Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry (21 page)

“He took his own life, Papa.”

The old man nodded sadly. “That’s a terrible thing. He must have suffered a lot. Maybe he couldn’t stand it to be a drunkard. He was an educated boy. So maybe for him to be a drunkard was like for another person to have a cancer.”

“You knew him well?” asked the rabbi.

“Isaac Hirsh? Sure, I knew him when he was born. I knew his father and mother. She was a fine woman, but the husband, the father, he was a nothing.” He canted his head on one side in reflection. “It’s hard to know what to do, what’s right. Here was Hirsh who never did an honest day’s work in his life. Even while his wife was alive, he used to be interested in the ladies. They used to say that a decent woman didn’t want to go into his shop for a fitting. He made with the hands – you know what I mean. And when she died, he could hardly wait to get married again. Yet his son was an educated boy who went through college on scholarship and even became a doctor, a Ph.D. doctor. And I, what I worked hard all my life and I observed all the regulations, not one of my four children went to college.”

“Well –”

“And yet, Rabbi, on the other side, all my children, they’re in good health, they’re well off, and they’re all good to me. And Isaac Hirsh didn’t even come to his father’s funeral, and now he too is dead. So you can’t tell.”

“Then you feel differently now about Hirsh’s burial,” suggested the rabbi.

The old man’s mouth set in a hard line. “No, Rabbi,” he said. “A rule is a rule.”

No formal announcement was made by the district attorney; only a short notice appeared in the inside pages of the Lynn Examiner stating that the district attorney’s office was looking into the circumstances surrounding the death September 18 of Isaac Hirsh of 4 Bradford Lane, Barnard’s Crossing, and that a petition might be filed for an order to exhume the body.

Marvin Brown caught the item as he glanced through the paper during his morning coffee break and called Mortimer Schwarz immediately.

“I’ll bet the rabbi had something to do with that, Mort. It’s a trick – it’s one of the rabbi’s little tricks, I tell you.” He sounded excited.

“But how could the rabbi get to the district attorney? And what does he gain by it?”

“He’s thick as thieves with Chief Lanigan and Lanigan goes to the D.A. As for what he stands to gain – why, he stops us from going ahead.”

“You mean with the road? What’s that got to do with the D.A.‘s investigation?”

“Well, wouldn’t it look kind of funny if we start building a road to set off the very grave they’re interested in? The paper said they were going to exhume the body. Wouldn’t that look nice while they’re digging up the body for us to be laying out the road? You don’t think there’d be questions?”

“I still don’t see anything for us to get excited about, Marve. Obviously there’s no connection between our work and theirs. And frankly, I can’t imagine the rabbi going to all that trouble, especially where it doesn’t change things the least bit. You know what I think? This guy Beam, the investigator for the insurance company, he must have got the ball rolling on this. After all, he represents a big insurance company that has a lot at stake. My guess is that they’d have a lot more influence with the district attorney than the rabbi would.”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, Mort, I’m not going ahead with the road business until after the district attorney is out of there.”

“Personally, I don’t see it. But if you feel that way, okay, so we’ll wait a week.”

“But what about the Board meeting Sunday? It’s not safe to go ahead with the rabbi’s resignation while this business with Hirsh is still hanging fire.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a point there, Marve. You sure you don’t want to go ahead with our plans –”

“No.”

“All right, I’ll tell you what we’ll do: we’ll call off the Board meeting.”

“Isn’t that kind of high-handed?”

“I don’t think so. As president I can call a special meeting, can’t I?”

“Sure, but –”

“So why can’t I call off a meeting? Matter of fact, I could just call up our friends and tell them not to show. Then we wouldn’t have a quorum.”

“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.

“But the way they acted and the questions they asked, like I had done something criminal. Why was I so interested in changing the layout of the road? Didn’t I realize that it would cut Hirsh’s grave off from the others? What did I have against Hirsh? I couldn’t tell them about the Goralsky business. That’s all hush-hush, and as far as I know Ben Goralsky hasn’t even agreed to give the chapel. So I told them about our law against burying suicides. And then they tell me that they understand according to you it isn’t against the law, and couldn’t it be I had some other reason. Then they begin asking me what I was doing the night Hirsh died.”

“Well, that should have been easy. It was Kol Nidre.”

“None of it was hard. They were just giving me the business. And don’t tell me, Rabbi, that they can’t touch me if I haven’t done anything wrong. Aside from taking up my time, they can do me lots of harm just by coming to see me. A man in business, especially the insurance business, has to be above suspicion. What if word gets around that the police are coming down to the office to question me? Do you think that would improve my business?”

The rabbi was spared the necessity of answering by the ringing phone. It was Lanigan.

He sounded jubilant. “Rabbi, remember I told you that Goralsky, Mr. Ben Goralsky, was the one who recommended Hirsh for the job at Goddard?”

“Yes.”

“Well, did you know that Hirsh and Goralsky were originally partners, and that the process the Goralskys now use by which they made a fortune, I might add, was Hirsh’s idea? They backed him with money and then bought him out.”

“Yes, I knew that.”

There was a pause, then – and the voice was cold, “You never mentioned it to me.”

“I didn’t think it was significant.”

“I think you and I should have a little talk, Rabbi. Maybe tonight?”

“That will be all right. Right now, Mr. Marvin Brown is here with me. He tells me that a couple of your men were down to see him.”