“What do you mean, Mr. Wood misled you? Be specific.”
“Since you ask me, Chief Gillespie, I asked him to retrace with me the exact route he followed on the murder night. At one point he made a slight deviation.”
Gillespie rocked back in his chair. “Virgil, you’ve got to understand that Mr. Wood has been patrolling the streets of the city on the graveyard shift for more than three years. He makes it a point to keep changing his route continuously so that no one can predict just where he will be at any specific time. You can’t possibly expect him to remember every turning he made on any specific night, even though it was only a night or two ago.”
“Thank you, sir,” Tibbs said. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?”
Gillespie pondered. He tried to find offense in Tibbs’s reply, but if there was any, it did not show on the surface. “No, that’s all.”
As the Negro left the office, the chief slumped in his chair. A sudden idea had occurred to him, which he didn’t like at all. But he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. The idea was a startling one, but it could be the answer.
He shut his eyes and visualized someone holding a piece of wood, swinging it through the air in a vicious, utterly merciless blow that would land on and crush the skull of a little Italian. And the man he now saw swinging the crude club and destroying the life of a fellow human being was Sam Wood.
Sam had had the opportunity, there was no doubt of that. For Sam it would have been easy, for anyone else a tremendous risk. If Sam had walked up to the little man even in the small hours of the night, his victim would not have been on his guard, thinking he had nothing to fear from a policeman in uniform. On a sudden hunch Gillespie picked up the telephone, called the bank, and asked to speak to Mr. Jennings.
“I want to ask you something in strict confidence concerning one of our men here,” Gillespie began. “Do you know Sam Wood?”
“I know Mr. Wood very well,” Jennings replied promptly.
“What I want to know is this,” Gillespie said. “Within the last two months or so has there been any unusual activity in his account? Any unusual deposits or withdrawals? Has he had to borrow money?”
“Ordinarily we try to keep information concerning our depositors confidential,” Jennings replied, obviously stalling. “In any event, we don’t like to give it out over the telephone. You can appreciate why.”
Gillespie’s temper shortened again. “All right, all right! You are being cautious and I don’t blame you, you’re doing your job. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Let me understand clearly, Mr. Gillespie,” Jennings retorted. “Is this an official request for information?”
“You can consider it that.”
“Then of course we’ll cooperate. If you will come to my office whenever you find it convenient, I will allow you to look at the records.”
“Can’t you deliver them to me here?”
“If you get a court order for us to do so, we gladly will,” Jennings answered evenly. “Otherwise it would be much better if you could call here, since obviously we don’t want to let our records out, and we try to avoid making copies whenever possible.”
Satisfied that he could do no better, Gillespie hung up. He was annoyed that the conversation had given him no hint one way or the other. Robbery did not appear to be the motive, but Kaufmann had mentioned that Mantoli habitually carried large sums of money on his person. Sam Wood might have killed and robbed him, leaving enough money behind to divert suspicion. That sort of thing had been done before.
Arnold appeared in the doorway; he had a few sheets of paper in his hand. “Virgil says you want to see his report on Mantoli’s body.”
“Of course I want to see it,” Gillespie snapped. “What have you been sitting on it for?”
“I didn’t think you wanted it,” Arnold replied. He shrugged and left.
Bill Gillespie looked over the report. As he read from paragraph to paragraph, he began to hate the document. He hated it because it was the work of an inferior and at the same time better than he himself could have done or had done. But it would save him from possible serious embarrassment later on the witness stand if it came to that. He also learned a lot about the late Maestro Mantoli which he had not previously known. Try as he would, however, he could not escape being irritated by the fact that the report was the work of a Negro. They had no right to be smart.
The telephone rang.
Frank Schubert was on the line. “Bill, I hate to bother you but my phone has been going like mad all day. Can you tell me any more than you could yesterday about our case? The council is getting very restless and everybody I know in town has been calling up asking when the murderer will be caught.”
“Damn it, Frank, I wish you’d tell these people to get out of your hair and mine and let me run this murder investigation. Pressure doesn’t help, you ought to know that.”
Mayor Schubert hesitated. “All right, Bill. I understand how you feel. Ah … about one other matter, that colored boy from California: did you get rid of him yet?”
“No, and I’m not going to.” Gillespie kept his voice under control with an effort.
“I think it would be a good idea, Bill.”
“For personal reasons I’ll be damned if I will.” Gillespie’s voice rose in spite of him. “Frank, I’ve got to go now. I promise you I’ll call as soon as I have anything to report.”
“Oh. All right, Bill,” Schubert said, and hung up. Gillespie realized that the mayor’s patience, too, was beginning to wear thin. And if Frank Schubert got too angry, that was the end of the chief-of-police job.
Gillespie flipped a key on the intercom. “Where’s Virgil?” he asked.
“He went out,” Pete answered. “Got a call from a Reverend Somebody and lit out of here on the double. Do you want him?”
“Later,” Gillespie said, and killed the circuit. A dozen different emotions were tearing at him, all pulling in different directions. He got up, clapped on his hat, and headed for his car. One thing was going to be settled anyway; he was off to the bank to see Jennings.
The bank manager received him courteously and sent immediately for Sam Wood’s file. Gillespie was pleased to note that his word, and his presence, carried some weight in this city he was beginning cordially to dislike. When the file was delivered, Jennings looked it over in silence and then kept it in his hands while he spoke.
“Mr. Wood has had an account with us for several years. It has never been more than a few hundred dollars. Twice he has been overdrawn but covered the checks in question promptly enough to protect his credit standing. Deposits and withdrawals have been consistent for some time.”
“Is there any more?” Gillespie asked impatiently.
“I was coming to that,” Jennings replied, unruffled. “Two days ago, Mr. Wood came in and paid off the mortgage on his home. It is a small place and not very much was due. He deposited a check which he stated was a legacy he had received in the mail, and a little over six hundred dollars in cash.”
“Six hundred dollars in cash!” Gillespie repeated. “That sounds very unusual to me.”
“Yes and no,” the banker replied. “Many people still hoard their savings in mattresses and cookie jars despite the amount that is lost each year that way.”
“But not when they have bank accounts and have had them for several years,” Gillespie said. The weight of the evidence that he had just received was beginning to sink in; he had called for a long forward pass and it was just falling securely into his arms on the five-yard line.
Sam Wood made it a point to check in at the station around four o’clock each day. On this particular day he did not want to do so but felt that he should in order to keep up appearances. During the latter part of the night, when he had been alone, he had come to realize the injustice he had done his uninvited companion. He had spent considerable time trying to figure out how his simple deception had been detected. But since it had been, Sam did not want to run into Virgil Tibbs.