Гарри Кемельман - Thursday The Rabbi Walked Out

"Oh, I don't think Stanley is apt to go to the police. Why should he?" He went on to explain at some length that people did not normally go running to the police, even when they had important information, simply because they didn't want to get involved; that people like Stanley who got drunk occasionally and were apt to get arrested for it were even less likely to help the police; that they had an innate antipathy toward them; that she had nothina to fear.

But he saw that she was not convinced. Finally he said. "I'll tell you what. I'll go to the rabbi and ask him what we ought to do."

"What's he got to do with it? Why go to him?"

"Because he is very friendly with Chief Lanigan, they see each other socially, I understand. I could explain to him just exactly how it happened, after all, he knows us and he knows my mother, maybe he'd be willing to talk to Lanigan, and we wouldn't have to. Or at least he'd smooth the way for us."

"No, we can't go to the rabbi for help." "Why not?"

"Because we wouldn't feel right about it, here, I—we have been working to get him out, we can't just turn around and ask him to help us."

He grinned. "Don't let that worry you. Because I voted for him, and I guess it was my vote that settled it."

" You voted for him?"

Too late he realized he had talked himself into a trap and that his best course was to make a clean breast of it.

"I was jealous,” he said candidly. "That night when you went out, Henry Maltzman came to the service at the temple late, after nine, and then last Sunday when I went out for the paper, he was here and you seemed to be—you know—awfully friendly, and then today you went out to this bridge thing, and when I got to the meeting. I found that Henry had called to say he wasn't going to make the scene. So I put two and two together and—"

"You were jealous of Henry Maltzman? You thought I might be playing around with Henry Maltzman? I would have thought you'd know me better than to think I'd be attracted to a professional macho type like Henry Maltzman."

"Forgive me,” he begged. "I love you so much. Molly, that sometimes I just can't think straight."

She relented, he was such a boy, she came over and, putting her arms around him, murmured. "Silly Herbie."

He brightened. "But it all worked out for the best, didn't it? Because now I've got the right to ask the rabbi for a favor."

"YOU SEE, RABBI, SHE'S SO LOYAL. WHEN SHE SENSED THAT Gore was upset that he wouldn't be able to get that report in the old man's hands on time, she offered to bring it over. I guess she thought Gore might lose the account. Jordan was that type of man." He laughed. "The funny part of the whole thing is that the report didn't even balance."

"Then what was the point of bringing it since it was incomplete?"

"That was my view, Rabbi. But Gore felt that what was important was to get it in on time."

"And she couldn't tell the detective that she had gone there because you were present during the interrogation?"

"That's right, she was planning to see him afterward and tell him, but you know how it is, she kept putting it off."

"Does she know that it was your mother who told you that she left the house?"

"Uh-uh, she thought it was Stanley, because I'd just coma from the temple, from the board meeting, you know—" "Why Stanley?"

"Well, she thought she'd seen his car just as she was turning into Jordon's driveway, and she assumed he saw her, and I let her think so. I mean. I didn't contradict her."

"I see. Now what do you want me to do?"

"Well, I thought where you and Chief Lanigan are supposed to be so friendly. I thought maybe you could explain it to him, just how it happened." He looked eagerly at the rabbi.

"No, Mr. Mandell. You must see that it wouldn't do. Chief Lanigan would still have to question your wife, that's his job, and the net effect of my trying to smooth the ground first would only make him suspicious."

"So what should we do?"

"My advice, Mr. Mandell, is that you and your wife go and see Chief Lanigan as soon as possible, this afternoon, or right now, if you can, and tell him the whole story just as you've told it to me, he may be annoyed with you foa waiting this long, but the longer you wait, the worse it will be, and if he finds out on his own, it could be very serious for you."

Later when Miriam noticed that the rabbi appeared to be unusually abstracted, she asked. "Are you bothered about the Mandells. David? Do you think Lanigan will give them a rough time?"

"Oh, I'm sure he will, if only to impress on them the seriousness of withholding evidence from the police in a capital case. But a lot of it will be put on, because he knows that people do it all the time, he's told me on more than one occasion that it's one of the facts of life as far as the police are concerned. What bothers me is that Mrs. Mandell's story tends to show that Stanley was near the Jordon house at the crucial time, and Lanigan might decide to follow that line and pull him in."

"But he's innocent—"

"Then he'll get off eventually. I suppose. But in the meantime they'd give him a hard time, they might reason that if she was able to identify his car, he should have been able to identify hers, and that in not telling them he was concealing information."

"But Mr. Mandell didn't find out from Stanley. It was his mother who told him that Molly had gone out."

"True. But Mr. Mandell won't dare say so, because his wife will be there and he doesn't want her to know. It seems terribly unfair to Stanley somehow."

A couple of hours later, however, the rabbi received a telephone call that proved his fears were groundless, or at least misplaced. It was from Herb Mandell, he was angry, perhaps a little frightened. It showed in the sarcasm of his tone. "I want to thank you for your advice, Rabbi, we did exactly as you suggested. Lanigan questioned Molly for over an hour, he had the poor girl crying before he was through. But that's not all, he told her he didn't want her leaving town. Thanks to your advice, she's now a suspect and will be followed everywhere she goes by cops."

"Oh, surely not—"

"No? Well a few minutes ago I looked out the window, and there's a car parked in our street, diagonally across from our house, and there are a couple of cops sitting in it, and I'll bet you everything you like there's one parked on Francis Street, too, so they can see if anyone comes out the back door."

"I'm sure you must be mistaken. Mr. Mandell. Chief Lanigan may want her to be available to give evidence. If you like. I'll get in touch with him and find out, if I can, just what the situation is."

"I'd like."

AFTER RELEASING MALTZMAN, LANIGAN HAD SUGGESTED TO Jennings that he go on home and relax a little.

"Good idea, Hugh, the missus has been complaining about eating alone the last couple weeks. How about you? Why don't you go home, too?"

"I will a little later. I want to get everything organized for my meeting with Clegg first. I'll see you in the morning."

Not many hours later, however, while he was dozing on the divan in the midst of the litter of the Sunday paper. Jennings was awakened by a call from Lanigan, there were new developments. Could he come down?

He could tell that his chief was excited. "I'll be right over. Hugh."

Although he arrived in less than ten minutes. Lanigan growled at him. "What kept you?" And as Jennings, his Adam's apple bobbling, was on the point of being indignant. "Never mind. For the first time, we've got a break, we can place someone at the scene just about tha time the murder happened, we don't have to prove it, she admits it."

"She?"

"Right." He told of the Mandells coming to see him. "From the beginning. I've felt the pattern of the shooting was the basic clue in this case. Doc Mokely put his finger on it when he said it was like a woman shutting her eyes and firing away until the gun was empty, and that's exactly the way it looked to me, that's why I was so anxious to trace Martha's movements. When we had to cross her off, I thought the boy might fill the bill, but I wasn't happy with the idea. So along comes another woman—"