‘Virgil Tibbs and the Fallen Body’ 
JOHN BALL

NAME: Virgil Tibbs, Detective 
PLACE: Pasadena, California 
TIME: 1978

CASES: ‘In the Heat of the Night’ (i96s), ‘The Cool Cottontail’ (1966), ‘The Eyes of the Buddha’ (1976), ‘One For Virgil Tibbs’ (1976) etc.

DOSSIER: Virgil Tibbs, the expert homicide investigator based in Pasadena, was the first black detective in fiction and became the archetypal black hero of the late ‘sixties and ‘seventies-strong, intelligent and defiant. Born in the Deep South where his mother still lives, Tibbs took menial jobs in a restaurant to pay his way through university before joining the police force. By the time he was in his early thirties he had earned an enviable reputation for interpreting clues in difficult cases and being able to look after himself in any physical confrontation. He is, in fact, a master of karate (having reached the grade of black belt) and has studied the even more advanced art of aikido. To help his career, he has also read law and science, while at the same time coming to terms with the humiliations of racial intolerance which he frequently meets on investigations. This was particularly evident in his first case, ‘In the Heat of the Night’, when he visited his mother and had to overcome being suspected of murder purely because of his colour and the prejudice of the local white police chief with whom he had to work to solve the brutal crime and preserve his own reputation. His dignified reaction to one hate-filled remark by another police officer is now part of detective fiction lore: ‘They call me Mr. Tibbs.’ Today ranked as one of the great detectives of the genre, Tibbs uses his colour both as a badge of pride and a form of disguise when confronting prejudice-although despite his frequent encounters with intolerance he is not obsessed by the problem. A shrewd and proud man, he has come to understand both the black and white cultures and this gives him a unique freedom of movement and effectiveness denied to other conventional investigators.

CREATOR: John Ball (b. 1911), a former Air Force and commercial pilot, radio commentator and science journalist, is credited with having initiated the new breed of cross-cultural detectives who appeared during the development of ethnic consciousness in the ‘sixties and ‘seventies. A writer who researches his facts with painstaking care, Ball became a bestseller overnight with the publication of the first Virgil Tibbs case, which was faithfully adapted for the screen in 1967, with Sydney Poitier making the first of three landmark appearances in the leading role. The book was awarded an Edgar for the Best First Novel by the Mystery Writers of America while the movie garnered five Oscars. Ball has only written a handful of short stories about his prototype black investigator, of which ‘Virgil Tibbs and the Fallen Body’ is a good example. And when originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in September 1978, the editor confided proudly to his readers, ‘It is unlikely that this story could have been written twenty years ago...’

THE STORY:

The first thing Officer Frank Mitchell heard was a violent thud directly behind him; it was so powerful it seemed for a second that the very ground had shaken under his feet. He turned quickly, saw the body scarcely thirty feet away, and had a sudden, compelling desire to be sick. Only seven months out of the academy, he was still not used to the sight of sudden and violent death.
The body of the suicide, if that’s what it was, had landed so hard the skull had split and what was revealed took all of Officer Mitchell’s courage to face. Partly by reflex action he looked up, far up the side of the towering building in front of which he was standing. He saw an immensity of structure and glass that was totally unmoved by what had just happened. On Mitchell’s first inspection the building gave no clue to the point from which the now smashed body had been launched into the air.
When he had seen and noted that, Officer Mitchell turned to do his unwelcome but necessary duty. There were a few others who had witnessed the terrible death; they hung back in n kind of hypnotised horror, unwilling either to come closer or to go away. Then through the small ring of spectators a slender but well-built black man came running forward, peeling off his coat at the same time. Because the man was headed straight toward the body on the sidewalk, Officer Mitchell held up his hands to stop him.
He could have saved himself the trouble; he was ignored. Instead, the intruder dropped to one knee and threw his coat over the head and shoulders of the fallen man. Then he looked up at Mitchell. ‘Tibbs,’ the man said. ‘Pasadena Police. Get some back-up and an ambulance.’
Mitchell came out of his near shock and responded by taking his small portable police radio out of its belt carrier. He raised it to his face and put out an urgent call. His immediate duty done, he walked the few steps to where the now covered body lay grimly still on the concrete. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It got to me for a moment.’
‘Of course.’ The Pasadena policeman got to his feet and had his own look at the sheer face of the massive building. ‘He probably came from halfway up, or more. Did you note the condition of the skull?’
Mitchell swallowed and nodded. ‘Frank Mitchell,’ he introduced himself.
‘Virgil Tibbs.’
‘What do you work?’
‘Robbery homicide.’
‘Look, if you’d care to stick around until my back-up-‘
‘Of course. This isn’t my jurisdiction, but I’ll do what I can.’ He took out his Pasadena ID and clipped it to his shirt pocket.
Mercifully, the gathering crowd showed no signs of wanting to come closer. A single young man armed with a small pocket camera started to move in, but retreated when Mitchell waved him away. After that the scene was static until a black and white patrol car coming Code Two pulled up with its roof lights still on. A sergeant got out; he was closing the car door when a second unit rolled in.
The sergeant took in the situation with a single careful look, then he too scanned the vast side of the huge building. He raised a hand to wave Virgil Tibbs away, then he saw the plastic identification clipped to his pocket. He came close enough to read it before he spoke. ‘You covered the body.’ It was a statement.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you. The ambulance will be here right away.’
As he spoke, a red paramedic unit from the fire department rolled up. The two-man crew had already been notified what to expect; one man riding on the passenger side had a blanket ready on his lap. He jumped out, walked quickly to the body, took off Tibbs’s coat, and satisfied himself that life was extinct. Then he snapped the blanket open and dropped it over the corpse. After that he picked up the coat once more and returned it to its owner. ‘It may be stained,’ he warned.
Tibbs checked it carefully, then put it back on. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll have it cleaned.’
Mitchell was talking to his sergeant, reporting on what he had seen. It took him only a few moments, then he introduced Tibbs.
The Los Angeles sergeant was obviously experienced, but unpretentious. ‘I’m glad you were here to give us a hand,’ he said. ‘Bob Opper.’
‘Anything else I can do?’
‘If you’ve got the time, I’d like to get your account of this.’
‘Whatever you want.’
‘You work homicide?’
‘Yes.’
‘It looks like a jumper, of course, but I want to check it out. You’re welcome if you want to come along.’
That didn’t call for an answer, as the sergeant turned toward the entrance of the very high building. Tibbs fell in beside him. ‘Did you get a look at the body before it was covered with the blanket?’ Virgil asked.
‘Partially. Why, did you catch something?’
‘Perhaps,’ Tibbs replied.
They walked together into the huge lobby. By that time there were blue uniforms everywhere; the LAPD was definitely efficient. Behind them a coroner’s unit arrived and two men got out. It was hardly ten minutes since the body had hit the sidewalk, but the official machinery to clean up was already functioning smoothly.
There was a uniformed guard in the lobby; at the sergeant’s instruction he rang for the building manager.
That done, Opper turned to his black colleague from Pasadena. ‘You said you caught something.’
‘The deceased had on a brand new pair of shoes. The soles were hardly scratched.’
‘And you figure that a man wouldn’t go buy himself a new pair of shoes just before he killed himself.’
‘That’s right. Buying a pair of shoes takes selection and fitting: if he was planning to take his life within the next hour, that wouldn’t be a logical thing for him to do. From the condition of the soles he couldn’t have walked more than two or three blocks at the most.’
‘He could have put on a new pair of shoes and then driven here.’
‘Agreed, but the percentages are against it; again, it wouldn’t be logical unless his decision to kill himself was very sudden.’
A patrolman came in with a wallet in his hands. ‘Here’s the ID of the deceased,’ he said. ‘Robert T. Williamson, DoB 13 June, 1932. His home address is in Orange Country.’
‘Run him-see if he was in any trouble or had a rap sheet.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The patrolman reached for his radio.
A man was hurrying up to them. He was middle-aged and well dressed in an expensive business suit. His shoes were shined and his tie was a model of good taste. He turned his attention at once to the sergeant. ‘Excuse me, I’ve been on the phone,’ he said. ‘My name is Phillips, I’m the general manager of this building. Tell me how I can help you.’
‘You know what happened?’ Opper asked.
‘Yes, unfortunately. I presume it had to come at some time, but this is the first such-tragedy-we’ve ever had.’
As the two men were talking, Virgil Tibbs stepped over to the building directory and looked over the posted entries. When he came back, he had a question of his own. ‘Mr Phillips, I notice that only the first thirty-two floors of the building appear to be occupied. Can you tell us about that?’
Phillips noted the police ID now clipped on the outside of Tibbs’s coat, then responded. ‘Yes, that’s true, although we don’t advertise that fact. You see, the higher floors, while very desirable from a tenant’s point of view, haven’t been finished yet. Frankly, we found that rentals were way below our expectations while the building was going up, so the builders decided to hold off on the expense of completing the upper floors until there was a demand for the space. In that way, they could be finished to suit the wishes of the tenants who lease them.’
‘The whole building is air-conditioned,’ Tibbs said.
‘Yes, of course. There’s a great deal of glass, you see.’
‘My point is, Mr Phillips, do the windows open or are they all sealed shut?’
Opper looked at Tibbs and clearly approved the question.
‘Most of the windows are sealed shut. A few do open, because the tenants wanted them that way.’
‘On a building this high, isn’t that dangerous?’ the sergeant asked.
‘Yes, so we designed them as casement types and set the handles so that they will only open a little way.’
‘Could a determined man squeeze his body out of the opening?’ the sergeant continued.
Phillips hesitated. ‘That would depend, of course, on the man. Offhand, I would say that it would be very difficult.’
‘Do you have a list of the personnel who work in this building?’
‘No, you’d have to get that from the individual tenants.’
‘Do you know a Robert Williamson? About forty-five, medium build?’
‘No, not as far as I know.’
Virgil took over. ‘Mr Phillips, suppose someone wanted to get onto one of the higher floors, even though they’re unfinished. Could he do that easily?’
Phillips was prompt and emphatic with his answer. ‘I don’t think he could do it at all. Since there are no tenants, the stairwells are blocked off above the thirty-second floor. The elevators are all in, but only one of them will go above the thirty-second floor, and it takes a key to operate it.’
‘You have the key, of course.’
‘Yes. Do you want to go up there?’
‘First, can you tell us offhand whether or not any of the windows on the north face of the building above the occupied floors can be opened?’
‘I’m almost certain they are all sealed. I can have it checked.’
‘How about the roof?’
‘The maintenance people go up there regularly, and our resident building inspector. He works for us; his job is to keep a continual check on the building structure and all its systems. A building of this size-‘
‘I understand,’ Tibbs cut him off. ‘Now sir, if you please, we’d like to see the roof.’
At that point the patrolman who had been checking on the dead man reappeared; Sergeant Opper stepped aside to hear his report. As he did so, he motioned Tibbs to join him.
‘No wants or warrants,’ the patrolman said. ‘Several traffic violations-nothing heavy. I also checked with Orange County sheriffs and they gave me a little more.’
‘Good work,’ Opper said.
‘Williamson was apparently wealthy, but the source of his funds isn’t known. He was hospitalised about a year ago; he fell down and cracked some ribs. In the course of treating him, they found some evidence of illegal narcotics use.’
‘How did they get hold of information like that?’ Tibbs asked. ‘That’s privileged.’
‘I know, sir, but they still knew about it, don’t ask me how. Apparently he wasn’t hooked or anything like that, but he had some kind of medical history of narcotics. No action was taken at the time.’
‘Probably the patient gave permission to have his chart seen,’ Opper said, ‘without realising that the narcotics data was on there. Anyhow, it explains a lot. He could have dropped acid some time back when it was still popular. Then, without warning, he went off on another trip-you know it works that way. Somehow he got to the roof and, like a lot of others, thought he could fly.’
‘Let’s go up to the roof,’ Tibbs suggested.
On top of the building the height was terrifying anywhere near to the edge. The rooftop itself had many pieces of equipment installed-huge air ducts, antennae, and housings for elevator machinery. A sharp wind reminded all three men how high they were.
When Tibbs looked up, the movement of the clouds overhead gave him the illusion that the building was leaning. After he recovered himself, he walked carefully across the cement to the comparatively low parapet, judged the wind once again, and then began a meticulous examination of a section of the protective wall. He spent so much time doing it that his LAPD colleague began to show impatience. ‘Find anything?’ he asked.
Tibbs looked back at him. ‘No,’ he answered, ‘and I’m strongly reminded of the dog in the night time.’
‘The dog did nothing in the night time,’ the sergeant responded promptly.
‘You have just increased my admiration of the LAPD,’ Tibbs said. ‘You know your Sherlock Holmes. If you’re through, let’s go back down. This place is a little awesome.’
When they were back on the ground floor, Tibbs noticed a coffee shop set in one corner. After thanking Phillips for the trip to the roof, and the rest of his co-operation, Tibbs suggested that the LAPD sergeant join him for a cup of coffee. Sergeant Opper, who understood completely, accepted and saw to it that they were seated in a secluded booth.
‘Now, what have you got?’ he asked after their order had been taken.
‘You’ve got one of two things-accident or homicide. At the moment I like homicide better.’
Opper was careful. ‘From the condition of the body, the victim came off the roof, because he wouldn’t have landed that hard from a lower floor. At least I don’t think so; I’m no expert on jumpers.’
‘He didn’t jump,’ Tibbs said. ‘The PM may show a percentage of drugs in his body, and a careful check should be made for past acid use-that’s the most likely thing if it was an accident. But this may help you a little-he definitely didn’t come off the roof.’
Opper was thoughtful. ‘If Phillips is right, none of the windows on the unoccupied floors open. We haven’t checked yet for a broken pane.’
‘In a way we have. If Williamson had broken a window in order to jump, there’d be some glass on the sidewalk. Your man out there might have been hurt, or some innocent pedestrians. No, I’m sure he didn’t break a window.’
‘How certain are you that he didn’t come off the roof?’
‘You felt the wind up there. Despite it there was some dust on the roof. It wasn’t disturbed where he would have had to have gone over. And the parapet was unmarked.’
‘Plus which, of course, just anybody couldn’t get up on to the roof without a key to the special elevator. And Phillips, the building manager, had never heard of the dead man.’
‘Which leaves only one possibility,’ Tibbs said. He stopped then and waited while the coffee was served.
‘He couldn’t have fallen out of the sky,’ Opper mused. ‘You can’t get out of modern aircraft the way that-what was his name?-did. Over the English Channel, wasn’t it?’
‘Helicopter,’ Tibbs said, and stirred his coffee.
‘Someone would have seen it.’
‘Twenty years ago, yes, but not now. Police and media helicopters fly over the city at low altitude all the time and they’re commonplace. The fire department has some too. The point is, no one notices them or hears them any more, except under unusual circumstances. They don’t look up just to see them fly by.’
Sergeant Opper drank some coffee while he thought. ‘All right, he could have come out of a helicopter, and come to think of it, some of them don’t even have doors, or the doors are very easily opened.’
True.’
‘But the pilot would have reported it.’
Tibbs smiled, not very much, and it was a little grim.
‘All the helicopters operating in the greater Los Angeles area have a special frequency for talking to each other, it’s one two two point nine five. If it had been an accident, then the pilot would have gone on the air immediately, knowing that all the law-enforcement helicopters airborne in the area would hear him. But he didn’t. That’s why I think it was a homicide.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. Helicopters can fly at almost any speed they like, up to their maximum. They can turn on a dime, hover, and do lots of other things.’
Therefore?’
Therefore I think that Williamson was dumped out of a helicopter just at the point where it would appear he had jumped from the building. Remember, a good helicopter pilot can manoeuvre his machine with great precision, even in a wind.’
‘One objection, Tibbs, and it’s a strong one. Williamson would have struggled. He would have grabbed on to something. He was a well-setup man and the pilot had to keep flying. Unless there were other people in the chopper. Even then, throwing a man out against his will would take a lot of doing. I wouldn’t care to try it.’
Tibbs nodded. ‘Let me put together a theory-you can check it easily enough. The man had traces of narcotics use, but he wasn’t hooked. That suggests someone who handled the stuff, but who was too smart to use it himself. That’s supported by his evident wealth with no obvious source for the money-you can check that too. If I’m right so far, then we’re talking about some very ruthless people who are engaged in one of the most profitable forms of crime known.’
Opper took out his inevitable notebook. ‘I’ll check with our narcotics people. If they knew Williamson, or of him, you’ve got something.’
‘Do you want the rest?’
‘By all means.’
‘I don’t think the fall killed him. Or if it did, he was unconscious when he was tossed from the chopper. Suppose he was given a shot and taken out. Then he was dumped from the chopper so that he would appear to have jumped from the building. No one saw the helicopter for the reasons already given.’
‘Father Brown’s postman.’
‘Exactly. Getting rid of an unconscious man, or a dead one, could be done without too much trouble. The cause of death would be so obvious that extensive tests probably wouldn’t be run.’
‘Not everybody has a helicopter,’ Opper said.
‘And that’s the point where your investigation should begin. If you’ll allow me.’
Opper got up. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he promised.

MR TIBBS:
WHILE YOU WERE OUT SGT OPPER OF LAPD CALLED YOU. HE SAID CORONER DETERMINED CAUSE OF DEATH OD HEROIN, NOT FALL (???) CHECK WITH SHERIFF’S ARGUS PATROL AND FIRE DEPARTMENT CONFIRMS NO MESSAGE RECEIVED ON I22.95 ATTIME OF INCIDENT. HE SAYS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL CHOPPER ID’ED. CASE DEFINITELY HOMICIDE, MANY THANKS YOUR CO-OPERATION, LETTER COMING TO CHIEF MCGOWAN RE YOUR HELP. HE ALSO SAID NARCO HAD FOLDER ON WILLIAMSON. MARGE

Hey, Virg, what the hell happened, anyway? 
M.