He paused. 'Well, actually, we found one thing, but it didn't help none.'
'What was that?'
'A single pubic hair. Trouble was, it didn't match up with Joanie Shriver's. But it wasn't Ferguson's neither.'
Cowart shook his head. He could feel the heat, the closeness of the air suffocating him. 'If he confessed, why didn't he tell you where the clothes were? Why didn't he tell you where he hid the knife? What's the point of a confession unless you get all the details straight?'
Wilcox glared at Cowart, reddening. He started to say something, but then chewed back his words, leaving the questions hanging in the still, hot air of the clearing. 'Let's go,' he said. He turned and started to make his way out of the location, not looking back to see if Cowart was following. 'We got someplace we gotta be.'
Cowart took one last lingering look at the murder site. He wanted to sear it into his memory. Feeling a mixture of excitement and disgust, he trailed after the detective.
The detective pulled the unmarked car to a stop in front of a small house more or less like all the other houses in that block. It was single-storey, white, cinder block, with a well-cropped lawn and an attached garage. A red-brick walkway led down to the sidewalk. Cowart could see a patio area stretching around the back, a black kettle grill on one side. A tall pine tree shaded half the house from the day's heat, throwing a large shadow across the front. He did not know where they were or why they had stopped, so he turned away from the house and looked at the detective.
'Your next interview, Wilcox said. He had been quiet since they'd left the crime scene and now a tinge of harshness had crept into his voice. 'If you're up for it.'
'Whose house is it?' Cowart asked uneasily.
'Joanie Shriver's.'
Cowart took a deep breath. 'That's…'
'That's where she was heading. Never got there.' He glanced down at his watch. 'Tanny told them we'd be here by eleven and we're a bit late, so we'd better get a move on. Unless…'
'Unless what?'
'Unless this is an interview you don't want to do.'
Cowart looked at the detective, up at the house, then back to the detective. I get it,' he said. 'You want to see how sympathetic I am to them, right? You already figured out I'm going to be real easy on Robert Earl Ferguson, so this is part of some test, right?'
The detective turned away.
'Right?'
Wilcox spun in the seat and stared at him. 'What you haven't figured out yet, Mr. Cowart, is that son of a bitch killed that little girl. Now, you want to see what that really means, or not?'
'I generally schedule my own interviews' Cowart replied, more pompously than he wanted.
'So, you want to go? Come back maybe when it's more convenient?'
He sensed that was what the detective wanted.
Wilcox wanted immensely to have every reason in the world to hate him, and this would be a good one to start with.
'No,' Cowart said, opening the car door. 'Let's talk to the people.'
He slammed the car door behind him and walked quickly up the pathway, then rang the doorbell as Wilcox chased after him. For an instant he heard shuffling noises from behind the door, then it swung open. He found himself staring into the face of a middle-aged woman who had an unmistakable housewife's look. She wore little makeup but had spent time fixing her light brown hair that morning. It haloed her face. She wore a simple tan housedress and sandals. Her eyes were bright blue and for a moment, Cowart saw the little girl's chin, cheeks, and nose in the mother's face, looking at him expectantly. He swallowed the vision and said, 'Mrs. Shriver? I'm Matthew Cowart, from the Miami Journal. I believe Lieutenant Brown told you…'
She nodded and interrupted him. 'Yes, yes, please come in, Mr. Cowart. Please, call me Betty. Tanny said Detective Wilcox would be bringing you around this morning. You're doing a story about Ferguson, we know. My husband's here, please, we would like to talk with you.'
Her voice had an easygoing pleasantness to it that failed to conceal her anxiety. She clipped off her words carefully, he thought, because she doesn't want to lose them to emotion quite yet. He followed the woman into the house, thinking: But she will.
The murdered girl's mother led Cowart down a small hallway and into the living room. He was aware that Wilcox was trailing behind, but he ignored him. A bulky, large-bellied, balding man rose from a reclining chair when he entered the room. The man struggled for a moment to push himself out of the seat, then stepped forward to shake Cowart's hand. 'I'm George Shriver, he said. 'I'm glad we had this opportunity.'
Cowart nodded and quickly glanced around, trying to lock details to his memory. The room, like the exterior, was trim and modern. The furniture was simple, colorful prints were hung on the walls. It had a cozy haphazardness to it, as if each item in the room had been purchased independently from the others, solely because it was admired, not necessarily because it could match up with anything else. The overall impression was slightly disjointed but exceptionally comfortable. One wall was devoted to family photos, and Cowart's eyes fell on them. The same photograph of Joanie he'd seen at school hung in the center of the wall, surrounded by other shots. He noted an older brother and sister, and the usual family portraits.
George Shriver followed his eyes. 'The two older kids, George Junior and Anne, are away at school. They're both at the University of Florida. They probably would have wanted to be here,' he said.
'Joanie was the baby,' said Betty Shriver. 'She'd have been getting ready for high school.' The woman caught her breath suddenly, her lip quivering. Cowart saw her struggle and turn away from the photographs. Her husband reached out a huge, chunky hand and gently steered her over to the couch, where she-sat down. She immediately rose, asking, 'Mr. Cowart, please, where are my manners? Can I get you something to drink?'
'Ice water would be nice,' Cowart replied, turning away from the photographs and standing next to an armchair. The woman disappeared for a moment. Cowart asked George Shriver an innocuous question, something to dispel the pall that had fallen over the room.
'You're a city councilman?'
'Ex,' he replied. 'Now I just spend my time down at the store. I own a couple of hardware stores, one here in Pachoula, another down on the way to Pensacola. Keeps me busy. Especially right now, waiting on the spring.'
He paused, then continued. 'Ex-councilman. Used to be I was interested in all that, but I kinda fell out of it when Joanie was taken from us, and we spent so much time with the trial and all, and it just sort of slipped away, and I never got back into it again. That happened a lot. If'n we hadn't had the others, George Junior and Anne, I suspect we would have just stopped. I don't know what might have happened to us.'
Mrs. Shriver returned and handed Cowart a glass of ice water. He saw that she had taken a moment to compose herself.
'I'm sorry if this is difficult for you,' he said.
'No. Rather speak our feelings than hide them,' replied George Shriver. He sat down on the couch next to his wife, throwing his arm around her. 'You don't never lose the pain,' he said. 'It maybe gets a bit duller, you know, like it's not so sharp so it's pricking at you all the time. But little things bring it back. I'll just be sitting in the chair, and I'll hear some neighbor's child's voice, way outside, and for just an instant, I'll think it's her. And that hurts, Mr. Cowart. That's real pain. Or maybe I'll come down here in the morning to fix myself coffee, and I'll sit here staring at those pictures, just like you did. And all I can think of is that it didn't happen, no sir, that she's gonna come bouncing out of her room, just like she always did, all morning sunshine and happiness and ready to jump right into the day, sir, because that's the sort of child she was. Just all golden.'