The rabbi smiled. “It wasn’t. As in a number of such cases, the final decision was held in abeyance until the coming of the prophet Elijah.”
Ames laughed. “Very good. I wish we had a device like that.”
The rabbi laughed too. “You can’t,” he said, “unless you believe that Elijah is actually coming.”
“That would make a difference, of course.” Ames found himself liking the rabbi and decided to go ahead with his plan to confide in him. “To get back to the matter in hand, Rabbi, I don’t mind admitting that I am not too happy with the situation as it stands. These young people can be kept in jail for some time even though they have not as yet been tried and found guilty. Of course, that’s one of the hazards of citizenship. It could happen to anyone. It’s unfair to the individual, of course, but on the other hand the state must protect its citizens. We take all sorts of precautions to insure that the innocent are not harassed in this way. The police cannot hold people for more than twenty-four hours without the consent of a magistrate, just as we don’t subject people to the annoyances and vicissitudes of a trial until a grand jury has decided that there is a good case to be made out against them.”
“Surely, Mr. Ames, you didn’t come here to lecture me on the virtues of our legal system.”
Ames giggled. “True enough, Rabbi. Well, the medical examiner has just filed his report, and according to his analysis the death of your colleague occurred some time before the explosion. Now, the M.E.’s findings are not conclusive, you understand. He can make a mistake, and probably did, but I’m sure that if the judge had had the medical examiner’s report he would not have refused bail.”
“I see,” said the rabbi. “So what do you do in these cases? I’m sure it must have happened before—not exactly like this perhaps, but where some new piece of evidence has been introduced.”
“Oh, it occurs often enough. And what I’d be apt to do is call the defense counsel and tell him, so that he could file a motion to quash or to reduce bail. But in this case, the district attorney has rather strong views, which makes it a little difficult. You understand?” He peered up at the rabbi expectantly.
“I think so,” said the rabbi doubtfully. Then, “In the other cases, did you get the district attorney’s permission first?”
“Oh no. I handle my own cases as I see fit. Normally, there’s no interference.”
The rabbi looked at him. “So why couldn’t you do the same here?”
Ames tried to find a more comfortable position in the visitor’s chair. “Because we’ve already discussed it, and he’s against it.”
“Suppose you didn’t bother to tell him and just did it wouldn’t he assume the defense attorney had thought of filing the motion on his own?”
“Well, if it were a lawyer I knew, one I’d had dealings with, I could manage it that way without any trouble. I’d let them know I was going out on a limb and to keep it quiet. You understand, there are only so many lawyers practicing criminal law in the county and over the years I’ve established good working relations with most of them. But here I don’t know any of the people who are acting for these students. Besides, there are four of them, and it would be bound to get out.”
“Ah, I see the problem.” The rabbi was silent for some little time. Finally he said, “In talking to me about the case, did you feel that because I’m a rabbi, that is, a clergyman, that what you said was privileged and that I was thereby bound to respect your confidence?”
Ames chuckled. “You catch on fast, Rabbi. To answer your question, let’s put it this way: if you were on the witness stand and refused to answer on those grounds, the examining attorney would be sure to point out that since one party to the conversation was a Jewish rabbi and the other a Unitarian, the principle of privilege of the clergy certainly would not apply.”
“All right, I’ll proceed on that basis. Tell me, Mr. Ames, how did you happen to come to me?”
“Well, of the four lawyers, I thought only Paul Goodman seemed at all possible. He’s mature and he’s local, but I thought I’d better get a line on him first. So I called Chief Lanigan, and he suggested I talk to you. I gather you two know each other.”
The rabbi smiled. “Yes, we’ve had dealings.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
Bradford Ames slowly circled the apartment, stopping to glance at the titles of the books on the shelf, staring at a picture on the wall.
“What are you looking for?” asked Sergeant Schroeder.
“I don’t know.” Ames shook his head. “I don’t have any idea. That hassock, the cleaning woman says it wasn’t there when she left?”
“That’s what she said.”
“And the pipe and the ashtray, she’s positive they weren’t there?”
“Just the pipe,” said Schroeder. “She said she cleaned the ashtray and doesn’t remember whether there was a pipe in it, but if so she’d have returned it to the rack.”
“It’s true, Sergeant. As a bachelor of long standing, I can testify to the fact that cleaning women always clean ashtrays whether they need cleaning or not.”
“Wives, too.”
“Is that so?” he said abstractedly. “Well, Sergeant, I’m inclined to believe her.”
“And you didn’t before?” asked Schroeder in surprise. “Why?”
“Because if her story is true, then the whole thing just doesn’t add up.”
“Why not?”
Ames raised a pudgy finger. “She says she left here a little before three, maybe ten to. We know the bomb went off just after three. That means Hendryx had to go to his apartment, pull over the hassock, select a book from the shelf, light his pipe, sit down to read and then hightail it back to his office in time to get killed by the statue—all in fifteen minutes.”
“He could have been smoking the pipe when he came in.”
“Good point. And yet not so good, because there are half a dozen matches in that ashtray.”
“They do it all the time,” said Schroeder. “They smoke more matches than they do tobacco. Are you saying it couldn’t be done in fifteen minutes?”
“Well, it’s possible,” said Ames. “But that’s all it is—possible, in the sense of racing against a stopwatch. Does it satisfy you?”
“No, it doesn’t, sir,” admitted the sergeant “But you know what they say: when you’ve ruled out everything else, what’s left has to be the answer. Then again, Mrs. O’Rourke could have been fudging a little on the time and actually left quite a bit earlier. But why would she lie about it?”
Ames shrugged. “They always fib. If they answer the phone in your absence, they always pretend they can’t hear, or the connection is bad, rather than go to the trouble of getting a pencil and taking down the message properly. And when they break things, they hide them instead of telling you. I had one who would put something she’d broken where I’d be sure to trip over it and think I did it myself.”
“We could question her again,” Schroeder suggested.
Ames agreed that was in order.
“What about the medical examiner?” asked the sergeant. “Did you get him to admit he’d made a mistake?”
Ames shook his head. “No. He insists the time is correct as he gave it.”
“Then it doesn’t make sense, none of it,” said Schroeder, shaking his head.
Ames chuckled. “Sergeant, let me tell you something about doctors’ testimony as to the time of death. There never was one I couldn’t have tied into knots on cross-examination on the witness stand. I never do, of course, because usually they’re on my side; but you have only to check the literature to find there is enormous variation in the process of departing this world. The doctor says that death occurred, say, between two-ten and two-forty, as here. So you ask if it couldn’t have been just a little earlier and a little later, say from two-five to two forty-five, and of course he has to admit that it’s possible. So you keep extending it five minutes at a time until he calls a halt and says, no, it couldn�
�t have been as early as that or as late as that. But by that time the jury is a little suspicious of him. And then you ask why he said between two-ten and two-forty when he now admits it could have been between a quarter of two and a quarter past three. Even if he manages to keep cool—and there’s a good chance that he won’t—the jury may think he’s not such an objective, scientific witness after all, but he’s only trying to help the side that’s paying him.”
“Well then!”
“Now, Sergeant,” Ames cautioned, “that’s only legal pyrotechnics. If he were a good man and knew his business, I’d know he was telling the truth even while I was making hash out of him.”
Schroeder was thoroughly confused. “Then is he mistaken or isn’t he?”
Ames began to stride about the room as he tried to organize his thoughts. “That’s a problem, Sergeant. Because if the medical examiner is right we’ve got to find another reason besides the explosion for that statue falling. I suppose there could be reverberations from a passing truck or sonic boom of a passing jet—but surely those have happened before and the statue hasn’t fallen. No, the only possibility that seems to make sense to me is that someone pulled it down. Deliberately. And that would be murder, not felony murder, not an accident occuring during the commission of a felony, but out-and-out murder.”
“We could backtrack Hendryx on the chance that someone might have wanted him dead,” suggested the sergeant.
Ames nodded vigorously. “Yes, do that. By all means. I’d question everyone who was in the building that afternoon. I’d also question the people in his department. I’d especially want to know why he didn’t have a desk in the English office along with the rest of the department.”
“All right, sir, I’ll get on with it.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
Dean Hanbury sat placidly knitting as she answered the sergeant’s questions. “Let’s see … between two and three I was here of course, awaiting the student committee. President Macomber might have been in his office, but my own secretary leaves at noon on Friday. And then there was Rabbi Small and his class.”
“He saw you close your door.”
She laughed. “Oh, did he see me? I am sorry. I’m afraid it was not very nice of me. He’s a dear man, but so serious about his course. Every Friday he stops by to tell me how few students have shown up for class. That afternoon, what with the student committee and a rather hectic morning, I just didn’t want to see anyone.”
“Can you tell me anything about Professor Hendryx?”
“Like what, Sergeant?”
“Well, his personal life, his friends, his close associates—”
She shook her head regretfully. “He came from my hometown originally, from Barnard’s Crossing. I actually knew him when I was a little girl. He was much older than I, of course, but in a small town everyone knows everyone else. When we hired him, we went into his academic qualifications quite thoroughly, but that’s all. He has family out West somewhere. As a bachelor, he had no ties here.”
In response to a cheery “Come in,” Sergeant Schroeder entered President Macomber’s office to find him stroking a golf ball across the carpet toward a drinking glass lying on its side at the far end of the room. The president looked up. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “I thought it was my daughter. What can I do for you?”
“We’re just tying up some loose ends, checking on everyone who was in the building, say, between two and three.”
“Well, I was here, all right. Must have left around half-past two, a few minutes before or after.”
He picked up the glass and emptied the golf ball into his hand. He was about to return the glass to the carpet but thought better of it and set it on his desk. Sliding the ball into his pocket, he sat down, still holding the putter. “A most unfortunate business, Sergeant. You know, Dean Hanbury had been after me for quite a while to appoint Hendryx permanent head of the English department. He was only acting head. Well, that very morning I notified her I was going to make the appointment. It goes to show you—man proposes, and all that sort of thing.”
Sergeant Schroeder remarked that Dean Hanbury hadn’t mentioned it to him.
“Well, of course. Under the circumstances, where no public announcement had been made, she wouldn’t be likely to. Besides, she’d feel it ought to come from me.”
“I suppose so,” said the sergeant. “Now, is there anything you can tell me about Professor Hendryx’s personal life, his relations with other members of the faculty, with the students, women students particularly. After all, he was a bachelor and living alone—”
“I can answer that, Sergeant.” It was Betty Macomber. She had entered the office and overheard his question. “Professor Hendryx had no relations, not the kind you hinted at, with any of his women students. I knew him very well and saw a great deal of him. You see, we were going to be married.”
Mary Barton, soon to be Dr. Barton, was plain as an old shoe. She prattled on without guile and without restraint “Oh, I liked him, but he wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea. He was inclined to be sharp and sarcastic, given to making snide little remarks that annoyed people. It didn’t bother me any. In fact, I rather enjoyed them. College professors tend to be pompous and our English department is no exception, so I didn’t mind hearing him prick their little vanities…. No, I can’t say that anyone actually hated him, but when he announced that he was moving out of the office, I don’t remember anyone urging him to stay…. Like what? Oh, like when Professor Hallett remarked that he’d like a vacation and Hendryx said, ‘I’m sure your students would profit from it.’ That kind of thing. And he’d make little sly digs about Jews, like once when he was going to lecture on The Merchant of Venice, he said, ‘I’m sure I’ll get some interesting reactions from The Chosen on this lecture.’ We have two or three Jews among the younger members of the department.” She laughed. “You know, when I came here in the fifties, it was the policy not to hire Jews for the English Department. Math, the sciences, economics, that sort of thing, O.K., but not for English. I remember they turned down Albert Brodsky…. Oh, he’s the one who did that marvelous book on linguistics…. Professor Brodsky of Princeton? You never heard of him? Well, believe me, he’s tops, absolutely tops, and they could have had him here, but then he probably wouldn’t have stayed anyway…. Oh, yes! Well, what I was going to say is that they’d naturally be a little embarrassed, but they’d just pretend they hadn’t heard. All except Roger Fine. He’d stand up to him. And more. I once heard him say he’d ram his stick down his throat if he didn’t shut up. He’s a little lame and walks with a cane…. I’m sure it was about some remark that Fine considered anti-Semitic. I suspect he was over-sensitive, but then I suppose I shouldn’t say since I’m not one, a Jew, I mean, or maybe I should say, Jewess. I mean, I might feel differently if I were. I remember asking Rabbi Small if he considered Hendryx, anti-Semitic, and he said no. Of course, it was after Hendryx’s death and the rabbi might have felt De mortuis…. It was just before the memorial service they were having for Hendryx…. Oh, I thought you’d know it; it’s a common expression. It’s Latin, De Mortuis nil nisi bonum. It means you say nothing but good concerning the dead.”
“Hey, did the cops come to see any of you guys?” Mazelman called out to the class. “This guy, a sergeant yet, turns up to the house and starts to grill me—”
“What do you mean?”
“Like who was in class Friday, you know, the Friday Hendryx got his? Did I see anybody in the building? Well, then it turns out he’s specially interested in the time from two to three o’clock. So I tell him how by two o’clock I’m already at the airport because the rabbi walked out of class. Boy, was he surprised.”
“Asshole!”
Mazelman colored. “What’s with you, Luftig?”
“What did you have to tell him that for?”
“Why not? It’s a secret?”
“I don’t see why we should wash our dirty linen in public,” maintained Luftig.
>
“Well, it just came out. Besides, since when are you so buddy-buddy with the rabbi? You’re always fighting with him.”
“So what? That doesn’t mean I got to throw him to the wolves.”
“Who’s throwing him to the wolves? Anyway,” said Mazelman, “don’t worry about the rabbi. A smart cookie like that can take care of himself.”
“You start digging and you find things,” said Sergeant Schroeder with grim satisfaction as Bradford Ames finished reading his progress report. “For instance, why didn’t the dean tell us about Hendryx getting appointed head of the department?”
“Because when you first questioned her she didn’t think it germane, I suppose. And the reason President Macomber gave is probably correct.”
“I don’t get it. A man’s been killed.”
“They’ll have to appoint somebody to the job, won’t they?” said Ames. “Why tell him he was just second choice?”
“Well …” The sergeant was not convinced. “Of course, I’ve still got more to question.”
“Yes, you said you’d speak to the cleaning woman again.”
“You wanted to be in on that one, sir.”
“That’s right. I certainly do. Anything on the missing student this Ekko?”
Schroeder smiled complacently. “I think we’ve got a lead on him. Late Friday afternoon a young fellow hops the bus to Albany. He sits down next to a man who turns out to have a barber shop in Springfield. Well, it seems the barber was telling one of his customers about this young fellow, how he was bulling him and how he puts him in his place by spotting that he was wearing a wig and a phony moustache. Just our good luck, this customer happened to be a plainclothesman with the Springfield police and he’d seen our flyer on this Ekko, who’s bald as an egg. So the plainclothesman had their artist add some hair and a moustache to the picture on the flyer and got a positive ident from the barber. I expect we’ll be picking him up in a couple of days.”
“That’s good work,” said Ames. “Are you about through at the college?”
Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red Page 16
