"Isn't it mostly the town repair crews that are involved?" asked Miriam.
The chief laughed shortly. "Sure, thev do the actual work— clearing away a fallen tree or fixing a water main. But it's the police who are notified what roads are blocked, we check them out and tell the department that's going to do the repair work. Say a store window gets broken, we've got to stand by and guard it until they can get it boarded up. Take the harbor, we had the two police boats working around the clock checking moorings and chasing boats that had broken free, there are auto accidents, and people get hurt and we have to get them to the hospital. Take old man Kestler, who was buried yesterday, well, it was the officer in the cruising car who delivered his medicine to him, and late that same night we had to send the ambulance to take him to the hospital. So you had two police services there for that one man. By the way, just as a matter of idle curiosity, why did they bury him yesterday? I mean, he dies Wednesday night, and you bury him the next day. Was there any special reason they couldn't wait?"
The rabbi shook his head. "We always bury the dead the next day, or as soon as possible, we don't embalm, you see. It's traditional, because the land of Israel is tropical or semitropical, I suppose. So it would be for a special reason if we waited."
"You don't hold a wake? You don't let him lie in state for the family and friends to take a last look at him?"
The rabbi went to the bookcase and reached for a dictionary, he thumbed it, found the word, and read, "Here it is: Wake— to keep a watch or a vigil, as over a corpse.' It comes from an Old English root that means to watch, well, we do that. It's considered a good deed, what we call a mitzvah. In most communities there's a sort of society, Chevurai Kedusha, that undertakes to wash the body, dress it in grave vestments and then sit with the corpse all through the night reading from the Book of Lamentations.
Normally, we do not arrange to view the body, that's contrary to our tradition, which holds that once the spirit is gone, the body is just clay."
"And yet," Chief Lanigan interjected, "according to Sergeant Jenkins, when the doctor suggested an autopsy, Joe Kestler made an awful fuss about it, claimed it was against his religion."
The rabbi nodded. "I didn't think Joe Kestler was overly concerned with religion, but it's in keeping with our general tradition, we don't approve of autopsy unless there is a clear indication that from an examination of the remains, someone else's life can be saved or that something specific can be learned. Man is made in the image of God, so to cut up the body is to desecrate the image."
"That doesn't seem to square with the idea that the body is just clay once the spirit is gone," the chief pointed out.
"No, it doesn't." The rabbi grinned. "Our attitude is a little ambivalent there. Our tradition isn't a planned system, you know, where every item jibes with every other. It developed over the centuries, the aversion to cutting up the body, or to cremating it for that matter, is bound up with the idea that some Jews have of the resurrection that will take place when the Messiah comes, they mean resurrection of the body as well as of the spirit. So it's important that the whole body be there in the grave, ready to spring back to life."
"That seems kind of hard on those who died some time ago," Lanigan observed, "or those who lost limbs in battle."
"It does, rather."
"Was there any reason why you didn't do the honors on old Kestler?" asked the chief.
"Only that he came from Revere originally and was still a member of the synagogue there."
"What a subject for conversation," Miriam exclaimed. "And over coffee!"
"I imagine the chief is working around to something," her husband said with a smile.
Lanigan gave him a quick look from under bushy eyebrows and emitted a short laugh of embarrassment. "Well, there is something."
The rabbi nodded encouragingly.
"Do you want to speak to David alone?" Miriam asked.
"Oh no. Nothing like that. Please stay." Chief Lanigan leaned back in his chair. "I’ve been doctoring with Dr. Daniel Cohen practically ever since he came here about a year ago— well, because I like him. Besides, he's a general practitioner, practically the only young one in town, and I like the idea of having a family doctor. Everybody else around is a specialist. So I go to him for most things, and so does Amy. I'm sure if anything really serious happened to either of us and he didn't feel he was quite up to treating it, he wouldn't hesitate to have us call in a specialist."
Miriam nodded sympathetically.
"Today, I went to see him for a checkup. Nothing the matter, you understand. I try to go about once a year. It's a good idea."
"You ought to do it, too, David," said Miriam automatically.
"So I'm sitting there in his office, and the phone rings," tha chief continued. "It's the switchboard operator, and she says she's got someone on the line who insists on talking to him right away, he says to put him on, and immediately I hear, because he's shouting at the top of his voice, 'You got a hellova nerve sending me a bill.' Well, it was sort of embarrassing and if it weren't that I was in my undershirt and shorts, I would have eased out so he could have his conversation in private. But I couldn't very well go out in the corridor where other patients were waiting so I stayed, and I could hear as plain as the doctor was hearing. It was Joe Kestler, and he was mad because he'd just got a bill for services. You see, these four doctors, they each have their own practice and their own examining room, but they share a bookkeeper as well as a nurse and technician. It's like a clinic, and it's the clinic that sends out the bills."
"I know the general arrangement." said the rabbi.
"Yeah, it's a common setup these days, well, Kestler got his monthly statement and was full of indignation, because he felt the doctor's treatment had resulted in his father's death. I gathered he figured what happened to his father canceled all the family's debts to the doctor, he went on to say that he was going to sue him for malpractice— 'for every cent you've got' is the way he put it and that he had absolute proof because Rabbi Small was there when he gave him the pill—"
"I see, that's how I come into the picture."
Lanigan nodded. "That's right, well, I didn't say anything to the doctor when he hung up. I could see he was embarrassed. But I thought I'd look into it a little." He laughed apologetically. "It's not really a police matter, I suppose, because no one has reported anything to us. If Kestler wants to bring a malpractice suit against Dr. Cohen, that's a civil suit, and it's his right. On the other hand, hearing Kestler on the phone and knowing him a little, he's apt to go shooting off his big mouth, and that could ruin a doctor, especially a man like Cohen who is shy and being new in the area hasn't built up a following as yet."
"I see."
"The police are also involved in another way," Lanigan continued. "It was the officer in the cruising car that delivered the pills—"
"Yes, I saw the cruiser drive up. How did that happen?" "Well, the doctor called the prescription in to tha drugstore and one of their customers, a Mr. Safferstein—" he cocked an eye at the rabbi.
"Yes, I know him. Nice fellow."
"Yes, well, Safferstein agreed to deliver the medicine because they were busy at the store and Kestler's house was on his way home. But then the storm started and Safferstein stopped under a lamppost because the rain was coming down so hard, the cruising car spotted him and stopped to see if everything was all right, and he asked the officer to deliver the pills."
"I see."
"Then the police were involved again when the ambulance crew came to take the old man to the hospital. Kestler began his accusations right there in the bedroom where his father lay dead, he insisted it was the pill that had killed him. So the doctor who came with the ambulance suggested that the police should take charge of the pills." Lanigan reached into his back pocket for his wallet and drew from it a slip of paper, which he tossed on the coffee table. "That's a copy of the receipt the sergeant wrote out for him."