Someday the Rabbi Will Leave
Page 20
“I think those men at the party are the big shots in the temple. Mr. Magnuson is the president, you know. And I think they were planning to get rid of the rabbi and hire this one in his place. Mary Hagerstrom said that when they were leaving, Mr. Magnuson kept telling them to keep it under their hats, not to mention it even to their wives.”
“It could be they’re getting Small an assistant, a sort of curate,” he suggested, but his tone lacked conviction.
“Then Rabbi Small would know about it, wouldn’t he?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Why not call and ask him?”
“Yeah, maybe I will.” He went to the telephone and dialed. When Miriam answered, he announced, “Hugh Lanigan.”
“Oh, hello. Did you want to talk to David?”
“Yes. No, look, Miriam. Just tell me, are you folks alone and planning to be in?”
“Yes, Chief. Would you like to come over?”
He changed from house slippers to loafers and put on a sweater. “I’ll be back in a little while, Amy. I couldn’t ask him something like that over the phone.”
He drove to Maple Street, and Miriam opened the door for him as soon as she heard him turn into the driveway. “We were just going to have tea when you called,” she said, “so we waited for you.”
“Thanks, Miriam, I could use a cup.”
It was only after the tea had been poured and they were nibbling on cookies that Lanigan asked, “Are you in trouble with the congregation, David?”
“Oh, David is always in trouble with the congregation,” said Miriam lightly. “It goes with the territory.”
And from the rabbi, “Why do you ask?”
Glancing from one to the other, Lanigan told them what he had learned. He could see by the frozen smile on her face that Miriam was upset. Her husband, however, merely nodded and smiled, saying, “It proves the importance of having a high-powered executive in the top position. There have been attempts before to get me out. Usually the dissidents start by trying to get a majority on the board, and by the time they do, a sizable opposition to them has also developed, some of them because they approve of me, I suppose, and some because they don’t like those who are trying to oust me, and the greatest number, perhaps, because it means avoiding trouble. It means doing without a rabbi until they find another, and how can they be certain that the new one will be any better? But with an executive type like Howard Magnuson, we have efficiency. They line up another rabbi first, and then they get a majority, and they keep it all secret so that an opposition can’t get started.”
“And can’t you do anything about it?” asked Lanigan.
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I can’t admit that my livelihood and the general welfare of my family is entirely dependent on the goodwill of one man. Once I think that, then I’m no longer my own man. I’ll spend the rest of my life worrying about whether what I say or do will please him. And I can’t live that way.”
“The one man is Magnuson?”
“Of course.”
“But he can’t do it alone. Doesn’t he have to have a majority of your board?”
“Oh, that’s no problem for him. He’s a tycoon, a millionaire.”
“You don’t mean that he’d bribe them or that they’d sell their votes—”
“Not their votes, just their souls. Here’s a small businessman who needs a bank loan, or access to a particular wholesaler. Magnuson can arrange that with a phone call. Or say, he’s a professional man, a doctor, or a dentist, or a lawyer—they all have stock portfolios. ‘What do you think, Mr. Magnuson? Shall I sell? Any truth to the rumor that ABC is going to merge with XYZ?’ Even if you don’t ever come to him for a favor, it’s nice to have a friend who’s a millionaire if only to brag to your friends about. No, it’s entirely his doing. You see, I know what it’s all about. His daughter—”
He stopped as he heard a car drive up in front of the house. “That’s probably Jonathon,” he said. “He must have gotten a ride home.”
Miriam and the rabbi both went to the door, and Lanigan, wondering at their uneasiness, joined them.
“He said he’d be home at eight o’clock and he hasn’t had dinner yet,” Miriam explained.
In the light from the living room, they saw Scofield’s pink car with the sign on top at the curb. They watched as Jonathon got out, circled the car, and said to the driver, “Gee, thanks, Mr. Scofield.”
“Thank you,” said Scofield and put the car in motion.
As Jonathon came up the walk, Miriam asked, “Why were you so late? What did you do to your hand?”
Jonathon held up his right hand, which had a handkerchief wrapped around it. “I scratched it. It’s nothing.”
“Let me see.”
“Aw, Ma, it’s nothing, I tell you. Mr. Scofield was fixing a flat outside his headquarters. Mr. Chisholm had sent me down there with some campaign stuff they wanted. So naturally I helped him. I must’ve scraped it when I reached in the trunk for the wrench. There was a lot of junk in there.”
“Let me see it.”
“Aw, Ma.” But he unwound the handkerchief.
“That’s not a scrape. That’s a cut. Now you go right upstairs and wash your hands with lots of soap and hot water. Then you put some Mercurochrome on it and a Band-Aid. Then you can come down and have your dinner in the kitchen.”
“Okay, okay. But I’m not hungry. I had a couple of cheese sandwiches.”
“Well, it’s there if you want it. Or you can take some milk and cookies.”
“Was that Scofield’s car? I mean, the one he uses regularly? Or is it just for campaign purposes?” Rabbi Small asked Lanigan after Jonathon had galloped upstairs.
“No, that’s his car. It’s the only one he owns as far as I know.”
“But the color!”
Lanigan chuckled. “Yeah, it’s the only one I’ve ever seen.”
“Then that could be it,” the rabbi exclaimed.
“What could be it?” asked Lanigan. “What are you talking about?”
“That could be the reason for smashing Kramer’s headlight and bringing the shards back to the scene of the accident,” said the rabbi quietly.
Lanigan stared, and Miriam, who had risen to remove the tea tray, sat down again. “If you hit someone with your car on a dark, lonely road like Glen Lane,” the rabbi continued, “and you didn’t want to report it for fear of the consequences, what would you do?”
“Why, I suppose—”
“You’d get away from there as fast as you could,” said the rabbi. “That would be the obvious and sensible thing to do,” the rabbi went on. “But my guess is you would slow down as you approached Maple Street, because there are houses there, and someone might see you coming out of Glen Lane and remember that when the body was found. You might even stop and get out and look at the front of your car to check if there was anything incriminating like a dented fender or a bit of the victim’s clothing caught on the fender or the bumper. You might notice that where there was some rust on the fender, perhaps some paint had chipped off. It might have flaked off before, but you can’t be sure that there isn’t a chip of paint on the ground near the body of the victim. And if it’s the bright, shocking pink of your car, then you’re the one the police will go to immediately because yours is the only car around in that color. But you can’t go back to where the victim is lying to look for little chips of paint. It could take hours. However, you see a car parked right on the corner, as though placed there by Providence.”
“So you give the police an obvious clue like a shattered headlight,” said Lanigan. “Yes, that would make it worthwhile going to the trouble of turning around and—”
“Precisely. You’ve opened your trunk perhaps, to get your flashlight—no, that you’d be apt to keep in your glove compartment—”
“It could be one of those big lanterns like the electrician had who came the other day,” Miriam suggested.
“And you get a newspaper or a magazine to catch the pieces of glass,” suggested Lanigan.
“Or if he kept an old sweater in the trunk the way you do, David—” Miriam offered.
“Or an old rag or piece of Turkish towel for grease or dirt,” said the rabbi. “It would also serve to muffle the sound. He’d wrap it around the headlight, then whack it with the wrench, and just gather it up and put it on the passenger seat. Then he’d turn around and drive back to the body. He’d shake out the towel and drive on to High Street, and circle back to Barnard’s Crossing that way. Then when the police arrive on the scene, they have all this lovely glass as a clue.”
“But he was still taking a chance, wasn’t he, David?” said Miriam. “What if Paul Kramer had gone off to a movie with a bunch of friends? Then the police would know it was a false clue.”
“Not right away,” said the rabbi with a glance at the police chief. “They would first check on his alibi with his friends. ‘Where were you sitting with respect to Paul? Did he get up at any time during the course of the movie? To buy popcorn? He’s a close friend of yours and you’d do anything to help him out of a jam, wouldn’t you?’ Then if the alibi held, they’d start checking Paul’s enemies, those who might conceivably want to do him a mischief. Suppose it had been the car of that Samuel Perkins, you know the one who writes all those critical letters that appear in the Courier.”
“Sam’l Perkins? Gosh, we’d have to check out half the town,” said Lanigan, chuckling.
“Jonathon’s hand!” exclaimed Miriam.
Both men looked at her in puzzlement. “What about Jonathon’s hand?” asked Lanigan. “What’s it got to do—”
“He cut it. He cut it helping Scofield change a tire this evening,” she said, obviously excited. “What would Scofield do with the towel? Why would he throw it away? I’ll bet he just dropped it back in the trunk. And when Jonathon was trying to find the wrench, he cut himself.”
“I’m going back to the station house,” said Lanigan, rising abruptly. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. I want to get a look at Scofield’s car.”
“But how will you—”
“He parks it on the street. I’m going to have it towed in. Starting in November, it’s illegal to park on the streets overnight during the winter months.”
He started for the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he said, “It was seeing that pink car that gave you the idea?”
“Well, I had been thinking about it from the time I saw Paul Kramer. You see, I believed him. And for a while I thought it might be Morris Halperin.”
“Morris Halperin? Why him?”
“Because he was the one who reported it to the police. But when I learned that Scofield had undertaken Kramer’s defense, and that without a retainer, I began to think of him.”
Lanigan grinned. “Maybe that’s the difference between a policeman and a rabbi. I tend to think well of my fellowmen. I put it down to his being a good guy.”
45
The rabbi had just finished his breakfast when the call came from Lanigan. He sounded jubilant. “I thought you deserved to know. We took Scofield into custody this morning. That was a lucky guess on your part.”
“It wasn’t just a guess. You see, I started at the other end.”
“What do you mean, the other end? Never mind. Not over the phone. I’m coming down to see you. Things will be breaking loose here pretty soon, and I’d rather not be around answering a million questions.”
Very well pleased with himself, Lanigan began talking as soon as he entered the house. “I picked up the car at one o’clock in the morning. I opened the trunk—”
“You forced it?”
“No, didn’t have to. There’s a release lever that you can operate from the inside. Well, the towel was there and I could see right away it had some specks of glass in it. I had a patrolman take it in to Boston. I had already got hold of the Forensic people and asked them to stand by. My man waited for the results. They found fourteen bits of glass, one of them a sliver almost an inch long and an eighth of an inch wide—” He stopped abruptly to ask “What blood type is Jonathon?”
“Same as mine. AB.”
“It figures. There was type AB blood on the sliver, which fit the neck of that broken sealed beam that we picked up at the garage but perfectly.” He chuckled. “In the morning Scofield called up to report his car had been stolen. I got on the line and explained that a rookie officer had had it towed because of the ordinance on winter parking. I asked him to wait around for a few minutes.” He cocked an eye at the ceiling. “I suppose he thought we were going to tow it back and apologize for inconveniencing him. But instead I sent Eban Jennings down to take him in. Now, what did you mean that you started at the other end?”
“Well, the police started with the accident—”
“Naturally.”
“But that was the end, the culmination. I was interested in what the man, D’Angelo, was doing there in the first place. What was he doing walking along in the middle of the road late at night?”
“Well, he drove there. His car was in the little clearing just beyond High Street.”
“All right, then why did he drive there? Why did he turn into Glen Lane? It’s barely noticeable from the highway.”
“We assumed he had to take a”—a glance at Miriam, and he cleared his throat—“that he had to relieve himself.”
“So why would he be in the middle of the road a hundred yards beyond where he had parked his car? I made a point of pacing it out last Sunday. It’s a good hundred yards. If he wanted to relieve himself, he could have gone anywhere. The road is lined with bushes and trees on either side all the way from High Street to Maple.”
“Well …”
“I assumed he went there to meet someone,” the rabbi said.
“He could have gone there to nap for a few minutes. Say, he’d been driving and was falling asleep—”
“Then what would he be doing on foot a hundred yards beyond?” the rabbi challenged.
“All right, say he was going to meet someone,” Lanigan conceded.
“Then obviously it was a secret meeting, one in which it was dangerous, or at least impolitic, for the two to be seen together. So I asked myself who the other man could be.”
“It could be almost anyone, couldn’t it?”
“We can narrow it down quite a bit,” said the rabbi. “First of all, what was the purpose of the meeting? It couldn’t have been just to talk because that could be done just as well and more secretly by telephone, by public telephone if there was any fear that a line might be tapped. My guess was that something had to be passed from one to the other. The most likely thing was money, a packet of hard cash.”
“A payoff?”
“That’s right. Something that could not be entrusted to the mails or to a messenger. So then I began to wonder what kind of man would have to pay off in hard cash in secret.”
“I suppose you mean it was some sort of blackmail. Well, that could happen to anyone, I suppose.”
“I’m not thinking of who might be blackmailed, but rather who might have to make his payment in secret.” He got up and began to pace the floor. His voice took on the Talmudic singsong into which he lapsed occasionally. “It couldn’t be a doctor. Anyone can come to see a doctor and it would be no problem for him to pass the money in the privacy of his office. And it couldn’t be a lawyer because he sees all kinds of people in the way of his normal practice, either as clients or as possible witnesses to some suit he’s engaged in. And the same would be true of the businessman in his office or in his store. The only one who might have to be careful about whom he’s seen with is a politician, someone holding or running for office. Even if the politician is a lawyer, he would have to be careful about who might be seen coming into his office. And when I read in the newspaper account that the victim, w
hatsisname?”
“D’Angelo. Tony D’Angelo.”
“That’s right. When I read in the newspaper account that he had been active in Boston political circles, I was sure I was right. He held no office, either elective or appointive, or they would have mentioned it. Even if he had been a lowly clerk in a government office, it would have been mentioned. But ‘active in political circles’ suggests someone who has no official position and acts as a go-between, or is a hanger-on of a political boss, someone with no regular job, who would be paid for bits of information or little services rendered.”
“Yeah, I guess that would fit D’Angelo,” said Lanigan.
“From here on, I’ve got to use my imagination,” said the rabbi.
“My God, what have you been using up till now?”
“Up till now, I’ve been using inferential logic,” said the rabbi severely. “I see D’Angelo waiting in his car, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Then perhaps it occurs to him that he was expected to wait at the other end of Glen Lane. That’s why I think he walked to the top of the rise. If it was only to stretch his legs, I don’t think he would have gone that far. But if he wanted to see if the other car was parked at the other end of Glen Lane, he would have had to go to the top of the hill. I see Scofield, with a packet of bills in an envelope, turning into Glen Lane from High Street. Maybe he doesn’t see the car parked in the clearing. Or maybe he does, and he slows down or stops and, seeing it’s empty, drives on. He probably had his high beams on. It would be only natural. I assume he was driving slowly so as not to miss seeing his man. Then he spies him at the top of the hill, and he speeds up to reach him, give him the money, and drive off as quickly as possible.”
“But wouldn’t it have involved a swap of some kind, an incriminating letter, or a photo. And then he would have had to stop.”
“Obviously not, since nothing of the sort was found on the dead man, and it’s most unlikely that Scofield would have stopped to search him. No, this must have been what you called a payoff, in which he pays and hopes that’s the end of it.”
“Yeah, all right.”