The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Well, it’s about damned time,” she said. “And you think you passed? Is that what you’re celebrating?”

“Not exactly,” Matt heard Jason Washington say as he pulled the door closed after him.

EIGHT

Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein lived in a row house on Tyson Avenue, just off Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia, with his wife, Sarah, and their only child, Samuel Lowenstein, who was fifteen.

It was the only home they had ever had. The down payment had been a wedding gift from Sarah’s parents. The Lowensteins had been married three weeks after Matt, with three years on the job, had been promoted to detective. His first assignment as a detective had been to Northeast Detectives, not far away at Harbison and Levick Streets.

Sarah, at the time of her marriage, had been employed as a librarian at the Fox Chase Branch of the Philadelphia Public Library. Shortly afterward, she had become librarian at Northeast High School, at Cottman and Algon, and had held that job, with the exception of the three years she had taken off to have their son, ever since.

Sarah was active in women’s affairs of Temple Sholom, a reformed congregation at Large Street and Roosevelt Boulevard, but had long since given up hope of getting Matt to take a more active role in the affairs of the synagogue.

While what Matt said—that he did not have an eight-to-five, five-day-a-week job, but was on call twenty-four hours a day seven days a week, and thus could really not get involved like somebody who had a regular job—was true, Sarah suspected that if he did have a regular job, he would have found another excuse not to get involved.

There was absolutely no pressure from Rabbi Stephen Kuntz, who had replaced the retiring Rabbi Schneider just before Samuel was born, for Matt to take a greater role in the affairs of the congregation, which, in the beginning, had surprised Sarah, for Matt and the new young rabbi had quickly become close. And then she came to understand that was the reason.

The rabbi had a surfeit of homes offering him sumptuous meals on tables set with silver and the good china, with everyone on their good behavior, listening with polite attention as he discoursed on the moral issues of the day. Her home, she was sure, was the only home in the rabbi’s congregation where he was greeted by the man of the house calling out, “Lock up the booze, the rabbi’s here.”

She didn’t think the rabbi sat with his tie pulled down and his shoes off in anyone else’s basement, sucking beer from the bottleneck watching the fights on TV, or arguing politics loudly, or laughing deep in his belly at Lowenstein’s recounting of the most recent ribald story of the schwartzes or the Irishers or the wops in the Roundhouse.

The rabbi needed a respite from the piety of the congregation, and Matt gave it to him. That was a contribution to the congregation, too, more important, Sarah had come to understand, than having Matt serve on the Building Committee or whatever.

And it worked the other way too. When Matt had been a lieutenant in the 16th District, and had to shoot a poor, crazy hillbilly woman who had already used a shotgun to kill her husband and was about to kill a cop with it, and was as distraught as Sarah had ever seen him, Rabbi Steve had gone off with him and Denny Coughlin to the Jersey shore for four days.

All three of them had bad breath and bloodshot eyes when they came back, but the terrible look was gone from Matt’s eyes and that was all, Sarah thought, that really mattered.

Rabbi Kuntz had “dropped by” ten minutes before Lowenstein came home, fifteen minutes late, to announce that he had run into Mickey O’Hara and invited him and his girlfriend for supper.

“You could have called,” Sarah said. “They have telephones all over. What time’s he coming?”

“They. He’s bringing his girlfriend. I told him half past six.”

“If I had a little warning, I could have made a roast or something. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Go to the deli,” Lowenstein said, grinning at Kuntz. “Mickey’s a smart Irisher. He likes Jew food.”

“You’re terrible,” Sarah said. “You think that would be all right?”

“Of course it would,” Lowenstein said. “Get cold cuts and hot potato salad.”

“Well, all right, I suppose.”

“You really like that coffee, or would you rather have a beer? Or a drink?”

“I think I’ll finish the coffee and go,” the rabbi said.

“Don’t be silly. Mickey’s always good for a laugh. You look like you could use one.”

“I’d be in the way.”

“Beer or booze?”

“Beer, please.”

“Don’t be polite. I’m going to have a stiff drink. It’s been a bad day.”

“Beer anyway.”