Гарри Кемельман - Wednesday the Rabbi got wet

"But there have been Jewish mystics, haven't there?" Muntz objected. "I was reading—"

"Oh yes." the rabbi interrupted impatiently. "The Essenes, the Dead Sea community, the Kabbalists, the Sabbatean movement, and I might add. Christianity, all were mystical movements in Judaism. But we sloughed them off, because from the point of view of traditional, central Judaism, they are errors. Only Chasidism has persisted, and that's because their mysticism is in addition to their adherence to traditional ethics and the Jewish customs which reflect and symbolize them, the chasidic legends of wonder-working rebbes are so much superstitious nonsense. But the chasidic rebbe who is most revered is the one whose charitable way of life, whose concern for people, made him a saint."

Rabbi Small leaned forward. "I don't deny the validity of mystical experience. It's just that my bent is not in that direction. Perhaps it is a failing in me. But in the present case, we are breaking a Talmudic law which is clearly ethical, and peculiarly Jewish, I might add, in order to promote not religion but religiosity. You suggest that Mr. aptaker is not worthy of our concern. But how about Mr. Goralsky?"

The phone rang, and the rabbi picked up the receiver, as he listened his face grew grave. Finally, he said, "All right, I'll be right down." He turned to the doctor. "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me."

When he arrived at the police station, the rabbi found Akiva sitting on a bench in front of the sergeant's desk in the outer room. His eyes were closed, and there was a little smile on his face as though he were having a pleasant dream, the rabbi went over to the sergeant and nodded questioningly at the young man.

"He's been like that for the last ten or fifteen minutes," the sergeant explained in a whisper. "He comes out of the chiefs office and he says he's going to wait here for you, he asks me which way is east and he goes into the comer and just stands there like a kid in school, then he starts swaying and twisting and bending back and forth like he was doing exercises or maybe having a fit, and he's whispering to himself all the time. I couldn't hear him but I could see his lips moving."

"It's his way of praying." the rabbi explained with a smile.

"Is it now? Well, after a while he sits down and just closes his eyes. But I don't think he's sleeping."

When the rabbi sat down beside him, akiva opened his eyes, and with a broad smile said. "Hello. Rabbi. I sure appreciate your coming."

"The sergeant tells me you were praying."

"That's right. I recited the Shema over and over again."

"Why the Shema?"

"Because it's the only prayer I know by heart,” he said simply.

"Why are you here, Akrva?"

The young man shook his head, but he did not appear in the least upset, he even smiled.

"You certainly look a lot different from the way you sounded over the phone," the rabbi remarked.

"When I called, I was really freaked out," Akiva explained. "I just didn't know what was happening. It was like a nightmare, like everything was closing in on me, and then I made contact with my rebbe."

"What do you mean, you made contact with him?"

"I called to him and he appeared. I saw him as clearly as I see you now, he told me to pray and that everything would be all right. So I prayed and I feel fine now."

"Well, that's good. Now suppose you tell me just what thev want of vou. Over the phone you said—"

Akiva shook his head. "I don't know what they want, the chief had me come down and we just talked."

"Does he think you know something or did something?"

"He don't say, he asked me about my leaving town to go home after the big storm, and he asked me about a man named Kestler. I'm sure he's got me mixed up with somebody else. But don't you worry, Rabbi, everything is going to be all right."

"Because your rebbe said so?" Rabbi Small asked sourly. "That's right."

They talked for a while, the rabbi was unable to learn anything specific from Akiva, but as he began to understand what had happened, he grew indignant. Finally, he rose and strode into Lanigan's office.

"That's not like you, Chief," he said.

"Sit down. David. Now what is it that isn't like me?"

"This fishing expedition. If you’ve got something against Arnold Aptaker, tell him and then he can explain. If you think you have evidence of some crime, charge him so that he can set about defending himself. But just asking him to talk on the chance that he might say something that might incriminate him, that's not fair and I don't think it's even legal."

"I haven't arrested him and I'm not holding him. Believe me, David. I'm just trying to help him."

"But he doesn't know what it is you think he did."

"Oh, I believe he knows what he's done all right," said Lanigan confidently. "There's a chance, about one in a hundred, that it was an accident or an understandable mistake, well, let him level with me and I'll try to see it his way if lean."

"Then why not tell him outright and—"

"And let him start rigging explanations?" the chief said.

"No, sir. If he's innocent, if he did it without malice, if—" He broke off suddenly and looked sharply at his visitor from under bushy eyebrows. "You mean to say he has no idea of what I was driving at? No idea at all?"

The rabbi shook his head. "Was it some sort of highway accident the last time he was here? Does it have something to do with Kestler?"

Lanigan stared. "That's what he thinks? That's what he told you?" He smiled broadly. "He's putting you on."

"All right, then suppose you put me off."

"It has to do with Kestler all right, with the old man who died," Lanigan said. "Remember my coming to see you about it because the son, Joe, claimed it was the medicine that killed him? Well, he was right. But it wasn't Dr. Cohen's fault, he prescribed something called Limpidine." He pulled open a drawer and brought forth a bottle. "Here it is, that's what it says on the label, right? But what's in the bottle is not Limpidine. It's a form of penicillin, and the old man was allergic to it, which is why Cohen prescribed the Limpidine in the first place. So the mistake was made in the drugstore by the pharmacist."

Lanigan sat back and let his visitor digest the information. "All right, mistakes happen," he went on. "But when I inquired around I found that a mistake like that was all but impossible. It's about as unlikely as a housewife making the mistake of using the salt for the sugar in baking a cake, and why couldn't she make a mistake like that? Because for all that the two look alike, they come in different type packages and they're kept in totally different type containers, that's the kind of mistake she wouldn't make even if she were blindfolded, all right, so if it's not a mistake, it must have been done on purpose. Or can you think of a third possibility?"

"Go on."

"So now the question is who would do a thing like that?" Lanigan continued. "Obviously someone with a grievance against one or the other of the Kestlers. I say either Kestler because Dr. Cohen phoned in that prescription and gave the name Kestler as the patient, the pharmacist, Ross McLane, asked him for the initial, and he said J. But J could be either Jacob, the father, or Joseph, the son."

"Ross McLane took the prescription over the phone?" the rabbi asked. "He remembered it?"

Lanigan nodded approvingly. "You're thinking it's strange he should remember a prescription he took days before? Well, he did because the name Kestler meant something special to him. You see, he had a grievance against the old man."

"Well then—"

Lanigan held up a finger to halt the interruption. "There were three pharmacists at the Town-Line Drugs that night, and each and every one of them had a grievance against one or the other of the Kestlers. Ross McLane's was against the father; Marcus and Arnold Aptaker both had grievances against the son."