The Day the Rabbi Resigned

by Harry Kemelman

  “He’s in the cruising car. Why don’t I let him tell it?”

  “All right. Hook him up.” Then to the policeman in the cruising car, “Chief Lanigan. What is it, Tim?”

  “I just stopped a guy for speeding and passing a red light.”

  “So?”

  “And he don’t have his registration.”

  “So?”

  “And he’s wearing a watch just like the one you described when you sent me to take up along Pine Grove Road.”

  “Is that so? Did you say anything about it to him?”

  “No. I thought I’d talk to you first.”

  “That’s right. Don’t show any interest in it. Who’s with you on the cruiser?”

  “Bill Stone.”

  “Okay, have Bill get in the car with him and have him drive to the station house. You follow in the cruiser.”

  His name was Malcolm Dorfbetter, and according to his driver’s license, he was twenty-five years old. He said he lived on 30 Lowell Road, which was in a newly developed part of town, where many of the streets were not yet paved and some of the lawns, while rolled and seeded, had not yet produced grass.

  His hair was long, coming to his coat collar in back, and he wore a gold earring. He was sure of himself, even brash.

  He argued with Officer Phelps as he was brought into the station house.

  “Look, I didn’t realize I was speeding. My speedometer, I got to have it checked—”

  “You also passed a red light.”

  “Yeah, well, I was watching the guy in front of me and I didn’t see the light. Besides, it just changed—”

  “No, it changed when you were still seventy feet back of it.”

  “Okay, so I figured I’d sneak through ’stead of jamming on my brakes and maybe going through the windshield. So I made a mistake, and it’s a traffic violation. So why don’t you just give me a ticket and I’ll be on my way.”

  “You don’t have a registration.”

  “Yeah, well, like I said, it’s at home. I could drive there and get it and be back in ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “It’s as much as my job is worth to let you drive off without a registration.”

  “So take me down there, and you can even come in the house with me.”

  “Just relax, mister, and you can make your pitch to the chief.”

  Officer Phelps looked at the desk sergeant questioningly, who nodded toward Lanigan’s office. He marched the young man in and handed Lanigan the driver’s license. Lanigan made quite a show of checking the license, peering first at the young man and then at the picture on the plastic card.

  “This gives your address as St. Paul Street, Brookline.”

  “Yeah, well, that is where I was living up to about a month ago.”

  “Okay. Sit down. I’ll be with you in a minute.” To Phelps he said, “You can get back to the cruiser, Tim, and will you ask Sergeant Dunstable and Lieutenant Jennings to come in.” Officer Phelps left, and Dunstable entered almost immediately, as though he had been waiting at the door, as indeed he had. In a minute or two Eban Jennings came in. He put a slip of paper on Lanigan’s desk and sat down.

  Lanigan glanced at the paper and said, “According to our records, Thirty Lowell Road is occupied by the Leaming family, Mary and Arthur Leaming, no Dorfbetter.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s my ma. After my old man died, she married this guy, Leaming.”

  “And you live with them?”

  “Well, I have been for about a month now.”

  “They’re new in town?”

  “They came the first of the year.”

  “They home now?”

  “No, they’re driving across country to L.A. I’m sort of looking after the place while they’re gone. Look, I’ve got an appointment.” He glanced at his watch. “And I’m kind of late for it right now.”

  “That’s quite a watch you have there,” said Lanigan. “May I see it?”

  “Sure.” Dorfbetter snapped the catch and handed it over. Lanigan noted that it was the sort of catch Margaret Joyce had described to him.

  “You a Catholic?” asked Lanigan.

  “Naw. We don’t belong to anything. Why?”

  “Because this is a Catholic watch.”

  “You mean, I’m not allowed to wear it?”

  “You can wear it, but you wouldn’t buy it. Where did you get it?”

  “I—I found it.”

  “That so? Where did you find it?”

  “I found it in Boston, or rather, in Brookline.”

  Lanigan glanced at Dunstable. There was no doubt in his mind that this was Joyce’s watch. It was just as Margaret Joyce had described it, with a little silver tube just above the twelve.

  “Just where in Brookline?” asked Dunstable.

  “Near Coolidge Corner. I was walking along Beacon Street, and I saw a sort of, you know, like a glitter under the bushes in front of this apartment house, because of the way the sun hit it. So I picked it up and I see it’s a watch. If it had been a one-family house, I might have knocked on the door and asked if someone there had lost a watch, but it was this big apartment house, so what was the use?”

  “This watch has been reported stolen,” said Lanigan flatly.

  Dorfbetter manifested polite interest and mild surprise. “What do you know!”

  “Take him into your office, Eban,” Lanigan said to his lieutenant, “and fill out the necessary forms.”

  He realized that he had not actually identified the watch as Joyce’s. He had never been to Rome, but he recalled that someone who had just come back from a tour had described Rome, and more particularly Vatican City, as full of places selling “all kinds of religious touristy knickknacks.” What if watches like Joyce’s were a regular article of trade there? It was incumbent on him to get positive identification.

  He reached for the phone and called the Joyce house. When Margaret answered, he said, “Chief Lanigan. Look, I’ve got to see you for a minute. I’m coming right over.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he went out to his car, calling back over his shoulder to the desk sergeant that he would be back.

  When he arrived at the house in Shurtcliffe Circle, she greeted him with, “You have good news for me. I just know you have.”

  Smiling, he said, “Well, maybe. First, could you identify the watch—”

  “But I described it to you. It has the Sacred Heart on the dial and the little tube above the twelve.”

  “Yes, but suppose there are others just like it? A friend of mine who just came from Rome said he saw others like it for sale.”

  “Oh, that can’t be,” she insisted. “I know my mother had it painted on after she bought it.”

  “But that was some years ago, wasn’t it? Since then, some enterprising jeweler, maybe even the one who did it for your mother, got the idea that it made a fine souvenir of the city and would sell well and produced a whole slew of them. Now is there anything, a scratch of—”

  “I see.” She closed her eyes as she tried to visualize the watch as she had last seen it. Then she said doubtfully, “Not on the watch, that I remember, but on the bracelet there was like a dent in one of the links, in the first one, next to the watch.”

  He drew the watch from his pocket, peered at the bracelet, and then held it out to her. “Is this your husband’s watch?”

  She all but grabbed it from his hand and clutched it to her bosom. “Oh, it is, it is. I’m sure. That little dent, I made it myself once when I was playing with it. I was going to get another bracelet for it before giving it to Victor, but I didn’t have time, and I didn’t think he’d notice it.”

  “That’s fine,” he said, “but I’m afraid we’ll have to keep it for a while. It’s evidence, you see.” He held out his hand.

  She yielded the watch with great reluctance. “But I’ll get it back.”

  “Oh, certainly.” He hesitated and then said, “You know, we made a number of inquiries at the college—”

  �
�You mean you went into Boston about a lost watch? Oh, that was really very good of you. I had no idea the police were so thorough about something that isn’t really very valuable.”

  “Well, we knew it meant a lot to you, and then there were, well, other angles that had to be explored. There was a story around that you and your husband were planning to get a divorce.”

  She was not embarrassed. “Yes, that’s true,” she said. “I was planning to ask the Church to grant me a separation and then to get a civil divorce. I’m surprised that Victor let it be known around the school. I would have thought he’d be worried about my uncle hearing about it. We kept it from him because Victor thought it would affect his chances of getting tenure. You see, my uncle is a trustee of the college. So although we weren’t living together as man and wife, we’d still go to church together and then to Sunday dinner at my uncle’s house afterward.”

  “And your uncle and aunt didn’t know or suspect?”

  “I’m sure my aunt knew. I think she suspected all along, but then on the afternoon of the dinner, she came here. She had occasion to go upstairs and—and I’m sure she saw that we were—were living apart. I don’t think she told my uncle, though, because when he called to arrange to drive up with Victor, he didn’t seem in the least upset.”

  “And he would have been if he knew?”

  “At least he would have talked to me about it.”

  “Yes, I suppose he would,” said Lanigan. He rose to go. “By the way,” he said, “when the desk sergeant called to tell you Saturday night, there was no answer.”

  “I was out. I’d gone to a movie.”

  “To the Criterion in town?”

  “No, I’d seen that picture before, so I went up to the Excelsior in Breverton. Then I met some people I know and joined them for coffee afterward. I didn’t get home till almost midnight.”

  He nodded, and she led him to the door. “Where was it found?” she asked as she opened the door.

  “In Brookline near Coolidge Corner.”

  “You mean he may have dropped it while, er—visiting someone? Oh, but he couldn’t have. He was wearing it that night. I’m—I’m almost sure of it.”

  “But you’re not absolutely sure, are you?”

  “Well, I think—no, I can’t be absolutely sure.”

  Although Dorfbetter’s saying that he had found the watch on Beacon Street near Coolidge Corner tended to confirm his suspicions of Jacob, it occurred to Dunstable that he might have lied, and that he had actually taken the watch from the wrist of the unfortunate Joyce. Suppose he had got blood on his shirt cuff in the process. What would he do with a bloody shirt? He might try to wash it off, of course. Or he might bury it, or burn it. Or he might just take it off, perhaps leave it on the floor of his bedroom with the rest of his dirty laundry until he got a big enough pile to take down to the Laundromat.

  To the desk sergeant he said, “Let me see that key ring we took off the young fellow, will you.”

  The sergeant tossed the ring onto the counter. To be sure, there were house keys on the ring. “I’ll borrow this for a while,” Dunstable said. “I just want to see if one of those actually fits the front door of Thirty Lowell.”

  “Well, you be sure and bring them back.”

  Key ring in hand, Dunstable loafed into the wardroom and saw that Patrolman Sterling had just changed into civilian clothes preparatory to going off duty. “You in a hurry, Bob?” he asked.

  “Not particularly, Sarge. What’s up?”

  “I want to take a look at Thirty Lowell Road. All right if we use your car?”

  “Sure.”

  They drove to Lowell Road, and when they reached the number 30, Dunstable said, “Go up about fifty feet and park there.”

  “There’s a car under a tarpaulin in the driveway,” Sterling pointed out.

  “Probably his stepfather’s.”

  “But isn’t he supposed to be driving across the country?”

  “So? If you were going to drive cross-country, would you try to do it in this heap? You’d leave it and rent a car.”

  “So why didn’t he park it in his garage?”

  “Because I suppose the garage is full of summer furniture and a lawn mower and snow tires. Look, just wait here while I go up to the house.”

  Dunstable went up the walk and mounted the stairs. He looked along the street and was annoyed to see that Sterling had left his post and was loafing up the driveway to the car under the tarpaulin. He was on the point of inserting a key in the lock when Sterling called out, “Hey Sarge, c’mere.”

  He crossed the lawn. “What is it?”

  Sterling lifted the tarpaulin and was pointing. “Isn’t that the license of the car that was reported missing: 111 123. It’s an easy number to remember.”

  “Son of a gun!”

  “What do we do now, Sarge?”

  For a moment Dunstable was tempted to enter the house and use the telephone, but then he thought better of it. “Look, you stay here and keep an eye out just in case. I’ll drive back to the station house and see the chief.”

  “He went out. I saw him drive off.”

  “So he may be back by now. Or I can talk to the lieutenant. Give me your keys.”

  But Lanigan was already back at his desk when Dunstable arrived. He told of his discovery and then added, “For all I know, the keys might even be in the ignition. I’d have no trouble starting it by crossing the wires—”

  “No,” said Lanigan decisively. “I’ll send the tow truck down and bring it back here, tarpaulin and all.” He got up and circled his desk, and then pointed. “I want it parked right there where it can be seen by someone sitting in that chair. Got it?”

  “Right.”

  “How did you happen to go out there, Sergeant?”

  “Just to see if one of the keys on the ring would fit the door.”

  “All right. You go out with the tow truck. And mind where I said I wanted it parked.”

  Later, when Lanigan heard the thump of the car as its rear wheels hit the ground, he had Dorfbetter brought to his office. He motioned to the chair near the window and said, “I want to know—”

  But the young man had caught sight of the tarpaulin. “Jeesus!” he cried, and buried his face in his hands. But only for a moment. Then he looked up and began to babble. “I saw the keys in the car and the door was locked, so I knew the guy had locked himself out of his car. My old man used to do that—lock himself out of his car, I mean. My real father, I mean, not my stepfather; he never makes mistakes. Once, he spent over an hour trying to work a wire coat hanger through a crack at the top of the window to hook onto the handle inside. Another time, he had to break the glass. Then he got wise and bought himself one of those little bumper magnetic boxes that you put a duplicate key in and hide it under the bumper. So I felt along the rear bumper and there it was in the same place my father used to keep his. I mean, it was like Fate. I was only going to take a little ride and then bring it back. But when I came back, I saw the police cruiser there, so I drove on home, thinking to take it back later.”

  “I’m charging you with the larceny of an automobile,” said Lanigan, and picking up a card from his desk, he proceeded to read him his rights. Then he said, “Now, suppose you tell me just which route you took.”

  “I’m not saying another word, and you can’t make me,” said the young man, “not until I see a lawyer.”

  Luigi Tomasello was the senior Assistant District Attorney, and since Lanigan had established a good working relationship with him over the years, he felt no hesitancy in calling him at his home.

  “See, Luigi, I didn’t push him on the watch, because where he said he found it kind of tied in with another line we were pursuing and seemed to confirm it. But then we found Merton’s car in his driveway and he tried to tell us that he’d just wanted to take a little ride and was going to bring it back to where he got it, but he saw the police cruiser there, so he didn’t stop. So then I charged him with grand larceny
and read him his rights.”

  “Then you read him his rights.”

  “Yeah, but I hadn’t questioned him or anything. I didn’t even what you might call confront him with it. I just had it parked where it could be seen from my office and I had him come in to the office. I didn’t say a word. He did all the talking.”

  “All right, so did he still claim he found the watch?”

  “He didn’t say anything. When I read him his rights, he clammed up and said he wouldn’t say another word until he had a chance to see a lawyer, so I didn’t press him.”

  “You should have charged him and read him his rights as soon as you found the car in his driveway. A smart lawyer could make it look as though you forced a confession out of him one way or another. And don’t kid yourself, Hugh. If this should turn out to be murder, it won’t be one of the kids just out of law school in the Public Defender’s office who will be acting for him. John Stewart himself will take over. So I tell you what you do. You process him, mug shots, fingerprints, the whole business, and send it on through. Then tomorrow we bring him up for arraignment for larceny of an automobile.”

  “And the watch?”

  “We don’t mention it because he says he found it. We can always add it afterward.”

  “But I want a warrant to search his house. There might be a shirt with a bloodstain, and—”

  “We’ll apply for the warrant after he’s arraigned. The thing to remember, Hugh, is that you don’t want your police work to get in the way of my getting a conviction. All right?”

  “Okay, Luigi.”

  His earlier elation at having found the watch and solved the mystery of Joyce’s murder was somewhat tempered by his conversation with Tomasello. Had he been a little too cute in arranging for Dorfbetter to see the car under the tarpaulin in the police parking lot? Was there a chance that his lawyer could get him off on the grounds that the police had acted improperly? He reflected that perhaps Tomasello’s reproof had been for the purpose of getting him to toe the line from here on rather than criticism of what he had done.

  He felt quite sure that he knew what had actually happened. He was quite willing to believe that Dorfbetter had seen the keys in the ignition and had then found another key in a magnetic container behind the rear bumper. He could understand that it might seem like the hand of Fate to the young man. But what was he doing wandering among the cars in the parking lot in the first place? Was it not with the thought of stealing a car? Quite possibly, all he wanted was to take a ride. So where would he go? It had a license number that was easily recognized—and remembered; 111 123. Wouldn’t he try to avoid the main streets? And if he knew the area at all, what better road to take than Pine Grove?