Just Cause

by John Katzenbach

  “Empty,” he said. The words echoed the sensation that tore within him. Empty and cold and like a tomb. He stared around the silent space, knowing what had happened yet refusing to allow himself to think what was loose in the world. He walked through the center of the small apartment, over to the desk where Ferguson had once sat. The student, he thought. An assortment of papers had fallen in disarray to the floor. He kicked at them and looked up and saw Matthew Cowart staring about at the room.

  “Gone,” Cowart said. His voice was shocked and quiet.

  The reporter took a deep breath. He had expected Ferguson to be there, mocking them all, thinking himself forever just beyond their reach. There’s no time now, he realized. He could feel the story he had been planning to write slipping through his fingers. No time. He’s out there and he will do whatever he wants. The reporter’s mind raced through scene after scene. He had no idea what Ferguson intended, whether his child was at risk or not. Or some other child. Nothing was safe. He looked over at Tanny Brown and realized the detective was thinking precisely the same thing.

  The night closed rapidly toward dawn but promised no relief from the darkness that had descended upon each of them.

  25

  LOST TIME

  They lost hours to fatigue and bureaucracy.

  Tanny Brown felt trapped between procedure and fear. After discovering Ferguson’s apartment empty, he had felt compelled to report Wilcox’s disappearance to the local police, while at the same time believing that every instant passing distanced him from his quarry. He and Shaeffer had spent the remainder of the night with a pair of Newark gold shields, neither of whom fully understood why they had each arrived from a different part of the state of Florida to question a man suspected of no current crime. The two gold shields had listened blankly to her account of the stakeout with Wilcox and acted surprised when she described how he’d taken off into the gloom and darkness after Ferguson. Their approach seemed to express a certain acceptance that whatever Wilcox had got, he’d deserved; it made no sense to them that a man, out of his jurisdiction, far from any familiar territory, driven by anger, would pursue a man deep into a country they clearly thought was not a part of the United States, but some alien nation with its own rules, laws, and codes of behavior. Tanny Brown bristled at their attitudes, thinking them racist, if logistically correct. Shaeffer marveled at their callousness. More than once, she promised herself that no matter how terrible things might become for her as a policeman, she would never succumb to what she heard in their voices.

  More time was spent by her taking them to the spot where she’d last seen Wilcox and showing them the route that she’d followed in her search. They had returned to Ferguson’s apartment, but there was still no sign of him. The two gold shields clearly didn’t believe that he had left the city, however.

  Shortly before dawn, they told Brown they would put out a BOLO for Wilcox and would assign a team to canvass the streets asking for him. But they insisted Brown contact his own office, as if they actually believed that Wilcox would show up in Escambia County.

  Cowart spent the night waiting in his motel room for the two detectives. He had no idea how great the threat might be to him or his daughter, only knew that as each minute slid past, his position worsened and his only weapon, the news story, grew more remote. No story would have an impact unless he knew where Ferguson was. Ferguson had to be trapped by the story, he had to be immediately surrounded with questions, mired in denials. It was the only way Cowart could buy time to protect himself. Ferguson abroad in the world was a constant, invisible danger. Cowart knew that before a word appeared in the paper, he had to find Ferguson once again.

  He stared at his wristwatch, seeing the second hand race through each minute, reminded of the clock on Death Row.

  Now you’re beginning to know a bit . . .

  He realized he could delay no further. Ignoring the sure-to-be terrifying impact of the middle-of-the-night call, he picked up the telephone and dialed his ex-wife’s number.

  It rang twice before he heard her new husband’s voice groan an acknowledgment.

  “Tom? It’s Matt Cowart. Sorry to disturb you, but I’ve got a problem and . . .”

  “Matt? Jesus. Do you know what time it is? Christ, I’ve got to be in court in the morning. What the hell is going on?” Then he heard his ex-wife’s voice stumbling through the darkness. He couldn’t hear what she said but heard her new husband’s response. “It’s your ex. He’s got some soft of emergency, I guess.”

  There was a pause, then he heard both voices on the phone.

  “Okay, Matty? What the hell is it?”

  The lawyer’s tones had taken over, irritated, imperious. Before he could answer, the man added, “Oh, Christ, there’s the baby waking up. Shit.”

  Matthew Cowart wished he’d rehearsed a speech. “I think Becky’s in danger,” he said.

  The phone line was quiet for a moment, then both people responded.

  “What danger? Matty, what are you talking about?” It was his ex-wife.

  “The man I wrote about. The one on Death Row. He threatened Becky. He knows where you live.”

  Another pause before Tom responded, “But why? You wrote he didn’t kill anyone . . .”

  “I might have been wrong.”

  “But why Becky?”

  “He doesn’t want me to write anything different.”

  “Now look, Matt, what did this man say, exactly? Let’s get this straight. What sort of threat?”

  “I don’t know. Look, it’s not that, I don’t know, it’s all . . .” He realized the impossibility of what he was saying.

  “Matt, Christ. You call in the middle of the damn night and . . .”

  The lawyer was interrupted by his wife. “Matty, is this serious? Is this for real?”

  “Sandy, I wish I could tell you what was real and what isn’t. All I know is this man is dangerous and I no longer know where he is and so I had to do something, and I called you.”

  “But Matt,” the lawyer interjected. “We need to know some details. I need to have some appreciation of what the hell this all means.”

  Matthew Cowart felt sudden rage slide within him. “No, you goddamn don’t. You don’t need to know a goddamn thing except Becky may be in danger. That there’s one goddamn dangerous man out there and that he knows where you live and he wants to be able to strike at me through Becky. Got that? Got it good? That’s all you need to know. Now, Sandy, pack a damn bag and take Becky someplace. Someplace neutral. Like up to Michigan to see your aunt. Do it right away. First flight in the morning. Just go until I get this straightened out. I will get it straightened out, I promise you. But I can’t do that unless I know Becky’s safe and out of danger and someplace where this man can’t get to her. Just go now. Do you understand? It’s not worth the risk.”

  There was another momentary pause, then his ex-wife replied, “All right.”

  Her husband immediately interjected. “Sandy! Jesus, we don’t know . . .”

  “We’ll know soon enough,” she said. “Matty, will you call me? Will you please call Tom and explain this? As soon as you can?”

  “I will.”

  “Jesus,” said the new husband. Then he added, “Matty, I hope this isn’t some crazy . . .” He stopped, hesitated, then said, “Actually, I hope it is. I hope it is all crazy. And when you call me with your goddamn explanation, it’s a good one. I don’t understand why I just don’t call the police, or maybe hire a private investigator . . .”

  “Because the damn police can’t do anything about a threat! They can’t do anything until something happens! She won’t be safe, even if you hire the goddamn National Guard to watch over her. You’ve just got to get her someplace where this guy can’t reach her.”

  “What about Becky?” his ex-wife said. “This is going to scare the h
ell out of her.”

  “I know,” Cowart replied. Despair and impotence seemed to curl about him like smoke. “But the alternatives are a whole lot worse.”

  “This man . . .” the lawyer started.

  “The man is a killer,” Cowart said between clenched teeth.

  The lawyer paused, then sighed. “Okay. They’ll take the first flight out. All right? I’m gonna stay here. The guy didn’t threaten me, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Well. Good.”

  Another silence crept onto the line, before Cowart added, “Sandy?”

  “Yes, Matt?”

  “Don’t hang up the telephone and think all of a sudden that this is silly and you don’t have to do anything,” he said, his voice steady, low, and even. “Leave right away. Keep Becky safe. I can’t do anything unless I know she’s safe. You promise me?”

  “I understand.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” he said. He felt relief and tension battling within him. “I’ll call you with details when I have them.” Sandy’s new husband grunted in assent. Cowart put the telephone down gingerly, as if it were fragile, and leaned back on the motel bed. He felt better and awful at the same time.

  When Brown and Shaeffer returned to the motel room, discouragement seemed to ride their shoulders, perched on top of exhaustion.

  Cowart asked, “Did you get anywhere?”

  Shaeffer answered for them both. “The local cops seem to think we’re crazy. And, if not crazy, then incompetent. But mostly, I think, they don’t really want to be bothered. Might have been different if they could see something in it for them. But they don’t.”

  Cowart nodded. “Where does that leave us?”

  Brown replied softly, “Chasing a man guilty of something, suspected of everything, with evidence of nothing.” He laughed softly. “Jesus, listen to me. Should have been a writer like you, Cowart.”

  Shaeffer rubbed her hands across her face slowly, finally pushing her hair back tightly from her forehead, pulling the skin taut as she did so, as if this would clear her vision.

  “How many?” she asked, turning toward the two men. “There’s the first one, the one you wrote about . . .”

  Both men were silent, guarding their fears.

  “How many?” she demanded again. “What is it? You think something bad will happen if you share information? What could be worse than what we’ve got?”

  “Joanie Shriver,” Cowart replied. “She’s the first. First we know about. Then there’s a twelve-year-old girl down in Perrine who disappeared . . .”

  “Perrine?” Shaeffer said. “No wonder he . . .”

  “No wonder what?” Cowart demanded.

  “It was his first question for me. When I went to see him. He wanted to be certain that it was a Monroe County case I was investigating. He was quite concerned over where the border between Dade and Monroe counties is. And once he was certain, he relaxed.”

  “Damn,” Cowart whispered.

  “We don’t know anything for certain about her,” Brown interjected. “It’s really speculation . . .”

  Cowart rose, shaking his head. He went over to his suit coat and extricated the computer printouts that he had been ferrying about. He handed them to Brown, who swiftly read them.

  “What are those?” Shaeffer asked.

  “Nothing,” Brown replied, frustration creeping into his voice. He crumpled the pages together, then handed them back. “So he was there?”

  “He was there.”

  “But there’s still nothing against him.”

  “No body, you mean. Though, judging from what she said, I suspect that girl’s body is somewhere in the Everglades, close to the county line.”

  “Right.” Cowart turned to Shaeffer. “See, that’s two. Two so far . . .”

  “Three,” Brown added quietly. “A little girl in Eatonville. Disappeared a few months back.”

  Cowart stared hard at the policeman. “You didn’t . . .” he started.

  Brown shrugged.

  Cowart, hands quivering with anger, picked up his notepad. “He was in Eatonville about six months ago. At the Christ Our Savior Presbyterian Church. Gave his speech about Jesus. Is that when . . .”

  “No, sometime later.”

  “Damn,” Cowart said again.

  “He went back. He must have gone back when he knew no one would be looking.”

  “Sure he did. But how do you prove it?”

  “I’ll prove it.”

  “Great. Why didn’t you tell me?” Cowart’s voice cracked with rage.

  Brown replied with equal fury. “Tell you? So you can do what? So you can put it in the damn paper before I’ve got a chance to get somewhere on the case? Before I’ve had a chance to check every small black town in Florida? You want me to tell you so you can tell the world and save your reputation?”

  “Get somewhere! How many people are going to die while you put together a case? If you can put together a case!”

  “And what the hell will be accomplished by putting it in the newspaper?”

  “It’d work! It’d smoke him out!”

  “More like it would just warn him so he’d start being even more careful.”

  “No. Everybody else would be warned . . .”

  “Yeah, so he’d change his pattern and there’s not a courtroom in the world I’d ever get him into.”

  Both men had moved to their feet, eyes locked, poised as if about to come to blows. Shaeffer held up her hand, cutting the two men off. “Are you both crazy?” she asked loudly. “Are you out of your minds? Haven’t you shared any information? What’s the point of secrets?”

  Cowart looked at her and shook his head. “The point is, no one ever tells everything. Especially the truth.”

  “How many people are dead because . . .” she started, then cut herself off. She realized that she herself possessed information that she was reluctant to share. Cowart caught it, though.

  “What are you hiding, Detective? What do you know you don’t want to talk about?”

  She realized she had no choice.

  “Sullivan’s parents,” she said. “Ferguson was right. He didn’t do it.”

  “What?”

  She described everything Michael Weiss had told her: the Bible, the guard, the brother.

  Cowart looked surprised, and then shook his head. “Rogers,” he said. “Who’d have thought it?” It wasn’t nonsense, though. Rogers seemed to be into everything at Starke. Nothing would have been easier for him, but yet . . . “One thing I don’t understand,” said Cowart. “If it was really Rogers, then why did Sullivan spend all that time implicating Ferguson in the murder to me, while at the same time writing ­Rogers’ name in that Bible?”

  Brown shrugged. “Best way to guarantee someone gets away with murder. Multiple suspects. Tell you one thing. Point some other evidence another direction. Wait until some defense attorney gets ahold of that. But mostly, I think he did it because he was a sick man, Cowart. Sick and full of mischief. It was just his way of dragging down everybody into the same hell that awaited him: you, Ferguson, ­Rogers . . . and three cops he didn’t even know.”

  Everyone was silent for a moment. “So maybe Rogers did it, and maybe he didn’t,” Cowart said. “Right now, old Sully must be down there laughing his damned head off.” He shook his head again. “So what does it mean?”

  “It means,” Shaeffer spoke up, “that we can forget about Sullivan. Forget his mind games. Let’s worry about Ferguson and his victims. Three, you think?”

  “He made seven trips south. Seven we know about.”

  “Seven?”

  Cowart lifted his arms in surrender. “We don’t know when it was for research, wh
en he went for action. What we do know is—Christ!—what we suspect is—three little girls. One white. Two black. And Bruce Wilcox.”

  “Four,” she said quietly.

  “Four,” Tanny Brown said heavily. He stood, as if insisting that fatigue was something wrong, and began pacing about the small room like a prisoner in a cell. “Can’t you see what he’s doing?” he said abruptly.

  “What?”

  Brown’s voice carried an urgency that seemed to quiver in the small room. He looked at the young detective. “What is it we do? A crime occurs and our first assumption is that, while unique, it will still fit directly into a clear-cut, recognizable category. Ultimately, we figure it will be typical of a hundred others, just like it. That’s what we’re taught, what we expect. So we go out and look for the usual suspects. The same suspects that ninety-nine times turn out to be the right ones. We process everything at the crime scene, hoping that some bit of hair or blood spatter or fiber sample will point right at one of the people on the short list. We do this because the alternative is so terrifying: that someone unconnected to anything except murder has walked onto the scene. Someone you don’t know, that nobody knows, that may not be within a hundred or a thousand miles of the crime anymore. And did it for some reason so warped that you can’t even contemplate it, much less understand it. Because if that’s the case, you’ve got a chance in a million of making a case and maybe not even that. That’s why we went to Ferguson in the first go-round, when little Joanie was killed. Because we had a crime and he was on the short list . . .”

  Brown looked at Shaeffer and then toward Cowart “But now, you see, he’s figured that out.”

  The detective hunched forward, slapping a fist into a palm to accentuate his words. “He’s figured out that distance helps keep him safe, that when he arrives in some little town to kill, no one should know him. No one will pay any attention to him. And no one will make him when he grabs his victim. And who does he grab? He learned what happens when he snatched a little white girl. So now he goes to places where the police aren’t quite as sophisticated and the press isn’t as aware, and grabs a little black girl, because that ain’t hardly going to get anyone’s attention, not the same way Joanie Shriver did. So he goes and does these things, then he comes back up here and returns to school and there ain’t nobody looking for him. Nobody.”