Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out

by Harry Kemelman

“Maybe She had reasons for staying behind while you went off.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  All week long she had wanted to tell him, but there had been no real opportunity. She had rehearsed her story over and over and had planned, when the occasion came, to speak quietly and calmly as if in sorrow and only out of duty, but now that the chance had suddenly presented itself, her eyes glittered and she spat out the words spitefully, “I mean She didn’t stay very long after you left. She thought I was asleep. She thought I didn’t hear her, but I did. I heard the car start and I got out of bed and watched through the window and saw her drive off.”

  “You dreamed it.”

  “Oh no, I didn’t.” And now she did speak quietly. She even managed a little smile. “I wasn’t sleeping. I may have dozed off the way I do sometimes just sitting in my chair here. But I wasn’t sleeping. I heard her talking on the phone. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and I could tell She was tiptoeing up. So I made believe I was asleep. Sure enough, She pushed the door back a little and looked in. Then She tiptoed downstairs again. Well, I can tell you I was wide awake then. And pretty soon I heard the back door open and close. Then I heard the car starting up and I got out of bed and peeked through the curtains down at the driveway and I saw her leave. It was just about the time you were starting the service at the temple, and She didn’t get back until after nine. She came upstairs to have another look at me when She came back, and I made believe I was asleep again.”

  For no reason at all, it flashed across his mind that Henry Maltzman had come to the service late that night, a little after nine. “I still think you dreamed it,” he said.

  “Do you? Well, why don’t you ask her? See what She says.”

  They had finished Sunday dinner, and Laura Maltzman had gone off to visit her mother at the convalescent home as her husband prepared to leave for the board meeting at the temple. He had just shrugged into his jacket when the doorbell rang. It was Lieutenant Jennings.

  “I’ve come about the Jordon business, Mr. Maltzman. I’d like you to come with me to the stationhouse to answer a few questions that Chief Lanigan wants to ask you, and maybe make a statement.”

  “What if I’m not interested in the Jordon business?”

  “You can tell that to the chief down at the stationhouse.”

  His eyes dancing with amusement, Maltzman asked, “You got a warrant, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes.”

  Taken aback, Maltzman stammered, “You—you have?”

  “Right here.”

  As Jennings reached into his breast pocket, Maltzman said hastily, “All right. I believe you. Look here, you want me to come down to the stationhouse to make a statement and answer a few questions. All right. But I’ve got an important meeting over at the temple in a few minutes. I’ll come down right after it’s over.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbling nervously, Jennings shook his head. “No sir, my orders are to bring you down right now.”

  “Look here, you can’t just barge in here and interfere with my plans and—”

  “Oh yes I can, so long as I got a warrant.”

  “I’ll talk to Lanigan. What’s the number?”

  “Won’t do you no good. He’s not there yet. His orders were for me to have you there when he gets there. So let’s not have any trouble, Mr. Maltzman.”

  Maltzman bit his lips as he considered. Finally he said, “All right. I’ll just leave a note for my wife telling her where I’m going.” He went into the kitchen, and when the policeman followed, he said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going through the back door.” He thumbtacked the note to the bulletin board and reached for the phone on the shelf beneath it. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  “You calling your lawyer?” asked Jennings politely.

  Maltzman bared his teeth in a tight little smile. “Not yet.” He dialed Barry Fisher’s number. “Barry? Hank. Look, something important has come up, and I won’t be able to get to the meeting today … I know, I know. You go right ahead with the meeting and proceed just the way we planned … Look, Barry, we have eight solid votes. So with you in the chair, we’ll have seven votes. Seven to six is just as good as eight to six … Right … Right … Bye now.”

  He turned to the lieutenant and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  They had finished Sunday dinner, and Miriam had shooed the children upstairs to watch television so that they would not disturb Daddy who was trying to read. When the doorbell rang and she saw that it was Chief Lanigan, she said with a mischievous smile, “Just happen to be in the neighborhood, Chief? It’s Chief Lanigan, David.”

  “No, Miriam,” Lanigan said soberly, “this time I came on purpose.” And he told the reason for his visit.

  “Do you honestly think Maltzman shot him?” asked the rabbi.

  Lanigan squirmed uncomfortably. “It’s not for me to say whether he did or he didn’t. That’s for a judge and jury. I’m just conducting the investigation.”

  “Then do you honestly suspect him?”

  “What’s that mean? Do I think he’s a born killer? Of course not. But which of the people involved is? All I know is that he threatened Jordon that same day. Said he’d put a bullet through his head. And that’s how Jordon was killed. That’s enough right there for us to act. But I didn’t push it because I thought he was at the temple at the time that the murder was committed. Then I found that he wasn’t. That made his stock as a suspect jump sky-high. And when we ask him to account for his movements that evening, he tells us it’s none of our business. Well, I’ve got to see Clegg tomorrow, and if I tell him I didn’t press Maltzman for an explanation because he said it was none of our business, he’ll think I’m not up to my job, and he’ll go ahead and charge him.”

  “So you’re arresting him to get him to talk?”

  “That’s right.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Right about now, I’d say.”

  “And if he doesn’t talk?”

  “Then I’ll put him in a cell for the night,” said Lanigan promptly. “And the next morning, I’ll confer with Clegg, and it’s my guess that he’ll haul him up before the nearest judge and charge him. And then make an announcement to the press. And since it’s murder, there’ll be no bail and he’ll stay in jail. I’m sorry, David, but that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  The rabbi nodded.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  46

  If Mrs. Mandell had hoped that her son would confront his wife when she got home, she was disappointed. When Molly returned, she called out, “H’lo, Mother. Manage with dinner all right?” gave her husband a wifely peck, and flounced up the stairs to the bedroom, saying, “I’ve got to change, I promised one of the girls I’d help her with her bridge.”

  She came down a few minutes later, having changed from the dress that she had worn to Boston to the comfortable slacks and sweater she thought more suitable to Barnard’s Crossing.

  “Who is it?” Herb asked, as she headed for the door.

  “Oh, no one you know,” she said vaguely. “One of the girls in the office.”

  No sooner had the door closed behind her than he got up, stretched lazily and announced, “Well, I better get going, too. You’ll be all right, Ma?”

  “I’ll be all right. But what’s your hurry? You’ve got plenty of time yet.”

  He had a good half hour in fact, but just then he did not want to spend it with his mother, defending Molly against her insinuations.

  “Yeah, but there’s like a caucus before the meeting that they asked me to come to. Some of the men want to talk over something important we’re going to take up.”

  He drove to the public beach and parked. The food stand had remained open because the weather had held fine, and people continued to come, to walk along the edge of the water or to sit and watch the surf. He bought a cup of coffee and took it back to the car.

  There were several cars parked, one with a couple in a close embrace
, which unaccountably annoyed him. He sipped at his coffee and puffed on a cigarette and rationalized Molly’s behavior. He admitted that his mother had probably not been dreaming and had indeed seen what she said she had. But what of it? The phone call she had heard must have been the one that Gore had made. And then she had gone out for a half an hour or so. Well, she had been working hard all evening on the report and wanted a bit of fresh air. Of course, she shouldn’t have left Ma all alone, but she did first go up to see if she was all right. And Molly had insisted right along that Ma wasn’t as helpless at night as she claimed. And, of course, she wasn’t. He knew that his mother had a tendency to exaggerate and dramatize her condition—for sympathy, and maybe because she was lonely. But still …

  He set the car in motion and started for the meeting. He decided not to mention the matter to Molly. There was tension enough between the two women, maybe normal between a girl and her mother-in-law living in the same house. But if Molly got the idea that his mother was spying on her and, what is more, tattling to him, then it could start an unholy row. And who knows where that could lead?

  The board members were shuffling into seats around the table when Herb arrived. He nodded to those who caught his eye and slid shyly into the nearest chair. Barry Fisher got up and closed the door of the room. Then taking the place at the head of the table, he announced, “Henry called me to say something important had come up and that he wouldn’t be able to make it today. So let’s come to order and get on with the meeting. If I remember right, we agreed to devote this meeting to the budget and nothing else, so I think we can dispense with the reading of the minutes and committee reports. Let’s see, you wanted time to study the budget, Herb. That’s why we postponed consideration until today. Right. Well, have you had a chance to go over it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, then let’s get started. The first section is housekeeping expenses. You want to say anything about the figures, Mike?”

  “I thought we were going to take it item by item, Mr. Chairman.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So why don’t we take the first item, the first line item, I mean?”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, the first item is heat. You notice we increased that item over what we allotted last year. Now, I could have just added our supplementary allocations for heat last year to the original budget figure and let it go at that. But I thought we ought to increase that figure by about ten percent on account of we got to figure on a possible price increase in oil.”

  “On the other hand, Mike, last winter was exceptionally cold. It’s not likely we’re going to get another winter like last year.”

  “Well, I heard a guy on TV claim that the climate might be getting colder. According to him, there’s a good chance that we’re getting into another Ice Age. Something to do with the ozone layer.”

  “Aw, that’s just science fiction. We can’t have another winter like last year. The country couldn’t stand it.”

  “So you think Congress will pass a law against it, Bill?”

  They wrangled about it, gnawing at it like a dog with a bone, and then finally accepted the original figure. They proceeded to do the same with the next item, and the next. On the whole, the women members tended to be more businesslike and more inclined to stick to the point, but they were also given to whispering together and sometimes lost the thread of the argument and demanded to have it restated.

  “Okay, the next item is salaries. You want to say something on that, Doris?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Doris Melnick, who was chairman of the school committee. “When Mike asked me for the figures on individual teacher’s salaries, I told him I couldn’t give it to him and that I’d have to give him just the lump sum for the whole faculty. I’d like to explain the reason for that. We on the school committee negotiate each teacher’s salary with the individual teacher, separately and confidentially. That’s been our policy from the beginning, and it has worked well. No teacher knows what any other teacher is getting, unless he tells him. That way, negotiating each one separately, I mean, we can give the better teacher a little extra if it should be necessary, and you don’t get jealousy and disgruntlement—”

  “Dis who?” It was Jack Pollock, who had a reputation as a clown and felt he had to live up to it.

  Mrs. Melnick, who had been a schoolteacher and knew how to cope with naughty boys, fixed him with a stare and said, “Disgruntlement, Mr. Pollock. Is the word unfamiliar to you?”

  “Oh no. Let’s not have any disgruntlement. I’m a strong gruntlement man myself.”

  They argued about it, of course, because they argued about every point that was raised, but in the end Mrs. Melnick had her way and they voted on the total figure.

  Since the cantor’s salary was fixed by contract, it would seem that there was no room for discussion on that item. Nevertheless, the question was raised as to whether the cantor ought not turn in the honoraria he got for his services at funerals and weddings, and more particularly for preparing boys for the chanting portion of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony, since these were normal duties of the job. It was a point that was raised every year, and with the same arguments on both sides.

  “Say he’s got a dopey kid that he has to spend a lot of extra time teaching him his Bar Mitzvah, and the kid’s old man is appreciative and wants to give him an extra few bucks for his trouble—”

  “If I were a cantor, frankly I’d resent it. After all, what’s an honorarium? It’s just a tip, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah, but what’s a tip? It’s a token of appreciation. Right? You get a good waiter, you give him a good tip. You get a bum waiter, and either you don’t give him anything, or you give him just exactly the minimum. At least that’s the way I do.”

  “In lots of restaurants they pool their tips.”

  “What I’d like to know is how you plan to work it. You going to announce that honoraria are forbidden to the cantor? Or are you going to let him collect them and then turn them in to the treasury? And how are you going to be sure he turns in everything he gets? Are you going to ask the donor to report how much he gives?”

  In the end, they left matters as they were, just as they had done every year previously. Stanley Doble’s salary involved little discussion. But there was some talk, largely anecdotal, about the man himself.

  “Remember when he came in stinko one Friday night?”

  “How about his not coming in at all, like a week ago Friday night when the Brotherhood sponsored the service?”

  “I’d rather have him stay away altogether than come in drunk.”

  The suggestion, by one of the women, that maybe they ought to look around for a replacement, one more reliable, was immediately overridden by the chairman himself. “Forget it. We could get plenty of janitors who’d be more reliable, but where are we going to get one who can do what Stanley does? Anything goes wrong, and this building is now getting to the point where things do go wrong pretty regular, Stanley can usually fix it, whether it’s with the plumbing or the wiring or with the heating system. He’s a pretty good carpenter, and he spends most of the summer painting, repointing the brickwork, and just getting everything shipshape for the winter. Of course, sometimes he goofs off and gets drunk, and you can’t always depend on him. But look at it this way. If he were one hundred percent reliable and always sober, he wouldn’t be working for us as a janitor. So I see it as a trade-off, and as long as it doesn’t get worse, I think we’ve got the best of the bargain. Now, if there’s no further discussion on Stanley, I suggest that we go on to the last item, the rabbi.”

  This was Herb Mandell’s cue. He raised his hand and, when recognized, said, “It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that this item is a little different from the others.”

  “Oh yeah? How is it different?”

  “Well, in the others we were concerned primarily with the question of salary. Now, in the case of the rabbi, it’s not so much salary, since he has like an ongoing contract subject to an
nual renewal. I mean, the salary is fixed except for a cost-of-living increase, so we can’t discuss that. The real question is on renewal.”

  “You got a point there, Herb,” said Cy Morgenstern. “So what do you suggest?”

  “Well, it seems to me that on this one we ought to vote by secret ballot. I mean, if somebody wants to vote against the rabbi, he ought to feel free to do so without being worried that it would get back to the rabbi and he’d maybe get sore at him.”

  The chairman stroked his chin reflectively. “That seems reasonable enough,” he said. “All right, we’ll do it that way.” To the secretary, he said, “Gladys, why don’t you pass out some paper. We’ll vote Aye and Nay. If you want to vote for renewal of the rabbi’s contract, you vote Aye. If you’re opposed, you vote Nay. Everybody got it?”

  The secretary tore several pages out of her notebook and then proceeded to fold and tear these in quarters, which she passed down the table.

  “Can you spare it?” asked Pollock, ever the comedian.

  “It’s big enough for a three-letter word,” said Mrs. Melnick, always the schoolteacher. Then with twitching lips, “Do you know how to spell it?”

  “Keep me after school if I can’t?” He leered at her.

  A few marked their ballots openly and boldly, but most cupped one hand over the paper while they scribbled furtively with the other. The former folded their ballots once and negligently tossed them onto the table to be passed on. The more cautious folded them at least twice and personally handed the resultant little cushions of paper to the secretary, in some cases even leaving their seats to do so.

  As he waited for his neighbor to finish so that he could borrow his pencil, Herb began to have doubts. He had nothing against the rabbi. He was doing it because Molly and Maltzman wanted him to. Molly and Maltzman. Molly sneaking out when she was supposed to be with his mother and Maltzman coming to the service late. Molly and Maltzman, their heads together as they pored over their lists. Molly off to help a girl with her bridge party—“Oh, no one you know”—and Maltzman calling to say he couldn’t come to the meeting. His neighbor passed him a pencil. Herb hesitated a moment and then wrote Aye.