Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet (30 page)

“It’s McLane’s morning on, he’s got a key.”

The rabbi tried another tack. “Why did you start out for Philadelphia in the middle of the night?”

“I’d rather not talk about that, Rabbi.”

“Then tell me why you subscribed to the Courier.”

Akiva began to laugh. “I wasn’t subscribing to no paper. Rabbi, that was a bribe I was giving Joe Purvis, he was being friendly and all that, but I still thought he might give me a ticket. If I offered him a bribe and he wasn’t on the take, I could be in deep trouble. But when he told me about his brother taking these subscriptions I gave him a fiver for one. I figured sure he’d keep it. I was pretty surprised when I actually got the paper delivered.”

“It would have been better for you if you hadn’t,” said the rabbi gloomily. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you now. If there’s anything I can do…”

“Yeah, there is at that, Rabbi. If you could drop off a siddur–”

“You want me to get you a prayerbook?”

“Sure. I’d like to recite some prayer besides the Shema.”

I thought you’d forgotten we were due at the Bernsteins,” said Miriam when her husband returned.

“No, I didn’t forget.” He told her what had happened. “Oh, his poor mother!”

“What’s that, the women’s lib point of view? What about his poor father? What about the poor young man himself?”

“Mrs. aptaker is the only one of the three I’ve really ever met. Do you think Akiva did it, David?”

He shook his head gloomily. “There’s no question that Lanigan has a good case against him, there’s motive – he had reason to hate Kestler, there’s the weapon – the medicine, and there’s opportunity – he was in the drugstore at the time when the prescription had to be filled, and it looks as though he filled it, at least, the other pharmacist says he did, and Akiva doesn’t deny it, then there’s the fact that he left town shortly after, which suggests guilt.”

“But then he came back.”

“True. But it was a couple of weeks later, and it could be argued that since there was no mention in the press that there was anything suspicious about Kestler’s death he felt it was safe to return. Particularly damning is that he took the trouble to subscribe to the town newspaper, that way he could know if the police were investigating the death.”

“It looks bad, doesn’t it, David?” she asked soberly. “M-hm.”

“And yet you don’t feel he’s guilty. Is it because he’s religious?”

“Religious? His religion wouldn’t keep him from killing Kestler. Quite the contrary.”

“I don’t understand,” she said simply.

“The outer forms of a religion aren’t important unless they reflect the basic philosophy and ethics that are inherent in it. I got a clue to Akiva’s philosophy when he tried to convince me that he had no hatred for Kestler. It was the mystical business of everything and everyone being part of the Eternal One, and you are your enemy and he is you, so why should you hate him or try to injure him? But you can work that in reverse. You can justify hurting someone on the grounds that you are really hurting yourself, and who has a better right? When I saw him, he wasn’t the least bit worried, and he should have been, even if he’s innocent. Innocent men do get convicted occasionally, and even if they’re acquitted, it’s a troublesome and expensive business. No, he should be worried, and if he isn’t, it’s because he’s rationalized and tricked his mind into not seeing the facts. If he can do that, he can also arrange his thinking to convince himself that he did not do something that he actually did.”

“Then why – ?”

“I suppose because I rather like him.”

“Look, David, if you’d prefer not to go tonight –”

“No, we might as well, there’s nothing more I can do for Arnold tonight – Oh yes, there is. I can bring him the siddur he asked for. Go ahead. Get dressed.”

“I am ready. I’ve just got to change.” She wriggled into a black sheath and then turned her back to him so that he could zip her up, then she handed him a string of pearls so that he could clasp them around her throat as she held up the hair at the back of her neck.

He looked at the clasp critically and said, “The string is worn through, there’s just a thread.”

“Oh, it’s all right.”

“But it can break, and –”

“No great harm if it does, David, they’re not real pearls, you know. It’s just costume jewelry, but it’s all I’ve got that will go with black.”

The rabbi waited at the front door, the prayerbook he was bringing to young Aptaker in one hand while he jingled his keys impatiently in the other, as Miriam gave last-minute instructions to the baby-sitter. In the car, she reached up and pulled at the shoulder harness and buckled it at her waist, then she tightened the strap, the rabbi’s driving was erratic at best, but when he was moody and abstracted as he was now, he was given to sudden bursts of speed and equally sudden applications of the brake, which she assumed mirrored his flow of thought.

“All right, where to?”

“The Bernsteins, dear, on Harris Lane.”

“Where’s Harris Lane?”

“Oh, it’s in that very nice section where all the big shots live, the Epsteins, the Dreyfusses. It’s right around the corner from the Saffersteins.”

“I don’t know where the Saffersteins live.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll direct you. Go down to the Salem Road, then you turn off on Minerva Road –”

“I know where Minerva Road is,” the rabbi said petulantly. “Well, Harris Lane is off the upper part of Minerva.”

He drove along the Salem Road and passed the Goralsky Block.

“Minerva Road,” she murmured.

He gave her an indignant glance, “I know, I know,” and made the turn, after a couple of minutes, he nodded back and remarked. “That’s the Kestler house.”

“The white one?”

He glanced at the rearview mirror and said. “No; the brown one before it.”

“There were a lot of cars in front. Do you suppose they were having a party?”

“It doesn’t seem likely,” the rabbi said. “It’s probably the people from the white house. Kestler is certainly not observant. Did I tell you about his playing cards with his wife during the mourning week? But I’m sure he wouldn’t have a party a couple of weeks after his father died, if only because he’d consider it bad luck. His wife would be even more apt to. I imagine. It certainly wouldn’t be observance of the mourning regulations with her, since I’m sure she’s not Jewish.”

“How did you know? Did she tell you?”

“With the name Christine?” The rabbi laughed. “The first time I came there to see the old man, she bobbed a curtsy to me the way Irish country girls do to priests. I had to explain to her –”

“Stop!” Miriam called out.

He jammed on the brakes, and she was thrown against the harness.

“It’s back there. David. You passed it.”

“There was no street there, just an alley.”

“Well, that’s Harris Lane. It opens up into a circle. You’ll have to turn around.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mrs. Bernstein said it was two houses before the Safferstein house and that’s the Safferstein house, so that must be it. O-oh!”

“Now, what is it?” he asked testily. “Oh, David, my pearls broke.”

“I told you –”

“It was when you jammed on the brake,” she said accusingly. “I was thrown against the shoulder strap.”

She reached up and, gathering the broken strand, she handed it to her husband. “Here, put them in your pocket. Careful! They’re falling off the string, there’s one on the floor.” She squirmed. “Ooh, one went down the back of my neck. It’s caught on my bra.”

“Well, if you think I’m going to unzip you here on the street… Get out and you can jump up and down and maybe dislodge it.”

Unfastening her safety belt, Miriam opened the door, as she slid off the seat, another bead rolled off her lap onto the car cushion. “There’s another one, David. It’s gone down in the crack between the seat and the back cushion.” Outside now, she bent forward into the car and with splayed fingers extended groped down into the crack. “No, I can’t reach it.”

“Get in,” he said.

“But David –”

“Get in,” he ordered peremptorily.

He set the car in motion. “Harris Lane is back there,” she said meekly. “Aren’t you going to turn?”

“I want to go to the stationhouse first.”

She remembered the prayerbook on the seat between them. “Oh well, coming back, it will be on the right, and there’ll be no chance of missing it.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get to the party in good time.”

He drove to the end of Minerva Road and then headed for the center of town, negotiating the narrow crooked streets with reckless speed until he reached the police station, he was out of the car and running up the granite steps of the stationhouse when Miriam noticed that he had forgotten to take the prayerbook with him. Shaking her head at his characteristic absent-mindedness, she picked up the siddur and followed him.

Chief Lanigan, coat in hand, came out of his office. “Hello. David.” He looked beyond him. “And Miriam, too. What’s up?”

“Miriam lost her pearls,” the rabbi gasped.

“You mean they were stolen? You’ve come to report a theft?”

“No, no, she was wearing them.”

“They’re not real pearls, Chief,” Miriam explained, “and the string was frayed.”

“Then…” Lanigan looked from one to the other. “You better come in.” He led the way into his office. “Now what’s this all about?”

“The pearls,” the rabbi began. “Miriam broke the strand and it gave me an idea about this business. Your theory is that Arnold switched the bottles while McLane was away from his station getting the mop or while he was cleaning up. Now picture it, they each have a pill counter in front of them. It’s a kind of plastic tray with a trough on the side, they count out the pills on the tray and then tilt it so the pills slide or roll into the trough, there’s a spout on the trough that they insert in the bottle, and the pills slide down. No chance of a pill rolling away.”

“I’ve seen them.”

“Now suppose you want to switch the pills after they’ve been put up in their proper bottles.”

“Then you dump them back in the trays again,” said Lanigan promptly, “and you switch trays.”

“Right.” said the rabbi. “And in either case, there would be the right number of pills in each bottle. But suppose you didn’t have a tray, not even a table, then how would you make the switch? You’d have to empty one bottle into the palm of your hand, then you pour the contents of the second bottle into the empty bottle, then you have to feed the pills you’ve got in the palm of your hand into the second bottle, and it would be a miracle if one didn’t roll away.”

“What are you suggesting, David?”

“That it was Safferstein who switched those pills, while he was sitting in his car under the street lamp, before the cruising car came along.”

“Just because there was a pill missing?” Lanigan smiled. “You yourself suggested half a dozen ways in which that pill could be missing when I first spoke to you about it.”

“True,” the rabbi admitted, “but we also have to keep in mind that he had both bottles and time enough to make the switch without fear of being observed.”

“But why would he want to hurt the Kestlers? He didn’t even know them.”

“He didn’t?”

“No, and they didn’t know him.”

The rabbi nodded as he digested this information. “All right, then let’s consider all possibilities.”

“You going to work some of that whatdoyoucallit – pulpil – on me?” asked Lanigan.

“Pilpul,” the rabbi corrected. “Why not? Talmudic pilpul is just logical reasoning that makes use of fine distinctions.”

The chief grinned. “Go ahead. I’m in no hurry. It’s you folks who seem to be dressed for the evening.”

“The Bernsteins are expecting us,” Miriam reminded him. “They’re having a lot of people over.”

“Then we won’t be missed,” the rabbi answered tartly. “Besides, no one comes on time.” He turned to Lanigan. “Let’s suppose it was Safferstein.”

“Why should we?”

“Why shouldn’t we? It’s only an assumption, something to start on. Besides, there are the reasons I gave, so it isn’t a frivolous assumption.”

“All right.” Lanigan tossed his coat on the desk, and motioning his visitors to seats, he pulled back his swivel chair. Miriam sat down, but her husband remained standing.

“Let’s clear the ground first,” the rabbi began. “How?”

“Oh, by eliminating the obvious,” said the rabbi breezily. “I mean, that if we assume that Safferstein switched the pills, then it couldn’t have been an accident.”

“It was you who urged it was an accident originally,” Lanigan pointed out smugly.

“But that was when we thought it happened in the drugstore, there, however unlikely, it’s possible. But not sitting alone in the car like a small boy who might play with them and then get them in the wrong bottles.”

Lanigan grinned. “I guess I can allow that.”

“So it was intentional.” the rabbi continued, “whether as a joke, or –”

“I can’t see how a grown man could possibly consider it a joke to switch medicines on a couple of sick people, one of them his wife.”

“Neither can I.” said the rabbi. “So it means he did it to hurt someone, and probably not Kestler, since he didn’t know him. But that suggests Mrs. Safferstein as the intended victim.”

“Not a very good suggestion.” said Lanigan. “If it was his wife he wanted to hurt, he would have gone right home and given her one of the pills. But he didn’t go home at all, he went to the Kaplan house instead.”

“Why?”

“He said because it was storming so hard and he wanted to get in out of the weather.”

The rabbi began pacing the floor, his head back and his eyes fixed on the ceiling as the others watched, he stopped suddenly and turned to Lanigan. “Do you know where Kaplan’s house is?”

“Of course.”

“And Safferstein, do you know where he lives?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, I just found out.” said the rabbi. “Safferstein’s house is no further from Town-Line Drugs than Kaplan’s. So if he were bothered about driving in the storm, he could just as easily have driven home.”

Lanigan’s brow furrowed, and his head made little motions as he followed the two routes in his mind’s eye. Finally, he nodded. “You’re right, give or take fifty yards.”