Do it, he told himself.
Take it all, all the lies, the mistakes, the illegally obtained evidence, everything, and put it into a story and run it in the paper. Do it right away, before he has a chance to move. Smash into him with words and then run and take your daughter and hide her.
It’s the only weapon you have.
“Of course,” he said out loud, “your buddies in the business are going to tear you limb from limb for writing that story. Then you’re going to be drawn and quartered, keelhauled, and your head placed on a stake. After that, things are gonna get real rough, because your wife is going to hate you and her husband is going to hate you and your daughter isn’t going to understand, but maybe, if you’re lucky, she won’t hate you.” But it was the only way.
He sat back on the bed and thought, You’re going to bring the whole world down on your head and his head. And then, maybe everyone will get what they deserve. Even Ferguson.
Inch-high headlines, full-color pictures. Make certain the wires pick it up, and the newsweeklies. Hit the talk shows. Keep shouting out the truth about Ferguson until it’s a din that deafens him and overcomes all his denials. Then no one will ignore anything. Surround him, wherever he goes, with notepads, flashbulbs, and camera lights. Paint him with attention so that wherever he tries to hide, he glows with suspicion. Don’t let him slide into the background, where he can continue to do what he does.
Steal his invisibility. That will kill him, Cowart thought.
Are you a killer, Cowart?
I can be.
He reached over to the telephone to call Will Martin, when there was a sharp rap at the motel door. Probably Tanny Brown, he thought.
He got up, his head filling with the words of the story he was preparing to write as he opened the door and saw Andrea Shaeffer standing in the corridor.
“Is he here?”
Her hair was damp and bedraggled. Rain streaked her tan coat, making dark slashes. Her eyes pitched past Cowart immediately, searching the space behind him desperately. Before he could speak, she asked again, “Is Wilcox here? We got separated.”
He started to shake his head, but she pushed past him, glanced around the room, turned, and said, “I thought he’d be here. Where’s Lieutenant Brown?”
“He’ll be back in a moment. Did something happen?”
“No!” she snapped, then, modulating her voice, “We just lost sight of each other. We were trying to tail Ferguson. He was on foot and I was in the car. I thought he’d have called by now.”
“No. No calls. You left him?”
“He left me! When’s Lieutenant Brown gonna be here?”
“Any minute.”
She strode into the small room and stripped off her damp raincoat. He saw her shiver once. “I’m frozen,” she said. “I need some coffee. I need to change.”
He reached into the small bathroom, grabbed a white bath towel and tossed it to her. “Here. Dry off.”
She rubbed the towel over her head, then over her eyes. He saw that she lingered with the towel as it crossed her face, hiding for just a moment or two behind the fluffy, white cotton. She was breathing heavily when she dropped the towel away.
Cowart was about to continue asking her questions, when there was another rapping at the door.
“Maybe that’s Wilcox,” she said.
It was Tanny Brown. He carried a pair of brown paper bags in his hands, pushing them toward Cowart as he came through the door. “They only had mayonnaise,” he said. His eyes took in the sight of Shaeffer, standing rigidly in the middle of the room. “Where’s Bruce?” he asked.
“We got separated,” she said.
Brown’s eyebrows curved upward in surprise. At the same moment, he felt a solid shaft of fear drop through his stomach. He blanked his mind instantly to everything save the problem at hand and moved slowly into the room, as if by exaggerating the deliberate quality of his pace, he could temper the thoughts that instantly threatened to fill his imagination. “Separated? Where? How?”
Shaeffer looked up nervously. “He spotted Ferguson coming out of his apartment and set off on foot after him. I tried to get ahead of them both in the car. They were moving quickly, and I must have misjudged. Anyway, we got separated. I looked for him throughout a five-, six-block area. I went back and tried to find him at Ferguson’s apartment. He wasn’t either place. I figured he either made his way back here or flagged down a patrol car. Or a cab.”
“Let me get this straight. He went after Ferguson . . .”
“They were moving fast.”
“Had Ferguson made him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But why would he?”
“I don’t know,” Shaeffer replied, half in despair, half in fury. “He just saw Ferguson and exploded out of the car. It was like he needed to face him down. I don’t know what he was going to do after that.”
“Did you hear anything. See anything?”
“No. It was like one minute they were there, Wilcox maybe fifty yards or less behind Ferguson, the next, no sign of anything.”
“What did you do?”
“I got out, walked the streets, questioned people. Nothing.”
“Well,” Tanny Brown asked, with irritation, “what do you think happened?”
Shaeffer looked over at the big detective and shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought he’d be back here. Or at least have called in.”
Brown looked over at Cowart briefly. “Any phone messages?”
“No.”
“Did you try calling whatever the hell precinct house is in that district?”
“No,” Shaeffer said. “I just got here a couple of minutes ago.”
“All right,” Brown said. “Let’s do that, at least. Use the phone in your own room, so, in case he calls, this line won’t be tied up.”
“I need to change,” Shaeffer said. “Let me just . . .”
“Make the calls,” Brown said coldly.
She hesitated, then nodded. She extricated her room key from a pocket, nodded once toward the two men, started to say something to Tanny Brown, obviously thought better of it, and left.
The two men watched her exit.
“What do you think?” Cowart asked.
Brown turned and snapped at him, “I don’t think anything. Don’t you think anything either.”
Cowart opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. He merely nodded, recognizing that the detective’s demand was impossible. The absence of information was inflammatory. They both sat, eating cold sandwiches, wordlessly waiting for the phone to ring.
It was nearly half an hour before Shaeffer returned.
“I got through to the desk sergeants at precincts twelve, seventeen, and twenty,” she said. “No sign of him. At least, he hasn’t checked in there. None of them had any unusual calls, either, they said. One had a team working a shooting, but that was gang-related. They all said the weather was keeping things quiet. I called a couple of emergency rooms, as well, just on the off chance, you know. And the central dispatch for fire/rescue. Nothing.”
Brown looked at the two of them. “We’re wasting time,” he said abruptly. “Let’s go. We’re going to go find him. Now.”
Cowart looked down at his notebook. “You know, Ferguson has a late class tonight. Forensic procedures. Eight to ten thirty. Maybe he tailed him all the way out to New Brunswick.”
Brown nodded and then shook his head. “That’s possible. But we can’t wait.”
“What good will it do to race out of here? Suppose he’s on his way back?”
“Suppose he isn’t?”
“Well, he’s your partner. What do you think he’s doing?”
Shaeffer breathed out slowly. That’s it, she thought to herself. Got to be. He probably chased
the bastard right onto some connecting bus and then to a train and hasn’t had the chance to call in. And now he’s tailing him back and it’ll be midnight before he gets in. A small wave of relief washed over her. It was warm, comforting. It distanced her from the steel feelings of helplessness that had trapped her when she’d lost sight of Wilcox. She became aware, suddenly, of the lights in the room, the plastic, uniform decorations and furnishings, the quiet familiarity of the setting. It was, in that instant, as if she’d returned to the brightly lit surface from a mine shaft sunk deep into the earth’s core.
The safety of this reverie was smashed by the harsh sound of Brown’s voice. “No. I’m going out now.” He pointed at Shaeffer. “I want you to show me where everything happened. Let’s go.”
Cowart reached for his coat, and the three headed back out into the night.
As Shaeffer drove, Tanny Brown hunched in his seat in the car, in agony.
He would have called, Brown knew.
There was no doubt in his mind that Wilcox was impetuous, sometimes to the point of danger. He was ruled too much by impulse and arrogant confidence in his abilities. These were the qualities that Tanny Brown secretly enjoyed the most in his partner; he felt sometimes that his own life had been so rigid, so clearly defined. Every moment of his entire being had been dedicated to some carefully constructed responsibility: as a child sitting at Sunday dinner after church, listening to his father say, “We will rise up!” and taking those words as a command; carrying the ball for the football team; bringing help to the wounded in war; becoming the highest-ranking black on the Escambia force. He thought, There is no spontaneity in my life. Hasn’t been for years. He realized that his choice of partners had been made with that in mind; that Bruce Wilcox, who saw the world in terms of simple rights and wrongs, goods and evils, and who never thought hard about any decision, was the perfect balance for him.
I’m almost jealous, Brown thought.
Memory made him feel worse.
He knew, instinctively, that something had happened, yet was incapable of reacting to this phantom disaster. When he searched the inventory of his partnership, he could find dozens of times that Wilcox had gone off slightly half-cocked, only to return to the fold contrite and chastened, red-faced and ready to listen to the coal-raking he would receive from Tanny Brown. The problem was, all these instances had taken place back within the secure confines of their home county, where they had both grown up and where they felt a safety and security, not to speak of power.
Tanny Brown found himself staring out the window at the rigid black night.
Not here, he thought. We should never have come here.
He turned away angrily toward Cowart.
I should have let the bastard sink alone, he thought.
Cowart, too, stared out at the night. The streets still glistened with rain, reflecting weak lights from streetlamps and the neon signs from bar windows. Mist rose above the pavement, mingling with an occasional shaft of steam that burst from grates, as if some subterranean deities were angry with the course of the night.
As Shaeffer drove, Tanny Brown’s eyes swept up and down the area, probing, searching. Cowart watched the two of them.
He did not know when he had come to the realization that this search would be futile. Perhaps it was when they had dropped down off the expressway and started winding their way through the middle of the city that the heartlessness of the situation had struck him. He was careful not to speak his feelings; he could see, with each passing second, that Brown was moving closer to some kind of edge. He could see as well, in the erratic manner that Shaeffer steered the car, that she, too, was staggered by Wilcox’s disappearance. Of the three, he thought, he was the least affected. He did not like Wilcox, did not trust him, but still felt a coldness inside at the thought that he might have been swallowed up by the darkness.
Shaeffer caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and swerved the car to the curb. “What’s that?” she said.
They all turned and saw a pair of men, crusted, abandoned, homeless, fighting over a bottle. As they watched, one man kicked the other savagely, knocking his antagonist to the sidewalk. He kicked again, swinging his leg like a pendulum, smashing it into the side and ribs of the fallen man. Finally, he stopped, reached down, seized a bottle, and clutched it close. He started to leave, seemed to think better of it, walked back and slammed his foot into the head of the beaten man. Then the assailant slithered away, moving from shadow to shadow, until disappearing.
Tanny Brown thought, I’ve seen poverty, prejudice, hatred, and evil and hopelessness. His eyes traveled the length of the street. Not like this. The inner city looked like the bombed-out remnants of a different nation that had just lost some terrible war. He wanted desperately to be back in Escambia County. Things there may be wrong or evil, he told himself, but at least they’re familiar.
“Jesus,” Cowart said, interrupting the policeman’s thoughts. “That guy may be dead.”
But as soon as the words left his lips, they all saw the beaten man stir, rise, and limp off into a different darkness.
Shaeffer, wishing she could be anywhere else, put the car back in gear and for the third time drove them past the spot where she had lost sight of Wilcox.
“Nothing,” she said.
“All right,” Brown said abruptly, “we’re wasting our time. Let’s go to Ferguson’s apartment.”
The entire building was dark when they pulled in front, the sidewalks devoid of life. The car had barely ceased moving when Brown was out the door, moving swiftly up the stairs to the entrance. Cowart pushed himself to keep pace. Shaeffer brought up the rear, but called ahead, “Second floor, first door.”
“What are we doing?” Cowart asked.
He got no reply.
The big detective’s shoes resounded against the stairs, a machine-gun sound of urgency. He paused momentarily in front of Ferguson’s apartment, reaching beneath his coat and producing a large handgun. Standing just to one side, he made a fist and crashed it down hard a half dozen times on the steel reinforced door.
“Police! Open up!”
He pounded again, making the whole wall shake with insistence. “Ferguson! Open up!”
Silence battered them. Cowart was aware that Shaeffer was close to him, her own weapon out and held forward, her breathing raspy-fast He pushed his back against the wall, the solidity affording him no protection.
Brown assaulted the door again. The blows echoed down the hallway. “Dammit, police! Open up!”
Then nothing.
He turned toward Shaeffer. “You’re sure . . .”
“That’s the right one,” she said, teeth clenched.
“Where the hell . . .”
All three heard a scraping noise from behind them. Cowart felt his insides constrict with fear. Shaeffer wheeled, bringing her weapon to bear on the sound, crying out, “Freeze! Police!”
Brown pushed forward.
“I ain’t done nothing” said a voice.
Cowart saw a stout black woman in a frayed pale blue housecoat and pink slippers at the base of the apartment stairs. She was leaning on an aluminum walker, bobbing her head back and forth. She wore an opaque shower curtain cap, and brightly colored curlers were stuck in her hair. There was a ridiculousness in her appearance that pricked the tension building within him, deflating his fear. He instantly felt as if the three of them, guns drawn, faces set, were the ludicrous ones.
“Whatcha making all the noise for? You come in, like to raise the dead with all that pounding and shouting and racket like I never heard before. This ain’t no crack house full of junkies. People live here got jobs. Got work and got to get their sleep at night. You, mister policeman, what you doing, making like some sledgehammer pounding?”
Tanny Brown stared down at the woman. Andrea Shaeffer slid past h
im. “Mrs. Washington? You remember me from the other day. Detective Shaeffer. From Florida. We’re looking for Ferguson again. This is Lieutenant Brown and Mister Cowart. Have you seen him?”
“He left earlier.”
“I know, shortly after six, I saw him leave.”
“No. He come back. Left again, ’bout ten. I saw him from my window.”
“Where was he going?” Tanny Brown demanded.
The woman scowled at him. “How’m I s’posed to know? Had a couple of bags. Just left. There you go. Didn’t stop to say no hellos or goodbyes. Just went walking out. Be back, mebbe. I don’t know. I didn’t ask no questions. Just heard him bustling ’bout up here. Then out the door, no looking back.”
She stepped back. “Now, maybe you let some of the folks get some sleep.”
“No,” Tanny Brown said immediately. “I want in.” he gestured with his revolver toward the apartment.
“Can’t do that,” said the woman.
“I want in,” he repeated.
“You got a warrant?” she asked slyly.
“I don’t need a goddamn warrant,” he said. His eyes burned toward the woman.
She paused, considering. “I don’t want no trouble,” she said.
“You don’t get the key and open that door, and you’ll see more trouble than you’ve ever known,” Brown said.
The woman hesitated again, then turned and nodded.
Her husband, who’d been out of sight, hove into view. He carried a jangling key ring. He was wearing an old pajama top over a pair of faded and tattered khaki trousers. His feet were stuck into untied boots. He moved his stringy legs rapidly up the stairs.
“Shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, glaring at Brown. He pushed past and faced the apartment door. “Shouldn’t be doing this,” he repeated.
He started feeding keys into the lock. It took three before the door swung open.
“Oughta have a warrant,” he said. Tanny Brown immediately pushed past him, ignoring his words. He found a light switch on the wall and quickly walked through the apartment, gun out, checking the bathroom and bedroom, making certain they were alone.
Just Cause Page 53
