“Has the family been notified?” the minister asked.
Tibbs shook his head. “I suspect that will be my job.”
“Let me.” He turned toward Dempsey. “Let’s go together, since you know them. I may be able to offer spiritual comfort-poor people.”
“Pastor, if you would care to do that, it would be a great help to me,” Tibbs acknowledged. “I have another family to see.”
The minister laid his arm across the shoulders of the awkward boy. “Shall we go?” he invited. With calm assurance he led him down the corridor and outside.
“Thank God for him-literally,” Virgil said to himself and returned to the admittance desk where he could phone. He reported and was told in return that the watch over the Hotchkiss house would remain in effect on a twenty-four hour basis until Johnny McGuire had been captured. A stakeout was also set up at the McGuire home in the hope that the missing boy would come back on his own. Now, however, things were different and he would have to be taken into custody.
There was nothing new about the boy. One of Tibbs’s fellow investigators came on the line briefly; he had made a quick check of the area where the shooting had taken place. Two families where lights had been on had admitted that they had heard “a noise” which might have been a shot or shots. Neither had reported it, one householder claimed he had thought it was a backfire from a hopped-up car, the other flatly admitted that whatever it had been, he hadn’t wanted to get involved. The investigator had not bothered to explain that a properly equipped ambulance, if one had been called promptly, might have made the difference between survival or death; it would have been a waste of breath.
Notebook in hand, Virgil asked the admissions nurse for the proper name of the deceased, he had only heard him described as “Beater.” The efficient, middle-aged woman consulted the work sheet before her. “Willie Orthcutt,” she reported, and supplied the address. “That’s all that I have now, Mr. Tibbs, there should be some more details later.”
He drew in his breath and held it, then he let it out slowly while he thought. His mind at that moment was very active; unconsciously he passed a hand across his forehead as though to wipe away invisible perspiration.
“Mr. Tibbs, would you like a sedative?” the nurse offered. “Just something to quiet your nerves?”
“Thank you, but I wouldn’t dare-at least not now. When I get home tonight, if I ever do, I’m going to mix myself a strong drink, listen to Ravel, and read the Book of Job.”
“Why don’t you do that right now.”
“Impossible, you know that. Do me a favor, phone headquarters and give them what facts you have about the shooting victim. I have to follow up on the boy with the gun.”
“Take care of yourself,” the nurse admonished as he turned to leave.
Fifteen minutes later Tibbs was back in the kitchen of the McGuire apartment. “You oughtn’t to come here so much,” Mike told him. “We’re looking for our boy to come home, but he won’t if you’re hanging around all the time.”
Tibbs was in no mood to be unduly polite. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said, and let it hang there.
Maggie had the first inkling, she looked up at him from where she sat, her eyes widening in renewed fright. “Has he done something?” she asked, forcing the words out from between her lips.
Virgil nodded. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. McGuire, desperately sorry, but I’m afraid that he has. Another boy, about fourteen years of age.”
Mike McGuire was suddenly sobered, his wounded pride was put aside. “Did he-hurt him?” he asked.
For Maggie’s sake Tibbs forced down the impulse to give it to him right between the eyes. “Something like an hour ago Johnny fired a shot into the Hotchkiss home, at least we are assuming it was your son. Fortunately no one was hurt.”
“Then who…?” Mike asked.
“Somehow, I’m not sure how, Johnny apparently made his way to the west side of the city. There four boys out in a car stopped him, again I can’t say for certain that it was your boy, and a scuffle followed.”
“What were they trying to do to him?” Mike asked in quick suspicion.
“I don’t know for sure, Mr. McGuire, one of them told me they thought he was lost and hoped they could earn a dollar or two taking him home. I don’t entirely believe that, but there is no evidence so far that they had any criminal intent. Whatever the circumstances, Johnny apparently became frightened and fired the gun. I don’t believe that he did it on purpose.”
“And…?” Maggie asked.
“One of the boys was hit, in the abdomen, I understand. I’m very, very sorry, Mrs. McGuire, to have…”
“Is the boy all right?” she interrupted him, her voice rising.
He shook his head. “He died in the hospital a few minutes ago.”
She buried her face in her folded arms. Tibbs looked at McGuire whose color was now ashen. “If by any chance you see your son before I do, don’t under any circumstances tell him about the death. If he still has the gun…”
“I’ll take it away from him,” he promised. “You can have the damned thing, I don’t want it any more.”
“Exactly what kind of a gun is it?” Tibbs asked. “I know you said that it is a Colt.38, but that covers several models. Can you be more specific?” The question helped just a little to restore some emotional balance in the small room.
“It’s called a Chief’s Special,” Mike answered. “You know about it?”
“Yes, I do. I think you’d like to be alone now; you don’t need to expect me back any more this evening.”
“What if you find Johnny?”
Virgil Tibbs considered that for a moment. “In view of what’s happened, we’ll have to hold him-at least temporarily. But it might be the best thing for him, and for his mother, if we brought him here for a little while first.”
Mike rubbed his jaw with the flat of his hand. “That’s decent of you,” he said, and for the moment paid his guest the supreme compliment of overlooking his heritage.
One more weary time Tibbs drove back to headquarters and made his report. Then, his duty done for the time being, he headed for home. In his own car he drove to his apartment, turned on the lights, and gratefully kicked off his shoes. Despite the fact he had not eaten, the idea of food did not attract him. Instead he mixed himself a drink, sat down stiffly on one end of his davenport, and nourished his spirit by studying a magnificent painting which hung on the opposite wall. It was an outdoors scene which proclaimed itself to be California; dominating the picture as its central subject was a lovely young woman. She had deep blue, widely separated eyes, golden blond hair brilliant in the strong light. She looked out of the canvas, directly at Virgil, proud and unconcerned by her nudity. Her perfectly formed breasts were not on display, they were simply part of her which added to the all-over perfection of her body.
To Virgil Tibbs the picture meant far more than the considerable cash value it represented. An original by William Holt-Rymers was entirely beyond his means, but this one was not only a gift from the artist, it had also been done particularly for him without his knowledge and the subject had sat for it as her contribution.
Presently the alcohol took the sharp edge off his fatigue; he reminded himself that he had had nothing to eat since noon. He got to his feet and raised his glass a few inches toward the picture.
“Thank you, Linda,” he said half aloud. The ritual completed he changed into a comfortable yukata, put a new recording of Miroirs on his stereo system, and opened his refrigerator door.
When he awoke in the morning the fact that his phone had not rung told him that Johnny McGuire had not been located. It also implied that the gun he carried had been silent. By eight-thirty he was in his office, facing a pile of work which was always waiting on his desk. Bob Nakamura, his unofficial partner and office mate, sat a few feet away embroiled in his own case file. The weather outside was fine, the only redeeming feature of what otherwise promised to be a grim and possibly tragic day.