Just Cause

by John Katzenbach

  Cowart hesitated for a moment, then, swallowing hard, stepped in behind him, his thoughts jumbled, the noise from the assault on the door ringing in his ears. It was like stepping off a cliff’s edge, he thought. It seemed as if wind was rushing by his ears, screaming velocity.

  “Dammit!” Brown called out, as if starting another command, then he stopped short, his words sliced, as if by a razor.

  Robert Earl Ferguson stepped out of a side room.

  For an instant, his dark skin seemed to blend with the gray morning shadows that crept about the interior of the shack. Then he moved slowly forward, toward the hunched-over police lieutenant. The killer wore a loose-fitting navy T-shirt and faded jeans, hastily tugged on. His feet were bare and made small slapping sounds against the polished hardwood floor. His arms were raised languidly, almost insouciantly, as if in a surrender of irony. He stepped forward into the living room and faced Tanny Brown, who straightened slowly, cautiously, keeping a static distance between himself and the killer. A false grin worked the sides of Ferguson’s face, and his eyes swept around quickly. He fixed for a moment on the burst door, then on Matthew Cowart. Then he stared directly at Brown.

  “You gonna pay for that door?” he asked. “It wasn’t locked. Just a bit stiff. No need to break it down. Country folk don’t need to lock their doors. You know that. Now, what you want with me, Detective?”

  There was no urgency or panic in the killer’s voice. Simply an infuriating calm, as if he’d been waiting for their arrival.

  “You know what I want with you,” Brown said. His teeth remained clenched tightly and he trained his weapon on Ferguson’s chest.

  But the two men kept distant, looking across the small room toward each other, warily.

  “I know what you want. You want someone to blame. Always the same thing,” Ferguson said coldly.

  He eyed the pistol pointing at him carefully. Then he looked directly at the policeman, narrowing his gaze so that it seemed as harsh as his voice.

  “I ain’t armed,” he said. He held both hands out, palms forward. “And I ain’t done nothing. You don’t need that gun.” When Tanny Brown didn’t move the pistol barrel, Cowart saw a single moment of nervousness and doubt flit through Ferguson’s eyes. But it disappeared as rapidly as it arrived. Ferguson sounded like a man standing just beyond range. Cowart glanced over at Brown and realized, He can’t touch him.

  The killer turned toward Cowart, ignoring the policeman. He turned the corners of his mouth up into a smile that sent a chill right through the reporter.

  “That what you’re here for, too, Mr. Cowart? I been expecting the detective to show, but I figured you’d come to your senses. Or you got some other reason?”

  “No. Just still looking for answers,” Cowart replied hoarsely.

  “I thought our little talk the other day filled you up with answers. I can’t hardly imagine you got any questions left, Mr. Cowart. I thought things were pretty clear.”

  These last words were spoken in a soft, slow, harsh voice.

  “Nothing is ever clear,” Cowart replied.

  “Well,” Ferguson said carefully, gesturing at Brown, “there’s one answer you got already. You see what this man does. Kicks in a door. Threatens folks with a gun. Probably getting ready to beat my ass again.”

  Ferguson spun toward Brown. “What you want to kick out of me this time?”

  Tanny Brown didn’t reply.

  Cowart shook his head. “Not this time,” he said.

  Ferguson scowled angrily. The muscles on his arms tightened into knots and the veins in his neck stood out.

  “I can’t tell you nothing,” Ferguson replied, anger soaring through his words. He took a single step toward the reporter, but then stopped himself. Cowart saw him fight for some internal control, win, and relax. He leaned up against a sidewall. “I don’t know nothing. And say, where’s your partner, Lieutenant? You gonna beat me again? I miss Detective Wilcox. You gonna need his help, huh?”

  “You tell me where he is. . . .” Tanny Brown said. His voice was steel-edged, words like swords cut the space between the two men. “You were the last person to see him.”

  “Now really?” Ferguson seemed like a man who’d lain awake preparing his replies, as if he’d known what was going to happen that morning. His voice picked up pace. “Might I lower my hands here, before we talk?”

  “No. What happened to Wilcox?”

  Ferguson smiled again. He lowered his hands anyway. “Shit if I know. He gone someplace? I hope he’s gone to hell.” The smile widened into a mocking grin.

  “Newark,” said Tanny Brown.

  “Same thing as hell,” Ferguson replied.

  Brown’s eyes narrowed slightly. After a moment’s pause, Ferguson started speaking. “I never saw him there. Damn, just got back to Pachoula last night, myself. It’s a long drive from there down here. You say Wilcox was in Newark?”

  “He saw you. He chased you.”

  “Well, don’t know nothing about that. There was one crazy white man chased me the other night, but I didn’t see who it was. He never got that close. Anyway, I lost him on some back street. It was raining hard. Don’t know what happened to him. You know, the part of that city where I live, lots of folks get chased all the time. It ain’t that unusual to have to put your feet down fast. And I sure wouldn’t want to be some white guy walking alone down there after dark, if you catch my drift. Unhealthy place. People there’d cut your heart out if they thought they could sell it for another hit of crack cocaine.”

  He looked over at Cowart. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Cowart? Cut your heart right out.”

  Matthew Cowart felt a dizzying burst of anger sweep through his head. He stared across at the killer and felt things slipping within him. Rage and frustration overpowered reason, and he stepped forward, past Tanny Brown, punching a pencil at Ferguson. “You lied. You lied to me before and you’re lying now. You killed him, didn’t you? And you killed Joanie. You killed them all. How many? How many, goddammit?”

  Ferguson straightened. “You’re talking crazy, Mr. Cowart,” he replied, coldly calm. “This man . . .” He gestured toward Tanny Brown. “. . . has filled you with some sort of crazy. I ain’t killed nobody. I told you that the other day. I’m telling you that now.”

  He looked over to the policeman. “Got nothing to threaten me on, Tanny Brown. Got nothing that’s gonna last a minute in court, that some lawyer won’t just rip and shred. Got nothing.”

  “No,” Cowart said. “I’ve got it all.”

  Ferguson’s eyes sent a surge of anger toward Cowart. The reporter could feel a sudden heat on his face.

  “You think you got some special line on the truth, Mr. Cowart? You don’t.”

  Ferguson’s hands balled tightly into fists.

  Brown stepped forward, shouldering Cowart aside.

  “Screw this. Screw you, Bobby Earl. I want you to come downtown with me. Let’s go . . .”

  “You arresting me?”

  “Yeah. For the murder of Joanie Shriver. Again. For obstruction of justice for hiding those clothes in the outhouse. For lying under oath at your trial. And as a material witness in Bruce Wilcox’s disappearance. That’ll give us plenty to sort through.”

  Tanny Brown’s face seemed set in iron. His free hand went into a jacket pocket and emerged with handcuffs. He held his weapon toward Ferguson’s face. “You know the drill. Face the wall and spread.”

  “You arresting me?” the killer said, taking a step back, his voice rising a pitch, moving closer to anger again. “I already walked on that crime. The rest is bullshit. You can’t do that!”

  Tanny Brown raised the service revolver. “Watch me,” he said slowly. His eyes burned toward Ferguson. “You should never have let me find you, Bobby Earl, because it’s all over for you. Right now. It’
s all ended.”

  “You haven’t got nothing on me.” Ferguson laughed coldly in response. “If you had, you’d be here with some fucking army. Not just one damn reporter with a bunch of damn fool questions that don’t amount to nothing.”

  He spat the words out like obscenities.

  “I’m going to walk free, Tanny Brown, and you know it.” He laughed. “Walk free.”

  But Ferguson’s words contradicted a nervous shift in his body. His shoulders crunched forward, his feet moved wide, as if poised to receive a blow in a prize fight.

  Tanny Brown saw the movement. “Just give me the chance,” he said. “You know I’d love it.”

  “I’m not going with you,” Ferguson said. “You got a warrant?”

  “You’re coming with me,” Brown insisted. His voice was even, furious. “I’m going to see you back on Death Row. Hear? Where you belong. It’s all over.”

  “It’s never over,” the killer responded, stepping back.

  “Ain’t nobody going nowhere,” cracked a brisk voice.

  All three men pivoted toward the sound.

  Cowart saw the twin barrels of the shotgun before the small, wiry body of Ferguson’s grandmother came into view. The gun was leveled at Tanny Brown.

  “Nobody going nowhere,” the old woman repeated. “Least of all Death Row.”

  Brown instantly moved his pistol, bringing it to bear on the woman’s chest, crouching as he did so. She was wearing a ghostly white nightgown that fluttered around her figure when she moved. Her hair was pinned up, her feet bare. It was as if she’d stepped from the comfort of her bed into a nightmare. She cradled the shotgun under her arm, pointing it at the policeman, just as she had when she’d fired at Cowart.

  “Miz Ferguson,” Tanny Brown said quietly, while holding himself in firing position. “You got to put that weapon down.”

  “You ain’t taking this boy,” she said fiercely.

  “Miz Ferguson, you got to show some sense . . .”

  “I don’t know nothing about showing sense. I know you ain’t taking my boy.”

  “Miz Ferguson, don’t make things harder than they are.”

  “Hard makes no difference to me. Life’s been hard. Maybe dying’s gone be easy.”

  “Miz Ferguson, don’t talk that way. Let me do my job. It will all come right, you’ll see.”

  “Don’t you sweet-talk me, Tanny Brown. You ain’t brought nothing but trouble into this home.”

  “No,” Brown said softly, “it hasn’t been me that brung the trouble. It’s been your boy here.” He had slid immediately into rhythmic southernisms, as if trying to speak the same language to a confused foreigner.

  “You and that damn reporter. I shoulda killed you before.” She turned toward Cowart and spat her words. “You ain’t brought nothing but hate and death with you.”

  Cowart didn’t reply. He thought there was some truth in what she said.

  “No ma’am,” Brown continued, soothing. “It ain’t been me. And it ain’t been him. You know who it’s been that brought the trouble.”

  Ferguson stepped to the side, as if measuring the shotgun blast’s spread. His voice had a cruel, clear edge to it. “Go ahead, Granmaw. Kill him. Kill ’em both.”

  The old woman’s face filled with a sudden surprise.

  “Kill ’em. Go ahead. Do it now,” Ferguson continued, moving back toward the old woman.

  Tanny Brown took a step forward, still ready to fire.

  “Miz Ferguson,” he said, “I’ve known you a long time. You knew my folks and cousins and we went to church together once. Don’t make me . . .”

  She interrupted angrily. “Y’all left me behind some years ago, Tanny Brown!”

  “Kill ’em,” whispered the grandson, stepping next to her.

  Brown’s eyes switched toward Ferguson. “You freeze! You son of a bitch! And shut up.”

  “Kill them,” Ferguson said again.

  “It’s not loaded,” Cowart said abruptly.

  He remained rooted in his spot, wanting desperately to dive for cover but incapable of ordering his body to respond to his fear. He thought, It’s a guess. Try it.

  “She used up her last shot on me the other day. It’s not loaded,” he said.

  The old woman turned toward him. “You’re a fool if’n you think that.” She stared coldly at the reporter. “You gone bet your life I didn’t have no fresh shells?”

  Tanny Brown kept his pistol aimed at the woman. “I don’t want to shoot,” he said.

  “Maybe I do,” she replied. “One thing’s I know. You ain’t taking my grandson again. Gone have to kill me first.”

  “Miz Ferguson, you know what he’s done . . .”

  “I don’t care what he’s done. He’s all I got left and I ain’t gone let you take him away again.”

  “Did you ever see what he did to that little girl?” Cowart asked suddenly.

  “I don’t care,” she replied. “No business of mine.”

  “That wasn’t the only one,” Cowart said slowly. “There have been others. In Perrine and Eatonville. Little black children, Miz Ferguson. He’s killed them, too.”

  “Don’t know nothin’ about no children,” she answered, her voice quavering slightly.

  “He killed my partner, too,” Tanny Brown said quietly, as if speaking the words loudly would cause whatever restraint he still had to shatter and break.

  “I don’t care. I don’t care about none of that.”

  Ferguson stepped behind his grandmother. “Hold them there, Granmaw,” he said. He ducked away, down the house’s central corridor.

  “I’m not going to let him get away,” Brown said.

  “Then either I’m gonna shoot you, or you’re gonna shoot me,” the old woman replied.

  Cowart could see Brown’s finger tighten on the trigger. He could also see the gunpoint waver slightly.

  Silence like weak morning light filled the room. Neither the old woman nor Tanny Brown moved.

  He won’t do it, Cowart thought. If he was going to shoot her, he already would have. In the first moment, when he first saw the shotgun. He won’t do it now.

  Cowart looked over at the policeman and saw tidal surges pulling at the man’s emotions.

  Tanny Brown felt his insides squeeze together. Acid ill taste ruined his tongue. He stared across at the old woman and saw her wispy aged fragility and steel will simultaneously.

  Kill her! he told himself.

  Then: How can you?

  It was all in balance in his head, weights furiously sliding back and forth.

  Robert Earl Ferguson stepped back into the room. He was dressed now, a gray sweatshirt thrown over his head, hightop sneakers on his feet. He carried a small duffel bag in his hand.

  He tried one last time. “Kill ’em, Granmaw,” he said. But his voice lacked the conviction that he thought she might do what he demanded.

  “You go,” she said icily. “You go and don’t ever come back.”

  “Granmaw,” he said. He spoke her name not with affection or sadness but a frustrated inconvenience.

  “Not to Pachoula. Not to my house. Never again. Y’all too filled with some evil I can’t understand. You go do it someplace different. I tried,” she said bitterly. “I may not have been much good, but I tried my best. It’d been better if you’d a died young, not to bring all this wrong down here. So you take it and never bring it back. That’s all I can give you now. You go now. Whatever happens now, after you leave my door, that’s your business, no more mine. Understand?”

  “Granmaw . . .”

  “Ain’t no more blood, no more, after this,” she said with finality.

  Ferguson laughed. He dropped all inflection from his voice and replied, “Okay. That’s the w
ay you want it, it’s fine with me.”

  The killer turned toward Cowart and Brown. He smiled and said, “I thought we’d get this finished today. Guess not. Some other time, I suppose.”

  “He’s not going,” Brown said.

  “Yes, he is,” said the old woman. “You want him, then you gone have to find him someplace other than this my home. My home, Tanny Brown. It ain’t much, but it’s mine. And you gone have to take all this evil business someplace else, same as I told him. Same goes for you. I won’t have no more of it here. This is a house where Jesus dwells, and I want it to stay that way.”

  And Tanny Brown nodded. He straightened up, a movement that spoke of acquiescence. He did not drop the pistol but kept it trained on the grandmother, while the killer slid past him, a few feet apart, moving steadily but warily toward the front door. Brown’s eyes followed him, the barrel of his pistol wavering slightly as if trying to follow the killer’s path.

  “Just go,” said the old woman. Some deep sadness creased her voice and her old eyes seemed rimmed with red grief tears. Cowart thought suddenly, He’s killed her, too.

  Ferguson stepped into the doorway, moving gingerly around the splintered door. He looked back once.

  Brown, furious defeat riding his words, said, “It makes no difference. I’ll find you again.”

  And Ferguson replied, “And if you do, it still won’t mean a damn thing, because I’ll walk away clean again. I always will, Tanny Brown. Always.”

  Whether or not this was a false boast was irrelevant. The word’s possibility reverberated in the space between the two men.

  Cowart thought the world had been turned upside down. The killer was walking free, the policeman rooted in spot. He told himself, Do something! but was unable to move. All he could see was a constancy of fear and threat like some awful nightmare vision before him. It’s up to me, he thought. He started to blurt this out, stopped, and then saw the killer’s face widen abruptly with surprise. Then he heard the shout.

  “Everyone freeze!”