He had one thought only: I’m dead.
Glacial fear covered everything within him, freezing memories of family, of friends, into a winter death tableau. He thought the world suddenly stopped. He wanted to dive for cover, throw himself backward, hide somehow, but he was moving in slow motion and all he could do was fling a hand up across his face, as if that might deflect the bullet he was certain was about to fly his way.
It was as if his hearing was suddenly sharpened, his sight piercing. He could see the hammer on the pistol creeping backward, then slamming forward.
He opened his mouth in a silent scream.
But all he heard were two empty clicks as the hammer of the killer’s pistol twice hit empty chambers. The noise seemed to echo in the small space.
A wild look of surprise crossed Ferguson’s face. He looked down at the pistol as if it were a priest caught in a lie.
Tanny Brown realized he had fallen to the ground. Damp dirt clung to him. He shifted to his knees, his own revolver pointing straight ahead.
Ferguson grimaced. Then he seemed to shrug. He held his hands wide in surrender.
Tanny Brown took a deep breath, heard a hundred voices within his head screaming contradictory commands: Voices of duty or responsibility shouting disagreement with voices of revenge. He looked up at the killer and remembered what Ferguson had said: I’ll walk away clean again. The words joined the tumult and turbulence within him, reverberating like distant thunder. The sudden cacophony deafened him so that he hardly heard the report from his own weapon, was aware only that he’d fired by the pulse in his fist as the gun seized life.
The shots crushed into Robert Earl Ferguson, forcing him back into the embrace of the thorny branches. For an instant his body contorted with confusion and pain. Disbelief rode his eyes. He seemed to shake his head, but the movement was lost as surprise turned to death in his face.
Minutes stretched around him.
He remained on his knees, facing the killer’s body, trying to collect himself. He fought a dizzying surge of vertigo, followed by a wave of nausea. This passed, and he waited for his racing heart to slow. After a moment, he sucked in the first gasp of air he was aware of breathing since the pursuit had begun.
He looked at Ferguson’s sightless eyes.
“There,” he said bitterly. “You were wrong.”
Thoughts crowded his imagination and he stared over at the killer’s body. He spotted the short-barreled revolver lying in the dirt where Ferguson had flung it in death. The gun was as familiar to him as his partner’s voice and laugh. He knew there was only one way Ferguson could have obtained the weapon, and a sheet of pain and sadness curved through him. He looked back at Ferguson and said out loud, “You wanted to kill me with my partner’s gun, you sonuvabitch, but it wouldn’t do it for you, would it?” His eyes slid to the streaks of blood marking the spot where Cowart’s wild shot had ripped into the flesh of Ferguson’s leg. He couldn’t have made it much farther with a wound like that. Certainly not to freedom. A single, lucky shot that had killed him as much as the twin blasts from Brown’s own weapon.
Brown put his hand to his forehead, feeling the cool metal of his pistol like holding an ice cube to a headache. His imagination worked hard, and he looked over at Ferguson and asked, “Who were you?” as if the killed man could answer. Then he turned and started moving back down the trail toward where he’d left Cowart and Shaeffer. He looked back once, over his shoulder, just to make certain that Ferguson hadn’t moved, that he’d remained pinioned by death in the briars. It was as if he didn’t trust death to be final.
He walked slowly, aware for the first time that the day had taken over the forest. Shafts of light burned through the ceiling of branches, illuminating his path. It made him feel slightly uncomfortable. He had a sudden, odd preference for shadows.
It took him a few minutes to reach the small clearing where Cowart remained with Shaeffer.
The reporter looked up. He had taken off his jacket and wrapped it around the detective, who had paled and was shivering despite the growing heat. Blood from her mangled elbow had seeped through the makeshift bandage. She was conscious but fighting shock.
“I heard shots,” Cowart said. “What happened?”
Brown sucked in harshly. “He got away,” he replied.
“He what?” blurted Cowart.
“Get him,” moaned Shaeffer. She twisted about in pain and anger, on the verge of unconsciousness.
“He was heading across the water,” Brown replied. “I tried from a distance, but . . .”
“He got away?” Cowart asked, disbelievingly.
“Disappeared. Headed deep into the swamp. I told you what’d happen if he got in there. Never find him.”
“But I hit him,” Cowart complained. “I’m sure I did.”
The policeman didn’t reply.
“I hit him,” the reporter insisted.
“Yes. You hit him,” Brown answered softly.
“Why, what, what’re . . .” Cowart started to blurt. Then he stopped and stared at the policeman.
Tanny Brown shifted uncomfortably beneath the reporter’s gaze, as if he was being slapped with difficult questions. He took hold of himself and insisted, “You’ve got to take her back. Get her help. She’s not hurt too bad, but she needs help now.”
“What about you?”
“l’m going to go back. Take one more look. Then I’ll follow you.”
“But . . .”
“When we get back to Pachoula, we’ll put out an APB. File formal charges. Put him on the national computer wire. Get the FBI involved. You go write your story.”
Cowart continued to stare at Brown, trying to see past the policeman’s words.
“He got away,” Brown repeated coldly.
And then Cowart did see. Shock and fury fought for space within him. He glared at the policeman. “You killed him,” Cowart said. “I heard the shots.”
Tanny Brown said nothing.
“You killed him,” he said again.
Brown shook his head, but said, “You understand something, Cowart. If he dies out there, then no one ever knows. Not about Bruce Wilcox. Not about any of the others. It just stops, right there. And no one will give a damn about Ferguson. They’ll just care about you and me. A policeman with a personal vendetta and a reporter trying to save his career. No one will want to hear about suspicions and theories and tainted evidence. They’ll just want to know why we came out here and killed a man. An innocent man. Remember? An innocent man. But if he gets away . . .”
Cowart looked hard at the policeman and thought, It ended. But it never ends. He breathed in deeply. “The guilty man runs,” he finished the policeman’s sentence.
“That’s right.”
“Then it keeps going. People keep hunting. Answers . . .”
“People keep looking for answers. You make them. I make them.”
Cowart breathed in air like steam that scorched within him. “He’s dead. You killed him . . .”
Brown looked at Cowart.
“. . . I killed him,” the reporter continued.
He hesitated, then added the obvious. “. . . We killed him.” The reporter took another deep breath.
A whirlwind of thoughts tore through his head. He could feel the morning heat rising around him. He saw Ferguson, remembered Blair Sullivan’s laughing Have I killed you, too, Cowart?; answered No to this vision, hoping he was right; remembered in a torrent of memory his family, his own child, the murdered child, the children that had disappeared and all that had happened. He thought, It’s a nightmare. Tell the truth and be punished. Tell a lie and it will all come right. He could feel himself sliding, as if he’d lost his grasp on the face of a sheer cliff. But it was one he’d elected to climb himself. Summoning a burst of energy, he imagined slamm
ing an ice pick into the granite and arresting his fall. He told himself, You can live with it, alone. He looked over at Tanny Brown, who was bent over, checking Andrea Shaeffer’s bloody wrap, and realized he was mistaken. The nightmare would be shared. He glanced at Shaeffer. At least, he thought, her wound will scar over and heal.
“No,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “He got away.”
Tanny Brown said nothing.
“Just like you said. Into the swamp. Get back there, no one could find him. Could go anywhere. Atlanta. Chicago. Detroit. Dallas. Anywhere.”
He bent down and lifted the wounded policeman from the earth, working his shoulder under her arm.
“Write the story,” Tanny Brown said.
“I’ll write the story,” Cowart replied.
“Make them believe,” the policeman said.
“They’ll believe,” Cowart answered.
He said it without anger.
Brown nodded.
Matthew Cowart started to steer Andrea Shaeffer back down the path toward civilization. She leaned against him. He could sense her teeth gritting against pain, but she did not complain. His mind began to churn beneath the weight of the wounded detective. Write it so that she gets a commendation for bravery. Tell everyone how she stood up to a sadistic killer and took a bullet for her trouble. Heroine cop. The television boys will eat it up. So will the tabs. It’ll give her a chance, he thought. Words began to pump into him, strengthening him. He could see columns of newsprint, headlines racing from high-speed presses. He threw an arm around Shaeffer’s waist. He’d managed perhaps ten feet when he turned and looked at the police lieutenant, still standing on the edge of the clearing.
“Is this right?” the reporter asked. The question burst from him, unbidden.
Brown shrugged. “There’s never been any right in this. Not from the start. Never been any choice, either.”
Cowart nodded. It was the only truth he felt comfortable with. He didn’t smile, but said, “Seems like an odd time to start trusting each other.”
Then he turned and continued to help the wounded young woman toward safety. She moaned slightly and leaned against him. It was a small thing he was doing, he told himself. But at least he was saving one person. He took solace in the thought he might have saved others as well.
Tanny Brown watched Cowart help Shaeffer. He saw the two disappear into the tangle of lights and shadows. Then he headed back through the brush to the edge of the swamp. It only took him a few minutes to locate Ferguson’s body.
The dead weight pulled against him as he extricated Ferguson from the trap of brambles. The swamp water was cold against his body as he slid into it. He put his foot down and felt the sucking ooze beneath him. Then he pushed away, dragging the body through the water, away from the land, toward a maze of trees, laden with hanging ferns and vines, some fifty yards away, deeper into the swamp. He half-dragged, half-pushed the killer’s body through the water, puffing with exertion, struggling with the bulk, until he came to the spot. He gathered his last strength and pushed hard on Ferguson’s body, submerging it, forcing it underneath and between the roots, until it was snared beneath the surface of the water. He had no idea if it would stay there forever or not. Ferguson had wondered the same thing once, he realized. He pushed himself back and then looked from a few feet away and saw that he could see no sign of the body. The roots held all. The water covered all.
Light penetrated the trees and hit the black water surface, making it gleam for an instant. He turned away from the dead spot and swam easily toward the home shore.
Just Cause Page 60
