In the Heat of the Night

have a way of telling,” Duena said, “a very simple test. Will you submit to it?”
    A sense of new life began to flow into Sam. His weary mind came back to the alert. And then, in a burst, he felt he was a man again. He turned to face the girl fully. “You name it,” he said. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
    “All right, stand up,” Duena instructed.
    Sam rose to his feet, resisting the desire to tuck in his shirt, wishing he could just have put on a tie. He felt self-conscious and awkward.
    Then, to his utter confusion, the girl got up, walked to him, and stood inches away. He felt his heart quicken as some mysterious mechanism within his body released adrenalin into his bloodstream. And for the first time in many years he was suddenly frightened.
    “Your first name is Sam, isn’t it?” she said. “I want you to call me Duena. Say it.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Sam answered, wondering. “Duena,” Sam repeated obediently.
    “Take hold of me, Sam,” the girl said. “I want you to hold me close to you.”
    Sam’s mind, which had said no so many hundreds of times during the last twenty-four hours, refused to let him obey. When he didn’t move, the girl threw her head back. With her right hand she pulled the hat from her head. Then she shook her head quickly and let her dark-brown hair ripple down the back of her neck. “You said you would do it,” she challenged, “now do it.” As she spoke the last three words, she closed the gap between them and rested her hands on his shoulders.
    Without thinking, without caring for anything else, Sam put his arms around the girl before him. In a confused instant he knew she was warm, and yielding, and beautiful. He never wanted to let her go. The bars of the cell vanished in the surge of manhood he felt within himself.
    “Look at me,” Duena said.
    Sam looked. Sam had held girls in his arms before, but nothing in his lifetime had approached the sensation that engulfed him now.
    "Now,” the girl said, “I want you to look at me and say, ‘Duena, I did not kill your father.’ Do it,” she commanded.
    Sam spoke through the lump that crowded his throat “Duena...” He tried again. “Duena, I didn’t kill your father.” Sam’s arms let go. They fell to his sides, and strong and courageous as he was, he suddenly wanted to cry. The reaction had been too much.
    While he stood there, fighting to regain his composure, he felt the pressure of her hands on his shoulders grow stronger. Then they moved and locked behind his neck. “I believe you,” she said. And then, before he realized what was happening to him, Sam felt his head being pulled downward, the warmth of Duena’s body against his own, and then a cool, electrifying pressure as she pressed her lips against his.
    She was herself again before he could move. Quite calmly she picked her hat up off the floor, looked for a mirror in a quick glance around the bare cell, and then took her small handbag from the end of the bunk. “How do I get out?” she asked.
    Sam filled his lungs with air and called for Pete.

    All through the long afternoon, Sam sat quietly and lived over and over again the few brief minutes that had given him a new reason to live. He even permitted himself to hope that he would emerge from this whole experience exonerated and respected by everyone. He was immeasurably strengthened by the knowledge that she believed in him even though he stood accused of murdering her own father. And her faith would bring him through!
    Then he remembered something else. The ripe figure of smirking Delores Purdy rose in his mind. The oceans of eternity separated her from the girl he had held that day. But Delores said he had seduced her. What would Duena think when she learned of that?
    The dream castles which Sam had allowed himself to build split and crumbled into piles of arid and spiritless sand.

- 11 -

    It was nearly dark when Virgil Tibbs drove the ancient car he had been loaned into the little filling station and garage operated by Jess the mechanic. The big man was working on a huge, air-conditioned Lincoln that was up on blocks in the rear of his garage.
    “I need some gas, Jess,” Virgil said, “and I think maybe I can give you your car back tomorrow.”
    “Leaving us?” Jess inquired as he started the pump. I think so, Tibbs replied, “but that’s between you and me. Don’t let it out.”
    Jess fitted the hose and began to feed gas into the tank. “I won’t.”
    Pretty fancy