Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red

by Harry Kemelman

  “Yes sir. Now?”

  “Now will be fine, Mrs. O’Rourke,” said Ames.

  “Well, I start here usually.” They followed her into Hendryx’s small kitchen, and she made motions of removing dishes from the table and placing them in the sink. “Like this?”

  “Just a minute, Mrs. O’Rourke,” said Ames. “Do you do all this in your coat?”

  “Oh, I take that off first, of course, and hang it up in the closet.”

  “Then please do so now,” said Ames. “And how do you get in?”

  “Well, I ring the bell and Professor Hendryx lets me in.”

  “All right. Then please go outside and we’ll start from the beginning.”

  “This is like a—a play, isn’t it, sir?” said the delighted Mrs. O’Rourke.

  “Yes, Mrs. O’Rourke,” said Ames seriously. He and Schroeder watched in silence as she simulated cleaning the apartment.

  “When I finish this room,” she said, warming to the scenario, “I usually empty the wastebasket.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “But it’s empty.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, woman, make believe it’s full,” snapped Schroeder.

  Dutifully, she picked up the wastebasket and opened the door.

  “You leave the door open?” asked Ames.

  “No. There’s a draft sometimes and it slams shut.”

  “So you close it and Professor Hendryx would open it for you when you knocked?” Ames persisted.

  “Oh no, sir, I wouldn’t want to disturb him. I put it on the latch.”

  Ames directed her to do so. They watched her walk down the corridor to the back hall and make motions of emptying the wastebasket in a large trash barrel. She returned with the presumably now-empty basket and set it back in place.

  “Don’t you release the catch on the door now that you’re back?” asked Ames.

  “Oh, no, sir, on account I got to keep going out to empty the other wastebaskets and the newspapers and shake out the mops.”

  “I see,” said Ames. “And when Professor Hendryx is not here? Say, he’s gone across the street to the school?”

  “Same thing. Nobody’s going to come in, and I’m just down the hall.”

  “And when you finished and left for the day,” said Ames, “did you remember to set the catch again?”

  Her hand flew to her mouth in guilty embarrassment and she stared from one grim-faced man to the other.

  “Well?” Ames’ voice was suddenly hard.

  “I don’t remember, sir,” she wailed. And then in automatic defense, “But it don’t make no difference. The professor would be in and out all day, and he was just across the street. Besides, it didn’t happen here; it happened over there.” And suddenly she buried her face in her hands and began to weep.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  The story of the rabbi’s part in releasing young Abner Selzer gained wide currency; the Selzers made no attempt to conceal it—quite the contrary. Reactions were mixed.

  “I’m not so sure the rabbi did such a good thing. After all, the kids did bomb the place, didn’t they? And for my money, jail is exactly the right place for them.”

  Others were pleased. “Our rabbi, you got to hand it to him. I don’t know how he does it, and I’m not sure he does either; it’s like he’s got a kind of sixth sense about these things. Remember that time with Hirsh, where everybody thought the guy was a suicide and made all this fuss about burying him in our cemetery, and then the rabbi found out the guy had been murdered so it was okay after all.”

  Some were inclined to minimize the rabbi’s role. “You want to know what I think? I think the rabbi talked to Selzer, all right, and suggested he get him out on bail, like anyone might. Then when it worked out, Selzer made a whole spiel because to the Selzers, especially Mrs. Selzer, the rabbi is God’s gift to Barnard’s Crossing. Mind you, I’m not saying anything against our rabbi, because personally, I’m strong for him—a little. Let’s put it this way, if you were to split the congregation into pro-rabbi and anti-rabbi, I guess I’d line up with the pro-rabbi side. But there’s no sense losing your sense of proportion. What’s such a big deal?”

  Paul Goodman, when asked directly by a friend, smiled and said enigmatically, “That’s why they don’t allow hearsay evidence in court.”

  “You mean he had nothing to do with it? But Selzer says—”

  “I’m not suggesting that,” said Goodman. “Mr. Selzer did come to me and ask me to file a motion. But we were planning to do so anyway, as soon as the other boy was apprehended by the police. It all reminds me of something Doc Simons, the pediatrician, was telling me. Most of the time he finds it’s the mother he has to treat, not the infant. It’s the same way in criminal practice when your client is a minor. It’s the parents you have to worry about. And when it’s a Jewish parent….”

  Not surprisingly, those who were not his supporters downplayed the rabbi’s contribution. While conceding he had brought it off, they thought the rabbi probably had got a hint from his friend Lanigan, the police chief, who had got it from the Boston police “because all these cops hang together.”

  Lanigan met the rabbi a short time later. “Bradford Ames played that one pretty close to the chest,” he said. “Even my friend Schroeder was surprised. He thinks the D.A. let the kids off because he figures he can make out a better case against this Ekko than against all five of them.”

  “They’ve found him then?” asked the rabbi.

  “I thought you knew. Yes, it was a bit of luck, according to Schroeder. You need luck, because nowadays you’ve got a regular underground with these young kids. Any city you name, there’s places they can go. In the old days, a hood on the run had it rough. The more heat there was, the rougher it was to find sanctuary. But with these kids, it works the other way. And if it’s the police he’s running from, instead of just his parents, then they’re all the more eager to help him. It’s become a little easier the last year or so because the Feds have infiltrated a lot of these groups, but still we don’t find too many that don’t want to be found. They all look alike—with the clothes and the beards and the hair. And the girls wear their hair down covering half their faces. Usually when we catch them it’s because they got tired running.”

  “Did Schroeder say what the young man was charged with?” asked the rabbi.

  “My guess is that they won’t press the felony murder charge; they’ll just stick to arson because it’s easier to get a conviction. And I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing came of that, either. These college cases are tough. There’s no push behind them because the public doesn’t exert any pressure.”

  Lanigan shook his head. “You ought to hear the way some of the men on the force complain. To John Q. Public these kids may be mistaken or misguided, but criminals? Never! When a college kid steals, it’s so he can give the money to the peace campaign or to promote ecology. They’re a bunch of regular little Robin Hoods.”

  Lanigan ran his hand over his face in exasperation and his tone was bitter “In the old days a hood stole to buy himself a new car, some flashy clothes. But these kids drive old jalopies and wear beat-up clothes. So that proves they’re a bunch of idealists. Right? Wrong! The law enforcement people know that they’re apt to have a couple thousand dollars worth of hi-fi stereophonic equipment and that they’re supporting a dope habit that may run to a hundred bucks a day.”

  Lanigan had talked himself into a state of gloomy cynicism. “You mark my words, Rabbi, nothing will come of this case at your college. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Commonwealth were to drop the charges because they know they won’t get a conviction. And the police are left in the middle, unable to do a thing.”

  But the next day, Roger Fine was arrested and charged with the murder of his acting department head, Professor John Hendryx.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Do you think she’ll turn up?” asked Selma Rosencranz as she riffled a deck of cards. Of
the four women in her Wednesday afternoon bridge group, she was the only serious card player; the others played to be sociable and it showed in their game. Selma also belonged to another foursome on Mondays and still another group that played Man Jong Tuesday nights when her husband had his regular poker game.

  “I could certainly understand if she didn’t,” said Annabelle Fisher, this week’s hostess. She passed into the kitchen to check the tiny toasted sandwiches she was planning to serve. She was the least skillful player, with frequent lapses in concentration, but whenever the girls met at her house they were sure to get something different to eat—and delicious. She reappeared from the kitchen. “If my husband had just been arrested, believe me, I wouldn’t have the heart to play cards.”

  “But she ought to call,” insisted Flossie Bloom, a thin, sallow girl with a small hard mouth who prided herself on being candid and outspoken—“It’s the way I am.” Her husband was a salesman and not as successful as the husbands of the others. “If Edie doesn’t come—”

  “Then we won’t play,” said Selma. She set out the cards for solitaire.

  “Do you believe he did it?” asked Flossie.

  “Absolutely impossible,” said Annabelle Fisher.

  “Harvey says he has it on ve-ry good authority that Roger is tied in with all these radical students,” said Flossie. “You know, the ones who have been staging all these riots and seizing college buildings and breaking up the furniture.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Annabelle Fisher, who found it impossible to think badly of anyone she knew.

  “The eight can go on the nine,” said Flossie. “Have you girls heard the talk that’s going around about the rabbi—and Roger, I mean?”

  “I’ve heard Roger make some cracks about the rabbi,” said Selma, deftly shifting a line of cards from one column to another. “And it’s certainly understandable after all the grief he gave him and Edie about the wedding.”

  “Oh, that was something else,” said Flossie. “No, the story I heard is that the rabbi got that Selzer boy off by accusing Roger instead.”

  “That’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Annabelle.

  “I don’t find it so ridiculous,” said Selma imperturbably, her eyes scanning the cards in front of her. “Everybody is saying the rabbi was the one who got the Selzer kid off. Well, how could he know, in advance, that they were going to let the kid off if he didn’t know they were going to arrest Roger? And how could he know that unless he had something to do with it? I for one certainly don’t think our rabbi has wings. Remember how nasty he was to Edie before the wedding and how at the ceremony butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth? You think he wouldn’t hold a grudge like anybody else? And if the chance came along—no, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the story were true. Where’d you hear it, Flossie?”

  “Oh, I’ve heard it several places,” said Mrs. Bloom vaguely. “It’s going around.”

  Selma saw that she was stymied and scooped up all the cards. “Well, let me tell you girls,” she said, “if that story should turn out to be true, I for one wouldn’t take it lying down.”

  “Why, what would you do?” asked Annabelle.

  “I’d think of something, I know that” declared Selma. “And I’d make sure that the rabbi and the whole congregation knew exactly how I felt about it, too.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That must be Edie now,” said Annabelle. She ran to the door and they could hear her say, “We thought you weren’t coming.”

  “Sorry I’m late, girls,” said Edie Fine. “I got held up. I went to see Roger.”

  “How is he?” “Are they treating him all right?” “It must’ve been terrible for you.”

  She sat down at the table with them. “Such a place,” she said. “You get such a funny feeling when you go in. And the people, the types you see hanging around.” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “What happened?” asked Flossie.

  “Well, first,” said Edie, “you make out this form and hand it in. And then they not only search your handbag, but they make you walk through this place with this metal detector—”

  “Like going on a plane.”

  “Yes, only more so. They’re terribly careful. I asked Mr. Winston, that’s Roger’s lawyer, how they can sneak in all these guns and things that you hear about, and he just smiled and said, ‘They don’t search the guards.’ How do you like that?

  “So then I went into this little room, which Mr. Winston got special permission for us to use. Otherwise we would have had to meet in this big room with a barrier between us like you see in the movies. Well, I came in and Roger was already there waiting. He looked at me as though he weren’t sure just how I was going to take it, so of course I smiled. And then he smiled back and I felt everything was all right.

  “We sat down at this little table and he asked me if I thought he had done it, and of course I told him it never entered my mind. And that made him very happy. Really, he was quite cheerful after that, almost as though he was enjoying himself. He assured me that I was not to worry. Of course, he may have been putting on an act the same as I was at first, but I really didn’t think so.”

  “But how did he—” Flossie started over again. “I mean how did the police decide to arrest—Did he talk about it?”

  “Oh yes,” said Edie. “You see he was in the administration building at the time. You know, he’s involved in all this social justice business, and he was waiting for this important call. The whole point is that the building is practically empty on Friday afternoons, and the rabbi—”

  “The rabbi?”

  “Yes, the rabbi has a class on Friday afternoon. And after he finished as he was leaving, he passed by Roger’s office and happened to see him there.”

  Selma looked significantly at Flossie Bloom and then they both looked at Annabelle Fisher.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  As she had on similar occasions, Aggie Nolan walked slowly along Commonwealth Avenue, alert for the three short blasts of an automobile horn. She had called the FBI earlier and told the agent she worked with: “Commonwealth at Fairfield. Eleven o’clock.”

  At a quarter past eleven she finally heard the signal. She stepped into the roadway and stuck out her thumb. Almost at once a car slowed down and came to a stop beside her.

  “You’re late,” she said, sliding in beside the driver.

  “I passed you twice,” he said. “The first time there was a guy standing on the corner. I thought he was looking at you.”

  “Well, guys do, you know,” said Aggie.

  “I sure as hell do know,” he said appreciatively. “The second time you hadn’t thumbed. I told you before, you’ve got to thumb.”

  “Yeah, well, all that cloak and dagger jazz is a drag.”

  “Maybe so,” he said, “but while you work with me, you’ll do it my way. It’s for your protection as much as mine. All right, what’s up?”

  “They’ve picked up Ekko and they’re holding him.”

  “What do you care—he a boyfriend of yours?”

  “He was once. That’s all over, but he’s a decent guy,” she said.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about him. They let the others go and they’ll let him go, I’m sure, especially now that they’ve charged this professor with the murder.”

  “There’s still the arson charge. The others are out on bail. Ekko couldn’t raise the bail.”

  “I still don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Believe me, I don’t think the case will go to trial. The D.A. just doesn’t have the evidence. And if it does go to trial, they’ll be acquitted for sure.”

  She turned on the seat to face him. “Not good enough,” she said. “You told me to get in solid with the Weathervanes, and I did. I even went along with this crazy bombing scheme of yours to show I meant business.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “I didn’t expect anybody to get killed!”

&n
bsp; “But nobody did. This Hendryx guy, the bomb had nothing to do with his death.”

  “And I didn’t expect anybody else to get blamed. I got nothing against any of them, especially Ekko. Well, I want him out.”

  He sighed. “All right, I’ll talk to my boss and have him tip off the D.A. Okay?” He patted her on the knee.

  She slid away from him. “You can drop me right along here.”

  “What’s your hurry? How about a little ride?”

  “No. At the corner there. It’s right near school.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever you say, baby.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-NINE

  District Attorney Matthew Rogers felt he ought to grumble a little. “I don’t see why they can’t tip us off when they set up something in our bailiwick.”

  Bradford Ames chuckled. “Because even where the local people are completely trustworthy, there’s a chance they may slip up and blow the cover of the federal operative.”

  “I suppose. But at least they could give us some advance warning. Not let us arrest these decent young people and keep them in jail for days on end and cause their families all kinds of grief, when by passing the word we could have just let things simmer.”

  “Maybe they felt that would look suspicious,” suggested Ames.

  Rogers gnawed at the thought in silence for a moment. “I don’t mind cooperating with the FBI. I’m anxious to, especially when they have secret information that people we’ve charged are actually innocent. We can always file a motion to quash for lack of evidence, although if you do that too much, you’re suspected of being too eager to jail people. Remember that, Brad.”

  Ames nodded dutifully.

  “But I like to be kept informed of developments.”

  “You were busy with the budget business,” Ames said. “I didn’t think you’d want to be bothered with the routine.”