Just Cause

'How're things in Eatonville?' he asked.

'Ha! You know, we're actually becoming something of a tourist trap, Tanny. Folks coming to visit because of all the attention we got because of the late Miz Hurston. Ain't gonna compete with Disney World or Key West, I guess, but it's kinda nice to see new faces around town.'

Brown tried to picture Eatonville. His friend had grown up there, its rhythms were in the locutions of his voice.- It was a small town, with a singular sense of order about it. Almost everybody who lived there was black. It had gained some notoriety in the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, its most prominent resident. When she had been discovered first by the academicians and then the film people, Eatonville had been discovered as well. But mostly, what it was, was a small town for black people, run by black people.

There was a small pause before Lucious Harris asked, 'So. You don't ever call me no more. Hard to tell we are friends. Then, of course, I see you got yourself a bunch of publicity, but it ain't the sort that folks naturally go out of their way to acquire, right?'

'That's true.'

'And now, some more time passes, and you're on the phone, but it ain't to talk about how come you ain't called. And it ain't to talk about anything other than something special, am I right?'

'Just taking a wild shot, Luke. Thought you might be able to help.'

'Well, let me hear it.'

Tanny Brown breathed in deeply and asked, 'Unsolved disappearances. Homicides. In the last year. Children, teenagers, girls. And black. Anything like that in your town?'

The policeman was quiet. Brown could feel a sense of constriction coming over the line.

'Tanny, why you asking me this now?'

'I just got…'

'Tanny, you tell me the straight truth. Why you calling me with this now?'

'Luke, I'm just shooting in the dark. I got a bad feeling about something, and I'm just poking around.'

'You poked something solid here, my man.'

Brown felt instantly frozen inside. 'Tell me,' he asked softly. He noticed that the booming voice on the other end of the line had tightened, narrowed, as if the words suddenly carried more freight.

'Wild child,' Harris said slowly. 'Girl named Alexandra Jones. Thirteen. Part of her still be eight, part of her eighteen. You know the type. One minute she be all sweetness and polite, come baby-sit for

5sus Harris and me, the next minute I sees her smoking a cigarette outside the convenience store, acting all grown-up and tough.'

'Sounds like my own daughters,' Brown said inadvertently.

Xo, your gals got a hold of something, and this little gal didn't. Anyway, she got some confusion and this makes her wild, you know. She starts to think this little town be too small for her. Run away once, her daddy go find her couple miles down the road, dragging along a little suitcase. Daddy be one of my patrolmen, so we all knows about it. Run away twice, and this time we find her all the way in Lauderdale, just outside, on Alligator Alley, thumbing rides from the semi drivers that passes that way. Trooper spots her, and they brings her home. Third time she run is three months back. Her momma and daddy driving every road they can to find her, figure this time she's heading north to Georgia where they got relatives and the gal's got a cousin she sweet on. Put out a BOLO. I talks to departments all over the state. Flyers out, you know the drill. Only she never shows in Georgia. Or Lauderdale or Miami or Orlando or any damn place. Where she shows is in Big Cypress swamp, where some hunters find her three weeks ago. Find what's left of her, which is just some bones. Picked clean by the sun and little animals and birds. Not a pretty sight. Gotta make ID through dental records. Cause of death? Multiple stab wounds, the M.E. figures, but only 'cause there are nicks and cuts in some of the bones. Not even that be conclusive. And not even any clothes laying about. Whoever done her stashed the clothes someplace else. I mean, it ain't too damn a mystery what happened to her, now, is it? But figuring out who did it be a different matter for sure.'

Brown said nothing. He heard Harris take a deep breath.

'… Ain't never gonna make this case, no sir. You know how many interviews we've logged on this one, Tanny? More'n three hundred. And that's been me and my chief of detectives, Henry Lincoln, you know him. A couple of major-crimes guys from the county put in some time, too. Don't mean shit. No witnesses, 'cause nobody saw her get picked up on the road. No forensics, 'cause there ain't hardly nothing left of her. No suspects, even though we ran profiles and rousted all the usual likely folks. No nothing. When you get right down to it, all we really gonna do is just help her folks try and understand and maybe go down to the church an extra time myself, see if a little prayer or two won't help. You know what I pray for, Tanny?'

'No,' he replied hoarsely.

'Tanny, I don't pray we make this guy. No, 'cause I don't even think the Almighty gonna be able to make this case. I just prays that whoever did it just come by Eatonville this one time, and that he heads on off to someplace new and some other town, someplace where someone sees 'im and they got mobile forensic teams and all that new scientific stuff, and where maybe he makes a mistake and gets hisself busted bad. That's what I prays for.'

The police captain was quiet, as if thinking.' 'Cause I figures that gal goes terrible, you know. Pain and fear, Tanny. Pain, fear, and terror something special, and no one wants to know about it.'

He paused again. 'And then you calls me with this question come out of the blue, and I'm wondering what you got that makes you ask this question of me.'

Silence gathered on the line.

'You know the man that came off the Row?' Brown said.

'Sure. Robert Earl Ferguson.'

'He ever been in Eatonville?'

Lucious Harris stopped. Brown could hear a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line before the big man said, I thought he was innocent. That's what the papers and TV says.'

'Has he ever been in Eatonville? Around the time that gal disappeared?'

'He was here,' Harris responded slowly.

Brown felt a half-grunt, half-groan escape between his lips. He realized his teeth were shut tight. 'When?'

'Not close time. Maybe three, four months back before little Alexandra disappeared. Gave a speech in a church. Hell, I went to see him myself. He was right interesting. Talked about Jesus standing by your side and giving you the light of day no matter how dark the world seems.'

'What about…'

'Stayed a couple of days. Maybe a Saturday, then a Sunday, then drove off. Back to some school, I heard. I don't think he was here when Alexandra Jones takes off. I'll check hotels and motels, but I don't know. Sure, he coulda come back. But what makes you think…'

Brown leaned forward at the desk, a throbbing behind his temples. 'Check for me, Luke. See if you can't put him in the area when the gal disappears.'

'I'll try. Ain't gonna do no good, I don't suspect. You saying he's not innocent?'

'I'm not saying nothing. Just check, will ya?'

'No problem, Tanny. I'll check. Then maybe we'll have a talk 'cause I don't like what I'm hearing in your voice, my friend.'

'I don't like it either,' Brown replied. He hung up the telephone.

He remembered Pachoula in the moments after Joanie Shriver disappeared. He could hear the sirens picking up, see the knots of people forming on the street corners, talking, then setting off in search. The first camera crews were there that night, not long after the first telephone calls from the newspapers had started to flood into the switchboard. A little white girl disappears while trying to walk home from school. It's a nightmare that strikes a vulnerability within everyone. Blonde hair. Smile. Wasn't four hours before that face was on the television. Every minute that passed made it worse.