Just Cause

Then he hung the telephone up abruptly.

Cowart rose then from his seat. He decided to go to the men's room, where he spent several minutes running cold water over his wrists, trying to control the sudden heat that had overtaken him, and to slow his racing heart.

His ex-wife called him, too, one evening as he was Billing ready to leave work, the day after he had appeared on Nightline.

'Matty?' Sandy said. 'We saw you on the tube.'

Her voice had a sort of girlish excitement about it, which reminded him of the better times, when they'd been young, and their relationship hadn't been burdened. He was surprised to hear from her and pleased at the same time. He felt a sort of false modest delight.

'Hello, Sandy. How're you doing?'

'Oh, fine. Getting fat. Tired all the time. You remember how it was.'

Not really, he thought. He remembered he'd spent most of her pregnancy working fourteen-hour days on the city desk.

'What did you think?'

'It must have been exciting for you. It was a hell of a story.'

'Still is.'

'What's going to happen to those two men?'

'I don't know. I think Ferguson will get a new trial. The other…'

She interrupted. 'He scared me.'

'He's a pretty twisted man.'

'What will happen to him?'

'If he doesn't start filing appeals, the governor will sign a death warrant for him as soon as the state Supreme Court upholds his conviction. There's not much doubt they'll do that.'

'When will that happen?'

'I don't know. The court usually announces its decisions at several times, right up to the New Year. There'll be just a single line in the sheaf of decisions: In Re: The State of Florida versus Blair Sullivan. The judgment and sentence of the trial court is affirmed. It's all pretty bloodless until the governor's order arrives at the prison. You know, lots of papers and signatures and official seals and that sort of stuff, until it falls on somebody actually to have to juice the guy. The guards there call it doing the deathwork.'

'I don't think the world will be a lesser place when he's gone,' Sandy said with a small shudder in her voice.

Cowart didn't reply.

'But if he never owns up to what he did, what will happen to Ferguson?'

'I don't know. The state could try him again. He could get pardoned. He could sit on Death Row. All sorts of strange things can happen.'

'If they execute Sullivan, will anyone ever really know the truth?'

'Know the truth? Hell, I think we know the truth now. The truth is that Ferguson shouldn't be on Death Row. But prove the truth? That's a whole other thing. Real hard.'

'And what will happen to you now?'

'Same old stuff. I'll follow this story to the end. Then write some more editorials until I get old and my teeth fall out and they decide to turn me into glue. That's what they do to old racehorses and editorial writers, you know.'

She laughed. 'Come on. You're going to win a Pulitzer.'

He smiled. 'I doubt it,' he lied.

'Yeah, you will. I can feel it. Then they'll probably put you out to stud.'

'I should be so lucky.'

'You will be. You're going to win one. You deserve to. It was a hell of a story. Just like Pitts and Lee.'

She, too, remembered that story, he realized. 'Yeah. You know what happened to those guys after they got the judge to order up a new trial? They got convicted again, by a racist jury just as damn stupid as the first. It wasn't until the governor pardoned them that they got off Death Row. People forget that. Twelve years it took them.'

'But they got off and that guy won the Pulitzer.'

He laughed. 'Well, that's right.'

'You will, too. Won't take twelve years, either.'

'Well, we'll see.'

'Will you stay with the Journal?'

'No reason to leave.'

'Oh, come on. What if the Times or the Post calls?'

'We'll see.'

They both laughed. After a momentary pause, she said, 'I always knew someday you'd find the right story. I always knew someday you'd do it.'

'What am I supposed to say?'

'Nothing. I just knew you'd do it.'

'What about Becky? Did she stay up to watch me on Nightline?'

Sandy hesitated. 'Well, no. It's much too much past her bedtime

'You could have taped it.'

'And what would she have heard her daddy talk about? About somebody who murdered a little girl? A little girl who got raped and then stabbed, what was it, thirty-six times? And then tossed into a swamp? I didn't think that was too swift an idea.'

She was right, he realized, though he hated the thought. 'Still, I wish she'd seen.'

'It's safe here' Sandy said.

'What?'

'It's safe here. Tampa isn't a big city. I mean, it's big, but not big. It seems to move a little slower. And it's not at all like Miami. It's not all drugs and riots and weird, the way Miami is. She doesn't have to know about little girls that get kidnapped and raped and stabbed to death. Not yet, at least. She can grow up a bit, and be a kid, and not have to worry all the time.'

'You mean you don't have to worry all the time.'

'Well, is that wrong?'

'No.'

'You know what I can never understand? It's why everyone who works at the paper always thinks everything bad just happens to other people.'

'We don't think that.'

'It seems that way.'

He didn't want to argue. 'Well, maybe.'

She forced a laugh. 'I'm sorry if I've rained on your parade. Really, I wanted to call to congratulate you and tell you that I really was proud.'

'Proud but divorced.'

She hesitated. 'Yes. But amicably, I thought.'

'I'm sorry. That was unfair.'

'Okay.'

There was another pause.

'When can we talk about Becky's next visit?'

I don't know. I'll be hung up on this story until there's some sort of resolution. But when, I don't know.'

'I'll call you then.'