In the Heat of the Night (15 page)

The two men were interrupted when Grace Endicott and Duena Mantoli came into the room. They rose and Tibbs exchanged proper greetings. He noted that the girl seemed to have recovered her composure; her eyes were clear and she looked at him as though she was no longer frightened.

When they were all seated, Grace Endicott asked a question. “Are you making any progress?”

“I believe so, Mrs. Endicott,” Tibbs answered, “particularly so today. But progress in any police investigation is a hard thing to define. You may work weeks on something and find it leads up a blind alley. You can never be sure until you have the last piece of evidence you need not only to identify your man, but also to prove his guilt beyond any question of doubt.”

“We all appreciate the theory,” George Endicott interrupted, “but right now we’re more interested in facts. Is there any indication when an arrest will be made?”

Virgil Tibbs studied his fingers. “An arrest has been made,” he said, “but it isn’t the right man. I know that for a fact.”

“Then why is he under arrest?” Endicott demanded.

Tibbs looked up. “Because Chief Gillespie doesn’t have sufficient confidence in my opinion to let his prisoner go.”

“Who is it?” Grace Endicott asked. “Anyone we know?”

“Yes, you know him, Mrs. Endicott. It’s Officer Wood; he was up here with me the last time I called.”

Duena Mantoli suddenly sat bolt upright. “Do you mean the fairly big man who was so nice to me the day …”

“That’s the man, Miss Mantoli.”

“He’s accused”—she hesitated and then forced herself to say the words—”of killing my father?”

“That and more,” Tibbs replied, “and while no one appears to agree with me at the moment, I am personally sure that he’s innocent.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t you prove it?” Endicott asked.

When Tibbs looked up, there was a subdued fire in his eyes. Endicott was startled to see the slender Negro show such a sign of inner vitality. “That is exactly what I am trying to do,” he said, “and that is why I am asking you these questions.”

Endicott stood up and walked over to the window. There was quiet in the room until he spoke.

“Will Gillespie let you prove it?” he asked, without looking around.

“My job right now,” Tibbs answered evenly, “is to protect him from his own mistakes. Sam Wood is one of them. After I do that, I will deliver the person who caused all this to him in such a manner that even he will finally know the truth. Then I’m going home, where I have the right to walk down the sidewalk.”

Endicott turned around. “From the time we left here, Mr. Tibbs, I saw no one and I don’t believe Maestro Mantoli did, either. That is, up until the time I left him at the door of his hotel. Then I wished him good night and came back here. There is no one, to my knowledge, who can prove what I say, but that is what happened.”

“Thank you,” Tibbs replied. “Now I want to ask you a very few more questions and I ask that you be particularly careful with the answers. A great deal depends on them. First, I have been told Mr. Mantoli often carried large sums of money. Do you know if he was doing so … the last time you saw him?”

“I have no idea. Actually Enrico did not carry what you would call
large
sums of money. Sometimes he had several hundred dollars on his person, but nothing beyond that, to my knowledge.”

“Was he in any way an impulsive person?”

“That’s hard to answer,” Endicott said.

“I think I can say he was,” Duena said unexpectedly. “He sometimes made up his mind on the spur of the minute on things, but he was usually right when he did. If you mean did he have a bad temper, the answer to that is no.”

Tibbs addressed his next question to her. “Miss Mantoli, was your father the sort of man who made friends easily?”

“Everyone liked him,” Duena replied.

In that grim moment, everyone in the room realized at the same time that there had been one person who did not. But no one voiced the thought.

“One last question,” Tibbs said, addressing himself to the girl. “If I had had the honor of meeting your father, do you think he would have liked me?”

The girl lifted her chin and accepted the challenge. “Yes, I am sure of it. I have never known anyone so free of prejudice.”

Tibbs rose to his feet. “Thank you. Whether you realize it or not, you have been a great “help to me. In a little while I believe you will know why.”

“That’s good to know,” Endicott said.

Then the girl stood up. “I want to go down to the city,” she announced. “Perhaps Mr. Tibbs will be kind enough to take me.”

“My car is very modest,” Tibbs said, “but you are welcome.”

“Please wait for me a moment,” she requested, and left without further explanation.

When she returned and they stood at the doorway ready to leave, George Endicott rubbed his chin in thought for a moment. “How will you get back?” he asked.

“If I don’t get a convenient ride, I’ll call you,” she promised.

“Do you think you will be safe enough?”

“If I feel I need any help, I’ll ask Mr. Tibbs.”

Tibbs ushered the girl into his temporary car, climbed in, and started the engine. In the brief time that she had excused herself, she had changed her dress and put on an especially feminine hat. Tibbs thought her quite devastating, but more than that, he sensed she had a firm purpose in mind. There was a set to her jaw, which she did not relax until they were well inside the city.

“Where would you like to go?” Tibbs asked.

“To the police station,” she said.

“Are you sure that is a good idea?” he asked her.

“Very sure.”

Tibbs drove on without comment until they reached the official parking lot. Then he escorted her up the steps into the lobby. She went straight to the desk. “I would like to see Mr. Wood,” she said.

Pete was caught entirely off balance. “Mr. Wood isn’t on duty right now,” he hedged.

“I know that,” Duena Mantoli replied. “He’s in jail. I want to see him.”

Pete reached for the intercom. “A lady is here to see Sam,” he reported. “And Virgil just came in, too.”

“Who is she?” Gillespie’s voice came out of the box.

“Duena Mantoli,” the girl supplied. “You can tell him Mr. Tibbs was kind enough to bring me at my request.”

Pete reported over the intercom.

“I’m sorry, she’d better not,” Gillespie answered.

“Who was that?” Duena demanded.

“That was Chief Gillespie.”

Duena’s chin grew very firm once more. “Take me in to see Mr. Gillespie, please,” she said. “If he won’t see me, I’ll call the mayor.”

Pete led her down the hall toward Gillespie’s office.

Sam Wood had reached the point where his mind had given up and refused, out of pure fatigue, to maintain the extremes of rage, frustration, hopelessness, and bitter disappointment which had racked him during the hours he had been sitting alone. Now he didn’t care anymore. He never permitted himself to consider that he might be found guilty, but his career as a police officer was over; he could never return to it now. Shortly before lunchtime, when Gillespie had been out of his office, Arnold had stopped by and brought him up to date. Sam now knew he stood accused of seduction as well as murder. His cup of misfortune and moral exhaustion was brimful.

Sam sat, his forearms resting on his knees, his head down. It was not a position of shame or defeat; he was simply bone tired. He had exhausted himself thinking and trying to control the impulses which attempted, one after the other, to take command of his mind and body. Pete came and stood beside the bars. “You’ve got a visitor,” he announced.

“My lawyer?” Sam asked.

“He’s still out of town, expected back this evening. This is a different visitor.” Pete fitted the key and swung the door halfway open. Sam watched him, mildly curious, then his heart gave a great leap. Duena Mantoli walked through the doorway and into the harsh, unyielding jail cell. Profoundly embarrassed, Sam got to his feet. He had not shaved that morning and his shirt collar was undone. He wore no tie. At that moment these things disturbed him more than the accusations which hung over his head.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wood. Please sit down,” Duena said calmly.

Mystified, Sam sat down on the hard board that served as a comfortless bunk. Duena seated herself, straight and graceful, four feet from him. Sam said nothing; he did not trust either his mind or his voice.

“Mr. Wood,” Duena said clearly and without emotion, “I have been told that you are accused of killing my father.” For a moment her lower lip quivered, then she regained control of herself; very slightly her voice softened in tone and the formality evaporated from her words. “I came here with Mr. Tibbs. He told me that you are not the man who did it.”

Sam gripped the edge of the bunk with all the strength of his fingers. His mind, rebelling once more against discipline, told him to turn, to seize this girl, and to hold her tight. So he hung on and wondered if he was supposed to say anything.

“I didn’t do it,” he said, looking at the concrete floor.

“Please tell me about the night you … found my father,” Duena said. She looked straight ahead at the hard blocks that formed the wall of the cell. “I want to know all about it.”

“Just …” The words would not come to Sam. “I just found him, that’s all. I’d been on patrol all night. I stopped at the diner like I always do and then came down the highway. That’s when I found him.”

Duena continued to look at the uncompromising wall. “Mr. Wood, I think Mr. Tibbs is right. I don’t believe you did it, either.” Then she turned and looked at him. “When I met you I was still in the first shock of … everything that happens at a time like that. But even then I felt you were a decent man. I think so now.”

Sam turned his head to look at her. “Do you mean you really think I’m innocent?”

“I have a way of telling,” Duena said, “a very simple test. Will you submit to it?”

A sense of new life began to flow into Sam. His weary mind came back to the alert. And then, in a burst, he felt he was a man again. He turned to face the giri fully. “You name it,” he said. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

“All right, stand up,” Duena instructed.

Sam rose to his feet, resisting the desire to tuck in his shirt, wishing he could just have put on a tie. He felt self-conscious and awkward.

Then, to his utter confusion, the girl got up, walked to him, and stood inches away. He felt his heart quicken as some mysterious mechanism within his body released adrenalin into his bloodstream. And for the first time in many years he was suddenly frightened.

“Your first name is Sam, isn’t it?” she said.

“I want you to call me Duena. Say it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sam answered, wondering.

“Duena,” Sam repeated obediently.

“Take hold of me, Sam,” the girl said. “I want you to hold me close to you.”

Sam’s mind, which had said
no
so many hundreds of times during the last twenty-four hours, refused to let him obey. When he didn’t move, the girl threw her head back. With her right hand she pulled the hat from her head. Then she shook her head quickly and let her dark-brown hair ripple down the back of her neck. “You said you would do it,” she challenged, “now do it.” As she spoke the last three words, she closed the gap between them and rested her hands on his shoulders.

Without thinking, without caring for anything else, Sam put his arms around the girl before him. In a confused instant he knew she was warm, and yielding, and beautiful. He never wanted to let her go. The bars of the cell vanished in the surge of manhood he felt within himself.

“Look at me,” Duena said.

Sam looked. Sam had held girls in his arms before, but nothing in his lifetime had approached the sensation that engulfed him now.

“Now,” the girl said, “I want you to look at me and say, ‘Duena, I did not kill your father.’ Do it,” she commanded.

Sam spoke through the lump that crowded his throat. “Duena …” He tried again. “Duena, I didn’t kill your father.” Sam’s arms let go. They fell to his sides, and strong and courageous as he was, he suddenly wanted to cry. The reaction had been too much.

While he stood there, fighting to regain his composure, he felt the pressure of her hands on his shoulders grow stronger. Then they moved and locked behind his neck. “I believe you,” she said. And then, before he realized what was happening to him, Sam felt his head being pulled downward, the warmth of Duena’s body against his own, and then a cool; electrifying pressure as she pressed her lips against his.

She was herself again before he could move. Quite calmly she picked her hat up off the floor, looked for a mirror in a quick glance around the bare cell, and then took her small handbag from the end of the bunk. “How do I get out?” she asked.

Sam filled his lungs with air and called for Pete.

All through the long afternoon, Sam sat quietly and lived over and over again the few brief minutes that had given him a new reason to live. He even permitted himself to hope that he would emerge from this whole experience exonerated and respected by everyone. He was immeasurably strengthened by the knowledge that she believed in him even though he stood accused of murdering her own father. And her faith would bring him through!

Then he remembered something else. The ripe figure of smirking Delores Purdy rose in his mind. The oceans of eternity separated her from the girl he had held that day. But Delores said he had seduced her. What would Duena think when she learned of
that?

The dream castles which Sam had allowed himself to build split and crumbled into piles of arid and spiritless sand.

I
T WAS NEARLY DARK
when Virgil Tibbs drove the ancient car he had been loaned into the little filling station and garage operated by Jess the mechanic. The big man was working on a huge, air-conditioned Lincoln that was up on blocks in the rear of his garage.

“I need some gas, Jess,” Virgil said, “and I think maybe I can give you your car back tomorrow.”

“Leaving us?” Jess inquired as he started the pump.

“I think so,” Tibbs replied, “but that’s between you and me. Don’t let it out.”