Cowart breathed in hard. '… And another thing.
When we show up there, that old grandmother of his will know that something's changed. And as soon as she knows, he'll know.'
Brown nodded but said harshly, I still want the answer.
'So do I' Cowart said, before continuing. 'But the
Monroe case. Well, if he did it – and I'm only saying if – he did it, you could make him on that.' He paused, then corrected himself. 'We could make him on that.
'And that might put things right? Put him back on Death Row, clear the slate? That what you're thinking?' 'Maybe. I hope so.'
'Hope,' said the detective, 'is something I have never placed much faith in. Like luck and prayer. And anyway,' he continued, shaking his head, 'same problem. One lying man says a deal's been made. But the only corroboration of that deal is dead in Monroe County. So; you think maybe we can find some weapon on Bobby Earl? Maybe he used a credit card to buy a plane ticket and rent a car, so we can place him down there on the day of the murder? You think he let someone see him? Or maybe he shot his mouth off to some other folks? You think he was so stupid that he left prints or hair or any damn bit of forensic evidence which your dear friends in the Monroe sheriff's department will generously hand over to you with no questions asked? You don't think he learned enough the first time around, so that he did this clean?' 'I don't know. I don't know that he did it.' 'If he didn't do it, then who the hell did? You think Blair Sullivan struck some other deals in prison?'
'I only know one thing. Making deals, running head games, manipulation, it was what he lived for.' 'And died for.'
'That's right. Maybe that was his last deal.' Brown relaxed in his seat. He picked up his pistol and twirled it around, stroking a finger across the blue metal. 'You stick to that, Mr. Cowart. You stick to that objectivity. No matter how goddamn stupid it makes you look.'
Cowart felt a sudden rush of anger. 'Not as goddamn stupid as someone beating a confession out of a murder suspect so the man gets a free ride.'
There was a brief quiet between the two men before the detective said, 'And there's that one other thing on the tape, right? Where Sullivan says "Someone just like me…" ' He looked hard at the reporter. 'Didn't that make your skin crawl just a bit, Mr. Cowart? What do you suppose that means?' The detective spoke through tightly clenched teeth. 'Don't you think that's a question we ought to answer?'
'Yes,' Cowart replied, bitterness streaking the word. Silence gripped the two men again.
'AH right,' Cowart said. 'You're right. Let's start.' He looked over at the policeman. 'Do we have an agreement?' 'What sort of agreement?'
'I don't know.'
Brown nodded. 'In that case, then, I suspect so,' replied the policeman.
Both men looked at each other. Neither believed the other for an instant. Both men knew they needed to find out the truth of what happened. The problem, each realized silently to himself, was that each man needed a different truth.
What about the Monroe detectives?' Cowart asked. Let them do their job. At least for now. I need to see what happened down there for myself.' They'll be back. I think I'm the only thing they've got to go on.'
Then we'll see. But I think they'll head back to the prison. That's what I'd do if I were them.' He pointed to the tape.'… And if I didn't know about that.'
The reporter nodded. 'A few minutes back you were accusing me of breaking the law.'
Brown rose and fixed the reporter with a single, fierce glance. Cowart glared back.
There's likely to be a few more laws broken before we get through with all this,' the policeman said quietly.
15. Standing Out
A burst of heat seemed to bridge the territory between the pale blues of the ocean and the sky. It wrapped them in a sticky embrace, squeezing the breath from their lungs. The two uneasy men walked slowly together, keeping their thoughts to themselves, their feet kicking up puffs of gray-white dust, crunching against the odd shells and pieces of coral that made up
Tarpon Drive. Neither man thought the other an ally; only that they were both engaged in a process that required the two of them, and that it was safest together. Cowart had parked his car adjacent to the house where he'd found the bodies. Then they'd begun walking door-to-door, armed with a photograph of Ferguson appropriated from the Journal's photo library.
By the third house, they'd established a routine: Tanny Brown flashed his badge, Matthew Cowart identified himself. Then they'd thrust the photo toward the inhabitants, with the single question, 'Have you seen this man before?'
A young mother in a thin yellow shift, her hair drooping in blonde curls around her sweat-damp forehead, had shushed her crying child, hitched the baby over to her hip, and shaken her head. A pair of teenage boys working on a dismantled outboard engine in the front of another yard had studied the picture with a devotion unseen in any schoolroom and then been equally negative. A huge, beer-gutted man, wearing oil-streaked jeans and a denim jacket with cut-off sleeves and a Harley Davidson Motorcycle patch above the breast had refused to speak with them, saying, 'I ain't talking to no cops. And I ain't talking to no reporters. And I ain't seen nothing worth telling.' Then he'd slammed the door in their faces, the thin aluminum of the frame rattling in the heat.
They moved on, working the street methodically. A few folks had questions for them. 'Who's this guy?' and 'Why're you asking?'
Cowart realized quickly that Brown was adept at turning an inquiry into a question of his own. If someone asked him, 'This got something to do with those killings down the street?' he would turn it back on the questioner, 'Do you know anything about what happened?'
But this question was greeted with blank stares and shaken heads.
Brown also made a point of asking everyone if the
Monroe Sheriff's Department had questioned them. They all replied that they had. They all remembered a young woman detective with a clipped, assured manner on the day the bodies were discovered. But no one had seen or heard anything unusual. They're all over it,' Tanny Brown mumbled. "Who?'
"Your friends from Monroe. They've done what I would've done.'
Cowart nodded. He looked down at the photograph in his hand but refused to put any words to the thoughts that seemed to lurk just beyond the glare of the day.
Sweat darkened the collar of the detective's shirt, Romantic, huh?' he grunted.
They were standing on the outside of a low, chain link fence that protected a faded aqua-colored trailer with an incongruous pink plastic flamingo attached with gray duct tape to the front door. The sun reflected harshly off the steel sides of the trailer, making the entire edifice glow. A single airconditioning unit, hanging from a window, labored against the temperature, clanking and whirring but continuing to operate.
Ten yards away, roped to a skew pole sunk into the hard-rock ground, a mottled brown pit bull eyed the two men warily. Matthew Cowart noticed that the dog had closed its mouth tight, despite the heat which should have caused its tongue to loll out. The dog seemed alert, yet not terrifically concerned, as if it was inconceivable to the animal that anyone would question its authority over the yard or trespass within its reach.
'What do you mean?' Cowart replied.
'Police work.' Brown looked over at the dog and then to the door. 'Ought to shoot that animal. Ever see what one of those can do to you? Or to a kid?'
Cowart nodded. Pit bulls were a Florida mainstay. In
South Florida, drug dealers used them as watchdogs.
Good old boys living near Lake Okeechobee raised them in filthy, illegal farms, training them for fights. Homeowners in dozens of tract developments, terrified of break-ins, got them and then acted surprised when they tore the face off some neighbor's child. He'd written that story once, after sitting in a darkened hospital room across from a pitifully bandaged twelve-year-old whose words had been muffled by pain and the inadequate results of plastic surgery. His friend Hawkins had tried to get the dog's owner indicted for assault with a deadly weapon, but nothing had come of it.