Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The missus home yet?” asked Lanigan.

“Tomorrow,” said the rabbi happily. “I take them home tomorrow.”

“I was hoping I’d have a chance to see the boy.”

“He looks like a little old man, so wrinkled.”

“They all do for a few days. Then they begin to round out and get fat.”

“I suppose so. The doctor said it was a fine healthy child, but you couldn’t tell by looking at him. He looked like a plucked chicken.”

“They’re just like puppies. They’ve got to grow into their skins.”

“Well, you’ve made me feel better already,” said the rabbi. “Say, why don’t you and Gladys drop around tomorrow? You’ll be able to see him then.”

“Oh, we intend to. But I was passing and thought I’d be able to sneak a preview. I’ve just come from the D.A.’s office. He made a deal with Sykes’s lawyer for second-degree murder.”

“Second-degree? But that’s unpremeditated-”

“I know, I know. But the D.A. still thought it best.”

“But you had a confession.”

“We had a confession but not for premeditated murder. When he confronted Sykes, we carefully refrained from mentioning the wiped fingerprint. We told him we knew he was without his car over the weekend; we told him what we’d uncovered about the work in his department at the lab. And I guess we sort of hinted Hirsh’s death was probably accidental, and that if he cooperated fully with us it would go a lot easier for him.”

He reddened and looked away from the rabbi’s direct glance. “It’s common procedure. It’s done by lawyers regularly right in the courtroom. If you can trap your man into admitting his guilt-what’s wrong with it? It wasn’t as though he was innocent.”

“I’m not quarreling with you.”

“Well, he admitted that he’d come across Hirsh as you suggested and drove him home. Also that Hirsh passed out within minutes after they’d started. He claimed he tried to wake him up when they got to Hirsh’s house, but he couldn’t budge him. So he decided to leave him there to sleep it off. Only after he’d got home did it occur to him that perhaps he’d forgotten to turn off the motor. By then he was afraid to walk back and see.”

“And what about the way he used Hirsh to cover up his own mistakes?”

“He admitted that. As a matter of fact, he gave us a complete picture of what happened at the lab. I guess he was smart enough to realize that we’d find it out eventually, and it would look better for him if he were completely candid with us. It’s only a fool who tries to cover up and then finds he has to keep retreating as we learn more and more. It appears that the original brainstorm was Hirsh’s. He issued the preliminary report in both their names, but then Sykes assigned Hirsh to other work and carried this on by himself. He claims he wasn’t trying to steal the credit; that Hirsh just was not as enthusiastic about his own idea as he was. But he discussed it with Hirsh off and on, and sometimes had Hirsh check his figures.

“Then Hirsh discovered an error. Sykes told him not to say anything yet, with an idea that he’d admit it gradually in a series of progress reports. One would say that unexpected difficulties had cropped up. Then he’d issue another to the effect that a great deal more work and time were needed. And finally, he’d put one out that would make it clear it was a dud. I guess Hirsh might have gone along, except that his name was on the first report and that the research was being done for Goraltronics.”

“Hm-that’s interesting. Is that your idea, or did Sykes say Hirsh was concerned about Goraltronics?”

“No, I got that from Sykes. Evidently, Hirsh felt some sort of obligation to Goralsky for having got him the job. He even hinted that if Sykes didn’t tell the truth he was going to speak to Goralsky himself. Maybe he was just bluffing, but Sykes didn’t know. Goralsky had got him the job, so naturally he had every reason for taking the hint seriously. So late Friday afternoon he went to Quint and told him the truth. He claims he was going to admit he was to blame, but Quint was so upset that he lost his nerve. When Quint assumed it was Hirsh’s fault, he did not correct him. You can understand how Quint felt because he knew about the merger and the stock going up and all that. He wanted to call Hirsh in and fire him right then and there, but Sykes lied and said Hirsh had gone home early because of the holiday. That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?”

“It’s even more ironic than you think,” said the rabbi. “Sykes, when he came to visit me that Sunday, remarked that Hirsh would have been alive if he had been a normal practicing Jew.”

“That’s no lie. Anyway, we typed up his confession and he signed it,” Lanigan went on. “Then we sprung the wiped fingerprint on him. We thought that would break him. You see, if we had mentioned it at the beginning he would have realized it was first-degree murder and probably would have refused to talk. This way, at least we had a confession for the major part and if he broke we’d have it all. He clammed up. Refused to say another word until he conferred with a lawyer.”

“But you had your case anyway.”

Lanigan shook his head gloomily. “After his lawyer got through talking to the D.A., we didn’t have much of anything. The fingerprint-or rather the missing fingerprint- would have been peppered by defense counsel. He would have shown that we had men all over that car. He would have argued that one of us could have wiped it accidentally with his sleeve. And the confession? They could say it was obtained under duress.”

“And getting home from the lab-how could that be explained away?”

“Easy. He started out to walk to the garage and someone gave him a lift. He doesn’t remember the make of car and the driver didn’t give him his name. After all, no one saw him near the Hirsh house.”

“Peter Dodge did.”

“Peter-the minister? When did you see him?”

“He dropped in this morning. He got home from Alabama yesterday.”

“And he saw Sykes?”

The rabbi nodded. “He takes a walk every evening, and it leads him past Bradford Lane. He had planned to drop in on Hirsh for a talk, but as he came to the corner he saw the house was dark so he went right past. But he did see Sykes-he’s sure that’s who it was-walking down Bradford Lane in the other direction toward his home, of course. At the time he had never met the man and just assumed it was someone taking a walk like himself.”

“Why didn’t he come forward and tell us?”

“Why should he? He didn’t know that there was murder involved.”

Lanigan began to laugh. “Well, there you have it, Rabbi. We’ve mismanaged this case from the beginning. We just had bad luck all the way. When we were unable to get in touch with Dodge down in Alabama, we asked the police to pick him up for us so we could question him. The minute they found the police were looking for him, the Negroes hid him, of course-one place to another, I don’t suppose he even knew why. Then when he finally returned to his hotel, the Birmingham police did pick him up and called to ask if they should hold him and we told them no, to let him go. After all, we had our man by that time.

“Well, I don’t suppose it makes any difference really. But it just shows how much luck counts in solving a case. We had bad luck all the way, and then when we finally hit on the right solution it was still a matter of luck. I mean, Sykes happening to stop and offer you a lift so you were able to see that lube sticker-that was a tremendous stroke of luck.”

“Well, we believe in luck, you know.”

“I suppose everyone does to some degree.”

“No, I mean we believe in a way you Christians don’t. Your various doctrines-that God observes the fall of every sparrow, that you can change your misfortune by prayer-it all implies that when someone has bad luck he deserves it. But we believe in luck. That is, we believe it is possible for the truly good man to be unlucky, and vice versa. That’s one of the lessons we are taught by the Book of Job.

“Still, I’m not so sure it was all luck. The whole case was permeated with the feeling of our holy day. Subconsciously, I imagine, I thought a great deal about the relations between Hirsh and Sykes, and why Sykes would want to cover up for him. And that’s why the explanation occurred to me so readily when I saw the date on the lube sticker. You see, the whole pattern of the crime was laid out before me in our Yom Kippur service.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, part of that service deals with the ceremony of the selection and sacrifice of the scapegoat by the High Priest in ancient Israel. It was even the subject of my sermon. In it I referred to the sacrifice of Abraham, which is the portion of the Scroll read on the day of the New Year, the beginning of the Ten Days of Awe which culminates in Yom Kippur. And that was the whole point of the situation there at the Goddard Lab. In spite of his disassociation from the Jewish community, Hirsh nevertheless played what in the past too often has been the traditional role of the Jew.”

“You mean-”

“I mean he was the scapegoat. His very name should have suggested it to me.”

Lanigan was puzzled. “Hirsh?”

The rabbi smiled sadly. “No, Isaac.”