The rabbi shook his head.
“He was a big boy, over two hundred pounds, and alcohol poisoning, you know, depends a good deal on body size. It takes more of the stuff to have the same effect on a big man than it would on a little man. The wav it works—if you take enough of it and you take it fast enough before the body can get rid of it—the nerve controlling the breathing apparatus is paralyzed, and you’re asphyxiated. And on the basis of the available evidence, it just doesn’t look as if he had enough to kill him. And there are other angles. Come with me, and I’ll show you something.”
He led the way into a small room off the front entrance. From the filing cabinet he drew a large manila envelope and emptied its contents on a table. He held up a plastic tobacco pouch, unrolled it, and passed it to the rabbi. “What do you think of that?”
The rabbi sniffed at it and then took a pinch of the greenish flakes. Gingerly he touched it with the tip of his tongue.
“Careful. Rabbi, you’re breaking the law.”
“Then this is—”
“Grass, pot. Mary Jane, marihuana. We found that in Moose’s trouser pocket. And here’s his wallet.” He held it by a corner and shook it in front of the rabbi’s face. “It contains two crisp new twenty-dollar bills. Rabbi. Now ask me what makes them so interesting.”
“All right, what makes them so interesting?”
“Because up until around noon today Moose Carter didn’t have a dime. He was going into Boston, and he had to borrow a couple of dollars from his mother for bus fare.”
“You mean he’s been selling this stuff?”
“Maybe. But what makes it really interesting is that earlier today a man was murdered in Boston, in the South End, name of Wilcox. It came over the teletype. Boston narcotics squad had been suspicious of him for some time. Just before closing time, he had cashed a check at the local branch of his bank for five hundred dollars and got it in crisp new twenties. But when you get your money in new bills, the numbers run consecutively. So when we found the grass on Moose. I called the Boston police on he chance that there might be a connection. And that’s when we found out about the money. Wilcox had four hundred and sixty dollars on him when he was found, and the two bills that Moose had were the next two numbers.”
“You mean that Moose murdered this Wilcox?”
“No. As a matter of fact we know that he didn’t, because Wilcox was alive after Moose was seen to leave.”
“Then it is definite that Moose went there?”
“The two twenty-dollar bills pretty much prove that.” said Lanigan drily. “That would be proof enough for me.”
“And yet, he could have got them from whoever got them from Wilcox.”
“Could have but didn’t. Boston has an eyewitness that saw Moose going to visit Wilcox. So you can understand why I’m not releasing the body just yet.”
The rabbi nodded slowly.
“All right.” Once again Lanigan was grinning. “And now ask me how we found Moose in the first place.”
“Go on.” For some reason the rabbi was apprehensive.
“We got a call from the next door neighbor, man named Begg, who said he had seen a light in Hillson House. So we sent the cruising car around to check it out, and they got there just in time to catch a couple of young fellows coming out. They had a car parked in front of the house, and there was a young girl behind the wheel. Now they might interest you. Rabbi, because one of them is the son of the president of your temple, and the other two. William Jacobs and Diane Epstein, are also your people.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
You bothered about something, lover?” asked Samantha as she sipped her coffee.
“Troubled? No. Why?”
“Well, you’ve been pretty quiet all evening.”
“Oh, I was just wondering how Ben made out with the rabbi.” said Roger Epstein. “I thought he might call and tell me about it.”
“Well, they were going to her sister’s in Lynn. Sarah mentioned it the other night when they were over. I suppose he just explained to him what the new policy of the temple was and told him that he expected him to go along with it.”
“That’s just the point. From what I’ve seen of him, the rabbi isn’t the sort of man you can just tell what to do.”
Samantha looked up from her glass. “You mean he’s stubborn?”
“No-o, not exactly stubborn. Maybe it’s just that he knows just what he believes. Most people don’t, you know. And he isn’t the sort to do something that he believes wrong.”
“But if Ben tells him—”
“All right, suppose he tells him and he refuses?”
“Well, gosh, doesn’t he have to go along with Ben? Or is there some Jewish law about it? I mean, he isn’t like a priest who is put in a parish by the bishop. You can ask him to leave, can’t you?”
“Yes, we can. And that’s what we agreed at the meeting. Ben was to spell it out for him, and if he refused to go along or if Ben decided that he wasn’t going to go along—we left it up to Ben to use his judgment—why then, he was to tell him that a motion would be brought up before the board calling for his resignation.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But I’ve been thinking about it, Sam, and I’m not so sure it was such a good idea. The way Ben explained it at the time, he could use the pulpit to help the opposition every chance he got—the Sabbath services, the community seder next week, there’ll be a lot of people attending that, the holiday services the following week—besides all kinds of people who come calling on him or who he sees, like the kids yesterday, which precipitated the whole business. If we couldn’t neutralize him, it would be better to fire him before he could do much damage. That was Ben’s view, and we all went along with it.”
“Well, it seems reasonable.”
“Maybe it is, but I can’t help feeling that maybe Ben exaggerated what the rabbi might do, and even more—” he hesitated.
“What?”
“I personally feel funny about it.”
“How do you mean, lover?”
“Well, here I am—new to this whole game. I became a member of the temple only a few years ago, partly because Ben Gorfinkle urged me and partly because I thought, as an institution, I could use it to further the things that mean a lot to me—the Social Action Fund, for example. But I’m still only a new man. Before that, I never entered a temple from one year to the next. And here I am, one of the group who’s laying down the law to the rabbi, even firing him maybe, and he’s been in it all his life.” He shook his head. “Well. I’m beginning to think it’s damn presumptuous of me.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
All right, so it started to rain and you ran up to the house.” said the rabbi, “and then what happened?”
“Well.” said Bill Jacobs, “at first we tried to take shelter under the eaves—there was no porch—but it started to thunder and lightning, and the girls got frightened. It was awfully close. You can tell by how soon the thunder follows the lightning. You count—”
“I know how it’s done.”
“Yeah, well, so Moose suggested we go inside.”
“It was Moose’s suggestion? You’re sure?”
“That’s right.” said Didi. “I remember one of the boys—I think it was Adam Sussman—asking how we were going to get in, and Moose in that very superior way of his said he’d show us. He puts the palms of his hands against the windowpane, and he sort of rotates it, and that causes the catch to loosen. Then with something thin and stiff—a little plastic ruler he had—you can stick it up between the window sashes and push it back.” She demonstrated the technique.
“But weren’t you worried about being seen?”
“Well, there’s only this other house where this guy Begg lives, the one that notified the police, I understand.” said Bill, “and Moose was sure he wouldn’t bother us.”