In the Heat of the Night (12 page)

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?”

W
HEN
B
ILL
G
ILLESPIE
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:

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.

“Well?” Gillespie demanded.

“Virgil just phoned in to ask what garage took care of our official cars. I told him you wanted to see him. He’s coming right in.”

The chief’s first reaction was rage at the Negro detective who had put him in this position. Then his mood weather-vaned in a new direction. He had been
ordered
to get rid of Tibbs. Simply because of that, he resolved to keep him around as long as it pleased him to do so.

He was still framing countermeasures in his mind when there was a tap on his door. He looked up to see the cause of his trouble standing respectfully in the doorway. “You wished to see me, sir?” Tibbs asked.

Gillespie made a conscious effort to speak without strain showing in his voice, and to control his temper.

“Yes, Virgil. I’ve been wondering when you were going to give me a report on your examination of Mantoli’s body.”

Tibbs’s usually expressionless face lit up with distinct surprise. “I gave it to Mr. Arnold two days ago; I thought you had it.”

Gillespie covered. “It’s probably here on my desk, then. Also I wanted to ask you why you went riding with Sam—I mean Mr. Wood—last night.”

“Because I want to know exactly where he was prior to the time he discovered the body. Which streets he drove and when.”

“Oh? You considered that important?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“I see. And did you find out everything you wanted to know?”

“Very nearly. I think I got the rest of it this morning.”

“Virgil, I understand Sam dropped you off here last night and that he was sore when he did it. What did you do that upset Mr. Wood? He’s a pretty reasonable man ordinarily.”

Tibbs hesitated and locked his fingers together before he replied. “Mr. Wood and I got on very well, though at one point he misled me a little, and when I commented on it he dropped me off here without ceremony.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Wood misled you? Be specific.”

“Since you ask me, Chief Gillespie, I asked him to retrace with me the exact route he followed on the murder night. At one point he made a slight deviation.”

Gillespie rocked back in his chair. “Virgil, you’ve got to understand that Mr. Wood has been patrolling the streets of the city on the graveyard shift for more than three years. He makes it a point to keep changing his route continuously so that no one can predict just where he will be at any specific time. You can’t possibly expect him to remember every turning he made on any specific night, even though it was only a night or two ago.”