Just Cause

by John Katzenbach

  Still . . . she remembered a moment on her stepfather’s boat a half-dozen years earlier. They’d been fishing in the early evening, catching the outgoing tide as it ran fast between the pylons of one of the Keys’ innumerable bridges. The client had hooked a big tarpon, well over a hundred and twenty pounds. It had jumped twice, gills shaking, rattling its head back and forth, then sounded, its sleek silver shape slicing through the darkening waters. It had run with the current, using the force of the water to help it fight against the pressure of the line. The client had hung on, stubbornly, grunting, legs spread, back bent, fighting against the strength of the fish for nearly an hour. The big fish had pulled on, dragging line from the reel, heading toward the bridge pylons.

  Smart fish, she thought. Strong fish. It had known that if it could get in there, it could sever the line on a barnacle. All it had to do was run that taut, thin length of monofilament against a pylon. The fish had been hooked before. It knew the pain of the barb in its jaw, the force of the line pulling it toward the surface. Familiarity gave it strength. There was no panic in its fight. Just a steady, intelligent savagery as it made for the bridge and safety.

  What she’d done had seemed crazy. She had jumped to the man’s side and in a single, impulsive motion twisted the drag on the reel down all the way, virtually locking it. Then she’d shouted, “Toss it over! Toss it over!” The man had looked wildly at her, and she’d seized the rod from his hands and thrown it over the side of the boat. It had made a small wake as it was towed rapidly away. “What the hell . . .” the man had started angrily, only to be interrupted when her stepfather pivoted the boat in the channel and roared underneath the bridge, throttling down on the far side.

  She could see her stepfather standing on the flying bridge, peering through the growing darkness until he finally pointed. They all turned and saw the rod, its cork handle bobbing at the surface twenty yards away. They came alongside and she bent over and grasped it from the water, loosening the drag in almost the same moment. “Now,” she had said to the fisherman, “land him.” The man had pulled back on the rod, breaking into a grin when he felt the weight on the other end. The still-hooked tarpon exploded from the surface in shock and surprise when it felt the point of the hook drive hard once again into its jaw. It had jumped fast, soaring through the air, black water streaming from its sides. But she’d known it was the big fish’s last run; she could sense the defeat in each shake of its head and twist of its body. Another ten minutes and they had the tarpon to the side of the boat. She’d lip-gaffed the fish and brought it out of the water. There had been a flurry of photos, and then they’d returned the fish to the channel waves. She’d leaned over the side, holding the fish, reviving it gently. But before setting it loose, she’d seized one of its silver scales, the size of a half-dollar, and broken it off. She’d put the scale in her shirt pocket as she watched the fish swim off slowly, its scythelike tail slicing through the warm water.

  Smart fish. Strong fish.

  But I was smarter and that made me stronger.

  She pictured Ferguson again. Hooked before, she thought.

  The airplane droned and bumped to a halt. She gathered her things together and headed for the exit.

  The liaison captain at the Newark Police Department arranged for a pair of uniformed officers to accompany her to Ferguson’s apartment. After a few brief introductions and modest small talk, the pair drove her through the city toward the address she’d given them.

  Shaeffer stared out at streets she thought cut from a subdivision of hell. The buildings were all dirty brick and dark concrete, rimmed with grime and helplessness. Even the sunlight that caught the street seemed gray. There was a never-ceasing procession of small businesses, clothing stores, bodegas, cut-rate loan offices, appliance centers, and furniture rental showrooms, each clinging with decrepit energy to the edges of the littered sidewalks. There were black steel bars everywhere, inner-urban necessities. A different cluster of idle men, teenage gangs, or gaudy hookers seemed to occupy each corner. Even the fast-food outlets, with their uniform codes of cleanliness and order, seemed frayed and tattered, a far cry from their suburban counterparts. The city was like a has-been fighter, hanging on in the latter rounds of one too many fights, staggering but still inexplicably standing on its feet because it was too old or stupid or stubborn to fall.

  “You said this dude is in school, Detective? No way. Not down here,” said one of the officers, a taciturn black man with gray hair touching his temples.

  “That’s what his attorney told me,” she replied.

  “There’s only one school down here. Where you learn whoring and pimping and dealing and how to do a B and E. I don’t know what you’d call that school.”

  “Well, maybe,” said his partner driving the car, a younger man with sandy blond hair and a drooping mustache. “That’s not altogether true. There’s plenty of decent folks down here . . .”

  “Yeah,” interrupted the older policeman. “Hiding behind steel grates and bars.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” the partner said. “He’s a burnt-out case. He’s also not mentioning the fact that he started out down here and worked his way through night school. So it ain’t impossible. Maybe your man’s riding the commuter train out to New Brunswick and attending classes at Rutgers. Or grabbing evening classes at St. Pete’s.”

  “Don’t make any sense. Why live in this rathole unless you have to?” the older policeman answered. “If he’s got some money, he could live out there. Only reason to live down here is if you ain’t got a chance of being someplace else.”

  “I can think of another reason,” said the younger cop.

  “What’s that?” Shaeffer asked.

  The policeman gestured with his arm. “You want to hide. You want maybe to get swallowed up a bit. Best place in the world.”

  He pointed at an abandoned building, pivoted in his seat and looked back at her. “Parts of these cities, they’re like the jungle or a swamp. We pass a building like that, been hit by fire, abandoned, whatever, there’s no way to know what’s really inside. People live in there without electricity, heat, water. Gangs hang out, hide weapons. Hell, there could be a hundred dead bodies in one of those buildings and we’d never find ’em. Never even know they were there.”

  He paused for a moment. “Perfect place to get lost. Who the hell’d ever come down here looking for someone unless they really needed ’em?” he asked.

  “I guess I would,” she said quietly.

  “What d’you need this man for?” asked the driver.

  “He may have some information about a double homicide I’m working.”

  “You think he’s gonna give us some trouble? Maybe we ought to have some backup. This drug-related?”

  “No. More like a contract killing.”

  “You promise us? I mean, I don’t want to go walking in on some beady-eyed guy holding a Uzi and a pound of crack.”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  She hesitated. What was he? “Not exactly. Just someone we need to talk to. Could go either way.”

  “Okay. We’re gonna take your word for it,” said the younger man. “But I’m not wild about it. What you got on this guy, anyway?”

  “Not much.”

  “So you’re just hoping he’ll say something that you can take to the bank, right?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Fishing expedition, huh?”

  She smiled at the irony. “Right.”

  She could see him look over at his partner for an instant. The officers humphed and drove on. They swept past a cluster of men hanging in front of a small grocery store. She could see the eyes of the inhabitants of the inner-city world following them. No doubts about who we are, she thought. They made us in a microsecond. She tried to focus on the faces on the
street, but they blurred together.

  “Down here,” said the policeman driving. “Middle of the block.”

  He steered the car into an empty space between a four-year-old cherry-red Cadillac with balloon whitewalls and velour upholstery, and a wreck, stripped of anything worthwhile. A small boy was sitting on the curb next to the Caddy.

  “Home sweet home,” said the younger officer. “How’re you gonna play this, Detective?”

  “Nice and easy,” she replied. “Talk to the super first, if there is one. Maybe a neighbor. Then just knock on his door.”

  The older policeman shrugged. “Okay. We’ll just stay a step behind you. But when you get inside, you’re pretty much on your own.”

  Ferguson’s building was tired red brick, a half-dozen stories high. Shaeffer took a step toward it, then turned and faced the boy sitting on the curb. He was wearing a glistening white, expensive pair of hightop basketball shoes beneath tattered sweatpants.

  “How you doing?” she asked.

  The boy shrugged. “Okay.”

  “What’re you up to?”

  The boy gestured. “I watch the wheels. You police?”

  “You got it.”

  “Not from ’round here.”

  “No. You know a man named Robert Earl Ferguson?”

  “Florida man. You looking for him?”

  “Yes. He inside?”

  “Don’t know. No one sees him much.”

  “Why not?”

  The boy turned away. “Guess he’s got something going.”

  Shaeffer nodded and walked up the steps to the entranceway, trailed by the two uniformed officers. She checked a bank of mailboxes, finding Ferguson’s name scratched on one. She took down the names of some neighbors as well and found a name with the abbreviation “Supt.” written after it. She rang that buzzer and stood next to an intercom. There was no reply.

  “It don’t work,” said the older officer.

  “Nothing like that works down here,” added the younger.

  She reached out and pushed on the apartment-house door. It swung open. She felt a momentary embarrassment.

  “I guess things like locks and buzzers still work down in Florida,” said the older policeman.

  The interior of the apartment house was cavelike and dark. The hallways were narrow, scratched with graffiti and smelling vaguely of refuse tinged with urine. The younger policeman must have seen her nose wrinkle in distaste, because he said, “Hey, this one’s a helluva lot better than most.” He gestured. “You don’t see any drunks living in the hallway, do you? That’s a big deal, right there.”

  She found the super’s apartment beneath the stairwell, knocked hard three times and after a moment heard noises from inside. Then a voice. “Whatcha want?”

  She held her badge up to the peephole. “Police, sir,” she replied.

  There was a sound of clicking as three or four different locks were unfastened. Finally the door swung open, revealing a thin, middle-aged black man, barefoot beneath work clothes.

  “You Mr. Washington? The superintendent?”

  He nodded. “Whatcha want?” he repeated.

  “I want to come in out of the hallway,” she said briskly.

  He opened the door and let the three of them inside. “I ain’t done nothing.”

  Shaeffer glanced about at the threadbare furniture and tattered carpets, then turned toward the super and asked, “Robert Earl Ferguson. Is he upstairs?”

  The man shrugged. “Maybe. I guess so. I don’t pay much attention to comings and goings, you know.”

  “Who does?”

  “My wife does,” he said, pointing.

  She turned and saw a short black woman, as wide as her husband was thin, standing quietly beneath an archway, steadying herself with an aluminum walker.

  “Mrs. Washington?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is Robert Earl Ferguson upstairs?”

  “He should be. Ain’t gone out today.”

  “How would you know?”

  The woman struggled forward a step, carefully placing the walker in front of her. Her breath came in rapid, sharp, wheezing gasps.

  “I don’t move so good. I spends my days over there . . .” She pointed toward a front window. “Watching what’s going on in this world before I leaves it behind, doing a little knitting, and the such. I get to know pretty much when people come and goes.”

  “And Ferguson, does he have a schedule? Is he regular?”

  She nodded. Shaeffer took out a notepad and made some notations. “Where’s he go?”

  “Well, I don’t know for sure, but he’s usually carrying some of those college books in a bag. Like a knapsack kinda bag. Put it on your back like you’re gonna be in the army or take a hike or something. He goes out in the afternoons. Don’t see him come back till late at night. Sometimes he goes off with a little suitcase. Don’t come back for a couple of days. I guess he travels some.”

  “You’re still there, late? Watching?”

  “Don’t sleep too good, neither. Don’t walk too good. Don’t breathe too good. Don’t do nothing too good now.”

  Andrea Shaeffer felt excitement quickening. “How’s your memory?” she asked.

  “Memory ain’t limping around, that what you mean. Memory’s fine. Whatcha need to know?”

  “A week to ten days ago. Did Ferguson go out of town? Did you see him with that suitcase? Was he gone for a day or two? Anything unusual. Anything out of the routine?”

  The woman thought hard. Shaeffer watched her mentally sorting through all the comings and goings she’d witnessed. The woman’s eyes narrowed, then widened slightly, as if an image or memory crossed rapidly through her head. She opened her mouth as if to say something, her hand fluttering away from the grip on the aluminum walker. But before the words came out, Shaeffer saw the woman reconsider, as if a second thought had tripped the first. The woman’s eyes narrowed, hesitating on the notepad that hovered in the detective’s hands. Finally, she shook her head.

  “Don’t think so. But I’ll consider it some more. Can’t be absolutely sure without thinking on it for a piece. You know how it is.”

  The detective watched the woman shift about. She remembers something, she thought. She just won’t say it. “You sure?”

  “No,” the woman said warily. “I might remember something after I set my mind on it a spell. A week to ten days ago, that what you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll do some thinking.”

  “All right. You do that. Is there anyone else who might know?”

  “No, ma’am. He keeps to himself. Just heads out in the afternoons. Comes back at night. Sometimes early. Sometimes a bit later. That boy never makes noise, never causes a ruckus, just quiet. He don’t even have a girlfriend. What you need to know all this for? What sort of police trouble he in?”

  “You know anything about what he’s been doing the past few years? Down in Florida?”

  Mr. Washington interrupted. “We heard he did some time down there. But that’s all.”

  “Doing time ain’t much of a crime around here, ma’am. Just about everybody’s done some time,” interjected the wife. She looked over at her husband. “And Lord knows, those that ain’t done any time are probably gonna end up doing some before too long. That’s the way down here. Yes, ma’am.”

  “How’s he pay his rent?” Shaeffer asked.

  “In cash. First of the month. No problem.”

  She made a note of that.

  “But it ain’t that much, you know. This place ain’t fancy, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Did you ever see him with a knife? Like a hunting knife? Ever see one in his apartment?”

  “No, ma’am.”r />
  “A gun?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But I expect most folks down here’s got one hid somewhere.”

  “Anything at all you remember about him. Anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Well, it ain’t ordinary down here to spend your time with those books.”

  Shaeffer nodded. She handed both husband and wife her business card, embossed with the shield of the Monroe County sheriff’s office. “You think of something, you can call me. Collect. I’ll be at this number here for a couple of days.” She wrote down the exchange of the motel near the airport where she’d parked her bag.

  They both stared dutifully at the cards as she let herself out. In the hallway, the older policeman looked at her. “Learn anything? It didn’t sound all that exciting to me. ’Cept maybe that old gal was lying to you when she said she didn’t remember a week ago.”

  “She sure as hell remembered something,” said the younger officer.

  “You guys saw it, too?”

  “Couldn’t hardly miss it. But hell, I don’t know what it means. More’n likely nothing. What do you think, Detective?”

  “We’re getting there,” she replied. “Time to see if the man’s home.”

  18

  THE CONVENIENT MAN

  She took a slow, deep breath to try to control her surging heart, and knocked on the door. The apartment house hallway was dark, despite a window at the end that allowed some weak light to slide past a layer of gray grime. She had little idea what to expect. An unmade killer, she thought. What is he? One side of a triangle. A man who studies but sometimes packs a suitcase and goes someplace for several days. She knocked again and after a moment came the expected answer. “Who’s there?”

  “Police.”

  The word hung in the air in front of her, echoing in the small space. A few seconds passed.

  “What do you want?”

  “To ask you some questions. Open the door.”

  “What sort of questions?”