In the Heat of the Night

body has been so mutilated as to make survival impossible, such as decapitation, always assume that the person is living unless decomposition has taken place to the point where life could not possibly exist.

    Sam moved quickly back to his car and picked up the radio microphone. At this hour he did not bother to use official language, but spoke quickly and clearly as soon as his call had been acknowledged.
    “At the corner of Piney and the highway, approximately, man in the road, appears to be dead. No evidence of anyone else nearby, no traffic for several minutes. Send the doctor and the ambulance right away.”
    As he paused, Sam wondered for an instant if he had used the proper language in reporting in. This was something new to him and he wanted to handle it properly. Then the voice of the night operator snapped him out of it. “Stand by. Any identification of the victim?”
    Sam thought quickly. “No, not yet,” he replied. “I never saw this man before to my knowledge. However, I think I know who he is. He has long hair, wears a vest, carries a cane. A small man, not over five feet five.”
    “That’s Mantoli,” the operator exclaimed. “The conductor. The man in charge of the festival. If that’s him, and if he’s dead, this could be one awful mess. Repeat, stand by.”
    Sam pressed the mike onto its clip and walked quickly back to the fallen man. It was only nine blocks to the hospital and the ambulance would be on the scene within five minutes. As Sam bent over the man once more, he remembered the rundown dog, but this was infinitely worse.
    Sam reached out his hand and laid it very gently on the back of the man’s head, as though by his touch he could comfort him and tell him that help was coming quickly, that he would only have to lie on the harsh pavement for two or three minutes more, and that in the meantime he was not alone. It was while these thoughts were running through his mind that Sam became aware that something thick and sticky was oozing against his fingers. With a quick involuntary motion he jerked his hand away. The pity he had felt evaporated and a growing red anger surged up in its place.

- 2 -

    At four minutes after four in the morning, the phone rang at the bedside of Bill Gillespie, chief of police of the city of Wells. Gillespie took a few seconds to shake himself partially awake before he answered. As he reached for the instrument he already knew that it was trouble, and probably big trouble, otherwise the night desk man would have handled it. The night man was on the line.
    “Chief, I hate to wake you, but if Sam Wood is right, we may have a first-class murder on our hands.”
    Gillespie forced himself to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. “Tourist?”
    “No, not exactly. Sam has tentatively identified the body as that of Enrico Mantoli—you know, the fellow who was going to set up a music festival here. Understand, Chief, that we aren’t even sure yet that the man is dead, but if he is, and if Sam’s identification is correct, then somebody has knocked off our local celebrity and our whole music-festival deal probably has gone to pot.”
    Bill Gillespie was fully awake now. While he felt automatically for his slippers with his feet, he knew that he was expected to take command. The schooling in his profession he had back in Texas told him what to say. All right, listen to me. I’ll come right down. Get a doctor and the ambulance there right away, a photographer, and dig up a couple more men. Have Wood stay where he is until I get there. You know the routine?”
    The night desk man, who never before had had to deal with a murder, answered that he did. As soon as he hung up, Gillespie rose to his full six feet four and began quickly to climb into his clothes, running over in his mind exacdy what he would do when he reached the murder scene. He had been chief of police and a Wells resident for only nine weeks, and now he would have to prove himself. As he bent to tie his shoes, he knew that he could trust himself to do the right thing, but he still wished that the hurdles immediately before him had already been cleared.
    Despite the fact that he was only thirty-two, Bill Gillespie had abundant confidence in his own ability to meet whatever challenges were thrown at him. His size made it possible for him to look down literally on most men. His forcefulness, which had cost him the girl he had wanted to marry, swept away many normal obstacles as