John Ball: The Cool Cottontail

Virgil assumed that he was. “It’s to your credit that you don’t know much about police stations,” he said. “At the office I’m supposed to get some work done. With this wonderful picture on the wall, I’d have no privacy. If it’s really mine, then please may I put it in my apartment.”

“Then it’s for your apartment. You pay for the frame. Cheers.”

Carrying the exquisite portrait, Virgil walked with the Nunns to the parking lot. He put Emily and Linda in the back of the official car and entrusted the picture to their care. Then he assigned Carole to the middle of the front seat and asked Forrest to sit on the right. George took Ellen in his own car and prepared to follow.

Tibbs started the engine, drove out of the grounds, and turned westward toward Pasadena. “This won’t be an ordeal,” he assured his guests. “There will be a few formalities and that’s all.”

“I want to ask something,” Forrest said from across the seat. “Now that Ellen isn’t here, why was an attempt made on her life? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Virgil glanced in the mirror and saw that George and Ellen were following at a safe distance. “Because she was due to inherit the estate Mrs. Pratt was after. Brown learned all about it when he drove Mr. McCormack out to see her. If something happened to Ellen before she formally inherited, then Mrs. Pratt saw herself as next in line. Her vanity is such that she couldn’t believe Dr. Roussel wouldn’t remember her generously, and affectionately.

“As for Brown,” Virgil said, “he wanted the money he had been promised, and what he thought was revenge against the whites who had insulted his people. So there you have it.”

When they reached Highway 66, it amused Forrest to note how the motorists suddenly went on their good behavior as soon as they saw the police car. Virgil drove calmly, largely in the right-hand lane, and stayed carefully within the shifting speed limits. Soon he and Forrest dropped into a conversation about the final third of the baseball season, and Carole became excessively bored. In the back seat Emily and Linda rode in silence, the painting on the seat between them. The thing was over now, but the shadows it had cast refused to go away entirely. Emily looked out the window and lost herself in thought.

They passed Santa Anita, moved along the foothills, and crossed Sierra Madre Villa. Then Virgil picked up the microphone, spoke with it close to his lips, and after a moment replaced it in the clip.

Reaching under the dashboard, he flipped a switch; a red light on the panel went on. In the light traffic he picked up speed until the car was doing a little under forty. Then he hit the siren.

Carole came immediately and fully to life. Ramrod straight she sat up in the seat, her eyes aglow. “Are the red lights on?” she demanded.

“They are,” Tibbs answered. “When I make a promise, I keep it.”

“Oh, golly!” Carole cried.

“With permission,” Virgil answered, largely for her father’s benefit.

A red traffic light loomed ahead. The commanding voice of the siren held traffic motionless while Tibbs expectly cut to the left around the stopped cars and then pulled back onto the right side. In full Code 3 condition the police car moved down Colorado Boulevard.

Linda leaned forward and looked at her little sister’s glowing face. “Can we do this again sometime?” Carole asked.

“The next time you help me catch a murderer,” Virgil answered her.

“I’ll try,” she promised eagerly.

For her the shock of all that had happened was over.

Virgil smiled a little grimly. With sharp professional skill he swung around a minor street excavation, straightened out the car once more, and headed down the famous street into the center of the city he called home.