Just Cause

The door opened a little wider.

'Whatcha want now?'

'Where's Bobby Earl? I'd like to talk to him.'

'He went back north.'

'What?'

'He went back up to that school in New Jersey.'

'When did he leave?'

'Last week. There warn't nothing here for him, white boy. You know that as well as I do.'

'But what about his trial?'

'He didn't seem too concerned.'

'How can I get in touch with him?'

'He said he'd write when he got settled. That ain't happened yet.'

'Did anything happen here, in Pachoula? Before he left?'

'Not that he talked about. You got any more questions, Mr. Reporter?'

'No.'

Cowart stepped down from the porch and stared up at the house.

That afternoon, he called Roy Black.

'Where's Ferguson?' he demanded.

'In New Jersey. I got an address and phone, if y'all want it.'

'But how can he leave the state? What about the trial, his bail?'

'Judge gave him permission. No big deal. I told him it was better to get back on with his life, and he wanted to go on up and finish school. What's so strange about that? The state has to provide us with any new discovery material, and so far they haven't sent over anything. I don't know what they're gonna do, but I'm not expecting big things from them.'

'You think it's just going to slide?'

'Maybe. Go ask the detectives.'

Twill.'

'You got to understand, Mr. Cowart, how little those prosecutors want to get up and have their heads bashed in at trial. Public humiliation ain't high on the list for elected officials, you know. I suspect they'd find it a lot easier just to let a little bit of time flow by, so's people's memories get a bit hazy about the whole thing. Then get up and drop the charges at some cozy, little old conference back in the judge's chambers. Blame the whole failure on him for suppressing that statement. He'll turn right around and say it was the state's fault. And mostly the whole thing will dump on those two cops. Simple as that. End of story. That ain't so surprising now, is it? You've seen things just float on out of the criminal justice system before with nary a whimper?'

'From Death Row to zero?'

'You got it. Happens. Not too frequent, of course, but happens. Nothing here that I haven't seen or heard before.'

'Just pick up life, after a three-year hiatus?'

'Right again. Everything back to nice and quiet normal. Excepting of course one thing.'

'What's that?'

'That little girl is still dead.'

He called Tanny Brown.

'Ferguson's gone back to New Jersey. Did you know that?'

'It wasn't too much of a secret. The local paper did a story on his leaving. Said he wanted to continue his education. Told the paper he didn't think he could get a job here in Pachoula because of the way people looked at him. I don't know about that. I don't know if he even tried. Anyway, he left. I think he just wanted to get out of town before somebody did something to him.'

'Like who?'

'I don't really know. Some people were upset when he was released. Of course, some others weren't. Small town, you know. People divided. Most folks were pretty confused.'

'Who was upset?'

Tanny Brown paused before replying. 'I was upset. That's enough.'

'So, what happens now?'

'What do you expect to happen?'

Cowart didn't have an answer for that.

He did not write the story he intended. Instead, he went back to the editorial board and worked hard on upcoming local elections. He spent hours interviewing candidates, reading position papers, and debating with the other members of the board what the newspaper's positions should be. The atmosphere was heady, collegial. The wonderful perversities of local

South Florida politics, where issues like making English the official county language, or democracy in Cuba, or firearms control, provided infinite distractions. After the elections, he launched another series of editorials on water management throughout the Florida Keys. This required him to occupy his time with budget projections and ecological statements. His desk grew cluttered with sheets of paper, all covered with endless tables and charts. He had an odd thought, a pun: There's safety in numbers.

The first week in December, at a hearing before Judge Trench, the state dropped first-degree-murder charges against Robert Earl Ferguson. They complained to a small gathering of reporters that without the confession, there was little hard evidence to go on. There was a lot of posturing by both prosecutors and the defense team about how important the system was, and how no single case was more important than the rules of law that governed them all.

Tanny Brown and Bruce Wilcox were absent from the hearing.

I don't really want to talk about it right now,' Brown said when Cowart went to see him. Wilcox said, 'Jesus, I barely touched the man. Jesus. If I'd really hit him, you think he'd have no marks? You think he'd still be standing? Hell, I'd a ripped his head off. Damn.'

He drove through a humid evening, past the school, past the willow where Joanie Shriver had stepped out of the world. He stopped at the fork in the road, staring for an instant down the route the killer had taken before turning toward the Shriver house. He pulled in front and spotted George Shriver cutting a hedge with a gas-powered trimmer. The big man's body was wreathed in sweat when Cowart approached. He stopped, shutting down the motor, breathing in harsh gasps of air as the reporter stood by, notepad and pen poised.

'We heard,' he said softly. 'Tanny Brown called us, said it was official now. Of course, it didn't come as no surprise or anything. Yes sir, we knew it was going to happen. Tanny Brown once told us that it was all so fragile. That's the word I can't forget. I guess it just couldn't hold together no more, not after you started to look at it.'

Cowart stood before the red-faced man uncomfortably. 'Do you still think Ferguson killed your daughter? What about Sullivan? What about that letter he sent?'

'I don't know nothing anymore about it. I suspect it's as confused for the missus and me as it is for everyone else. But in my heart, you know, I still think he did it. I can't ever erase the way he looked at his trial, you know. I just can't forget that.'

Mrs. Shriver brought out a glass of ice water for her husband. She looked up at Cowart with a sort of curiosity in her eyes that was ridged with anger.