Wednesday the Rabbi got wet

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Ithought you'd forgotten we were due at the Bernsteins," said Miriam when her husband returned.

"No, I didn't forget." He told her what had happened. "Oh, his poor mother!"

"What's that, the women's lib point of view? What about his poor father? What about the poor young man himself?"

"Mrs. aptaker is the only one of the three I've really ever met. Do you think Akiva did it, David?"

He shook his head gloomily. "There's no question that Lanigan has a good case against him, there's motive— he had reason to hate Kestler, there's the weapon— the medicine, and there's opportunity— he was in the drugstore at the time when the prescription had to be filled, and it looks as though he filled it, at least, the other pharmacist says he did, and Akiva doesn't deny it, then there's the fact that he left town shortly after, which suggests guilt."

"But then he came back."

"True. But it was a couple of weeks later, and it could be argued that since there was no mention in the press that there was anything suspicious about Kestler's death he felt it was safe to return. Particularly damning is that he took the trouble to subscribe to the town newspaper, that way he could know if the police were investigating the death."

"It looks bad, doesn't it, David?" she asked soberly. "M-hm."

"And yet you don't feel he's guilty. Is it because he's religious?"

"Religious? His religion wouldn't keep him from killing Kestler. Quite the contrary."

"I don't understand,” she said simply.

"The outer forms of a religion aren't important unless they reflect the basic philosophy and ethics that are inherent in it. I got a clue to Akiva's philosophy when he tried to convince me that he had no hatred for Kestler. It was the mystical business of everything and everyone being part of the Eternal One, and you are your enemy and he is you, so why should you hate him or try to injure him? But you can work that in reverse. You can justify hurting someone on the grounds that you are really hurting yourself, and who has a better right? When I saw him, he wasn't the least bit worried, and he should have been, even if he's innocent. Innocent men do get convicted occasionally, and even if they're acquitted, it's a troublesome and expensive business. No, he should be worried, and if he isn't, it's because he's rationalized and tricked his mind into not seeing the facts. If he can do that, he can also arrange his thinking to convince himself that he did not do something that he actually did."

"Then why—?"

"I suppose because I rather like him."

"Look, David, if you'd prefer not to go tonight—"

"No, we might as well, there's nothing more I can do for Arnold tonight— Oh yes, there is. I can bring him the siddur he asked for. Go ahead. Get dressed."

"I am ready. I’ve just got to change." She wriggled into a black sheath and then turned her back to him so that he could zip her up, then she handed him a string of pearls so that he could clasp them around her throat as she held up the hair at the back of her neck.

He looked at the clasp critically and said, "The string is worn through, there's just a thread."

"Oh, it's all right."

"But it can break, and—"

"No great harm if it does, David, they're not real pearls, you know. It's just costume jewelry, but it's all I've got that will go with black."

The rabbi waited at the front door, the prayerbook he was bringing to young Aptaker in one hand while he jingled his keys impatiently in the other, as Miriam gave last-minute instructions to the baby-sitter. In the car, she reached up and pulled at the shoulder harness and buckled it at her waist, then she tightened the strap, the rabbi's driving was erratic at best, but when he was moody and abstracted as he was now, he was given to sudden bursts of speed and equally sudden applications of the brake, which she assumed mirrored his flow of thought.

"All right, where to?"

"The Bemsteins, dear, on Harris Lane."

"Where's Harris Lane?"

"Oh, it's in that very nice section where all the big shots live, the Epsteins, the Dreyfusses. It's right around the corner from the Saffersteins."

"I don't know where the Saffersteins live."

"All right," she said. "I'll direct you. Go down to the Salem Road, then you turn off on Minerva Road—"

"I know where Minerva Road is," the rabbi said petulantly. "Well, Harris Lane is off the upper part of Minerva."

He drove along the Salem Road and passed the Goralsky Block.

"Minerva Road," she murmured.

He gave her an indignant glance, "I know, I know," and made the turn, after a couple of minutes, he nodded back and remarked. "That's the Kestler house." "The white one?"

He glanced at the rear-view mirror and said. "No, the brown one before it."

"There were a lot of cars in front. Do you suppose they were having a party?"

"It doesn't seem likely," the rabbi said. "It's probably the people from the white house. Kestler is certainly not observant. Did I tell you about his playing cards with his wife during the mourning week? But I'm sure he wouldn't have a party a couple of weeks after his father died, if only because he'd consider it bad luck. His wife would be even more apt to. I imagine. It certainly wouldn't be observance of the mourning regulations with her, since I'm sure she's not Jewish."

"How did you know? Did she tell you?"

"With the name Christine?" The rabbi laughed. "The first time I came there to see the old man, she bobbed a curtsy to me the way Irish country girls do to priests. I had to explain to her—"

"Stop!" Miriam called out.

He jammed on the brakes, and she was thrown against the harness.

"It's back there. David. You passed it." "There was no street there, just an alley."

"Well, that's Harris Lane. It opens up into a circle. You'll have to turn around."

"Are you sure?"

"Mrs. Bernstein said it was two houses before the Safferstein house and that's the Safferstein house, so that must be it. O-oh!"

"Now, what is it?" he asked testily. "Oh, David, my pearls broke." "I told you—"

"It was when you jammed on the brake," she said accusingly. "I was thrown against the shoulder strap."

She reached up and, gathering the broken strand, she handed it to her husband. "Here, put them in your pocket. Careful! They're falling off the string, there's one on the floor." She squirmed. "Ooh, one went down the back of my neck. It's caught on my bra."

"Well, if you think I'm going to unzip you here on the street... Get out and you can jump up and down and maybe dislodge it."

Unfastening her safety belt, Miriam opened the door, as she slid off the seat, another bead rolled off her lap onto the car cushion. "There's another one, David. It's gone down in the crack between the seat and the back cushion." Outside now, she bent forward into the car and with splayed fingers extended groped down into the crack. "No, I can't reach it."

"Get in," he said.

"But David—"

"Get in," he ordered peremptorily.

He set the car in motion. "Harris Lane is back there," she said meekly. "Aren't you going to turn?"

"I want to go to the stationhouse first."

She remembered the prayerbook on the seat between them. "Oh well, coming back, it will be on the right, and there'll be no chance of missing it."

"Don't worry, we'll get to the party in good time."

He drove to the end of Minerva Road and then headed for the center of town, negotiating the narrow crooked streets with reckless speed until he reached the police station, he was out of the car and running up the granite steps of the stationhouse when Miriam noticed that he had forgotten to take the prayerbook with him. Shaking her head at his characteristic absent-mindedness, she picked up the siddur and followed him.

Chief Lanigan, coat in hand, came out of his office. "Hello. David." He looked beyond him. "And Miriam, too. What's up?"

"Miriam lost her pearls," the rabbi gasped.

"You mean they were stolen? You've come to report a theft?"

"No, no, she was wearing them."

"They're not real pearls, Chief," Miriam explained, "and the string was frayed."

"Then..." Lanigan looked from one to the other. "You better come in." He led the way into his office. "Now what's this all about?"

"The pearls," the rabbi began. "Miriam broke the strand and it gave me an idea about this business. Your theory is that Arnold switched the bottles while McLane was away from his station getting the mop or while he was cleaning up. Now picture it, they each have a pill counter in front of them. It's a kind of plastic tray with a trough on the side, they count out the pills on the tray and then tilt it so the pills slide or roll into the trough, there's a spout on the trough that they insert in the bottle, and the pills slide down. No chance of a pill rolling away."

"I’ve seen them."

"Now suppose you want to switch the pills after they've been put up in their proper bottles."

"Then you dump them back in the trays again," said Lanigan promptly, "and you switch trays."

"Right." said the rabbi. "And in either case, there would be the right number of pills in each bottle. But suppose you didn't have a tray, not even a table, then how would you make the switch? You'd have to empty one bottle into the palm of your hand, then you pour the contents of the second bottle into the empty bottle, then you have to feed the pills you've got in the palm of your hand into the second bottle, and it would be a miracle if one didn't roll away."

"What are you suggesting, David?"

"That it was Safferstein who switched those pills, while he was sitting in his car under the street lamp, before the cruising car came along."

"Just because there was a pill missing?" Lanigan smiled. "You yourself suggested half a dozen ways in which that pill could be missing when I first spoke to you about it."

"True," the rabbi admitted, "but we also have to keep in mind that he had both bottles and time enough to make the switch without fear of being observed."

"But why would he want to hurt the Kestlers? He didn't even know them."

"He didn't?"

"No, and they didn't know him."

The rabbi nodded as he digested this information. "All right, then let's consider all possibilities."

"You going to work some of that whatdoyoucallit— pulpil— on me?" asked Lanigan.

"Pilpul," the rabbi corrected. "Why not? Talmudic pilpul is just logical reasoning that makes use of fine distinctions."

The chief grinned. "Go ahead. I'm in no hurry. It's you folks who seem to be dressed for the evening."

"The Bernsteins are expecting us," Miriam reminded him. "They're having a lot of people over."

"Then we won't be missed," the rabbi answered tartly. "Besides, no one comes on time." He turned to Lanigan. "Let's suppose it was Safferstein."

"Why should we?"

"Why shouldn't we? It's only an assumption, something to start on. Besides, there are the reasons I gave, so it isn't a frivolous assumption."

"All right." Lanigan tossed his coat on the desk, and motioning his visitors to seats, he pulled back his swivel chair. Miriam sat down, but her husband remained standing.

"Let's clear the ground first," the rabbi began. "How?"

"Oh, by eliminating the obvious," said the rabbi breezily. "I mean, that if we assume that Safferstein switched the pills, then it couldn't have been an accident."

"It was you who urged it was an accident originally," Lanigan pointed out smugly.

"But that was when we thought it happened in the drugstore, there, however unlikely, it's possible. But not sitting alone in the car like a small boy who might play with them and then get them in the wrong bottles."

Lanigan grinned. "I guess I can allow that."

"So it was intentional." the rabbi continued, "whether as a joke, or—"

"I can't see how a grown man could possibly consider it a joke to switch medicines on a couple of sick people, one of them his wife."

"Neither can I." said the rabbi. "So it means he did it to hurt someone, and probably not Kestler, since he didn't know him. But that suggests Mrs. Safferstein as the intended victim."

"Not a very good suggestion." said Lanigan. "If it was his wife he wanted to hurt, he would have gone right home and given her one of the pills. But he didn't go home at all, he went to the Kaplan house instead."

"Why?"

"He said because it was storming so hard and he wanted to get in out of the weather."

The rabbi began pacing the floor, his head back and his eyes fixed on the ceiling as the others watched, he stopped suddenly and turned to Lanigan. "Do you know where Kaplan's house is?"

"Of course."

"And Safferstein, do you know where he lives?"

"Certainly."

"Well, I just found out." said the rabbi. "Safferstein's house is no further from Town-Line Drugs than Kaplan's. So if he were bothered about driving in the storm, he could just as easily have driven home."

Lanigan's brow furrowed, and his head made little motions as he followed the two routes in his mind's eye. Finally, he nodded. "You're right, give or take fifty yards."

"So why did he go to the Kaplan house?" "You tell me," said Lanigan.

The rabbi smiled. "It's strange, isn't it? His wife is sick, so he runs out to get her medicine, and then doesn't go home to give it to her. It's what started me thinking of him. Because if he had made the switch, there was no point in going home, he couldn't give her the pills he had with him, since they were Kestler's. Nevertheless, I think he would have gone home anyway and made some excuse for not having the medicine, if only for the sake of appearances."

"Then why didn't he?"

"Because he had to go to Kaplan's, of course."

"There was someone there he had to see?" asked Lanigan. "Kaplan?"

The rabbi shook his head. "No, not Kaplan. Since it was the pills he was concerned with. I suppose it was Dr. Muntz, the man who had prescribed them."

"What would he want with Dr. Muntz?"

"To show him the pills, I presume," said the rabbi quietly.

"But he didn't."

"No, he didn't, that's the irony of the situation, he wasn't able to because he was himself the victim of a switch, he had the pills in his coat pocket, and someone took his coat by mistake."

"But if he had shown them." Lanigan insisted, "then nothing would have happened, the doctor would have spotted the mistake right away, there might even have been time to call the Kestlers, then no one would have got hurt."

"No one? Let's think about it." Once again, Rabbi Small began to pace the floor, his voice lapsing into the singsong chant traditional in Talmudic argumentation. "We assu-ume he had no intention of hurting the Kestlers because he did not know them and had no reason to, a-and no intention of hurting his wife because he did not go home. Bu-ut we know that his intention was malicious. So-o, we must ask ourselves who would be affected even if neither patient took the pills?" He looked at Lanigan expectantly.

"It doesn't make sense, David, a-and," he continued, mimicking the rabbi, "i-if we accept your assumption that he came to Kaplan's house to show the pills to Dr. Muntz, it makes even less sense because what's the point of going to the trouble of switching the pills and then having the doctor switch them back, so to speak?"

The rabbi grinned. "Not bad. You're getting the hang of it, all right, let's see what would happen, here's a room full of people. Safferstein makes some excuse for showing Muntz the pills. 'Those aren't the pills I prescribed,' the good doctor exclaims. 'There's been a mistake made.' Then Safferstein tells him about the other bottle of pills, and Dr. Muntz says, 'They must have switched them somehow. I better call the Kestlers and warn them.' But the point is that kind of thing isn't carried on in whispers, and keep in mind that there's a good chance that Dr. Cohen might be there, too, he'd be consulted, within minutes, everyone in the room would know what had happened, that Town-Line Drugs had made a couple of bad mistakes in filling prescriptions, and no one would be hurt? How about Marcus Aptaker?"

Lanigan nodded slowly. "The druggist down my way said it could drive a man out of business. But what did Safferstein have against Aptaker?"

"I know only that Safferstein had been trying to buy the drugstore," said the rabbi, "and Aptaker wouldn't sell."

Lanigan's eyes opened wide. "What would a big-shot realtor like Bill Safferstein want with a small local drugstore?"

"Ben Goralsky told me the drugstore had a long-term lease, ten years," said the rabbi. "He thought it meant that Safferstein was planning to tear down the building and put something else in its place. But he wouldn't be able to as long as the lease was in effect. What Safferstein was trying to do was drive Marcus Aptaker out of business."

"Damn!" Lanigan muttered. "Safferstein confided in me that he was planning to build a shopping mall there." He nodded. "It all fits."

Miriam, who had been looking from one man to the other like a spectator at a tennis match, now said, "Since you have a case against Safferstein at least as good as the one you have against Arnold Aptaker, I should think you could let the young man go."

Lanigan stared at her for a moment and then got up. Opening the door, he called out to the desk sergeant, "That young fellow you booked earlier— Arnold Aptaker— release him." He returned to his seat. "Of course, I'll talk to Safferstein, but I don't have a particle of proof, he has only to deny it, and then where am I?"

"Well," said the rabbi diffidently, "Miriam's breaking her strand of pearls gave me an idea...."

As they drove to the Bernsteins, Miriam said. "I wonder how Safferstein felt when he found out that Aptaker didn't have a lease, that Mr. Goralsky had never got around to signing it."

"Probably not good,” her husband replied. "I suppose Kaplan told him Sunday after the board had voted to sell him the property. But even if he had told him that Wednesday night, it was already too late, the train had been set in motion."

"Do you think he planned it from the beginning and that's why he offered to deliver the pills to Kestler?"

The rabbi shook his head. "I doubt it. How could he have known what Kestler's medicine would be? It could have been a liquid. No, he made the offer in good faith, he's reputed to be a kind and generous man."

"Kind? Generous? And yet he was willing to gamble with a man's life—"

"That's just the point," the rabbi said. "The man was a gambler, who believed in his luck. When your luck is running, you play it for all it's worth. If you start getting cautious, you're apt to lose it, that's the way gamblers think, and if it's running and you have a setback, you double your bets, that way you force your luck back into the groove. His luck was running along nicely, he had been able to buy up all the surrounding property and now he was practically certain of getting the Goralsky Block, the only hitch was the drugstore, and he had reason to believe that he'd have no difficulty in acquiring that, aptaker was holding out only on the chance that Arnold might come back. But Safferstein had been dealing with Aptaker for some time, and as a shrewd businessman, he sensed that the likelihood was mighty small, and then he comes into the drugstore to fill a prescription, and there is Arnold working in the prescription room and Aptaker tells him proudly that it is his son. So there's the setback. But his luck holds, he finds he has two bottles of pills, the same size, the same number of pills, even the same shape, all he has to do is switch them and then get it known that the drugstore had made a mistake. I don't suppose it even occurred to him that someone might get hurt."

"Well, I can understand how a man can get caught up in some great project and lose all sense of proportion. You read about artists and scientists who sacrifice everything for their work, and I suppose Safferstein may have felt that way about the mall he was planning. But having caused the death of one man, needlessly as it turned out. I don't understand why he called Dr. Muntz about the second bottle of pills, he knew they were the wrong pills. What's more, he now knew that Aptaker didn't have a lease."

"But he didn't know for sure, because I was trying to get the temple to give Aptaker his lease," said her husband, "and there was a chance I might be successful, and remember, there hadn't been the slightest hint that the police were investigating Kestler's death, so it looked as though the mistake in the pills would never become known. You might say it was Lanigan's fault for playing his cards so close to his chest, and my fault for—"

"By the same logic you might say it was Jonathan's fault," she said tartly.

"Jonathan's?"

"Sure, David. If he hadn't got sick in the middle of the night a few years back, Arnold Aptaker wouldn't have had to get up to deliver the medicine and he wouldn't have overslept the next morning, and he wouldn't have quarreled with his father and— Stop!"

He jammed on the brakes. "Now what is it?" "You've passed Harris Lane again." "Well, I'll just back up, and—"

"Against oncoming traffic? You certainly will not, David Small. You'll ride on and take the next turn."

"Oh, all right," he said meekly.