purse.”
He looked over her shoulder as she leafed through the pages.
“It doesn’t say much about death,” she remarked, “Just praises God. Oh, here’s a section-‘O God, who art full of compassion… grant perfect rest beneath the shelter of Thy divine Presence… We beseech thee… shelter him evermore under the cover of Thy wings…’ It says
“That’s just a transliteration of the Hebrew. That must have been what the cantor chanted. You remember in the middle he said Ike’s name. Here, you see there’s a dash where you supply the name of the deceased.”
“Oh, yes. Didn’t he have a lovely voice?”
“It was kind of eerie, all that twisting and turning-in a minor key.”
“Yes, but it reminded me of Ike somehow. You know, he used to sing like that sometimes. Not sing exactly, but kind of hum. Sometimes when he was trying to work something out in his head, he would walk up and down the room and hum that way to himself. Poor Ike. He was alone so much of the time. He had no family, no friends. He had cut himself off from his own kind-”
He was afraid she was going to break down. “There were a lot more people there than I expected would be,” he said to change the subject.
She brightened. “Yes, weren’t there? Of course, I knew Liz Marcus was going to come. But the Levensons, and Aaron and Molly Drake, I wasn’t sure they could make it. They’ve been good friends. That little thin man was Mr. Brown the insurance agent. I was surprised he came.”
“He’s also chairman of the Cemetery Committee. I guess he wanted to make sure everything went off all right.”
“Who were those three people standing together behind the rabbi?”
“They were from Goddard. One is a general handyman we have and the other two were technicians. They were all friends of your husband.”
“It was nice of them to come. And did you see Peter Dodge?”
He grinned. “I noticed he wasn’t wearing his collar.”
“Well, under the circumstances I think that’s only natural,” she said defensively. “Who was that tall, heavy man who kept pretty much to himself?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Didn’t you know?”
She shook her head.
“That’s the great Mr. Goralsky, Mr. Benjamin Goralsky, financial genius, president of Goraltronics.”
“What a shame I didn’t know,” she said. “I would have thanked him for coming today, a busy man like that. He left right after it was over, though.”
“Yes. His mother is buried there and I guess he wanted to visit her grave.”
“It’s a very nice cemetery, don’t you think? Ike would have liked it, a big field on a hill out in the country and all.”
“There were only about two or three graves.”
“Well, I suppose that’s because it’s new. Probably in time they’ll have to put in a road and replace that broken wire fence, but I like the way it is right now. And Ike’s grave, right there near the entrance. Everyone will have to pass by-”
He sat down on the arm of the sofa.
“I meant to ask you, Dr. Sykes. Who was the little red-faced man?”
“No one I ever saw.”
“He kept eyeing me all through the service. Every time I’d look up, he was looking at me.”
“That’s only natural. You were the principal mourner.”
“No, everyone else looked at the rabbi or the cantor.”
“Maybe it was a friend of Dodge’s; they were standing next to each other. Here he comes now. We can ask him.”
He opened the door for Peter Dodge and the two men shook hands ceremoniously. “You did a wonderful job,” Dodge said. “Everything went off splendidly. I would have offered to help, but it might have proved a bit awkward, you understand-”
“Of course. And I really didn’t have to do much, the people at the temple took care of most everything. Well, now that you’re here and Mrs. Hirsh is in good hands I’d better be getting back to the lab.”
“Oh, do you have to go now, Dr. Sykes?” She held out her hand. “I haven’t really thanked you for all you’ve done. You’ve been just wonderful.”
“Glad I could help. Your husband was a friend, a real friend. He’ll be deeply missed. Oh, by the way,” he said to Dodge, “who was the short little man standing beside you?”
The minister shook his head. “Don’t know. Why?”
“We thought perhaps he was a friend of yours. Well, he must have been someone from the temple.”
“You think so? He didn’t look Jewish.”
“How can you tell these days?”
Both men laughed. Dodge watched through the open door until Sykes had climbed into his car, then shut the door and turned to Pat. He took her hands in his, and holding them wide apart looked at her, his eyes shining with admiration. “You were magnificent, Pat,” he said. “A couple of times, I thought you were going to break down, but you rallied splendidly. I can’t tell you how proud I was of you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Goraltronics plant, set back from Route 128 by half an acre of carefully tended lawn, was a one-story building covering two and a half acres with a parking space in the rear for four hundred cars. Seated in his modern office with discreet gray carpeting, the president of the corporation, Mr. Benjamin Goralsky, glanced at the calling card and snapped the corner of it with his thumb. “ ‘Investigator,’ ” he read aloud. “That’s a detective. I saw you at the funeral. You don’t look much like a detective, Mr. Beam.”
The figure in the visitor’s chair on the other side of the curved slab of teak that comprised Goralsky’s desk was short and fat with a round red face like an Edam cheese. His dark eyes all but disappeared when he laughed. He laughed easily.
“I don’t suppose any detective that looked like one would be worth much,” he said and smiled. “But I’m not a detective-at least, not the kind you read about. I don’t carry a gun and go around rescuing beautiful blondes. I just ask questions.”
“And you want to ask me some questions about Isaac Hirsh. Why me?”
“Well, for one thing, Mr. Goralsky, you were at the funeral. Everybody else I could account for: they were friends of the widow, or associates of the deceased, or officials of the temple. But I couldn’t understand why a big, important businessman like you would be there. And in the middle of a working day too.”
“It’s what we call a
“I see.”
“But what’s all this about? Does your company always make this kind of investigation before settling a claim?”
“Only where there’s a question, Mr. Goralsky.”
“What sort of question?”
“Well, when a man drives into his garage, turns off the headlights, closes the garage door behind him, and then is found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning there’s always a question.”
“Suicide?”
“Isaac Hirsh took out an insurance policy of twenty-five thousand dollars less than a year ago. There’s a two- year suicide clause on all our policies and double indemnity for accidental death. If his death was an accident, the
