John Ball - The Cool Cottontail

Virgil stopped and finished his iced tea. Linda promptly refilled his glass and then looked at him with lifted eyebrows.

“Knowing what she did about Brown, Mrs. Pratt dealt one off the bottom of the deck,” he said. “She told him that her people had once lived in the South and that she herself was one-sixteenth Negro-which, thank heavens for my people, was a lie-and that when she had told Dr. Roussel of this, he had broken their engagement and refused to marry her.”

“Of all things!” Linda exploded.

Tibbs drank some tea and continued. “When she had Brown thoroughly enraged at this supposed insult, she offered him a substantial sum of money to arrange some sort of ‘accident.’ Each time Dr. Roussel had visited the States in recent years, Mr. McCormack had sent his car to the airport to meet him, since they were very close friends. She gave Brown five hundred dollars in advance, by check, and wrote on it ‘for landscaping.’

“Wasn’t that plain stupid?” George asked.

“Of course it was, but she had the idea that when the check came back from the bank, she would be able to hold it over Brown’s head forever. She didn’t know, or had forgotten, that all checks which go through the clearinghouse are photographed. Anyway, I saw it before it was returned to her. It surprised me very much, so I got in touch with the gardeners’ association and found out who takes care of her place. I have a statement from him that no one else has worked on the property for some time.

“I’ll make the rest brief, if I may. Brown’s recent hatred of Caucasians, which was prejudice in direct reverse, was inflamed by the Watts affair and fanned even more by his belief that Dr. Roussel had refused to marry Mrs. Pratt because of her supposed Negro blood. He was well trained in violence and ready to act. Then Mrs. Pratt pushed him even farther, and it was her undoing. I have explained that she was a woman scorned-a vicious, arrogantly egotistical, totally undisciplined, and spiteful woman-who wanted revenge and demanded it in spades. When the Western Sunbathing Association held its annual convention here, you got a great deal of publicity, as you know. That gave Mrs. Pratt her idea. She not only wanted Dr. Roussel killed; she wanted his body specifically left on your grounds.”

A look of comprehension came over Linda’s face. “The other possibility!” she exclaimed. “It wasn’t to embarrass us ; it was to reflect on him! ”

“Yes, but it took me quite some time to figure that one out. Brown went along with it because he thought that in a nudist resort any unwanted bodies would be disposed of without a word said. He supposed that you lived on the wrong side of the law.”

Forrest slowly shook his head. “That’s one of the things Comstock did to this country,” he said quietly.

George had been thinking. “The body being nude, it took a lot longer to identify, which probably cut down the risk. I’ll bet he got rid of the clothing and whatever luggage there was in one of the canyons. If he’d done the same thing with the body, we might not have found it yet.”

“I agree,” Tibbs said. “If we obtain a confession-and I think we will-then we’ll get Brown to show us the spot so we can recover the evidence.”

“One question more,” Linda cut in. “How did he explain Dr. Roussel’s non-arrival to Mr. McCormack?”

“That’s a very good point,” Virgil complimented her. “Brown had planned a simple story. He had been directed to pick up Dr. Roussel at the airport and to drive him to his sister’s lodge in the mountains. Since the plane was due in from Europe at a very late hour, he decided to say that the doctor had hesitated to disturb his sister and her family after midnight and had asked instead to be dropped in front of a hotel in San Bernardino. Of course Brown would have been expected to obey any such instructions. He planned to say that he had done as requested-had dropped the doctor in front of the hotel and had then returned home. At that hour there would be no doorman; he was quite sure of that. It could not be held against him that there were no witnesses. Certainly it was not a very good fabrication, but its simplicity gave it some merit and it would have been very difficult to disprove. He would be interrogated very closely, but he’d had experience with the law and he was confident that nothing could be proved against him.”

“Lie detector?” Holt-Rymers asked.

“The subject has to volunteer and the evidence obtained can’t be admitted in court if it tends to establish guilt. Which is something to remember: if you are ever wrongly accused of a crime, ask at once for a polygraph test. Most police departments have one. We do. A suspect who does this is almost always innocent. If the machine establishes that he is speaking the truth, then for all practical purposes his worries are over.”

“Thank you. That’s useful to know. But go on.”

“As it worked out, Brown never told his story. The flight was delayed and came in after Mr. McCormack had retired. Brown took the call from the airport and, as instructed, went down. After his return he had the car refilled with gas, put it away, and was never asked for an explanation. I suppose McCormack thought Dr. Roussel was at his sister’s. Brown debated telling his employer that he had picked up Dr. Roussel, but since he seemed to have got an unexpectedly good break, he decided to say nothing. He could always claim later that he had assumed Mr. McCormack knew. He sensed his proposed explanation was a little thin, and not having to use it seemed a good deal safer. In that he was right.”

Ellen sat still, her hands in her lap. She was quiet for a long time; then she sighed and looked up.

“Thank you-Virgil,” she said.

“You’re very welcome,” he answered. “It was only my job.”

In a few minutes the atmosphere began to clear. The dark shadows of murder yielded to the intense California sunlight that seemed almost to be burning sharp designs through the windowpanes and onto the floor. The singing of birds penetrated into the kitchen and Carole, somehow aware that she was now permitted, slipped quietly back into the room.

Ellen stood up and looked down at the others. “You’ve all been a comfort,” she said. Bill Holt-Rymers, who had been watching her for some time, grinned and then made an announcement.

“I shall paint you,” he declared in a voice that allowed of no discussion.

Ellen glanced at the portrait of Linda and hesitated. “Can you do pictures-with clothes on?” she asked.

“I can,” Holt-Rymers replied. “But my heart isn’t in it. Still-”

Virgil glanced at his watch. “Since we have an appointment with Captain Lindholm-” he began.

“I’ll take Ellen in my car,” George volunteered. “You’ll have a full load.”

“I’m staying, if you don’t mind,” Holt-Rymers said as he rose to his feet. “I’m getting allergic to clothes on hot days, and I have work to do.”

He walked to the easel and took down the portrait. Carrying it carefully by the edges, he handed it to Virgil. “Yours,” he said.

“I can’t accept-” Tibbs began.

“Yes, you can. This time I got the drop on you. I phoned Chief Addis, and he approved. Your picture, as a token of my appreciation.”

Virgil took the valuable canvas between his hands and looked at it unbelievingly.

“It’s not an accident,” Linda said. “We wanted you to have it. I sat for it and Bill painted it. Of course what he did was far more than I could do, but it’s for you anyway.”

“I …” Virgil Tibbs ran out of words.

“It might look quite nice in your office,” Holt-Rymers suggested. His face gave no clue as to whether he was serious or not.