Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Got it all wrapped up, have you?” asked Lanigan. “Know exactly how she did it? Why don’t you stick around till we get a confession from her, and then we might give you a copy to frame and stick up on the wall of your office?”

But Beam refused to be drawn. “Look, Chief, I’ve got a job to do same as you. It isn’t up to me to solve crimes. I just inquire around and then make a report to the home office. I spoke to them yesterday, and they decided there was sufficient question here to withhold payment to the widow for the present. If it turns out that she’s guilty, she wouldn’t collect anyway. As a matter of fact, without any other beneficiary the whole amount may escheat to the State. Of course, you may come up with someone else, in which case we’ll be happy to pay her.”

“And if we don’t come up with someone else, your company sits tight and tells the widow to sue if she wants her money. And God help her if she does, because you’ll dredge up every bit of scandal, any little tidbit of gossip, so that even if she wins she’ll be unable to go on living in the community.”

“No, Hugh,” said Jennings, “they just threaten to do that and then offer her ten cents on the dollar to settle.”

“That’s normal business procedure,” said Beam.

“I suppose next you’ll be off for South Bend to start smelling around.”

“Cops are always sore at private investigators,” said Beam philosophically. “And everybody has it in for the insurance company. We’re the big bad wolf when we come up before a jury, especially if there’s a good-looking dame involved. But I didn’t come here to fight with you boys. I just came to tell you I was being called back and to say goodby.”

“All right, goodby.” Morosely, Lanigan watched him leave the room.

“What do you think?” asked Jennings.

“I think he’d accuse his mother if he thought it would help the company.”

“It’s nice business. The widow practically has to prove she didn’t do it.”

“That’s right. And about the only way she can do so is for us to prove someone else did. And right now, we don’t have a thing.”

“Well, my money’s on Peter Dodge. I think it’s funny he left right after Fred Stahl’s Roundabout column. His landlady was under the impression he wasn’t planning to leave till the end of the week.”

“That could be coincidence. I’d be very much surprised if he read Stahl’s column.”

“Yeah? Then why hasn’t he been heard from since?”

“The chances are he’s been so involved with the Civil Rights business, running around attending meetings, that the police haven’t been able to locate him. Besides, I can’t see the police down there exactly knocking themselves out to find some Northern agitator for us. They’ve probably got their hands so full breaking up picket lines they haven’t the time to do their regular work.”

“A man like Dodge,” Jennings ruminated. “A big, tall, powerful, good-looking guy like that, you wouldn’t think he’d be too hard to spot.”

“For some reason, Eban, you’re always trying to tie in the clergy with some scandal. But the fact is, we don’t have a damn thing on him-”

“Except that he had the opportunity-he comes around that way every night at about the right time. He knew Mrs. Hirsh from way back, and she’s a nice-looking woman. He’s single and her age. You know, Hugh, the trouble with you Catholics is that your priests got you buffaloed so, you can’t even imagine a clergyman doing something wrong.”

“All right, all right. I didn’t say I wasn’t considering him. But I haven’t got him, and all I can do is wait until the Alabama police pick him up. When we get hold of him we can shake him up and turn him inside out to see what makes him tick, but I can’t just sit and twiddle my thumbs until he shows up.”

“So there’s this Marvin Brown.”

“We don’t really have anything on him.”

“Except that he was pretty damn uncooperative and evasive when I questioned him.”

“Yes-”

“And he has no alibi, and he refused to tell the rabbi why he left the services before the rest-”

“Sure, but that’s nothing I could go to the D.A. with.”

“All right, then how about Goralsky?”

“Now he interests me.”

“Why? You haven’t got any more on him than you do on Brown.”

“No? How about this?” He ticked the points off on his fingers. “One, he was not at the temple. Two, he had some special interest in getting Hirsh out of the cemetery. Three, he knew Hirsh from way back, and he’s the only man in town who did. Four, he was also in business with him and got rich from him. Finally, he got him the job at Goddard.”

“Yeah, but he never saw him after he got here.”

“That’s what he says.”

“It’s also what Mrs. Hirsh says.”

“He might have been in touch with him by phone-or secretly so she wouldn’t know.”

“Yeah, but that’s just a lot of maybes-he might have, he could’ve-”

“All right, let’s stick with what we do know. Goralsky and Hirsh were partners. Goralsky forced him out, and then right afterward built up the business to a multimillion-dollar concern. There at least we have a motive for the killing.”

“But godammit, Hugh, you’ve got it arse-backwards. In the business dealings between Hirsh and Goralsky, it wasn’t Goralsky that got screwed. It was the other way around. You’d have a motive for Hirsh killing Goralsky, but not-”

“How do we know what the relations were between them? Look, way back there was some trouble between them on a business deal. Right?”

“Right.”

“Then twenty years later, Hirsh asks Goralsky to recommend him for a job at the Goddard Lab, and he not only gives him an excellent recommendation, he practically rams him down their throats.”

“Right.”

“But then he refuses to see him after he gets here. Now those three things don’t jibe. If there was trouble between them, he wouldn’t have given him the recommendation and Hirsh wouldn’t have asked him for it. If he gave it and got him the job, he wouldn’t have refused to see him afterward. Now all that suggests just one thing to me.”

“Blackmail!”

“Right. And if you want to let your mind play a little, doesn’t it seem mighty funny that it was Hirsh who was responsible for throwing a monkey wrench into this merger business?”

“Hey-and that could be a good reason for Goralsky wanting to kill him.”

Lanigan considered. “That’s a little weak. For one thing, it isn’t a killing matter. And besides, the deal hasn’t fallen through-not yet. And since Hirsh was going to be fired anyway he wouldn’t be in a position to do any more damage.”

“But that’s just the point, Hugh.” Jennings was excited. “It’s like you’ve been saying all along-that this is the kind of killing where the motive could be weak.”

“Yeah,” said Lanigan, “and there’s nobody I’d rather pin it on.”

“I didn’t know you knew Goralsky.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why him?”

“Because I’m only human. The rabbi tried to tout me off, and Alf Braddock warned me that if I touched him he’d have my head. Well, I’d like to show the whole lot of them. Besides, if it should be the way we’ve figured-a weak motive-I’d get a lot of personal satisfaction telling it to the rabbi.”