Someday the Rabbi Will Leave by Harry Kemelman

Author:Harry Kemelman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504016117
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller

24

The Police Chief of Revere, Cesare Orlando, Chezzie to his intimates, thought it only proper for the sake of regional harmony to report personally to Chief Lanigan. “Hugh? Chezzie Orlando. I thought I’d let you know that we took care of that hit-and-run business for you. I sent Detective Lance. You know him? He looks like an undertaker. Very good in these matters. Sympathetic, you know.”

“I guess you have to use him a lot over in your town,” Lanigan suggested.

“Now, now, Hugh. Remember, we’re a city, not a small town like you. Anyway, Lance went to the address. It’s an apartment house—residential hotel-type place. Not too clean, but fairly respectable. It isn’t a place that gives us any particular trouble, you understand? Mostly transients, but there’s some old people been living there for years.”

“I understand.”

“So there’s a broad there. Looked decent enough. Not flashy. Maybe thirty-five or even a little older. They been living together for some months, she and the victim, Tony D’Angelo. These days that’s practically a marriage.”

“She got a name?” Lanigan reached for a scratchpad.

“Oh, I didn’t give it to you? Mildred Hanson. But when the neighbors called her Mrs. D’Angelo, she didn’t correct them. Lance said she seemed like a decent woman. He took her to the morgue and she identified the body all right.”

“Get anything on him?”

“She said she thought he came from New York originally.”

“And what he did for a living?”

“She wasn’t too certain except that he was in politics.”

“And you didn’t know him, Chezzie?” Lanigan was frankly incredulous.

“He didn’t operate local. He played with the big boys in Boston. So, for all that it’s your job rather than mine, I called up a couple of pals, Italiano, as a favor to you—”

“Thanks, Chezzie, you’re a sweetheart.”

“Well, like I always say, one hand washes another. Anyway, he was a kind of gofer.”

“For whom?”

“Sort of free lance, but he did a lot for the Majority Whip.”

“Anything else?”

“Look, Hugh, it’s not like it was a murder, it was a hit-and-run. Oh yeah, one thing I wanted to ask you. Your people searched him. What money did they find on him?”

“Just a few bucks. Hold it a minute. Here it is, twenty-seven dollars in his wallet, and some loose change, fifty-two cents in his right-hand trouser pocket. Why?”

“The girl hinted that he had a lot of money on him, or was supposed to have.”

“I see. Where’s the girl now? Where is she living?”

“She’s staying on, as far as I can make out.”

“She got any money? How’s she going to live?”

“Well, she’s a waitress. In the Blue Moon. It’s a kind of cocktail lounge.”

“Okay, Chezzie, thanks. Let me know if you hear anything.”

“You know me, Hugh.”

It was not that Detective Sergeant Dunstable was lazy, or a complainer, but he disliked doing useless work. So when he got his assignment, he said, “Jeez, Lieutenant, a guy would have to be out of his mind to have his headlight fixed in a local garage after he’d broken it in a hit-and-run.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.