Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

by Harry Kemelman

  “Because he’s a married man. He was guilty of an indiscretion which suddenly ballooned up to monster proportions. It was very wrong of him not to go to the police, it was cowardly, it was unwise, but it still doesn’t make him guilty of murder.”

  “That’s just point number one, rabbi, but you’ll admit it’s enough to justify our picking him up for questioning. Here’s point number two. The girl was pregnant. Mrs. Serafino, whom the girl worked for, was truly surprised to hear that; first, because she was a quiet girl who didn’t run around, and secondly, because she never went out with men. In all the time she was with them, not once to Mrs. Serafino’s knowledge did a man call for her, not once did she intimate or hint that she had been out with a man. On her evenings off, Thursdays, she would usually go to a movie, either alone or with a girlfriend who worked a few houses down. We questioned the girl, Celia, and she said that several times she had offered to fix Elspeth up with a man but each time she was refused. When Elspeth first came to town, Celia persuaded her to go to the Policemen and Firemen’s Ball. All the housemaids go. That was the only time they went to a dance. Celia thought Elspeth might have a boyfriend back home in Canada—she got letters from time to time—that was the only way she could explain it. Celia was her only friend here and she certainly didn’t get pregnant from Celia. So we did a little hunting and we found that your friend Mr. Bronstein had registered at least half a dozen times at various motels all along Route 14 and Route 69. He usually signed in under the name of Brown, and he was always with someone he registered as his wife. And as near as we can ascertain, it was always on a Thursday. We got positive identification of him by means of his picture and in one place by means of a penciled notation of his car license number. And a couple of the motel-keepers were pretty certain that his ‘wife’ was a blonde and that she resembled the picture we showed them of the murdered girl. That’s point number two, rabbi.”

  “Did you tell him this about the motels?”

  “Of course, or I wouldn’t have told it to you.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He admits he was at those motels, but insists he wasn’t there with this girl, that it was somebody else whose name he refuses to divulge.”

  “Well, if it’s true—and it could be—that’s rather admirable of him.”

  “Yes, if it’s true. But we’ve got more. There is point three, which is not of too much significance but might be indicative. The girl went to see an obstetrician Thursday afternoon. She probably wore that wedding ring we found in her purse—for fairly obvious reasons. It was her first visit, so although she may have suspected her condition, she wasn’t sure until Thursday. She gave her name as Mrs. Elizabeth Brown. And remember that Bronstein always registered as Mr. and Mrs. Brown.”

  “It’s about as common as Smith,” the rabbi observed.

  “True.”

  “And nothing that you’ve said ties in with the fact the girl had only a slip under her coat and raincoat. Quite the contrary. He must have taken her home as he said, because that is where she left her dress. I suppose there’s no doubt that the coat and raincoat are hers, or that the dress she wore was found in her room.”

  “That’s right, and that brings us to point four. You’ve got to know the layout in the Serafino establishment in order to understand it. You don’t know the Serafinos. I think I asked you once. Mr. Serafino operates a sort of nightclub. It’s a small place where people sit around postage-stamp tables and drink watered-down liquor while Mr. Serafino sometimes plays the piano and his wife sings songs, risqué songs, bawdy songs, downright obscene songs. Not very nice people, you might say, but at home they’re like any other young couple. They have two young children, and the family never misses a Sunday at church. The club doesn’t close until two in the morning, so they need someone to take care of the children every night in the week, except Thursday, when Mrs. Serafino stays home and only her husband goes to the club. That’s because Thursday is a slow night. It’s maid’s day off, so people, the kind that are apt to go to the Club Serafino, stay home. Anyway, the Serafinos need a live-in babysitter, which is not easy to come by for people in moderate circumstances. And in spite of what you might think of nightclub owners the Serafinos are people in moderate circumstances, and their house is arranged to meet their particular needs. It’s two-story, and the Serafinos, Mr. and Mrs. and the two children, all sleep on the second floor. Off the kitchen on the first floor there’s what amounts to a suite for the maid. She has a bedroom, small lavatory, a stall shower, and, most important, a private entrance. Do you get the picture?”

  The rabbi nodded.

  “Here we have an apartment that’s almost completely separated from the rest of the house. Now what was to prevent our friend Mr. Bronstein from coming into the house with the girl—”

  “And she took off her dress while he was in the room?”

  “Why not? If our theory is right, she’d taken off more than her dress on previous occasions.”

  “And then why did she go out again?”

  Lanigan shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll admit that here we’re in the realm of pure conjecture. It’s even possible that he strangled her right there in the room and then carried her out. A neighbor across the street who was beginning to get ready for bed looked out the window and saw Bronstein’s blue Lincoln drive up to the Serafino house. That was shortly after twelve. Half an hour later he saw the Lincoln was still there. That’s our fourth point.”

  “Did he see them get out of the car or get back in it?”

  Lanigan shook his head.

  “I know very little about these things,” said the rabbi, “but as a Talmudist I am not entirely without legal training. Your theory has a thousand loopholes.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the business of the coat and raincoat. If he had murdered her in her room, why did he then dress her up in a topcoat and then a raincoat? And why did he take her to the temple? And how did her handbag get into my car?”

  “I’ve thought of all those objections, rabbi, and some others that you haven’t mentioned, but I have more than enough to justify picking him up and holding him until we can check out a good many things. It’s always that way. Do you think a case is ever presented to you with all the facts neatly explained? No, sir. You get a lead and you go to work on it. There are objections and you’re aware of them, but as you keep digging you get answers to them, quite simple answers usually.”

  “And if you don’t get the answers, after a while you release the man and his life is ruined,” said the rabbi bitterly.

  “True, rabbi. It’s one of the penalties of living in organized society.”

  19

  NATHAN GREENSPAN WAS A SCHOLARLY MAN, SLOW OF thought and speech. He sat behind his desk, and after poking his pipe with a spoonlike device, he blew through it once or twice to make sure it was drawing properly and then set about filling it very deliberately and methodically, while Becker, the inevitable cigar in his fist, strode up and down the room and told what had happened, what he suspected, and what he expected Greenspan to do. This last was something on the order of storming the police department and demanding that they release Bronstein immediately or face a suit for false arrest.

  The lawyer put a match to his pipe, puffed at it until the entire surface was lit, and then firmly tamped down the burning tobacco that had risen in the bowl. He leaned back in his chair and spoke between puffs. “I can get a writ—of habeas corpus—if it seems that—he is being held unjustifiably—”

  “Of course it’s unjustifiable. He had nothing to do with it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he says so, and because I know him. You know the kind of man Bronstein is. Does he look like a murderer to you?”

  “According to what you’ve told me the police didn’t arrest him for murder. They just took him in for questioning. He had information that they had a right to know—he said he had been out with her the night she was killed. Even if he ha
dn’t, even if he only knew her or had ever gone out with her, the police would want to question him.”

  “But they sent a couple of cops down to arrest him.”

  “That’s because he didn’t come in on his own accord—as he should have, by the way.”

  “All right, so he should have, but you know what that would have meant. I suppose he thought he could stay out of it entirely. So he was wrong, but that’s no reason why he should be arrested and disgraced this way—cops coming to his house and hauling him off right in front of his wife.”

  “It’s common practice, Al. Anyway, it’s done.”

  “Well, what do you propose to do?”

  “I’ll go to see him, of course. They’ll probably keep him overnight, but if they want to keep him any longer they’re supposed to bring him before a judge and show probable cause. My guess is that they’ve got enough to hold him if they should want to. So my best bet, I imagine, would be to see the district attorney and see if I can find out just exactly what they have got on him.”

  “Why can’t you force them to release him if they can’t prove he did it?”

  Greenspan emitted a faint sigh. He put his pipe down on an ashtray and took off his glasses. “Look here, Al, a girl has been murdered. Right now, everybody is anxious to find the person who killed her. That means that every agency of the law is in sympathy with the police and that all laws and regulations will be stretched in their favor. Now if I start pulling legal tricks to get him off, everybody—and that includes the newspapers—is going to resent it. Mel wouldn’t have a good press, and that won’t do him any good no matter what happens. On the other hand, if we seem to be cooperative, the district attorney will give us whatever breaks he can.”

  “And what do I do?”

  “You don’t do a darn thing, Al. You just practice being patient.”

  Patience, however, was one thing Al Becker did not have. He reasoned that if the conduct of the investigation depended on the attitude of the district attorney he could get quicker action by pressure from his friend Abe Casson, who had put the district attorney in office.

  “What do you expect me to do, Al?” asked Casson. “I can tell you they’ve got a pretty good case against Mel right now. In fact, they could go to the grand jury with what they’ve got, but they’re making it airtight.”

  “But he didn’t do it, Abe.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he told me. And because I know him.”

  Casson remained silent.

  “Jesus, man, you know Mel Bronstein. Is he the kind of guy would do a thing like that? He’s gentle as a girl. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “These cases never make sense until they’re over. Then they make lots of sense.”

  “Sure,” said Becker bitterly. “If there’s any little bit of evidence missing, they supply it. If there’s a loophole, they plug it. Dammit, Abe, you know how these things work. They’ve got a lead, so they start chasing it down. They put every man on it. They know what they’re trying to prove so they go ahead and prove it, until they get the poor bastard sewed up tight. And the real murderer goes free.”

  “What can I do, Al?”

  “You’re buddy-buddy with the D.A., to hear you tell it. You ought to be able to get him to keep his eyes open, to keep hunting for other possibilities.”

  Abe Casson shook his head. “The immediate investigation is in the hands of Chief Lanigan. You want to help your friend? Go see the rabbi.”

  “What in hell for? So that he can recite a prayer for him?”

  “You know, Al, you’ve got an awfully big yap. Sometimes I think it’s the only part of your head that works. Now listen to me. For some reason Hugh Lanigan has a great deal of respect for our rabbi. They’re friendly. The other day, the rabbi and his wife spent the whole afternoon on Lanigan’s porch. They were sitting there, the Lanigans and the Smalls, sipping drinks and talking.”

  “The rabbi never sat on my porch drinking and talking.”

  “Maybe you never invited him.”

  “All right, so let’s say the chief likes him. What can the rabbi do for me?”

  “He might do for you what you wanted me to do for you with the D.A.”

  “You think he would, knowing I’m the guy that’s been working to get him out of here?”

  “You believe he’d hold that against you in a matter of this sort? You don’t know the rabbi. But if you want my advice—and really want to help your friend—that’s what I suggest you do.”

  Miriam could scarcely pretend she was glad to see him. The rabbi greeted him formally. But Al Becker, if he was aware of the coolness of his reception, did not let it deter him. He fixed the rabbi with his most challenging glare and said, “Rabbi, Mel Bronstein could not possibly have done this terrible thing and you’ve got to do something about it.”

  “Anybody could possibly have done it,” said the rabbi mildly.

  “Yeah, I know,” said Becker impatiently. “What I mean is that he’s the last man in the world who would have done it. He’s a sweet guy, rabbi. He’s in love with his wife. They don’t have any children. There are just the two of them and he’s absolutely devoted to her.”

  “Do you know the nature of the evidence against him?” asked the rabbi.

  “You mean he’d been playing around. So what? Do you know his wife has been in a wheelchair with multiple sclerosis for the last ten years of her life? For ten years they haven’t had any—uh—relations.”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “A healthy man needs a woman. You being a rabbi wouldn’t understand—”

  “Rabbis aren’t castrated.”

  “All right, I’m sorry. Then you know what I’m talking about. The girls he went out with didn’t mean that to Mel.” He snapped his fingers. “They were somebody he went to bed with, like he might go to a gym for a workout.”

  “Well, I’m not sure they’re precisely analogous, but that’s beside the point. What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know. You were in your study all evening. Maybe you could say you happened to look out the window and saw a man drive out of the parking lot, and you can swear that it wasn’t a blue Lincoln—”

  “Are you asking me to perjure myself?”

  “Jesus, pardon me, rabbi. I’m so upset I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m going nuts with this business. This morning I lose a sale to a customer who’s been buying Continentals from me every other year, regular like a calendar, for the last ten years. We come to terms Saturday and he’s supposed to come in at noon to sign the contract. When he doesn’t show, I call him and he tells me he’s thinking of holding the old car for a little while longer and maybe he might go into a smaller car. You think business was bad for him this year? He had his biggest year. You know why he suddenly got cold on the deal? Fifteen years Mel and I have worked to build up this business, and now, overnight, it’s going to pot.”

  “Is it your business you are concerned about, or your friend?” asked the rabbi coldly.

  “It’s everything. It’s all mixed up in my mind. Mel wasn’t only a partner or a friend—he was like a kid brother to me. And when you’ve spent fifteen years building up something, it isn’t just another way of making a living. It’s part of me. It’s my life. It’s to me what your profession is to you. And now my whole world has suddenly gone sour.”

  “I can understand your position, Mr. Becker,” said the rabbi, not unkindly, “and I wish I could help. But you haven’t come here to ask me to give your friend spiritual consolation. What you ask is utterly impossible. I’m afraid this business has warped your judgment, or you would realize that even if I were willing to do what you suggest, it would not be believed.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that I’m desperate, rabbi. But something you should be able to do. You’re his rabbi, aren’t you?”

  “I have been led to believe I have been criticized for devoting my time to noncongregational matters,” he observed quietly. “I
understand that Mr. Bronstein is not a member of the congregation.”

  Becker was angry now. “All right, so what? Does that mean you can’t help him? He’s a Jew, isn’t he? He’s a member of the Jewish community here in Barnard’s Crossing and you’re the only rabbi here. You can at least go to see him, can’t you? You can at least see his wife. They’re not members, you say. All right, so I am. Help me.”

  “As a matter of fact,” said the rabbi, “I already have an appointment to see Mrs. Bronstein and I was making arrangements to see Mr. Bronstein when you rang the bell.”

  Becker was not stupid. He even managed a grin. “All right, rabbi, maybe I had that coming to me. What do you have in mind?”

  “Chief Lanigan was here earlier and outlined the case against Mr. Bronstein. At the time, I thought the evidence admitted of another interpretation. But I don’t really know the Bronsteins. So I thought I first ought to try to know them.”

  “You’ll never meet two nicer people, rabbi.”

  “You realize how organizations work, Mr. Becker, and the police, I should imagine, are no different. They look everywhere until they find a suspect, but then they’re likely to concentrate on him from then on. I thought I might be able to persuade Chief Lanigan not to stop looking elsewhere.”

  “That’s just what I had in mind, rabbi,” said Becker ecstatically. “It’s just what I said to Abe Casson. Ask him. I feel better already.”

  20

  THE JAIL CONSISTED OF FOUR SMALL STEEL-BARRED CELLS on the first floor of the Barnard’s Crossing police station. Each cell had a narrow iron cot, a toilet, and a washbasin; a bulb in a porcelain socket dangled from the ceiling, suspended by a length of BX cable. A dim lamp burned day and night in the corridor, at one end of which was a barred window and at the other the wardroom. Beyond that was Lanigan’s office.