In the Heat of the Night

train fare?”
    Before the prisoner could answer, Sam came to life. He fished the Negro’s wallet from his own pocket and handed it to Gillespie. The chief looked quickly in the money compartment and slammed the wallet down hard onto the top of his desk. “Where did you get all this dough?” he demanded, and rose just enough from the seat of his chair so that the prisoner could see his size.
    “I earned it,” the Negro replied.
    Gillespie dropped back into his chair, satisfied. Colored couldn’t make money like that, or keep it if they did, and he knew it. The verdict was in, and the load was off his shoulders.
    “Where do you work?” he demanded in a voice that told Sam the chief was ready to go home and back to bed.
    “In Pasadena, California.”
    Bill Gillespie permitted himself a grim smile. Two thousand miles was a long way to most people, especially to colored. Far enough to make them think that a checkup wouldn’t be made. Bill leaned forward across his desk to drive the next question home.
    “And what do you do in Pasadena, California, that makes you money like that?”
    The prisoner took the barest moment before he replied.
    “I’m a police officer,” he said.

- 3 -

    As a matter of principle Sam Wood did not like Negroes, at least not on anything that approached a man- to-man basis. It therefore confused him for a moment when he discovered within himself a stab of admiration for the slender man who stood beside him. Sam was a sportsman and therefore he enjoyed seeing someone, anyone, stand up successfully to Wells’s new chief of police.
    Until Gillespie arrived in town, Sam Wood had been rated a big man, but Gillespie’s towering size automatically demoted Sam Wood to near normal stature. The new chief was only three years his senior—too young, Sam thought, for his job, even in a city as small as Wells. Furthermore, Gillespie came from Texas, a state for which Sam felt no fraternal affection. But most of all Sam resented, consciously, Gillespie’s hard, inconsiderate, and demanding manner. Sam arrived at the conclusion that he felt no liking for the Negro, only rich satisfaction in seeing Gillespie apparently confounded. Before he could think any further, Gillespie was looking at him.
    "Did you question this man at all before you brought him in?” Gillespie demanded.
    “No, sir,” Sam answered. The “sir” stuck in his throat.
    “Why not?” Gillespie barked the question in what Sam decided was a deliberately offensive manner. But if the Negro could keep his composure, Sam decided, he could, too. He thought for an instant and then replied as calmly as he could.
    “Your orders were to check the railroad station and then to look for possible hitchhikers or anyone else worth checking. When I found this ni— this man in the railroad station, I brought him in immediately, so I could carry out the rest of your orders. Shall I go now?”
    Sam was proud of himself. He knew he wasn’t much with words, but that, he felt sure, had been a good speech.
    “I want to finish checking this man out first.” Gillespie looked toward Tibbs. “You say you’re a cop in California?”
    “Yes, I am,” Tibbs replied, still standing patiently beside the empty hard chair.
    “Prove it.”
    “There’s an ID card in my wallet.”
    Gillespie picked up the wallet from his desk with the air of handling something distasteful and somewhat unclean. He opened the pass-card section and stared hard at the small white card in the first transparent sleeve, then snapped the wallet shut and tossed it carelessly toward the young Negro. Tibbs caught it and slipped it quietly into his pocket.
    “What have you been doing all night?” There was an edge of irritation in Gillespie’s voice now. The voice was trying to pick a fight, and daring anyone to defy it.
    “After I got off the train, I went in the station and waited. I didn’t leave the station platform.” There was still no change in Tibb’s manner, something which Gillespie apparently found irritating. He changed the topic abruptly.
    “You know we wouldn’t let the likes of you try to be a cop down here, don’t you?”
    He waited; the room remained still.
    “You knew enough to stay out of the white waiting room. You knew that, didn’t you?” Once more Gillespie pressed his huge hands against the desk and positioned himself as if to rise.
    “Yes, I knew that.”
    Gillespie made a decision. “All right, you stick around awhile. I’m going to