Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

"I'm sticking my neck out, you know." said Chief Lanigan, as he maneuvered the blue official car with its gold Barnard's Crossing police insignia into the heavy traffic of Route 128."Because it's in Swarnpdale rather than Barnard's Crossing?" asked the rabbi. "It's only across the line."

"Oh, Swampdale's no problem. Barney Rose there is a good friend of mine and wouldn't mind me coming into his territory to do some routine checking. No. I'm thinking of the Boston police. This is their case, and they might not take kindly to interfering."

"I see what you mean." said the rabbi, then he brightened. "But strictly speaking, you're just checking out Kathy Dunlop's story. If you discover that she was not alone, that there was a man with her in the motel, a red-haired man with a limp, that could be Professor Fine who lives in Barnard's Crossing and that would fall under you jurisdiction."

"Yeah, yeah. David, maybe that kind of hair-splitting is acceptable to your rabbinical friends, but I'd hate to try it on Schroeder or Bradford Ames." He glanced at his companion. "Not that I'm really worried; just grousing, that's how cops make conversation."

"Well, in any case. I appreciate your taking the trouble."

"Oh, it's no trouble." Lanigan had a thought, and laughed. "You're sure you weren't worried the motel guy might think you were the girl's husband?"

"Well, that entered my mind, too." said the rabbi grinning. "Do you know anything about the place, its reputation?"

"It used to be chickens." said Lanigan with seeming irrelevance. "A guy worked for a salary all his life and saved up a little money and then decided he was tired of it, tired of the city, the dirt, and the noise, he and the missus would be hankering for a place in the country, and somebody would sell him the idea of a chicken farm. Just enough work to keep your mind from going wooly, fresh country air, and a regular income from eggs and poultry-Joe Gargan, who retired as lieutenant, was all hepped up about it. His last year on the force, he carried the literature with him whenever he'd come on duty, he'd tell me how you pay so much for feed and sell your eggs for so much and then you sell the birds themselves at so much a pound, there was no way you could miss. Except of course, sometimes feed costs went up and you couldn't make a profit, and sometimes disease would wipe out your stock, and then there were other expenses that you didn't figure on."

Well, sir, chickens have had it. Now it's franchises, I understand. You pay down your life's savings and maybe go in hock for a lot more to operate a stand that sells somebody's hamburgers or hot dogs or ice cream, they tell you how you're working for yourself and they can prove it's bound to be successful."

He shook his head in wonder. "But for a while there, it was motels, all you had to do was make up the beds in the morning and put clean towels in the bathroom, a morning's work for a man and his wife, or for just the wife, while the man ran the office."

"The Excelsior is managed by a husband and wife?"

"Yeah, It's right by a small shopping center. You know how it is with these motels. If they're in a good location and get plenty of business, they'll operate nice and legal and respectable. But let business slack off and they tend to get a little careless, like renting rooms to hookers or college kids who are looking for a roll in the hay for a couple of hours."

"And how is business at the Excelsior?"

"So-so. Did she happen to say why she picked the place?"

"Only that it had been recommended by one of the girls in the dorm." said the rabbi dryly.

"Doesn't surprise me, well, here we are."

A brass nameplate on a triangular block of mahogany identified ALFRED R. JACKSON, MGR. Jackson, dressed in sport shirt and golf sweater, came out to meet them and introduced himself. "Is there something I can do for you gentlemen?"

"Like to use your phone." said Lanigan. "Sure, go ahead." He slid it over. "Anything wrong?" he asked the rabbi, as the chief dialed. Rabbi Small shook his head. Lanigan spoke a few words into the receiver and then hung up.

"Just a routine inquiry” he said. "Can I see your register for the thirteenth of this month?"

"Anybody in particular?" asked Jackson as he went to the card file. "The thirteenth, that was a Friday?"

"That's right. Katherine or Kathleen Dunlop, she would have registered sometime that afternoon."

"Here's a Mrs. Kathy Dunlop. Mass, license plate 863529. Came in at 1:52." He pulled the card and put it on the desk. "That's not Mrs.," said the rabbi. "It's Ms."

"Oh yeah, that's right. Women's Lib." He laughed as though it were a good joke. "Was she alone?" asked Lanigan.

"Gosh, I don't remember, Captain— er, Chief. I remember the day all right on account it was Friday the thirteenth. I'm not superstitious, but you know how it is."

"She said there was a woman in charge," the rabbi remarked to Lanigan.

"How about it?" asked the chief.

"Oh, that would be my wife. Just a minute." He opened a door and called inside. "Martha, want to come out front a minute?"

They were joined by a woman in a housedress, her hair elaborately done up in plastic curlers. "I look a mess,” she apologized. "Just getting ready to go out."

"These gentlemen are interested in a Kathy Dunlop who registered with us on Friday the thirteenth, early afternoon. You remember her? You checked her in."

"Yes, I do, a little bit of a thing. Nice girl."

"What makes you say that?" asked Lanigan.

"Well, I don't really know, of course, except that she was quiet and polite and— oh yes, she was wearing a cross, so I guess she didn't seem like some of these girls you see around nowadays, she told me she'd been driving straight through from the night before and needed some sleep, so I put her in Number 6 where she wouldn't be disturbed by people coming in later to register, and oh yes, she asked if there was a phone in the room, and I told her she'd either have to use the pay station across the way in the parking lot or the one here in the office." To her husband she said. "Don't you remember, al? I said Friday the thirteenth was unlucky., and that was the day we had trouble with the switchboard."

Lanigan asked if she had used the phone in the office.

"Not that I remember. Besides, the one in the parking lot is nearer."

"What about visitors?"

"Well now. I don't spy on my guests,” she said virtuously. "A guest rents a room, he can have people come to see him same as if it was his own home. I don't go around snooping."

"Did you see anyone with her? A red-haired man with a cane?" Lanigan prompted. Mrs. Jackson shook her head positively.

"Who else was registered at the time?" asked the rabbi.

She looked inquiringly at her husband. "That couple from Texas?"

"No, they checked out at the regular check-out time, that's eleven o'clock, we must have been empty at the time," he said.

She amplified. "This time of year, people don't start checking in until late afternoon or early evening." She flipped through the cards in the file. "Here— 4:20,4:38, 5:02."

"What time did Miss Dunlop check out?" asked Lanigan. The woman colored. "Why, I seem to remember that she stopped by in the evening to leave the key and say she was going out for a bite. I don't think— no— I'm sure of it; she didn't come back. You remember, Al. I said I thought she might have gone to a movie."

Lanigan asked Mrs. Jackson whether she had made up the girl's room the next morning, whether the bed had been slept in.

"I don't remember,” she said warily. "I'm sure it must’ve been or I would’ve remembered."

"One person or two?"

"How would I know that?"

"Oh, you'd know all right."

"I— I don't remember."

As they drove off. Lanigan said. "I'm sorry, David, but I'm afraid your friend Fine had no alibi. Neither the manager nor his wife saw him, there were no guests in the motel, and with the phone out of order no one could have called in and thus confirm he was there at a certain hour."

"There's the girl..."Lanigan shook his head. "Not very good. No corroboration, and she's in love with him obviously, so it wouldn't be hard to believe she'd lie for him. Of course, Fine's lawyer might put her on the stand and hope she'd make a good impression on the jury, and she might, too, until the D.A, started tearing into her, he'd make her out to be a common whore, even worse for knowing he was a married man."