Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

by Harry Kemelman

  “But if, as you say, you insist on being the rabbi for the entire community, it means living in a small town.”

  “Well, I like small towns. Don’t you?”

  “Ye-es, but small towns mean small communities, and small communities mean small pay. Don’t you have any personal ambition?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Of course. Why else would I spend so much time at my studies? But my ambition is to be a rabbi, not something else. I have no interest in using the rabbinate as a springboard to some other kind of work that pays more and carries greater prestige. I don’t think I’d care to be a big rabbi with a big pulpit at some prestigious temple where I could never be found because I’d have speaking engagements all the time. I wouldn’t like it, and”–he reached over and patted her, hand reassuringly–“you wouldn’t like it either. Maybe you’d be proud of me for a little while, seeing my name or my picture in the Jewish press. But after a while you’d get used to that, like everything else. Besides, I don’t think I could do it, anyway.”

  “But you have to do some compromising, David, or–”

  “Or what?”

  “Or keep moving.”

  “We’ve been here almost six years. But you’re right, we can’t keep moving. It’s not good for Jonathan, for one thing. And I’ve been thinking about it. Wherever I go, there will be other Gorfinkles and other Paffs.”

  “So what do you plan to do?” she asked quietly.

  He shrugged. “Oh, one day this week I’ll go down to New York and see Hanslick and tell him that I would like another position. I might look into the possibility of Hillel work–”

  “David, is that why you are being so”–she was going to say stubborn, but decided on another word–“so resolute about this situation here?”

  He gave her a sharp look and then smiled. “Catholics have their confessors,” he said, “and Jews have their wives. I think I like our arrangement better.”

  “You’re dodging me,” she said but laughed in spite of herself.

  “Am I? Yes, I suppose I am. Well, I think perhaps that is part of the reason. Didn’t you like it–the two days in Binkerton? To tell the truth, dear, I’m tired of fighting. I’ve been doing it for almost six years, ever since I came here. I was prepared for a certain amount of it, but I thought that once it was established just who was the rabbi here, I’d be able to concentrate on my real job. But throughout my tenure, I’ve had to fight just to stay. I tell you I’m tired of it.”

  “You had an argument at Binkerton,” she observed.

  “That was different. That was a matter of principle. I don’t know, maybe this is the wrong congregation for me. They’re so–so contentious.” He thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets and strode the floor.

  “Well, Jews have never been known as a passive people,” Miriam said gently. “And what makes you think their sons and daughters in the colleges will be any different?”

  “Perhaps not, but I’m hoping their disagreements would be over issues of greater moment than whether or not to have permanent seating arrangements, say. But it’s more than that. A rabbi is primarily a student, a scholar. And for scholarship, a certain amount of leisure is necessary. In Hillel work, I’m hoping I would have the time–”

  “But here you’re doing things; in the college you’d only be reading about them.”

  “Well, I’d like a chance to do a little reading.”

  “Oh, you–” She controlled herself. “Your head is in the clouds, David. What about the immediate future? The community seder on Sunday, for instance. Will you be running it? Have you thought of that?”

  “No, I haven’t. But now that you mention it, I suppose that until I resign or am voted out I’m still the rabbi officially, and I would preside. Of course, Gorfinkle through his new Ritual Committee could decide to have the cantor run it, or Brooks, for that matter. It wouldn’t bother me too much. As a lameduck rabbi, I might find it embarrassing. Besides, the seder is not really a community affair. It’s a family affair. The only reason we have a seder in the temple is because a lot of our members are either too lazy to run their own or feel that they can’t.”

  “But if they did arrange for someone else to run it, what would you do?”

  “Do? I’d stay home.”

  “But–”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Who can that be at this hour?” exclaimed the rabbi. “It’s eleven o’clock.”

  Miriam hurried to the door. “Why, it’s Mr. Carter. Come in, won’t you.”

  He permitted himself to be led into the room and sat down on the chair that was drawn up for him. He sat on the edge, his back straight and not touching the chair-back. “My son is dead,” he announced.

  A shocked glance passed between the rabbi and his wife.

  “Oh, Mr. Carter, I’m so sorry,” said Miriam.

  “How did it happen?” asked the rabbi quietly. “Tell me about it. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Maybe there is,” said Carter. “They called me tonight. I was out, and they called just as I was coming in the house. Asked me to wait until some police sergeant got there. When he came, he wanted me to go down the staion with him. I kept asking him what is the matter, and all he would say was that I’d find out when I got to the station house. The chief was there when I got there, and he told me. He wanted me to identify the body.” He gave a short bitter laugh. “My boy’s picture was in the paper practically every week last year. I’ll bet that most people in town knew him better than the chairman of the Board of Selectment. He was the guest of honor at the annual banquet of the Junior Chamber of Commerce at the end of the football season. But they needed me to identify him.”

  “That’s just necessary formality, I believe,” remarked the rabbi.

  “Yuh, I guess so.”

  “Did they tell you how he had met his death?”

  “They didn’t say positive except that he had been drinking, that it looked like he had been drinking an awful lot. Well, that stuff is poison. He was intoxicated, that’s what he was. That’s a Latin word, and it means poison. Did you know that?”

  The rabbi nodded.

  “They took the body down to the police station,” Carter went on, “in the police ambulance. They opened the door and there he was, with a blanket over him. The head was toward the front of the car, so I had to climb right in. Lanigan got in after me, and he pulled back the blanket. ‘Is that your son?’ he asks. And I says, ‘Yes, that’s my son.’ So then they told me how they found him at Hillson House. He was lying on a couch there, and they could smell the whisky on him. Lanigan said how if you drink the stuff fast enough before the body has a chance to get rid of it, it can be very dangerous. So I guess that’s what must have happened.”

  “You said you thought I could help,” said the rabbi. “Did you want me to try to get further information on just how it happened?”

  The carpenter shook his head, “No, I guess that’s how it happened, the way Lanigan said. I knew that Moose drank even when he was in high school.” He paused again and then went on. “Lanigan drove me home and left me to break the news to Mrs. Carter. She carried on something dreadful. Lanigan called a doctor, and he gave her something to quiet her. I didn’t have the heart to prevent it, God forgive me.”

  “And how is she now?” asked Miriam gently.

  “Well, right now she’s asleep. My oldest girl is with her.” He knuckled his eyes, as if to wipe the sleep out of them. “Then I went back to the station house–Lanigan had left earlier–to make arrangements to get the body so I could give it decent burial. And Lanigan told me that they might have to do an autopsy on him to find out for sure what the cause of death was.”

  “I suppose that’s the law,” said the rabbi.

  “Well, I don’t hold with it. I know the cause of death. Lanigan told me. So why do they have to cut him open?”

  “I suppose they have to be sure.”

  “How much surer do they have to be than they are right now?
The body is the temple of the spirit, Rabbi. Even if the spirit is gone, do you have a right to destroy the temple? I don’t hold with it. It’s against my religious beliefs.” He fixed piercing eyes on the rabbi. “Now, I’m not looking for a fight with the police department or with the town, but if I have to fight, I will. But I’ve heard that you’re friendly with Lanigan and have been almost since you came. I thought maybe you could speak to him about it for me.”

  “I have no legal standing in the matter,” said the rabbi. “I mean, I’m not a lawyer, and I couldn’t act as your legal representative. Have you thought of getting a lawyer?”

  Carter shook his head. “It’s not a fight I want right now, Rabbi. When it comes to going to court, I’ll get a lawyer. Right now I’m thinking whether you could persuade him for my sake and my wife’s sake.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to him,” said the rabbi. “But I wouldn’t expect too much. Lanigan isn’t the sort of man who would refuse a request of this kind unless he had a very good reason and saw it as a necessary duty. And if that is so, then I don’t think I could persuade him. But I’ll talk to him if you like.”

  “When?” asked Carter pointedly.

  “Anytime you like.”

  “How about now? Tonight?”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Did you make contact with the Hillsons?” asked Lanigan.

  Lieutenant Jennings nodded. “Sort of contact,” he amended. “I spoke to the housekeeper. A regular battleax. She said the girls–girls, the younger one is seventy-five!–anyway, they were asleep and she wasn’t going to wake them, and I ought to be ashamed to be calling this time of the night, and she didn’t care if I were the police or the United States Army.”

  “She said that? The United States Army?”

  “Her words, Hugh. She even banged the receiver down once, but I called back”–he nodded in self-satisfaction–“and I told her that she better stay on the line until I got through with her, or I’d notify the local police to go out there and pick her up and bring her here. She must have believed me, because she didn’t try it again. Then she wanted to know what had happened, and when I told her that I didn’t have time to give her all the details, she said she was going to call the police, her police. Anyway, she finally told me that the house was up for sale and was in the hands of the Bellmore Realty Company of Lynn, who were the sole agents. Fortunately, I remembered that Bell-more was originally Bell and Morehead and that John Morehead lives here in town. So I called him and he told me that he was supposed to meet a group who were interested in buying the property at the house at half past eight, that he had given the key to one of them because something had come up and he wouldn’t be able to meet them.”

  “Did he say who they were?”

  “He didn’t know, except the man he gave the key to. He was the only one he’d be dealing with, anyway.”

  “And who was that?”

  “Meyer Paff. He’s the–”

  “Yeah, I know, the bowling alley man.”

  “Sure. He’s got one in Lynn and Revere, all over the map, as far up as Gloucester.”

  Lanigan’s eyes were shining. “And just the other day Kevin O’Connor called me to ask what I knew about him. The Lynn police had been watching that alley of his for pot.”

  “Hell, they watch every place where kids hang around, and kids hang around bowling alleys.”

  “Yes, but look here. We find pot on Moose, and he’s dead. And we find there’s a witness that can swear that earlier in the day he visited this guy Wilcox in Boston. And Wilcox was suspected of dealing in pot. And he’s dead. And where do we find Moose? In Hillson House. And now here’s Meyer Paff, who owns a place that the Lynn police suspect is a distribution point for pot. And Moose Carter works for Paff. And Meyer Paff has a key to Hillson House. And what’s more, he had an appointment to meet some people there tonight.”

  “Yeah, but most of that is just coincidence.”

  “Sure, and it was just the coincidence of both having some connection with pot that led me to call the Boston police, which is how we found out that Moose had been to see this Wilcox earlier in the day. Have you called Paff yet?”

  Through his pale-blue, watery eyes Lieutenant Jennings looked reproachfully at his chief. “I just finished talking to John Morehead, Hugh.”

  “All right. That’s fine. Go dig him up.”

  “You mean tonight? Right now?”

  “Sure. Bring him down and let him make a statement. He’ll sleep better for it.”

  Jennings grinned. “Gotcha.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  Chief Lanigan was startled when he saw his visitor. “You psychic or something, Rabbi?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lanigan’s broad red face relaxed in an easy smile. He ran a hand through his short white hair and eased back in his swivel chair. Although the smile remained on his face, his candid blue eyes were guarded. “Always happy to see you, you know that, but I’m sure you wouldn’t come down to the station on a rainy Monday night just to say hello. Or were you passing by?”

  “I’m here about Moose Carter. His father–”

  “Don’t tell me Carter is a member of your congregation,” said Lanigan with a grin. “You know, you have no standing in the matter, Rabbi.”

  “I’m here at his request. Surely that gives me some position.”

  “Some, but not enough.” His grin broadened.

  The rabbi could not understand Lanigan’s attitude, but he plunged ahead. “You told Carter that his son had died of alcohol poisoning. All right, he accepts your finding, and now all he wants is to give him proper burial. As I understand it, you refuse to surrender the body, and you hinted to him that you might order an autopsy. He has strong principles on the matter. His religious convictions are opposed to the idea.”

  “Religious convictions? Hell, the guy’s a nut.”

  “He’s not as crazy as you think. He would not oppose an autopsy if it meant finding out the cause of death, but here you know the cause of the death.”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong, Rabbi. I told him I thought it was alcohol poisoning, but I didn’t say we were certain. There’s an awful lot that needs explaining. Did you know the boy?”

  The rabbi shook his head.

  “He was a big boy, over two hundred pounds, and alcohol poisoning, you know, depends a good deal on body size. It takes more of the stuff to have the same effect on a big man than it would on a little man. The way it works–if you take enough of it and you take it fast enough before the body can get rid of it–the nerve controlling the breathing apparatus is paralyzed, and you’re asphyxiated. And on the basis of the available evidence, it just doesn’t look as if he had enough to kill him. And there are other angles. Come with me, and I’ll show you something.”

  He led the way into a small room off the front entrance. From the filing cabinet he drew a large manila envelope and emptied its contents on a table. He held up a plastic tobacco pouch, unrolled it, and passed it to the rabbi. “What do you think of that?”

  The rabbi sniffed at it and then took a pinch of the greenish flakes. Gingerly he touched it with the tip of his tongue.

  “Careful, Rabbi, you’re breaking the law.”

  “Then this is–”

  “Grass, pot, Mary Jane, marihuana. We found that in Moose’s trouser pocket. And here’s his wallet.” He held it by a corner and shook it in front of the rabbi’s face. “It contains two crisp new twenty-dollar bills, Rabbi. Now ask me what makes them so interesting.”

  “All right, what makes them so interesting?”

  “Because up until around noon today Moose Carter didn’t have a dime. He was going into Boston, and he had to borrow a couple of dollars from his mother for bus fare.”

  “You mean he’s been selling this stuff?”

  “Maybe. But what makes it really interesting is that earlier today a man was murdered in Boston, in the South End, name of Wilco
x. It came over the teletype. Boston narcotics squad had been suspicious of him for some time. Just before closing time, he had cashed a check at the local branch of his bank for five hundred dollars and got it in crisp new twenties. But when you get your money in new bills, the numbers run consecutively. So when we found the grass on Moose, I called the Boston police on he chance that there might be a connection. And that’s when we found out about the money. Wilcox had four hundred and sixty dollars on him when he was found, and the two bills that Moose had were the next two numbers.”

  “You mean that Moose murdered this Wilcox?”

  “No. As a matter of fact we know that he didn’t, because Wilcox was alive after Moose was seen to leave.”

  “Then it is definite that Moose went there?”

  “The two twenty-dollar bills pretty much prove that,” said Lanigan drily. “That would be proof enough for me.”

  “And yet, he could have got them from whoever got them from Wilcox.”

  “Could have but didn’t. Boston has an eyewitness that saw Moose going to visit Wilcox. So you can understand why I’m not releasing the body just yet.”

  The rabbi nodded slowly.

  “All right.” Once again Lanigan was grinning, “And now ask me how we found Moose in the first place.”

  “Go on.” For some reason the rabbi was apprehensive.

  “We got a call from the next door neighbor, man named Begg, who said he had seen a light in Hillson House. So we sent the cruising car around to check it out, and they got there just in time to catch a couple of young fellows coming out. They had a car parked in front of the house, and there was a young girl behind the wheel. Now they might interest you, Rabbi, because one of them is the son of the president of your temple, and the other two, William Jacobs and Diane Epstein, are also your people.”