John Ball: The Cool Cottontail

Tibbs slipped the letter into his pocket and felt infinitely better.

Missing person Number 4 on Tibbs’ list was the possible. The subject had been a local resident and a personal call might be helpful. Tibbs called a number in the Eagle Rock area, reached the missing man’s wife, and requested an appointment. Since it was only a short distance down the Colorado Freeway, he said he would be right over, fully aware that if the call resulted in anything positive, it would be his unfortunate duty to break the news to this woman that her husband was dead.

Mrs. Sean McCarthy, mother of five, confronted Tibbs through a hooked screen door and announced, “We’re not in the market for anything.”

“I’m the police officer who phoned you a few minutes ago, Mrs. McCarthy,” Tibbs explained.

Very dubiously the woman unhooked the door and held it open to let him in. She was not tall-Tibbs guessed that she weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds. From the set of her jaw, he sensed that she could be a terror and that her temper probably lay just under the surface. Her eyes had a glittering hardness, though when she was young they might have been lovely. Her face was largely still smooth, but there were lines around her mouth already permanently sculptured into outlines of disapproval.

She made a cursory effort to be polite and motioned Tibbs to a vacant chair in the small living room. The furniture was pure borax, cheaply made with an effort to give it the appearance of massiveness. The upholstery was heavily studded with cloth-covered buttons intended to suggest elegance; when Tibbs sat down, the slight appearance of comfort dissolved.

Although he carefully tried to keep from jumping to unwarranted conclusions, he was already prepared for a disappointment. This home and this woman did not fit with the man whose body he had examined.

“The room isn’t properly picked up yet,” the woman said. “When you have five kids to look after and no man to help, you can’t get everything done.”

Tibbs felt a twinge of sympathy for her and approached the matter at hand as carefully as he could. “Mrs. McCarthy, something has come to our attention that might cast some light on your husband’s disappearance.” He decided to stretch the truth a little. “I take it from the appearance of your home that he is a man of some importance.”

Mrs. McCarthy nodded firmly. “That he is,” she agreed. “What have you discovered?”

Tibbs went on as delicately as possible, “We have a matter under investigation, and while there is very little chance it pertains to your husband, we don’t want to overlook anything that might help to solve Mr. McCarthy’s disappearance.”

At last the woman showed a slight sign of approval. “Yes,” she said.

Tibbs took the plunge. “Yesterday a distinguished-looking man was found, apparently the victim of an accident. He had no identification on his person, and so far we have not been able to establish who he was.”

“He was dead, then?”

Tibbs nodded. “I fear so, Mrs. McCarthy, but I repeat, we have no real reason at all to believe that he was your husband.”

The morning paper lay on the floor next to the chair Tibbs was sitting in. He picked it up, folded it to the story concerning the discovery of the body in the swimming pool, and silently handed it to his hostess. She took the paper and read the account without expression. When she was through, she laid it down as though it were something unclean. “That is not my husband,” she announced, and the lines around her mouth set themselves firmly.

“May I ask how you know?” Tibbs inquired quietly.

Mrs. McCarthy took a deep breath, let it go, and clasped her arms in front of her generous bosom. “That body is not Mr. McCarthy,” she reiterated, leaving no room whatever for question.

Tibbs framed his next words carefully and paced them slowly, knowing that many people close their thoughts to lock out grief. “I’m sure that your opinion is correct, Mrs. McCarthy,” he said, for the second time deliberately enlarging on the truth. “But for the sake of our official records it would be of great help if you would give me the reason for your conclusion.”

If he had read her rightly, she was not the kind to be sparing of her advice. The desire to offer guidance might overcome her manifest unwillingness to discuss the body found in the pool. He watched while she struggled within herself, and knew the result before she spoke again.

“My husband,” she said with unsinkable firmness, “would never be found, under any circumstances, in a place like that . We are respectable people here, Mr. Tibbett.” She dropped her hands into her lap as though she were driving a pile.

Tibbs let a few seconds pass; then he made his voice flat and unemotional. “The people at the nudist resort made it very clear they didn’t know the man who was found on their premises. He was neither a member nor a guest there.”

“That is beside the point,” Mrs. McCarthy said.

“What I am trying to say,” Tibbs added, taking the blame upon himself, “is that the man obviously did not belong where he was found. Someone carried him there and put him into the pool.”

The woman refused to yield. “I told you, and I see no need to repeat it, that we are an upright family and have nothing to do with places of public immorality. We are church people and we live our faith. My husband would never set foot in a nudist colony, dead or alive.”

Tibbs knew better than to challenge a fixation head-on. He rose to his feet with the air that he was entirely convinced and satisfied. As he did so, the substantial housewife noted his apparent surrender and relaxed her guard.

Tibbs said, “While you are being so helpful, Mrs. McCarthy, there is one other thing that might assist us to resolve the matter of your husband’s disappearance. Can you tell me if he had had his appendix removed?”

She shook her head. “No, he did not. He has never had surgery of any kind, unless it’s been since he left home.”

That nailed it down. “Thank you again for your cooperation, Mrs. McCarthy,” Tibbs said in leaving. “From what you have told me, I am certain that the man we found is not your husband.” This time, at least, he could speak the strict truth.

When he got back to his office, there was a preliminary phoned-in report from the San Bernardino medical examiner. It supplied the cause of death, a matter to which Tibbs gave his immediate full attention.

According to this first information, the unknown man had died as a result of a physical beating. All indications were that it had been a skilled assault; externally the body showed almost no signs of the abuse it had taken. A massive blow just below the breastbone, which had ruptured the aorta, was in all probability the major contributing cause of death. The deceased having been a good-sized man apparently in better-than-average physical condition, the person or persons who had caused his death had almost certainly been both powerful and well trained.

That put a fresh light on the matter. Any lingering thoughts of a morbid prank went out of Tibbs’ mind. He swung his feet up onto the corner of the well-worn desk that had served many others before him, stared unseeing at the ceiling, and thought hard.

He was still in his position of deep concentration when his office mate came in. Tibbs was so fiercely involved in his thoughts that it was a good five minutes before he noticed his unofficial partner.

Bob Nakamura was ten pounds overweight and wore his thick black hair in a crew cut that emphasized the slight roundness of his face and figure. He did not have the buck teeth so commonly supposed to be a mark of Japanese ancestry, but he did wear glasses and with them a perpetual look of bland, innocent happiness. No one would have guessed he was a police detective, which added greatly to his value.