“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.”

“And I might say that he wasn’t what I would call overly cooperative.”

“That may be, but what I’m concerned with right now is that he seems to think it was done at my instigation. Did your men say anything to give him that idea?”

“You know better than that, Rabbi.”

“Of course. But then how can you possibly be interested in him?”

“Well now, Rabbi, on that point I received a bit of intelligence not twenty minutes ago. Since he’s there with you, you might just ask him a question for me. Ask him, why did he leave the temple before the service was over?”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Rabbi.” With a laugh Lanigan hung up.

The rabbi turned to Marvin Brown. “That was Chief Lanigan.”

Brown’s smirk seemed to say, I told you so.

“Tell me, Mr. Brown, Friday night, the Kol Nidre service, did you leave the temple early?”

Marvin Brown reddened.

“So that was why you did not respond when you were called for your honor. Why, Mr. Brown, why?”

“I-I don’t think I have to answer. I-I don’t care to-that is, I’m not on any witness stand, and I don’t have to answer as to my whereabouts to anyone.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I’m a cop first and foremost, Rabbi,” said Lanigan, “and I don’t take kindly to your withholding information that might be of value to our investigation.”

“I don’t see how the fact that Goralsky recommended Hirsh for a job should make me think he wanted to kill him,” said the rabbi. He was matching the chief’s reserve and his tone was coldly polite.

“Rabbi, Rabbi, I explained all that. We’ve got a weapon that practically anybody could have used, and a motive that can be almost anything. The only line we can take is to check opportunity. I told you the Jews of Barnard’s Crossing had practically a communal alibi because they were all in the temple at the time, so for that very reason anyone who wasn’t has some explaining to do. Now who wasn’t? Your friend Marvin Brown, for one. I understand he’s some kind of big shot in your temple, a vestryman or something like that.”

“He’s on the Board of Directors.”

“Okay, so if anyone should have been there, he should. And we know he was at the temple but left early-why, he wouldn’t say. Now on top of that, we find he sold Hirsh his insurance. It isn’t much, but for a guy like Hirsh who kept to himself pretty much, it’s a connection. So we question him. If it upsets him, that’s too bad. It’s one of the burdens of citizenship.”

“Aren’t you supposed to tell a man what he’s being questioned for? And in a murder case, aren’t you supposed to warn him that what he says may be used against him?”