Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (18 page)

“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.”

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.

From the wardroom, Hugh Lanigan showed the rabbi the ceils and then led the way back to his office. “It isn’t much of a jail,” he said, “but fortunately it’s all we need. I suppose it’s one of the oldest jails in the country. This building goes back to Colonial times, and was originally used as the town hall. It’s been fixed up of course, and renovated from time to time, but the foundation and most of the supporting beams are the original ones. And the cells have been modernized with electricity and flush toilets and running water, but they’re still the original cells and they date back to before the Civil War.”

“Where do the prisoners eat?” asked the rabbi.

Lanigan laughed. “We don’t usually have them in the plural, except perhaps on Saturday night when we sometimes pick up a few drunk and disorderlies and let them sleep it off overnight. When we do have somebody in during mealtimes, one of the restaurants nearby, Barney Blake’s usually, puts up a box lunch. In the old days, the police chief used to make a pretty good thing out of prisoners. The town allowed him a certain amount for each one kept overnight, plus a certain amount for each meal served. When I first joined the force, the chief was constantly after us patrolmen to bring in drunks. Anyone who stumbled on the street was apt to find himself locked up for the night. But some time ago long before I took over, the town upped the chiefs salary and provided a regular allowance for feeding the prisoners, and I guess chiefs haven’t been so anxious to make arrests since.”

“And your prisoners are confined to those little cells until they come up for trial?”

“Oh no. If we decide to charge your friend, we’ll bring him up before a judge sometime tomorrow, and if he tells us to hold him the prisoner will be transferred to the jail in Salem or Lynn.”

“And are you planning to charge him?”

“That’s pretty much up to the district attorney. We’ll show him what we’ve got and maybe he’ll ask some questions and then he’ll make up his mind. He could decide not to charge him with the murder but to hold him as a material witness.”

“When will I be able to see him?”

“Right now, if you like. You can visit with him in his cell or see him right here in my office.”

“I think I’d rather see him alone, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, that’s all right, rabbi. I’ll have him brought in here and leave you two together.” He laughed. “You’re not carrying any weapons concealed about your person, are you? No files or hacksaws?”

The rabbi smiled and patted his jacket pockets. Lanigan went to the door that opened into the wardroom and shouted to one of the policemen to bring the prisoner into his office. Then he closed the door and left the rabbi alone. A moment later, Bronstein came in.

He seemed much younger than his wife, but the rabbi put that down to the difference in health rather than age. He was embarrassed.

“I sure appreciate your coming to see me, rabbi, but I’d give anything to have this meeting someplace else.”

“Of course.”

“You know, I found myself thinking that I was glad my parents were both dead – yes, and that I had no children. Because I wouldn’t be able to face them, even when the police finally find the guilty person and let me go.”

“I understand, but you must realize that misfortune can happen to anyone. Only the dead are safe from it.”

“But this is so ugly …”

“All misfortune is ugly. You mustn’t keep thinking about it. Tell me about the girl.”

Bronstein did not answer immediately. He got up from his chair and paced the floor as if to gather his thoughts or to control his emotions. Then he stopped suddenly and faced the rabbi. He spoke in a rash:

“I never saw her before in my life. I’ll swear that on my mother’s grave. I’ve played around. I admit it. I suppose some people might say that if I loved my wife, I’d be completely faithful to her, even under the circumstances. Maybe I would have been if we’d had children, or maybe I could have if I were stronger. But what I have done, I’m willing to admit. I’ve had affairs with women, but there’s never been anything serious or intense about them. And I’ve played fair with them. I never tried to hide the fact that I was married. I never handed a woman this line about my wife not understanding me. I never suggested that there was a possibility that I might divorce my wife. It was always straight forward and aboveboard. I had certain needs – my body had certain needs. Well, there are plenty of women who are in the same position and who use the same remedy. This woman that I shacked up with in motels a couple of times – it wasn’t this kid. It’s a married woman whose husband deserted her and she’s filing for divorce.”

“If you gave the police her name –”

Bronstein shook his head violently. “If I did that, it would interfere with her divorce. They might even take her children away. Don’t worry, if it ever gets to the point where I’m actually put on trial, and it hinges on this, she’ll come forward.”

“You saw her every Thursday?”

“No, not last Thursday, and not for a couple of Thursdays before that. To tell the truth, she was getting edgy about our meeting. She got the idea that her husband might be having detectives trailing her.”

“So that’s how you came to pick up this girl – as a substitute?”

“I’ll level with you, rabbi. When I picked her up, I wasn’t planning any platonic friendship. I picked her up in a restaurant, the Surfside. If the police were really interested in getting the truth, rather than on pinning it on me, they’d inquire around among people who were there, the waitresses and the customers, and some of them would be sure to remember how I was sitting at one table and she at another, and how I went over to her and introduced myself. Anybody could see that it was a pick-up. But what I was going to say, was that after we had eaten together and talked for a while, I saw that the poor kid was frightened – frightened stiff, and trying awfully hard to be gay and not show it. Wouldn’t that show she was expecting trouble?”

“Possibly. In any case, it’s something worth looking into.”

“I felt sorry for her. I just forgot about making a pass at her. I stopped being interested in her in that way. All I had in mind was a pleasant evening. We drove to Boston and went to a movie.” He hesitated and then came to a quick decision. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice as though he were afraid of being overheard. “I’ll tell you something I haven’t told the police, rabbi. The silver chain that she wore, the one she was strangled with – God forgive me – I bought it for her just before we went into the show.”

“You say you haven’t told this to the police?”

“That’s right. I’m not handing them anything they can use on me that I don’t have to. The way they questioned me, they’d latch onto that as proof I was planning all evening to kill her. I’m telling you so you can see I’m leveling with you.”

“All right. Then where did you go?”

“After the movie we dropped into a restaurant for

pancakes and coffee and then I drove her home. I drove right up to her house, parking right in front, all open and aboveboard.”

“Did you go inside?”

“Of course not. We sat outside in the ear for quite a while just talking. I didn’t even put my arm around her. We just sat there and talked. Then she thanked me and got out of the car and went into the house.”

“Did you make arrangements to meet her again?”

Bronstein shook his head. “I had a pleasant evening and I think she did too. She seemed a lot more relaxed by the time I took her home than she had at dinner. But there was no reason for me to repeat it.”

“Then you went right home from there?”

“That’s right.”

“And your wife was asleep at the time?”

“I guess so. I sometimes think she only pretends to be asleep when I come home late. But anyway, she was in bed and the light was off.”

The rabbi smiled. “That’s the way she described it to me.”

Bronstein looked up quickly. “You mean you’ve seen her? How is she? How is she taking all this?”

“Yes, I’ve seen her.” In his mind’s eye he could still visualize a thin, pale woman in a wheelchair, her hair just beginning to gray, brushed back from a high, un-lined forehead; a nice-looking woman with finely carved features and gray eyes that were quick and bright.

“Her attitude was quite cheerful,” said the rabbi.

“Cheerful?”

“I suppose she was making an effort, but I got the feeling that she was absolutely certain of your innocence. She said that if you had done this thing, she would have known it at a single glance.”

“I don’t suppose evidence like that would be of any use in court, rabbi, but it’s true that we’re very close to each other. In most marriages women get involved with their children, more or less to the exclusion of their husbands. But my wife got sick about ten years ago, and so we were together more than most couples. We can practically read each other. Do you understand, rabbi?”

The rabbi nodded.

“Of course, if she were only pretending to be asleep –”

“She said she always waited up for you, except on Thursdays. I thought perhaps it was because she was tired out from the excitement of entertaining her bridge club, but she assured me it wasn’t that. It was because she knew you had been out with some woman and she didn’t want to embarrass you.”