There was nothing new whatever concerning Johnny McGuire.
As soon as he had taken care of some urgent details left over from another case, Tibbs went to see Captain Lindholm, the chief of the detective bureau. After exchanging a brief greeting, he plunged directly into the thought which was in his mind. “I lost a bet last night,” he admitted. “I was confident, at first, that the McGuire boy would go home. He didn’t-you know what happened.”
The captain nodded. “He could have been too frightened or else got lost, pure and simple.”
Tibbs nodded. “I can buy it either way, sir, although I like the second a little better. Another thought-you know where the shooting took place. It’s only about five blocks from the Arroyo Seco. If the boy was lost, or too scared to go home, he might have hidden somewhere in the park. That is, if he knew it was there.”
Lindholm smiled. “I’ve had two men in plain clothes down there for the past hour. I’d like to send more, but we had two armed robberies after you went home last night.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stick on the McGuire thing by all means. Let me know if you get into a corner or need more help.”
“Thank you,” Virgil said, and left.
Twenty minutes later Tibbs was back at the Huntington Memorial Hospital. The surgical team which had worked to save the life of Willie Orthcutt would have left a report. Because of something he had noticed the previous night, he was most anxious to see it.
Although no postmortem had as yet been performed, the preliminary findings were quite clear. The fatal bullet had entered the abdomen on a straight line, indicating that it had been fired from a point approximately three feet above the ground. Had prompt medical attention been available on the scene before the victim had been moved, he might have been saved, but this was highly problematical.
There was also a second wound, this one in the upper forearm. Assuming that the two shots had been fired from the same point, then rough triangulation, according to the surgeon’s estimate, gave the distance as between ten and fifteen feet. The bullet in the abdomen had entered just below the normal position of the belt buckle and had traveled in an almost exactly horizontal line; the one in the forearm had entered through the biceps muscle and had struck the bone. The triangulation presumed that both shots had been fired at almost the same time, otherwise a standing posture on the part of the victim could no longer be assumed.
The rest of the medical report was technical, but ended with the unqualified statement that death had been caused by the abdominal bullet which had passed entirely through the body. The fact that the spine had not been struck was immaterial in view of the fact that death had taken place. Tibbs absorbed the information with a sense of satisfaction; it was a thoroughly professional job of putting facts on paper. This saved much time and provided a piece of reliable evidence for the use of the Juvenile Court.
The hospital visit concluded, Tibbs drove to the address he had been given for the boy called Jeff. When he arrived, he found a modest home where the whole family was gathered, clearly in anticipation of an official visit. In the course of his work his racial heritage had often been a handicap to him. This time it might make things somewhat easier.
The parents of the boy greeted him as well as could be expected; they were obviously respectable, decent people who were seriously upset and fearful of the fact that their son was involved in a case of manslaughter. Jeff himself was there together with three sisters of varying ages who seemed content to remain still and unnoticed.
“All I can say, Mr. Tibbs,” Jeff’s mother began, “is that I’m thankful to God that the white boy didn’t shoot our son. It’s Jesus’ grace that he didn’t.” She was a big woman, well over two hundred pounds, but when she gathered her boy to her, she became only a relatively helpless mother striving to protect what was nearest and dearest to her.
Following the usual preliminaries Virgil turned his attention to Jeff. “What’s your full name, son?” he asked gently.
“Jeffrey William Howell.”
“All right, Jeffrey, as far as I know now you aren’t personally in any trouble and you don’t need to worry.”
“Thank God,” his father said in an unexpectedly rich bass. He was a thin man whose face and hands both testified to many years of physical labor. He stood quietly in the corner of the humble room.
Virgil was glad at that moment that he was a Negro, that he could establish empathy with these people who had been caught in the crossfire of a serious police case. At least to them the law did not have an exclusively white face.
The boy’s mother picked up the reins. “Mr. Tibbs, I’ve been worried sick about his running around in that hopped-up car. I know they’re his friends, but it isn’t right. It could have been him; it could have been our boy.” She hastily wiped her eyes.
“In your opinion, why does he go with that particular crowd?” Tibbs asked.
The fleshy woman recovered enough to answer. “Because of the boy they call Sport. He’s older; he owns the car. He’s the big man and they all want to run with him. And then there’s Luella.”
“Luella?”
“Yes. As far as I know she’s a nice enough girl, not wild or anything like that, but the boys all like her maybe a little too much.”
“Oh, ma,” Jeffrey said.
“Well you know that it’s true enough, you told me so yourself.” She returned her attention to her visitor. “Let’s just say that Luella’s popular. She’s sort of Sport’s girl, but she gets along with all the boys in the crowd, sometimes she goes out with them.”
“That sounds very reasonable,” Tibbs commented.
“I guess that it is-what I meant is that Jeffrey, like all the other boys I guess, likes her and that’s one reason he goes with Sport and the others.”
“Thank you. Now, Jeffrey, tell me all about it, just as it happened.”
In the presence of his parents and of the law the boy was in a chastened mood. He told his version without ornamentation, hesitating from time to time as he realized the gravity of the circumstances in which he had been involved.
He had little that was new to offer; his story closely paralleled the one given to Tibbs by Charles Dempsey. In a few minor details he differed; Tibbs was well aware that the mark of a truthful witness is agreement on major points mixed with disagreement on smaller ones. Few people have perfect memories, especially concerning occasions when they were under unusual stress.
In one particular area Tibbs was explicit in his questioning-the moment when the first shot had been fired. It was most important to determine if Johnny McGuire had pulled the trigger of his own volition or if he had done so involuntarily as a result of having been unexpectedly grabbed from behind.
Jeffrey did his best to answer. “Well, Beater, he was standin’ still like, he wasn’t goin’ for the kid at all. Then Sport, he grabbed him real quick. The white kid, he twisted like, fightin’ to get away. That’s when it happened.”
“Exactly what happened then?”
“Beater, I mean Willie, he grabbed himself in the guts, I knew right then he’d been hit.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Not then. After maybe a second or two he made a noise, like he was hurt.”
“Now, Jeffrey, I want you to think carefully, because this is very important. Exactly what did the white boy do after he fired the gun and hit Willie in the abdomen?”
Jeffrey shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was awful scared. I’d been right by Willie, I only just got away in time.”
“Did anything else happen that you noticed, anything at all?”
The boy collected himself. “I don’t remember exactly. Sport, he yelled to watch out and let go of the kid, or the kid got away, I ain’t sure. I think the white kid he shot again, but like I said, I ain’t sure-it was all so fast. Anyhow, Willie he fell down and the white kid, he run like hell. I didn’t want to chase him.”