The Day the Rabbi Resigned

by Harry Kemelman

  They heard a car turn into the driveway. She rose hastily. “I better go and tell them you’re here,” she said, and gathering up her cup and saucer, she left the room.

  Cyrus Merton came into the room with hand extended. “Ah, Lanigan, I see Mrs. Marston has given you coffee. Good, good. You’ve come with good news. You’ve found my car.”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Lanigan. “You know how it is. If it’s kids, they might ride around for a while, and then leave it. Sometimes, they’ll ride it until they run out of gas, and then abandon it. And sometimes they vandalize it before they abandon it, out of sheer nastiness. If they had left it somewhere in the area, we would have had it by now. But if we haven’t found it by now, there’s a good chance they sold it. So if we don’t find it in a day or two, you’d better claim on your insurance. No, I came about the accident on Pine Grove Road.”

  Merton shook his head. “A terrible business, Chief. Such a fine young man, so full of life. And Margaret, my poor niece, is all broken up about it. We wanted her to come back here, but she won’t leave the house, as though she’s still hoping that he’ll come back. So we’ve been going over there every night to sit with her. Agnes, my sister, you know, makes her some supper and we have our evening meal with her so she won’t have to eat alone. What is it you …”

  “Want to know? Well, we’re required to investigate any death that is not due to natural causes. You know, who or what caused it.”

  “Ah, I see, I see.” He nodded reflectively and then asked, “Have you seen my niece about this?”

  “No … we just went over to pay our respects, my wife and I, and offer our condolences. Amy, my wife, worked with her on some church matter.”

  “Well, I wish you wouldn’t, unless you absolutely have to, of course. It would just cause the poor girl more grief. She is bearing up but—” He stopped abruptly, too moved to continue. He was silent for a moment and then his manner changed. He straightened up in his chair and said in a voice calm and controlled, “I have a confession to make. I was the cause of the poor fellow’s death.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, I haven’t seen the autopsy report, but I’m sure, from all I’ve heard, that the poor fellow was drunk. And I was the cause of his drunkenness. You see, he’d forgotten to cash a check, and he’d arrived at the dinner with no money to speak of, and he wanted to buy a drink. So he asked me to lend him some. I simply held out my wallet to him, and as near as I can make out, he took thirty dollars. Which he proceeded to drink up. Not that he was an alcoholic, you understand. Just that he liked a drink on a festive occasion. Well, I feel that I was responsible for his getting drunk and so was responsible for his death. And that’s why I’d rather you didn’t talk to my niece about it. You know, that it should be someone in the family that was the cause of her misfortune.”

  “I understand,” said Lanigan sympathetically. He rose, and so did Merton. “I don’t see any reason for telling the widow about it, and I promise I won’t.”

  “That’s very decent of you, Chief. Can I offer you a drink before you leave?”

  Lanigan smiled faintly. “I don’t think I’d better.”

  32

  Back in Barnard’s Crossing it occurred to Sergeant Dunstable that he did not have to ask Rabbi Small, or get Lanigan to ask him, which family had had a Bar Mitzvah party. It was almost sure to have been mentioned in the social notes of the local newspaper. So he repaired to the library and secured a copy of the previous week’s Reporter. And there it was: Bernard Lerner will celebrate his Bar Mitzvah at the temple, Rabbi David Small officiating. It went on to say that after the service there would be a collation in the vestry and a party at the Lerner home in Charleton Park in the evening.

  Charleton Park was a real estate development covering a large tract of land. The road wound and twisted, sometimes all but encircling individual houses, The developer had built only two or three houses and had then decided it was more profitable, and quicker, to sell house lots. And these ranged in size from ten thousand square feet, the town minimum, to twenty-five thousand square feet. The houses were large and varied in style, in accordance with the owner’s taste. There were ultramodern houses that looked like small factories, constructed of cement blocks and glass, and there were modernized Victorian houses with cornices and gables. There were colonial houses with verandas and a row of pillars in front, and there were low Spanish houses with a surrounding wall and a patio. To Sergeant Dunstable, they all smelled of money, and he realized he would have to tread cautiously.

  When he rang the bell, he heard a young woman’s voice beyond the door calling out, “I’ll get it, Maud.” A moment later the door was opened by a young woman he judged to be in her early twenties, who was wearing slacks and a sweater. She looked at him inquiringly.

  “Sergeant Dunstable of the Barnard’s Crossing Police Department,” he announced, and showed his badge.

  “Oh, you want my father. He’s not in. He’s in his office in Lynn, unless he’s at the courthouse or the Registry.”

  “And why would I want your father, miss?”

  “Because you said you were from the police department, I suppose it has to do with one of his cases. If it’s just to leave something, you can leave it with me and I’ll see that he gets it.”

  “No, it’s not concerned with—I’m making inquiries—look, can I come in?”

  “Sure,” and she stepped aside so that he could enter.

  “You had a party here last Saturday night, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, so that’s it? Some of the neighbors complain of the noise?”

  “No, at least not that I know of. Were you expecting a visitor?”

  “Well, of course. It was my kid brother’s Bar Mitzvah party. We expected and received a whole bunch of visitors, only we call them guests. It was a party, wasn’t it? And we had a mob.”

  He tried again. “I mean were you expecting a particular visitor to arrive quite late?”

  “Who did you have in mind, Sergeant?”

  “A Professor Jacobs.”

  “Oh, Mord Jacobs. Yeah, he said he’d try to make it. See, there was another party, up in Breverton, that he had to go to. But he said he might be able to break away early and come down. I gave him explicit directions. I told him to go Pine Grove Road and that would enable him to get to Barnard’s Crossing a lot quicker than if he went by way of the state road. And he didn’t show. I thought he hadn’t been able to break away, but he called me, quite late, and said he was back home in Brookline, that he’d tried to make it but had got lost. He finally got into Charleton Park and couldn’t find the house. He said he’d driven around looking for a house all lit up with a lot of cars parked in front. Imagine! But typical. But why are you interested in Mord, in Professor Jacobs?”

  “Well, there was an accident on Pine Grove Road last night—”

  “Oh, yes. Wasn’t it terrible? And he was a colleague of Mord’s at Windermere. Both in the same department. What’s Mord got to do with it?”

  She was pert and self-assured, and Dunstable was annoyed that he could not seem to control the conversation. She was evidently not in the slightest awe of the police department or of him, a sergeant. “Well, see, we have to investigate every death that was not due to natural causes.”

  “But the story around town is that the man was drunk, so he slammed into a tree. He was probably going a hundred miles an hour. Maybe he just blacked out. That’s not a natural way of dying, but I’d say the reason is clear enough. So what’s to investigate?”

  “Well, we’ve got to,” he said doggedly.

  “And what’s it got to do with Mord?”

  “Well, see, he left a little after Joyce, so we thought he might have seen him and maybe spoken to him just before. We’d like to talk to Professor Jacobs to clear things up, you know. But he’s not at his apartment, and he’s left town.”

  “Yes, he went home. His mother isn’t well, and he goes back every chance he gets. But he’ll be back in to
wn in a couple of days, I guess. He’s doing some research, and also preparing for his summer classes.”

  “Then I guess we’ll just have to wait,” he said philosophically. “Sorry to have troubled you.”

  While the Lerners were not particularly observant, Mrs. Lerner kept a kosher house, and they attended the Friday evening services with some regularity. Usually, only Mr. and Mrs. Lerner went, but tonight Mr. Lerner insisted that his son go, too.

  “Oh Dad, none of the guys go.”

  “You were Bar Mitzvahed just last week. The least you can do is show up for the first Sabbath. And you ought to go, too, Clara. I mean we ought to go as a family.”

  But she said she had “things to do,” and they did not press her. They suspected she was expecting a phone call from her friend, the professor.

  No sooner had they left than she went to the telephone and called the Jacobses’ number in Higginstown.

  “Clara? I was going to call you.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “No, really. See, there’s a departmental meeting Monday for those who’ll be teaching in the summer session, so I’ll be back no later than Sunday. And from something Sugrue said before I left, I got the feeling that he was planning to submit my name for tenure, so—”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he thought he might have something to tell me when I came back for the meeting.”

  “You think that means tenure?”

  “I’m hoping. I was going to call you to keep Monday night free so we can celebrate if it is.”

  “You mean dinner at a fancy restaurant?”

  “That’s right. Anyplace you say. And the theatre afterward, and—”

  “Then how about dinner here at my house?”

  “We-el, if that’s what you want. Sure. All right, sure. But you’ll have to give me better directions than you did last time. I wouldn’t want to get lost again.”

  “Oh, I’ll see to that. I’ll have you come in by train and I’ll meet you at the station. Just how long did you drive around looking for the house?”

  “It seemed like hours, but it was probably only about twenty minutes after I got to Charleton Park. Why?”

  “What time did you leave Breverton?”

  “Around ten.”

  “Did you see anything unusual on your way to Barnard’s Crossing?”

  “Unusual? No-o. Why all these questions, Clara?”

  “Somebody from the police department came to see me this morning, a Sergeant Dunstable—”

  “Oh, yeah. He called me and left his name and phone number on my answering machine. What did he want?”

  “He said he was investigating the death of Victor Joyce. He said he thought you might have seen him when he left, that perhaps you knew something—”

  “I left about a quarter of an hour after he did, and I took the state road, whereas—”

  “Oh, Mord, can you prove it?”

  “Prove what? That I went by way of the state road? Well, when I got off the state road to take the road that takes you into Barnard’s Crossing—”

  “Abbot Road.”

  “Yes, Abbot Road, I stopped a police cruiser to ask directions to your place. So that shows that I was on the state road, doesn’t it?”

  “And what did they tell you?”

  “They said to take the third road to the left, and go straight to the end. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” she said, but she could not help but reflect that it proved nothing since the point where Pine Grove Road met Abbot Road was a hundred yards behind him when he had stopped the police car, and as far as they could tell, he might have entered Abbot Road from Pine Grove. “You call me, when you get in, and I’ll tell you what train to take.”

  The Friday evening service was more of a social occasion than a prayer service. Unlike the evening service on the rest of the days of the week, it was held after dinner, at half past eight instead of at sunset, and attracted about a hundred members of the congregation, men and women, instead of the twelve or fifteen men who came during the week. It was held in the sanctuary instead of in the vestry in the basement, and the prayers were led by the cantor in full regalia—high betasseled yarmulke, black gown, and long silken prayer shawl—instead of by one of the members of the minyan. The Sisterhood prepared an arrangement of flowers on the bema in front of the Ark, and the atmosphere was festive. The service itself lasted about a half hour, with the prayer portion kept to a minimum and with most of the time taken up by a sermon by the rabbi. After the service the congregation repaired to the vestry, where a long table had been laid out with a coffee urn at one end and a large teapot at the other, along with large trays of cups and saucers. There were several vases with flowers in the center and numerous plates with cakes and cookies, all provided by the Sisterhood, two of whose members sat at either end of the table and dispensed the tea and coffee.

  Ira Lerner was a fairly regular attendant at the Friday evening service. It was pleasant socializing in the vestry over coffee and cake. While most remained standing or wandering about greeting first one group and then another, there were a few small tables at the side at which one could sit and have one’s coffee and cake in comparative comfort. Occasionally, he even picked up some business as a result of his being there. Someone would come over to him and say, “Hey, Ira, a funny thing happened the other day. Maybe you can suggest what I might do.” He would listen for a moment and then explain that he did not feel right about talking business on the Sabbath. “Especially in the temple. Why don’t you ring me at the office Monday morning?”

  But this Friday evening it was he who had the problem and hoped to get some information or advice. As soon as the service was over, he approached the rabbi and stuck close to him when he went to the table for refreshment. He pulled back a chair from one of the tables and said, “Why don’t we sit down to drink our coffee? Standing, with a plate of cake in one hand and coffee in the other, is not the way to enjoy your coffee.”

  When they were seated, he said, “A client of mine, Doc Gorfinkle, tells me you were able to use your friendship with the chief of police on his behalf.”

  “The Lanigans were having a bite of supper at our house, and I asked him about it. The widow of the man who was killed in the Pine Grove accident was upset because her husband’s watch was not included in the effects which were turned over to her by the police. When Dr. Gorfinkle reported the accident, he told the desk sergeant that he had taken the man’s pulse. So Lanigan thought perhaps the doctor had removed it so that he could take his pulse. He thought that perhaps he had absentmindedly put it in his jacket pocket and then forgotten about it. He sent a plain-clothesman, rather than a uniformed policeman, to ask for it because he didn’t want it to appear that the good doctor was having some business with the police.”

  “And this detective fellow tried to make a big thing out of it, eh?”

  “That’s about it. I don’t think Dr. Gorfinkle will be troubled again.”

  “No, I don’t think he will, but that same detective fellow came to my house to question us about one of the guests we expected at the Bar Mitzvah, a Mordecai Jacobs who teaches at Windermere Christian. It was my Clara he spoke to. She doesn’t get upset easily, and she didn’t. But I’m bothered. Is that guy—the detective, I mean—trying to pin something on us?”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah, Jews. First he sees Gorfinkle, and then when he’s warned off by Lanigan, he comes to my house and questions my daughter.”

  “I’m sure there’s nothing of that involved. Lanigan wouldn’t stand it for a moment,” said the rabbi.

  “All right. So that brings up another question. Is this guy Jacobs involved in some police matter? It’s important. The reason it’s important is that my Clara wants—no, intends to marry this Jacobs. And I don’t want to be in the position of announcing my daughter’s engagement and then have the prospective groom arrested.”

  “I see.” The rabbi drumme
d the table for a moment, and then said, “All right, I’ll talk to Lanigan, maybe over the weekend. He may not want to tell me what’s involved, but I’ll do what I can.”

  33

  Saturday morning gave promise of a warm, sunny day. Chief Lanigan had chosen to wear a light tropical suit instead of his uniform. It was a lovely day to be outdoors, and only his conscience kept him at his desk.

  As he had so many times since he had gone with Amy to pay his respects to Victor Joyce’s widow, he went over the file on the case. Once again it struck him, in reading the notes he had made on Dunstable’s oral report of his activities the previous day, that the sergeant was not at his best interrogating women. He normally tried to establish his ascendancy over the subject, and it usually worked. But a daughter of two prominent lawyers, like Clara Lerner, was not easily intimidated, and Alice Saxon, professor of Psychology, wasn’t likely to be either. Nevertheless, he had probably got what information the Lerner girl could give, although Lanigan suspected her relations to Professor Jacobs were probably closer than she had indicated. But it seemed to him that Professor Saxon had a good deal more to tell than Dunstable had been able to glean. He thought she could be induced to tell more if she were properly approached. He was also mildly curious about Dunstable’s referring to her as “quite a dish.” And perhaps because he wanted an excuse to leave the office, he reached for the Boston telephone directory and dialed her number.