"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.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
I don't like it," said Lieutenant Jennings flatly.
"I don't care a hellova lot for it myself," said his chief. "And in addition I stand to lose a sizable hunk of change."
"You can charge it to the town." "Sure," said Lanigan sarcastically.
"It's a departmental expense. It was incurred while doing police work." Jennings insisted, but without much conviction.
"If it works. If it doesn't, I pay for it myself."
"It's your funeral. Hugh. If it was me, I'd talk to the selectmen first, then you could be sure that the town would pick up the tab."
"They'd never agree to it, Eban. You ought to know that."
"Guess you're right," said Jennings gloomily. "Okay, what do you want me to do? Would you like me to make the run? My car is older than yours, another dent wouldn't make any difference."
"No, I'll do it myself," said the chief. "But I'd like you to go down to the garage and alert McNulty, and then hang around until we get there, the more witnesses, the better."