Just Cause

by John Katzenbach

  Shaeffer was quiet. She felt caught between two different whirlpools.

  Weiss spoke quickly. “One other little detail. Real intriguing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sullivan left a handwritten will.”

  “A will?”

  “That’s right. Quite an interesting piece of paper. It was written right over a couple of pages of the Bible. Actually, the Twenty-third Psalm. You know, Valley of Death and Fearing No Evil. He just wrote it in a black felt-tip pen right over the text, then stuck a marker between the pages. Then he wrote a note, which he stuck on top of the box, saying, ‘Please read the marked passage . . .’”

  “What’s it say?”

  “He says he wants all his stuff left to a prison guard. A Sergeant Rogers. Remember him? He’s the guy who wouldn’t let us see Sully before the execution. The one that ushered Cowart into the prison.”

  “Is he . . .”

  “Here’s what Sullivan wrote: ‘I leave all my earthly possessions to Sergeant Rogers, who . . . ,’ get this, ‘. . . came to my aid and comfort at such a critical moment, and whom I could never repay for the difficult services he’s performed. Although I’ve tried.’ . . .” Weiss paused. “How do you like that?”

  Shaeffer nodded, although her partner couldn’t see her head move. “Makes for an interesting combination of events.”

  “Yeah, well guess what?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The good sergeant had two days off three days before Cowart found those bodies. And you know what else he’s got?”

  “What?”

  “A brother who lives in Key Largo.”

  “Well, damn.”

  “Better than that. A brother with a record. Two convictions for breaking and entering. Did eleven months in county lockup on an assault charge—that was some barroom beef—and arrested once for illegal discharge of a weapon, to wit, a three-fifty-seven Magnum pistol. Charge dropped. And it gets a little better. Remember your crime-scene analysis? The brother’s left-handed, and both of the old folks’ throats were cut slicing right to left. Interesting, huh?”

  “Have you spoken with him?”

  “Not yet. Thought I’d wait for you to get here.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it. But one question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, how come he didn’t get rid of Sullivan’s stuff after the execution? I mean, he had to figure if Sullivan was going to double-cross him, that would be where he would leave the message, right?”

  “I thought of that, too. Doesn’t exactly make sense for him to leave those boxes laying about. But maybe he’s not that smart. Or maybe he didn’t figure Sully for quite the character he is. Or maybe it just slipped his mind. But it sure was a big slip.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll get there.”

  “He’s a real good suspect, Andy. Real good. I’d like to see if we can put him down in the Keys. Or check phone records, see if he wasn’t spending a lot of time talking to that brother of his. Then maybe we go talk to the state attorney with what we’ve got.” The detective paused before saying, “There’s only one thing that bothers me, you know . . .”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, hell, Andy, that’s a pretty damn big arrow pointing right at that sergeant that Sully left. And I hate trusting Sullivan, even if he’s dead. You know the best way to screw up a murder investigation is to make somebody look like they did something. Even if we can eliminate other suspects, you know, some defense attorney is going to trot those suspects out at trial and mess up some jury’s mind. I think Sully knew that, too.”

  Again, she nodded vigorously. Weiss added, “But, hey, that’s just my own paranoia talking. Look, we make this guy, Andy, it’s gonna be commendations and raises for the two of us. It’ll be like giving your career a jump start. Trust me. Come on back here and get a piece. I’ll keep interviewing people until you get here, then we’ll head back down to the Keys.”

  “All right,” she said slowly.

  “I still hear a ‘but’ in your voice.”

  She was torn. Her partner’s enthusiasm, coupled with his success and the sudden thought that she was missing out on the biggest case to which she’d ever been connected seemed to flood over all the fears she felt. She picked her head up and looked about the room. It seemed as if the shadows within her had diminished. For a moment, she wavered. “Maybe I should just bag it and head home.”

  “Well, do what you think is right. That’d be okay with me. A lot warmer down here, anyway. Aren’t you cold up there?”

  “It’s cold. And wet.”

  “Well, there you have it. But what about this guy Ferguson?”

  “A bad guy, Mike,” she found herself saying again. “A bad guy.”

  “Well, look, hell. Go cheek out his schedule, poke about, make sure that alibi is as good as he says it is, then do what I said and forget it. It’s not wasted time if it’ll put the locals on to him. Maybe there’s something floating about up there, you know. And anyway, all I’ve got in line for the next day or so are interviews with everybody who worked on the Row. Our sergeant is just one of the big pile. You know—­routine questions, nothing to get him excited or nervous, make him think he’s lost in the woodwork. Then zap. I’ll wait until you get here. I’d like to see you work him over. Meanwhile, satisfy your curiosity. Then get down here.”

  He paused, then added, “See what a reasonable boss I am? No yelling. No swearing. Who would complain?”

  She hung up the telephone wondering what she should do. It made her think of that moment when her mother had packed her and as many possessions as would fit into their old station wagon and left Chicago. It had been late on a gray, windy day, the breeze kicking up whitecaps on Lake Michigan: adventure coupled with loss. She remembered closing the car door with a bang, slicing off the chill, and thinking that that was the moment when she’d realized her father was truly dead and would never return to her side. Not when she’d come down the stairs at her house to find a priest and two uniformed police captains standing in the vestibule, holding their hands in front of them, unable to meet her eyes. Not the funeral, even when the single piper had started playing his heartbreaking dirge. Not the times when her classmates had stared at her with that uniquely cruel children’s curiosity about loss. That afternoon.

  There are such junctures in childhood, she realized, and later, when things get pressed together beneath a clear, hard shell. Decisions made. Steps taken. An irrevocability to life. It was time to make such a decision now.

  She recalled Ferguson. She could see him grinning at her, sitting on the threadbare couch, laughing at the homicide detective.

  Why? she asked herself again.

  The answer jumped instantly at her.

  Because she was asking about the wrong homicide.

  She lay back on the bed. She decided she was not ready to leave Robert Earl Ferguson quite yet.

  The light rain and gloom persisted into the following morning, carrying with it a penetrating damp cold. The gray sky seemed to blend with the murky brown of the Raritan River as it flowed by the edge of the brick and ivy campus at Rutgers. She made her way across a parking lot, tugging the inadequate comfort of her trench coat tight around her, feeling like some odd sort of refugee.

  It did not take her long to get swept up in the stolid pace of the university bureaucracy. After arriving at the Criminology Department and explaining to a secretary why she was there, she’d been rerouted to an administration building. There she’d received a lecture on student confidentiality from an assistant dean who, despite a tendency to drone on, had finally provided her with permission to speak with the three professors she was searching for. Finding the three men had proven equally difficult. Office hours were erratic. Home telephone numbers weren’t
available. She’d tried waving her badge about, only to realize that it had little impact.

  It was noontime when she found her first professor, eating lunch at the faculty union. He taught a course on forensic procedure. He was wiry-haired, slight of build, wore a sportcoat and khaki slacks, and had an irritating habit of looking off into the air next to her as he spoke. She had only one concrete area of questioning, the time surrounding the murders in the Keys, and felt a bit foolish chasing it, especially knowing what she did about the prison guard. Still, it was a place to start.

  “I don’t know what sort of help I can be,” the professor replied between bites of tired green salad. “Mr. Ferguson is an upper-echelon student. Not the best, but quite good. B-plus, perhaps. Not an A, I doubt that, but solid. Definitely solid. But then, that’s to be expected. He has a bit more practical experience than many of the students. Little joke, I guess, right there. Real aptitude for procedure. Quite interested in forensic sciences. Steady. No complaints.”

  “And attendance?”

  “Always take attendance.”

  “And the days in question?”

  “Class met twice that week. Only twenty-seven students. Can’t hide, you know. Can’t send your roommate in to pick up the assignments. Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  “And?”

  “Right here. In my notebook.”

  The professor ran thin fingers down a column of names. “Ahh. Perfect.”

  “He was there?”

  “Never missed a class. Not this month. A few other absences, earlier in the year. But I showed those as excused absences.”

  “Excused?”

  “Means he came to me with a good reason. Got the assignments himself. Did the makeup work. That sort of thing. That’s dedication, especially in these days.”

  The professor snapped his notebook shut and returned to his plate of greens and dried fruit.

  Shaeffer found the second professor outside a lecture hall in a corridor swamped with students hurrying to classes. This man taught the history of crime in America, a large survey course designed to accommodate a hundred students. He carried a briefcase and an armful of books and couldn’t remember whether Ferguson was present on specific dates, but he did show the detective a sign-in sheet, where Ferguson’s signature appeared prominently.

  It was creaking toward afternoon, a gray, rancid light filling the hallways of the university, and Shaeffer felt angry and disappointed. She had not held much hope that she would discover his absence from the university at the time of the murders; still, she was frustrated by the sense that she was wasting time. She thought she knew little more about the man than she had when she’d started out in the morning. Surrounded by the constant press of students, even Ferguson had begun to diminish in her mind. She started asking herself, What the hell am I doing?

  She decided to head back to her motel, then, at the last moment, changed her mind again and decided to knock on the door of the third professor. If there was no answer, she told herself, she’d go straight back to Florida.

  She found his cubicle after several wrong turns and rapped sharply on the door, then stepped back as it swung open to reveal a stocky man, wearing 1960s-style granny glasses beneath an uncombed mop of straggly sand-colored hair. The professor wore a loose-fitting tweed sportcoat with a dozen pens stuck in the breast pocket, one of which seemed to have leaked. His tie was loose around his collar and a substantial paunch tugged at the belt of his corduroy trousers. He had the appearance of someone awakened from a nap taken in his clothes, but his eyes moved swiftly to take in the detective standing in front of him.

  “Professor Morin?”

  “Are you a student?”

  She produced her badge, which he inspected. “Florida, huh?”

  “Can I ask you a few questions?”

  “Sure.” He gestured for her to enter his office. “I was expecting you.”

  “Expecting?”

  “You want to know about Mr. Ferguson, right?”

  “That’s correct,” she said as she stepped into the cubicle. It was a small space, with a single dirty window that overlooked a quadrangle. One wall was devoted to books. A small desk and computer were tightly jammed against the other wall. There were copies of newspapers taped to the few remaining empty spots. There were also three bright watercolors of flowers hung about, contradicting the grimy appearance of the office. “How did you know?”

  “He called me. Said you’d be checking on him.”

  “And?”

  “Well,” the professor said, speaking with the bubbly enthusiasm of someone who has been shut in too long, “Mr. Ferguson has a fine attendance record. Just perfect. Especially for the time period he said you were interested in.”

  He sat down hard in a desk chair that bounced with his weight. “I hope that clears up any misunderstandings you might have.” The professor smiled, displaying perfectly white, even teeth, which seemed to contradict his disheveled appearance.

  “He’s quite a good student, you see. Quite intense, you know, which puts people off. Very much a loner, but I guess Death Row has something to do with that. Yes, intense, dedicated, wound tight. Don’t see that in too many students. A little scary, but ultimately refreshing. Like danger, I suppose.”

  Professor Morin burbled on. “Even the policemen and women we get in here trying to advance their careers, they just see this as part of a process of collecting credits and getting ahead. Mr. Ferguson is more of a scholar.”

  There was a single hardbacked chair in a corner, scarred and worn with hard use, which she slid into. It was obviously designed to keep visiting students and their concerns totally uncomfortable, and thereby in the office as briefly as possible.

  “You know Mr. Ferguson well?” she asked.

  The professor shrugged. “As well as any. Actually, yes. He’s an interesting man.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I teach ‘Media and Crime,’ and he has a good deal of natural expertise in that area.”

  “And so?”

  “Well, he’s been called upon on numerous occasions to give his opinions. They are always, how shall I say it? Intriguing. I mean, it’s not every day that you teach a course to someone who has firsthand experience in the field. And who might have gone to the electric chair had it not been for the media.”

  “Cowart.”

  “That’s correct. Matthew Cowart of the Miami Journal. A Pulitzer Prize and well deserved, I might add. Quite a job of reporting and writing.”

  “And what are Ferguson’s opinions, Professor?”

  “Well, I would say he is extremely sensitive to issues of race and reporting. He wrote a paper examining the case of Wayne Williams in Atlanta. He raised the issue of the double standard, you know, one set of rules reporting on crime in the white community and another for reporting on crimes in the black community. It’s a distinction I happen to subscribe to as well, Detective.”

  She nodded.

  Professor Morin swiveled in his desk chair, ebbing back and forth as he spoke, clearly enamored of his own voice.

  “. . . Yes, he made the point that the lack of media attention in black-community crimes invariably leads to a diminishment of resources for the police, lessening of activity by the prosecutorial bodies and makes crime seem a commonplace fabric of the society. Not unsophisticated, this view. The routinization of crime, I suppose. Helps explain why fairly a quarter of the young black male population in this nation is or has been behind bars.”

  “And he was in class?”

  “Except when he had an excuse.”

  “What sort of excuses?”

  “He gives occasional lectures and speeches, often to church groups down in Florida. Up here, of course, no one really has any idea of his past. Half the students in the class hadn’t even heard of his case
at the beginning of the semester. Can you believe that, Detective? What a commentary on the quality of students today.”

  “He goes back to Florida?”

  “On occasion.”

  “You happen to have those dates?”

  “Yes. But I thought he told me you were only interested in the week that . . .”

  “No, I’m interested in the other times as well.”

  Professor Morin hesitated, then shrugged. “I don’t suppose it will hurt anything.” He turned to a notebook, flipped rapidly through some pages and finally came to an attendance sheet. He handed this over to her, and she quickly copied down the dates Ferguson had been absent from class.

  “Is that all, Detective?”

  “I think so.”

  “See. It’s all quite routine and ordinary. I mean, he blends in here. Has a future as well, I suspect. Certainly has the capability of getting his degree.”

  “Blends in?”

  “Of course. We’re a large, urban university, Detective. He fits in.”

  “Anonymous.”

  “Like any student.”

  “Do you know where he lives, Professor?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else about him?”

  “No.”

  “And he doesn’t make your skin shrivel a bit when you speak with him?”

  “He has an intensity, like I said—but I don’t see how that should make him into a suspect for a homicide. I suppose he wonders whether he’ll ever be free from the interest of the police in Florida. And I think that’s a legitimate question, Detective, don’t you?”

  “An innocent man has nothing to fear,” she answered.

  “No,” the professor shook his head. “I think in our society it’s often the guilty who are safe.”

  She looked over at the professor, who was gathering himself as if to launch into some quasi-radical, leftover sixties tirade. She decided to decline this particular lecture.

  She stood and left the room. She wasn’t sure what she’d heard, but she’d heard something. Anonymous. She walked partway down the corridor until struck with the thought she was being watched. She turned suddenly and saw the professor closing the door to his office. The sound reverberated in the hallway. Her eyes swept about, searching for the students who’d flooded the area earlier, and who now seemed to have been absorbed by the offices, classrooms, and lecture halls.