In the Heat of the Night (3 page)

The Negro forgot his book and let his hands fall into his lap while he looked up into Sam’s broad face.

Sam took immediate command. “On your feet, black boy,” he ordered, and crossed the room in five quick steps.

The Negro reached for his coat. “No you don’t!” Sam knocked his arm aside and with a single swift motion spun his man around and clamped his own powerful forearm hard under the Negro’s chin. In this position Sam could control him easily and still leave his right hand and arm free. Swiftly Sam searched his captive, an action which the Negro appeared too frightened to resist. When he had finished, Sam released the pressure on the man’s windpipe and issued further orders. “Stand against the wall, face to it. Put your hands up, fingers apart, and lean against them. Keep them up where I can see them. Don’t move until I tell you to.”

The Negro obeyed without a word. When his order had been executed, Sam picked up the Negro’s coat and felt inside the breast pocket. There was a wallet and it felt unusually thick.

With a strange prickle of excitement Sam pulled the wallet out and checked its contents. It was well stuffed with money. Sam ran his thumb down the edges of the bills; they were mostly tens and twenties; when he stopped his riffling at the long, narrow oval that marked a fifty, Sam was satisfied. He snapped the wallet shut and put it into his own pocket. The prisoner remained motionless, his feet out from the wall, leaning forward with part of his weight supported by his outstretched hands. Sam looked at him carefully again from the rear. He guessed that the suspect was around a hundred and fifty pounds, maybe a little more, but not much. He was about five feet nine, large enough to have done the job. There was a hint of a crease on the back of his trousers, so his suit had at some time been pressed. He did not have the big butt Sam was accustomed to on many Negroes, but that didn’t mean he was frail. When Sam slapped him to see if he had a weapon, the Negro’s body was firm and hard under his hand.

Sam folded the man’s coat across his own arm. “Go out the door to your left,” he ordered. “There’s a police car in the drive. Get in the back seat and shut the door. Make one false move and I’ll drop you right then with a bullet in your spine. Now move.”

The Negro turned as directed, walked out onto the city side of the platform, and obediently climbed into the back seat of Sam’s waiting car. The prisoner slammed the door just enough to be sure that it was properly latched and settled back in the seat. He made no move to do anything other than what he was directed.

Sam climbed in behind the wheel. There were no inside door handles in the patrol car and he knew that his prisoner could not escape. For a moment he thought of the way Mantoli had been killed—hit over the head presumably from the rear and probably by the prime suspect who was sitting behind him at that moment. Then Sam reassured himself with the thought that there was nothing in the rear seat which the Negro could use for a weapon, and with a bare-hand attack Sam could easily deal. He would have welcomed one; the prospect of a little action was attractive, particularly with someone as easy to handle as his captive.

Sam picked up the radio microphone and spoke tersely. “Wood from the railroad station. Bringing in a colored suspect.” He paused, thought a moment, and decided to add nothing else. The rest of it could wait until he got to the station. The less police business put on the air the better.

The prisoner made no sound as Sam drove, smoothly and expertly, the eleven blocks to the police station. Two men were waiting at the drive-in entrance when he got there; Sam waved them aside, confident of his ability to handle his prisoner without help. He took his time as he climbed out, walked around the car, and swung the rear door open. “Out,” he ordered.

The Negro climbed out and submitted without protest when Sam seized his upper arm and piloted him into the police station. Sam walked in properly, exactly as the illustrations in the manuals he had studied told him to do. With his powerful left arm he controlled his prisoner, his right hand resting, instantly ready, on his police automatic. Sam regretted that there was no one to take a picture of that moment, and then realized that once more he had forgoten himself and the dignity of his position.

As Sam turned the corner toward the row of cells, he was intercepted by the night desk man, who pointed silently to the office of Chief Gillespie. Sam nodded, steered his man up to the door, and knocked.

“Come in.” Gillespie’s strident voice echoed through the door. Sam turned the knob with his right hand, pushed his man through the opening, and waited before Gillespie’s desk. The chief was pretending that he was occupied with some papers before him. Then he laid down the pen he had been holding and stared hard at the prisoner for a full twenty seconds. Sam could not see the prisoner’s reaction and did not dare to turn his head to look for fear of breaking the psychological spell.

“What’s your name!” Gillespie demanded suddenly. The question came out of his lips like a shot.

The Negro astonished Sam by speaking, for the first time, in a calm, unhurried voice. “My name is Tibbs, Virgil Tibbs,” he replied, and then stood completely still. Sam relaxed his hold on the man’s arm, but the prisoner made no attempt to sit in the empty chair beside him.

“What were you doing in the station?” This time the question was slightly less explosive, more matter-of-fact.

The Negro answered without shifting his weight. “I was waiting for the five-seventeen train for Washington.” The scene of complete silence was repeated: Sam did not move, Gillespie sat perfectly still, and the prisoner made no attempt to do anything.

“When and how did you get into town?” This time Gillespie’s question was deceptively mild and patient in tone.

“I came in on the twelve-thirty-five. It was three-quarters of an hour late.”

“What
twelve-thirty-five?” Gillespie barked suddenly.

The prisoner’s tone in answering was unchanged. “The one from downstate. The local.” The idea forced itself on Sam that this was an educated black, one of the sort that hung around the United Nations in New York, according to the newsreels. That might make it a little harder for Gillespie. Sam clamped his teeth together and held the corners of his mouth firm so he could not betray himself by smiling.

“What were you doing downstate?”

“I went to visit my mother.”

There was a pause before the next question. Sam guessed that it would be an important one and that Gillespie was waiting deliberately to give it added force.

“Where did you get the money for your train fare?”

Before the prisoner could answer, Sam came to life. He fished the Negro’s wallet from his own pocket and handed it to Gillespie. The chief looked quickly in the money compartment and slammed the wallet down hard onto the top of his desk. “Where did you get all
this
dough?” he demanded, and rose just enough from the seat of his chair so that the prisoner could see his size.

“I earned it,” the Negro replied.

Gillespie dropped back into his chair, satisfied. Colored couldn’t make money like that, or keep it if they did, and he knew it. The verdict was in, and the load was off his shoulders.

“Where do you work?” he demanded in a voice that told Sam the chief was ready to go home and back to bed.

“In Pasadena, California.”

Bill Gillespie permitted himself a grim smile. Two thousand miles was a long way to most people, especially to colored. Far enough to make them think that a checkup wouldn’t be made. Bill leaned forward across his desk to drive the next question home.

“And what do you do in Pasadena, California, that makes you money like that?”

The prisoner took the barest moment before he replied.

“I’m a police officer,” he said.

A
S A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
Sam Wood did not like Negroes, at least not on anything that approached a man-to-man basis. It therefore confused him for a moment when he discovered within himself a stab of admiration for the slender man who stood beside him. Sam was a sportsman and therefore he enjoyed seeing someone, anyone, stand up successfully to Wells’s new chief of police.

Until Gillespie arrived in town, Sam Wood had been rated a big man, but Gillespie’s towering size automatically demoted Sam Wood to near normal stature. The new chief was only three years his senior—too young, Sam thought, for his job, even in a city as small as Wells. Furthermore Gillespie came from Texas, a state for which Sam felt no fraternal affection. But most of all Sam resented, consciously, Gillespie’s hard, inconsiderate, and demanding manner. Sam arrived at the conclusion that he felt no liking for the Negro, only rich satisfaction in seeing Gillespie apparently confounded. Before he could think any further, Gillespie was looking at him.

“Did you question this man at all before you brought him in?” Gillespie demanded.

“No, sir,” Sam answered. The “sir” stuck in his throat.

“Why not?” Gillespie barked the question in what Sam decided was a deliberately offensive manner. But if the Negro could keep his composure, Sam decided, he could, too. He thought for an instant and then replied as calmly as he could.

“Your orders were to check the railroad station and then to look for possible hitchhikers or anyone else worth checking. When I found this ni— this man in the railroad station, I brought him in immediately so I could carry out the rest of your orders. Shall I go now?”

Sam was proud of himself. He knew he wasn’t much with words, but that, he felt sure, had been a good speech.

“I want to finish checking this man out first.” Gillespie looked toward Tibbs. “You say you’re a cop in California?”

“Yes, I am,” Tibbs replied, still standing patiently beside the empty hard chair.

“Prove it.”

“There’s an ID card in my wallet.”

Gillespie picked up the wallet from his desk with the air of handling something distasteful and somewhat unclean. He opened the pass-card section and stared hard at the small white card in the first transparent sleeve, then snapped the wallet shut and tossed it carelessly toward the young Negro. Tibbs caught it and slipped it quietly into his pocket.

“What have you been doing all night?” There was an edge of irritation in Gillespie’s voice now. The voice was trying to pick a fight, and daring anyone to defy it.

“After I got off the train, I went in the station and waited. I didn’t leave the station platform.” There was still no change in Tibbs’s manner, something which Gillespie apparently found irritating. He changed the topic abruptly.

“You know we wouldn’t let the likes of you try to be a cop down here, don’t you?”

He waited; the room remained still.

“You knew enough to stay out of the white waiting room. You knew that, didn’t you?” Once more Gillespie pressed his huge hands against the desk and positioned himself as if to rise.

“Yes, I knew that.”

Gillespie made a decision. “All right, you stick around awhile. I’m going to check up on you. Take care of him, Sam.”

Without speaking, Sam Wood turned around and followed Virgil Tibbs out of the room. Ordinarily he would not have permitted a Negro to precede him through a doorway, but this Negro did not wait for him to go first and Sam decided it was a bad moment to raise an issue. As soon as the two men had left, Gillespie raised one massive fist and slammed it down hard on the top of his desk. Then he scooped up the phone and dictated a wire to the police department of Pasadena, California.

Sam Wood showed Virgil Tibbs to a hard bench in the small detention room. Tibbs thanked him, sat down, pulled out the paperback book that he had had in the station, and returned to reading. Sam glanced at the cover. It was
On Understanding Science
by Conant. Sam sat down and wished that he, too, had a book to read.

When the sky began to gray through the window, and then grew streaked with curiously dirty stripes of high clouds against a lightening background, Sam knew that he would not be driving his patrol car anymore that night—it was too late for that. He began to ache from sitting on the hard bench. He wanted a cup of coffee despite the heat; he wanted to move around. He was debating whether he wanted to stand up and stretch, and make a slight exhibit of himself doing so, when Gillespie abruptly appeared in the doorway. Tibbs looked up with quiet inquiry in his eyes.

“You can go if you want to,” Gillespie said, looking at Tibbs. “You’ve missed your train and there won’t be another one until afternoon. If you want to wait here, we’ll see you get some breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Tibbs acknowledged. Sam decided this was his cue, and stood up. As soon as Gillespie cleared the doorway, Sam walked out and down the short hall to the door marked
MEN—WHITE
. The night desk man was inside, washing his hands. Something about the twist of the man’s mouth told Sam there was undisclosed news. “Got anything, Pete?” he asked.

Pete nodded, splashed water over his face, and buried it in a towel. When he came up for air, he replied. “Chief got a wire a few minutes ago.” He paused, bent down, and checked that all the toilet compartments were empty. “From Pasadena. Gillespie sent one out that said: ‘We have serious homicide here. Request information re Virgil Tibbs, colored, who claims to be member Pasadena Police Department. Holding him as possible suspect.’ “

“I don’t blame him for checking up,” Sam said.

“Wait till you hear what he got back.” Pete lowered his voice so that Sam had to take a step closer to hear him.” ‘Confirm Virgil Tibbs member Pasadena Police Department past ten years. Present rank investigator. Specialist homicide, other major crimes. Reputation excellent. Advise if his services needed your area. Agree homicide serious.’ “

“Wow,” Sam said softly.

“Exactly,” Pete agreed. “I bet Gillespie doesn’t know a damn thing about homicide investigation. If he doesn’t clear this one up, and fast, the whole town will be down on his neck. So he has the offer of a specialist who is both chief suspect and a nig—” He paused when Sam shot up his hand as a warning. Footsteps passed down the corridor and disappeared into silence.