The Cool Cottontail

by John Ball

  Tibbs looked at her, somewhat more accustomed now to her lack of clothing. “You’ll never need to be jealous of anyone,” he declared without emphasis. He put his coat over his arm and left.

  Linda watched him as he retreated across the lawn toward his car, “You know,” she said, “he’s quite a man.”

  “I like him,” Forrest answered. “He’s a gentleman and a very intelligent one.”

  “The girl who gets him will be pretty lucky,” Linda mused.

  Her mother gave her a quick, surprised glance that had in it a touch of concern. Although Linda was not looking at her, the girl read the reaction and understood it. “I assume he would prefer a Negro girl, but they want good men, too, don’t they?”

  Emily Nunn relaxed the touch of tension that had appeared on her face. “I’m certain of it,” she agreed.

  chapter 7

  When Virgil Tibbs walked into his office at close to three in the afternoon, Bob Nakamura took one look at the face of his Negro associate and knew that he had got his teeth into something. “Identify the body?” he asked.

  “No,” Virgil answered shortly. “But I have got an angle to try, and it might work. Are you busy?”

  Bob leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head, and beamed. “Shoot,” he invited.

  “I want to trace down all the likely places where a man arriving from overseas within the past week or ten days might have had a reservation and didn’t pick it up. Or where he did check in and then disappeared. The first is the best bet, because if he had walked out and left his luggage or his bill behind him, we’d hear of it.”

  “Nice idea,” Bob agreed. “But it’s worse than doing the pawnshops—just too many places around here that take reservations. How many hotels and motels do you think there are in Los Angeles alone?”

  “I know,” Tibbs answered, “but there is an end to it somewhere, particularly when you cut out the second- and third-class spots.”

  “Are you going to do just L.A. or all the rest of the basin?”

  Tibbs dropped into his chair, letting his weight fall. “I’m going to go the whole route and ask for the cooperation of all of the law-enforcement agencies between here and Palmdale. Ask them to check every likely spot where a well-to-do man might make a reservation. I’ll start myself with the big places, like the Beverly Hilton, that a stranger might pick out of a travel guide or an agency might line up. But I don’t know that he was a stranger; he might have had a favorite spot he always used. If I read him right, that’s a good chance, too.”

  “Needle in a haystack,” Bob commented agreeably.

  “I know it, but at least there’s only one haystack. Want to help?”

  The benign look left Bob’s face. “Let’s get going,” he said.

  Despite the warmth of early summer, the air in the San Bernardino Mountains had a touch of crispness and the subtle scent of many growing plants that had found a home above five thousand feet. Here on the rolling plateau behind the first range of the mountains time moved with less urgency. The roads were more casual and wound their way with dignity, satisfied to handle light traffic at thirty miles an hour. The frantic drive of the ramrod freeways did not exist here; the buildings scattered among the trees were principally cottages with occasional small establishments suited to the more leisurely life of a semirural vacation area. Yet in spite of the outward appearance of a calmer world, the whole area was laced with modern communications, power-distribution lines, and occasional special facilities for defense and air-traffic control.

  A pleasant thing about driving on one of the roads through this lightly wooded, lightly settled area was the fact that the birds could be heard singing. The rush of the wind was absent, and the sounds of nature could penetrate even into the hostile atmosphere of an automobile. Officer Richard Mooney noted all this and enjoyed it. He was an impressive figure in his California Highway Patrol uniform, which radiated authority. The official car he was driving ran beautifully and seemed, like him, to be responding to the perfect day. Though his uniform was a little warm and his feet in particular were uncomfortable from the tight embrace of too much leather, he was relaxed and contented.

  He was on a routine checkup that involved no problems. He was in love with his job, and although the pay was less than it should have been, he was human enough to enjoy the aura of authority and the sense of being a member of an élite group that the job gave him. He was a friendly man, but he maintained a careful distance between himself and others so that his position as part of the long arm of the law would not be compromised.

  He had so far stopped at eight resorts without success. He was not disappointed, as he had expected nothing. In police work, he knew, much time and effort had to be futilely spent. It was part of his responsibility to do his share.

  He pulled into the gravel driveway of one of the more elaborate spots, shut the car door firmly, and went inside. He was back out again shortly—negative. He noted the name of the place on his report sheet, slipped the car into gear, and moved smoothly on.

  A half mile more brought him to the next place, which was small but neat and attractive. The drive was packed earth this time, with a scattering of pine needles from the tree branches overhead; the pattern of light and shade across the entrance was exactly right for the kind of place it was. Dick Mooney, who did not live in the immediate area, decided that this would be a nice spot for a short vacation sometime. It would be certain to please his wife, Elaine. From the outside, at least, it was just the sort of place she liked. He pulled his car to a stop, got out, and walked to the door.

  A slender girl met him behind the desk. She matched the place perfectly, subdued but appealing. She wore a simple dress and very little makeup. Her light-chestnut hair had a natural look that suggested that all she had to do was brush and comb it in the morning and it would look fine all day.

  Dick Mooney took off his uniform cap and let his face show that this was an official, but not necessarily unpleasant, errand. “Good morning, Miss,” he said with some formality. “I’m making a routine check through the area.”

  “Are we in any trouble?” the girl asked.

  “Not that I know of,” he reassured her. “I only want to ask you a question about reservations. I presume you take them here?”

  “Yes, we do,” she answered. “Most of our guests—at least during the season—come by reservation. Some make them a full year ahead.”

  Mooney put his cap down on the counter for a moment and consulted the clipboard in his hand. “Within the last two weeks has any guest who had a reservation failed to appear? In particular, a man of about fifty or so who may have been coming in from overseas, but not necessarily so.”

  The girl shook her head. “No,” she answered. “Everyone who had reservations is here with the exception of the Hacketts; they phoned and canceled. They are quite young—in their late twenties or early thirties, at the most.”

  Dick wrote down the name of the resort on his report sheet. “Thank you,” he said. “They wouldn’t be the people.”

  Because his manner was pleasant and because she wanted to be sure of his continued good will, the girl saw him to the door. “We have a very quiet place here,” she explained. “Most of our guests come back to us year after year. They aren’t usually the kind who get into trouble.”

  The anxiety in her voice caused him to say, “It isn’t that. We’re looking for someone who is missing, that’s all.” It wasn’t the exact truth, he knew, but it was easier said that way.

  The girl let her shoulders drop a trifle to indicate that she was no longer concerned. “Well, everyone we expected is here apart from the Hacketts, as I told you, and none of our guests would fit your description except Uncle Albert, and we’re never sure when we’ll see him.”

  “Thank you for your trouble,” he concluded, and got back into his car. It was the last stop and he turned back toward the station.

  He reported in briefly. “All negative.”

  It was the ex
pected answer and the duty man nodded. Mooney took the sheet off his clipboard and turned it in; that finished the job and he was free of it.

  “Nothing at all in the whole area,” the duty man told him. That was expected, too, but usually the men working on something like to know the outcome. It would have stopped there forever if he had not added “Not even a nibble” for the sake of something to say.

  That touched a slight recent memory in Mooney’s mind. “A girl at Pine Shadows Lodge said something about expecting an uncle who fitted the description, but she didn’t know when to look for him.” His conscience was clearer for having put in this bit of added information.

  Later in the day, the duty man reported back to Pasadena. “A full check of the area was negative,” he advised. He debated the idea of saying any more; it would probably do nothing but give somebody extra trouble. But because he was proud of the efficiency of his unit and basically liked to talk, he added, “We have one place that might be expecting someone who fits your description, but there’s no ETA on him.”

  “O.K. Thank you.”

  The full report, including the fragmentary comment, was passed on to Bob Nakamura, who was correlating the incoming information for Tibbs. When Virgil at last came in, foot-weary, at six, Bob was there to give him the report. “Practically everything is in,” he said. “All negative. One small place up in the mountains is expecting someone who fits the description, but no definite time of arrival.”

  “From overseas?” Tibbs asked.

  “I gathered so. There weren’t any details.”

  “What was the name of the place?”

  In the fresh coolness of the next morning the girl sat quietly at her small desk beside a half-open screened window and carefully filled in the figures on the week’s expense record. The light wind stirred the pine branches overhead just enough to give a sense of something moving in an otherwise static world. With business-like care she sorted the bills she had before her; after each bill had been entered, she turned it upside down to keep them in sequence. When a chime sounded indicating that someone had crossed the electric doormat at the front entrance, she finished the entry she was making and rose to meet her visitor.

  As she stepped through the doorway into the small lobby, she saw that the caller was a well-dressed, rather slim Negro. Her first thought was that he was looking for work. Whatever his errand, she took her place behind the counter and said “Good morning” with exactly the right degree of restraint.

  “Good morning,” the Negro answered, and those two words revealed that he had been educated. “I didn’t see your sign. Is this Pine Shadows Lodge?”

  He was not, therefore, casually looking for work. “Yes, it is,” she replied. “I’m sorry about the sign. Apparently a car knocked it down last night. It was on a post by the gate and we haven’t had time to put it back up.”

  The Negro took out his wallet, extracted a small white card, and laid it on the desk before her. She looked down at it, and her mind moved forward rapidly. He was from the Pasadena Police Department, but Pasadena was many miles away. In any problem involving the lodge, the sheriff would be in charge. The only reasonable assumption, then, was a solicitation for some police-sponsored benefit. If so, the Pasadena people were ranging very far indeed from their normal area. It occurred to her that they had deliberately sent a Negro to make turning him down slightly more embarrassing. The accounts that she had been working on told her the state of the lodge’s finances; she would give him a dollar and conclude the matter.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Tibbs?” she asked politely.

  “I would like to ask you a few questions, if I may,” he answered. “Would you give me your name?”

  At that the girl tensed a bit. Her prognosis had clearly been wrong and she did not know what to expect. She was the kind of person who liked to do things calmly and in proper order.

  “I am Ellen Boardman.” It was all he had asked, and it was all she answered.

  He glanced at her left hand, which was devoid of jewelry. “Are you an employee of the lodge, Miss Boardman?” His voice was courteous, but she did not like the question; it was an invasion of her private life, which she preferred to keep to herself.

  “You might say that. My parents own it. I’m managing it for them in their absence.”

  He sensed her restraint, the coolness in her voice. “Miss Boardman, the matter I am currently investigating is quite serious. There is only a remote chance that it might involve this lodge or you, but that possibility does exist.”

  Her first reaction was almost automatic: if the matter was so serious, why had they sent this Negro man? Then the full impact of his words reached her and she was a little frightened.

  “What has happened?” she asked. “Are my parents all right?” Her voice climbed out of its accustomed smoothness and became audibly tight and tense. “Has there been an accident?”

  “I don’t believe your parents are involved,” he said quickly. He stopped there and gave her a moment to recover herself. She looked down and saw that her hands were clenched; consciously she relaxed them and rested them on the counter. She looked up as a signal that he was to go on.

  “Yesterday, I believe, an officer stopped in to see you concerning any reservations you might have had that weren’t either canceled or picked up. You mentioned something to him about expecting someone else—a relative or a member of the family.”

  It tied in now, and she blamed herself for talking too much. She raised her hand and brushed her hair back from her cheek. “I’m terribly sorry,” she answered. “I hope you didn’t come all the way up here just on account of that.”

  “Please tell me who you were expecting,” Tibbs said.

  Her sense of restraint rushed back upon her, but now she had no choice. “I was referring to my Uncle Albert,” she replied, still annoyed with herself. “My mother’s brother. He’s retired and prefers to spend most of his time overseas. He comes to visit us every summer.”

  “How old a man is he?” Tibbs asked.

  “Fifty-two.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  A certain sense of foreboding that had been lurking in the back of her mind began to take hold of her. She thought before she spoke. “I guess he’s about five feet eleven—just under six feet, I’d say. He’s fully built—not fat, but substantial. Perhaps he weighs a hundred and eighty or a hundred and ninety pounds, but that’s just a guess. I haven’t seen him for a year, you understand.”

  Tibbs nodded. “Can you tell me anything about his eyesight?”

  “His—Well, he wears glasses,” she said. “He has for years. Actually he has trouble with only one eye. It was injured in a laboratory many years ago.” She thought for a moment. “Well—he may not be wearing glasses now,” she added. “He wrote us a few months ago that he was trying out contact lenses, and apparently he liked them very much.”

  “When were you expecting him?” Tibbs asked quietly.

  “I don’t really know. About this time—no definite date. He just wrote he was going to visit some people in England and then come here in time for the board meeting.”

  “Do you know the date of the meeting?”

  She looked at a small desk calendar on the counter. “Three weeks from today,” she answered slowly. Her words formed involuntarily; she had just realized the man had asked about her uncle’s eyesight, and that was a very specific question. She forced herself to ask the thing she dreaded; it could have a terrible answer.

  “Has something happened to him?”

  “Do you by any chance have a picture of him available?” Tibbs asked in return.

  She was aware that he had side-stepped the question. “Only some snapshots taken here a year ago.” She looked anxiously at him.

  Tibbs nodded. The girl turned quickly and retreated into her living quarters. She did not have to search; in her room things were in place. She was back within a minute with some small glossy prints in her hand. Her fingers shook as she ha
nded them over.

  Tibbs glanced at the top one. “Suppose we sit down,” he proposed.

  Mechanically the girl came from behind the counter and settled into one of the few chairs in the lobby.

  When she was seated, Tibbs chose a position a short distance from hers. Then, his face revealing nothing, he carefully looked at each of the snapshots. They were clear and good. When he had finished, he laid the pictures down, and somehow at that moment she knew. From some undefined source a sense of peace came to her and prepared her for the news she had to hear.

  She chose to accept it in two steps.

  “He isn’t coming,” she said almost calmly.

  Tibbs, understanding, shook his head slightly from side to side. “I don’t believe so,” he said. Then he waited, letting her take her time.

  She drew breath and closed her eyes. “He’s dead.” She stated it as a fact so that the worst would be over. When Tibbs had not spoken for five seconds, she knew it was true.

  Still the full realization had not yet come to her. She sensed a feeling of sympathetic understanding in the man who sat quietly nearby. She knew that he wanted to reach out and take her hand to offer her his strength, but that he did not do so because he was conscious of his race—or hers.

  When he felt that the time was right, Tibbs spoke again. “I have one more thing to tell you, and it will not be easy to take. Should it be now, or later?”

  She looked him squarely in the face. “Now,” she said.

  He looked back as steadily. “I could be mistaken, but I don’t think so. Unless I am wrong, I have to tell you that he was murdered.”

  Now she understood. “That is why you are here.”

  Tibbs nodded.

  “Do you know who did it?” she asked evenly.

  “Not yet,” he admitted. “But if you will help me, I’m going to try to find out.”

  chapter 8

  After a short interval Tibbs rose to his feet. “May I use your telephone?” he asked.