Just Cause

by John Katzenbach

  George Shriver leaned his head back, staring into the ceiling. He was breathing hard, sweating profusely, his white shirt rising and falling as he fought for breath and struggled with memories.

  His wife had grown quiet, but her eyes had reddened and her hands shook in her lap. “We ain’t special people, Mr. Cowart,” she said slowly. “George’s worked hard and made something of hisself, so that the kids would have it easier. George Junior is going to be an engineer. Anne is a whizbang at chemistry and the sciences. She’s got a chance to go on to medical school.” The woman’s eyes glistened with a sudden pride. “Can you imagine that? A doctor from our family. We’ve just worked hard so that they could be something better, you know.”

  “Tell me,” Cowart said carefully, “what you think about Robert Earl Ferguson.”

  There was a solid loud quiet while they collected their thoughts. He saw Betty Shriver take a deep breath before answering.

  “lt’s a hate that goes way beyond hate,” she said. “It’s an awful, unchristian anger, Mr. Cowart. It’s just a terrible black rage inside that never goes away.”

  George Shriver shook his head. “There was a time when I would have killed him myself, just so easy, I wouldn’t of thought about it no more than you would if you slapped a mosquito off’n your arm. I don’t know if that’s true for me anymore. You know, Mr. Cowart, this is a conservative community here. People go to church. Salute the flag. Say grace before they eat and vote Republican now that the Democrats have forgotten what they’re all about. I think if you were to grab ten folks off the street, they’d say, No, don’t give that boy the electric chair; send him back here and let us take care of him. Fifty years ago, he’d a been lynched. Hell, less than fifty. Things have changed, I think. But the longer it all goes on, the longer I think that it was us that got sentenced, not just him. Months pass. Years pass. He’s got all these lawyers working for him, and we find out about another appeal, another hearing, another something, and it brings it all back. We don’t ever get the chance to put it all behind us. Not that you can, mind you. But at least you ought to get the chance to put it someplace and get on with what’s left of your life, even if it is all sick and wrong now.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “It’s like we’re living in a kinda prison right alongside him.”

  After a few seconds, Cowart asked, “But you know what I’m doing?”

  “Yes, sir,” both husband and wife replied in unison.

  “Tell me what you know,” he asked.

  Betty Shriver leaned forward. “We know that you’re looking at the case. See if there wasn’t some unfairness connected to it. Right?”

  “That’s about as close as you could guess.”

  “What do you think was unfair?” George Shriver asked. This was spoken mildly, curiously, not angrily.

  “Well, that was my question for you. What do you think about what happened in the trial?”

  “I think the sonuvabitch got convicted, that’s what. . . .” he re­sponded, his voice rising quickly. But his wife put her hand on his leg and he seemed visibly to slow himself.

  “We sat through it all, Mr. Cowart,” Betty Shriver said. “Every minute. We saw him sitting there. You could see a sort of fear in his eyes, sir, a sort of desperate anger at everyone as it all happened. I’m told he hated Pachoula, and that he hated all the folks here, black and white, just the same. You could see that hatred every time he squirmed about in his seat. I guess the jury saw it, too.”

  “And the evidence?”

  “They asked him if he did it and he said yes. Now who would say that if’n it warn’t true? He said he did it. His own words. Damn his eyes. His own words.”

  There was another quiet then, before George Shriver added, “Well, of course, I was bothered that they didn’t have more on him. We talked to Tanny and Detective Wilcox for hours about all that. Tanny sat right where you’re sitting, night after night. They explained what happened. They explained that the case was shaky to begin with. So many lucky things happened to bring him to trial. Hell, they might never even have found Joanie, that was luck, too. I wished they’d had more evidence, yes sir. I did. But they had enough. They had the boy’s own words and that was good enough for me.”

  And there it is, Cowart thought.

  After a moment, Betty Shriver asked quietly, “Are you gonna write a story?”

  Cowart nodded and replied, “I’m still unsure exactly what kind of story.”

  “What’ll happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She frowned and persisted. “It’ll help him, won’t it?”

  “I can’t tell that,” he said.

  “But it could hardly hurt him, right?”

  He nodded again. “That’s true. After all, he’s on Death Row. What’s he got to lose?”

  “I’d like to see him stay there,” she said. She rose and gestured to him to follow her. They walked through a corridor, down a wing of the house. She paused in front of a door, putting her hand on the knob but not opening it. “I’d hoped he’d stay there until he goes to meet his maker. That’s when he’ll truly have to answer for all that hate that robbed us of our little girl. I wouldn’t want to have his life, no sir, not at all. But even more, I wouldn’t want to have his death. But you do what you have to do, Mr. Cowart. Just remember this.”

  She swung the door open.

  He looked inside and saw a girl’s bedroom. The wallpaper was pink and white and there was a fluffy ruffle around the bed. There were plush toys with large sad eyes, and two bright mobiles hanging from the ceiling. There were pictures of ballerinas and a large poster of Mary Lou Retton, the gymnast, on the walls. There was a bookcase stuffed with books. He saw some titles: Misty of Chincoteague, Black Beauty, and Little Women. There was a funny picture of Joanie Shriver wearing outlandish makeup and dressed like a roaring-twenties flapper on the bureau top. Next to that was a box filled to overflowing with brightly colored costume jewelry. In the corner of the room was a large dollhouse filled with small figures and a fluffy pink boa hanging over the edge of the bed.

  “That’s the way it was the morning she left us forever. It’ll always be that way,” she said. Then the murdered girl’s mother turned abruptly, her eyes filling, sobs summoned from her heart. For an instant she faced the wall, her shoulders heaving. Then she walked away unsteadily, disappearing through another door, which closed behind her, but not tight enough to obscure the painful weeping which filled the house. Cowart looked back toward the living room and saw the murdered girl’s father sitting, staring blankly ahead, tears flooding down his own cheeks, incapable of moving. He wanted to shut his own eyes, but instead found himself looking with terrified fascination at the little girl’s room. All the little-girl items, knickknacks, and decorations leapt out at him, and for an instant he thought he couldn’t breathe. Each sob from the mother seemed to press on his own chest. He thought he might pass out, but instead he turned away from the room, knowing he would never forget it, and jerked his head toward Detective Wilcox. For an instant, he tried to apologize and to thank George Shriver, but he realized his words were as empty as their agony. So, instead, tiptoeing like some burglar of the soul, he quietly showed himself out the door.

  Cowart sat wordlessly in Lieutenant Brown’s office. Detective Wilcox was seated behind the desk, pawing through a large file marked “SHRIVER,” ignoring the reporter. They had not spoken since leaving the house. Cowart looked out the window and saw a large oak tree bend with a sudden breeze, its leafy branches tossing about as if unsettled, then slowly returning to position.

  His reverie was interrupted when Wilcox found what he was searching for, and tossed a yellow manila envelope on the desk in front of him.

  “Here. I saw you take a nice long look at that pretty picture of Joanie Shriver on the wall at her house. Thought maybe you’d like to see what she
looked like after Ferguson got finished with her.”

  There no longer was any pretense to the detective’s tones. Every word seemed tied down with barely adequate restraints.

  He picked up the packet without replying and slid the photographs out. The worst was the first: Joanie Shriver was stretched out on a slab in the medical examiner’s office before the start of the autopsy. Dirt and blood still marred her features. She was naked, her little girl’s body just starting to show the signs of adulthood. He could see slash marks and stab wounds across her chest, slicing down at the budding breasts. Her stomach and crotch, too, were punctured in a dozen spots by the knife. He stared on, wondering whether he would get sick, staring instead at the girl’s face. It seemed puffy, the skin almost sagging, the result of hours spent submerged in the swamp. He thought for an instant about many bodies he’d seen at dozens of crime sites, and of hundreds of autopsy photos from trials he had covered. He looked back at the remains of Joanie Shriver and saw that despite all the evil done to her, she had retained her little girl’s identity. Even in death it was locked into her face. That seemed to pain him even more.

  He started to flip through the others, mostly scene pictures that showed how she appeared after being pulled from the swamp. He saw as well the truth to what Bruce Wilcox had said. There were dozens of muddy footprints around the body. He continued looking through the pictures, finding more signs of the contamination of the murder location, only looking up when the door opened behind him, and he heard Wilcox say, “Christ, Tanny, what took you so long?”

  He stood up, turning, and his eyes met Lieutenant Theodore Brown’s.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Cowart,” the policeman said, extending his hand.

  Cowart grasped it, at a loss for words. He took in the policeman’s appearance in a second: Tanny Brown was immense, linebacker-size, well over six feet, broad-shouldered, with long, powerful arms. His hair was cropped close, and he wore glasses. But mostly what he was was black, a resonating, deep, dark onyx.

  “Something wrong?” Tanny Brown asked.

  “No,” Cowart replied, recovering. “I didn’t know you were black.”

  “What, you city boys think we’re all crackers like Wilcox up here in the panhandle?”

  “No. Just surprised. Sorry.”

  “No problem. Actually,” the policeman continued in his steady, unaccented voice, “I’m used to the surprise factor. But if you were to go to Mobile, Montgomery, or Atlanta, you’d find many more black faces wearing policeman’s uniforms than you would expect. Things change. Even the police, though I doubt you’d believe that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Brown continued, speaking simply and clearly, “the only reason you’re here is if you believe the crap that murdering bastard and his attorneys have told you.”

  Cowart didn’t reply. He merely took his seat and watched as the lieutenant took over the chair that Wilcox had occupied. The detective grabbed a folding chair and sat down next to the lieutenant.

  “Do you believe it?” Brown asked abruptly.

  “Why? Is it important for you to know what I believe?”

  “Well, could make things simpler. You could tell me yes, you believe that we beat the confession out of that kid, and then we wouldn’t really have much to talk about. I’d say, No, we didn’t, that’s absurd, and you could write that down in your little notebook and that would be the end of it. You’d write your story and whatever happens happens.”

  “Let’s not make it simple,” Cowart replied.

  “I didn’t think so,” Brown answered. “So what do you want to know?”

  “I want to know everything. From the beginning. And especially I want to know what made you pick up Ferguson and then I want to know about that confession. And don’t leave anything out. Isn’t that what you’d say to someone whose statement you were about to take?”

  Tanny Brown settled his large body into the chair and smiled, but not because he was pleased. “Yes, that’s what I would say,” he answered. He spun about in the chair, thinking, but all the time eyeing Cowart steadily.

  “Robert Earl Ferguson was at the top of the short list of prime suspects from the first minute the girl was discovered.”

  “Why?”

  “He had been a suspect in other assaults.”

  “What? I’ve never heard that before. What other assaults?”

  “A half-dozen rapes in Santa Rosa County, and over the ’Bama border near Atmore and Bay Minette.”

  “What evidence do you have that he was involved in other assaults?”

  Brown shook his head. “No evidence. He physically fit the best description we could piece together, working with detectives in those communities. And the rapes all corresponded to times when he was out of school, on vacation, visiting that old grandmother of his.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “And that’s it.”

  Cowart was silent for an instant “That’s it? No forensic evidence to tie him to those assaults? I presume you did show his picture to the women.”

  “Yes. Nobody could make him.”

  “And the hair you found in his car—the one that didn’t match Joanie Shriver’s—you ran comparisons with the victims in those other cases?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “No matchups.”

  “The modus operandi in the other attacks was the same as in the Shriver abduction?”

  “No. Each of the other cases had some similarities, but aspects that were different as well. A gun was used to threaten the victims in a couple of cases, a knife in others. A couple of women were followed home. One was out jogging. No consistent pattern that we could determine.”

  “Were the victims white?” Cowart asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Were they young, like Joanie Shriver?”

  “No. They were all adults.”

  Cowart paused, considering, before continuing his questions.

  “You know, Lieutenant, what the FBI statistics on black-on-white rape are?”

  “I know you’re going to tell me.”

  Cowart surged on. “Less than four percent of the cases reported nationwide. It’s a rarity, despite all the stereotyping and paranoia. How many black-on-white cases have you had in Pachoula before Robert Earl Ferguson?”

  “None that I can recall. And don’t lecture me about stereotypes.” Brown eyed Cowart. Wilcox shifted about in his seat angrily.

  “Statistics don’t mean anything,” he added quietly.

  “No?” Cowart asked. “Okay. But he was home on vacation.”

  “Right.”

  “And nobody liked him much. That I’ve learned.”

  “That’s correct. He was a snide rat bastard. Looked down at folks.”

  Cowart stared at the policeman. “You know how silly that sounds? An unpopular person comes to visit his grandmother and you want to make him on rape charges. No wonder he didn’t like it around here.”

  Tanny Brown started to say something angry in reply, but then stopped. For a few seconds he simply watched Cowart, as if trying to burrow into him with his eyes. Finally he replied, slowly, “Yes. I know how silly it sounds. We must be silly people.” His eyes had narrowed sharply.

  Cowart leaned forward in his chair, speaking in his own, steady, unaffected voice. You’ve got no edge on me, he thought.

  “But that’s why you went to his grandmother’s house first, looking for him?”

  “That’s right.”

  Brown started to say something else, then closed his mouth abruptly. Cowart could feel the tension between the two of them and knew, in that moment, what the lieutenant had been prepared to say. So he said it for him. “Because you had a feeling, right? That old policeman’s sixth sense. A suspicion that you had
to act on. That’s what you were about to say, right?”

  Brown glared at him.

  “Right. Yes. Exactly.” He stopped and looked over at Wilcox, then back at Cowart. “Bruce said you were slick,” he spoke quietly, “but I guess I had to see it for myself.”

  Cowart eyed the lieutenant with the same cold glance that he was receiving. “I’m not slick. I’m just doing what you would do.”

  “No, that’s incorrect,” Brown said acidly. “I wouldn’t be trying to help that murdering bastard off of Death Row.”

  The reporter and the policeman were both silent.

  After a few moments, Brown said, “This isn’t going right.”

  “That’s correct, if what you want is to persuade me that Ferguson’s a liar.”

  Brown stood up and started pacing the floor, obviously thinking hard. He moved with a rugged intensity, like a sprinter coiled at the starting line, waiting for the starter’s gun to sound, the muscles in his body shifting about easily, letting Cowart know all the time that he was not a person who enjoyed the sensation of being confined, either in the small room or by details.

  “He was wrong,” the policeman said. “I knew it from the first time I saw him, long before Joanie was killed. I know that’s not evidence, but I knew it.”

  “When was that?”

  “A year before the murder. I rousted him from the front of the high school. He was just sitting in that car, watching the kids leave.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Picking up my daughter. That’s when I spotted him. Saw him a few times after that. Every time, he was doing something that made me uncomfortable. Hanging in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Or driving slowly down the street, following some young woman. I wasn’t the only one that noticed it. A couple of the Pachoula patrolmen came to me saying the same. He got busted once, around midnight, right behind a small apartment building, just standing around. Tried to hide when the squad car rolled past. Charges got dropped right away. But still . . .”