Гарри Кемельман - Wednesday the Rabbi got wet

"I mean about giving the prescription to young Aptaker to make up," Jennings said. "And since it happened a couple of weeks ago, Aptaker wouldn't remember and couldn't deny it."

Lanigan nodded. "On the other hand, you'd expect that the name Kestler on the prescription would ring a bell. But there are other things that incline me to believe McLane's story. Begin with the fact that he voluntarily told us about the prescription. If he were guilty of having deliberately given Kestler the wrong drug, he'd keep quiet about it."

"Unless he's smarter than you think."

"All right." said Lanigan. "Then consider this: McLane gets the prescription from Cohen over the phone, so there was nothing to prevent him from changing it to penicillin, he could insist that was what he had been told over the phone, and there'd be no way for Dr. Cohen to disprove it."

"But then he'd have to write penicillin on the label, and the chances are that Kestler would know his father couldn't take penicillin."

"No," said Lanigan, "he'd use the manufacturer's name for the drug, Vespids. Kestler wouldn't recognize that as penicillin. But then the more you think about it, the stranger young Aptaker's behavior appears, he comes here all the way from Philadelphia to see his folks. If he drove up, it's a long drive, and if he flew up, it's costly. If he was on vacation, you'd think he'd at least have a week. You'd expect he'd come up Sunday or Monday and stay through to the following Sunday."

"How do you know he didn't?" Jennings asked.

"Well, Eban, if we're to believe McLane, he left the next day, and on that, we've got to believe McLane, because it's something that we can check out easily enough with Marcus Aptaker or with Mrs. aptaker. But you'd think that if young Aptaker had arrived Monday, he would have gone to the store and his father would have introduced him to McLane. But no, he waits until Wednesday evening before coming in, and then the next day, he's gone."

"So what?"

"So it's strange," said Lanigan. "It's a long way to go for a one-day visit. On the other hand, if he did something criminal that Wednesday night because the opportunity happened to come up, then I could understand his running off the next day."

"Yeah, but he came back," Jennings objected.

"Sure, because it looks safe. Two weeks have gone by and there's been no mention of any police investigation in the papers—"

"Oh hell, how would he know if it was in the papers? He's in Philadelphia. Even if it made the Boston papers, it still wouldn't make the papers in Philly."

Lanigan dismissed the objection with a shake of the hand. "There are hometown newsstands in all large cities, there's the public library—"

"Thev wouldn't carry the Lynn Examiner, much less the Barnard's Crossing Courier," Jennings objected.

"He could have heard from his mother when they talked on the phone, that doesn't bother me any."

"Seems to me you've got your mind made up," said Jennings. "Are you going to charge Arnold?"

"I don't have enough yet, but I sure would like to talk to him."

"Want me to bring him in?"

"Right now, I don't feel that I have enough even for that."

"So you're going to wait until he gets a parking ticket?" asked Jennings.

Lanigan ignored the sarcasm. "What time does the drugstore close on Sundays?"

"Six o'clock. But you know how it is, sometimes he stays later, he wouldn't turn anyone away because it was closing time."

"Only one man on duty?" asked Lanigan.

"Yeah, young Aptaker. It's slow on Sundays, I guess."

"Good. So here's what I'd like you to do. Go down there a few minutes before six and sit in your car until you see him closing up, then you ask him to come here. Say that I want to talk to him."

"I don't arrest him?"

Lanigan shook his head. "No, just that I want to talk to him, that's if he's alone. If there's someone else there, let it ride."

What's it all about?" asked Arnold, he locked the door and then tried it by jiggling the knob.

"The chief wants to talk to you, that's all I know." said Jennings easily.

Arnold singled out the ignition key from the bunch on his ring and headed for his car, Jennings falling in step beside him. "If you're too busy to see him now, he can drop by your house tomorrow morning," said the lieutenant.

"No, that's all right. I have a date right now, but it's not— I mean, I can cancel it. Look here, if it's about the parking situation in front of the stores—"

"My car is right here." said Jennings. "I'll follow you down."

"The chiefs at the stationhouse?"

"Right."

When they arrived, Arnold used the pay telephone to call Leah. "Look. Leah, something's come up and I might be tied up for a while."

"Oh, that's all right. I'm kind of glad. I've been headachy all day. I might be coming down with something. I thought I'd get undressed and get into bed."

"Was that a lawyer you called?" asked Lanigan pleasantly.

"No, it was my date. Why should I call a lawyer? Say, what is all this anyway?"

"Come in and sit down." Lanigan led the way into his office and waited for the young man to be seated. "It's just that some people feel they need a lawyer when they come down to the stationhouse," said Lanigan genially. "You were here in town before, weren't you?"

"Sure, I was bom here. You know that."

"I mean recently," said Lanigan. "You were here a couple of weeks ago, that right?"

"Yeah, I had a week's vacation and I came home. What about it?"

"And while you were here, you worked in the store, didn't you?"

"That's right. One night, they were busy, and I came in to give them a hand."

"That was the night of the big storm?" "Uh-huh."

"You worked in the prescription room, filling prescriptions?"

"That's right."

"All the time you were there?"

"Right. My father was out front and Ross McLane, the other pharmacist, had a bunch of prescriptions he had to get out, so I helped him. Say, what is this? If you're worried about my Massachusetts license—"

"All in good time, Arnold. Now, did anything unusual happen while you were working on prescriptions?"

"Unusual? What do you mean? Unusual in what way?"

"In any way," said Lanigan blandly. "Unusual in any way at all, anything out of the ordinary, an unusual prescription maybe, or an unusual problem filling it."

Light dawned. "Oh, you mean when I knocked over the cough medicine? How'd you hear about that?"

"Never mind how I heard about it. Just tell me about it."

"Well, this customer came in with a prescription for cough syrup, and Ross started to fill it, we get it in these gallon jugs, see? But there wasn't enough in the jug. So that meant he had to go to the storeroom to get another jug. But it was exactly the same formula that's put up for us in four-ounce bottles under our own label by this drug house. So he had the idea of just getting one of these small bottles and using that instead of hassling the gallon jug out of the storeroom."

"Why didn't you just give the customer one of those four-ounce bottles the drug house puts up for you?" Lanigan asked, interested.

"Oh, you can't do that," said Arnold quickly.

"Why not?" the chief asked. "Because it's cheaper, and you won't make as much money on it?"

"Well, sure, but when a customer comes in with a prescription, you can't give him a patent medicine, the customer would feel, well, he'd feel that the doctor was cheating him, and the doctor wouldn't stand for it, he'd raise Cain, and maybe it wouldn't do the patient as much good as getting it in a prescription. Know what I mean?"

"I guess so, and then what happened?"

"This guy came in for a prescription and he was like in a hurry," Arnold continued. "And I guess he's some sort of big shot. So McLane left the half-full bottle standing there and started to work on this guy's prescription—"