“I’m not sure I understand what you’re driving at,” said Lanigan.
“Include me,” said Beam.
“Very well. Hirsh brings the car to a stop. He can’t get out on the driver’s side. No room. So he gets out on the passenger side. He nudges the barrel out of the way, walks to the front of the garage and pulls the door down. Very good! Now he comes back to the front seat of the car. He passes the barrel. What does he do? Pull it back in position again? Why would he do that?”
“Why-why he must have,” exclaimed Lanigan. “Or maybe when he pushed it away the first time, he pushed it so hard he sent it spinning and-no, that doesn’t make sense either.” He glared at the rabbi. “Dammit, we know he couldn’t get out on the driver’s side. We know that. It was physically impossible. And now it seems he didn’t get out on the other side. But those are the only two ways of getting out of the car, so-”
“Go on, say it. If he didn’t get out on either side, then he didn’t get out of the car. But the garage door was down, so it must have been pulled down by someone else. And that person, in all likelihood, was the driver. And Hirsh was sitting on the passenger side, because he was indeed the passenger. And that in turn could explain how a man could consume a pint of liquor and yet travel by automobile ten miles or more and park his car in his garage. There was no problem because he was not driving; he was being driven. And when they got to the garage, the driver, a much thinner person than Hirsh, got out of the car on the driver’s side, pulled down the garage door and walked away. And Hirsh did nothing about it because he was either too drunk to know what was happening, or more likely, had passed out completely.”
Lanigan stared at the rabbi. “But that’s murder!”
The rabbi nodded…
An hour later, they were still at it.
“It’s crazy, Rabbi.”
“But it fits all the facts. There are obvious objections to suicide, and similar strong arguments against accidental death, but there are no logical arguments against murder. On the contrary, murder explains everything.”
“And I thought I was in the clear,” said Lanigan ruefully.
“Are you going to report it to the district attorney?” asked the rabbi.
“I can’t right now. First I’ve got to check it out.”
“Check it out how?”
“I’ve got to talk to my boys. Maybe they didn’t shoot that picture as soon as they raised the garage door. Maybe they circled the car first, I don’t know, but I’ve got a lot of questions.”
The chief was unhappy. “Hell, I’ll need some kind of legal proof. I can’t go to the D.A. and he can’t go to a jury with this-this chop logic of yours, Rabbi. I’m not even sure I could repeat it. I need something definite. I’ve got to be able to prove beyond a doubt that the barrel wasn’t moved. I’ve got to prove beyond a doubt that Hirsh couldn’t have got by that barrel. I’ve got to have accurate measurements.”
“You said Hirsh was short, five feet three. The chances are the driver was taller,” said the rabbi. “Wouldn’t the position of the car seat-if it were pushed back, that is-indicate that someone else was driving?”
“You would bring that up,” said Lanigan morosely. “Trouble is, the police officer who found the body could have changed the position. If not, we probably would have done so to get the body out. In any case, Sergeant Jeffers, who is close to six feet, would have pushed it back to drive the car to the station, and even if he remembered doing it I couldn’t accept that as evidence. No, we flubbed it all right.” He threw up his hands. “But how could we know it was anything except a straightforward case of suicide or accident?”
“Fingerprints?” suggested Beam.
Lanigan shook his head dolefully. “We didn’t take any. Why should we? The patrolman who found him opened the car door, and later we were all over the car getting him out. Any fingerprints would be on the door handles, the steering wheel, and the gear shift, and they would be obliterated.”
“How about the light control?” asked the rabbi.
“You mean for the headlights?”
“Someone turned them off that night.”
“So?”
“Well, if the car was driven to the police garage by day, there’d be no need to put them on again.”
“By God, you’re right, Rabbi! They would have no reason to touch the button. It’s a chance. The car has been under seal ever since.”
He reached for the phone and dialed. “I’ll get Lieutenant Jennings-he’s our fingerprint expert.” Then into the phone, he said, “Eban, Lanigan. Meet me at the station house in five minutes. No, I’m not there yet but I’ll be there by the time you are. Come along, Rabbi?”
“I think he’d better stay right here,” said Miriam.
“Maybe you’re right. I’ll call you.”
“Mind if I go along, Chief?” asked Beam.
“Come on, if you’re sure you’re all through here.”
Beam’s eyes all but vanished as he smiled. “The rabbi has convinced me it’s murder. But I’ll be staying in town a little while. There are a few points I want to clear up. When I talked to Mrs. Marcus, she said they called home to say they’d be late and there was no answer. They tried again when they arrived at their friends’ house, and the phone rang for the longest time before Mrs. Hirsh answered. She said she’d been napping.”
“So?”
“So maybe the reason she didn’t answer was not because she was asleep but because she wasn’t there.”
“Mrs. Hirsh?” Lanigan exclaimed. “But how could she be involved? She doesn’t know how to drive.”
“She doesn’t have to-only how to pull down the garage door.”
“You mean she might have done it? Mrs. Hirsh?”
“Done it, or helped to do it.”
“Why do you want to pin it on her?”
Beam smiled. “Because the law says a murderer can’t benefit from his crime.”
“Rabbi?” It was Chief Lanigan calling from the station.
“Yes?” He had been pacing the floor impatiently, waiting for the call. The moment the phone rang he snatched it up.
“There were no prints on the light button.”
“No prints? But there had to be. The car was driven at night, so somebody had to turn them off.”
“Wiped clean,” said Lanigan grimly. “You know what that means?”
“I-I think so.”
“No chance of the driver saying he walked away and forgot to turn off the motor. He knew what he was doing, all right, which makes it first-degree murder.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Reverend Peter Dodge stood framed in the door-way, one hand resting on either doorjamb like Samson about to collapse the temple.
“Why, look who’s here, David,” Miriam said. “Come in.”
His handsome head instinctively lowered to enter. “I heard you were a bit under the weather, David, and decided to include you in my pastoral calls.”
“That was thoughtful of you, but it was just a touch of the virus. I’ll be going to services tomorrow.”
“Your trouble, David, is you don’t get enough exercise. I wouldn’t recommend anything strenuous, but you ought at least to arrange time for a nice long walk every day. It will firm up your muscle tone. Now every evening without fail I take a regular walk over a regular route. It’s exactly four and six-tenths miles, and I do it in just over an hour, depending on whether I meet anyone. And most afternoons when I can manage it I get in a couple of sets of tennis.”
“Where do you play?”
