Just Cause (52 page)

Cowart sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the soft mushiness of the springs. He let his eyes roam over the meager items in the room, searching for some sign. What should a killer's room look like?

He didn't know. He looked about, remembering how Ferguson had insisted to him that coming to Pachoula after Newark, New Jersey, was like stepping into a summer camp, that it was warm and special, some sort of Huck Finn-like adventureland. Where the hell is that? Cowart thought, staring around himself at the blank walls, the passionless items of furniture.

Where to start? He couldn't imagine that something as potent as evidence of a murder would be obvious, so he started in on the drawers of the bureau, feeling foolish, certain that he was simply going over well-searched territory. He rifled through a few changes of clothing without finding anything that he imagined could help him. He ran his hands down behind the bureau drawers, to see if something was concealed there. You're some detective, he thought. He climbed down on his knees and did the same with the bed. He felt the mattress. Then he tapped the walls, looking for a hollow spot.

To conceal what? he kept asking himself.

He was on his hands and knees, tapping at the floor when Ferguson's grandmother hovered in the doorway.

'They done that,' she said. 'Way back when. Now, ain't ya satisfied yet?'

He stood up slowly, close to embarrassment. I don't know.'

She laughed at him. 'You finished now?'

He straightened his clothes. 'Let me talk to the detectives.'

She cackled again and trailed him back through the house and onto the front porch as he walked across the dirt yard to the two detectives.

Tanny Brown spoke first, but his eyes reached past Cowart, up at the old woman, before returning to settle on the reporter. 'Well?'

'Nothing that seemed like evidence of anything except being poor.'

'Told you so,' Wilcox said. He looked over at Cowart, his voice softening somewhat. 'You go into Ferguson's room?'

'Yeah.'

'Not much there, right?'

'A couple of books. Fishing pole. Tackle box. Few clothes in the drawers, that's it.'

'Wilcox nodded. 'That's how I remember it. That's what bugged me so damn much. You know, you walk into most anybody's room, no matter how rich or poor they are, and there's something in there that says something about who they are. But not in there. Not in that whole house.'

Brown rubbed his forehead. 'Damn, he said. 'I feel stupid and I am stupid.'

Co wart broke into his thoughts. 'The trouble is, I don't know what you did when you were there before, and what's different now. I could be picking something up that might mean something to you, but not to me.'

Wilcox seemed to have let some of his antagonism slide away in the growing heat of the day. 'That's what I thought would happen. Here, maybe this will help.'

He walked around to the trunk of the vehicle and opened it. Several accordion paper folders were stacked inside, next to a riot shotgun, a pair of flak jackets, and a large crowbar. He rifled swiftly through the files, finally seizing several stapled sheets of paper. He handed them to Cowart.

'Here's the inventory from the search back then. See if that helps.'

The papers started with a list of items seized from the house and their disposition. There were several articles of clothing. These were noted as 'Returned after analysis. Negative findings.' Some knives had been taken from the kitchen as well. These, too, were marked 'Returned.'

The inventory also listed what items had been taken from what part of the house. There were brief descriptions of the methods used to search each room and the locations searched. Cowart saw that Ferguson's room had been exhaustively processed, with negative results.

'You see anything inside we missed?' Wilcox asked.

Cowart shook his head.

'Tanny, we're wasting our time.'

Cowart looked up from the papers to see that the police lieutenant had stepped aside while he was reading, fixing his eyes on the old woman. She stayed on the edge of her porch, glaring back at him, their eyes locked onto each other.

'Tanny?' Wilcox asked.

The policeman didn't reply.

Cowart watched the detective and the old woman try to stare each other down. He was aware of the sweat streaking down beneath his shirt and the clammy damp that matted his hair to his forehead.

Brown spoke after a moment, without removing his eyes from the old woman. 'Look again,' he said. I think we're missing something obvious.'

'Christ, Tanny…' Wilcox started again, only to be cut off by the police lieutenant.

'Look at her. She knows something and knows we don't have a clue. Damn. Keep looking.'

Wilcox shrugged, muttering something under his breath which dissipated in the midday heat. Cowart dropped his eyes to the sheets of paper, trying to process them as carefully as the policeman had once processed the house. He went over the sheets, room by room, talking out loud toward Wilcox as he did. 'Front room: fingerprinting, all items inspected, none seized, floorboards loosened, walls tapped, metal detector used; grandmother's room: searched and examined for hidden items, none found; storeroom: cutting shears seized, cleaning rags seized, towel seized, floorboards removed; Ferguson's room: clothing seized, walls and floors examined, vacuumed for hair samples; kitchen: cutlery inspected and seized, stove ashes examined, sent to lab, crawl space inspected… ' He looked up. 'It seems pretty complete…'

'Hell, we spent hours in that place, checking every damn loose nail,' Wilcox said.

Brown continued to stare up at the old woman.

'It seems to be the same today,' Cowart said, 'except I guess she turned the storeroom into a toilet. Little room between hers and Ferguson's?' he asked.

'Yeah. More like a closet than a storeroom, really,' Wilcox said.

Cowart nodded. 'Toilet and basin now.'

Wilcox added, 1 heard Ferguson put that in. Used some of the money he got from some Hollywood producer who wanted to tell his life story. Progress reaches the sticks.'

In that moment, it seemed that the sunlight pouring down on top of them redoubled, a sudden explosion of heat that sucked all the air out of the yard.

'So before, where did they…'

'Old outhouse way 'round the back.'

'And?'

'And what?'

'It's not on the list here,' Cowart said slowly. He could feel a sudden pounding in his temples.

Brown spun away from Mrs. Ferguson, eyes burrowing into his partner. 'You searched it, right?'

Wilcox nodded, hesitantly. 'Ahh, yeah. Sort of. The warrant was for the house, so I wasn't sure if it was covered, exactly. But one of the technicians went inside, sure. Nothing.'

Brown stared hard at his partner.

'C'mon, Tanny. All it was was smells and shits. The tech went in, poked about and got the hell out of there. It was in the search report.' He pointed down to a sentence in the midst of the sheets of paper. 'See, he said hesitantly.

Cowart stumbled away from the car. He remembered Blair Sullivan's words: 'If you got eyes in your ass.'

'Goddammit,' he said. 'Goddammit.' He turned toward Brown. 'Sullivan said…'

The policeman frowned. 'I recall what he said.'

Cowart turned abruptly and started walking around the side of the shack, toward the back. He heard Ferguson's grandmother's voice driven across the heat toward him, penetrating like an arrow. 'Where you heading, boy?'

'Out back,' Cowart said brusquely.

'Ain't nothing there for you,' she shouted shrilly. 'You can't go back there.'

I want to see. Goddammit, I want to see.'

Brown caught up with him quickly, the crowbar from the trunk of the car in his hand. The two men strode around the corner of the house as the woman's protests slid away in the blistering sunlight. They saw the outhouse in a corner, near some trees, back away from everything. The wooden walls had faded to a dull gray. Cowart walked up to it. Cobwebs covered the door. He seized the handle and pulled hard, tugging, as it opened reluctantly, making a screeching sound of. protest, old wood scraping against old wood. The door jammed, partway open.

'Watch out for snakes,' Brown said, grabbing at the edge of the door and pulling hard. With a final tug that shook the entire structure, the door swung wide.

'Bruce! Get a goddamn flashlight!' Brown yelled. He took the end of the crowbar and swept more spiderwebs aside. A scuttling, scratching sound made Cowart jump back as some small beast fled from the sudden light pouring through the open door.

The two men stood, shoulder to shoulder, staring at the wooden toilet seat, carved from a board, polished by use. The stench in the small space was dull and thick. It was an old smell that clogged their breathing, a smell closer to death or age than waste.

'Under there,' Cowart said.

Brown nodded in agreement.

'Way down.'

Wilcox, slightly out of breath from running, joined them, thrusting the black flashlight toward his partner.

'Bruce,' Brown asked quietly, 'the crime-scene guy. Did he pull the seat?' Did he check through the stink?'

Wilcox shook his head. 'It was nailed down tight. The nails were old, I remember, because he made me come in and double-check. There was no sign that anything had been pulled up and then replaced. You know, like hammer marks or scrapes or anything

'No obvious sign,' said Brown.

'That's right. Nothing jumped out when we looked at it.' His eyes flashed angrily.

'But… 'Brown said.

'That's right. But, Wilcox replied, 'I can't guarantee he didn't have some way of getting down into the shit hole that we didn't see. The tech went in, checked with a light, and then came out, like I told you. I stuck my head in, looked around, and that was it. I mean, one of us would've seen anything shoved down that hole…'

'If you wanted to hide something, and you didn't think you had much time and you wanted to be sure it'd be the last place searched in the most perfunctory fashion…' Brown's voice hovered between lecture and anger.

'Why not take it out into the woods and bury it?'

'Can't be certain it won't be found, especially when we bring the damn dogs in. Can't be certain you won't be seen. But one thing's for sure. Nobody's gonna go down there into a shit hole that don't have to.'

Wilcox nodded. His voice curled up softly in despair. 'You're right. Dammit. D'you think…

His thought was interrupted by a sudden, shrill cry from behind them.

'Get away from there!'

The three men turned and saw the old woman standing on a back stoop, holding an old double-barreled shotgun at her hip.

I will blow you straight to hell if'n you don't move away from there! Now!'

Cowart froze in position, but the two detectives instantly started to move slowly apart, one right, one left, spreading the distance between the three men.

'Mrs. Ferguson,' Brown started.

'You shut up!' she said, swinging the gun toward him.

'Come on, Mrs. Ferguson…' Wilcox pleaded quietly, lifting both his hands up in a gesture more of supplication than surrender.

'You, too!' the old woman cried, swinging the barrels toward him. 'And both you men stop moving.'

Cowart saw a quick glance go between the partners. He didn't know what it meant.

The old woman turned back toward him. I tole you to get away from there.'

He lifted his arms but shook his head. 'No.'

'What you mean, no? Boy, don't you see this shotgun? I'll use it, too.'

Cowart felt a sudden rush of blood to his head. He saw all the fury masking the fear in the old woman's eyes and knew then she knew what she was hiding. It's I there, he thought. Whatever it is, it's there. It was as if all the frustration and exhaustion he'd felt for the past days coalesced in that second, and outrage overcame whatever reason he had left. He shook his head.

'No,' he said again, louder. 'No, ma'am. I'm going to Hook in there, even if you have to kill me. I'm just too damn tired of being lied to. I'm too damn tired of being used. I'm too damn tired of feeling like some goddamn fool all the time. You got it, old woman? I'm too damn tired!'

With each repetition of the phrase, he'd stepped toward her, covering half the distance between them.

'You stay away!' the old woman shouted.

'You gonna kill me?' he shouted back. 'That'll do a helluva lot of good. You just shoot me right in front of these two detectives. Go ahead. Goddammit, come on!'

He began to stride toward her. He saw the shotgun waver in her arms.

I means to!' she screamed.

'Then go ahead!' he screamed back.

His rage was complete. It overcame the delusion he'd clung to of Ferguson's innocence, so that it all poured out of him. 'Go ahead! Go ahead! Just like your grandson killed that little girl in cold blood! Go ahead! You gonna give me the same chance he gave her? You a killer too, old woman? This where he learned how to do it? Did you teach him how to slice up a little defenseless girl?'

'He didn't do nothing!'

'The hell he didn't!'

'Stand back!'

'Or what? You maybe just taught him how to lie? Is that it?'

'Stay away from me!'

'Did you, goddammit? Did you?'

'He didn't do no such thing. Now get back or I'll blow your head off!'

'He did it. You know it, goddammit, he did it, he did it, he did it!'

And the shotgun exploded.

The blast shredded the air above Cowart's head, singeing him and knocking him, stunned, to the ground. There was a rattle of bird shot against the walls of the outhouse behind him; shouts from the two detectives, who simultaneously went for their own weapons, screaming, 'Freeze!' Drop the gun!'