“Maybe that would be better.”
“Well, I’ll see. In the meantime, keep your eye on the situation.”
Brown was aware that the door of his office had opened and that his secretary was standing on the threshold. He wondered uneasily how much she had heard. He looked up at her inquiringly.
“There are two men to see you, Mr. Brown-from the police.”
Since the death of her husband, Patricia Hirsh had not been left alone for a single evening by her friends and neighbors. She had been invited to dinner, and even when she was too tired and had to beg off, someone would drop in to spend part of the long evening with her. So she was not surprised one evening when Peter Dodge dropped in on her, although she had not seen him since the funeral.
“I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting you, Pat. But I’ve been so busy with details of the MOGRE trip.”
“Oh, I understand,” she said. “And you’ve had to give up your walks, I suppose.”
He seemed embarrassed. “No, I’ve passed here several times and thought of stopping, but there always seemed to be company-”
“They were just neighbors, friends from around here.”
“I suppose it was foolish of me. I-I didn’t want them to think I might be calling for-well, for professional reasons.”
“Professional reasons?”
“Well, you see your friends and neighbors are mostly Jewish, and I was afraid they might think I was trying to win you back, now that your husband was gone.”
“But I was never converted,” she said. “Ike and I were married by a justice of the peace.”
“I know, I know. It was silly of me. Please forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Peter.”
“Oh, but there is. You were all alone, and I should have been by your side, as your oldest friend here, as someone from your hometown-”
She smiled. “Well, all right, Peter, I forgive you.”
She patted his hand, and immediately he capped it with his own. “Tell me, how are you really? I know it was a terrible shock, but are you all right now?”
Gently she withdrew her hand. “Yes, Peter. It’s lonely, of course, but everyone has been very nice.”
“And what are you planning to do? Go back to South Bend?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, not to South Bend. I left there some time before I met Ike, and I have no one there, or anywhere else, for that matter. I haven’t thought about it much, but I suppose I will stay on here for a while and try to get a job of some sort. I’d like to keep this house as long as I can, but I might have to give it up and take a small flat in Lynn or Salem -”
“A job is a good idea; it will keep your mind occupied.”
“I suppose it will do that too, but it will mean I can eat regularly.” She smiled. “I sort of got into the habit.”
He was shocked. “I didn’t realize. Didn’t Ike-”
“Leave me provided? There’s a small checking account, less than three thousand dollars, and a savings account of a little over a thousand. We paid down four thousand dollars on the house, and I’m sure I won’t have any trouble selling the house for what we paid for it. And there’s the car which I plan to sell. After what happened I never want to see it again.”
“But wasn’t there insurance?”
“Yes, there was insurance. But there also was a suicide clause, and there’s a man around, a Mr. Beam, who is working for the insurance company, an investigator. If the insurance company decides it was suicide, then they’ll just return the premiums we paid in and that’s all.”
“But they have to prove it, Pat. They can’t just decide on their own.”
“That’s true, they can’t. But they can refuse to pay, and then I would have to sue them for the money. It could drag on for years. Dr. Sykes said they might offer me a settlement, but it would be a lot less than the policy calls for. Still I think I’d probably take it if it were anything within reason.”
“But why? You don’t think he committed suicide, do you?”
She nodded slowly. “I think perhaps he may have.” And she told him what happened at Goddard, how he was going downhill. When she finished, Dodge was silent a moment. Then: “I can’t believe it. I didn’t know your husband for long, and I didn’t know him very well, but his mind-well, he was still one of the smartest men I ever met.” He rose. “Look, Pat, I’ve got to go now. I’ve got to pack. I’m taking a plane south on this Civil Rights business tonight and just came to say goodby. I’ll be gone a week or two-three at the most. You can’t tell what’s likely to happen once you get down there.”
She held out her hand and he took it in both of his. “Promise me you won’t do anything-you won’t come to any decision on the insurance or anything else-until I get back. There are people in my parish, important people, businessmen, and I will consult with them. If you should need a job, I’m sure one of them will help. I want you to stay on here.”
She smiled at him. “All right, Peter. I’m not likely to do anything for the next few weeks.” She went to the door with him.
“Good. Believe me, dear, we’ll work something out.”
“Look here, Rabbi, we’re on opposite sides of this cemetery business. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe I’m right. To me, it’s a matter of what’s best for the temple. I don’t like the idea of selling a man something and then taking it back from him, even if he pulled a fast one on me in the transaction. If someone puts something over on me, all right, I’ll know better the next time. Let the buyer beware-that’s law, isn’t it? And even though I sold Mrs. Hirsh that lot for her husband and it turns out maybe I shouldn’t have, his death not being strictly kosher, I’d be the last one to crybaby on it, even though you’re supposed to come to a deal with clean hands. But Mort Schwarz tells me that it isn’t kosher, and that it might lose the temple a lot of money, enough to build a whole new chapel. So I come up with this idea, and it was all for the good of the temple. All right, maybe you don’t agree with us, and maybe you’re right, but what I say is fight fair.”
“Would you mind telling me what you’re talking about, Mr. Brown?”
“Oh, come on, Rabbi. Everybody in town knows that the chief of police and you are buddy-buddy.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t think an outsider, who isn’t even a member of our faith, should interfere in a matter that is strictly a temple matter.”
“Are you trying to tell me that Chief Lanigan came and tried to get you to change your stand on Hirsh?”
“He didn’t come himself. But he sent a Lieutenant Jennings down with another officer. They’re both in plain clothes and they come in and ask to see me. So my secretary-secretary?-she’s the bookkeeper, general officer worker, errand girl-she tells them I’m busy and can she help. So they say, no, they got to see me personal. So she says I’m busy and can’t be disturbed. And then they flash their badges and say they guess I got to be disturbed. Now you know what that can mean in an office. There were a couple of my salesmen around, and they were talking to some customers. And the girl herself.”
“Anyone is subject to police inquiry, I suppose, Mr. Brown. Are you suggesting that I sent them?”
“Well, they came to talk about Hirsh. They wanted to know what connection I had with him. What connection would I have with him? I hardly knew the man. When he first moved into town, I sent him an announcement. I send them out to all new residents, that’s business. A little later, I sent him another announcement. It’s a special kind of letter that offers a special free premium if you fill out the enclosed card. I think at that time we were using a kind of wallet that you carry in your breast pocket and it has a little pad of paper and a ball-point pen, twenty-eight fifty a gross. So when he or his wife signed the card and sent it in, I called him on the phone and made an appointment, just like I would with anyone else. Maybe you got one when you first came to town. Then I went over there and sold him some insurance. And that’s all there was to it. I didn’t even deliver the policy. I was busy at the time and sent one of my salesmen down. I never saw him again, I’m not even sure if I would remember him if I did see him again. That was my connection with Hirsh.