Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

John Ball One for Virgil Tibbs

At 11:31 A.M. on an unusually fine morning in Pasadena, California, the operator of a power shovel swung in full load of soil over the top of a heavy truck and pulled the release. Since the truck was almost full, a small shower of stones rattled off the sides, some loose dirt, and one human skull.

Fortunately Harry Hubert, male, thirty-one, was working close by. As he raised his arm to signal the truck driver to move on he looked down, then froze in his tracks. “Hold it!” he yelled.

He was not a superstitious man, but he did not want to handle the skull. He signaled the shovel operator to cease digging, pointed to what he had discovered, then waved his arms in the air to be sure that everyone understood that all work was to stop.

The shovel operator brought his machine to a halt and the truck driver shut off his engine.

Superintendent Angelo Morelli was sent for. Meanwhile, the truck driver got out of his cab and joined Hubert to find out what was wrong. He looked down at the object on the ground, bent over to examine it more closely, then spoke. “Alas, poor Yorick,” he said.

He was an admirer of Sir Laurence Olivier.

Superintendent Morelli was a man accustomed to making decisions. It took him only seconds to assay the situation, then he sent for the police.

One of the all-white Pasadena patrol cars responded promptly. It arrived without lights or siren, and as the working officer driving it got out, Morelli wondered. What the hell. The officer was a woman and a comely one at that.

As soon as she was close enough, he read the nameplate over her right pocket. It said DIAZ.

Morelli checked her over. She was armed, of course; metal handcuffs were properly pouched on her belt, and there was even a small container of Mace visible.

The superintendent approached her. Although he was a rough-and-ready type, he also knew how to be diplomatic. “I certainly appreciate your quick response,” he said. “However, I’m not sure this is suitable for a police woman.”

“I’m not a policewoman,” she answered. “I’m a cop. Where’s the fight?”

Morelli was amused. “No fight this time,” he reassured her. “Do you get many of those?”

“I broke one up last night — knives in a bar. I have a suspect in custody.”

“Then kindly step this way.”

Officer Marilyn Diaz spent three minutes in a careful survey of the situation. Then, despite her immaculate uniform, which was the same as the ones worn by the male members of the department, she explored the fresh excavation and the approximate spot where the skull had been unearthed.

She had one question for the shovel operator. “Is there any way you can tell,” she asked, “how deeply that skull was buried when you dug it up?”

“No, ma’am, because I started my pass at the bottom of the cut and came up. I would guess that it was somewhere near to the top.”

“So would I,” Diaz agreed. “Hold everything, will you?”

“Right.”

Officer Marilyn Diaz, who is one of the particular prides of the Pasadena Police, returned to her car and picked up the radio mike. Socially she was an attractive and charming young woman; on the job she did not waste words. “I’ve got one for Virgil,” she reported. “At the Foothill Freeway construction site, near Raymond.”

“Paramedics wanted?”

“No, human remains, but so far bones only.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes,” Diaz answered. “I’ve seen the skull. Unless I’m very wrong, the victim was an eight-to-ten-year-old child.”

On the wall of the small office he shared with his partner. Bob Nakamura, Virgil Tibbs had a small sign posted. It read: Write, for the night is coming. He was engaged in doing precisely that, presiding over a manual typewriter and punching out the words of a report that, by police tradition, would be hopelessly pedantic and at least twice the necessary length. He spent hours writing reports, as did practically everyone else in the department. It was the curse of the profession.

His phone rang. He took the call, listened, then got up and put on his coat. As the ranking homicide specialist of the Pasadena Police, the discovery of an unattached skull was referred to him automatically. Ray Heatherton could have handled it, but Ray was only too delighted to let Virgil Tibbs sit at the top of the death-by-violence totem pole. Virgil had earned the spot many times over.

Virgil picked up an unmarked car, drove to the location, parked behind Marilyn Diaz’ unit, then walked over to where the people were gathered.

Superintendent Morelli saw him coming, noted that he was black, and remembered what he had read in the papers. “Is that Virgil Tibbs?” he asked Diaz.

“It is,” she answered.

“He’s good, I understand.”

“The best.”

Seconds later she made the introductions. Morelli shook hands, then got down to business. “As soon as the skull showed up, we stopped everything immediately.” He motioned to a hardhat who was waiting close by. “This is Harry Hubert, he was the first to spot it.”

Virgil listened to the man’s account, then talked to the truck driver and the shovel operator. After that he addressed himself once more to Morelli. “I don’t want to hold you up,” he said. “I know that tying up men and equipment is costing you money and job delay. If you need the shovel somewhere else, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t move it. I’ll need the truck until we can check the load in detail. Also, I want to go over the spot where the dirt is being dumped.”

“I thought of that,” Morelli said. “I stopped the unloading immediately. I don’t believe anything has been moved since Harry saw that skull come off the truck.”

“For that I’ll buy you your lunch,” Tibbs said.

“You’re on.”

“Fine. While we’re eating, there are a few questions you might be able to answer for me.”

Sergeant Jerry Ferguson headed the investigation team that arrived almost immediately thereafter. Since there was obviously pick-and-shovel work to be done. Superintendent Morelli assigned a half dozen men to work under Ferguson’s direction. With Agent Barry Rothberg three of them left for the fill area where the dirt from the excavation was being dumped. At a convenient spot the filled truck that had taken the last load from the power shovel spread out what it had on board as another police unit arrived headed by Lieutenant Ron Peron.

Under careful examination the load that had been on the truck yielded up three additional bones and part of a spinal column. That grisly discovery was made shortly before Captain Bill Wilson arrived to see how the investigation was progressing.

By nightfall a set of foot bones that was almost intact had been discovered in situ. Its position suggested that the body, which had presumably been buried not long after death, had lain approximately four feet, three inches below the surface of the ground, with the head in an easterly direction. After extensive photographs had been taken, and measurements made, the few recovered bones were turned over to the Los Angeles County coroner. Even careful sifting gave no hope of recovering the complete skeleton, a point that disturbed Virgil Tibbs.

Satisfied that for the moment no more evidence would be found at the location, he authorized Superintendent Morelli to resume the construction work. He did ask that careful watch be kept while the remaining digging was done in the immediate vicinity — unauthorized burials were not always single projects. After the amount of searching that had already been done, he did not feel he could halt the important and expensive project any further without something definite in the form of additional evidence.

In the morning Tibbs went to work with grim determination. From the real-estate maps he located the exact piece of property that had marked the spot where the remains had been uncovered. It had been a single-family dwelling on a medium-sized lot in a definitely lower-class neighborhood. There had been no basement.

By the time he had these facts, the coroner’s office called: the bone specialist was on the line. Virgil talked to the doctor for several minutes and was not encouraged by the conversation. From the skull it had been determined that the deceased had been a child approximately eight years of age. But no information could be given either as to race or sex. “You mean you can’t say whether it was a boy or a girl?” Tibbs asked.

“That’s right. The indications simply aren’t present at that age.”

“Can you make an informed guess?”

“Not based on what I have here.”

The black detective was patient. “What can you tell me?” he persisted.

“The individual is deceased. Beyond that, only what you already have.”

“Any dental data?”

“I should have mentioned that, forgive me. So far as can be determined, and this is pretty definite, the deceased never had any dental work done. But this doesn’t necessarily indicate neglect; the subject could have been seen by a dentist who found that no work was required.”

“And the age of the remains?”

“Say from three years back. There are several reasons why I can’t be more definite.”

“I think I know what they are,” Virgil said. “Thanks, Doctor.”

“You’re most welcome.”

Virgil turned to Bob Nakamura. “All I have to worry about now is a missing child, male or female, ethnic background unknown, who disappeared anytime from, say, three years ago to you-say-when. And the fact that all the bones were not located after very careful search suggests that the corpse may have been cut up and buried in various places.”

Bob was sympathetic. “Tough case, but not impossible. You have the specific house to work with — that should tell you a lot. Better than that corpse in the nudist park.”

“Hell, yes, that took weeks.” And Virgil went back to work.

By noon he had the picture. The house had last been occupied by an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Ajurian. Mrs. Ajurian was recently dead; her husband was in a nursing home in a senile condition. The Ajurians had no known living relatives. Before their occupancy the house had stood vacant for almost three years, tied up in litigation because the owner had been killed in a car accident.

Prior to that the house had been rented on a month-to-month basis, frequently to young people who had been required to pay in advance, and occasionally to transient farm labor. The house itself had been moved away when the area had been cleared for the freeway. It had been offered at auction, but no bids had been received.

Two hours after lunch the house itself was located. It stood, helpless and unwanted, in a row of similar derelicts that had been parked in an available open area. As Virgil explored it minutely, he could not escape a feeling of profound depression. It was in a wretched state of outside repair and, if possible, was even worse inside.

The single bathroom had been painted a particularly violent purple and despite long disuse, it still carried a faintly unpleasant odor indicative of bad sanitation. Where the telephone had been, the walls were covered with jottings in various hands; the smaller bedroom had children’s crude drawings covering most of the wall space within their reach. None of the drawings revealed any talent either in art or draftsmanship.

The floor in one closet was missing; the rectangular opening had the remains of a ledge that had once, obviously, held an unattached trap door. There was, of course, nothing unusual in that — it was a conventional access hole — but something else about the house interested Tibbs. When he had spent the better part of an hour examining the structure, he thanked the employee of the house mover who was serving as his guide.

“Did you find out anything?” the man asked, walking outside with Virgil.

“Yes, I think so.”

“What?”

Virgil nodded down the long row of empty shells, the tombstones of what had once been homes. “Did you notice anything different about this one?” he asked.

“Not particularly. Most of them were in pretty bad shape when they came out here.”

“It’s at least two feet higher off the ground than any of the others,” Tibbs said. “A little more than five feet between the surface of the ground and the bottom of the floor joists. Room enough for a man to work in, if he had to.”

Meanwhile, Bob Nakamura determined, by interviewing some of their one-time neighbors, that the Ajurians had been a quiet elderly couple who had never entertained and seldom went out. They were judged to have been capable of only the simplest physical tasks. No children had ever been seen on their premises. The only criticism that the Nisei detective turned up was that they frequently cooked food so heavily spiced that the odor was objectionable. A check of the records revealed that they had been on welfare.

During the time the house had stood vacant, it had been frequently used as a juvenile and young-adult rendezvous; several arrests had been made, but there had never been any indications of violence.

One former long-time resident of the street recalled a Mexican family that had lived in the house. There had been eight or nine children; he did not remember the family name, but he did recall how the kids were incessantly running in and out and slamming the door each time. He had been glad when they moved away. He also remembered a group of six young people, three long-haired males and three females, who had taken up residence, but who had been surprisingly quiet and peaceful.

By the time all this information had been gathered, another day had gone by.

Most of the next day went into a careful examination of all available missing-juvenile reports that fell within the proper time frame. They added up to a heartbreaking number. Dental charts ruled out most of them, but Tibbs was left with over fifty possibles and sixteen that offered the best prospects of a make. When that tedious task had at last been completed, he sat back in his chair and began to think.

Bob Nakamura had seen him like that before, his eyes open but unfocused, his body relaxed. After half an hour, Virgil stirred and Bob was prepared. “It’s a damn tough case,” Bob said.

Tibbs nodded slowly. “Yes,” he agreed, “but if I can put one or two more things together, I may have it.”

“Accidental death?” Bob asked.

Virgil shook his head. “No — murder.”

“The evidence of that is in the remains?”

“No.”

“What else do you need?”

“I want to go back and re-examine that house. But before I do that, I’ve got some other work to do.” He got up and stretched. “I’ll see you after a while,” he said, and left.

The voter-registration lists gave him some information, much of it quite old. He went over the available data carefully, but found little to excite his interest. The Mexican family that had lived in the house had never registered anyone, a fact that suggested they might have been illegal immigrants — a major problem in Southern California. On the other hand, it could have been indifference or an inability to understand English.

The welfare rolls were more productive. From them Virgil learned that Emilio and Rosa De Fuentes, plus their nine children, had been publicly supported at that address for some time.

That was a breakthrough. Knowing that welfare recipients often retained that status for years, he sent out a message through the network in California to learn if the same family was now being carried on the rolls elsewhere. That accomplished, Virgil once more took refuge in his second-floor office in the old part of the Pasadena Police building, leaned back, and went into another session of concentrated thought.

When he finally came up for air, Bob Nakamura was back and ready to play straight man. “Are you any nearer?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Fill me in.”

Tibbs stirred. “A lot of things are beginning to fit together. My chief problem at the moment is the lack of hard data to back up some of my conclusions.”

“Let’s hear the conclusions.”

“All right. We begin with the Ajurians, the Armenian immigrants.”

“You dug that far back?”

“No, but I know they were immigrants because of the way they cooked their food. People direct from the old country tend to continue life as they knew it, particularly where diet is concerned. Second- and third-generation offspring from that part of the world prefer less spicy food. The Armenian part is easy because the name ends in i-a-n, something almost wholly Armenian.”

“Go on.”

“The evidence supports the fact that they were relatively feeble, and did not entertain, particularly children. Also, I’m inclined to rule out the hippie sextet who lived in the house for a while. I learned a lot from the drawings I found on the walls of one of the rooms.”

“Explain.”

Tibbs swung around to face his partner. “Obviously they weren’t made during the time the elderly Ajurians were occupying the house. Yet they didn’t remove them. They were on the wall of what would have been the second bedroom. The inference, therefore, is that they didn’t remove the drawings because a fresh paint job was beyond their physical resources, or financial means. I suspect they closed off that room and used it only for storage.

“The hippie sextet also left the drawings alone — perhaps they found them amusing. It wasn’t their house, they were simply living in it, and they probably favored self-expression. They weren’t made during that period since I have statements that no children were seen around the house while the hippies were there.”

“The drawings could have been faked — done by an adult.”

Tibbs shook his head. “The only idea that holds water along that line would be an adult making them to entertain a child who used that room — but again, there were no children reported on the premises.”

He stopped suddenly. For a moment or two he stared off into space with his lips held tightly together, then a whole new expression took over his face. “It’s a long shot, but worth checking out.” He got up once more.

“Where are you going this time?”

“I need a social worker and a grocery store,” Virgil answered.

The social worker proved to be unavailable. After tracking her down, Tibbs learned that she had gone to Europe and was somewhere in Spain studying the guitar. He made a note of her name and background, then began his canvas of the grocery stores. That proved a much easier job; he hit pay dirt within an hour.

Sam Margolis had operated his small market and liquor store at the same location for many years. He knew most of his customers well, and he recalled the De Fuentes family. “Too damn many kids,” he declared. “She usually brought a lot of them with her and they couldn’t keep their hands off anything. They even swiped ice cubes and sucked on them.”

“They were on welfare, I believe.”

“Yeah, they were. But the old man usually found enough money for a bottle. He wasn’t a drunk, but he hit the cheap stuff a lot.”

“Have you got any idea where they went?”

Margolis shrugged. “Who knows? And to be honest, who cares? This is a cash business only — no checks except for welfare and payroll that I know. Two will get you five they were wetbacks, or whatever they call them now. And the woman—” He shook his head. “What he saw in her I’ll never know. She was built like a pile of mashed potatoes.”

“You’ve helped me a lot,” Tibbs said. “More than you know. One thing more if you can remember. Were all the children that you saw normal, at least reasonably so?”

“All that I saw.”

“And do you remember if they had a boy in his teen years, anywhere from about thirteen or fourteen up?”

Margolis was definite. “Sure, Felipe. He came to the store sometimes.”

“What was he like?” Virgil asked.

“Another Mex kid,” Margolis answered.

When Virgil Tibbs got back to his office, there was news for him: Mr. and Mrs. Emilio De Fuentes and their eleven children were on welfare in Modesto, California. In response Tibbs picked up his phone and called the police department there. When he had been put through to a detective sergeant, he made a request. He described the family and supplied the welfare case number to make things as easy as possible.

“What I need,” Virgil said, “is some information on when they reached Modesto and precisely when they went on welfare. I’d like a copy of the original document accepting them as welfare clients. Then, if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like the birth records of any children added to their family since they arrived up there. Especially an evidence of twins.”

“Can do,” the Modesto sergeant said.

After he finished the conversation Virgil left his office and went out for one more look at the abandoned house. He stayed inside it for more than an hour, making an almost microscopic examination of the drawings that had first attracted his attention. He satisfied himself that three children, apparently of different ages, had made them.

Child number one had been the oldest, but the drawings, eight of them, were also the simplest and the most repetitive. Child number two had had a less steady hand, but more imagination. Tibbs traced six of the drawings to his or her hand, and no two of them were similar. Child number three appeared to have been the youngest since the drawings he or she had made were the lowest on the wall. They were also the most varied and showed, on Tibbs’ second examination, evidence of talent.

Despite the crudity of the draftsmanship, the third child had painstakingly tried to add background, drawing a horizontal line to suggest ground level in one instance and adding what was obviously the sun in another. A third drawing showed experimentation; when a first attempt to draw a symmetrical figure had failed, the child artist had added lines until there were many arms and legs, and even the torso had a multiplicity of wavy outlines.

Virgil returned late to his office to find two messages. One of them was a report that had come in from Modesto by teletype, the other was a penciled note from Diane Stone, the chief’s secretary, that Chief McGowan would like to see him when he came in.

He put in a call to the chief’s office, but McGowan had already left. Virgil was glad of that because there were still some loose ends to tie up before he went upstairs. Since the chief had sent for him personally, it did not require much deductive ability to know what was on the chief’s mind.

A welfare report he had been waiting for was on his desk. From it he learned that the De Fuentes family had come from a small village in Mexico. That was a setback since it meant that his chances of getting accurate birthdates and related information were close to nil. Fortunately, there were other routes of inquiry.

Tibbs went home to his apartment and stretched out to rest. He wanted an expensive dinner, but it was his superstition to hold off splurging while he was still closing a case. There was still one very sticky fact to be established and while he was by that time reasonably confident, it still had to be rated as a long shot.

In the morning he visited the public school where some of the De Fuentes children had been enrolled. He did not trouble the office for official records, interviewing instead some teachers who had been on the faculty when the De Fuentes children had attended the school. The first three he spoke with could not help him much; one was resentful that he was there at all. “You haven’t got any business prying into those people’s lives,” she told him. “You ought to be ashamed; you’re a black man yourself and here you’re trying to put down other people who have been discriminated against all their lives.”

The gymnasium instructor was the one who came through. “I do remember the De Fuentes children very well,” he told Virgil. “I was interested in them because one of the boys, Felipe, had remarkable athletic ability and exceptional reflexes. I think he could have made it all the way to the big time if he had really worked at it. But he showed no interest in baseball or basketball.”

“Do you remember if he had any particularly close friends at school?” Tibbs asked.

“Yes, he did — several, as a matter of fact.”

“May I have some names?”

“Yes, and you can get the addresses in the office if you need them. Willie Fremont, Cliff Di Santo, Trig Yamamoto, and — oh, yes, there was a girl too — Elena Morales.”

By two in the afternoon Virgil Tibbs had determined that three of the families had moved away, but he had two forwarding addresses. He succeeded in locating the Yamamoto boy where he was working in the vegetable department of a supermarket. By a little after four he had found and also talked to the Morales girl who was a winsome little beauty and highly intelligent. She supplied him with the final data that he needed.

He went back to the office and called Mrs. Stone, to say that he was in if the chief still wanted to see him.

McGowan did. Virgil walked into the boss’s office and sat down. When Diane handed him a cup of coffee, with cream and sugar exactly to his taste, he understood that he might be there for a little while.

“Virgil,” the chief said, “I have a rather personal interest in the case you’re working on — the child remains found during the freeway construction. Have you been able to make any progress?”

“I believe so, sir.”

Captain Wilson arrived, and the chief filled him in.

“How much have you got, Virgil?” the captain asked.

“Since I’m not in court yet, and I don’t have to provide absolute proof,” Tibbs answered, “I can tell you that it’s a case of premeditated murder. So far I can name the victim, give the time of death, and supply the motive. If all goes well, by tomorrow night I should have enough solid evidence for an indictment.”

“Virgil,” the chief said, “you never cease to amaze me. Instead of waiting for your report, suppose you bring us up to date now.”

“All right, sir.” Tibbs relaxed and enjoyed a little of his coffee.

“The preliminary work was quite simple,” he began. “I located the plot, got the history of the dwelling that had been on it, and inspected the house itself. Fortunately it hadn’t been destroyed, because there was quite a bit of evidence there, notably a series of children’s drawings which were especially helpful.”

“Children’s drawings?” the chief queried.

“Yes, in fact they provided the essential clue when I finally had sense enough to see it. I completely missed it the first time.”

“You must be slipping,” the chief said.

“Undoubtedly, sir. Anyhow, without going into unnecessary details, I checked out the history of the house and satisfied myself that the most recent residents had all had one thing in common — no children were ever known to be on the premises during their tenure. There was a period of vacancy when children might have gone into the house to play, but I couldn’t find any evidence to support that idea. It was also possible that someone could have taken a child there with criminal intent, but the available missing-persons reports tended to reduce the odds on that.

“So I focused my attention on a large Mexican family that had occupied the house about five years ago. There were nine children, ranging from a boy of fourteen to a one-year-old infant. I’m now satisfied that three of these children made the drawings I found on the walls of the second bedroom. Offhand I would fix their ages at about ten, nine, and eight, with the youngest the most talented of the three.”

“That’s interesting, I’m sure,” Wilson said, “but where is it leading us?”

“Into proof of murder.”

“You have my attention,” the chief said.

“Consider first the fact that there were nineteen drawings and that they were done by three different children. There you have definite evidence of lack of family discipline. It was a rental property, but no regard was given to the rights of the owner — otherwise the children would have been restrained from drawing all over the walls of what was evidently their bedroom. And there was no indication of any effort whatever to remove the drawings when the family left. So we may conclude that the family in question was at the best irresponsible.”

“I think I’m beginning to see something coming,” Chief McGowan mumured.

“When this family lived in Pasadena, shortly before their departure, they had nine children. The family is now in Modesto and the latest head count is eleven.”

“Which is not surprising,” Captain Wilson commented.

“That’s the key to the whole thing,” Virgil said.

“Eleven children?”

“Exactly.”

It was silent in the executive office for a few moments. Then Chief McGowan leaned forward in his chair. “I get it,” he said.

Tibbs nodded. “In a neighborhood like that, sir, with all the constant comings and goings and the frequent turnover in residents, hardly anyone, even the children’s playmates, can keep track of every child in a family. And I have now learned that since the family moved to Modesto, three more children have been delivered to them. The birth records are on file and I have copies coming in the mail.”

“Three more children. Nine plus three are twelve. But you said the latest count was only eleven,” Captain Wilson noted.

“Yes, sir. Now add to that these facts: we have a set of parents with a profusion of children. I’m not putting down large families, but the De Fuentes family may have been blessed with more than they actually wanted. They couldn’t possibly support them — they were on welfare, and the mother was constantly pregnant.

“I was turning these thoughts over in my mind when an idea hit me. What if one of those children had been particularly unwanted, because of being retarded or otherwise afflicted? In most cases that wouldn’t add up to murder, not by a wide margin, but here we are faced with the undisputable fact that a child of approximately eight years of age was buried under that house.

“If the child had died normally, since the family was already receiving assistance, some sort of funeral arrangements could have been made.”

“Also,” Captain Wilson added, “since they are Mexican, there is a good chance the family is Catholic. The obvious absence of birth-control measures would support that. If a child of theirs had died under acceptable circumstances, then they would want to have it buried in sanctified ground with the proper religious rites.”

Tibbs nodded agreement. “When I re-examined the house itself,” he continued, “I checked carefully for any evidence that might reveal an abnormal child. It was entirely possible, with all those children, such an unfortunate individual could be kept effectively hidden from the casual observation of the neighbors. If the child’s condition was bad enough, that would have been almost automatic.

“I found what I was looking for in the drawings I described. One of them in particular. It had been done by the youngest of the three child artists and this child, as I mentioned earlier, had some artistic ability. He, or she, added touches of background and tried to make an actual picture. One of these efforts showed a child with what at first appeared to be multiple arms and legs, and a torso of wavy outlines, drawn in apparently to get the right proportions. Then I realized it wasn’t that at all. First, the other drawings done by the same child exhibited no such difficulty, in fact the proportions were quite good. What the child was actually drawing was another child—”

“Shaking!” the chief interjected. “A spastic!”

“That’s it, sir. Now I was confident that I knew why a large family might willfully dispose of one of its children. Even death by accident wouldn’t call for the extreme measure of burying a child under the house. The answer was painfully apparent — a too large family with a problem child might make the terrible decision to simply get rid of it before moving on. A family leaves one location with a large brood of children; it arrives at the next one, still with a large brood — who is going to notice that one is missing?”

“There are institutions,” the chief said. “Surely they must have known that.”

“Perhaps they did, but there is some indication that despite the fact the family had been on welfare for some time, it may have come to this country illegally. Also, unfortunately, there are many people to whom any kind of institution is terrifying. I believe they thought that what they planned would be simpler. Anyhow, the social worker’s report on the family, which I dug out and read, lists a boy who would have been eight and a half when the family moved away. His name was Alberto. I checked with Modesto where the family is receiving assistance now. There is no Alberto. That is hard evidence. I suspect that if we confront the father with the facts we now have, he will admit to what he probably has rationalized as a mercy killing.”

“I can’t understand,” Captain Wilson said, “how they expected to get away with it. What did they tell their other children?”

“Probably that Alberto had been taken away, or some other excuse. The older children might have been cautioned never to speak of their spastic brother in case it might harm their own images. They would understand that.”

Tibbs stopped for a moment and locked his fingers tightly together as he frequently did when he was under mental stress. Then he looked up once more. “You see, sir, they did get away with it. The missing child died years ago — we know that — he was buried, and there he lay. No one ever raised a question so far as I have been able to learn, and I strongly doubt if anyone ever would. It was pure accident that the burial site was excavated for the new freeway, and even that could well have passed unnoticed if the skull had not rolled off the top of the load. If that truck had been half full or less when the bones were loaded, the chances are good they would never have been noticed.”

Chief McGowan had one more question. “Did the social worker make any mention of an abnormal child in her report?”

Tibbs nodded. “Yes, sir, she did. But she called him an ‘exceptional child,’ which was the term just coming into use at that time. If the family saw the report, or was shown it, that phrase would probably not register with them, particularly since English is not their native language. I don’t think, gentlemen, that we will have too much trouble in obtaining a confession.”

And in that, too, he was right.