In the Heat of the Night (11 page)

Dennis spoke for the first time. “Horse shit,” he said.

Schubert looked at him as if he was trying to be patient but was finding it an increasingly hard job. “Luke, I know you’ve been against the music-festival idea all along and that’s your right. But like it or not, we’re stuck with it now and we’ve got to go through with it. If it flops, you were right, no argument about it. If it goes over, then maybe it will pump some money into this town and we’ll all make out.”

“Maybe,” Dennis amended.

Schubert turned back to the newspapers. “Gentlemen, I got a phone call from
Newsweek
a few minutes before you came here. They wanted a full rundown on our use of Tibbs. If they run it, that means national publicity for all of us.”

“And what the hell will our own people think?” Watkins demanded.

“Will, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re stuck with this nigger now until we can dump him or until Bill here cleans up the case.” Schubert turned toward Gillespie. “That’s what I wanted to ask you about. I’m not trying to put turpentine on your tail, but are you going to get us out of this fairly soon?”

Gillespie put a bite into his voice as he answered. “There’s a regular routine for this sort of thing, a routine that gets results. We’re following it. In addition to that, I’m doing some investigating personally. I don’t want to tell you gentlemen definitely when we will have our man under lock and key, but I will tell you, in confidence, that we are getting results. Furthermore I’m keeping Virgil under control and if he gets one bit out of line in this town, I’ll slap him down hard. I know he was down at the bank, but he was very respectful there and so far he hasn’t done anything that I can pin him for.”

“I still don’t like it,” Watkins insisted. “No news magazine in New York run by a bunch of nigger lovers is going to tell us what to do in our town. We live here and we run this place.”

Frank Schubert slapped the palm of his hand hard against the top of his desk. “Will, we all feel the same way, there’s no question about that. But be practical. Gillespie is keeping this buck where he wants him. As for
Newsweek
, I don’t know who runs it and frankly I don’t care. I like it and I subscribe to it. Now be reasonable. We got to ride it out. And this could be a big break for us.”

“I don’t care what we do,” Watkins retorted. “But I want to get rid of that nigger before the boys get impatient and rough him up.
Then
we’ll get some publicity that we don’t want. We might even get the FBI down here ….”

Schubert hit the desk again. “Sure, sure. But the point is, we all want to get the case over with and get rid of the shine boy. Bill here says he has things under control. If he says so, then that’s it.” He turned to Gillespie. “We’re with you, Bill, you know that. Go ahead and do your job; just don’t let it drag on too long. When that’s done, everything will be solved and maybe we can get back to normal around here.”

Dennis turned it sour. “No, we can’t; first we’ve got to have our damn music festival and keep our women locked up nights while the tourists are in town. We’re in some shape: we’ve got nice logs for the people to sit on and a stiff for a conductor. After we clean up that mess, then maybe we can get back to normal business around here.”

Schubert teetered on the brink of an explosion but managed to control himself. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. I think we all understand each other,” he said firmly, “and Bill has work to do. So have I. Thanks for coming, and we’ll keep you informed.”

The meeting broke up in silence.

On his way back to his office, Bill Gillespie clenched and unclenched his hands. There
had
to be a routine for murder investigation; he decided to dig it out and put it into effect. He had a staff and he was going to see that they went to work.

When Sam Wood reported for work at a quarter of twelve that night, he was surprised to find Virgil Tibbs sitting quietly in the lobby. He was even more surprised when he learned that Virgil was waiting for him.

After Sam had completed his check-in procedure, Tibbs came over and spoke to him. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ride with you tonight.”

Sam was puzzled by the request. He could think of several reasons why the Negro detective should and should not ride with him. “You mean all night?” Sam asked.

Tibbs nodded. “All night.”

“I don’t know what Gillespie would say.” Sam hesitated.

“He told me to do what I liked. I’d like to ride with you.”

“Come along then.” Sam didn’t like the idea of eight hours of companionship with Tibbs, but then he reflected that after three years of patrolling his shift alone, it wouldn’t hurt too much to have a passenger for one night. In fact it might be a good night to have someone else in the car. He recalled with a stab of conscience his uneasy concern of the previous night. And if he had refused to take Tibbs, Gillespie might have lit into him for that, too. The night man was a witness that Tibbs had asked him and had indicated that Gillespie had given his blessing. Sam decided to make the best of it and led the way to his patrol car.

When Sam slid behind the wheel, Tibbs opened the opposite door with quiet casualness and sat in the front seat beside him. Sam gripped the wheel firmly and wondered what to say about it. Still, they had sat this way on the drive up to the Endicott house; very well, he could stand it again. He started the engine and backed out of the police parking lot.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked as soon as the car was well away from the station.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Tibbs replied, “I’d like you, as closely as you can, to do exactly as you did the night Mantoli was killed. Try to follow the same route and at the same speed. Do you think you can do that?”

“I can follow the same route exactly, and I won’t miss the time by five minutes when I make out my report.”

“That would help a great deal. Do you want me to keep still and just ride?”

“Talk all you like,” Sam retorted. “You won’t mix me up any.”

Nevertheless they rode silently for some time. Sam took a steadily mounting professional pride in being able to guide his car expertly over the very tracks he had taken. He glanced at his watch. “Are you learning anything?” he asked.

“I’m learning how hot it can be in the middle of the night,” Tibbs answered.

“I thought you knew that,” Sam reminded him.

“Touché,” Tibbs replied.

“Exactly what does that word mean?” Sam asked.

“It’s a fencing term, When your opponent scores, you acknowledge it by saying ‘touché.’ Literally it means ‘touched.’ “

“In what language?”

“French.”

“You’ve got a lot of education, Virgil, I’ll grant you that.” Sam swung the car silently around a corner and glanced at his watch.

“I can’t drive as well as you can,” Tibbs replied. “I’ve never seen a man who was better.”

Despite himself Sam was pleased; he knew that if he could do nothing else, he could drive a car with the best. He was glad that someone else was aware of it, too. Despite his training, he was beginning to like Tibbs as a person.

“Maybe you know the answer to something, Virgil. I read a story once about a man that was real scared. He was out walking at night just waiting for somebody to jump out at him and he thought he could smell fear in the air, if that makes sense. Anyhow, the writer used a word for it—I can’t remember it, but it began with an m. Sort of—oh, cat sounding. I remember I looked it up at the time.”

“Hm-m. Let me think. Could it be ‘miasma’?” Tibbs said.

“That’s it,” Sam exclaimed. “That thing has been bothering me. It’s a kind of a rare word. How come you know it?”

“I read it in a story, too. More than once, so it was impressed on my mind. Just a coincidence.”

“I wish I could have gone to school longer,” Sam said, astonishing himself with the burst of confidence. “I went to high school for a while and then I got a job in a garage. I worked there for a while before I got this job.”

“Did you go through the FBI school?” Tibbs asked.

“No, I didn’t, no chance to. Say, that reminds me, I want to ask you something.”

Tibbs waited a moment, then he said, “Go ahead and ask.”

“Maybe this isn’t any of my business, but I heard that you told something to Gillespie today that seems to have shook him. I’d sure like to know what it was.”

Virgil Tibbs stared out of the window for a moment and inspected the pavement over which they were riding. “I told him that Mantoli wasn’t killed where you found him, that his body had been brought there and dumped. That was why Gottschalk, the missile engineer, is obviously in the clear. The body undoubtedly wasn’t there when he went through. It had to be brought from the scene of the murder to the highway and you found it within minutes.”

“Virgil, how the hell do you know all this?”

“You’d know it, too, Sam, if you’d had a chance to examine the body.”

Sam winced under the use of his first name. Just when he found himself beginning to like the dark man beside him, he did something to suggest equality and that Sam simply would not allow. But for the moment he decided to let it ride. He asked a question instead; one word was enough: “How?”

“From the palms of the hands.”

“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.