“As you know, Johnny put a bullet through the Hotchkiss home and then fled. This was both a tort and a violation of the law. In view of Johnny’s youth, and the state of mind he was in, Captain Lindholm has agreed to dismiss the matter from a police standpoint. So that much is now a closed incident unless Mr. Hotchkiss wishes to press charges.”
Virgil did not even bother to look at Ralph Hotchkiss to see him shaking his head negatively.
“Thank you,” Mike said to the captain, who nodded in reply.
“Johnny made his escape by city bus,” Virgil continued, “and got off when he sensed that he was reaching the end of the line. At that point, I’m sure, he very much wanted to go home, but he was afraid to do so. He did not understand that any police officer would have helped him and protected him from harm. Considering what he had been taught, and what he had just done, his failure to ask a policeman for help is understandable, but it would far and away have been the best thing he could have done.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnny said.
Tibbs acknowledged the remark. “You all know what happened after that-at least in part. Following the shooting, Johnny took refuge in Arroyo Seco Park and stayed there all night. It was unnecessary, because I was already almost certain, despite the evidence to the contrary, that he had not been responsible for the death of Willie Orthcutt.”
That announcement had a decided effect, a wave of surprise went quickly through the room.
“As soon as I heard about the shooting, I went to the hospital where I found Charles Dempsey in the corridor. He gave me his account of what happened, a story which contained a glaring inconsistency. He told me that he had tried to disarm Johnny by seizing his arms unexpectedly from the rear. Now Dempsey is eighteen years old and has the reputation for being smart and alert. It is an idiotic thing to seize a person with a gun that way, but it was incredible that he would do so with a close friend standing directly in front in the line of fire. I will agree that people sometimes become excited and do very illogical things, but that was a more or less deliberate action which has been confirmed by an honest witness.
“Secondly, Dempsey insisted that two shots had been fired; that too I found very hard to believe. By his statement the first bullet had struck the victim in the abdomen, he had clasped his hands across his middle, and had sunk to the ground. Then, Dempsey claimed, Johnny fired a second shot almost immediately at the same target. That kind of act I simply couldn’t associate with a badly frightened nine-year-old boy, especially one who took to his heels and fled the first moment that he could.
“A thirty-eight revolver has a considerable kick to it and makes a very loud noise. After firing once the boy would have been frightened half out of his wits, even though the shot might have been accidental. His subsequent conduct proves that. Also, if the initial shot were unintended, then a second deliberate one right behind it was all but out of the question. So I had very serious doubts about Charles Dempsey right there.”
To Virgil’s discomfort he found that Mike McGuire was staring at him as though he could not believe that this quiet, dark-skinned man had the ability to analyze human reactions. Actually, Mike was astounded that any policeman possessed more than normal intelligence.
“At this point,” Virgil continued, “I had grounds for suspicion but nothing more. I could not prove that the gun had been accidently fired, I only believed this to be the case. My opinion was reinforced by the fact that Johnny was standing alone with four people he believed to be hostile to him literally surrounding him; one was in front, one on each side, and one behind him. Under these circumstances, despite the frame of mind he was in and his youth, he would know that if he were deliberately to shoot the boy in front of him, the others would jump him immediately. And he would have good cause to fear what they might do to him.
“Now let me return to Dempsey, the boy known as Sport. After we received the tragic news that Willie Orthcutt had succumbed, he put on a great show of grief. He even stated that he was going to find the boy with the gun and kill him. At that point I deliberately told him that the boy wasn’t guilty, in those words. At once his whole manner changed, he dropped his pose and with almost animal intensity asked, ‘Then who is?’ It was very clear that at that moment he was badly frightened.”
“No wonder,” Ralph Hotchkiss commented.
“I must point out again,” Tibbs continued, “that all this was a very long way from legal evidence-it was only a guideline. Furthermore, there was a serious objection to Dempsey’s guilt at that time and another appeared when I learned that Willie had been shot in the arm. When the hospital gave me that information, it created a major roadblock.”
He stopped and turned toward the parents of the dead boy. “Is this too painful for you?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Orthcutt replied, his voice even and controlled. “We want to know what happened.”
“At first I entertained the idea that Dempsey, for a motive not yet known, had brought about his supposed friend’s death by placing his own hands over Johnny’s and forcing him to shoot as he wished. After an experiment here in my office I convinced myself that this was not possible. I was forced to reexamine the matter and the exact nature of the wound in Willie’s upper arm gave rise to some thought. Mr. Hotchkiss, would you be kind enough to stand up for a moment?”
Ralph Hotchkiss rose to his feet, not sure what to expect.
“I’d like you to assume, sir,” Virgil said, “that you have just been shot in the left upper arm from directly in front of you.” He reached out and touched the spot on Hotchkiss’s arm where the supposed bullet had entered. “Now what do you do?”
In response Hotchkiss clapped his right hand over the area.
“That’s what everyone does when they’re suddenly hurt, they put their hand or hands over the place where the pain is. Now if you will look, sir, you will see that you have both forearms over your upper abdomen.”
There was a silent tableau for a few seconds; Ralph Hotchkiss standing with his arms folded across his body, understanding dawning on his face.
“Three different people told me that Willie Orthcutt went down with his hands across his abdomen,” Virgil explained. “If that were true, then it was apparently established that that was where he had been shot. But when I began to think a little harder about the wound in his upper arm, the light dawned and a second explanation for the arms across the body became permissible. Since the victim was a fourteen-year-old boy, it was understandable why he had sunk to the ground in pain, compounded by shock. I doubt if any one of us would, if we were unexpectedly shot, remain on our feet.”
“When I checked on Charles Dempsey’s background, I learned that he had once been arrested for armed robbery. Later he proved an alibi and was released, the charge was dismissed. I mention this only because it suggested to me that he might have had a gun; an innocent person without one would not likely have been brought in and booked.”
At that moment Mike McGuire looked acutely uncomfortable; that hazard of owning a firearm had not occurred to him.
“Perhaps even more to the point was the way in which he behaved himself after Willie was hit. The only possible thing to do for a person who has been shot in the abdomen is to call an ambulance. I’m sure that Billy here knows that someone in that condition should not be moved except by qualified people who have the proper equipment, and Dempsey is far older and more mature. Yet he insisted on picking up the victim himself, refused offers of aid, and took him to the hospital in his own car. That too was incredible conduct; even if he had been greatly upset, he still would have known better.”
He stopped and waited for a moment. The quiet in the room was thick now, even the fresh air flowing in the open windows could not dispel the specter of cold and terrible murder. Outside there were the sounds of cars and of people about, but those in the office ignored this evidence of life going on.