Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

Chapter Thirty-Three

Damn funny, all your folks should be out for the evening,” said Chief Lanigan. “What time are they expected back?”

Stu shrugged.

Didi said, “All I know is I found a note on the kitchen table saying they were going to a movie. They didn’t say which one, but I know it wasn’t the Seaside in Barnard’s Crossing because they already saw that one. And then they might go on someplace for coffee.”

“Well. I’ll just have the sergeant keep calling every fifteen minutes or so until we get them. You kids wait right here and don’t try anything funny.”

And he left them sitting in his office, the two boys on a bench by the wall. Didi in an armchair near the window. She looked forlorn and puffy-eyed. The shock of hearing of the death of a boy she had seen only a few hours before, followed by her arrest, had unnerved her completely. She had control of her emotions now, however, and stared moodily out the window at the little grass plot in front of the station house.

Stu edged closer to Bill Jacobs and whispered. “You know. I don’t think they’re going to let us go without our folks coming down. Maybe I ought to tell them that they’re at my Aunt Edith’s, and that he can reach them there.”

“You already told them you didn’t know.” Bill whispered back.

“No, I didn’t. He asked us if we knew what time they are coming back, but he didn’t ask us where they were.”

“I think we should sit tight. Maybe when he calls and finds our folks are out, he’ll let us go.”

Stu sat back unhappy, his fingers drumming nervously on the arm of the bench. He edged forward again. “You know what. Bill? I think we ought to tell them about Moose—I mean, about how we found him.”

“Sure, why not? You’re in the clear.” said Bill bitterly. “It doesn’t matter to you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, you weren’t in the house at all during the storm.

And he was dead already when you showed up. But where does that leave me and Didi?”

“But they’re going to find out sooner or later.”

“How are they going to find out? From what I overheard the cops talking, they think he just died from an overdose of alcohol.”

“Yeah, but that’s just the cops. Once a doctor examines the body, he’ll know he didn’t die that way. He’ll be able to tell whether a guy died of alcohol or from suffocation.”

“I don’t mean we shouldn’t tell them,” Bill temporized, “but I don’t think we have to tell them anything without a lawyer. And they can’t count it against us,” he said with an assurance he did not feel. “That’s the law.”

“Maybe you’re right. I wish my old man were here,” said Stu unhappily. “He’d raise hell with me for getting involved, but he’d know what to do. He’d see that the cops treated us fair. Say, who do you think could have done it?”

Bill shook his head. “I left the door unlatched. Anybody could have come in.”

“Hey, how about this Alan Jenkins? You all said Moose was leaning on him from the minute he laid eyes on him. These days they don’t take that lying down.”

“And he left Didi’s house in plenty of time to swing back there.”

“I know.”