Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red (21 page)

“My kid brother is a reporter.” said Ronald Berkowitz. “and he tells me they get these crackpots calling up the paper all the time.”

Selzer nodded. “I guess you’re right, but you know something? It was kind of nice – I mean, that he was concerned and wanted to help me. Because there were others – letters and even phone calls – that were just the opposite. Like one night a lady calls up and asks if I’m the fattier of the boy who is in jail, and when I ask who I’m talking to, she lets out a string of dirty words. I didn’t hear such language even when I was in the Navy.”

“You got to remember. Malcolm, crackpots come in all shapes and sizes.”

“I know.” said Selzer. “And there were plenty of my friends who didn’t call me or come near me –”

“We were out of the country. Mai –”

“Oh, I’m not blaming you, or them.” Selzer assured Berkowitz. “These friends of mine weren’t avoiding me because they were ashamed of me, or anything like that. It was just that it was embarrassing for them and they thought it would be embarrassing for me.”

“So get on with the story.” his wife urged.

“Right, hon. So here was the rabbi telling me what I should tell my lawyer, he didn’t say I should discuss it with Goodman, mind you, or that I should ask him if maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea. No, he says. ‘Tell him.’ But you know. I’m a guy like this: if I get sick, or some member of my family, God forbid. I’m not going to call a doctor and then tell him what pills he should give me, he’s the expert, that’s why I called him. Right? And that’s why I pay him. It’s the same way with a lawyer. If I’m going to tell him what to do, what do I need him for?” Selzer looked around the room. “On the other hand. I’m not going to tell this to the rabbi’s face because – well, because he’s a rabbi. I mean, maybe I’m funny that way, or maybe it’s the way I was brought up, but I don’t talk to a rabbi the way I would to a regular-type person. If a rabbi told me to do something. I might do it and I might not, but I wouldn’t argue with him. Now it so happens that I think Rabbi Small is a good man and we’re lucky to have him,” said Selzer. “But that’s as a rabbi, you understand. This is a practical matter, and I just don’t think of Rabbi Small or any rabbi as a practical man. So I thanked him very polite for his interest, and I would’ve forgot all about it but I happened to walk down to the drugstore for a copy of the Times and who do I run into but old Jake Wasserman taking a walk with Al Becker.”

“Oh yeah?” said Berkowitz. “How is the old boy? I haven’t seen him in months.”

“He looked fine.” said Selzer, “just fine. Of course he’s terribly thin and his skin it’s so pale it’s almost transparent, and he shuffles when he walks, and he holds onto Becker’s arm like he’d fall down if he let go, but otherwise he looked pretty good to me. So naturally, we stop to shmoos for a few minutes, and he asks me what’s new with my boy’s situation and I tell him that there’s nothing new, everything is status quo, and while we’re talking. I happen to mention that the rabbi was down to see me and what he said.

“So Wasserman says, ‘So did you tell Goodman?’ So I explain to him how I couldn’t see any sense in my telling a lawyer how he should practice law. But old Jake shakes his head like he don’t agree with me and then he says, ‘The rabbi came to see you? You didn’t happen to bump into him like to us just now?’ ‘That’s right.’ I says, ‘he came to see me.’

“So then Al Becker asks. ‘Was it just about this, or did he come to see you about something else?’ ‘No, just about this.’ I says.

“So then Wasserman, he puts his hand on my arm and he looks me right in the eye and he says very serious. ‘Believe me. Mr. Selzer, if the rabbi went out of his way to tell you, then that’s what you should do.’”

Selzer looked around at the others. “Well, to tell the truth. I was going to kind of laugh it off, because Wasserman, after all, he’s an old man.”

“And everybody knows he thinks the sun rises and sets on the rabbi.”

“That’s right.” Selzer agreed. “That’s why I was going to pass it off, but then Al Becker who is a practical and successful businessman says. ‘That’s good advice. Selzer, and if you don’t follow it, you’re apt to spend a long time wishing you had.’

“Well, sir. I don’t mind saying I began to worry a little. I mean, a man like Becker, a big businessman, he’s had all kinds of dealings with lawyers. I mean he knows what’s what, and I began to think, maybe I’m passing up a chance, and what am I afraid of Paul Goodman for? I mean, I’m paying him, ain’t I? I’m not a charity case. So when I got back home. I called him, and to make a long story short, he files the motion, and what’s the result? Thanks to our rabbi, Abner is upstairs, catching up on his sleep right this minute.”

Just one question. Rabbi,” said Bradford Ames, smiling genially as if to assure him it was not very important, they were once again in the rabbi’s tiny college office.

“Why didn’t you tell Sergeant Schroeder that you left your class early on Friday?”

Rabbi Small blushed. “Sheer embarrassment, I suppose,” he said. “Of course he didn’t ask me what time I had left my classroom, only what time I had left the building. I suppose I should’ve mentioned it, but Lanigan was there and my wife, and I just didn’t like to admit I’d had trouble with my class.”

“Well, I’m asking now, Rabbi. What time did you leave the classroom?”

“It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes or a quarter past one,” said the rabbi promptly. “And I came straight here.”

“Hendryx was in the office?”

“Sitting, or rather lying back, in this very chair.”

“And you stayed here until a little after two?”

“M-hm.”

“The two of you sitting here for an hour or so just engaged in friendly conversation.”

“That’s about it. Mr. ames.”

“And were you friendly, Rabbi? Did you consider him a friend?”

“Not particularly;” said the rabbi. “We shared the same office, that’s about it.”

“But this time you talked for a whole hour,” mused Ames. “Why? What were you talking about?”

“Oh, largely about educational theory.” Once again the rabbi blushed. “At first. I was just marking time on the chance that someone from my class might come along to apologize for their behavior earlier, and then I stayed because – well, I was being paid for the time.”

Ames looked at the rabbi curiously. “A refreshing notion, if you don’t mind my saying so, and then on your way home you stopped for a cup of coffee, got immersed in a book and didn’t get home until quite late.”

“That’s perfectly true.” the rabbi insisted.

Ames chuckled and then laughed out loud. “I believe you, Rabbi,” he said. “You know why? Because it’s the damndest unlikely explanation I’ve ever heard, so I can’t imagine you making it up.”

The rabbi grinned.

“Have you told it all now?” he said, teasing him slightly. “Nothing you’re keeping back because it might be embarrassing or because you consider it unimportant?”

“How would I know?” said the rabbi. “How can I tell what is and isn’t significant when I don’t know what you’re after or what stage your investigation is at?”

Ames nodded. Should he tell him? Normally he would never reveal to an outsider the results of an investigation still in progress, but on the other hand, the rabbi might be of some help, he was intelligent and sensitive and had talked with Hendryx for almost an hour shortly before his death. If he knew what they were looking for, he might remember a remark, a phrase, something that could be linked to the evidence they already had. No doubt Sergeant Schroeder would disapprove, and probably the district attorney, too, and this as much as anything decided him. Delighted at the idea, he proceeded to relate in detail what they had discovered to date. “So you see,” he said in conclusion, “it all boils down to one of two possibilities: either Mrs. O’Rourke is lying, or the medical examiner made a mistake.”

The rabbi sat silent, then he got up and circling the desk, he began to walk up and down the room. “The two do not balance.” the rabbi said at last. “They are not of the same weight. For i-if you believe the medical examiner” – and unconsciously he lapsed into Talmudic argumentative sing-song – “the-en you have to assume not only that Mrs. O’Rourke was lying but that the explosion of the bomb did not cause the statue to topple. But if you believe that the medical examiner was mistaken and that Mrs. O’Rourke was telling the truth, then it is possible Hendryx was killed by the bomb. But it is not probable. So you have an impossibility on the one hand and an improbability on the other.”

“Ah. I see what you mean by the two not balancing.” Ames chuckled and shifted in his seat. “This chanting of yours –

“Oh; was I doing it? I didn’t realize. It’s the normal accompaniment to Talmudic argument. I do it without thinking. I suppose.”

“I see.” Ames returned to the matter at hand. “Of course you’re quite right about our being left with an improbability at best, the open book and the hassock could be a matter of a minute of two. You could sit down to read and then remember something you’ve got to do and put the book down without having read a line. But the pipe and all those matches…”

The rabbi had resumed his striding, but now he stopped. “Do you smoke?” he asked.

“No: thanks.”

“Oh, I wasn’t offering.” said the rabbi. “I just wanted to know if you did.”

“No,” said Ames. “I never did, as a matter of fact. I had a touch of asthma when I was a kid so I never got around to it.”

“Well, I used to smoke.” said the rabbi, “but I gave it up when I found it was too hard to smoke during the week and then stop for the Sabbath. When I was in college I tried a pipe for a while. It’s almost irresistible to the young student, at least it was when I was in school.”

“In my time, too.”

“I never really acquired the habit.” the rabbi went on. “Most young men don’t, there’s a trick to it, you know, and long before they’ve learned it, they’ve burned their tongues raw and given it up. Now, if I had sat down in that easy chair and smoked a pipe, the half-dozen burned matches you found would make sense. Because I never learned how, and until you’ve learned how, your pipe keeps going out and you have to keep relighting it. You make a regular bellows of your mouth and puff and puff, and still it keeps going out. But not Professor Hendryx, he knew how to smoke, and he really enjoyed his pipe. I used to watch and even envy him a little, he’d light it – he never needed more than one match – tamp it down carefully, and then keep it lit, effortlessly, a little puff of smoke coming out of his mouth every now and then.”

“What are you trying to say: Rabbi?”

“That if it took half a dozen matches to light that pipe, or to keep it lit, then it wasn’t Professor Hendryx who was smoking it!” said the rabbi.

“You’re suggesting that someone came into the apartment and smoked one of his pipes to make it appear that Hendryx had returned after the cleaning woman had left.”

The rabbi nodded.

“But that can only mean Hendryx was already dead and this person wanted to make it appear he was still alive.”

Again the rabbi nodded.

“And that means the pipe smoker was establishing an alibi for himself because he had murdered Hendryx.”

“At least it offers a third possibility.” said the rabbi with the ghost of a smile.

“A third?”

“You said there were only two: that either the medical examiner was wrong or the cleaning woman was. This suggests that they both may have been right, that the medical examiner gave an accurate estimate of the time and that the cleaning woman was telling the truth.”

Ames nodded slowly in agreement, a thought occurred to him. “Suppose the fingerprints on the pipe turn out to be Hendryx’s?”

“It’s only what you’d expect.” the rabbi replied. “His prints would be on all his pipes, the murderer only had to be careful not to obliterate them, the cleaning woman wouldn’t wipe them; a pipe is personal like a toothbrush.”

Bradford Ames sat back. “You know. Rabbi,” he said, “you’re quite a guy, all right, tell me, how did the murderer get into the apartment?”

The rabbi shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Ames could see that Sergeant Schroeder was highly pleased. “We picked up that student. Ekko,” he said, the minute he entered Hendryx’s apartment.

“Good work,” said Ames. “Has he talked?”

“No, but he will,” said Schroeder confidently. “We’ll let him stew for a while and then pull the cork and it’ll all gush out. You’ll see –” He broke off as a police cruising car drew up. “Here’s Mrs. O’Rourke now.”

The cleaning woman looked quite confused, and not a little apprehensive. Schroeder began brusquely. “We’re going to ask you some questions. Mrs. O’Rourke, and this time we want the truth.”

“Let me handle this. Sergeant.” said Ames.

The cleaning woman visibly relaxed. “Now. Mrs. O’Rourke,” he said in a mild voice, “here’s what I want you to do. Would you please clean this apartment, just the way you did the last time. You understand?”

“Yes sir. Now?”

“Now will be fine. Mrs. O’Rourke.” said Ames.

“Well, I start here usually.” They followed her into Hendryx’s small kitchen, and she made motions of removing dishes from the table and placing them in the sink. “Like this?”

“Just a minute. Mrs. O’Rourke.” said Ames. “Do you do all this in your coat?”

“Oh, I take that off first, of course, and hang it up in the closet.”

“Then please do so now.” said Ames. “And how do you get in?”

“Well, I ring the bell and Professor Hendryx lets me in.”

“All right, then please go outside and we’ll start from the beginning.”

“This is like a – a play; isn’t it, sir?” said the delighted Mrs. O’Rourke.

“Yes. Mrs. O’Rourke.” said Ames seriously, he and Schroeder watched in silence as she simulated cleaning the apartment.

“When I finish this room,” she said, warming to the scenario. “I usually empty the wastebasket.”

“Go ahead.”

“But it’s empty.”

“Well, for God’s sake, woman, make believe it’s full.” snapped Schroeder.

Dutifully, she picked up the wastebasket and opened the door.

“You leave the door open?” asked Ames.