Someday the Rabbi Will Leave

by Harry Kemelman

  “But what if he asks you to resign?”

  “I’ll refuse, of course. If the board votes to ask for my resignation, I’ll demand the reason, and I’ll demand the right to argue my case before the general membership, and—”

  “Oh, David, Howard Magnuson would never let himself get sucked into an open confrontation with you before the congregation. He’ll simply persuade a majority of the board not to renew your contract when it expires. Then what would you do?”

  He shrugged. “I’d probably notify the seminary that I was at liberty and to look around for another job for me. Or I might decide to try something else, teaching, or maybe I could get some kind of editorial job with a publishing house, or maybe a job as a correspondent on Jewish affairs with some newspaper, or—”

  “But all of those involve being beholden to one man usually, a principal or a dean, an editor or a publisher, who could turn out to be another Magnuson.”

  “Then I’ll use my savings to start my own business.”

  “What kind of business could you start?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I could start a school of my own, a Hebrew school for adults, or—or any kind of business, a shoestore or a candy store, or—or—”

  “A rabbi running a candy store?”

  He grinned. “Sure, why not? Well, perhaps not a candy store because with my sweet tooth I’d eat up all the profits. The point is that unlike a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister, I am not dedicated to things religious. As a rabbi, I’m a secular figure. And earning a living in a trade or a business or a profession is quite within the tradition. Many of the great rabbis in the old days earned their livings as carpenters, blacksmiths, wood gatherers. More recently in the ghetto towns of Russia and Poland, some of the rabbis had to earn their livings in some sort of secular enterprise. My own grandfather, when he served as a rabbi in a shtetl, before he came to this country, operated a store, albeit the town gave him preferential treatment by limiting his competition.

  “In a sense, it’s even the more proper way, since our tradition dictates that one should not use one’s learning as a spade to dig with. The present system of remunerating a rabbi is based on a fine bit of pilpulistic casuistry in which the contention is that the congregation is not paying him for his learning and knowledge, but for the time that he is prevented from earning a living by functioning as a rabbi.”

  “Tell me, David, are you tired of being a rabbi?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you’ve been a rabbi for twenty years. If you had gone into something else, law or business, I’m sure we would have been a lot better off financially. So if you were to give it up now, I’d always have the feeling that that twenty years was somehow wasted.”

  “No, Miriam, I’m not tired of being a rabbi. Taking one thing with another, it’s been a very pleasant twenty years.” He rubbed his jaws to aid cerebration. “But if the rabbi really cares about his congregation, and if they are not just a flock of sheep who think of him as their pastor, then there has to be an occasional fight. Just as in a good marriage,” he added.

  She giggled. “Men’s or women’s shoes?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “In this store, would you be selling men’s shoes or women’s shoes?”

  “Oh, women’s, of course, and I’d limit my trade to small sizes so as to attract the young and pretty ones.”

  They heard the clumping of feet on the stairs, and Jonathon came in, yawning and stretching. “Hey, Dad, are we riding or walking?”

  Before the rabbi could answer, Miriam said, “Your father is not going to the minyan today, Jonathon, and I think it would be better if you said the morning prayers at home, too.”

  “Okay. I’ll go upstairs.” Jonathon said his prayers at home except on Saturdays and Sundays—that is, when he had no school—and would accompany his father to the minyan. And of course he preferred to pray at home, since it was quicker and there was no need to wait to complete the ten needed for the minyan.

  When he had gone, the rabbi said, “You know, Miriam, it just struck me that Jonathon is not much younger than the Kramer boy.”

  “So?”

  “So if he got caught up in something—” He stopped and was silent for a while. Then he said, “I think I’ll take a little ride along Glen Lane.”

  Rabbi Small drove the length of Glen Lane all the way to High Street, and then turned around and started back, going very slowly. When he came to the clearing where D’Angelo had left his car, he parked and got out. Although he was not unfamiliar with the road, he realized as he walked that it was longer than he had previously thought. Also, there was a considerable rise about halfway to Maple Street that he had not noticed when driving. When he reached the top of the rise, he was able to see all the way down to Maple Street. He turned and walked back to where he had left his car, counting the paces as he walked.

  43

  “Got the lab report on Halperin’s car,” Lieutenant Jennings announced as he took the visitor’s chair.

  “And?” Lanigan asked eagerly.

  “Well, one of the prints is a possible.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that if you got other prints that are positive, you can use this one, too.”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, you know, for its position on the hood to indicate how he might have fallen.”

  “But without a positive?”

  Jennings shook his head. “Nothing. Ah, here’s something. One of the fibers taken from the headlight rim on Halperin’s car matches fibers taken from the rim of Kramer’s car.” He looked up from the report. “See, we got two chances, the action on the top of the hill in Glen Lane where the guy was hit, and the action involved in the breaking of Kramer’s headlight. Obviously, the same guy did both, so if we can pin the headlight thing on him, it would mean that he was the one who did the hit-and-run. It says here: ‘Possible source—Turkish toweling.’”

  “Swell,” said Lanigan in disgust. “You wipe your headlight with a bit of Turkish toweling, or a gas station attendant does, and you get some fibers in the crack where it joins the fender. I’ll bet you’ll find some on my car or yours.”

  “Yeah, guess so,” said Jennings despondently. “So do we forget about Morris Halperin?”

  “Well, let’s say we put him on the back burner for a while. Right now I’ve been kind of concentrating on Tom Blakely.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I went down to Maple Street last evening and stopped in front of the Desmond house. And, you know, sitting there in my car I could see all the way to the Kramer house in my rearview mirror.”

  “So?”

  “So, let’s say Tom Blakely goes calling on Aggie Desmond. We know he did because he said so at the Ship’s Galley that night. Billy Dunstable heard him. He parks his car just about where I did. He’s waiting for her to come out, see. Now, while he’s sitting in his car waiting, along comes the Kimball gal. Maybe he hails her. He used to be sweet on her. Maybe she waves back. Or maybe she just kind of tosses her head and walks on. So he follows her in his rearview mirror and sees her go into the Kramer house.”

  “Okay.”

  “The Desmond girl stands him up, or she comes out and tells him she can’t go out with him. He gets sore at the Desmond girl, or maybe he’s sore at the Kimball girl for passing him by like that. When I asked her if she’d seen anyone who knew her on her way to Kramer’s, she kind of hesitated before she said no.”

  “All right.”

  “He stays down at the Ship’s Galley until around ten o’clock, according to Dunstable, and then he leaves because they refuse to serve him. Dunstable thought he probably went on home. But if he did, he’s not like any drunk I know. I figure, more likely he’d get in his car and go looking for someplace where he could get served. That wouldn’t be anyplace in Barnard’s Crossing because we’re pretty careful here. But in Lynn or Revere they have all those dinky little nightclubs where you wouldn�
��t have any trouble getting a drink unless you were lying on the floor.”

  “Hell, some of these places are so dark, you wouldn’t know anyone was lying on the floor unless you fell over them.”

  “Well, anyway, I thought it was worthwhile checking it out. So I had one of the boys go around to some of these places with a picture of Blakely.”

  “Where’d you get the picture?”

  “From his yearbook. They keep them at the town library. And we made some photocopies from the machine they have. The pictures aren’t very good, and he was five years younger when it was taken, but they’re good enough.”

  “And?”

  “And bingo. In one of the places there was positive identification. They were a little hazy about time, but they thought he came in around ten and left around eleven.”

  “All right, so you can prove that Tom Blakely got drunk in Lynn and started for home around eleven o’clock. Where does that get you, Hugh?”

  “It gives me the basis for some guessing.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m guessing that Blakely came home by way of Glen Lane. If he was drunk, he’d want to avoid the main road as much as possible. Besides, it’s a short cut.”

  “All right. I’ll go along with that.”

  “And that he hit the guy on the hill—”

  “Just a minute.”

  “The time is about right. He’d accelerate going up the hill, and then suddenly there’s a man on the road where you don’t expect to see a pedestrian. He’s drunk and his reactions are slow.”

  “All right. It’s possible.”

  “Okay, so he’s scared. And he can’t report it in the normal way, even if he could prove that it was the pedestrian’s fault, not even if he had a moving picture of the guy throwing himself in front of his car, because he’s drunk and so is automatically presumed guilty. At the very least he’d lose his driver’s license. How can someone work in a garage without a driver’s license? He might not care very much about the job, although they’re kind of scarce these days, but—”

  “Okay, you mean that he would be likely to run rather than report it to the police. I’ll buy that.”

  “So he drives along Glen Lane, and just as he approaches the corner, I’m guessing he saw a light.” Lanigan leaned back in his seat and folded his hands over his belly, obviously much pleased with himself.

  “What light?”

  “A light in the Kramer house, upstairs, probably in a bedroom that faces Glen Lane. Maybe he saw her shadow on the blind, or maybe the blinds weren’t even down, since there are no houses on that side and he actually saw her, or maybe he just assumed she was up there—”

  “So he gets sore and—”

  Lanigan nodded. “And decides to take revenge. He breaks Kramer’s headlight because in the state he’s in, he thinks of him as having stolen his girl. So he turns around and drives back to the scene of the accident and drops the broken glass there. The next day, he’s lucky enough to be in a position to tell Billy Dunstable where the car is.”

  “Of course, you don’t have the slightest proof, Hugh.”

  “No, I don’t. But I’ve got a good story, and if I piece it out, and then call in Tom Blakely and spring it on him, it might work. There are a lot of angles we can work on. We can take a look at his car. It might have a dented fender. He’d say it’s an old dent, but maybe Glossop would remember that it wasn’t. The chances are that he washed his car the next day, and maybe Glossop would remember that.”

  “He wouldn’t remember that. They must wash lots of cars in that garage. At least, they have one of those machines that steam cleans your engine, so the chances are they wash and wax, too.”

  “He might remember it if it were unusual. Then I could talk to this Aggie Desmond and find out just when Blakely came calling that night. I intend to talk to the Kimball girl again. I’d like to know what time she went to bed, and which bedroom they used, and whether the lights were on when they undressed, and if the shades were up.”

  “You could ask Kramer.”

  “No, he’s under indictment. I can’t question him unless his lawyer agrees.”

  “Well, maybe Scofield would agree if you explained that it wasn’t his client you were interested in, or that you were trying to clear him.”

  “Possible,” Lanigan admitted. “The point is to get as good a story as I can, with all kinds of little details pinned down by testimony from one person or another, and then I’d have Dunstable bring in Blakely to make a statement.”

  “A statement about what?”

  “Oh, as to how he came to know where Kramer’s car was,” said Lanigan airily. “Just a matter of form for possible use in the trial. I’d have him hang around for a while until he got kind of restless, and maybe a little nervous, and then I’d call him in and ask him how he happened to break Kramer’s headlight. You remember we used the same technique a couple of years back on that guy Slocumb in the breaking and entering when we didn’t actually have a thing.”

  “How about Miranda?”

  Lanigan looked at his lieutenant in innocent surprise. “Why, I wouldn’t be accusing him of anything, merely asking him how he happened to break someone’s headlight.”

  44

  At the dinner table, Rabbi Small looked at the empty place on his right and asked, “Where’s Jonathon?”

  “Oh, he called up and said they’d asked him to work late at the Republican headquarters. They’re very busy there right now.”

  “He thinks he’s a big shot,” said Hepsibah spitefully.

  “Sibah!”

  “I don’t like the idea of his missing dinner—”

  “He said he’d get a sandwich and some milk,” Miriam explained.

  “I mean I don’t like him missing dinner with the family. I’m not sure I care to have him work there,” said the rabbi.

  “Why not? It pays better than baby-sitting and he feels it’s more dignified. He also says he’s learning a lot, and that he is now the shark of his Political Process class.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s only for another two or three weeks until the election. How is he planning to get home? Did he take his bike?”

  “No, he went there right from school. He’ll walk, or maybe take the bus—”

  “Or maybe call and ask me to come down and get him,” said the rabbi.

  “He might get a lift from somebody there.”

  “Did he say when he’d be through?” asked the rabbi.

  “About eight or half past, he said. You seem overly concerned, David. After all, he’s seventeen.”

  “And very impressionable. There are always a lot of loafers hanging around the Republican Committee headquarters, talking and drinking, especially in the evening, and I don’t think it’s a good influence on a young boy.”

  “Well, you can tell him that you don’t want him working late there and that he is to be home for dinner every night,” said Miriam reasonably.

  “Yes, I think I will.”

  But Jonathon did not come home at eight, nor even at half past. When the clock struck nine, Miriam, uneasy, went to the telephone to call the Republican Committee headquarters. She returned to the living room a few minutes later to say, “I spoke to the man in charge. He says he sent Jonathon on an errand down the street about an hour ago, before eight. He’s probably walking home. Do you think you ought to drive down and see if you can pick him up?”

  “No. If he left before eight, he should be along pretty soon.”

  Chief Lanigan raised his whiskey in a perfunctory and automatic toast to his wife, who had just handed it to him, and drank deeply. He had dined well—Amy had a way with spareribs—then relaxed with the evening paper and watched television for a while. Now, at nine o’clock, he was planning to get into pajamas and go to bed and read, but Amy was inclined to conversation.

  “Anything happen today?”

  “Nothing special. Just the usual.” Then, out of politeness, “And with you?”

 
“I bumped into Mary Hagerstrom this afternoon.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You remember her.”

  “Hagerstrom?”

  “She’s the housekeeper and cook for the Magnusons.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “I asked her why she didn’t come to the sodality the other night. And she said Mr. Magnuson asked her to stay on because he was having some men over and he wanted her to prepare a bunch of sandwiches for them.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Have you seen David Small lately, Hugh?”

  This sudden change of subject, while exasperating at times, did not surprise Lanigan. He was used to it. What is more, he was sure that sooner or later Amy would make a connection between the Magnusons, Mary Hagerstrom, and Rabbi Small. So he said, “No, not lately.”

  “Is he in any trouble?”

  “Who? David Small? Not that I know of. Certainly nothing that involves the police.”

  “I mean with his congregation.”

  “Well, I hear rumors. I’ve been hearing them ever since he came here. Jews do a lot of bitching about their rabbis, I guess.”

  “I mean a plot to get rid of him.”

  “No, I can’t say I’ve heard anything lately. Why?” He put his paper down and gave her his full attention.

  “Well, according to Mary Hagerstrom, the reason for that party with the sandwiches, you know, there were just men—”

  “Come to the point, woman.”

  “It was to show one of those videotape things about a rabbi.”

  “They had a videotape of Rabbi Small?”

  “Not Rabbi Small. Another rabbi, a younger man. It showed him in a robe and a kind of scarf, and one of those little caps that bishops wear, only it was black. And it showed him standing at a lectern, I guess, delivering a sermon. Mary only got a glimpse when she’d be in and out with sandwiches and coffee. And she heard comments about how good he was, and what a nice appearance he made.”

  “Mary Hagerstrom told you all this? Why?”

  “Well, she just happened to mention it, and I kept pressing her.”

  “What are you getting at, Amy?”