Johnny Get Your Gun (20 page)

Mike was relieved that he had been able to do the right thing without it costing him any money. “I’m to blame for
what you went through,” he added. “And Maggie and me, we’re sorry.”

Anxiously Maggie nodded to indicate her agreement.

Ralph Hotchkiss accepted gracefully. “Let’s call it even,” he proposed, and then turned back toward Tibbs, who was patiently waiting for this side discussion to end. When the room was again quiet, he continued.

“As you know, Johnny put a bullet through the Hotchkiss home and then fled. This was both a tort and a violation of the law. In view of Johnny’s youth, and the state of mind he was in, Captain Lindholm has agreed to dismiss the matter from a police standpoint. So that much is now a closed incident unless Mr. Hotchkiss wishes to press charges.”

Virgil did not even bother to look at Ralph Hotchkiss to see him shaking his head negatively.

“Thank you,” Mike said to the captain, who nodded in reply.

“Johnny made his escape by city bus,” Virgil continued, “and got off when he sensed that he was reaching the end of the line. At that point, I’m sure, he very much wanted to go home, but he was afraid to do so. He did not understand that any police officer would have helped him and protected him from harm. Considering what he had been taught, and what he had just done, his failure to ask a policeman for help is understandable, but it would far and away have been the best thing he could have done.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnny said.

Tibbs acknowledged the remark. “You all know what happened after that—at least in part. Following the shooting, Johnny took refuge in Arroyo Seco Park and stayed there all night. It was unnecessary, because I was already almost certain, despite the evidence to the contrary, that he had not been responsible for the death of Willie Orthcutt.”

That announcement had a decided effect, a wave of surprise went quickly through the room.

“As soon as I heard about the shooting, I went to the hospital where I found Charles Dempsey in the corridor. He gave me his account of what happened, a story which contained a glaring inconsistency. He told me that he had tried to disarm Johnny by seizing his arms unexpectedly from the rear. Now Dempsey is eighteen years old and has the reputation for being smart and alert. It is an idiotic thing to seize a person with a gun that way,
but it was incredible that he would do so with a close friend standing directly in front in the line of fire
. I will agree that people sometimes become excited and do very illogical things, but that was a more or less deliberate action which has been confirmed by an honest witness.

“Secondly, Dempsey insisted that two shots had been fired; that too I found very hard to believe. By his statement the first bullet had struck the victim in the abdomen, he had clasped his hands across his middle, and had sunk to the ground. Then, Dempsey claimed, Johnny fired a second shot almost immediately at the same target. That kind of act I
simply couldn’t associate with a badly frightened nine-year-old boy, especially one who took to his heels and fled the first moment that he could.

“A thirty-eight revolver has a considerable kick to it and makes a very loud noise. After firing once the boy would have been frightened half out of his wits, even though the shot might have been accidental. His subsequent conduct proves that. Also, if the initial shot were unintended, then a second deliberate one right behind it was all but out of the question. So I had very serious doubts about Charles Dempsey right there.”

To Virgil’s discomfort he found that Mike McGuire was staring at him as though he could not believe that this quiet, dark-skinned man had the ability to analyze human reactions. Actually, Mike was astounded that
any
policeman possessed more than normal intelligence.

“At this point,” Virgil continued, “I had grounds for suspicion but nothing more. I could not prove that the gun had been accidently fired, I only believed this to be the case. My opinion was reinforced by the fact that Johnny was standing alone with four people he believed to be hostile to him literally surrounding him; one was in front, one on each side, and one behind him. Under these circumstances, despite the frame of mind he was in and his youth, he would know that if he were deliberately to shoot the boy in front of him, the others would jump him immediately. And he would have good cause to fear what they might do to him.

“Now let me return to Dempsey, the boy known as Sport. After we received the tragic news that Willie Orthcutt had succumbed, he put on a great show of grief. He even stated that he was going to find the boy with the gun and kill him. At that point I deliberately told him that the boy wasn’t guilty, in those words. At once his whole manner changed, he dropped his pose and with almost animal intensity asked,
‘Then who is?’
It was very clear that at that moment he was badly frightened.”

“No wonder,” Ralph Hotchkiss commented.

“I must point out again,” Tibbs continued, “that all this was a very long way from legal evidence—it was only a guideline. Furthermore, there was a serious objection to Dempsey’s guilt at that time and another appeared when I learned that Willie had been shot in the arm. When the hospital gave me that information, it created a major roadblock.”

He stopped and turned toward the parents of the dead boy. “Is this too painful for you?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Orthcutt replied, his voice even and controlled. “We want to know what happened.”

“At first I entertained the idea that Dempsey, for a motive not yet known, had brought about his supposed friend’s death by placing his own hands over Johnny’s and forcing him to shoot as he wished. After an experiment here in my office I convinced myself that this was not possible. I was forced to reexamine the matter and the exact nature of the
wound in Willie’s upper arm gave rise to some thought. Mr. Hotchkiss, would you be kind enough to stand up for a moment?”

Ralph Hotchkiss rose to his feet, not sure what to expect.

“I’d like you to assume, sir,” Virgil said, “that you have just been shot in the left upper arm from directly in front of you.” He reached out and touched the spot on Hotchkiss’s arm where the supposed bullet had entered. “Now what do you do?”

In response Hotchkiss clapped his right hand over the area.

“That’s what everyone does when they’re suddenly hurt, they put their hand or hands over the place where the pain is. Now if you will look, sir, you will see that you have both forearms over your upper abdomen.”

There was a silent tableau for a few seconds; Ralph Hotchkiss standing with his arms folded across his body, understanding dawning on his face.

“Three different people told me that Willie Orthcutt went down with his hands across his abdomen,” Virgil explained. “If that were true, then it was apparently established that that was where he had been shot. But when I began to think a little harder about the wound in his upper arm, the light dawned and a second explanation for the arms across the body became permissible. Since the victim was a fourteen-year-old boy, it was understandable why he had sunk to the
ground in pain, compounded by shock. I doubt if any one of us would, if we were unexpectedly shot, remain on our feet.”

“When I checked on Charles Dempsey’s background, I learned that he had once been arrested for armed robbery. Later he proved an alibi and was released, the charge was dismissed. I mention this only because it suggested to me that he might have had a gun; an innocent person without one would not likely have been brought in and booked.”

At that moment Mike McGuire looked acutely uncomfortable; that hazard of owning a firearm had not occurred to him.

“Perhaps even more to the point was the way in which he behaved himself after Willie was hit. The only possible thing to do for a person who has been shot in the abdomen is to call an ambulance. I’m sure that Billy here knows that someone in that condition should not be moved except by qualified people who have the proper equipment, and Dempsey is far older and more mature. Yet he insisted on picking up the victim himself, refused offers of aid, and took him to the hospital in his own car. That too was incredible conduct; even if he had been greatly upset, he still would have known better.”

He stopped and waited for a moment. The quiet in the room was thick now, even the fresh air flowing in the open windows could not dispel the specter of cold and terrible murder. Outside there were the sounds of cars and of people about, but those in the office ignored this evidence of life going on.

When he continued, Virgil’s voice was quiet, but it carried the tone of final authority which would not be denied. “Now we come to the key point, the unshakable proof, of Dempsey’s guilt. The gun with which Johnny McGuire was armed was, as I told you, a Colt .38 Chief’s Special. It is a fairly common weapon which can easily be bought on the open market. It is lighter than some other guns, more compact,
and it holds only five shots
.

“Naturally I was keeping track of the number of bullets fired from Johnny’s gun, because the fifth would be the last, if he fired that many, and the great danger that he represented to himself as well as to others would be over. His first shot went into the Hotchkiss house. Then, presumably, two more were fired at Willie Orthcutt. One in the stadium tunnel at Anaheim made four. The fifth shot was discharged into the air in answer to a salute fired with great presence of mind by Mr. Gene Autry who, I am now sure, deserves his enduring fame as America’s greatest cowboy. That made five. Then Mr. Autry coaxed Johnny to fire once more; when he did
that made six shots from his gun which was impossible without reloading
. At that point I was immediately certain of two things: that Johnny had accidently shot Willie Orthcutt only in the arm and that Charles Dempsey, known to his associates as Sport, was Willie’s murderer.

“Dempsey tried to convince me that Johnny had fired twice at young Orthcutt and so did one of his friends, but the other witnesses denied the second shot or were unsure. But it no longer mattered, Johnny had no way of reloading his
gun and that fact in itself will convict Dempsey. Somewhere en route to the hospital, probably on a detour made for the purpose, Dempsey shot Willie Orthcutt in the abdomen, using his own gun. The bullet did not lodge in the boy’s body and no ballistic tests were possible. I realize now that I should have taken Dempsey in that night for a paraffin test to determine if he had recently fired a gun, but I had at that time only a strong suspicion to go on and I was anxious to keep it to myself.”

Outside the sounds of life going on seemed to be gaining in intensity. There were the noises of people and of voices, of cars and trucks passing by, and the subdued drone of a private plane overhead. Mrs. Orthcutt dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a small white handkerchief. She looked up and in a tone which betrayed her deep emotion spoke only one word. “Why?”

Virgil locked his fingers together, pressed them tightly, and seemed to gather himself together. “I want you to know,” he said, “that this is almost as hard for me to put into words as it is for you to hear. Dempsey’s motive was perhaps the worst thing of all; it occurred to me quite early, but I found it hard to believe. Later on, when I was having some difficulty with a militant individual, he made a grandstand play of a type which partially confirmed it. His hasty long trip to Anaheim to be in on what might well have been the finish of Johnny McGuire made my impression stronger still.

“I should not say this publicly, but you are entitled
to know: we have a confession. Following his arrest Dempsey knew that he was finished. He was carefully informed of all of his constitutional rights and told that he would have to stand trial as an adult, but he did not seem to care. He gave us the whole story and there is no longer any need for conjecture.

“Your son Willie, by all accounts including Dempsey’s own, was an outstanding and talented boy. Dempsey stated that ‘he had it all.’ Willie was a handsome boy, he had definite musical gifts, and he was a natural leader.”

Bob Nakamura appeared quietly in the door of the office and caught the captain’s attention. He nodded toward the window. Lindholm turned halfway around in his chair, rose to his feet, and looked down at the street. Then he nodded silently to Nakamura, who disappeared. This bit of activity concluded he sat down again and turned back toward Tibbs, inviting him to continue.

“Willie’s popularity was growing very rapidly, particularly as he was passing from boyhood into young manhood. Dempsey, more than any other thing, valued his status as the big man in his neighborhood among the Negro teenagers. He remarked on this several times in my presence, he even assured me that if I needed any help, he could supply it. He did, as it worked out, prove to be very valuable at one point, but his real purpose was to attract attention to himself and, of course, to divert any possible suspicions I might have. He had had quite a start in the hospital corridor and he
wanted very much to be on safe ground, something which was, of course, impossible for him.

“He knew, however, as he has admitted, that his own endowments did not approach Willie’s. Every report I have had on the dead boy stressed his potential: he was reported to be good-looking, smart, a talented musician, articulate, and destined for real success. This came to me on several occasions. Now compare this with Dempsey’s own capabilities. His speech reveals that he was a poor student in school; he was, in fact, an early dropout. He can hardly be described as handsome and his prospects, even before the shooting, were very limited. Yet he stressed the fact to me several times that he was the ‘big man’ in his neighborhood. He did that in my office in the presence of the girl Luella.

“I would have had to be practically blind not to have noticed that with Willie alive, Dempsey’s position of leadership was being severely threatened. In another year or two he would have no chance whatever against Willie Orthcutt—car or no car. He knew it, and it was a prospect he could not endure. That same motivation has, unfortunately, caused a great many political assassinations, perhaps even more than are recorded in history.