The Instrumental Rabbi (A Professor McCauley Mystery) Page 3

  She had spent nearly an hour in traffic in the South Station tunnel and was now sitting in a wall of traffic on Memorial Drive. It was already nine-fifteen and she knew the Professor would be angry. He required punctuality. She remembered how he chastised students who arrived late for his lectures. She didn't want to hear any of that today. Not today, not on her first day.

  She managed to veer off Memorial Drive and turn down Gerrys Landing Road to Mount Auburn Street and then made the left on Coolidge Hill Road. It was very easy for her to find. She had driven by it at least a dozen times before while in college.

  75 Coolidge Hill Road, Cambridge, MA

  “Good Morning Miss Smith!” announced the Professor as he opened the door.

  Jenny detected only the slightest bit of sarcasm in his voice. Indeed, he seemed to be almost cheery for her being so late. She was not accustomed to the tone of his voice and found it friendly and inviting.

  The Professor’s entrance foyer was carved from red mahogany. It was such an impressive house. The walls mushroomed up at least fifteen feet to a sculptured gold leaf ceiling.

  The vault of the ceiling gave one the impression of a Byzantine cathedral. The velvety cream-colored wallpaper softened this effect. Still, this was more like a museum than a home, a fact that was not lost on the Professor as he welcomed her in.

  McCauley was dressed in his usual working attire, a beige cotton shirt beneath a brown cashmere sweater. The shirt was neatly pressed and appeared almost new.

  The sweater showed more significant aging. Its surface was matted and the brown leather buttons draped from their positions. The cuff edges were frayed and small balls of fuzz hung everywhere. This was Stuart McCauley's favorite sweater. It was something that Jenny Smith would be seeing a lot of.

  The rest of his attire was standard informal dress, dark cotton trousers and boat shoes. McCauley liked to dress casually and almost never donned a coat and tie.

  “I...I'm sorry that I'm late,” stammered Jenny entering the house while feeling quite foolish. “Traffic this morning was terrible. I’ll leave even earlier tomorrow morning.”

  “Nonsense,” replied McCauley, “you have allowed me some time to tidy up!”

  Jenny looked around the house and wondered if it had been anywhere near enough time. The Professor, while brilliant, was clearly an unconscionable slob. The ornate, wood paneled hall was cluttered with coats, umbrellas, books, boxes, papers and other trash. It looked like everything was just piled on top of everything else.

  “We shall be working out of here,” said McCauley, pointing to his study on the right.

  “This room is even messier than the others.” thought Jenny, as she entered.

  It surely was. The comfortable leather sitting chairs were covered with newspapers, magazines and random scraps of paper. The burled mahogany coffee table, end tables, and desk were each buried beneath their own private piles of clutter. A wastebasket next to the desk overflowed with files and small rolled up balls of paper.

  Along the northern wall was a floor-to-ceiling recessed bookcase that would do justice to any Criminal Justice department's library. As she looked around, Jenny saw books and case studies on operational techniques, chemistry, anatomy, legal cases, and a wide assortment of other subjects. They completely filled the red mahogany shelves.

  The southern wall was mostly glass and, by now, the morning sun was shining through and had stretched itself across the Persian oriental carpet which covered the floor. Strong rays of light flickered and danced along the bottom shelves of the bookcase serving to highlight the most often used texts in their thinner layers of dust.

  Jenny was immediately overcome by the shear size of the study. It was a great work area. The air had a strange musty smell and each piece of furniture had a well-worn sheen. She imagined McCauley in here pacing the floor or scribbling notes as he worked on each case.

  “I've brought all the folders.” she said clearing off a chair and sitting down.

  “Splendid!” said McCauley in a particularly congenial voice.

  Such pleasant behavior was really unlike the Professor. He was normally more abrupt, more removed, and always, less civil. Jenny didn’t understand his change.

  “I wonder if he’s acting this way because of me?” she thought privately.

  She had only known about the Professor from one class that he had taught at Northeastern and from what she had read about his exploits. There was much written about him and his behavior, and he was definitely acting “differently” this morning.

  A feature article in the Boston Sunday Globe magazine section had once described McCauley as “the toughest interview I ever conducted” and “an arrogant analytical machine, completely devoid of emotion.” It was not personality praise.

  Yet McCauley strutted about, quite jovial and well mannered, even offering Jenny coffee before they began their work. It was an acceptance that she would quickly regret.

  While the Professor's mind was obviously a vault of tabulated information, it was clear to Jenny, after her first sip, that he had no knowledge of basic coffee preparation. The coffee that he made was so strong that she thought her spoon would dissolve in the cup. “No one drinks coffee this strong.” she thought almost choking from the bitter taste in her mouth.

  “Shall we begin?” asked McCauley as he plopped down in the chair directly across the coffee table from Jenny. The morning sun blazed across his face. It was the type of light that detailed every line in his ruggedly handsome face. Jenny tried not to stare at him.

  “I reviewed most of the information this morning,” said Jenny not wanting to let on that she had read and reread everything about the case.

  McCauley stared at her startling green eyes; he knew she had not slept. The thought of her deception amused him and he smiled.

  “Well then, may I see the information?” he said as he swept the clutter from the top of the coffee table right onto the floor. “Let us begin with case number one.”

  They proceeded to spend the next six hours systematically reviewing each one of the seventeen murders. Names, addresses, professions, places of assault, height, color of hair, ethnic background, educational background, and sexual preference - complete profiles.

  Jenny was fascinated by the Professor. Sometimes, he would look at her so intensely; it almost appeared that he was looking right through her. At other times, he would stare out into space, completely silent. She, in turn, watched him at all times, occasionally commenting but more often silent.

  “He IS an analytical machine,” she thought many times that morning.

  McCauley would read each file in silence and then recite facts that he wanted to analyze. Jenny immediately copied these down and the Professor committed them to memory.

  It appeared to Jenny that the murderer chose his subjects somewhat at random. They were all women between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-one and had all been murdered in the Subway system. Aside from these facts, no other patterns had developed. At least no other patterns had developed that she could see.

  McCauley rose, and began to strut about the room.

  “We must begin by determining the motive!” he said as though leading a classroom. “It is motive, Smith, which always leads us to a solution.”

  She had heard him say that line in the classroom, at least one hundred times, but this time, she was shocked by how odd the insertion of her last name sounded in mid-sentence.

  “The symbol of Taurt was placed in the body for the sole purpose of misleading the authorities. It and the descriptive phone calls were planted to insure that we developed a character profile of a deranged, fanatical, extremist - intent on demonic sacrifice and slaughter.” said the Professor.

  “This can only mean that we are looking for a rational murderer,” he continued. “One who calculates his every action and has a specifically defined objective! Therefore, there must have been a reason for the butchery, a reason for the number of slayings, a reason for the Subway, a reaso
n for choosing Boston and a reason for targeting only young women.”

  It was at that moment that McCauley paused and glanced down at Jenny Smith sitting disheveled and exhausted in her chair.

  “My God!” he exclaimed. “I've worked you straight through lunch. Haven’t I?”

  “Oh...it's ok, Professor,” she said, “I'm really not tired… and I find this all very fascinating.”

  Of course, only the latter part of the last statement was true.

  “Nonsense, you collect your things immediately and be off. I will call you in a day or so as the case develops.” He helped her arrange the folders and showed her to the door.

  “Well, alright, I guess I could use some rest, but call me, I mean, at any time, if you need me,” said Jenny foolishly not knowing how to say goodbye.

  “Do not worry Miss Smith,” said the Professor smiling, I shall... I shall.”

  Cohasset, MA

  “He hates me!” she concluded. Jenny had replayed the meeting over and over in her mind for the entire ride home.

  “Why else would he dismiss me so abruptly? He was just beginning to develop a theory and we were finally getting somewhere. We? That's a joke. He did all the talking. All I did is sit there and take notes like a little schoolgirl. Nice first impression. I even looked like a dog.” she said tearing at her protruding clumps of red hair and staring in the rear view mirror.

  “I wonder if he thinks that I'm pretty?” she thought still tugging at those clumps of hair.

  McCauley's private life was somewhat of a secret, although it was publicly known that his wife died in a hit-and-run accident when he was doing his doctoral dissertation at Harvard. She was only twenty-three. Jenny seemed to remember that her name was Jean.

  Since the time of her death, he traveled, ate, and lived alone. He never mentioned his ex-wife or even the fact that he was once married. The only outward appearance of marriage was the plain gold band on the ring finger of his left hand.

  It was that incident which propelled Professor McCauley into the realm of private criminology. Though torn by grief and despair, he had worked nonstop for twelve months until he apprehended his wife’s killer, a seventeen-year-old high school student who had been DWI. After that year of intense investigation, he didn’t even attend the trial. Some say he found pity for the boy. Some say he couldn’t deal with the trial. The reality was that he simply realized the trial would not bring Jean back to him.

  Jenny arrived at her home, made a salad and ate it with a cup of blueberry yogurt staring blankly out the window. Her sparsely furnished apartment on Beechwood Street only had a small refrigerator and it did not contain a wide variety of food. She stocked it with bottled water, yogurt, salad, and dark chocolate, her one indulgence.

  After eating, she drew a hot bath and soaked in it sleepily until the water turned cold. She changed into her nightgown, an old worn New England Patriots football jersey, and called her mother to tell her about her day. Jenny almost cried as she reached the part about McCauley sending her home.

  “Now, now,” said her mother, “he probably saw that you were exhausted and needed some rest. You have been working yourself into a frenzy over this.”

  “But he didn't say that, Mom...,” whined Jenny. “He just sent me out and said he'd call me when something came up. I don't even know if I'm supposed to go into the office, his home, or just wait here tomorrow!”

  Jenny finished the conversation with her mother and hung up the phone. “She always makes me feel better.” thought Jenny dreamily. “I wonder if he really did feel bad for me?”

  Jenny was exhausted. She stretched out on the sofa and turned on the TV to watch the six o'clock news. As usual, there was non-stop coverage on the “Subway Slasher.”

  The subject seemed to dominate each evening's newscast. There were interviews with bereaved family members, scenes from several Subway entrances, and a parade of “experts” on every subject from serial killers to paranormal psychology.

  The coverage of the murders had taken on a carnival-like atmosphere. Jenny was as tired of hearing about these murders as just about everyone else in the greater Boston area. The murders were senseless and irrational - No, HE had said rational.

  Her mother was worried about Jenny’s safety. She had been trying to get Jenny to move back home to Framingham, even temporarily, until these murders were over with.

  Jenny, though, would have none of it. She had lived on the South Shore with a group of friends during her days in college. She had decided back then that although she wanted to work in Boston, she wanted to live somewhere near the ocean. She was fiercely independent and wouldn’t have any of her mother’s coddling.

  As she settled deeply into the sofa, her body relaxed and warm, a soft wave of sleep engulfed her, drowning out the tireless drone of the television...

  On a more humanitarian note, Dr. Alfred Scheiter, Chairman of the Board of A. G. Bhermann, today donated 10 million dollars to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute for construction of a kidney cancer research wing. It has been widely rumored that the billionaire industrialist and recluse is suffering from some form of cancer...

  Chapter 4

  Charlestown, MA

  The sun was just setting over the city and the tall buildings cast their shadows into the harbor. The renovated Navy yard was quiet except for faint voices which echoed out from Barry Playground. It seems that, in these turbulent days surrounding the murders, not even the street gangs chose to roam. In a strange way the fear which had spread throughout the community made Charlestown a somewhat safer place to live.

  Dr. Irwin Chandler finished the last portion of his chili and rose from the table. He walked over to the sink of his decrepit one room efficiency and put the bowl on top of the mound of dirty dishes.

  His apartment was modest by any standards. It was located eight steps below ground level and measured thirteen by twenty-two feet. It was a below ground, basement efficiency in an old, brick, multi-family apartment complex. The other apartment building’s tenants were all first year immigrants, Vietnamese, Puerto Rican, Cambodian, and Irish. Some were families, some individuals – but all were poor.

  Chandler had grown up in Brookline, graduated from the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Boston University, and the Tufts Medical School. He had fulfilled his residency at the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and come back to New England to establish a large vascular surgery practice at St. Vincent's Hospital in Worcester, MA. That was in the early days, the days before his fall.

  Chandler had grown accustomed to the affluent lifestyle and his rising societal stature within this smaller Massachusetts community.

  Worcester was largely a blue-collar city. Doctors, and especially surgeons, were looked upon in high regard. They moved freely about the city as symbols of power, prestige, and wealth. They had their own inner circle of friends, large homes off of Salisbury Street, private clubs and vacation destinations.

  It was when the vascular surgery field exploded and many new doctors entered the specialty that Chandler first started having problems. Competition from the younger, more specialized practices seemed to combine with Chandler's lack of “bedside” manner to diminish his patient load.

  The loss of patients presented two problems to Chandler. The most immediate was financial but the most important to him was his loss of community prestige.

  This decline culminated when a doctor from one of the younger practices referred a patient to him. Chandler had naturally assumed the younger doctor referred the patient because of his reputation, skill, and years of experience. This was hardly the reason.

  The younger doctor's caseload was brimming and this patient was a welfare recipient which meant Medicare payments. Chandler had overheard two other doctors at the hospital speak about the referral, calling him a “charity case.”

  This term meant that doctors in the greater Worcester area would occasionally be “throwing him bones,” the practice of referring patients to him to help him o
ut financially. The thought of being a laughing stock in his own community was more than Chandler could stand. As he drove home from the hospital that evening he knew something had to change. And it did.

  Outwardly, Dr. Chandler continued with his work and surprisingly, almost miraculously, his practice began to prosper once again. Many in Worcester’s medical community viewed his new found prosperity as somewhat of a phenomenon.

  Chandler bought a new medical building near the Shrewsbury border and had a small, dedicated staff gainfully employed. On some days, he would individually perform more surgery than the entire surgical staff of other practices. His reputation, and patient register, soared.

  Unfortunately, so to, did the rumors. Allegations began to surface about his practice. When the Attorney General and Medical Board were investigating an operating room death involving Chandler, one of his “team” members cracked under interrogation. This member of the staff agreed to work undercover for the Attorney General's office for three months.