9. Death Warrant
Restless time flooded him.
He felt as if his life had become compartmentalized into a series of moments awaiting a signal to return to its normal continuity. He felt an annoying sense of anticipation, a nervous sort of expectation, but of precisely what he could not tell. He went to the prison on the day that Robert Earl Ferguson was released from Death Row in advance of his new trial, postponed by the judge until December. It was the first week in July, and the road to the prison sported makeshift stands selling fireworks, sparklers, flags, and red, white, and blue bunting, which hung limply from the whitewashed board walls. The Florida spring had fiercely fused into summer, the heat pounding on the earth with an endlessly patient fury, drying the dirt into a hard, cracked cement beneath his feet. Sheets of warmth wavered above the ground like hallucinations, surrounding him with a presence as strong as a New England blizzard in winter, and just as hard to maneuver in; the heat seemed to sap energy, ambition, and desire. It was almost as if the soaring temperatures slowed the entire rotation of the world.
A fitful crowd of sweating press waited for Ferguson outside the prison doors. The numbers of people gathered were thickened by members of anti-death-penalty groups, some of whom carried placards welcoming his release, and who had been chanting, 'One, two, three, End the Death Pen-al-ty. Seven, eight nine, End It for All Time' before the prisoner emerged from the prison. They broke into cheers and a smattering of applause when he came through the doors. Ferguson looked up briefly into the pale blue sky before stopping. He stood, flanked by his lanky attorney and his brittle, gray-haired grandmother. She glared at the reporters and cameramen who surged toward them, clinging with both arms to her grandson's elbow. Ferguson made a short speech, perched on the steps of the prison, so that he looked down at the crowd, saying that he believed his case showed both how the system didn't work and how it did. He said he was glad to be free. He said he was going to get a real meal first, fried chicken and greens with an ice-cream sundae with extra chocolate for dessert. He said he had no bitterness, which no one believed. He ended his speech by saying, I just want to thank the Lord for helping to show me the way, thank my attorney, and thank the Miami Journal and Mr. Cowart, because he listened when it seemed no one else would. I wouldn't be standing here before you today if it weren't for him.'
Cowart doubted that this final bit of speechmaking would make any of the nightly newscasts or show up in any of the other newspapers' stories. He smiled.
Reporters started to shoot questions through the heat.
'Are you going back to Pachoula?'
'Yes. That's my only real home.'
'What are your plans?'
'I want to finish school. Maybe go to law school or study criminology. I've got a real good understanding now of criminal law.'
There was laughter.
'What about the trial?'
'What can I say? They say they want to try me again, but 1 don't know how they can. I think I'll be acquitted. I just want to get on with my life, to get out of the public eye, you know. Get sort of anonymous again. It's not that I don't like you folks, but…
There was more laughter. The crowd of reporters seemed to swallow up the slight man, whose head pivoted with each question, so that he was facing directly at the person who asked it. Cowart noted how comfortable Ferguson appeared, handling the questions at the impromptu news conference with humor and ease, obviously enjoying himself.
'Why do you think they're going to prosecute you again?'
'To save face. I think it's the only way they can keep from acknowledging that they tried to execute an innocent man. An innocent black man. They would rather stick to a lie than face the truth.'
'Right on, Brother!' someone called from the group of demonstrators. 'Tell it!'
Another reporter had told Cowart that these same people showed up for every execution, holding candlelight vigils and singing 'We Shall Overcome' and 'I Shall Be Released' right up to the time the warden emerged to announce that the verdict and judgment of the court had been carried out. There was usually a corresponding group of flag-waving fry-'em-all types in jeans, white I-shirts, and pointy-toed cowboy boots, who hooted and hollered and engaged in occasional shoving matches with the anti-death-penalty bunch. They were not present on this day.
Both groups were generally ignored by the press as much as possible.
'What about Blair Sullivan?' a television reporter shouted, thrusting a microphone at Ferguson.
'What about him? I think he's a dangerous, twisted individual.'
'Do you hate him?'
'No. The good Lord instructs me to turn the other cheek. But I got to admit, sometimes it's hard.'
'Do you think he'll confess and save you from the trial?'
'No. The only confessing I think he's planning on doing is when he goes to meet his Maker.'
'Have you talked with him about the murder?' 'He won't talk to anybody. Especially about what he did in Pachoula.'
'What do you think about those detectives?' He hesitated. 'No comment,' he said. Ferguson grinned. 'My attorney told me that if I couldn't say something nice, or something neutral, to say "no comment." There you go.' There was more laughter from the reporters. He smiled nicely. There was a final blurring as cameramen maneuvered for a final shot and soundmen struggled with boom microphones and portable tape machines. The newspaper photographers bounced and weaved about Ferguson, the motordrives on their cameras making a sound like bugs on a still evening. The press surged toward Ferguson a last time, and he raised his hand, making a V-for-victory sign. He was steered into the backseat of a car, waving one last time through the closed window at the last photographers shooting their final pictures. Then the car pulled out, heading down the long access road, the tires kicking up little puffs of dust that hovered above the sticky black macadam highway. It soared past an inmate work crew, marching single file slowly in the heat, sweat glistening off the dark skin of their arms. Sunlight reflected off the shovels and pickaxes they carried on their shoulders as they headed toward their noontime break. The men were singing a work song. Cowart could not make out the words, but the steady rhythms filled him.
He took his daughter to Disney World the following month. They stayed in a room high in the Contemporary Hotel, overlooking the amusement park. Becky had developed a child's expertise about the place, mapping out each day's assault on the rides with the excitement of a successful general anxious to engage a beaten army. He was content to let her create the flow to the day. If she wanted to ride Space