In the Heat of the Night

CHAPTER 8

At four o’clock that afternoon, Sam Wood checked in at the station to see what was up. He caught a knowing look from Pete, now on day duty, as he walked in the door, so Sam headed for the washroom and in a few moments Pete joined him.

“Your friend Virgil put Gillespie over the barrel for good this morning,” Pete confided.

Sam bent over and made sure that the small toilet cubicles were empty. “What happened?” he asked.

“As near as I can get it, Gillespie dug up another suspect and Virgil sent him down the chute, too.”

“Another suspect?” Sam inquired.

“Yeah; some guy who was driving through that night just as the murder was taking place. Ralph, the kid out at the diner, spotted him and Gillespie had him brought in. Then he turned it over to Virgil and Virgil let him loose.”

“And Gillespie let him get away with it?” ”Yep. Virgil and Gillespie had a little talk afterward ….

“I’ll bet they did.”

“No, you don’t get me-a real nice friendly talk. Virgil told Gillespie something; when Arnold went past the door, there was Gillespie, as meek as Moses, listening to Virgil explain it to him. Arnold didn’t get the drift, but it must have been something good.”

“Maybe we could ask Virgil about it. Ask him if there are any developments. Show interest in his work.”

“Is he here?”

“No, he’s been out all day. Took that old car he’s got and left. No one knows where he is.”

“Maybe he got lonesome and went down to find some nice black girl to shack up with him.” As soon as he had uttered the words, Sam was ashamed of himself. He wished he hadn’t said them.

“I don’t know,” Pete answered slowly. “He’s awful smart for a black boy. I bet he’s working on the case somehow.”

Sam made amends, and was glad he could. “I was just kiddin’. Virgil’s all right. It wouldn’t fool me if he came out on top on this thing.”

“If he does, Gillespie’ll take it away from him.”

“Well, anyway, he’s no dope.”

“Smartest black I ever saw,” Pete concluded; then he added a remarkable tribute. “He oughta been a white man.”

Sam nodded his agreement.

Reverend Amos Whiteburn, despite the heat of the day and the presumed informality of his own home, wore clerical black. The parlor was poor and dingy; what furniture there was had not been new for decades. The cheap rug was threadbare and the window curtains totally disillusioned. Nevertheless the tiny room was clean and was as presentable as its furnishings would permit.

“As long as I have been in this community,” Reverend Whiteburn said in a commanding bass voice, “this is the first time that I have ever been consulted by the police. I take it as an honor.”

“Perhaps,” Virgil Tibbs suggested, “your spiritual leadership has been such that there has never been any need.”

“Extremely kind of you, Mr. Tibbs, but I’m afraid I know to the contrary. Have you spent much time in the South?”

“No more than I have to,” Tibbs admitted. “My mother lives here. I’m trying to persuade her to move to California, where I can give her a better home, but she is elderly and has other children on the East Coast.”

“I understand,” the minister agreed, his big voice almost booming in the little room. “For some of our people who have lived here all of their lives, the shock of entering a different climate of opinion would be considerable.”

Tibbs went on: “Two nights ago, a man was murdered here; you must know about it. I’m investigating that murder-with official approval. Right now I want to discover two things: the place where the murder was done and, if I can, the weapon used.”

Reverend Whiteburn leaned forward so that his chair strained under his bulk. “It was my understanding that the poor man met his fate in the middle of the highway.”

“He didn’t,” Tibbs replied.

The minister rubbed his big chin. “Are you at liberty to go any further?” he asked.

“This is an official conversation,” Tibbs told him, “and is not to be repeated to anyone.”

“It will not be,” the minister assured him gravely.

“Maestro Mantoli was killed somewhere on the outskirts or in this general area.”

The minister shifted once more in his uncomfortable chair. “How did you determine that?” he interrupted.

“By examining the body, plus a reasonable deduction, that’s all.”

The minister hesitated and then spoke most carefully. “Mr. Tibbs, are any of our people suspect, either directly or indirecttly, in this case?”

“To the best of my knowledge,” Tibbs answered with equal care, “no one has suggested that the murderer is necessarily a Negro.”

“That,” the minister replied, “is in itself a small miracle. But I interrupted you; please go on.”

Tibbs studied the big man, who looked like a retired heavyweight boxer, and then took the plunge. “Mantoli was killed with a piece of unfinished wood-pine, I think, but I won’t know for sure until I hear from the Forest Products Laboratory. I recovered a sliver from the corpse and sent it to them. I want to find that piece of wood. To try to do so alone would be almost impossible. I came to you because I hear that you are very active in Negro youth programs.”

The forehead of Reverend Whiteburn corrugated in thought. He put his fingertips together and then bounced them very gently. “If it was used as a club, it could not be too large. It would have to be a fairly short piece of wood.”

“Something like that, perhaps two feet long.”

“Hmm. That sounds as if it could be a piece of firewood.” When he fell silent once more, Tibbs waited patiently. After several seconds the big man spoke again. “You know … how does this sound, Mr. Tibbs: I will tell our young people-I mean the boys and girls who belong to our club for ten-to fifteen-year-olds-that I want to put in a stock of firewood for the church. I will send them out for suitable pieces, but I’ll insist that they take nothing from anyone’s woodpile, even if it is freely offered. Ill make a game out of it. As they bring in their findings, and they will bring in plenty, I’ll try to find what you’re looking for, that is if there is any way to tell.”

“Some brownish dried blood on the end. It wouldn’t look like blood, not to children, anyway. It’s a very long chance at the best.”

Reverend Whiteburn regarded the problem as solved. “We’ll get on this right away. I can’t promise results, of course, but we will gather in a good percentage of the loose wood around this area. And the children need never know the real purpose of the project.”

“We could use you in California,” Tibbs said admiringly.

His host answered him simply. “I’m needed here.”

Bill Gillespie picked up his phone when it rang, and barked, “Yes?”

“Bill, if you can get away for a few minutes, I wish you would step over to my office. Several councilmen are here and you ought to be in on this.”

Gillespie recognized the mayor’s voice without comment. “I’ll be right over, Frank,” he replied, and hung up. As he passed through the lobby, he gave the desk man a piercing glance and noted with satisfaction a slight flicker of fear in the man’s eyes when he looked back. Then he walked out into the bright sunshine, feeling pretty good, and reflected that whatever Frank Schubert had on his mind, he would be able to handle it without trouble.

It wasn’t quite that easy. Schubert welcomed him into his office and waved his arm toward the three other men who were waiting. “You know Mr. Dennis, Mr. Shubie, and Mr. Watkins, Bill.”

“Certainly. Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Gillespie sat down with the air of a highly placed executive who has been called upon to testify. At least that was the effect he tried for. And he intended to remain quiet and courteous no matter what lay ahead, for the four men facing him had enough votes on the Council to oust him from his job.

“Bill, the boys asked me to invite you over to discuss the Mantoli murder. Naturally we’re all quite concerned about it.”

Watkins interrupted. “Coming to the point, Mr. Gillespie, we want to know what’s being done and also what’s going on.”

“Isn’t that the same question?” Gillespie asked.

“I mean we want to know what’s being done to clear up the murder and what all the rumors are about you having a nigger cop in the station.”

Gillespie straightened his shoulders. “I’ll take your questions in reverse order, Mr. Watkins. One of our men rushed ahead too fast and picked up a black boy in the station. He had a lot of money on him and so my man ran him in.”

“Right thing to do,” Watkins clipped.

“When I questioned him, he said he was a cop out in California. I checked up, of course, and he was.”

“This isn’t California,” Shubie contributed.

“I know that,” Gillespie snapped, and then checked himself quickly. “I’m sorry, just thinking about him makes me mad.” He looked at Shubie and saw that the explanation was satisfactory. “Anyway, George Endicott stuck in his oar. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to a councilman, but I don’t think he knows how to run a police department. Well, Mr. Endicott got hold of the chief of police that this black boy Virgil works for and found out that Virgil was a homicide specialist. So he up and borrowed him to help us out here.”

“That’s this nigger,” Watkins said.

“That’s the one,” Gillespie agreed. “Without passing the buck, Mr. Schubert told me to use him and he’s the boss; I did what he asked me to.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Watkins exclaimed, and half rose to his feet. “I don’t want no nigger running around this town asking questions of white people like he thought he was somebody. He wanted to talk to my night man, Ralph, at the diner, but Ralph wouldn’t let him in. And he was down at the bank acting like he was a white man. A few of the boys are getting ready to teach him his place, and they will, too, if you don’t get him out of here.”

Gillespie looked at Frank Schubert and waited for the mayor to pick up the ball. When he found he was the center of attention, Schubert reached into his desk and produced a small bundle of newspapers. “Mantoli wasn’t so much of a big shot, but when he got himself murdered it made news. It made more news when a colored cop came on the job. If you haven’t seen all of these, you better take a look. You know we’re getting a lot of press attention. So far it’s all been to the good and a lot of free publicity for the music festival.”

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.

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?”