in food.”

  “Something happened,” she stated positively. “You operated and it didn’t go well.”

  “No. I didn’t operate today. Nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  He knew she would keep after him until he told her, so he said, “A guy came into the office this afternoon—”

  “In the afternoon? Without an appointment? An emergency?”

  “No, not a patient. He said he was a detective from the Barnard’s Crossing Police Department. He was wearing an ordinary suit, but he showed me a badge in like a little leather case. He said he was investigating that car crash on Pine Grove Road Saturday night.”

  “What was there to investigate?”

  “He said where it’s not a natural death, they got to investigate it.”

  “So?”

  “So he starts asking me a whole bunch of dumb questions. Did I know the man? Had he ever been a patient of mine? How fast was I driving? Had I been drinking? How far behind him was I? And every time I answer, he writes it down in his notebook. So I began to get a little nervous. From the questions I began to get the idea that maybe he thinks I drove him off the road. So I told him I had an important meeting at the hospital, and he says he’ll come back tomorrow and he’ll have my answers all typed out for me to sign.”