Someday the Rabbi Will Leave

by Harry Kemelman

  “So why didn’t you call from there?”

  “I was going to, but then it occurred to me that you people might ask me to wait there, or that I might get involved with the rabbi, and I was terribly anxious to get to bed. Besides, I was only a few minutes away from home. In any case, I spotted the cruising car just as I turned into Main. I signaled them and told them.”

  Lanigan continued to write for a minute or two. Then he looked up and smiled at his visitor. “I guess that’s about it. I’ll get it typed up and you can sign it if it’s all right.”

  Later Lanigan spoke to Jennings. “Did I give you enough time? Get anything?”

  “Uh-huh. Plenty. I got a bunch of prints from the hood and fenders. Chances are they’re his or his wife’s or some gas station attendant’s. I’ll send them in on the chance that one of them might match the dead man’s. I also got some fibers on the chance they might match up with those from the man’s coat. There were no dents. Did he suspect anything?”

  Lanigan shook his head. “No reason to.”

  37

  Meyer Andelman was aghast when Morris Halperin told him that Howard Magnuson might resign. As head of the UJA drive, he had not only counted on a large donation from Magnuson, but felt that it would serve to jack up the size of the contributions that others would make.

  “You mean just from the presidency, Morris, or from the temple?” he asked anxiously.

  “As far as I know, it would be just from the presidency,” said Morris Halperin. “I suppose he’d continue to be a member of the board.”

  “Don’t you believe it. If he resigns from the presidency because of some row with the rabbi, he’ll resign from the board, too. And even if he doesn’t, you’ll never see him at a board meeting again.”

  “I think maybe you’re right,” Halperin agreed, “but the way it looks now, it’s him or the rabbi.”

  “That’s the choice? Then I’ll take Magnuson any day. Rabbis are a dime a dozen, but where would we get another millionaire-type businessman like Howard Magnuson? He’s a real asset to everyone on the board. I got nothing against our rabbi, even though he’s a cold fish and sometimes acts like God Almighty, but if you ask me to choose between the two, it’s no contest.”

  “But, Meyer, it isn’t a case of voting one against the other.”

  “No?”

  “Well, it is and it isn’t. See, if Howard goes ahead and gets some outside rabbi to marry off his daughter, even if it’s in his own house, the rabbi will resign. But”—and he held up an admonishing forefinger—“he’d explain his reason to the whole congregation. And Howard doesn’t want that because he thinks it might cause a split.”

  “Now, that’s what I call one sweet guy. He’s willing to resign rather than cause trouble. So I’ll tell you what we do. Why don’t we fire the rabbi for—for something, inattention to his duties, or because we want a change? After all, he wouldn’t take a life contract when it was offered him some years ago. He wanted to be free to leave, so why aren’t we free to pick someone else? Then he wouldn’t appeal to the general membership, would he? What could he say to them? The board is firing me because they’re tired of me, but I don’t think they are?”

  Halperin inclined his head in agreement. “It’s a thought. But keep it under your hat, will you, until I talk to some of the other fellows.”

  “Gotcha. Hey, isn’t your brother a rabbi?”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Maybe he’d be interested in the job.”

  Oscar Stein had a great deal of sympathy for Magnuson. “When my kid sister told me she was planning to marry a goy, naturally I was upset, but more because I knew how my folks would react. They were pretty cut up, let me tell you, especially my mother. They didn’t go to the wedding. Wedding? Some wedding! I went with them to the courthouse in Salem, and then we went out to lunch. If we could have had a rabbi, my folks would have made a wedding in the house, and they would have felt better about it. Because they like the fellow. He’s a very decent chap. I talked to our rabbi about it, but he didn’t budge. I suppose from his point of view, he couldn’t. I didn’t argue with him, but I couldn’t help feeling that something ought to be worked out because there’s an awful lot of this business going on. After all, some rabbis do it. So if some do it, there must be some leeway in the law. I mean, if it’s flat out against the law, then how do these other guys get away with it? You never hear of any of them being unrabbied or anything like that. Maybe it’s just that our rabbi is a stickler. Know what I mean?”

  “A lot of the guys agree with you, Oscar,” said Halperin. “And I heard that some of them are even planning to do something about it.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “Like maybe getting another rabbi. Some of the guys seem to feel that since the rabbi has always insisted on no more than a one-year contract so he can leave whenever he feels like it, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and where our president is having this trouble with him, why don’t we get someone else for a change?”

  “Sounds reasonable to me.”

  Malcolm Kovner said, “Maybe the rabbi is right and maybe he’s wrong. Whether he can marry somebody or not is his business, and I’m willing to admit that he probably knows his business. But he had no right to tell Magnuson to resign. That’s not his business, and when he did, he got out of line. Now if Magnuson had taken it from him, he’d still be out of line, but it would be no concern of ours. Or maybe it would, but I can’t see us doing anything about it unless we got a gripe from Magnuson. But with Magnuson saying he’s going to resign—hey, that puts it right into our lap. You might say Magnuson is one of us and the rabbi isn’t.”

  “How do you mean, Mal?”

  “I mean, look here, in the good old U.S. of A., we’ve got three branches: the Executive, the Congress, and the Judiciary.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Right? So they’re separate but equal. It’s like a balance of forces. The Congress can’t tell a Cabinet officer what to do. That’s the President’s prerogative. Just as the President can’t say to the Congress, I don’t like this senator and I want you to get rid of him. That’s the Senate’s bailiwick. Now we’re the Board of Directors of the temple and the rabbi is an outsider that we hire. So he can’t tell one of us to resign, anymore than Stanley the janitor can. See what I mean?”

  “Sure, but what do we do about it?”

  “Look, Morris, we’ve had how many, half a dozen presidents? So where is it written that we can have only one rabbi? Every now and then we change presidents, so maybe it’s time to change rabbis.”

  “That’s the way a lot of guys seem to feel.” He chuckled. “Meyer Andelman suggested I contact my brother—he’s a rabbi—and see if he’d be interested.”

  “Hey, how about that! Think he’d be interested?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it.”

  “Well, why not ask him, Morris? It’s only a phone call.”

  “I might at that.”

  Charlie Tanner had never liked the rabbi. “The guy was never my cup of tea. I’m not crazy about rabbis in general, but this one especially I didn’t cotton to. And I’m not alone. Plenty of the guys can’t stand him. Matter of fact, name me one real friend he has on the board. I mean, one guy who is known as the rabbi’s friend, who stands behind him and backs him up. There’s not one. And you know why? It’s because he acts so damn superior. According to my old man, in the old days the rabbi was the big noise in the community. He was the one educated man and everyone used to defer to him on that account. And Rabbi Small goes on like that, like we’re back in the nineteenth century and he’s the only one who knows anything. But these days the community is full of doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers. And most of the businessmen have been to college. So where does he get off looking down his nose at the rest of us and telling us what we can do and what we can’t do? Yup, that’s what’s the matter with him. He’s an old-fashioned guy in a modern world. He’s an anachronism, that’s what he i
s. Chester Kaplan tells me he knows all about Talmud. And you know what that is? It’s the laws they had back in the days of the Bible. Fine, if we were living back in biblical times. But we’re not. We’re living in the good old USA and we’re in the twentieth century, approaching the twenty-first. So who needs it? What we need is a modern man who understands what’s happening in the world today and can give spiritual guidance for the problems of today.”

  “So you wouldn’t be averse to change?”

  “Morris, Morris, what have I been saying? I’m prepared to take almost anyone, a kid fresh out of the seminary, in exchange for Rabbi Small.”

  “That seems to be the general sentiment.”

  “So what do we do about it? Ask him to resign?”

  “No. That would mean we’d have to give him some reason, maybe prefer charges. Then he might appeal to the general membership, and that could mean all kinds of trouble. Our idea is to notify him that his contract will not be renewed. No reason given. If he should ask, we’d just say we wanted a change. He’d have until his contract expired to look around for another job. We’d get a replacement as soon as possible.”

  “You mean while he was still here?”

  “Why not? Look at it this way. Suppose we notify him that we’re not renewing his contract, and he continues to serve until we get a replacement. So what kind of service would we get out of him? He’d be bitching all the time every chance he got. Say there’s a funeral, God forbid. He might say he can’t make it. Or a Bar Mitzvah, or a wedding. Can you imagine what it would be like if there was a wedding and the rabbi didn’t show, the bride and groom standing around with all their family and friends, and the rabbi nowhere in sight? And he could do it because it’s no skin off his nose, since he turns in his fees to the temple. But if we have another rabbi ready, willing, and able to take over the day after we notify Small that he’s out, then everything is fine.”

  “But he has a contract.”

  “So we continue paying him until his contract expires. Or we could even give him a lump sum.”

  “Yeah. That way he’d have no beef at all. Hey, that’s all right.”

  38

  Notice of Paul Kramer’s arraignment appeared in the News of the Courts section of the local newspaper. The rabbi, who usually only leafed through the paper to check the Religious News column, missed it. But Miriam, who read the paper more thoroughly, spotted it and called it to her husband’s attention.

  “It says he was released on his personal recognizance. Does that mean that the judge thought he was probably innocent?”

  The rabbi shook his head. “No, only that he assumed he wouldn’t be apt to flee the jurisdiction.”

  “The poor boy. Don’t you think you ought to see him, David? I mean, he’s alone and his folks are away.”

  “Well, I suppose it would be neighborly to invite him to dinner one evening. I tell you what. I promised his mother that I’d drop by and leave a note for him to make sure he’s home when his folks call again. Why don’t I just add an invitation to Sabbath dinner?”

  “But Friday night is when they call.”

  “All right, so I’ll ask him to get in touch with me for dinner one night. I’ll do it right now.”

  He immediately sat down and scrawled a note, and then put on his topcoat to go out to deliver it. “I’ll be right back.”

  But it was some time later before he returned, for just as he reached the Kramer house, Paul came out. “Oh, I was just going to drop a note in your mail slot,” he said. “Your mother asked me to tell you to be sure to be home for their call.”

  “Oh, thanks. I wasn’t likely to forget.”

  “I also included an invitation to come to dinner one night.”

  “Well, gee, thanks, Rabbi.”

  “Perhaps Friday night, a Sabbath meal?”

  “That’s the night my folks call. Maybe if they call early enough …”

  “Fine. You could come over immediately afterwards. Are you planning to tell them of your problem?”

  “No, I wasn’t. And if they should happen to call you, I hope you won’t mention it.”

  “But they’ll find out sooner or later,” the rabbi insisted.

  “No, they won’t. I’m sure the whole thing will be like, you know, squashed in a couple of days. See, there’s been some new evidence that definitely clears me.”

  “Oh?”

  The young man was embarrassed, but he realized that there was no way he could avoid explaining. “Well, the fact is I wasn’t alone at the house here that night. I was studying with someone. It was a girl and we worked kind of late, so she stayed on. I thought you kind of guessed it when we talked down at the station house.”

  “I see.” The rabbi made a conscious effort not to appear shocked or even disapproving. In a matter-of-fact voice, he said, “And she’s planning to come forward and—”

  “She already did. When she heard I’d been arrested and all, she said she’d go to Lanigan and tell him. I tried to talk her out of it because, you know, of what people might think. And I didn’t want my folks to think that as soon as they left, well, you know …”

  “She went and told Chief Lanigan that she spent the night with you?”

  “That’s right.” Paul smiled to cover his embarrassment.

  “I see. Did she tell you what Chief Lanigan said?”

  “He didn’t say much of anything. Oh yeah, he had her tell him just how she got to my house, I mean, what route she took, and whether she had seen anyone she knew and if her mother knew, and how she kept her from knowing. See, when she got to my place she called this girl friend and gave her my number in case her mother should call and want to talk to her, she could say she’d just stepped out for a minute and would call right back. Then this girl would call my house, and she’d call from there like it was from this girl’s house. And later she called her mother and told her she was staying overnight, but of course she said she was at the girl’s house. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I get the picture.”

  “So I figure that in the next day or two, I’ll be hearing from the police or maybe from the court telling me I’m in the clear and to come down and get my car. And then my folks wouldn’t have to know.”

  “And your lawyer, does he know about this new development?”

  “I haven’t told him yet. Maybe the police did.”

  “And what will you do when he presents you with a bill for his services?”

  “Well, I’ll explain it all to him and tell him I’ll pay it out so much a week. He seemed a decent sort of guy, so I figure he’ll go along.” The young man looked anxiously at the rabbi and blurted out, “Look, Rabbi, if you would rather I didn’t come, well, that’s all right. I understand, you being a rabbi and all.”

  “No, I rather wish you would, if you can make it.”

  39

  For the tenth time at least, Chief Lanigan read over the reports in the Paul Kramer folder, again nodding an amused approval at Sergeant Dunstable’s meticulously detailed report—“Examined trash barrel, Glossop’s Garage, 4:13 P.M. Notified superior (Lt. Jennings) by phone from garage office, keeping barrel in sight, 4:15 P.M.; awaited arrival of truck for removal of barrel. Truck arrived, 4:31 P.M. Located black Chevrolet, license number 937254, corner of Maple Street and Glen Lane, 4:52 P.M., Returned … Reported …”

  There was something about the report that had puzzled him. Now it came to him. He pressed a switch and called out on the intercom to the desk sergeant, “Billy Dunstable anywhere around?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s in the wardroom.”

  “Have him come in.” And a moment later, when the sergeant appeared, he said, “Sit down, Sergeant, sit down. I’ve been reading through your report on that hit-and-run. I notice that you were able to find the Kramer car about twenty minutes after you left Glossop’s garage.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  Dunstable smirked. “Just routine detective work.” />
  “But, considering the traffic, that’s just about the time it would take you to drive to Glen Lane from Glossop’s.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lanigan leaned back, folded his hands over his belly, and smiling benignly at the sergeant, said, “That’s not routine detective work. That’s extraordinary detective work.”

  Dunstable reddened. “Well, I did get a tip.”

  Lanigan leaned forward in his seat. “You mean someone told you just where the car was parked.”

  Dunstable squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, not exactly. He thought it might be there, that was where it was usually parked.”

  “Who was it? Who told you?”

  “It was Tom Blakely who works at the garage.”

  “You know him?”

  “Sure. You must know him, too. Big Red? Don’t you remember? He was fullback on the Barnard’s Crossing team that just missed out on the state championship about five years back.”

  “Oh yes, I remember. Quite a hero he was. And he’s working at Glossop’s now? I didn’t know. I don’t get down that way much. I thought he went off to college after graduating, that he’d got all kinds of offers of scholarships.”

  “That’s right. He went to one down south, but he left after the first semester. He broke his wrist and they cut him off at the pockets. They do that at some southern colleges.”

  “And he’s been working for Glossop’s ever since?”

  “No, he did some lobstering. Still does, along with working at Glossop’s.”

  “And how did he know where Paul Kramer parked his car?”

  “He sees Aggie Desmond who lives on Maple Street. I expect he’s seen the car when he goes calling on her.”

  “You seem to know a lot about him.”

  “Yeah, well, my kid brother was in his class at high and he’s still kind of friendly with him.”

  Lanigan took a stab in the dark. “Was there a Fran Kimball in that class?”