Thursday The Rabbi Walked Out

29

THE QUESTIONING WENT ON FOR HOURS. WHEN LANIGAN AND Jennings arrived at the Jordon house. McLure was already there and had already begun the interrogation, and Billy was sobbing and blubbering. McLure broke off long enough to nod the two men over to a far corner to get them current with the situation.

"He pretends he didn't know about the murder until he got here,” he said, "but I'm sure he's the one, and it's only a question of time before I get him to admit it."

"You ever hear of Miranda?" asked Lanigan coldly.

Instantly McLure was wide-eyed innocence. "I haven't accused him. I'm just questioning him as a witness—just for information."

"Then why's he crying?"

"He feels bad about the death of Jordon—he says."

"What was Jordon to him? Did he say?"

"Says he was just a friend of his mother's." McLure's eyes sparkled with eagerness. "And do you know who his mother is? Hester Grimes, she's his mother."

"Who's Hester Grimes?" asked Jennings.

"Oh, you must have seen her on TV, she's a nightclub singer and entertainer. You see her on a lot of these talk shows."

"Where is she?" asked Lanigan. "How do we get in touch with her?"

"She's on tour in Europe. What I got out of him so far is—"

"Never mind. I'll talk to him myself. If he changes his story, you can question him, but otherwise I'd appreciate it if you just sat quiet." Lanigan went over to the boy and sat down beside him. "I'm Chief Lanigan of the police department here. Billy."

"Yeah, I've seen you around."

"I'd like you to tell me what happened." Lanigan went on. "This terrible thing that happened last night, we've got to investigate it. You understand that, don't you?"

Billy nodded.

"Now, Mr. Jordon was killed with the gun that you brought home. Suppose you tell me about that. Did Mr. Gore ask you to take the gun with you?"

"Oh no, he asked me if I'd care to ride shotgun while he took the Peter Archer silver into Boston, but I knew he only meant that I'd be riding beside him. But I thought, what if someone—well, you know, that stuff is pretty valuable, and what could I do? I mean. I'm not one of these big, hefty guys, and Mr. Gore isn't either. So I thought, if we should get stopped—well, I didn't know about the special law here in Massachusetts. I knew you had to have a license, but I figured Mr. Gore must have one, since he's president of the bank and is into handgun shooting and all, and I'd be with him all the time, and, of course, if nothing happened, I'd just put it back and who'd know."

Lanigan did not badger him and he did not try to confuse him, but he was persistent. "Well, how soon after you were locked in did you leave?"

"Oh, right away." "How right away?"

For the first time. Billy grinned. "Well, when he said he was locking me in, I thought, Oh yeah? and I headed for the window."

"All right, and where'd you go?"

"I went away from there as fast as I could. I went down the back driveway that we don't use anymore, out to Elm Street."

"Why did you go down there? Were you afraid you might be seen if you went down the regular driveway?"

"That's right. I thought Mr. Gore might be coming out, and I didn't want to see him."

"Why not?"

"Well, it was embarrassing. I was good and sore. See. Mr. Jordon had locked me in my room before, and I'd always sneaked out. I didn't mind that. It was like a game we played. See, that was his way of telling me I'd done something wrong. It never bothered me much. I'd just sneak out, and he knew it. It was like a game between the two of us. But he shouldn't have done it in front of Mr. Gore. See. Mr. Gore is my boss, and he's like a friend to me, and here Mr. Jordon was treating me like a little kid. It was awfully embarrassing, so I didn't want to see Mr. Gore. I'd be—well—embarrassed, and I was wondering if I could even go back to the bank."

"So then what did you do?"

"Well, I didn't know what to do, because I sure wasn't going to come back until late, maybe not till midnight. But I don't know anybody in Barnard's Crossing, and there's nothing to do there anyway. So there's a bunch of people waiting for a bus, and just then it came along, so I got on it."

"Anybody you recognized on the bus?" asked Lanigan casually.

Billy shook his head. "No. I didn't see anybody I knew."

"I should think being a teller at the bank you'd recognize a lot of people." suggested Jennings. "And even if you didn't know them, they'd know you and maybe say hello."

Billy shook his head again. "We're in North Barnard's Crossing. Down this end of town everybody banks at the Deposit and Trust."

"What were you planning on doing in Boston?" asked Lanigan.

Billy shrugged his shoulders. "Just hang around and then take a late bus back. But I got to thinking. Mr. Jordon played me a dirty trick, so maybe I could pay him back one. So when I got to Boston. I went to the big bus station and took a bus to New York. See. I figured he'd know if I didn't get back that night, and he'd get worried, and it would serve him right."

"I guess you didn't like him very much," suggested McLure.

Billy looked surprised. "Sure I liked him. Why wouldn't I like him?" His eyes began to tear. "He'd bring me stuff, you know, presents, whenever he came to visit us, from the time I was a little kid, and he invited me to stay with him, didn't he? I remember once, when I'd been here maybe a couple of weeks. I got sick. It was this twenty-four-hour bug. But Mr. Jordon kept coming into my room practically all night to see how I was."

"All right." said Lanigan, "let's get back to your travels. I don't suppose you met anyone you knew on the New York bus?"

Billy shook his head.

"What bus was it, by the way?"

"It was a Greyhound. I took the nine o'clock, they leave every hour, actually, it was eight-fifty-five."

"What did you do in New York?" asked Jennings.

"Well, it was pretty late when I got in, or rather pretty early in the morning. So I had a bite in the terminal, and then I thought maybe I'd go home. But then I thought the doorman would ask me all kinds of questions, we're kind of friendly, me and the doorman. So then I thought maybe I'd hang around the city, or go to one of those all-night movies in Times Square. See, if I went to my house in the morning, or during the day, it wouldn't be so, you know, funny, and the doorman who is on days I'm not so friendly with, so he wouldn't be apt to ask me any questions. But I figured those all-night movie houses in Times Square, there's apt to be a bunch of drunks in those places. So I didn't know what to do, and just sitting there in the terminal trying to make up my mind, I fell asleep."

"I should think you would have slept on the bus," said Jennings. "I always do."

"I tried but couldn't." said the young man. "I was like upset, maybe I did doze off and on. But later in the terminal building. I passed right out. When I woke up, it was morning, and I was stiff and felt kind of grubby. So I washed in the men's room and I bought a comb at one of the stores in the terminal"—he fished in his jacket pocket and brought forth a comb—"see, here it is. Souvenir of New York, it says, then I had some breakfast, and then I took a bus downtown and just walked around."

"Why didn't you go home?" asked Lanigan.

"Well, see. I started worrying about Mr. Jordon. I thought he'd be terribly upset wondering what had happened to me if he found out I hadn't come home to sleep, and what with him having a weak heart and all. So I went back to the terminal and took a bus back to Boston, then I took a bus back to Barnard's Crossing, and I got off at the Elm Street stop, the same as where I had taken the bus when I left. It was pretty dark by then, so I came up the back way, planning on sneaking into my room. But when I got to the house, I could see something wasn't right, the door of my room was open and I could see into the living room, and then I saw a cop—er—policeman, and I knew something was wrong. I thought maybe Mr. Jordon had called the police when he'd found I wasn't there, and my window was all the way down and locked. So while I was trying to push the latch over, a policeman nabbed me, and then I found out what happened, and I've been thinking that if I hadn't sneaked out, then nothing might have happened."

They continued to question him, but at eleven. Lanigan called a halt, the three men retired to a far corner of the room and discussed the story in low voices. "It seems pretty straight-forward." said Lanigan. "but, of course, he may be lying."

"He's had plenty of time to work up a story and get it down pat." was McLure's comment.

"We could question the driver of the Boston bus." Jennings suggested.

"Oh sure," said Lanigan. "We'll get a picture of him, and if the bus driver doesn't remember him, he may know some of the people who take that bus regularly, and they might remember him, also, the driver of the New York bus, and the ticket clerk."

"It's even more important to check the drivers of the later buses," said McLure. "I'm betting he took the ten o'clock bus to New York, or even eleven. I’ve seen it again and again, a guy does something that won't bear thinking about. So he blanks it out of his mind, but he adjusts his story just enough so as to make it impossible. Get it? By saying he took the nine o'clock, it means he couldn't have killed the old man at half past eight, and he keeps the rest of the storv the same, so he doesn't have any trouble remembering any lies."

Lanigan looked at him curiously. "You're pretty sure he did it?"

"Cummon. You can see he's a jerky sort of kid that everybody steps on. Take this business of being sent to his room. Is that the way you discipline the average eighteen-year-old? Would any other kid stand for it? Or, for that matter, what kid that age would consent to being shifted off to the country to live with an old man so his ma can be free to go gallivanting around Europe? Okay. His boss feels sorry for him and invites him to go in town with him, that kind of kid is crazy about guns. It gives him a sense of power. Now the old man shames him in front of the boss by sending him to his room. So when Gore leaves and the old man dozes off, he climbs out of the window. But he doesn't go down to get a bus. Oh no, he sneaks around to the front of the house and comes in, and there's the gun on the table, he has this urge just to hold it. My guess is he picks it up and just kind of fondles it, and it goes off, maybe he shoots out the light, and the place goes dark, then the kid knows he's in trouble, and he panics and just goes on shooting, and when he comes out of it, the old man is dead. So he runs—to Boston and then to New York."

"And why does he come back then?" asked Lanigan.

"Like I said, because he's wiped it clean out of his mind. You might have to get a psychiatrist to hypnotize him and bring it back."

"What are you going to do with him tonight, Hugh?" asked Jennings. "He can't sleep here."

"Well, for tonight I figured we'd put him up at the station house in one of the cells. If we get him a place at a hotel. I'm not sure the town would stand for the expense, and he'll be pestered by all kinds of people as soon as the news is out."

"He will anyway when he goes back to work at the bank on Monday," Jennings pointed out.

"Yeah, unless—unless—say, is Tom Hegerty on the island now. Eban?" "Ever since Labor Day." "Think he might like a boarder?" "I know he'd like a helper."

"That's even better. Let's see what we can arrange." He approached the young man and said. "Look. Billy, you can't sleep here because we're still working here. It's pretty late to get you a hotel room, so how would you like to sleep down at the stationhouse?"

"Oh sure. I don't want to put you to any trouble."

"Fine. So that's settled. Now. I'd like you to stay around town for the next few days, but I don't think you ought to go back to the bank just yet."

"Gosh, no. I bet people would be coming up to my window just to look at me like I was some kind of freak."

"That's what bothers me, too." said Lanigan. "So I got an idea. Do you know Children's Island in the harbor?"

"Where they have the YMCA camp in the summer for the kids? I've never been there."

"Well, Tom Hegerty lives out there, getting the place ready for the winter. How would you like to work there with him as a helper, painting, rough carpentry—"

"Gee. I've never done anything like that."

"You don't have to know anything." Lanigan assured him. "Most of the time you just hand him things or hold them while he works on them or fetch them for him."

"If I can do it. I wouldn't mind. It might be kind of fun living on an island."

"Fine, then it's settled. I'll arrange it."

He rejoined the other two and nodded to indicate his satisfaction.

"How about Miranda now?" sneered McLure.

Lanigan looked at him in surprise. "What's Miranda got to do with it? All I did was arrange for a job for the young man."