Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

Chapter Thirty-Five

Did you make contact with the Hillsons?” asked Lanigan.

Lieutenant Jennings nodded. “Sort of contact.” he amended. “I spoke to the housekeeper. A regular battleax. She said the girls—girls, the younger one is seventy-five!—anyway, they were asleep and she wasn’t going to wake them, and I ought to be ashamed to be calling this time of the night, and she didn’t care if I were the police or the United States Army.”

“She said that? The United States Army?”

“Her words. Hugh. She even banged the receiver down once, but I called back”—he nodded in self-satisfaction—“and I told her that she better stay on the line until I got through with her, or I’d notify the local police to go out there and pick her up and bring her here. She must have believed me, because she didn’t try it again. Then she wanted to know what had happened, and when I told her that I didn’t have time to give her all the details, she said she was going to call the police, her police. Anyway, she finally told me that the house was up for sale and was in the hands of the Bellmore Realty Company of

Lynn, who were the sole agents. Fortunately, I remembered that Bellmore was originally Bell and Morehead and that John Morehead lives here in town. So I called him and he told me that he was supposed to meet a group who were interested in buying the property at the house at half past eight, that he had given the key to one of them because something had come up and he wouldn’t be able to meet them.”

“Did he say who they were?”

“He didn’t know, except the man he gave the key to. He was the only one he’d be dealing with, anyway.”

“And who was that?”

“Meyer Paff. He’s the—”

“Yeah, I know, the bowling alley man.”

“Sure. He’s got one in Lynn and Revere, all over the map, as far up as Gloucester.”

Lanigan’s eyes were shining. “And just the other day Kevin O’Connor called me to ask what I knew about him. The Lynn police had been watching that alley of his for pot.”

“Hell, they watch every place where kids hang around, and kids hang around bowling alleys.”

“Yes, but look here. We find pot on Moose, and he’s dead. And we find there’s a witness that can swear that earlier in the day he visited this guy Wilcox in Boston. And Wilcox was suspected of dealing in pot. And he’s dead. And where do we find Moose? In Hillson House. And now here’s Meyer Paff, who owns a place that the Lynn police suspect is a distribution point for pot. And Moose Carter works for Paff. And Meyer Paff has a key to Hillson House. And what’s more, he had an appointment to meet some people there tonight.”

“Yeah, but most of that is just coincidence.”

“Sure, and it was just the coincidence of both having some connection with pot that led me to call the Boston police, which is how we found out that Moose had been to see this Wilcox earlier in the day. Have you called Paff yet?”

Through his pale-blue, watery eyes Lieutenant Jennings looked reproachfully at his chief. “I just finished talking to John Morehead, Hugh.”

“All right. That’s fine. Go dig him up.”

“You mean tonight? Right now?”

“Sure. Bring him down and let him make a statement. He’ll sleep better for it.”

Jennings grinned. “Gotcha.”