“But this is more than just helping the southern Negro, David. It’s a new feeling, a new spirit that’s developing in the church, your church as well as mine, and we mustn’t let it die out. The church is coming out of its traditional shell. It’s burgeoning with new life. It’s giving up its self-satisfied praying and smug psalm singing to go out into the highways and byways of men to serve them, to help them to fulfill themselves. The Civil Rights movement is not for the Negro alone; it’s also for the church itself. And that’s why her ministers, priest and rabbi and pastor, are all involved.”

“It’s not new to us, Peter,” the rabbi said softly. “We’ve been doing that for several thousand years, in fact, ever since we accepted Deuteronomy and the commandment, ‘Six days shalt thou labor… but the seventh day is the Sabbath in honor of the Lord; on it thou shalt not do any work, neither thou, nor thy son, nor servant, nor thy ox, nor thy ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; in order that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou.’ You people parted company with us a couple of thousand years ago when you fixed your eyes on Heaven. A little suffering here on this earth didn’t matter much to you, because compared to the infinite time in the next world, life here was a snap of the fingers, a blink of the eye. But we’ve always been involved with life on this earth and its many injustices. So I suppose you could say that we’ve been in the Civil Rights movement from the beginning.”

“But haven’t you missed something in the process, David?”

“Such as?”

“Such as the inspiration of the blessed saints. Such as the inspiration of lives devoted to Heaven and God. Such as the handful of people who by their example brought mankind a little closer to the angels.”

“Yes, I suppose we have, but we thought it was worth it. And now, it seems as though you people are beginning to think so, too.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The district attorney is not happy with me,” said Lanigan. He had stopped by the Smalls on his way home. “And I don’t think he’s happy with you either, Rabbi.”

“What have I done?”

“A district attorney doesn’t mind going into court with a clear case and winning it. Just as a ballplayer doesn’t mind hitting a home run. But to dump a murder case in his lap, with no suspects and a good chance that the murderer may never be found, that he doesn’t like. And that’s why he’s not happy with you. And he’s not happy with me because he thinks I bungled it. It never occurred to me that it might be murder, so I didn’t take the normal pre-cautions on fingerprints and-”

“But the fingerprints were wiped off.”

“On the light button, yes, but what about the steering wheel and door handles and handles on the garage door? You might assume that if the murderer took the trouble to wipe the light button he’d wipe off the rest, but it doesn’t necessarily follow. You’d be amazed how often they slip up. And they can slip up on the most obvious thing while being scrupulously careful on the least likely. If I had thought there was a possibility of murder, I would have handled it differently. And I should have considered the possibility. No, I’m afraid I don’t look good in this case so far.”

“That will make you look all the better when you find the culprit,” said Miriam.

“That’s not going to be easy. This isn’t like any other case.”

“How do you mean?” asked the rabbi.

“Well, in any crime there are three basic questions, three lines of investigation you might say, and where they meet, that’s your answer. There’s opportunity, there’s weapon, and there’s motive.” The chief ticked them off on his fingers. “Here, what was the weapon? The car. That means that anyone who can drive can be said to have access to the weapon. If you wanted to stretch it, he wouldn’t even have to know how to drive a car.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you there.”

“Well, say Hirsh had made it back to the garage and then passed out. Anyone passing, seeing him, could just pull down the garage door and that would do it.”

“But then Hirsh would have been behind the wheel-not on the passenger seat,” the rabbi objected.

“Yeah, that’s right. All right, so the murderer-or at least an accomplice-is anyone who can drive a car. That still leaves an awful lot of people. So we come to opportunity. Well, considering how accessible or available the weapon was, it means it could be anyone who might have been at the Hirsh house or was passing by sometime around eight o’clock in the evening.” He grinned. “That kind of eliminates your people, Rabbi. Just their luck it was Yom Kippur and they were all in temple. It gives them a collective alibi.”

The rabbi smiled faintly.

“And so we come to motive. And that’s what makes the case particularly hard, because you see you don’t need much of a motive for this killing.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it doesn’t involve much doing-not much planning and not much nerve either. Look here, suppose you see a man drowning and although you’re a good swimmer and could easily reach him you just turn away. See what I mean? Deliberately to plan on drowning a man takes resolution and nerve; you wouldn’t do it unless you hated him or had good reason for wishing him dead. But to just turn away-that you might do if you happened only to dislike him. Why should I go to the trouble, you’d say, especially if life would be easier with him gone.

“Take me, for example. I’m considered a pretty decent, lawabiding citizen. I’m considered a good husband and a good father, and even the people I deal with professionally-criminals and lawbreakers-speak of me as fair and honest. But every now and then thoughts go through my head-”

“This is common to all men.”

“Of course. It isn’t what you think but what you do that matters. But what if the opportunity came to do one of these things just when it happened to occur to me, and it involved no great risk on my part, no real action-just a turning away-failing to do something rather than doing it. Do you see what I mean, Rabbi?”

“All right, I see the point you’re trying to make. You mean that in this kind of killing, almost accidental and so easy, no great animus is required.”

“That’s it.”

“So where does that leave you?”

The chief shrugged. “With damn little to go on.”

“Suppose you ran the story in the newspapers. That might turn up something.”

Lanigan shook his head. “It will have to wait for a few days, I’m afraid. The D.A. thinks we may be able to come up with an answer if the story is kept secret.”

“Then you do have a lead.”

“Not really,” the chief said. “Beam’s idea, but the D.A. thinks it’s worth checking. And, mind you, from a straight, logical basis, it’s possible. He’s got it in his head that the widow did it. Why? Because then his company won’t have to pay off. His argument is that as far as we know she’s the only one who profits. She becomes richer by fifty thousand dollars for one thing, and for another she gets rid of a husband who was not only old enough to be her father but was no bargain in a lot of other respects, too.”

“She married him when he was an alcoholic. Does Beam think that now that he at least partially reformed, he was a less desirable husband?”

“I’m just giving you his idea, Rabbi. There’s a little more to it. He feels that business about having him buried in a Jewish cemetery with the Jewish rites was just a big act to show how devoted she was, like another woman might pretend to faint or weep whenever she thought someone was watching. That if all this had been on the up and up, she wouldn’t have bothered to bury him in the Jewish cemetery since he had no feelings about it when he was alive.”

“Such involved psychological analysis,” said the rabbi. “I wouldn’t have thought our friend Beam capable of it.”