Just Cause

Brown stepped forward, shouldering Cowart aside.

'Screw this. Screw you, Bobby Earl. I want you to come downtown with me. Let's go…'

'You arresting me?'

'Yeah. For the murder of Joanie Shriver. Again. For obstruction of justice for hiding those clothes in the outhouse. For lying under oath at your trial. And as a material witness in Bruce Wilcox's disappearance. That'll give us plenty to sort through.'

Tanny Brown's face seemed set in iron. His free hand went into a jacket pocket and emerged with handcuffs. He held his weapon toward Ferguson's face. 'You know the drill. Face the wall and spread.'

'You arresting me?' the killer said, taking a step back, his voice rising a pitch, moving closer to anger again. 'I already walked on that crime. The rest is bullshit. You can't do that!'

Tanny Brown raised the service revolver. 'Watch me,' he said slowly. His eyes burned toward Ferguson. 'You should never have let me find you, Bobby Earl, because it's all over for you. Right now. It's all ended.'

'You haven't got nothing on me.' Ferguson laughed coldly in response. 'If you had, you'd be here with some fucking army. Not just one damn reporter with a bunch of damn fool questions that don't amount to nothing.'

He spat the words out like obscenities.

'I'm going to walk free, Tanny Brown, and you know it.' He laughed. 'Walk free.'

But Ferguson's words contradicted a nervous shift in his body. His shoulders hunched forward, his feet moved wide, as if poised to receive a blow in a prize fight.

Tanny Brown saw the movement. 'Just give me the chance,' he said. 'You know I'd love it.'

'I'm not going with you,' Ferguson said. 'You got a warrant?'

'You're coming with me,' Brown insisted. His voice was even, furious. 'I'm going to see you back on Death Row. Hear? Where you belong. It's all over.'

'It's never over,' the killer responded, stepping back.

'Ain't nobody going nowhere,' cracked a brisk voice.

All three men pivoted toward the sound.

Cowart saw the twin barrels of the shotgun before the small, wiry body of Ferguson's grandmother came into view. The gun was leveled at Tanny Brown.

'Nobody going nowhere,' the old woman repeated. 'Least of all Death Row.'

Brown instantly moved his pistol, bringing it to bear on the woman's chest, crouching as he did so. She was wearing a ghostly white nightgown that fluttered around her figure when she moved. Her hair was pinned up, her feet bare. It was as if she'd stepped from the comfort of her bed into a nightmare. She cradled the shotgun under her arm, pointing it at the policeman, just as she had when she'd fired at Cowart.

'Miz Ferguson,' Tanny Brown said quietly, while holding himself in firing position. 'You got to put that weapon down.'

'You ain't taking this boy,' she said fiercely.

'Miz Ferguson, you got to show some sense…'

'I don't know nothing about showing sense. I know you ain't taking my boy.'

'Miz Ferguson, don't make things harder than they are.'

'Hard makes no difference to me. Life's been hard. Maybe dying's gone be easy.'

'Miz Ferguson, don't talk that way. Let me do my job.

It will all come right, you'll see.'

'Don't you sweet-talk me, Tanny Brown. You ain't brought nothing but trouble into this home.'

'No,' Brown said softly, 'it hasn't been me that brung the trouble. It's been your boy here.' He had slid immediately into rhythmic southernisms, as if trying to speak the same language to a confused foreigner.

'You and that damn reporter. I shoulda killed you before.' She turned toward Cowart and spat her words. 'You ain't brought nothing but hate and death with you.'

Cowart didn't reply. He thought there was some truth in what she said.

'No ma'am,' Brown continued, soothing. 'It ain't been me. And it ain't been him. You know who it's been that brought the trouble.'

Ferguson stepped to the side, as if measuring the shotgun blast's spread. His voice had a cruel, clear edge to it. 'Go ahead, Granmaw. Kill him. Kill 'em both.'

The old woman's face filled with a sudden surprise.

'Kill 'em. Go ahead. Do it now,' Ferguson continued, moving back toward the old woman.

Tanny Brown took a step forward, still ready to fire.

'Miz Ferguson, he said, I've known you a long time. You knew my folks and cousins and we went to church together once. Don't make me…'

She interrupted angrily. 'Y'all left me behind some years ago, Tanny Brown!'

'Kill 'em,' whispered the grandson, stepping next to her.

Brown's eyes switched toward Ferguson. 'You freeze! You son of a bitch! And shut up.'

'Kill them,' Ferguson said again.

'It's not loaded,' Cowart said abruptly.

He remained rooted in his spot, wanting desperately to dive for cover but incapable of ordering his body to respond to his fear. He thought: It's a guess. Try it.

'She used up her last shot on me the other day. It's not loaded,' he said.

The old woman turned toward him. 'You're a fool if'n you think that.' She stared coldly at the reporter. 'You gone bet your life I didn't have no fresh shells?'

Tanny Brown kept his pistol aimed at the woman. 'I don't want to shoot, he said.

'Maybe I do,' she replied. 'One thing's I know. You ain't taking my grandson again. Gone have to kill me first.'

'Miz Ferguson, you know what he's done…'

'I don't care what he's done. He's all I got left and I ain't gone let you take him away again.'

'Did you ever see what he did to that little girl?' Cowart asked suddenly.

'I don't care, she replied. 'No business of mine.'

'That wasn't the only one, Cowart said slowly. 'There have been others. In Perrine and Eatonville. Little black children, Miz Ferguson. He's killed them, too.'

'Don't know nothin' about no children, she answered, her voice quavering slightly.

'He killed my partner, too,' Tanny Brown said quietly, as if speaking the words loudly would cause whatever restraint he still had to shatter and break.

'I don't care. I don't care about none of that.'

Ferguson stepped behind his grandmother. 'Hold them there, Grandmaw,' he said. He-ducked away, down the house's central corridor.

'I'm not going to let him get away, Brown said.

'Then either I'm gonna shoot you, or you're gonna shoot me,' the old woman replied.

Cowart could see Brown's finger tighten on the trigger. He could also see the gunpoint waver slightly.

Silence like weak morning light filled the room. Neither the old woman nor Tanny Brown moved.

He won't do it, Cowart thought. If he was going to shoot her, he already would have. In the first moment, when he first saw the shotgun. He won't do it now.

Cowart looked over at the policeman and saw tidal surges pulling at the man's emotions.

Tanny Brown felt his insides squeeze together. Acid ill taste ruined his tongue. He stared across at the old woman and saw her wispy aged fragility and steel will simultaneously.

Kill her! he told himself.

Then: how can you?

It was all in balance in his head, weights furiously sliding back and forth.

Robert Earl Ferguson stepped back into the room. He was dressed now, a gray sweatshirt thrown over his head, hightop sneakers on his feet. He carried a small duffel bag in his hand.

He tried one last time. 'Kill 'em, Granmaw,' he said. But his voice lacked the conviction that he thought she might do what he demanded.

'You go,' she said icily. 'You go and don't ever come back.'

'Granmaw, he said. He spoke her name not with affection or sadness but a frustrated inconvenience.

'Not to Pachoula. Not to my house. Never again. Y'all too filled with some evil I can't understand. You go do it someplace different. I tried,' she said bitterly. 'I may not have been much good, but I tried my best. It'd been better if you'd a died young, not to bring all this wrong down here. So you take it and never bring it back. That's all I can give you now. You go now. Whatever happens now, after you leave my door, that's your business, no more mine. Understand?'