Just Cause

by John Katzenbach

  Cowart smiled. “No,” he answered. “He’s never going to give up.”

  “Damn him,” Ferguson said bitterly. But then his voice lost the touch of fury that had accompanied the epithet and he added, “But he can’t touch me now.”

  Cowart could feel a helplessness sinking within him. He tried to imagine what Tanny Brown would ask, what question could break through the hard shell of innocence that covered Ferguson. For the first time, he began to understand why Brown had loosened his partner’s fists to obtain the confession to murder.

  “When you go south to talk to some church group, Bobby Earl, or when you go to some civic center, do you give the same speech every time, or do you make it a bit different for different audiences?”

  “I change it about a bit. It depends on whom I’m speaking to. But mostly it’s the same message.”

  “But the thrust of it?”

  “That remains the same.”

  “Tell me what you say.”

  “I tell folks how Jesus came and brought light right into the darkness of that cell on Death Row, Mr. Cowart. I tell them how faith will abide you through the most dangerous of times. How even the worst sinner can be touched by that special light and find comfort in the words of God. I tell them how truth will always rise up and cut through evil like a great shining sword and show the path to freedom. And they say Amen to that, Mr. Cowart, because that is a message that comforts the heart and soul, don’t you think?”

  “I think it does. And are you a regular churchgoer up here in Newark?”

  “No. Here I’m a student.”

  Cowart nodded. “So, how many times have you given this speech?”

  “Eight or nine.”

  “You got the names of the churches, community centers, whatever?”

  “This for a story?”

  “Give me the names.”

  Ferguson stared hard at Cowart, then shrugged, as if unconcerned. Rapid-fire he raced through a short list of churches, Baptist, Pentecostal, and Unitarian, adding the names of a few civic centers. The names of the towns they were in followed just as swiftly. Cowart struggled to get the information into his notebook. His pen made a scratching sound against the page, and he saw his handwriting flying about between the blue-ruled lines. Ferguson finished and waited for Cowart to say something. The reporter counted. Perrine was on the list.

  “That’s only seven.”

  “Maybe I forgot one or two.”

  Cowart stood up, driven to his feet by the turbulence he felt within him. He moved away from Ferguson, toward the bookcase. His eyes scanned the titles, just as Shaeffer had done when she visited the apartment.

  “You must be an expert, after reading all these,” he said.

  Ferguson watched the reporter carefully. “Assigned readings.”

  Cowart turned back. “Dawn Perry,” he said quietly. He moved behind Ferguson’s desk, as if that would afford him momentary protection if Ferguson came after him.

  “The name is unfamiliar,” Ferguson replied.

  “Little girl. Black. Just twelve years old. On her way home from a swimming club one day last August, just a couple of days after you gave that speech down there.”

  “No. Can’t say I place her. Should I know her?”

  “I think so. Perrine, Florida. Swim club’s about three, four blocks from the First Baptist Church of Perrine. Did you tell the congregation about Jesus’s light that came and visited you? I guess they didn’t know what else that light might mean.”

  “You asking a question, Mr. Cowart?”

  “Yes. Why’d you kill her?”

  “Little girl’s dead?”

  “Disappeared.”

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “No? You were there. She disappears.”

  “That a question, Mr. Cowart?”

  “Tell me how you did it.”

  “I didn’t do anything to that little girl.” Ferguson’s voice remained cold and even. “I didn’t do anything to any little girls.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Belief, Mr. Cowart, is in great supply. People will believe almost anything. They’ll believe that UFOs visit little towns in Ohio and that Elvis was spotted buying Twinkies in a convenience store. They’ll believe that the CIA is poisoning their water and that a secret organization actually runs the United States. But proving something, Mr. Cowart, is much more difficult.”

  He looked at the reporter. “Like murder.”

  Cowart remained stock still, listening to Ferguson’s voice as it swirled around him.

  “You need motive, you need opportunity, and you need physical evidence. Something scientific and certain that some expert can get up in a court of law and say without dispute happened, like a fingerprint or blood residue. Or even maybe this new DNA testing, Mr. Cowart. You know about that? I do. You need a witness, and lacking that, maybe an accomplice to testify. And if you don’t have any of those, you damn well better have a confession. The killer’s own words, nice and clear and indisputable, but we know all about that, don’t we? And you got to have all these things, all sewn together into a nice fabric, because otherwise, you’ve got nothing except awful feelings and guesses. And just because some little girl got snatched away, right out there on the outskirts of that big old evil city, Mr. Cowart, and I happened to be in that town some two days earlier, well, that isn’t proof of anything, is it? How many killers you think there are in Miami at any given moment? How many men wouldn’t think twice about grabbing some little girl who was walking home, just like you said? You think the cops down there haven’t run profiles and questioned all the creeps? They have, Mr. Cowart. I’m certain of it. But you know what? I’m not on anybody’s list. Not anymore. Because I am an innocent man, Mr. Cowart. You helped me become one. And I intend to stay that way.”

  “How many?” Cowart asked, almost whispering. “Six? Seven? Every time you give a speech, does somebody die?”

  Ferguson narrowed his eyes, but his voice remained steady. “White man’s crime, Mr. Cowart. Don’t you know that?”

  “What?”

  “White man’s crime. Come on, think of all the killers you’ve read about. All the Specks, Bundys, Coronas, Gacys, Henleys, Lucases, and our old buddy Blair Sullivan. White men. Jack the Ripper and Bluebeard. White men. Caligula and Vlad the Impaler. White men, Mr. Cowart. They’re all white men. You take a tour of any prison and they’re gonna point at Charlie Manson or David Berkowitz and you’re gonna see white men, because they’re the people who give in and get those strange urges. This is not to say that there ain’t an occasional exception that maybe proves the rule, you know. Like Wayne Williams down in Atlanta; but there are so many questions about him, aren’t there? Hell, there was even a movie on television questioning whether he was the one that did all those young men down there in that fair city. Remember that, Mr. Cowart? No, snatching little girls off the street and leaving ’em dead someplace dark and forgotten ain’t typical of black men. What we do is crimes of violence. Sudden, uncontrollable bursts with knives or guns and noise. City crime, Mr. Cowart, with witnesses and crime scenes fairly dripping with evidence, so that when the cops get around to putting us in jail there ain’t no questions left around. Raping joggers and shooting rival crack dealers and strong-arming convenience store clerks and assaulting each other, Mr. Cowart, ain’t that right? Typical stuff that makes white folks buy fancy alarms for their suburban homes and feeds the criminal justice system with its daily quota of black men—but not serial killing. And you know what else, Mr. Cowart?”

  “What?”

  “That’s the way the system likes it. The system isn’t comfortable with things that don’t quite match up into statistics and categories.”

  Ferguson looked over at him. “How you gonna write that story up, Mr. Cowart? The one that doesn’t
fit into some nice, safe, expected niche? Tell me, are newspapers real good at telling people things that strange? That unexpected? Or do you go about your business of reporting over and over again all the same old stuff, just with different faces and words?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “And you think you’re gonna write something like that without any proof?”

  “Joanie Shriver,” Cowart said.

  “Goodbye to her, Mr. Cowart. She’s long gone. Best you understood that. Maybe make your friend Tanny Brown understand that, too.”

  Cowart remained standing next to Ferguson’s desk. He leaned across it, gripping the edges for balance. “I will write the story, you know that, don’t you?”

  Ferguson didn’t reply.

  “I’ll put it all in the paper. All the falsehoods, all the lies, every bit of it. You can deny it and deny it, and you know what, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “It’ll work. I’ll go down. Maybe Tanny Brown’ll go down. But you know what will happen to you, Bobby Earl?”

  “Tell me,” he said coldly.

  “You won’t go to jail. Nope. You’re right about that. Not enough evidence. And a whole lot of people will believe you when you say it is all a setup. They’ll still believe you when you say you’re innocent. Most folks’ll want to blame me, and the cops, and they’ll rally around you, Bobby Earl. I promise.”

  Ferguson continued to stare at Cowart.

  “But you know what you’re gonna lose? Anonymity.”

  Ferguson shrugged, and Cowart continued. “Come on, Bobby Earl. You know what you do when you’ve got an old house cat that likes to hunt? Likes to kill birds and mice and then drag them into your nice clean suburban house? You put a bell around that cat’s neck, so that no matter how clever and quiet and stealthy that old hunting cat is, it can’t ever get close enough to some poor little starling to get its claws around it.”

  Ferguson’s eyes narrowed.

  “You think those fine churches still gonna ask you to come give that nice speech if there’s just a little bit of a question remaining? You think they might be able to find some other speaker for that Sunday? One that they are damn certain isn’t going to hang around or come back some other time and pluck some little girl off the street?”

  Cowart saw Ferguson stiffen with anger.

  “And the police, Bobby Earl. Think of the police. They’re always going to wonder, aren’t they? And when something happens, and it will happen, won’t it, Bobby Earl? When something happens they’ll be looking at you first. How many times you think you can do it, Bobby Earl, without making some little mistake? Forget something. Maybe get seen once. That’s going to be all it takes, isn’t it? Because you just make that one little mistake and the whole world’s going to come down square on your head, and you won’t be able to look up again until you’re right back where you were when we had our first conversation. And this time there won’t be any Miami Journal writer looking to help you get out, will there?”

  Cowart watched as Ferguson coiled himself on the seat, rage spreading like a gasoline fire across his face. He saw the man’s hand edge toward the hunting knife and felt himself freeze with instant fear.

  I’m dead, he thought.

  He wanted to search around, try to find something to protect himself with, but he could not remove his eyes from Ferguson. For an instant, he remembered: I needed a word. A word that would summon Tanny Brown. But he had none.

  Ferguson half rose from his seat, then stopped. Cowart felt his hand close on a sheaf of papers. Then Ferguson sat back down slowly.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll write that story.”

  “Why?”

  Ferguson looked down on the table in front of him, where Cowart had placed his tape recorder. For a moment, Ferguson seemed to watch as the tape absorbed silence. Then he said, in a firm, distinct voice, leaning toward the machine, “Because not a word of it would be true.” After another second or two passed, he reached over and punched off the Record button.

  “You know why you won’t write that story? I’ll tell you why. There are a lot of good reasons, but first off, because you know what you don’t have? You don’t have any facts. You don’t have any evidence. All you have is a crazy combination of events and lies, and I know some editor’ll look at all that and think it has no place in the paper. And you know what else you don’t have, Mr. Cowart? All newspaper stories are all made up of ‘according to’s’ and ‘police said’s’ and ‘spokesmen confirmed’s’ and all sorts of other folks contributing documents and reports, and that’s where you get the bones for your story. The rest of the flesh is just the detail that you’ve seen and the detail that you’ve heard, and you haven’t seen or heard anything important enough to build a story.

  “And that’s one reason why you don’t scare me, Mr. Cowart. Tell me,” he said. “Do I scare you?”

  Cowart nodded.

  “Well, that’s good. Do you suppose I scare your friend Tanny Brown, as well?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Now that’s a strange answer for a man who aspires toward precision. What do you mean?”

  “I think he fears what you’re doing. But I don’t think he’s scared of you.”

  Ferguson shook his head. “Tell me something, will you? Why is it that people always fear something happening to them? Personal fear. Like you right now. Scared that maybe I’ll pick up this hunting knife and come over there and cut your heart out. Isn’t that right? Just walk right over there and slice you from balls to throat and take out what I want. What do you think? You think I’m such an expert killer that I could do that? Then maybe stick your bloody remains someplace special, make it look like you stumbled around down here, got caught up with some of the locals, you know. Some of the folks down here aren’t too partial to white people wandering around. Think I could make it seem like some gang maybe had a little fun carving up a white reporter who got lost looking for an address? Think I could pull that off, Mr. Cowart?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think so? Why not, if I’m such an expert?”

  “I don’t . . .”

  “Why not!” Ferguson demanded sharply. His hand closed on the knife handle.

  “Blood,” Cowart answered rapidly. “The bloodstains. You couldn’t hope to get them sufficiently cleaned up.”

  “Good. Keep going.”

  “Maybe somebody saw me come in. A witness.”

  “That’s good, Mr. Cowart. There’s an old landlady here who keeps a watch on such things. She might have seen you come in. Maybe one of the derelicts outside would remember seeing you. That’s possible as well, but they’d make a poor witness. Keep going.”

  “Maybe I told somebody where I was going.”

  “No,” Ferguson grinned. “That wouldn’t amount to anything. No proof you ever got here.”

  “Prints. I’ve left prints in here.”

  “Didn’t take the cup of coffee you were offered. That might have left prints and saliva. What else you touched? The desk. The papers there. I could clean those.”

  “You couldn’t be sure.”

  Ferguson smiled again. “That’s right”

  “Other things. Hair. Skin. I might fight back. Cut you. That’d put some of your blood on me. They’d find it.”

  “Maybe. At least now you’re thinking, Mr. Cowart.”

  Ferguson leaned back. He gestured at the hunting knife. “Too many variables. You’re right about that. Too many angles to cover. Any student of criminology would know that.” Ferguson continued to stare at him. “But I still don’t think you’ll write that story, Mr. Cowart.”

  “I’ll write the story,” Cowart insisted softly.

  “You know something? You know there are other ways of cutting out somebody’s heart? D
on’t always have to use a big hunting knife . . .”

  Ferguson reached over and grasped the blade. He held it up, twisting it in his hand so that it caught a small bit of gray light that forced its way through the window.

  “. . . No, sir. Not at all. I mean, you’d think this was the easiest way to cut out your heart, Mr. Cowart, but it really isn’t.”

  Ferguson continued to hold the knife up in front of him. “Who lives at 1215 Wildflower Drive, Mr. Cowart?”

  Cowart felt a surge of dizzying heat.

  “In that nice Tampa suburb. Rides that yellow school bus every day. Plays down in the park a couple of blocks distant. Likes to help her mother in with the groceries and watch her new baby brother. Of course, you wouldn’t care much about that little baby now, would you? And I don’t know how much you’d care about the mother, either. Divorce sometimes makes people just fill up with hate and so I can’t really tell your feelings about her one way or the other. But that little girl? Now, that’s a whole different matter.”

  “How do you know about . . .”

  “They were in the newspaper. After you won that prize,” Ferguson smiled at him. “And I like to do a bit of research every now and then. Finding out about them wasn’t too hard.”

  Cowart’s fear was complete. Ferguson continued to eye the reporter. “No, Mr. Cowart. I don’t think you’re going to write that story. I don’t think you’ve got the facts. I don’t think you’ve got the evidence. Isn’t that right, Mr. Cowart?”

  “I’ll kill you,” Cowart croaked.

  “Kill me? Whatever for?”

  “You go near . . .”

  “And what?”

  “I’m saying I’ll kill you.”

  “That’d do you a lot of good, wouldn’t it, Mr. Cowart? After the fact? Ain’t nothing matter much after something’s done, does it? You see, you’d still have that memory, wouldn’t you? It’d be there first thing in the morning, last thing at night. It’d be in every dream you had while you slept. Every thought you had while awake. It’d never leave you alone, would it, Mr. Cowart?”