The Day the Rabbi Resigned

by Harry Kemelman

  “Aha, I had the same idea. Did he sell the watch to one of the other guests? So I ask Bohrman was Joyce wearing a watch, but he couldn’t remember. I didn’t really expect him to. Just thought I’d chance it. Anyway, Joyce comes up to the bar for another double scotch, and Bohrman refuses to serve him. Claims he was like weaving. So he refuses him, says he’s got his license to think of. So Joyce tells him to shove it, and walks across the lounge to get his coat.”

  “Typical,” said Lanigan.

  “Typical of Joyce?”

  “Typical of drunks.”

  “Yeah, there’s where I get lucky, real lucky. I’m lucky that the coatroom guy is there. See, they don’t operate the coatroom full time. I mean, you go there for lunch or dinner, you hang your coat up yourself in the coatroom. They don’t have an attendant. Only when they have one of these big affairs. What’s more, this kid, the coatroom attendant, Charlie Aherne, he’s there only part-time, doing all kinds of odd jobs, whatever they ask him. The rest of the time he goes to school, in Boston, and get this: to Windermere, where he’s going into his junior year, so he knows all the guests at the dinner.

  “Does he know Victor Joyce: sure he knows Professor Joyce. And what time did he leave? He knows exactly on account he says to him, ‘Leaving early, Professor?’ because the clock on the wall said quarter to ten. And Joyce raises his fist like he’s just won some victory—that’s what the kid said—see, Joyce wears his watch on the inside of his wrist, and he closes one eye and kind of squints, and says, ‘Almost ten. Late enough.’ So we know the time he left. And we know he was wearing his watch.”

  “And by the way he looked at his watch, that he was probably squiffed,” murmured Lanigan.

  Dunstable was ecstatic. “That’s just what I figured. Fact, I said to the kid, ‘You mean he was drunk?’ And he says, ‘Well, he was feeling no pain.’ And if you need more proof, the kid tells me he asks for his raincoat, but he can’t find his check. So the kid asks him to describe the coat, and then he remembers he left it in the car, and turns and goes for the door.”

  “Very good, Sergeant. Very good indeed. Now, did anyone else leave early?”

  “Yeah. Fifteen minutes later another guy left.” Again he referred to his notebook. “A Professor Jacobs. Mordecai Jacobs. I’m not sure I’m pronouncing that right. The kid spelled it out for me. Mordecai—I never heard the name before. He hadn’t checked anything, at least not anything of his own, so—”

  “What do you mean he didn’t check anything of his own? Did he check somebody else’s coat?”

  “That’s right. He was with a lady professor, a Professor Saxon, so he checked her wrap for her, but it was after they were seated. This weather, not too many of the men wore coats, although some had raincoats just in case. But, of course, almost all the women wore coats.”

  “I see. So did he claim the woman’s coat?”

  “No, he just walked out the door. This kid, Aherne, he’d had him in an English course, and I guess he liked him, so he followed him out. He was just going down the stairs when he said to him something like, ‘You leaving early, too, Professor?’ And the professor told him he had another party to go to.”

  “You mean he left the coatroom unattended?”

  “Oh no. He called over one of the two regular waitresses, a Mary Ellen Brown. The other waitresses are all temporaries. See, Aherne works only until ten. Then either Mary Ellen or the other regular takes over, and Aherne goes home.”

  “And the tips? Who gets those?”

  “All tips, the ones the guests leave on the tables and those they leave at the coatroom, are pooled and the girls divide them up. Aherne doesn’t share; he’s on a straight hourly basis.”

  “I see. So this Jacobs left at ten.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Anybody else leave early?”

  “Nope. Just those two all the time Aherne was there.”

  “Yes, but how about right afterward? Did you question this Mary Ellen?”

  “I did, but she tells me she didn’t take over the coatroom in person until sometime later, maybe around half past on account they were busy serving second cups of coffee and clearing away dishes. See, what they do, they put up a little sign which says ‘Ring for service,’ with an arrow pointing to a button you press. Then any one of the waitresses who happens to be nearby goes over and gets your coat.”

  “I see. And the party broke up when?”

  “Around eleven, eleven-fifteen. Then they all went for their coats, those that had checked them. From what this Mary Ellen said, some of them just folded them up and put them under their chairs. She thought it was a cheap crowd, and the tips weren’t all that much either.”

  “Good work, Sergeant. Now, I’d like you to get in touch with this Professor Jacobs and—”

  “See what he knows?”

  “Right.”

  30

  On leaving Lanigan’s office, Sergeant Dunstable telephoned Professor Jacobs to set up an appointment. The telephone rang several times and then a voice said, “I cannot speak on the telephone at this time, but I will get back to you. At the sound of the beep, please leave your name and telephone number. Thank you.”

  The sergeant waited a moment, and then when he heard the beep he said, “Sergeant Dunstable, Barnard’s Crossing Police Department,” but since he was on his way home he gave his home telephone number. He waited all evening, but his call was not returned. Before going to bed he called again, but heard only the recorded message.

  The next day, Friday, he tried again, but again heard only the recorded message. It occurred to him that Professor Jacobs had probably received his message but had not bothered to call back because he did not want to be bothered or did not want to get involved. Dunstable decided to drive to Boston.

  It was a large apartment house near Coolidge Corner in Brookline. While not run down, it showed signs of neglect. There was a hedge in front and it was untrimmed and broken in a couple of places, and the glass in the front door had a small crack in one corner. In the lobby there were three rows of names, each with a push button beside it. Mordecai Jacobs, Apartment 61, was the first name on the third row. Dunstable pushed the button but no voice responded through the phone and there was no answering buzz that would release the catch on the door. He waited. The guy might be in the toilet. Then he tried again. A middle-aged woman, her hair in curlers under a scarf, carrying a mesh bag with groceries, came in and watched as he pressed the button.

  “He’s not in,” she said.

  “Who’s not in?”

  “The one you’re ringing, sixty-one. I’m across the hall from him. He left.”

  “What do you mean he left? You mean he’s gone for good?”

  She shrugged. “Well, he was carrying a suitcase.”

  “But the furniture, he’s moved it out?”

  “What furniture? It’s a furnished flat.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Yesterday. I was just coming home, so it was around seven.”

  Back in his car, Dunstable reflected his trip to the city had not been a total failure. He had learned that Jacobs had left, which might be of significance, or it might not. Still, it was slim pickings. He knew Lanigan would not criticize him for his initiative when he reported to him, but he might appear amused.

  He wondered uneasily if he hadn’t made a mistake in giving his connection with the police department when he telephoned. His reason for wanting to see Jacobs had been merely to round out his inquiry. But now it occurred to him that Jacobs might have a closer connection to the case. He had left the dinner before it was over, he had left the woman he had brought, and presumably she would have to find someone else to drive her back to Boston; he had left shortly after Joyce, and could be said to have followed him out of the club; and now, after learning that the police wanted to speak with him, he had left—moved out?—of his apartment. Dunstable decided to see the woman Jacobs had brought to the dinner—a Professor Saxon, according to his notes
—who might tell him what excuse Jacobs had given her for leaving her.

  He called the college, and when he asked for Professor Saxon, was connected with the Psychology Department. The one who answered there, said, “Alice Saxon? She came in, but she’s not here at the moment. I guess she’ll be in and out all morning, at least.”

  He drove to the college and was directed to the Psychology Department on the third floor. A young man there said, “Professor Saxon? Her office is down the corridor, last door on the left.”

  The door was open, but the office was empty. Although there was a visitor’s chair in front of the desk, he decided to wait in the corridor. After five or ten minutes he was about to go in and sit down, when he heard the click of high heels on the uncarpeted floor. She looked at him questioningly, and he said, “Professor Saxon?”

  She nodded.

  “Detective Sergeant Dunstable, BCPD.”

  “B.C.? Before Christ?”

  “Barnard’s Crossing Police Department,” he said stiffly.

  She smiled. “Oh, sorry. Stupid of me. And what can I do for you, Sergeant?”

  “I’m investigating the cause of the accident on Pine Grove Road last Saturday night.”

  “Well, come in. It was a terrible thing,” she said, “but is there any mystery about it? From what people said around school, Mr. Joyce had been drinking rather heavily and he ran his car off the road.”

  Dunstable nodded. “That’s probably what happened. But there was some talk among the help at the club the next day, and that started some rumors that we felt we had to check out.”

  “Rumors? What sort of—”

  “Well, someone left a little after Joyce, followed him, you might say. And that was before the dinner was over, at least before the dessert and coffee, which is kind of strange. So if he followed Joyce, that suggested the possibility that he might have forced him off the road. What makes it kind of funny is that he not only left before he finished his dinner, but that he also left the woman he’d brought to the dinner, you, and you had to get someone else to drive you back to Boston.”

  “You’re talking about Professor Jacobs?”

  “Yeah, Mordecai Jacobs.”

  “And what did he have to say?”

  “I haven’t spoken with him. I called him yesterday and left my name and number with his answering machine. He didn’t call back. So I went to see him. He wasn’t in, and a neighbor said that she had seen him leave his apartment, carrying a suitcase.”

  “Oh, he probably went home. The school year is over, you know.”

  “And where is home for him? Do you know?”

  She laughed. “I certainly do because it’s my hometown too. Higginstown. It’s a small town in Pennsylvania. That’s how I know Mordecai Jacobs. I got him the job here. I mean, I told him there was a vacancy and he applied and got it.”

  “Oh.”

  “And he didn’t leave me in the lurch. He wasn’t planning to drive back to Boston after the dinner. In fact, he was going to leave at the earliest opportunity because he had another party to go to. He didn’t want to go to the dinner at all. I persuaded him that it would be a good idea if he did.”

  “Why didn’t he want to go?” asked Dunstable seriously.

  “Lot of faculty don’t. Only about a third actually attended.”

  “But why don’t they want to go? It’s their organization, isn’t it? Their school?”

  “Because the school year has finished, and they want to go off to their summer places. Because they don’t want to spend twenty-five dollars for a ticket. Because their wives don’t like to be left at home while their husbands, they think, are having a good time. Because it means driving out of the city for an hour or more. And I suppose because in the last analysis, it’s a drag.”

  “So why did you persuade him to go?”

  “Because he’s up for tenure, and I thought it might do him some good.”

  “Tenure? That means they can’t fire him?”

  “Oh, they can, but it has to be for something God-awful and even then not without a hearing.”

  “You mean that makes it a lifetime job.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And is it such a wonderful job?”

  “Sergeant, it’s the best job in the world, especially nowadays when salary schedules are pretty reasonable.”

  “And you get tenure by—by showing you’re one of the gang? By participating in—in whatever is going on?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how you get tenure. It differs from one department to another. In some departments it’s the chairman who decides, sometimes with the advice of the senior members, sometimes alone. One thing I was sure of was that it wouldn’t do any harm, and it might do some good. I thought he ought to go. But, he had this other party to go to and it was a lot more important to him.”

  “Oh, yeah? What was so important about the other party?”

  “There’s a girl who works in Boston that he is serious about. Her family lives in Barnard’s Crossing and her kid brother was having a Bar Mitzvah party to which she had invited him. My guess is, to show him off to her folks. So naturally …”

  “Naturally,” Dunstable agreed. “And what is her name?”

  Alice Saxon shook her head. “I don’t know. I never met her.”

  He was methodical. He outlined the next steps he would take. He would return to Barnard’s Crossing and go to see Rabbi Small who would surely know who had a Bar Mitzvah last Saturday. Then he would go to see the family of the Bar Mitzvah and find out from them just when Jacobs had arrived. Was he nervous? Was he shaken up? Then he would lay it all before Lanigan: motive—Joyce was his rival for what the lady professor had called the best job in the world; opportunity—he had actually followed Joyce out of the club; weapon—it was right there, the shattered window. He would get permission from Lanigan—how could he refuse—to go to Higginstown where he would question, maybe arrest, Jacobs. He might find a dent in the fender of his car. He might—

  And then it occurred to him that Rabbi Small was a friend of Lanigan’s. Lanigan might not take kindly to his interrogating the rabbi. Maybe it would be better to see Lanigan first.

  31

  Thursday night was Amy Lanigan’s night out with “the girls.” Why Thursday? “Because Thursday is maid’s night off.” They might go to a movie, or to dinner at a restaurant and then to one of the large shopping malls to wander around the stores, or they might meet at the house of one of them to play bridge and gossip. Because Chief Lanigan knew that what awaited him at home was perhaps cold meat and a bottle of beer, he tended to work late Thursday nights.

  It was after seven when he decided to call it a day and left the station house. But when he got into his car, it occurred to him that he might call on Cyrus Merton. So instead of driving home, he drove to the Point. It was the housekeeper who answered when he pushed the doorbell.

  He looked at her wonderingly. “Nellie?” he hazarded. She smiled as she saw him struggling to recall her surname. “Nellie, Nellie”—then triumphantly, “Nellie Heath.”

  “That’s right, but it’s Nellie Marston now.”

  “I didn’t know you worked here. I didn’t know you were back in town.”

  “I’ve been back five or six years now. When Bill died, I came back here because my daughter was living in Swampscott, and then I got this job as housekeeper and stayed on after she moved down to Florida. And you’re the big chief here, eh?”

  “I’m chief of police, but I don’t know that it makes me the big chief.”

  “And you married Amy Harper.”

  “That’s right.”

  “She wasn’t in our class, seems to me.”

  “Oh no. She was a freshman when we were seniors.”

  “Yeah, I remember some of the girls saying you’re robbing the cradle when you took her to the senior prom. Well, well. You want to see Mr. Merton? He’s not in. If it’s urgent, you can find them, him and his sister, at their niece’s in Shurtc
liffe Circle. They’ve been going over there for supper since the accident. They wanted her to move back here, at least for a while, but she wouldn’t. So they go there and Mrs. Burke makes the supper so Margaret won’t be eating alone. Or you can come in and wait here. They’re usually back by eight.”

  “I think I’ll wait here,” said Lanigan.

  She ushered him into a small room with leather chairs, which he assumed was Cyrus Merton’s study. “You’ll be more comfortable here than in the living room. Would you care for a cup of coffee?”

  “I’ll have a cup if you’ll join me,” he said.

  She hesitated. “Well, all right.”

  She left and returned in a little while with a pot of coffee, a plate of cookies, and two cups and saucers on a tray. “What a terrible thing to happen,” she said as she poured the coffee.

  “The Mertons took it hard, I suppose,” he suggested.

  “Oh yes, especially him.” She dropped her voice as if to tell a secret. “You know, I think they cared more about him than they did about her.”

  “Didn’t they like her?”

  “Well, of course they did. I mean, she was their niece, actually their only living relative. But there wasn’t much affection. Not them to her, nor she to them.” Once again she dropped her voice. “You understand, they didn’t talk in front of me, but me in the house with them, just the three of us most of the time, except when Margaret was here, or the cleaning woman who came in a couple of times a week, and me serving them, and going back and forth from my kitchen to the dining room, I couldn’t help overhearing.”

  He nodded understanding.

  Her voice still low, she went on, “I got the impression they’d had nothing to do with Margaret’s father, their brother, when he married her mother, on account she was Puerto Rican. ‘That spic,’ the missus called her. When she was left an orphan, they had to take her in. That was before my time, but since I’ve been here I never once saw them put an arm around her, or give her anything but a kind of polite peck when she came home from school.”

  “And she to them?”

  “Pretty much. Of course, she was grateful when they’d buy her things, like when they bought her the car, but that’s about it. I mean she was grateful and that’s all. And for all they were so religious, they were real upset when she told them she was planning to go into a convent, especially His Nibs. See, that would be the end of the family. Once I heard the missus say she didn’t seem to be interested in men, and he said it was just what he called a defense mechanism. She didn’t think she could get a man, so she told herself she didn’t want one. Then he said, ‘But if I arrange for a real nice-looking guy to go after her, that’ll start her juices flowing.’ And I guess that’s how it worked out. They hurried it right along, too, I suppose because one or the other of them might back out.”