What did he learn on Death Row? she asked herself.
He learned to be a student.
Of what?
Of crime.
Why?
Because everyone else on Death Row had failed some test. They were all men who'd committed crime after crime, sometimes killing after killing, and finally ended up trapped and caught and awaiting the chair, because they'd screwed up. Even Sullivan screwed up.
She remembered a quotation from one of Matthew Cowart's stories: 'I'd of killed more if I hadn't been caught.' But Ferguson, she thought, got a second chance. And he's determined not to blow it this time.
Why?
Because he wants to keep doing whatever he's doing for as long as he wants.
Her head struggled with dizziness. She spoke to herself in the third person, trying to settle herself with familiar tones.
Ohmigod, Andy girl, what have you stumbled on?'
She tried to blank her mind and drove on into the night, searching for her motel. She let the road flow by outside the car, concentrating on nothing except finding a safe spot to order her thoughts. She stared up once into the rearview mirror, struck with the sudden panic that a car was tailing her, but she saw the headlights turn away. She gritted her teeth and drove through the rain steadily. When she saw the lights of the motel loom up in front of her, she felt a momentary relief, but she could find no parking spot near the front of the lot and was forced to swing her vehicle into a space some fifty yards and innumerable shadows from the lighted entrance. She shut off the engine and took a single deep breath, eyeing the distance she would have to travel. She had a sudden thought: It was easier in a uniform, driving a squad car. Always in touch with the dispatcher. Never really alone. Always part of a team of officers cruising the highways in regular fashion. She reached over and removed the nine-millimeter from her pocketbook. Then she got out of the car and walked directly to the front of the motel, eyes sweeping the area in front of her, ears sharpened for any sound behind her. Not until she was within a dozen feet of the doorway did she return the pistol to her pocketbook. An elderly couple bundled in overcoats, exiting the motel as she entered, must have seen the flash of dark metal with its unmistakable shape. She caught a snatch of their frightened conversation as she stepped past them. 'Did you see that? She had a gun…'
'No, dear, it must have been something else…'
And that was all.
A young man in a blue blazer was working behind the desk. She asked for her key and he handed it over, saying as he did, idly, 'Oh, there was a fellow looking for you earlier, Detective.'
'A fellow?'
'Yes. Didn't want to leave a message. Just asked for you.'
'Did you see the person?'
'No. It was the guy who had the desk before me.'
She could feel something within her trying to break loose. 'Did he say anything else? Like a description?'
'Ahh, yes. He said the gentleman was black. That's what he said. Some black fellow was asking about you, but didn't want to leave a message. Said he'd get in touch. That's all. Sorry, that's all I can remember.'
'Thank you,' she said.
She forced herself to walk slowly to the elevator.
How did he find me? she asked herself.
The elevator swooshed her upward and she padded down the corridor to her room. As before, she checked all the empty spots in the room after double-locking the doors. Then she sat heavily on the bed, trying to deal with the mundane, which was what she was going to do about getting supper, though she didn't feel particularly hungry, and the complicated, which was what she was going to do next about Robert Earl Ferguson.
When she pictured him, she tried to see him without the smirking look on his face but couldn't.
The knock at the door crashed through her fears.
It made her snatch her breath and rise in a single motion. She found herself frozen, staring at the door.
There was another sharp rap on it. Then a third.
She reached down once again, freeing the pistol from her handbag, cocked it, and approached the door, holding her finger on the outside of the trigger [guard, as she had been taught to do when uncertain what she was facing. There was a convex peephole on the door. She leaned toward it to see what was on the other side, but just as she did, another crash came against the door, and she jumped back.
She forced toughness onto her anxiety, reached for the door handle and in a single, swift motion, threw the dead bolts and tugged the door open. In the same moment, she raised her pistol to eye level, sighting down the barrel.
The door swung open and she saw Matthew Cowart.
He was standing in the hallway, hand half-raised to knock again. She saw his face freeze when he spied the weapon in her hand. Silence like a knife filled the space between them. He raised his hands slowly and then she saw that he was accompanied by two other men. She lowered the weapon.
'Cowart,' she said.
He nodded. 'That's quite a greeting,' he managed to croak out. 'Everyone seems to want to point guns at me lately.'
Her eyes slid to the other two men.
'I know you, she said. 'You were at the prison.'
'Wilcox,' the detective replied. 'Escambia County. This is my boss, Lieutenant Brown.'
She turned and stared at the hulking figure of Tanny Brown. He seemed to bristle with intensity, and she saw his eyes pausing for a moment on the pistol in her hand.
'I see,' he said slowly, 'that you've been to see Bobby Earl.'
22. Taking Notes
The three detectives and the solitary newspaperman took up uncomfortable positions in the motel room. Wilcox stood, back up against the wall, close to the windows, occasionally glancing out through the darkness at the headlights that trailed by, keeping his thoughts to himself. Shaeffer and Brown occupied the only chairs in the room, on either side of a small table, like poker players waiting for the final card to be dealt. Cowart perched uneasily on the edge of the bed, slightly apart. Someone in an adjacent room was playing a television loudly; voices from a news show filtered through the motel walls. Some tragedy, he thought, reduced to fifteen seconds, thirty if it is truly terrible, delivered with a practiced look of concern.
He glanced at Andrea Shaeffer. Although clearly surprised when she had opened the door on the three men, she had let them enter without comment. Introductions had been brief, small talk nonexistent. They were all aware of what had brought them together in a small room in an alien city. She shuffled a few notes and papers together, then turned to the three men and asked, 'How did you find me?'
'The local police liaison office told us,' Brown said. 'We checked in there when we arrived. They said they'd accompanied you to see Ferguson.'
Shaeffer nodded.
'Why did you do that?' Brown asked.
She started to answer, stopped, stared over at Cowart and then shook her head. 'Why are you here?' she demanded.
The reporter didn't want to answer that question, but Tanny Brown, speaking in measured, officious tones, replied, 'We're here to see Ferguson, too.' Shaeffer looked at the police lieutenant.
Why? I thought you were finished with him. And you, too,' she gestured at Cowart.
No. Not yet.'
Why?'
Again, Brown was the one to answer. 'We're here because we have reason to believe that there were errors made in the original prosecution of Ferguson. We think there may have been mistakes made in Mr. Cowart's stories. We're here to investigate both aspects.'