“You tell me.”
“Well, as you know, that kind of thing just isn’t worn in this country, not even down on Muscle Beach. They are quite popular abroad, though, and are usually accepted over there. That makes me think that our man had been living overseas. The marks were so sharp and distinct I would infer a reasonably warm and sunny climate.”
“Also that he was out a lot, on the beach or somewhere similar.”
“Exactly, and since non-swimmers don’t usually go in for that kind of brief, our man was probably well at home in the water. Either that or he was trying to show off, and he didn’t look that type to me. No beard and none shaved off recently-no spectacular haircut, no tattoos, nothing of that sort at all.”
“So he probably didn’t drown.”
“No, that’s definite. He was expertly beaten to death. A blow in the solar plexus got him.”
“Karate?” Bob suggested.
“Based on what I know of the art, I doubt it. The injuries apparently weren’t that type. Just to be sure, when I get the detailed report, I’m going to see Nishiyama and ask him for an opinion.”
“Good idea. Anything else to go on?”
“Mostly just guessing from here on out. He was well fed and apparently prosperous and successful. That combined with the deep suntan marks, which suggested a lot of leisure time, gave me the idea he might have been either a part-time high-salaried person like a movie director or else someone who had retired relatively young. That would add up if he were, say, an electronics engineer who had hit one or two good patents and was able to retire on the royalties.”
“Problem,” Bob interjected. “If he had been living abroad, then he could have been a Frenchman, a German, almost anyone.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right,” Tibbs agreed. “The only solid fact I have to go on here is that his body was found in this country, which increases the chances that he was an American. Also his general appearance did not suggest a foreigner, except for the trunks. When we hit a trail, we can keep in mind that he may have had a foreign accent. But we can’t tell that now.”
“So you come back to the contact lenses.”
“Right. I’ve been praying that someone would raise a howl about a missing person and we would have an answer the easy way. That could still happen, but I’m not banking on it.”
Bob Nakamura folded his hands behind his head and took his turn at staring at the ceiling. “Obviously somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to hide this man’s identity. The missing dental plates, and all that.”
“No argument.”
“The body was put into the pool at the nudist camp because it was-shall we say-appropriate. It would excite less comment being found there.”
“No sale,” Tibbs answered. “The club managers could prove fairly easily he wasn’t theirs. Temporarily, at least, they have.”
“They wanted the body to be found in a ridiculous place.”
“No.”
“The idea was to embarrass the camp-put it out of business.”
“Possible, but doubtful. Too expert a murder job, for one thing.”
“How’s this: Suppose there were two people, which could well be: the actual murderer who dumped the body and someone else who found it. Say one man killed him and left the body on someone else’s property. He didn’t want to get involved, so he moved it to the nudist camp and left it there.”
“Why not just drop it off a cliff in the first place?” Tibbs asked. “That whole area is loaded with wild canyons where disposal would be easy. After a few weeks, identification would have been even harder-a lot harder.”
Bob tried a new tack. “You know, Virgil, there’s something here that doesn’t add up. On one hand, we agree there was a clear effort to make the body difficult to identify. On the other, it was left in a highly conspicuous place where it was sure to be found promptly.”
Tibbs smiled with grim satisfaction. “That one stopped me cold on the scene,” he admitted. “I tried to put it out of my mind, but it wouldn’t go away. I’ve just been thinking about it.”
“Any light?”
“Maybe.” Tibbs got up and walked over to the window. “If an unidentified nude body is found on the premises of a nudist park, what is sure to result?”
“A police investigation.”
“And what else?”
“A certain amount of publicity,” Bob suggested.
Tibbs turned and faced him. “Exactly! In the Los Angeles area a lot of people die violently-largely in traffic, but in other ways, too. A single isolated death of an unknown person isn’t going to get much play in the papers unless the circumstances are unusual-in short, unless it adds up to a good story.”
“And a body found floating in the pool at a nudist camp would definitely be unusual.”
“I’d say spectacular,” Tibbs added. “In most papers it would guarantee a good press coverage-perhaps even photos.”
Bob thought that one over. “So the way you see it,” he said after a good half minute, “there were two purposes here: to delay identification of the body as long as possible and, at the same time, to publicize the matter so that some person, or persons, would know what had happened.”
Tibbs seated himself on the edge of Bob’s desk. “It’s the only way I can see it making sense. The man was killed for a purpose-obviously. Through the papers, someone somewhere is being told what happened, someone who knows who he was and why he died.”
“When we find out who the dead man was, we may have a lead on finding that person. Until then, we’re down to the contact lenses.”
“Right.” Tibbs locked his fingers together and stared at his hands-a characteristic gesture of his. “If it hadn’t been for that oversight, we’d be waiting for something to come to us. Let’s hope it pays off.”
At two that afternoon Virgil Tibbs parked his inconspicuous black car in a space marked “VISITORS” adjacent to the plant of the Greenwood Optical Company. He showed his credentials to the receptionist and was ushered in promptly to see Arthur Greenwood, the sales manager, one of the three Greenwood brothers who owned and operated the company. That gentleman carefully examined the tiny lenses that Tibbs had brought with him, and became curious.
“How did you happen to come to us?” he asked.
“I know an optometrist in Pasadena,” Tibbs explained. “He looked at the lenses and thought they might have been made by you.”
Greenwood turned one of the small bits of plastic in his fingers. “Do you know anything about contact lenses?” he inquired.
“No,” Tibbs answered. “I’ll have to rely on you for help.”
The executive leaned back in his swivel chair and prepared to lecture. “Today practically all lenses are taken from stock,” he began. “Individual prescriptions seldom if ever need to be ground. In conventional eyeglasses every type of lens likely to be required is a stock item in all the shapes needed to fit various styles of frames. In contact lenses the field is much narrower. The number of different lenses available is much more restricted, and only a relatively limited range of prescriptions can be filled.”
“In other words contact lenses aren’t as distinctive as regular eyeglasses.”
“Right. So your chance of tracing your man through these lenses is slim. However, you may have one advantage here: these are the vented type. There are a number of contact-lens makers, but the vented ones are relatively uncommon. We are one of the better sources in this country.”
“Are there many abroad?”
“Oh, yes, some of course-mainly in Europe and in Japan, where contact lenses were invented. From these I can’t tell you for certain whether we made them or not.”
“Assuming that you did,” Tibbs pursued patiently, “would you have any way of determining for whom they were made? Or would they be simply a stock item, as you said?”
Greenwood pondered the question. “We might-and I stress might-be able to tell you who prescribed them, but our records normally are confidential.”