Thursday The Rabbi Walked Out

50

AFTER RELEASING MALTZMAN, LANIGAN HAD SUGGESTED TO Jennings that he go on home and relax a little.

"Good idea, Hugh, the missus has been complaining about eating alone the last couple weeks. How about you? Why don't you go home, too?"

"I will a little later. I want to get everything organized for my meeting with Clegg first. I'll see you in the morning."

Not many hours later, however, while he was dozing on the divan in the midst of the litter of the Sunday paper. Jennings was awakened by a call from Lanigan, there were new developments. Could he come down?

He could tell that his chief was excited. "I'll be right over. Hugh."

Although he arrived in less than ten minutes. Lanigan growled at him. "What kept you?" And as Jennings, his Adam's apple bobbling, was on the point of being indignant. "Never mind. For the first time, we've got a break, we can place someone at the scene just about tha time the murder happened, we don't have to prove it, she admits it."

"She?"

"Right." He told of the Mandells coming to see him. "From the beginning. I've felt the pattern of the shooting was the basic clue in this case. Doc Mokely put his finger on it when he said it was like a woman shutting her eyes and firing away until the gun was empty, and that's exactly the way it looked to me, that's why I was so anxious to trace Martha's movements. When we had to cross her off, I thought the boy might fill the bill, but I wasn't happy with the idea. So along comes another woman—"

"But she said the place was dark, and Stanley said it was dark."

"Jordon used only the first floor, and that's practically hidden by the trees. From the street he wouldn't be able to tell if there was a light on in the living room or not, as for Mrs. Mandell, what else is she going to say?"

"Yeah, Hugh, but what's her motive? Why would she want to kill Jordon?"

"I don't know. Why would she want to volunteer to deliver this report when it involved leaving her mother—"

"Mother-in-law."

"All right, so it was her husband's mother, she wouldn't go and watch her husband be a big shot over at the temple, because the old lady was not supposed to be left alone at night. Yet she volunteers to sneak out and deliver this report to Jordon, well, I don't know what there was between her and Jordon, but I got just the suspicion of a hint in going over the folder. When we questioned Gore, he said that Jordon had made a pass at his secretary. Now, that's what Mrs. Mandell is—his secretary, and what's it mean that he made a pass? It could be just a dirty old man giving a nice-looking young woman a pat on the behind. Or it could be that Gore spotted some hanky-panky between the two, and Mrs. Mandell covered it by saying Jordon made a pass at her."

Jennings screwed up his mouth and shook his head.

"I know it isn't much. I said it was just a hint. So what I want you to do is check around with the folks at the bank, every single one of them. Subtle like, you understand, and see what you can come up with. Rumors, gossip, anythina I can use as a starting point for a real interrogation of the lady."

"Sure, Hugh, but a lady who works in a bank, it's hard to see her as a killer."

"If it isn't a professional killing, Eban, then it's always somebody like Mrs. Mandell, an ordinary person like the corner grocer, or a schoolteacher, or even a cop. Sure, sometimes they turn themselves in right afterward. But it isn't remorse, usually. It's because they're sure they're going to be discovered. But sometimes they're smart, and the crime goes unsolved. Right?"

"Guess so."

"And another thing I want you to do. Eban. I want the Mandell house watched."

"You think she might make a run for it?"

"I doubt it. But when I go to see Clegg tomorrow and he says he'd like to talk to her, I don't want to find that she decided to visit an aunt in Canada. Just post someone near the house. It doesn't make any difference if she spots him. It would be even better if she does, there's nothing lika knowing you're being watched to get you nerved up and edgy. So arrange for it now, and then go on home. You can't start on the bank assignment until tomorrow anyway."

"You going home, too?"

"No. I think I'll go up to the Jordon place for another look around."