Гарри Кемельман - Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

"All right, then I'll tell you what follows." said Rogers. "Lagrange says death occurred sometime between two-ten and two-forty? Let's call it half-past two. Now that means that Hendryx didn't go back to his apartment, but stayed there in his office, and that means that he was dead even before the committee came in to see the dean, and that means that someone had to come into his office, go around behind his desk, reach up somehow to where that statue is resting on the top shelf, and pull it down. Who can reach that top shelf? That's an old building there, with eleven-or twelve-foot ceilings. Our mysterious assailant would have to hop up on one of the lower shelves, maybe hang on with one hand while he grabbed at the statue with the other, and all the while Hendryx just sits there? He doesn't ask what the guy is doing?"

"What if he were asleep? What if he dozed off?"

"Then how did the person get into the office?" challenged Rogers. "It's locked."

"The door could have been open. I mean, the latch might not have caught when the rabbi left."

"Possibly, but just barely."

"And if the murderer had a long stick with a curved handle, like a cane, for example." said Ames, "then he could just hook the statue and pull it down."

"Sure, Brad, and then?"

"And then what?"

"And then how do you figure the pipe and the hassock and the open book in Hendryx's apartment?"

"Well, it's possible that the cleaning woman fibbed about that." said Ames. "Naturally, she'd want to get out as early as she could, and if she thought Hendryx wasn't likely to come back and check on her, she might have skimped and not done a thorough job."

"Then why didn't she say so?"

"Well, all I know is that if it was my cleaning woman she wouldn't want to say, they have a kind of professional pride."

"So question her again." said Rogers good-naturedly. "If you can make her change her story. I'll reconsider Lagrange's finding on the time of death."

At class reunions and other nostalgic get-togethers, the name of Bradford Ames always was good for intensive discussion.

«You saw Brad Ames? What's he doing now? Still assistant district attorney? It just goes to show how money can mess up a man's career." Karl Fisher, like the three friends he was lunching with at his club, was in his early fifties, they were all prosperous. «How do you mean?"

"Well, the rest of us, when we got out of law school we were all running around looking for a job." said Fisher. "And you know how many law firms were hiring and what they were paying in those days! So you opened an office of your own with the loan of a couple of hundred bucks from your father or your wife's father for some secondhand furniture and a Corpus Juris Cyc."

"When I got out." said Gordon Atwell. "I shared an office with six other guys, and let me tell you, we had to scratch between the seven of us to pay the one secretary her wages every week, and believe me, there was no chance of her getting rich on what we paid her."

"Right." said Fisher. "But we persisted, and gradually things got a little better, and after a while, lo and behold! we were making a living, and then it got to be a good living, and by the time we were in our forties, some of us had big practices, and some of us had become judges, and some had gone into politics and were in the legislature, and some got to be chief counsels for large corporations. I mean, most of us made good. Some of us awfully good.

«But that's because we all had to scratch. But when you're an Ames, and money doesn't mean anything, you don't think the same way, and your family doesn't think the same way, so you're not subject to the same kind of pressure we were, we had to go where the dough was, and we had to get cracking right away. Now/was interested in criminal law, but luckily I decided that I couldn't afford to practice it, or else I might’ve found myself working for the mob like Bob Schenk or more likely defending two-bit criminals whose widowed mothers had to mortgage the old homestead to pay my retainer. So I've been practicing real estate law, and as you guys know we've got a pretty sizeable outfit and I'm doing all right.»

Now Brad Ames was interested in criminal law, too, But for him it was no problem. His family got him a job as assistant district attorney for the county, and he's been there ever since, he not only practices criminal law, but he doesn't have to worry about bleeding some poor bastard's life savings for his fee, or worry that maybe the money he's paying him with is the money he stole, which is why he needs a lawyer in the first place.

«Of course, the salary of assistant district attorney isn't anything much. None of us could live on it, at least not the way we're accustomed to live. But to Brad Ames, it's just cigarette money anyway, he has no wife and there's no pressure from his family to keep scratching."

"Maybe." said Gordon Atwell, who looked younger than the others, "and then again, maybe there's a more personal reason."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Fisher.

«Well, you know the way Ames looks— that round head on the fat torso and the way he grins and chuckles all the time like some idiot—"

"Some idiot!" Andrew Howard laughed, he had a general practice and was the only one who engaged in criminal law. "You forgotten he made Law Review!" "I didn't say he was an idiot; I said he looked like an idiot. What I mean is he doesn't make the sort of impression that's apt to inspire confidence in a client." Atwell looked to Fisher for support.

«Don’t let any of that fool you." said Howard. "Maybe it's a kind of nervousness, but let me tell you, he can turn it off when he wants to, and when he does, watch out! I appeared against him once on a rape case. My client was a clean-cut young fellow, very cool and very much at ease. I had to put him on the stand, but I figured it would be all right, that he'd be able to handle himself, he told his story well, and I could see he was making a good impression on the jury, then Brad Ames started to cross-examine, he asked his questions, and they were good-natured. You know what I mean? No pressure, and that manner of his, he looked like a grinning buddha, and always with that little giggle as though it was some kind of joke. Pretty soon my client was relaxed and grinning, too. It was a regular tea party between them. Every once in a while Ames would slip in a question that wasn't according to Hoyle and my client would answer before I could object, the judge. Judge Lukens it was, would order it stricken. But the jury had already heard it. It went on like that for almost an hour, all nice and friendly, and then suddenly, Brad’s face tightens up and suddenly— goodbye, buddha, he holds up the girl's dress so the jury could see how it was ripped. 'And is this the way she took off her dress?' he asks. My client began to stutter and stammer, and right then and there I knew he was a goner."

"Oh, I don't deny he's good." said Fisher. "But it's still no sort of career— assistant district attorney. If he really had any drive, he would have got out of the D.A.'s office after a few years and used it as a stepping stone to private practice in criminal law, like Clyde Bell, or Amos Mahew."

"I don't agree." said Sam Curley, who had been silent until now. "I’ve had dealings with Brad off and on over the years. Our firm doesn't handle criminal business as such, but every now and then one of our clients, or some relative of a client, gets into trouble and they expect us to act for them. If it's anything serious, of course we'd farm it out to a Clyde Bell or somebody like that. But a lot of times, we'll handle it ourselves, about two or three years ago. I had a case and Brad was acting for the Commonwealth. It was during the summer and when I called Brad about it, he invited me to come down to their family place in Barnard's Crossing for the weekend, they got quite a place on the Point and the weather was nice and we did a bit of sailing, well, Sunday his older brother Stuart came down for dinner—"