Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet (27 page)

“So what?”

“So it’s strange,” said Lanigan. “It’s a long way to go for a one-day visit. On the other hand, if he did something criminal that Wednesday night because the opportunity happened to come up, then I could understand his running off the next day.”

“Yeah, but he came back,” Jennings objected.

“Sure, because it looks safe. Two weeks have gone by and there’s been no mention of any police investigation in the papers –”

“Oh hell, how would he know if it was in the papers? He’s in Philadelphia. Even if it made the Boston papers, it still wouldn’t make the papers in Philly.”

Lanigan dismissed the objection with a shake of the hand. “There are hometown newsstands in all large cities, there’s the public library –”

“They wouldn’t carry the Lynn Examiner, much less the Barnard’s Crossing Courier,” Jennings objected.

“He could have heard from his mother when they talked on the phone, that doesn’t bother me any.”

“Seems to me you’ve got your mind made up,” said Jennings. “Are you going to charge Arnold?”

“I don’t have enough yet, but I sure would like to talk to him.”

“Want me to bring him in?”

“Right now, I don’t feel that I have enough even for that.”

“So you’re going to wait until he gets a parking ticket?” asked Jennings.

Lanigan ignored the sarcasm. “What time does the drugstore close on Sundays?”

“Six o’clock. But you know how it is, sometimes he stays later, he wouldn’t turn anyone away because it was closing time.”

“Only one man on duty?” asked Lanigan.

“Yeah, young Aptaker. It’s slow on Sundays, I guess.”

“Good. So here’s what I’d like you to do. Go down there a few minutes before six and sit in your car until you see him closing up, then you ask him to come here. Say that I want to talk to him.”

“I don’t arrest him?”

Lanigan shook his head. “No, just that I want to talk to him, that’s if he’s alone. If there’s someone else there, let it ride.”

What’s it all about?” asked Arnold, he locked the door and then tried it by jiggling the knob.

“The chief wants to talk to you, that’s all I know.” said Jennings easily.

Arnold singled out the ignition key from the bunch on his ring and headed for his car, Jennings falling in step beside him. “If you’re too busy to see him now, he can drop by your house tomorrow morning,” said the lieutenant.

“No, that’s all right. I have a date right now, but it’s not – I mean, I can cancel it. Look here, if it’s about the parking situation in front of the stores –”

“My car is right here.” said Jennings. “I’ll follow you down.”

“The chiefs at the stationhouse?”

“Right.”

When they arrived, Arnold used the pay telephone to call Leah. “Look. Leah, something’s come up and I might be tied up for a while.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m kind of glad. I’ve been headachy all day. I might be coming down with something. I thought I’d get undressed and get into bed.”

“Was that a lawyer you called?” asked Lanigan pleasantly.

“No, it was my date. Why should I call a lawyer? Say, what is all this anyway?”

“Come in and sit down.” Lanigan led the way into his office and waited for the young man to be seated. “It’s just that some people feel they need a lawyer when they come down to the stationhouse,” said Lanigan genially. “You were here in town before, weren’t you?”

“Sure, I was born here. You know that.”

“I mean recently,” said Lanigan. “You were here a couple of weeks ago, that right?”

“Yeah, I had a week’s vacation and I came home. What about it?”

“And while you were here, you worked in the store, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. One night, they were busy, and I came in to give them a hand.”

“That was the night of the big storm?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You worked in the prescription room, filling prescriptions?”

“That’s right.”

“All the time you were there?”

“Right. My father was out front and Ross McLane, the other pharmacist, had a bunch of prescriptions he had to get out, so I helped him. Say, what is this? If you’re worried about my Massachusetts license –”

“All in good time, Arnold. Now, did anything unusual happen while you were working on prescriptions?”

“Unusual? What do you mean? Unusual in what way?”

“In any way,” said Lanigan blandly. “Unusual in any way at all, anything out of the ordinary, an unusual prescription maybe, or an unusual problem filling it.”

Light dawned. “Oh, you mean when I knocked over the cough medicine? How’d you hear about that?”

“Never mind how I heard about it. Just tell me about it.”

“Well, this customer came in with a prescription for cough syrup, and Ross started to fill it, we get it in these gallon jugs, see? But there wasn’t enough in the jug. So that meant he had to go to the storeroom to get another jug. But it was exactly the same formula that’s put up for us in four-ounce bottles under our own label by this drug house. So he had the idea of just getting one of these small bottles and using that instead of hassling the gallon jug out of the storeroom.”

“Why didn’t you just give the customer one of those four-ounce bottles the drug house puts up for you?” Lanigan asked, interested.

“Oh, you can’t do that,” said Arnold quickly.

“Why not?” the chief asked. “Because it’s cheaper, and you won’t make as much money on it?”

“Well, sure, but when a customer comes in with a prescription, you can’t give him a patent medicine, the customer would feel, well, he’d feel that the doctor was cheating him, and the doctor wouldn’t stand for it, he’d raise Cain, and maybe it wouldn’t do the patient as much good as getting it in a prescription. Know what I mean?”

“I guess so, and then what happened?”

“This guy came in for a prescription and he was like in a hurry,” Arnold continued. “And I guess he’s some sort of big shot. So McLane left the half-full bottle standing there and started to work on this guy’s prescription –”

“Because he was a big shot?”

“No-o, but the cough-syrup guy was busy buying things and was in no particular hurry, and Ross had to get a bottle of the patent medicine anyway –”

“Okay. I get it.”

“So the bottle that was half full was standing there uncapped, and I happened to knock it over. Naturally, Ross blew his stack, because it dripped on the floor and that stuff if you step in it is –”

“Sticky.”

“Yeah, Well, Ross cleaned it up. I mean, I didn’t know where they kept the mop –”

“Where do they?”

“In the toilet right off the prescription room. I offered to do it, but Ross went right ahead and did it.”

“And that was the only unusual thing that happened that night?” asked Lanigan.

“I guess so. It’s the only thing I can think of.”

“Nothing funny about any of the prescriptions you had to fill.”

Aptaker shook his head, mystified.

Lanigan looked up at the ceiling. “Remember one for a J. Kestler?”

“How could I remember a prescription I filled a couple of weeks ago?”

Lanigan leveled shrewd, appraising eyes at the young man. “Oh; come now, Arnold, you knew a man named Kestler, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I knew a man named Kestler. What of it?”

“You don’t remember filling a prescription for him?”

“No.”

“The name didn’t ring a bell?”

“Uh-uh.”

“You got no reaction when you saw the name on the prescription?” Lanigan coaxed.

Aptaker shook his head.

“All right, let it go. Now that was the only time you came into the store to work?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why didn’t you come in to help the next day?” the chief asked. “Was it because of this fight you had with McLane?”

“I didn’t have any fight with McLane.”

“Oh, I thought you said he blew his stack.”

“That was just for a minute. I didn’t come in again because – because I went home the next day.”

“To Philadelphia?”

“That’s right.”

“How’d you come to Barnard’s Crossing?”

“I drove.”

“When?”

“Tuesday.”

“And Thursday you went home?” said Lanigan. “That’s a long drive for a one-day visit. Why?”

Arnold squirmed in his chair, he did not like the line that the questioning was taking. For that matter, he did not like it that he was being questioned at all, he had never had dealings with the police before, but during his two years of wandering across the country, he had associated frequently with those who had, and their tactical wisdom had been succinctly summarized by one of them: “If you’re busted, you button up, you don’t go spilling your guts to the fuzz.” He wondered uneasily if he had not already said too much.

Young Aptaker came to a decision, he sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not saying another word until you tell me what you’re driving at.”

Lanigan nodded. “That’s smart, maybe you’d like to call your lawyer.”

“I don’t need any lawyer.”

“Well, maybe if you call your mother, she –”

“I’m not calling my mother, either. I’m no kid. I’m of age – Look here, am I under arrest or something?”

Lanigan shook his head.

“You mean I’m free to go? I can walk right out of here?”

“Sure.”

“Then – then what? What are you planning to do?”

“Oh, if you walk out, we’ll have to ask around. I thought you might level with us, cooperate. I thought we could have an informal talk.”

Arnold sensed a trap, and his mind cast about wildly for a means of eluding it. If he were in Philadelphia, he would call Reb Mendel, he’d know what to do, maybe he could phone him long distance.., then he had another thought. “All right,” he said. “I’ve got somebody I want to call.”

Lanigan pushed the phone toward him. “Go ahead.”

“I need the phone book.”

Lanigan reached into the bottom drawer and gave him the directory. “Who are you calling?”

“I’m calling Rabbi Small.”

Lounging in the doorway of the kitchen watching Miriam putter, the rabbi said. “How would you like to take a long drive in the country to look at the foliage?”

“With the children? Hepsibah gets carsick.”

“Not with the children. Just the two of us. Can you get Sandy to baby-sit for the afternoon?”

“She’s coming tonight, David, we’re due at the Bernsteins. Remember?”

“Oh yes, well, maybe she’d be willing to come for the whole day. Why don’t you call her?”

Sandy was willing. So, with a plastic bag of sandwiches, fruit and a thermos of coffee, the rabbi and Miriam started out.

“The foliage is probably as good around here as it is up-country right now,” Miriam remarked.

“Sure, but I’d rather be up-country, we’ll drive along the back roads and stop whenever we feel like it, then when we get hungry, we’ll eat and then –”

“Are we going anyplace in particular, David?”

“No, just away.”

“Any reason for running away?”

“I’m not running away. I just want to be away. I don’t care to sit around chewing my nails waiting for the phone to ring or for a visit of a delegation from the board to tell me that they decided not to reconsider the vote to sell the Goralsky property.”

“You think they’ll vote against you?”

“I’m pretty sure of it.”

“And what are you planning to do?” she asked anxiously.

He grinned. “I’m doing it right now. I’m not thinking about it, and we’re not going to talk about it. Look at that maple.”

It was a lovely sunny day with a blue sky and picture book clouds, and because they kept to the back roads, they encountered little traffic. Once, they stopped and watched the elaborate procedure of pulling a large boat out of the water for winter storage, at another place, they stopped in a small town to watch a football game, munching on their sandwiches as they sat in their car. For the most part, they rode, pointing out to each other things of interest, a view of the lake nestled in the hills, a majestic tree in spectacular red and gold, a herd of cows grazing on a grassy slope. When they saw a road that looked interesting, they turned into it and when they became bored with it, they branched off at the next turn.

“Do you have any idea where we are, David?” Miriam asked at one point.

“No, but we’re traveling north – in a general sort of way.”

“How do you know?”

“By the sun, of course,” he replied scornfully. “When you’re used to facing east to recite your prayers, you develop a sense of direction.”

“What if it’s night time?”

“Then you can tell by the North Star.”

“And if it’s cloudy?”

“Oh, there are ways,” he said airily. “You’ve no doubt heard of the chasidic rebbe of Chelm, the village of simpletons. It was easy for him, since he could perform miracles. Whichever way he faced when he recited his prayers automatically became east.”

They stopped for gas and found out where they were. “It’s time to turn around,” he said, “if we want to get home before dark.”

“Do you know what road to take?”

“No, but we’ll just travel south now, we should get home around six.”

To Miriam’s surprise it was just six o’clock when they came in sight of the tower of Barnard’s Crossing’s Town Hall, the children, on their bellies on the living room rug, engrossed in the television screen, greeted them – as expected – perfunctorily. Miriam asked the usual questions of the baby-sitter. Did they behave? Did they eat well?

“They ate fine and they napped,” Sandy assured her. “At least Hepsibah did, and Jonathan a little, and they’ve had their supper, there were quite a few phone calls, Rabbi, here’s the list. Some wanted to know what time you’d be back.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“I said I didn’t know,” said Sandy., “but sometime before eight, because I know you’re going out for the evening.”

“Good girl.”

They had a snack, and then while Miriam readied the children for bed, the rabbi went to his study to recite the evening prayers, he had no sooner returned to the living room when the doorbell rang. It was Dr. Muntz.