John Ball: The Cool Cottontail

“I certainly am,” Tibbs admitted.

“See?”

Tibbs smiled. “Don’t waste your time in medical school; study law and develop your natural talents.”

“How about becoming a policewoman?” Linda asked.

Tibbs looked at her carefully. “All right, let’s say you are a policewoman. You know this area, and against my better judgment you have seen the body. Now, what are your deductions?”

Linda drew breath and gathered her thoughts. When she spoke, it was as though she were delivering a formal report. “The victim was a man approximately fifty years of age. He was not a laboring man-probably an executive. He took pride in his appearance-at least he was careful about it. I would say that he was neat in his habits. He wasn’t a nudist. On the whole, I would say that he was a nice man.” She paused and looked at the Negro detective. “How did I do?”

“Not badly,” he admitted. “You saw quite a few things. I had a closer look than you did, and have considerably more experience.”

“How much experience? Have you worked on murders before?”

Tibbs answered her patiently, “I’ve been a policeman more than ten years. Yes, I’ve worked on murders. I’m something of a specialist in crimes against persons-things like murder, extortion, assault with deadly weapons, armed robbery-”

“And, of course, rape.”

“Young lady-” Tibbs began.

“What did I miss? About the body, I mean,” Linda interjected quickly.

Tibbs sat down on a concrete pool bench and locked his fingers together. “Well,” he began, “you saw the haircut, the fingernails, and the bathing-trunk marks. For a first try I’d say that was good.”

“He had had his appendix out, too,” Linda added.

“Good. That’s a sound point of information. Doing a little guessing, I would add these facts: the victim, as you call him, had probably been living abroad and only recently came to this country. He may have spoken with an accent. There is a good chance that he was an excellent swimmer. I think I would disagree with you that he was an executive; it seems more probable that he had independent means or possibly a person who worked only occasionally. Considering his age, it would be fairly possible that he was retired. For a real long shot, I would hazard a guess as to his profession. I’d say he was an unusually good technical man of some sort-perhaps an engineer.”

Linda stood and looked at him. “I’m impressed,” she said.

“You shouldn’t be. Go back to your Sherlock Holmes and reread A Study in Scarlet . See what the head of this business did with an empty room in a deserted house and part of a word written on the wall. A whole word,” he corrected.

“I’m still impressed. I see why you’re a detective.”

Tibbs shook his head. “You certainly saw several good points, but you missed a very big one.”

“Well, I did hold out on you a little,” Linda confessed. “I don’t know you very well yet, but I know something about that man’s religion. I’m pretty sure he was a gentile, at least I’m certain he wasn’t orthodox.”

Tibbs looked at her. “You are a most remarkable young lady,” he conceded. “I held out on you, too, and I’m very glad that I did.”

“Tell me,” Linda said anxiously. “I gave you all I had.”

Tibbs shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. But suppose you put together all the facts you now have and see if you can add them up into something.”

Linda thought. “The motive was robbery,” she suggested. “They took everything he had, even his clothes.”

Tibbs pressed his fingers together hard. “That was minor to the real crime; they took his life -almost the worst thing there is.”

“What is the worst?”

“Treason. But you’re still overlooking the important thing.”

“Please tell me.”

“Put together the basic facts: here is a body found entirely without clothing or jewelry, granted that you’re used to things like that around here-being without clothing, I mean. However, you said yourself he wasn’t a nudist. He had full upper and lower dentures and they, too, have been removed. He was brought here sometime during the night without arousing your family and dumped into your pool. Why?”

“To embarrass us, to damage the nudist idea.”

“I hardly think so. Don’t you see, young lady, he was left like that in a strange place where he obviously didn’t belong, even without his teeth-”

Linda opened her mouth and drew a quick breath. “So that no one would know who he was!”

“We can identify him, but it may take time, valuable time.”

“May I ask something?”

“Go ahead.”

“If the murderer wanted to make identification difficult, or even impossible, why did he leave the body here where we would be sure to find it right away? There are hundreds of places right near here where he could have rolled it off a cliff and maybe no one would have found it for weeks. Some of the canyon roads go through pretty wild country.”

Tibbs looked at his locked fingers and then at her. “Now you’re beginning to get somewhere. At the moment I don’t know the answer to that question. For the time being, at least, it’s the crux of the problem.”

Forrest Nunn emerged from the grove of trees in a clearly disturbed frame of mind. As he approached the pool and saw Tibbs for the first time, his face betrayed a shadow of surprise, but he controlled himself well. “Are you Mr. Tibbs?” he asked.

“Yes, I am.” The Negro detective offered his hand; he did not thrust it out, but made the gesture quietly. Forrest took it.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner; I was on the phone,” he explained. “The paper called. We have some good friends down there and I couldn’t cut them off even though I know very little about what’s been happening.”

He turned to his daughter. “Linda, I suspect that you may be in the way here. Perhaps I am, too.” He looked at Tibbs.

“You must be Mr. Nunn,” Tibbs said. “And this, I take it, is your daughter. We have been conferring on the case.”

“I’m sorry,” Forrest apologized. He introduced himself and Linda, then dispatched his daughter back to the lodge building. “I hope she didn’t annoy you,” he said. “She’s at the curious age when she wants to know all about everything and considers herself quite an adult. In a way she is, but in a good many other respects she’s still a young girl.”

Tibbs nodded. “I’d like to look around for an hour or so if you don’t mind. Then I may want to ask some questions.”

“Take your time,” Forrest replied. “I’ll keep everyone else away from here for as long as you like. When you’ve finished, come up to the house and we’ll talk.”

“Fine,” Tibbs agreed.

For almost an hour and a half he made a detailed examination of every part of the pool area, the deck, and the access road. When finally he returned to the place where he had left his coat and tie, he was intercepted by a small well-browned girl who appeared from the pathway through the trees.

“You’re Mr. Tibbs,” she announced. “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re a jaybird,” Tibbs suggested.

“No, I’m Carole. My daddy sent me with a message. Mr. Addis called you.”

“Chief Addis?” Tibbs asked quickly.

“Well, not exactly.” She consulted a slip of paper in her hand. “It was Mr. Harnois. Do you know him?”

“Larry Harnois? I certainly do. He’s a police officer in Pasadena. So am I. What did Mr. Harnois say?”

Carole drew breath and accepted her moment of importance. “He said to tell you that Chief Addis wants you to help the people here and find out who killed the man in our pool. Where is he?” She looked quickly around.