“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?”
CHAPTER 9
When Bill Gillespie was notified that he had been selected as chief of police for the little city of Wells, he had celebrated by buying several books on police administration and the investigation of crime. During his first weeks in Wells they gave him a certain sense of importance despite the fact that he found no time to read them. After his session in Mayor Schubert’s office, he decided to crack them without delay. In the quiet of the early evening, after he had eaten well and put on his slippers, he sat down under a good light and made an earnest attempt to study.
He began with Snyder’s Homicide Investigation. Before he had gone very far he began to appreciate the number of things he did not know, the number of things that he should have done and hadn’t. There was the matter of the body, for instance; in place of the careful examination that he should have made, or had made for him, he had taken only a quick look and then had quickly left. Furthermore he had done it before witnesses. Fortunately the witnesses were probably not aware of his deficiency.
Then he remembered that Virgil Tibbs had been there. Not only that, but when invited to do so, Tibbs had made what had apparently been a very thorough examination of the body even though at the time his interest had been purely academic.
Gillespie put the book down and folded his hands behind his head. In a rare mood of fairness, he admitted to himself that it was score one for the Negro detective. Then the happy thought hit him that he could still ask Tibbs for a report on his findings and thus fill the gap in his own investigations. The only thing against it was that it acknowledged Tibbs had some visible ability in his profession. Gillespie weighed the matter for a moment and then decided the price was not too high to pay. He would look better if he asked for the report. He would do so in the morning.