Yarns Without Threads 

... the sheriff's deputy next to Linda reached for her shoulder and turned her away. 'You'd better leave us now, Miss,' he advised.

'I've seen dead people before,' she answered quickly. 'That is, if he's really dead.' ...

The deputy took a firmer tone. 'He's not covered, Miss.'

Linda looked at him. 'I'm not a cottontail,' she retorted. 'And I might know him. I know everyone who comes here and a good many other members, too.'

'Do you know this man?'

George shook his head. 'I don't and Dad doesn't. He isn't a member here, that's for sure.'

'I don't think he's a member anywhere,' Linda contributed unexpectedly. 'Maybe a one-time visitor, or an occasional who goes to one of the northern clubs, but no more than that.'

The deputy turned and looked at her. 'I'm sure you have a reason for saying that,' he prompted. 'Would you mind telling me?'

'He's a cottontail,' Linda pointed out. 'He isn't tanned at all around the hips, you could see that clearly. He couldn't be a nudist and have skin that white anywhere.'

... the gate phone rang. Linda rose quickly to answer it.

'This is Mr Tibbs,' the voice on the line said. 'I took the liberty of walking in past your chain to use the phone. This is the nudist camp, I believe?'

'This is the nudist resort,' Linda corrected. ' Are you a member of any other nudist organization, here or abroad?'

'No, I'm not.'

'Are you married, sir?'

'No, not yet. I still have hopes.'

'I'll be right out.' Linda hung up the phone. ' Another single,' she reported to her father. 'Is he behind the times ! He called this a nudist camp.'

'At least he didn't call it a colony,' Emily said gently.

'Well, he's a cottontail at any rate. I'll go take care of him.'

'Did he give his name?' Deputy Morrissey asked.

'Tibbs,' Linda said.

'Now that I know what that word means, I can tell you he isn't a cottontail.'

... When she reached the entrance, there was a plain black Ford sedan pulled up in front of the chain; standing beside it, a man was waiting.

Linda saw many things quickly. She saw that he was probably in his early thirties, that he was of medium height, rather slender, and dressed in a quiet business suit.

But these were secondary impressions. The thing that she saw first, and which overshadowed everything else, was the fact that he was a Negro.

For an instant her confidence fled; she had never met a Negro applicant at the gate before, and she had no Negro friends. As a rule, if a single man presented himself unintroduced, she would automatically and courteously turn him away; it was the lodge policy. But if she did that now, the man might think it was because of his race, which wouldn't be true.

Without knowing how, she sensed that he understood her embarrassment. He came forward a few steps and then stopped, meeting her half-way.

'My name is Virgil Tibbs,' he said. 'The sheriff's office asked me to stop by. I'm a police officer.'

Linda's first sensation was relief - she would not have to turn him away. So this was Virgil! At that moment she remembered Deputy Morrissey's remark that he was not a cottontail. Morrissey had been right; the joke was on her. ...

As the two men went slowly towards the parking lot, the beauty of the day completely denied the thing that had been discovered that morning. Walking along the sunbright grass, they met Linda escorting a middle-aged couple, a teen-aged son, and two younger daughters. Tibbs detoured just enough to avoid the need for introductions.

When he was well past, the man in Linda's party stopped and turned.

'I guess they don't care who they let in here,' he declared with offensive loudness in his voice.

'I'm sorry,' Forrest said quietly.

'I'm afraid I may have cost you some business,' Tibbs countered. 'When you go back, please explain that I'm not a member. Tell them the county sent me to inspect the swimming pool.'

Forrest shook his head. 'I don't think I will. Along with known Communists, people with abnormal sex ideas, and troublemakers generally, we won't take bigots. Too many of our members are Jewish or Nisei.'

... Tibbs glanced out of the window and his thoughts stopped dead in their tracks.

George and Linda were coming. Obviously she knew that he was there; George would have told her. Nonetheless she walked easily beside her brother, to all appearances entirely unconcerned and totally nude except for a pair of sandals on her feet.

She was coming towards the kitchen and in a few seconds would be in the room.

Tibbs was engulfed with a reminder of his heritage. The vast canyon that one-time servitude had eroded between his people and the Caucasian race had been so impressed on him during his boyhood in the Deep South that the sight of a naked white woman was a severe shock. For a Negro even speaking to a white woman under some circumstances could be suspect in Mississippi; the Till murder had come from a simple thing like that.

Linda was eighteen years old and, as Tibbs had previously noted, well formed. He had even considered her as a possible motive for murder; such things had happened before. She was rich with the promise of womanhood and technically over the age of consent.

'Mr Tibbs,' she said when they had driven a short distance. 'Please tell me the truth. I've been wondering - why was my uncle found on the grounds of - of that awful place?'

'I don't know,' Tibbs answered truthfully.

'Was he a - patron there ?'

'No, he wasn't. I'm sure of that.'

'I don't know what kind of people could run a place like that,' she said, a little bitterly. 'There must be something basically wrong with them.'

'Without holding any brief for the line of business,' Virgil answered her, 'I'd say they're considerably better than average people. I'm prejudiced, I admit, because they ignored my colour.'

She was startled to hear him speak of it so factually.

... She took a deep breath. 'May I impose on you a great deal?' she asked.

'Much more than I have already?'

'Of course, Miss Boardman. What would you like?'

'How far is it to the nudist colony?'

He answered by opening the car door and helping her inside. ...

'... This is really a terrible imposition on you, taking me to see these people.'

'Not at all. It's more or less on the way.'

'Perhaps we ought to stop somewhere and tell them we're coming.' A sudden violent thought hit her. 'I won't have to-' She was unable to say the words. The idea of taking all her clothes off, probably in front of strange men, was paralysing. 'I couldn't!' she added, knowing he would understand.

'They won't expect it of you,' Tibbs assured her. 'Otherwise I wouldn't put myself in the position of taking you. They are really nice people; I believe you'll like them.'

He slit the envelope open and drew out the combination brochure and membership-application form. There were attractive pictures of the pool, tennis court, volley- ball courts, and other facilities. One paragraph ... read :

Singles. Under no circumstances will married singles be accepted for membership, a married single being defined as an adult who applies without his or her spouse. Single adult men and women will be issued memberships only on a quota basis in order to maintain the family atmosphere of the park. The decision in each case will depend on the individual applicant and the action of the membership committee will be final.

Inside her room Ellen shut her eyes for a moment as though to black out her thoughts; then she shook her head and slowly began to undress. ...

Quietly she slipped out of her clothes. For just a moment, before she put on her nightgown, she paused to look at herself in the mirror. Her figure was certainly not spectacular in any way, but it was presentable. That was an odd word, she thought - presentable. What was it like, she wondered, to be a nudist? She could not answer her own question as she slipped the gown over her head and climbed into bed.

The warm, radiant California sun hung in high glory in the sky and presented the land underneath with a day that not even the native sons could exaggerate. The weather was so splendid that Mrs Mary Agnew forsook the usual isolation of her rural living-room and seated herself on her front lawn, where she could be certain of missing no detail of what went on.

When a conspicuously marked police car drove quietly past, her heart took a quick leap; at long last they were going to raid that nudist colony down the road! She was disconcerted that there was only one car, but it was a beginning. She hoped with a devout passion that they would drag out that blonde girl, screaming, and take her away to the city to be a public spectacle.

Mrs Agnew had a mind shaped like a keyhole. For many years now she had devoted her life almost exclusively to the relentless scrutiny of everything within her range of vision. It was her tightly locked secret that though she had never been married, she had borne a child at eighteen; from that moment she had dedicated herself to learning everything possible about the faults of the rest of mankind. To her the existence of nudists, not only on the same planet but within a mile radius of her chosen home, was almost unbearable. She literally lived for the glorious day when hordes of official vehicles would descend upon the evil place and the fate of Sodom would be re-enacted. The police car gave her a quickened hope and she leaned forward to listen - to hear, if possible, if it would turn into the driveway of That Place.

To her exquisite delight, it did.