by John Ball
“Suppose you take it from the top.” Still irked, Sam tried to make it sound like a command, but when he formed the words they were in a milder tone.
“All right, Sam, let’s go back to the moment that Mantoli was hit on the head. We know now that it was a fatal blow, but it isn’t clear whether the man died instantly or was still conscious for at least a few seconds after he was struck.”
Sam swung the car up a gentle grade and again glanced at his watch. He was exactly on schedule. And he was listening carefully.
“Now if the man died instantly, or was knocked unconscious at once, exactly what would happen?”
“He would fall down.”
“Yes, but how would he fall down? Remember now, he’s either unconscious or dead.”
Sam thought about that one for a moment. “I think he’d go down like a sack of potatoes.” He glanced over at Tibbs, who was half turned toward him, his right arm resting on the windowsill.
“That’s exactly right; his knees would unlock, his shoulders would sag, his head would fall forward, and down he would go more or less in a heap.”
Sam’s mind leaped ahead as the light began to dawn. “But Mantoli’s body was all spread out. His hands were over his head!”
“That’s right,” Tibbs agreed. “I saw the pictures of the body just as you found it.”
“Wait a minute,” Sam interrupted. “Suppose he was still conscious for a few seconds or so after he was hit ….”
“Go on,” Tibbs invited.
“Then he’d throw out his arms and try to save himself.”
“Now you’re beginning to sound like a homicide man,” Virgil encouraged.
“And that’s the way I found him.”
“That’s right.”
“So perhaps he was conscious after he was hit.”
Sam was so interested in the conversation that he missed a turning. Looking quickly behind him, he made a U turn a quarter of the way up the block and fed a spurt of gas to make up the time he had lost.
“I don’t think so,” Tibbs said.
“Maybe I missed a point.”
“Suppose Mantoli had been hit where you found him. For his body to be spread out that way, he would have had to try and break his fall with his hands.”
“I get it!” Sam exploded. “If he had done that, the pavement would have scratched his hands, probably taken off some skin.”
“So?”
“Then if there was no skin off the palms of the hands, or any marks like that, that wasn’t where he fell.”
“Or if it was,” Tibbs finished, “someone was careful to spread the body out afterward.”
“Yes; though that isn’t likely,” Sam added. “Because it was in the middle of the highway and a car could have come along any time. I could have.”
“Sam,” Tibbs said, “you have the makings of a real professional.”
This time Sam didn’t even notice that Tibbs had used his first name. His mind was jumping ahead to himself, Sam Wood, professional homicide detective. Then he remembered that the black man seated beside him was just that. “How did you learn your trade, Virgil?” he asked.
“Some of the best training in the world and ten years’ experience. Everybody who joins the Pasadena force starts out by going to school. It’s amazing how much they teach you in a comparatively short time.”
Sam thought carefully for a minute before he asked his next question. “Virgil, I’m going to ask you something you aren’t going to like. But I want to know. How did they happen to take you? No, that isn’t what I mean. I want to ask you point-blank how come a colored man got all those advantages. Now if you want to get mad, go ahead.”
Tibbs countered with a question of his own. “You’ve always lived in the South, haven’t you?”
“I’ve never been further than Atlanta,” Sam acknowedged.
“Then it may be hard for you to believe, but there are places in this country where a colored man, to use your words for it, is simply a human being like everybody else. Not everybody feels that way, but enough do so that at home I can go weeks at a time without anybody reminding me that I’m a Negro. Here I can’t go fifteen minutes. If you went somewhere where people despised you because of your southern accent, and all you were doing was speaking naturally and the best way that you could, you might have a very slight idea of what it is to be constantly cursed for something that isn’t your fault and shouldn’t make any difference anyhow.”
Sam shook his head. “Some guys down here would kill you for saying a thing like that,” he cautioned.
“You made my point,” Tibbs replied.
Sam pondered that one for some time. Then he decided that he had had enough conversation and he remained silent until he at last slid the car up to the curb across from the Simon Pharmacy. When he checked his watch for the last time, he was exactly a minute ahead of schedule. Carefully he picked up the clipboard and slowly filled in the report line. Then he looked at his watch, which now showed him that he had succeeded in filling half of the surplus minute. With a clear conscience, he noted down the time and then, switching on the dome light, handed the board silently to Tibbs.
The Negro detective studied it carefully and then handed it back. Sam knew without asking that he would have noticed that the times this evening and on the fatal night were identical. And he was right. “That’s amazing, Sam,” Tibbs told him. “I know very few men who could have done that and come out right on the nose the way you did.” Tibbs paused for a moment. “The next part is the most critical; you know that, of course.”
“Naturally I know it, Mr. Tibbs.” Sam let a touch of venom drip into his voice.
“Then my confidence in you is justified,” Tibbs answered. The answer baffled Sam; he wasn’t sure just how it was meant. But there was no clear way he could take exception. “All right, let’s go,” he said, and put the car into gear.
Still edgy, he bumped across the railroad tracks and into shanty ville and the Negro area of the city. When he got there, he leaned up over the wheel and watched as usual for sleeping dogs in the street. There were none. Carefully he retraced his route past the tiny, unpainted frame houses, across the siding, and up the street that led past the Purdy house.
At that moment Sam thought about Delores. What if she were to be up and about again? It had happened twice before. That would give a Negro a look at a pretty white girl with no clothes on. Two blocks short of the Purdy house, Sam swung the car to the right and jogged two blocks down. A small sense of guilt fought for recognition, but Sam suppressed it. And the slight deviation, he felt, was absolutely undetectable.
At the end of the two blocks, Sam turned again to the left and continued up the dark street exactly as he had driven all evening. When the car jolted suddenly on an unpaved patch of road, Sam was startled, then he remembered that at the next corner there was a cross street that would get him back on his route. And it was the block past the Purdy house. When the corner came he took it smoothly, climbed back onto the pavement, and kept straight ahead until he reached the highway. He made his stop, as he always did, and then turned right toward the diner.
As he picked up speed, he wondered what to do with Virgil while he was at the diner; colored were not allowed inside. No clear answer had come to him by the time he pulled into the parking lot. He looked at his watch. “Still on schedule?” Tibbs asked.
Sam nodded. “I stop here fifteen minutes to eat.”
Before he could say more, Tibbs relieved his embarrassment. “Go ahead, and don’t hurry,” he said. “I’ll wait for you here.”
Inside the diner, Sam’s conscience nibbled at his mood. It had been awakened by the slight detour, unimportant in itself and taken for a good reason, but keeping a man waiting, even a black one, while he refreshed himself in comparative comfort annoyed Sam. He turned to Ralph. “Fix me up a ham sandwich to go, and wrap up a piece of pie. Better add a carton of milk and some straws.”
“It ain’t for that nigger cop, is it?” Ralph demanded. “If
it is, we’re all out.”
Sam pulled himself up to his full height. “When I tell you what to do,” he barked, “you do it. What I want that food for is none of your damn business.”
Ralph shrank visibly before his eyes, but he did not give up. “My boss won’t like it,” he countered.
“Move,” Sam ordered.
Ralph moved, and balefully. When Sam laid a dollar on the counter, the night man rang it up and handed out the change as though it were something unclean. And when the policeman had closed the door behind him, the thin, pimply youth let a sneer twist his features. “Nigger lover!” No matter what happened now, he was going to tell his boss. He was a councilman and Sam Wood wouldn’t push him around!
Ralph’s displeasure didn’t faze Sam a bit; it even helped to mollify his conscience. As he passed the food to Virgil Tibbs he felt proud of himself. He started the car, drove down the highway, checked his watch, and received his reward—he was on time to the minute. Carefully he pulled the car up to the spot where he had found the body, turned on his red warning lights, and stopped.
“How closely on time are you?” Tibbs asked.
“To the minute,” Sam answered.
“Thank you very much,” Tibbs said. “You’ve helped me a great deal, more than you may realize. And thank you, too, for getting some lunch for me.” He paused to take a bite of his sandwich and a sip from the container of milk.
“Now I want to ask you just one thing: Why did you deliberately change your route when we were across the tracks a little while ago?”
CHAPTER
9
WHEN BILL GILLESPIE was notified that he had been selected as chief of police for the little city of Wells, he had celebrated by buying several books on police administration and the investigation of crime. During his first weeks in Wells they gave him a certain sense of importance despite the fact that he found no time to read them. After his session in Mayor Schubert’s office, he decided to crack them without delay. In the quiet of the early evening, after he had eaten well and put on his slippers, he sat down under a good light and made an earnest attempt to study.
He began with Snyder’s Homicide Investigation. Before he had gone very far he began to appreciate the number of things he did not know, the number of things that he should have done and hadn’t. There was the matter of the body, for instance; in place of the careful examination that he should have made, or had made for him, he had taken only a quick look and then had quickly left. Furthermore he had done it before witnesses. Fortunately the witnesses were probably not aware of his deficiency.
Then he remembered that Virgil Tibbs had been there. Not only that, but when invited to do so, Tibbs had made what had apparently been a very thorough examination of the body even though at the time his interest had been purely academic.
Gillespie put the book down and folded his hands behind his head. In a rare mood of fairness, he admitted to himself that it was score one for the Negro detective. Then the happy thought hit him that he could still ask Tibbs for a report on his findings and thus fill the gap in his own investigations. The only thing against it was that it acknowledged Tibbs had some visible ability in his profession. Gillespie weighed the matter for a moment and then decided the price was not too high to pay. He would look better if he asked for the report. He would do so in the morning.
When he finally went to bed, he felt that the evening had been very profitable, and he slept well.
A vestige of his sense of well-being remained in the morning; he planned a number of things he was going to do while he shaved and breakfasted. When he arrived at his office, Eric Kaufmann was waiting to see him. Gillespie received him and waved him to a chair. “What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I want to request a permit to carry a gun,” Kaufmann replied, coming right to the point.
“A gun? Why? Do you usually carry large sums of money?” Gillespie asked.
“I wish I were in a position to,” Kaufmann answered. “Maestro Mantoli often did and—but I’m not accustomed to.”
“Then why do you want to carry a gun?”
Kaufmann leaned forward. “I don’t want to cast any reflections on your department, Chief Gillespie, and please don’t take it that way, but there is a murderer loose in this area. He killed the Maestro. His daughter or I may be next. Until we know why the crime was committed, at least, I will feel a lot better with some protection.”
“You are planning to stay here for a while, then?”
“Yes, Mr. Endicott and the committee have asked me to carry on as administrator of the festival activities, at least until someone else can be chosen. Duena—that’s Miss Mantoli—is going to stay on until after the concerts as the house guest of the Endicotts. She really has no place else to go.”
“I thought she would be going back to Italy with her father’s body.”
“She’ll accompany the body to Italy but she’ll be back almost immediately. After all, she was born in this country. Mantoli was an American citizen even though all of his people still live in the old country.”
Gillespie was satisfied. “Mr. Kaufmann, have you ever been convicted of a criminal offense?”
Kaufmann reacted. “Certainly not. I’ve never been in any kind of trouble, not even any serious traffic tickets.”
Gillespie spoke into his intercom. “Arnold, will you please take Mr. Kaufmann’s application for a gun permit and make up his fingerprint card.”
“Thank you very much,” Kaufmann said. “Does that mean I may go and buy a gun now?”
“Technically no,” Gillespie replied. “The forms have to clear through channels first.”
“How long will that take?”
“Oh, a few days. However, if you feel yourself to be in any danger, though I am sure we can give you adequate protection here, go get a gun and bring it back here so we can register it. Then I will give you permission to carry it here in the city until your formal permit comes through. But if you go to Atlanta, or any place like that, please don’t take it with you.”
Kaufmann stood up. “You’ve been very kind,” he said.
“Not at all.” Gillespie rose, shook hands, and settled back in his chair as Kaufmann disappeared.
A moment later, Pete, the desk man, came in with the daily report. “Anything on it?” Gillespie asked.
Pete shook his head. “Hardly anything; nothing I can see that will help with the Mantoli case.” Pete hesitated for a minute. “Did you know that Sam Wood had company part of the time last night?”
Gillespie used his eyebrows for question marks.
“Virgil was with him,” Pete explained. “He walked in here a few minutes before midnight and asked to ride along. You had given orders that Virgil was to get cooperation, so Sam took him.”
“I bet Sam liked that,” Gillespie commented.
“I gather he didn’t particularly,” Pete replied. “I hear Sam came back in here about four and got rid of him. I hear Sam was mad.”
“Where is Virgil now?”
“I don’t rightly know. He borrowed a real-estate map of the city, one with all the details and distances on it, and then took off in that car you let him have.”
“When he checks in, tell him I want to see him,” Gillespie instructed.
“Yes, sir. By the way, there’s a letter in that pile on your desk we didn’t open. It’s marked ‘Very Personal.’ “
“Thanks.” Gillespie nodded his dismissal and fished for the letter in the neat pile that had been placed for him on his desk. When he found it, and saw it was in a plain envelope without return address, he knew what to expect. He tore the envelope open angrily and read, as rapidly as he could to get it over with, the single sheet that it contained:
Gillespie:
Maybe you have wondered why you got the job here when a lot better men who would have taken the job were turned down. It’s because you come from the South and we figured you were big enough to keep the niggers in their place. We don’t want integrati
on, we want you to keep the damn niggers out of our schools and every other place the nigger lovers want them to get. We don’t want them neither in our police department. So get rid of that shine you got working for you and kick him out of town or else. If you don’t we’ll do it for you and we ain’t kidding. If you don’t we’ll run you out too and your not too big to be put in your place either. You have been warned.
The rage which Gillespie knew was his greatest problem surged up within him until it was difficult for him to control himself. He knew he should study the letter for a clue to the sender, but he also knew he would not find it. He crumpled the paper into a tight ball in his huge hand and flung it savagely into the wastebasket. They would put him in his place, would they! Devoutly he hoped they would try. He clenched his fists and held them up where he could look at them. No southern white trash was going to tell a Texan what to do. And whether they liked it or not, he was chief of police and they weren’t going to take that away from him. He had not calmed down when the intercom came on.