"Did you tell him this about the motels?"
"Of course, or I wouldn't have told it to you."
"And what did he say?"
"He admits he was at those motels, but insists he wasn't there with this girl, that it was somebody else whose name he refuses to divulge."
"Well, if it's true-and it could be-that's rather admirable of him."
"Yes, if it's true. But we've got more. There is point three, which is not of too much significance but might be indicative. The girl went to see an obstetrician Thursday afternoon. She probably wore that wedding ring we found in her purse-for fairly obvious reasons. It was her first visit, so although she may have suspected her condition, she wasn't sure until Thursday. She gave her name as Mrs. Elizabeth Brown. And remember that Bronstein always registered as Mr. and Mrs. Brown."
"It's about as common as Smith," the rabbi observed.
"True."
"And nothing that you've said ties in with the fact the girl had only a slip under her coat and raincoat. Quite the contrary. He must have taken her home as he said, because that is where she left her dress. I suppose there's no doubt that the coat and raincoat are hers, or that the dress she wore was found in her room."
"That's right, and that brings us to point four. You've got to know the layout in the Serafino establishment in order to understand it. You don't know the Serafinos. I think I asked you once. Mr. Serafmo operates a sort of nightclub. It's a small place where people sit around postage-stamp tables and drink watered-down liquor while Mr. Serafino sometimes plays the piano and his wife sings songs, risqué songs, bawdy songs, downright obscene songs. Not very nice people, you might say, but at home they're like any other young couple. They have two young children, and the family never misses a Sunday at church. The club doesn't close until two in the morning, so they need someone to take care of the children every night in the week, except Thursday, when Mrs. Serafino stays home and only her husband goes to the club. That's because Thursday is a slow night. It's maid's day off, so people, the kind that are apt to go to the Club Serafino, stay home. Anyway, the Serafinos need a live-in babysitter, which is not easy to come by for people in moderate circumstances. And in spite of what you might think of nightclub owners the Serafinos are people in moderate circumstances, and their house is arranged to meet their particular needs. It's two-story, and the Serafinos, Mr. and Mrs. and the two children, all sleep on the second floor. Off the kitchen on the first floor there's what amounts to a suite for the maid. She has a bedroom, small lavatory, a stall shower, and, most important, a private entrance. Do you get the picture?"
The rabbi nodded.
"Here we have an apartment that's almost completely separated from the rest of the house. Now what was to prevent our friend Mr. Bronstein from coming into the house with the girl-"
"And she took off her dress while he was in the room?"
"Why not? If our theory is right, she'd taken off more than her dress on previous occasions."
"And then why did she go out again?"
Lanigan shrugged his shoulders. "I'll admit that here we're in the realm of pure conjecture. It's even possible that he strangled her right there in the room and then carried her out. A neighbor across the street who was beginning to get ready for bed looked out the window and saw Bronstein's blue Lincoln drive up to the Serafino house. That was shortly after twelve. Half an hour later he saw the Lincoln was still there. That's our fourth point."
"Did he see them get out of the car or get back in it?"
Lanigan shook his head.
"I know very little about these things," said the rabbi, "but as a Talmudist I am not entirely without legal training. Your theory has a thousand loopholes."
"Such as?"
"Such as the business of the coat and raincoat. If he had murdered her in her room, why did he then dress her up in a topcoat and then a raincoat? And why did he take her to the temple? And how did her handbag get into my car?"
"I've thought of all those objections, rabbi, and some others that you haven't mentioned, but I have more than enough to justify picking him up and holding him until we can check out a good many things. It's always that way. Do you think a case is ever presented to you with all the facts neatly explained? No, sir. You get a lead and you go to work on it. There are objections and you're aware of them, but as you keep digging you get answers to them, quite simple answers usually."
"And if you don't get the answers, after a while you release the man and his life is ruined," said the rabbi bitterly.
"True, rabbi. It's one of the penalties of living in organized society."
19
Nathan Greenspan was a scholarly man, slow of thought and speech. He sat behind his desk, and after poking his pipe with a spoonlike device, he blew through it once or twice to make sure it was drawing properly and then set about filling it very deliberately and methodically, while Becker, the inevitable cigar in his fist, strode up and down the room and told what had happened, what he suspected, and what he expected Greenspan to do. This last was something on the order of storming the police department and demanding that they release Bronstein immediately or face a suit for false arrest.
The lawyer put a match to his pipe, puffed at it until the entire surface was lit, and then firmly tamped down the burning tobacco that had risen in the bowl. He leaned back in his chair and spoke between puffs. "I can get a writ-of habeas corpus-if it seems that-he is being held unjustifiably-"
"Of course it's unjustifiable. He had nothing to do with it."
"How do you know?"
"Because he says so, and because I know him. You know the kind of man Bronstein is. Does he look like a murderer to you?"
"According to what you've told me the police didn't arrest him for murder. They just took him in for questioning. He had information that they had a right to know-he said he had been out with her the night she was killed. Even if he hadn't, even if he only knew her or had ever gone out with her, the police would want to question him."
"But they sent a couple of cops down to arrest him."
"That's because he didn't come in on his own accord-as he should have, by the way."
"All right, so he should have, but you know what that would have meant. I suppose he thought he could stay out of it entirely. So he was wrong, but that's no reason why he should be arrested and disgraced this way-cops coming to his house and hauling him off right in front of his wife."