Boston Cream

CHAPTER 31

Rabbi Ed let me into the house, wearing a cabled grey cardigan over a white Oxford shirt and black jeans. As he turned to shut the door, I went straight to the dining room table. I wanted no more of closed, quiet rooms filled with the leathery smell of old books full of high ideals. I wanted to be in the open with him, and with Shana if she chose to be part of this. And wasn’t that going to be fun?

The rabbi used a dimmer to fill the afternoon light in the dining room with a soft yellow glow. Shana was across the butcher-block island in the kitchen, dressed in jeans with a white blouse and a man’s suit vest over it. I smiled at her but could tell how forced it felt; she did too, I guess, because she didn’t smile back. But she did offer coffee. I said yes and she started putting a pot together, measuring out dark grounds from a Starbucks bag she took from the freezer.

“It’s terrible news about David,” Rabbi Ed said. “I’m simply heartbroken for his parents. They sound like wonderful people. I was so hopeful this was going to turn out right.”

“It hasn’t turned out so bad,” I said.

“What? How can you say that? David is dead. Your partner is being held hostage.”

“For you, I meant.”

He drew back as Shana looked at me with anger. She said, “That was totally inappropriate.”

“You got everything you wanted out of the deal,” I said to him. “McConnell would make sure you got federal funding. Urban renewal, that’s his thing. Zoning problems would go away. His wife would make a personal contribution to the capital campaign once she got the new kidney you lined up for her.”

“I know this has been an upsetting day for you,” he said in a soothing voice, the one he probably used to counsel his flock.

“You spent your life telling the truth, Rabbi,” I said. “So you’re not a very good liar. You said David never told you anything about the organ trade the night he was here.”

“That’s right.”

“But Mrs. McConnell’s operation was lined up the next day.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You’re the only link between all the players. You put the congressman and Stayner together. David had already told you about this, hadn’t he? During one of your confessional tete-a-tetes.”

“I told you I wasn’t prepared to discuss that.”

“He told you about the illegal operation he’d been dragged into and the death of one of the donors.”

“Jonah,” Shana said, “unless you can prove all of this I think you should just stop the wild accusations. This is our house you’re in.”

“Such a nice house,” I said. “Such a warm house. Built by such a warm-hearted man. A builder and a ribbon cutter, a pillar of Brookline. They ought to paint a mural of him on Harvard Street.”

“I said stop.”

“Let him stop me,” I said. “Tell me which part isn’t true, Ed. David is dead, there are no more confidences to keep.” I looked at Shana; she glared at me, her fists clenched tightly at her sides.

He took a deep breath, as if a man of his girth needed to fill himself with more air than most. “What are you, thirty-three, thirty-four years old?”

“Close enough.”

“What do you know about building a shul like Adath Israel? Yes, I cut the ribbons and broke the ground. From a small shul to an expanded one to a second building. I founded the day school, the men’s choir, the adult education program, the youth basketball club. For twenty-five years, there was virtually nothing in that building I did not initiate or bring to life.”

“So why quit?”

“I didn’t plan to. I thought I’d stay there until I retired. But it was time to build a new complex. We had outgrown the old one. It had always been a patchwork affair-one building here, one there, with a walkway connecting them, which could, by the way, fall apart any day. Through a developer I know, up came an opportunity to acquire land in a good location nearby and build the kind of synagogue Brookline should have: a new sanctuary and admin wing, a bigger school, more gym and childcare space. There were naming opportunities galore. Fantastic plans another friend of mine drew up for nothing. And the board of directors turned it down. They said it was the wrong time to build, what with the economy bouncing around like a basketball. I argued the opposite. Workmen were out of work. Materials were cheap. The land was there at a buyer’s price. They said no, no, no. It was too expensive. The timing was bad, it sent the wrong message, the naming opportunities might not be there-every excuse. And after twenty-five years, all the battles, Jonah, the joy, of course, the opportunity to do a lot of good, but the grief too, to have endured all that and be turned down by these pishers? That was it. I took a leave of absence, during which I looked at other opportunities, and came up with the idea of the Shul on the Hill. That’s why I left.”

“When did David tell you about Mr. Patel?”

“A few days after he died. David came by for tea after dinner. You were out that night,” he said to Shana.

“He confided in you,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Did he ask your advice?”

He lowered his head. Shana said, “Dad?”

“Rabbi, did he ask your advice?”

“Yes. He thought maybe he should go to the authorities.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That he had indeed saved a life, as Dr. Stayner had suggested. He had not done it for material gain; the money was more or less forced on him. He said he was going to send half to his parents and give the other half to the Patels.”

“What else?”

“I told him it was best to keep silent.”

“Dad!”

“Because it was best,” he insisted. “This Daggett character had them all in thrall. He would hurt Dr. Stayner’s son if he refused to take part. The others faced threats of violence or exposure. I said I thought it best if he just forgot it. Put it behind him.”

“And then you called McConnell.”

“I did not,” he said. “It’s not like I brokered this thing.”

“What did you do?”

“As it happened, I ran into the McConnells at a function the day after I saw David. And Lesley looked frightful, despite all the makeup. I’ve known them both for some time and the decline in her appearance was shocking. So I said, on compassionate grounds, maybe I could help them. He expressed his interest.”

“I bet he did. So you went to Stayner and asked if he could help.”

“Yes. And when he heard what McConnell would pay him, he jumped.”

“He swears he gives all his payments to the hospital.”

“Not one this size. I don’t know what he ever got before, but I believe Marc offered him a quarter-million. That’s what he offered me for the capital campaign. I didn’t ask him for anything, you understand. I didn’t extort him, despite what you believe. When I told him what I knew, without naming names of course, he told me straight out that I’d never have a zoning issue in Beacon Hill and that federal funds would flow to their maximum. All without a word from me.”

A religion of loopholes is ours, and he’d had a lifetime to master them. “How discreet of you. And just like that, your Shul on the Hill comes closer to reality.”

“I told you the night you came here I’m a man of action, Jonah, as you are in your way. I need a challenge. Something to build. When Adath Israel stalemated me, left me with nothing left to put my shoulder to, that’s when I knew I had to leave. And the new shul, back in Beacon Hill where fifty had dwindled to none, is where it is going to be.”

“Even if it cost David his life.”

“That’s quite a leap.”

“No, Dad,” Shana said. “Not really.”

“You’re taking his side?”

“This isn’t about sides. You knew David was troubled by what had happened. You made him go out and do it again.”

“How was I to know the next surgery would happen so fast? I figured by the time it all happened, this other doctor would be back in his place. I didn’t know David would be part of it.”

“Lesley McConnell, heiress to the Austin-Smith fortune, is dying,” I said. “As soon as Daggett heard her name, he smelled big money, his best score yet. He could have found half a dozen good matches through the testing program within hours, like he did with his son. And you know what happens after. He identifies the one with the worst money problems and makes them an offer. They either take it or they go missing, because not all of them volunteer, Rabbi. If they don’t take the offer, he kills them.”

“Do you really know that for a fact?”

“You want facts? He’s going to take my partner’s organs too.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“They’re worth a fortune to him. He’ll take every last thing worth harvesting out of her.”

“Stop,” Shana cried, sobbing full out again. You wouldn’t think someone could cry all the tears she had cried that day and still have more inside.

I didn’t stop. “You helped keep this mad thug in business. You chose to overlook the depraved fucking nature of it so you could build your synagogue.”

“You make it sound like I did it for myself.”

“Didn’t you?”

“Only so I can help others.”

“And build a monument to your name. You’re done with Brookline, now you can take Beacon Hill.”

“Get out!” Shana said. “Leave him alone and get out.”

“He helped get David killed,” I said.

All she said was, “So did you.”