In the Heat of the Night

troubles with a Negro listening in. Purdy had interrupted him with a correction while he had been explaining the law and that Gillespie had not liked. “Let him come in,” he said.
    Tibbs entered the room as quietly as possible and sat down on the bench as though he were there to await orders to do some job of work.
    “Send him out of here,” Purdy said. “I ain’t gonna talk about this with no nigger in the room.”
    “If I want him here, he stays,” Gillespie stated. “Now go on with your story and forget he’s here.”
    Purdy refused to give up. “Get him out of here first,” he demanded.
    To Gillespie’s surprise, Tibbs rose quietly to his feet and started for the door. Gillespie looked up in anger, and Tibbs spoke quickly. “I forgot something; I’ll be right back.” When Purdy looked away from him, Tibbs pointed at the intercom. Then he shut the door behind him on his way out.
    Since the situation had been resolved without loss of face, Gillespie moved some papers on his desk, opened a drawer and looked inside, and then flipped a switch on his intercom. Then he leaned back in his chair. “All right, we’re alone,” he said. “Now tell me what you have to say.”
    “Well, Delores, she’s a real good girl, never done nothin’ wrong except what kids always do. Then, without me knowing nothing about it, she meets this here guy who’s twice as old as she is. He ain’t married so he starts trying to go places with my girl here.”
    "Why didn’t you stop it?” Gillespie demanded. Purdy turned sour. “Mister, I work all night. I ain t got no time to stay home and take care o the kids or see what they’s doin’ every minute. Besides, Delores didn’t tell me nothing about it until afterwards.”
    “He was a real nice guy,” Delores contributed. “I couldn’t see nothing wrong in it. He was real nice to me.
    “Come to the point,” Gillespie said. “When did it happen?”
    “Real late one night. The missis was asleep like she oughta be, when Delores got outa bed to see this guy, and that’s when he had her.”
    Gillespie turned to the girl. “Tell me about it; exactly what happened.”
    Delores did her best to look coy; it was a fair imitation. “Well, like Pa said, he was real nice to me. We talked and then we sat real close together and then...” She ran down only from lack of words.
    The chief picked up a pencil and tapped it against the desk. “I want you to tell me one thing,” he demanded. “Did this man force himself on you so that you had to struggle against him, or did it just work out that he went farther than he should?”
    Delores hesitated a long time, long enough to give Gillespie the answer he needed. “I didn’t rightly understand everything at the time,” she said at length.
    Gillespie let his body relax a little. “All right, Delores, this man did you wrong, of course, and we’ll arrest him for it. We can charge him with seduction and that’s plenty. Now what can you tell me about him?”
    Purdy refused to remain silent any longer. “You know him right enough,” he exploded. “That’s why we wanted to see you personal. It’s that night cop you got out supposin’ to be protectin’ the women all the time. I know his name, too—it’s Sam Wood.”
    When Bill Gillespie was once more alone, he pushed the intercom and gave an order. “Send Virgil in here,” he instructed.
    “Virgil isn’t here,” Pete’s voice came back.
    "Well, where in hell is he?” Gillespie demanded. “I thought he was listening on the intercom.”
    “Yes, sir, he was. Just as the interview ended, he said something about having been the biggest fool in the country, and beat it.”
    “Is that all?”
    “Yes, sir, except for the fact that he made a very brief phone call on the way out.” In that statement Pete lied to his chief. It was not a very serious lie and it was, in fact, Pete thought, an act of mercy. As he had rushed out of the lobby, the Negro detective had paused just a moment to say quickly, “Tell Sam Wood not to worry.” Pete required only a fraction of a second to decide not to repeat that remark to Gillespie. It might go hard with the man who did.

    The ancient car that Jess the mechanic had loaned to Virgil Tibbs had been designed with adequate but conservative power; consequently it labored somewhat as it steadily pushed its way up the winding curves of the road that led to the Endicott home. When at last it reached the top, the radiator was showing