Just Cause

The lieutenant finished his confession and waited for Cowart's reply. The reporter felt a sudden rush of success and decided to press his advantage. 'What's the policy with your department on taking weapons into interrogation rooms?'

'Simple. You don't. Check them with the sergeant on duty. Every cop knows that. Why?'

'Would you mind standing up for a moment.'

Brown shrugged and stood.

'Now, let me see your ankles.'

He looked surprised and hesitated. 'I don't get it.'

Indulge me, Lieutenant.'

Brown stared angrily at him. 'Is this what you want to see?' He lifted his leg, putting his shoe up on the desk, raising his trouser leg at the same time. There was a small, brown-leather ankle holster holding a snub-nosed.38-caliber pistol strapped to his calf.

The lieutenant lowered his leg.

'Now, you didn't point that weapon at Ferguson and tell him you were going to kill him if he didn't confess, did you?'

'No, absolutely not.' Cold indignation rode the detective's voice.

'And you never pulled the trigger on an empty chamber?'

'No.'

'So, how would he know about that gun if you hadn't shown it to him?'

Brown stared across the desk at Cowart, an ice-like anger behind his eyes. 'This interview is finished,' he said. He pointed at the door.

'You're wrong' Cowart said, rising. 'It's just beginning.'

5. Death Row Again

There is a zone reporters find, a space like the marksman's narrowing of vision down the barrel, past the sight and directly to the center of the target, where other considerations of life fade away, and they begin to see their story take shape within their imaginations. The gaps in the narrative, the prose holes that need information start to become obvious; like a gravedigger swinging shovels of soil on top of a coffin, the reporter fills the breaches in his story.

Matthew Cowart had reached that place.

He drummed his fingers impatiently on the linoleum-topped table, waiting for Sergeant Rogers to escort Ferguson into the interview room. His trip to Pachoula had left him energized with questions, suffused with answers. The story was half-settled in his mind, had been from the moment that Tanny Brown had angrily conceded that Ferguson had been slapped by Wilcox. That small admission had opened an entire vista of lies. Matthew Cowart did not know what precisely had happened between the detectives and their quarry, but he knew that there were enough questions to warrant his story, and probably to reopen the case. What he hungered for now was the second element. If Ferguson hadn't killed the little girl, then who had? When Ferguson appeared in the doorway, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lip, arms filled with legal folders, Cowart wanted to jump to his feet.

The two men shook hands and Cowart watched

Ferguson settle into the chair opposite him. 'I'm gonna be outside,' the sergeant said, closing the reporter and the convict in the small room. There was the audible click of a dead bolt lock. The prisoner was smiling, not with pleasure but with smugness, and for just a moment, as he measured the grin in front of him against the cold anger he had seen in Tanny Brown's eyes, Cowart felt a swaying within him. Then the feeling fled and Ferguson dropped his papers onto the tabletop, making a muffled thudding sound with their weight.

'I knew you'd be back,' Ferguson said. I knew what you'd find there.'

'And what do you think that was?'

'That I was telling the truth.'

Cowart hesitated, then sought to knock a bit of the prisoner's confidence astray. I found out you were telling some truths.'

Ferguson bristled instantly. 'What the hell do you mean? Didn't you talk to those cops? Didn't you see that cracker redneck town? Couldn't you see what sort of place it is?'

'One of those cracker cops was black. You didn't tell me that.'

'What, you think that just because he's the same color as me that automatically makes him okay? You think he's my brother? That he ain't as much a racist as that little worm partner of his? Where you been, Mr. Reporter? Tanny Brown's worse than the worst redneck sheriff you ever imagined. He makes all the Bulls and Bubbas and all those other Deep South cops look like a bunch of bleeding hearts from the ACLU. He's white right to his heart and soul and the only thing he hates worse than himself is folks his own color. You go ask around. Find out who the big head-banger in Pachoula is. People'd tell you it was that pig. I promise.'

Ferguson had snapped to his feet. He was pacing about the cell, pounding one fist into an open palm, the sharp slapping noise punctuating his words. 'Didn't you talk to that old alky lawyer who sold me out?'

'I talked to him.'

'Did you talk to my grandmother?'

'Yes.'

'Didn't you go over the case?'

'I saw they didn't have much.'

'Didn't you see why they had to have that confession?'

'Yes.'

'Didn't you read that confession?'

'I read it.'

'They beat me, those bastards.'

'They admitted hitting you once or twice…'

'Once or twice! Christ! That's nice. They probably said it was like some little love taps or something, huh? More like a little mistake than an actual beating, right?'

'That's pretty much what they implied.'

'Bastards!'

'Take it easy

'Take it easy! You tell me, how am I to take it easy? Those lying sons of bitches can just sit out there and say any damn thing they want. Me, all I've got are the walls and the chair waiting.'

Ferguson's voice had risen and his mouth opened again, but instead he grew silent and stopped abruptly in the middle of the room. He looked over at Cowart, as if trying to regain some of the cool that had dissipated so swiftly. He seemed to think hard about what he was going to say before continuing.

'Were you aware, Mr. Cowart, we were in a lockdown until this morning? You know what that means, don't you?' Ferguson spoke with obvious restraint clipped to his voice.

'Tell me.'

'Governor signed a death warrant. We all get locked down into the cells twenty-four hours a day until the warrant expires or the execution takes place.' 'What happened?'

'Man got a stay from the fifth circuit.' Ferguson shook his head. 'But he's running close to the edge. You know how it works. First you take all the appeals that stem from the case. Then you start in on the big issues, like the constitutionality of the death penalty. Or maybe the racial makeup of the jury. That's a real favorite around here. Keep arguing away at those. Try to come up with something new. Something all those legal minds haven't thought of yet. All the time, ticktock, ticktock. Time's running out.'

Ferguson walked back to his seat and sat carefully, folding his hands on the table in front of him. 'You know what a lockdown does to your soul? It makes it grow all frozen cold inside. You're trapped, feeling every tick of that damn clock like it was tapping at your heart. You feel as if it's you that's gonna die, because you know that someday they're gonna come and lock down the Row because that warrant's been signed with your name on it. It's like they're killing you there, slowly, just letting the blood drip out drop by drop, bleeding you to death. That's when the Row goes crazy. You can ask Sergeant Rogers, he'll tell you. First there's a lot of angry shouting and yelling, but that only lasts for a few minutes. Then a quiet comes over the Row. It's almost like you can hear the men sweating nightmares. Then something happens, some little noise will break it and pretty soon the silence gets lost because some of the men start yelling again, and others start screaming. One man, he screamed for twelve straight hours before he passed out. A lockdown squeezes all the sanity out of you, just leaves all the hate and madness. That's all that's left. Then they take you away.'