Just Cause

Cowart dialed the telephone in his room and within a few minutes was connected with the city desk at the Miami Journal. He asked for Edna McGee, the courthouse reporter who'd covered Sullivan's conviction and sentencing. The telephone played Muzak momentarily before she came on the line.

'Hey, Edna?'

'Matty? Where are you?'

'Stuck in a twenty-buck-a-night motel in Starke, trying to get it all figured out.'

'You'll let me know if you do, huh? So, how's the story going? Rumors all over the newsroom that you're on to something real good.'

'It's going along.'

'That guy really kill that girl or what?'

'I don't know. There's some real questions. Cops even admitted hitting him before getting the confession. Not as bad as he says they did, of course, but still, you know.'

'No kidding? Sounds good. You know, even the smallest little bit of coercion should cause a judge to throw out the man's confession. And if the cops admitted lying, even a little, well, watch out.'

'That kinda bothers me, Edna. Why would they admit hitting the guy? It can't help them.'

'Matty, you know as well as I that cops are the world's worst liars. They try and it just screws them up. They get all turned around. It's just not in their natures. So, finally, they end up telling the truth. You just got to hang in there long enough, keep asking the questions. Eventually, they'll always come around. Now, how can I help you?'

'Blair Sullivan.'

'Sully? Whew, now that's interesting. What's he got to do with all this?'

'Well, his name came up in a kind of unusual context. I can't really talk about it.'

'C'mon. Tell me.'

'Give me a break, Edna. As soon as I'm certain, you'll be the first.'

'Promise?'

'Sure.'

'Double-promise?'

'Edna. C'mon.'

'Okay. Okay. Blair Sullivan. Sully. Jesus. You know, I'm a liberal, but that guy, I don't know. You know what he made that girl do, before killing her? I never put it into a story. I couldn't. When the jurors heard it, one of them got sick, right in the jury box. They had to take a recess to clean up the mess. After she'd watched her boyfriend bleed to death, Sully made her bend down and…'

'I don't want to know,' Cowart interrupted.

The woman on the phone fell abruptly into silence. After a moment, she asked, 'So, what do you want to know?'

'Can you tell me about his route south?'

'Sure. The tabloids called it "The Death Trip." Well, it was pretty well documented. He started out by killing his landlady in Louisiana, outside of New Orleans, then a prostitute in Mobile, Alabama. He claims he knifed a sailor in Pensacola, some guy he picked up in a gay bar and left in a trash heap, then…'

'When was that?'

'It's in my notes. Hang on, they're in my bottom drawer.' Matthew Cowart heard the telephone being put down on the desktop and could just make out the sounds of drawers being opened and then slammed shut. 'I found it. Hang on. Here it is. Should have been late April, early May at the latest, right when he crossed over into the Sunshine State.'

Then what?'

'Still heading downstate slowly. Incredible, really. APBs in three states, BOLOs, FBI flyers with his picture, NCIC computer bulletins. And nobody spots him. At least, not nobody who lived. It was end of June before he reached Miami. Must have taken him a long time to wash all the blood off his clothes.'

'What about cars?'

'Well, he used three, all stolen. A Chevy, a Mercury, and an Olds. Just abandoned them and hot-wired something new. Kept stealing plates, you know, that sort of thing. Always picked nondescript cars, real dull, not-the-type-to-get-attention cars. Said he always drove the speed limit, too.'

'When he first came to Florida, what was he driving?'

'Wait. I'm checking my notebook. You know, there's a guy at the Tampa Tribune trying to write a book about him? Tried to go see him, but Sully just kicked him out. Wouldn't talk to him, I heard from the prosecutors. I'm still checking. He's fired all his lawyers, you know that? I think he'll check out before the end of the year. The governor's got to be getting writer's cramp he must be so anxious to sign a death warrant for Sully. Here it is: brown Mercury Monarch."

'No Ford?'

'No. But you know, the Mercury's just about the same car. Same body, same design. Easy to get them mixed up.'

'Light brown?'

'No, dark.'

Cowart breathed in hard. It fits, he thought.

'So, Matty, gonna tell me what this is all about?'

'Let me just check a few things, then I'll let you know.'

'Come on, Matty. I hate not knowing.'

'I'll get back to you.'

'Promise?'

'Sure.'

'You know the rumors are just gonna get worse around here?'

'I know.'

She hung up the phone, leaving Matthew Cowart alone. The room about him filled quickly with fearsome thoughts and terrifying explanations: Ford into Mercury. Green into brown. Black into white. One man into another.

'I don't properly understand it, but you're in luck, boy,' Sergeant Rogers said jovially, his voice betraying no sign of the early hour.

'How so?'

'Mr. Sullivan says he'll see you. Sure would piss off that guy from Tampa who was here the other week. Wouldn't see him. Sure would piss off all the damn lawyers who've been trying to get in to see Sully, too. He won't see them, neither. Hell, the only folks he sees are a couple of shrinks that the FBI sent down from the Behavioral Sciences Unit. You know, the boys that study mass murderers. And I think the only reason he sees them is so that none of the damn lawyers can file papers claiming he's incompetent and get a court order to handle his appeals. Did I tell you Mr. Sullivan is one unique fellow?'

'I'll be damned,' Cowart said.

'No, he will, to be sure. But that's not our concern, now, is it?'

'I'll be right over.'

Take your time. We don't move Mr. Sullivan without a bit of caution, mind you. Not since nine months ago when he jumped one of the Row guards outside the shower and chewed the man's ear clean off. Said it tasted good. Said he'd of eaten the man's whole head if we hadn't pulled him off the top. That's Sully for you.'

'Why'd he do that?'

The man called him crazy. You know, nothing special. Just like you'd say to your old lady, Hey, you're crazy to want to buy that new dress. Or you'd say to yourself, I'm crazy to want to pay my taxes on time. Like no big deal, huh? But it sure was the wrong damn word to use with Sullivan, all right. Just, bam! And he was on top of that man, chewing away like some sort of mongrel dog. The guy he took after, too, had to be twice his size. Didn't make no difference. And there they were rolling about, blood flying all over and the man screaming all the time, get offa me, you crazy sonuvabitch. Course it didn't make Sully do anything except fight harder. We had to pry him off with nightsticks, cool him down in the hole for a couple of months. I imagine it was that word, though, got it all started, kept it all going. It was just like pulling the man's trigger, he exploded so quick. Taught me something. Taught everyone on the Row something. To be a bit more cautious about the words we use. Sully, well, I gather he's very concerned about vocabulary.'

Rogers paused, letting a momentary silence slip into the air. Then he added, 'So's the other guy, now.'

Cowart was escorted by a young, gray-suited guard who said nothing and acted as if he were accompanying some disease-bearing organism down a whitewashed corridor filled with glare from sunlight pouring through a bank of high windows, placed beyond anyone's reach. The light made the world seem fuzzy and indistinct. The reporter tried to clear his mind as they walked. He listened to the tapping of their soles on the polished floor. There was a technique he used, a blanking-out where he tried not to think of anything, not to envision the upcoming interview, not to remember other stories he'd written or people he knew, anything at all; he wanted to exclude every detail and become a blotter, absorbing every sound and sight of the event that was about to happen.