The Day the Rabbi Resigned (23 page)

When they were seated, he said, “A client of mine, Doc Gorfinkle, tells me you were able to use your friendship with the chief of police on his behalf.”

“The Lanigans were having a bite of supper at our house, and I asked him about it. The widow of the man who was killed in the Pine Grove accident was upset because her husband's watch was not included in the effects which were turned over to her by the police. When Dr. Gorfinkle reported the accident, he told the desk sergeant that he had taken the man's pulse. So Lanigan thought perhaps the doctor had removed it so that he could take his pulse. He thought that perhaps he had absentmindedly put it in his jacket pocket and then forgotten about it. He sent a plain-clothesman, rather than a uniformed policeman, to ask for it because he didn't want it to appear that the good doctor was having some business with the police.”

“And this detective fellow tried to make a big thing out of it, eh?”

“That's about it. I don't think Dr. Gorfinkle will be troubled again.”

“No, I don't think he will, but that same detective fellow came to my house to question us about one of the guests we expected at the Bar Mitzvah, a Mordecai Jacobs who teaches at Windermere Christian. It was my Clara he spoke to. She doesn't get upset easily, and she didn't. But I'm bothered. Is that guy—the detective, I mean—trying to pin something on us?”

“Us?”

“Yeah, Jews. First he sees Gorfinkle, and then when he's warned off by Lanigan, he comes to my house and questions my daughter.”

“I'm sure there's nothing of that involved. Lanigan wouldn't stand it for a moment,” said the rabbi.

“All right. So that brings up another question. Is this guy Jacobs involved in some police matter? It's important. The reason it's important is that my Clara wants—no, intends to marry this Jacobs. And I don't want to be in the position of announcing my daughter's engagement and then have the prospective groom arrested.”

“I see.” The rabbi drummed the table for a moment, and then said, “All right, I'll talk to Lanigan, maybe over the weekend. He may not want to tell me what's involved, but I'll do what I can.”

33

Saturday morning gave promise of a warm, sunny day. Chief Lanigan had chosen to wear a light tropical suit instead of his uniform. It was a lovely day to be outdoors, and only his conscience kept him at his desk.

As he had so many times since he had gone with Amy to pay his respects to Victor Joyce's widow, he went over the file on the case. Once again it struck him, in reading the notes he had made on Dunstable's oral report of his activities the previous day, that the sergeant was not at his best interrogating women. He normally tried to establish his ascendancy over the subject, and it usually worked. But a daughter of two prominent lawyers, like Clara Lerner, was not easily intimidated, and Alice Saxon, professor of Psychology, wasn't likely to be either. Nevertheless, he had probably got what information the Lerner girl could give, although Lanigan suspected her relations to Professor Jacobs were probably closer than she had indicated. But it seemed to him that Professor Saxon had a good deal more to tell than Dunstable had been able to glean. He thought she could be induced to tell more if she were properly approached. He was also mildly curious about Dunstable's referring to her as “quite a dish.” And perhaps because he wanted an excuse to leave the office, he reached for the Boston telephone directory and dialed her number.

When she answered, he said, “This is Chief Lanigan of the Barnard's Crossing police. I'm calling because I think you can help us on an inquiry we're making.”

“About Victor Joyce? I've already spoken to someone from your department.”

“Yes, Sergeant Dunstable. I've been going over his report and there are a couple of points I'd like to get cleared up.”

“I'm sorry, but I can't talk to you now. I was just on my way out when the phone rang. But, look here, I'll be at the college most of the day and—”

“I could come there.”

“Well, all right. I'll be in and out of my office all day. If I'm not in my office when you get there, you can wait. I'm sure to be along in five or ten minutes. I'm just clearing up some last minute things.”

She was there when he arrived shortly before noon. She had her handbag over her shoulder and was evidently on her way out. He looked at her appreciatively and said, “I'm Chief Lanigan.”

“I was just going out for a bite,” she said.

“Can I take you to lunch?”

She looked him over, a small smile on her lips. “Why not? Best offer I've had today. In fact, it's the only offer.” The smile broadened. “Do you want to grill me? That's the term, isn't it?”

He grinned at her. “I'm afraid I forgot to bring my rubber blackjack with me, so suppose we just talk.”

“Suits me. Do you have a restaurant in mind?”

“I don't know the city very well, so you pick the place.”

“There's a place around the corner where you can get soup and a sandwich, which is all I usually have for lunch. With classes over, it will be practically empty. All right?”

“Fine.”

They found a table in a corner, and when they had given their orders, she said, “All right, what do you want to know? It seems you people are going to an awful lot of trouble investigating a drunk driver accident. I suspect—”

“What do you suspect?”

“I suspect it's because of Cyrus Merton. He's the big noise in your town, I suppose—”

“Because he's rich? We have quite a few rich people in our town.”

“Yes, but I imagine he throws his weight around more than the others. His son-in-law, or his nephew-in-law, or whatever you call him, gets drunk and wraps his car around a tree. That bothers him, so he's trying to find someone to blame it on so he can tell himself it wasn't Victor's fault, or not all his fault. And you people—the police, I mean—have to go along. I suppose that's the way small towns are. I come from one, so I know.”

“And what town was that?”

“Higginstown, Pennsylvania.”

“The same town that—”

“Mord Jacobs comes from. That's right. I knew him from there. As a matter of fact, I put him on to this job. I heard there was an opening and told him to apply. He did, and got the job.”

“Because of your influence?”

“Oh no. I'm in psychology. What influence would I have with the English Department? No, he got it on his own. They were glad to get him. He's a real scholar.”

“You meant that if he hadn't got this job—”

“He would have got another,” she said promptly, “but he might have had to go way out west, or down south. See, he's young—twenty-seven—and he's already published half a dozen papers. And he's an Old English man. That seems to mean a lot in English departments. I suppose because it's all dull stuff. You take someone in modern or contemporary literature, the stuff he has to read he'd be apt to read even if he weren't in the field. He'd read it for pleasure, if you see what I mean. But the Old English stuff, Anglo-Saxon, no one would read that unless he were involved in it. So the Old English people are apt to get preference because it's presumed that they must be scholars.”

“Then he wasn't anxious for tenure?”

“Of course he wanted it. Not only would it give him security here, but it would give him a leg up in applying for another job.”

“How about Victor Joyce?” he asked.

“Well, Victor was in a different situation entirely. He was older, in his thirties, and he hadn't done much, very little publishing, if any. His only chance against Mord Jacobs was that Merton was behind him.”

“I don't understand. What does Cyrus Merton have to do with it?”

She shrugged. “He was on the Faculty Committee of the Board of Trustees, chairman, I think. I guess they pass on faculty budgets and that sort of thing. I suppose the heads of departments naturally tend to keep on the good side of him.”

“How about the other members of the committee?”

“They could be important, too, but Merton is active. When there was a faculty raise a few years back, everyone thought it was he who pushed it through. They made him an honorary member of the faculty for it, a kind of joke, but they always invited him to the faculty dinner after that.”

“So that's how he happened to be there.”

“Uh-huh. Usually he'd just put in an appearance for a couple of minutes, but that night he decided to stay. Maybe he hadn't eaten yet and was hungry.”

“Maybe he came because Joyce was going to be there,” Lanigan suggested.

“Possible. He may have wanted to keep tabs on him. Victor was a chaser, you know.”

“A chaser?”

“That's right. The gossip around school was that any coed who sat in the front row and crossed her legs in one of his classes was sure of a good grade.”

“You mean he was apt to make a pass at one of the female guests?”

“There were a few that he might be interested in, and it could be one of the waitresses, or—”

He smiled. “Did he ever make a pass at you?”

“Oh yes.”

“And?”

“Oh, there were several times when he spent the night at my place. Shocked?”

“I've been a policeman all my adult life, Miss Saxon. It's not easy to shock me. But I wonder—you knew he was married.”

“Oh yes, and that his marriage was all washed up; that his wife was getting a separation and a civil divorce.”

“He told you that?”

“You're thinking it was a variation of the ‘my wife doesn't understand me' ploy.” She shook her head. “No. Helen Rosen, who lives next door to the Joyces, is a very good friend of mine, and we talk on the phone two or three times a week. She told me. Maybe if you ask the widow, she might be willing to confirm it.”

“Maybe I'll do that. And do you have a—a romantic interest in Jacobs?”

She laughed. “Hardly. I babysat with him when he was a youngster.”

“Yet he was with you all through the dinner.”

“Sure, we're good friends, very good friends. He didn't want to go to the dinner at all, but I persuaded him, so the least I could do was sit with him.”

“Why didn't he want to go and why did you persuade him?”

“He didn't want to go because he thought it would be a drag. He didn't go last year either. But Professor Sugrue, the head of his department, was on the banquet committee, and I thought Mord could score more points with him if he went. He'd been invited to a Bar Mitzvah for that same night, but I persuaded him to go to the faculty dinner instead. He left early because he saw that Victor had already left. So he felt that since his rival had gone, there was no reason why he should remain.”

“But he did set out for the Bar Mitzvah.”

“Oh yes.”

“And he didn't get there because he got lost. At least, that's what he told the Lerner girl.”

“Yes … Knowing Mord, it's not hard to imagine his getting lost. But I'm inclined to think he didn't spend too much time trying to find the place.”

“Why not?”

She thought for a moment and then said, “You've got to know Mord Jacobs to understand. He's old-fashioned, and small-town, and—and very young. In his mind, to come to dinner and meet a girl's parents is tantamount to announcing that you're planning to marry her.”

“And he isn't?”

“Oh, I expect he is—when he feels he can support her and ensure her of financial stability.”

“You mean when he got tenure?”

“Yes, I think that would do it.”

“But he was planning to go to the Bar Mitzvah,” Lanigan insisted.

“Ah, but that was different. It was a big party and there'd be all sorts of people there. So he agreed to go, and then I persuaded him to go to the faculty dinner instead.”

“And he left the dinner early.”

“Yes, and my guess is that it occurred to him that he'd be arriving late and alone, and that that would be interpreted as having the same significance as going to her house for dinner.”

“Then why did he bother? Why didn't he just stay on at the dinner, or go directly back to Boston?”

“Because he'd promised the girl, so he had to make the attempt.” She glanced at her watch. “Goodness, I've got to be getting back. Did you get all you need? Investigation narrowing down?”

“Investigations tend to expand,” he said. “It's only at the end, when they're almost over, that they narrow down.”

They walked back to the school together, and as she was about to turn away to enter the building, he said, “You know, you don't seem particularly upset over the death of—of—”

“Of someone I've slept with?” she finished for him. She smiled faintly as she considered. Then she said, “If the sexes were reversed, if I were the man and he a woman I had slept with, would you be surprised if I weren't terribly upset a week after he'd been in a fatal accident?”

Lanigan smiled. “I see. He was just a—a pretty face you picked up.”

“That's about it.” She smiled and waved and then turned to enter the building.

In his chair, tilted back and a foot braced against a protruding lower drawer, President Macomber leafed through the morning paper. Then an item in the back pages caught his attention and he straightened up and drew a line around it. He rang for his secretary and showed her the penciled item. “We must have got some notice of this, Janet,” he said.

She glanced over the item and said, “Oh, I'm sure they sent us a notice, but it would probably have gone to the Anthropology Department, or if it came to the university, it would have been sent over there for posting.”

“I don't suppose anyone is in the office now, but if they posted it on the bulletin board, it's probably still there. Look, would you run down and see if it's there? Oh, and bring it back with you if it is.”