John Katzenbach - Just Cause

Are you a killer, Cowart?

Am I? he wondered.

He looked down at the list of Florida visits and felt a tremor race down his arms into his fingertips, where it remained like some wayward electric current, humming and buzzing.

There are some people dead who wouldn't be, if not for you. Little girls.

Sullivan had found safety in the randomness of his deaths. He'd killed people he didn't know, who merely by accident had had the misfortune to cross his path. By minimizing the context of murder, he had hamstrung the abilities of the police investigating each case. Cowart suspected that Ferguson was doing the same. After all, he'd learned at the side of an expert. Sullivan had taught Ferguson one crucial thing: to become a student of his loathsome desires.

He remembered his trip to the Journal's library and pictured the headline on the small story: POLICE SAY NO LEADS IN MISSING GIRL CASE. Of course not, he thought. There are no leads. There is no real evidence. At least, none that you know of. Just one innocent man taking his time to pluck children out of this world.

Cowart took a deep breath and let all the accumulated elements of fact, supposition, and imaginary crime cascade through his head, torrents of evil swept together into a single turbulent theme, all rushing toward an image of his own daughter, waiting at the end. It seemed to him that up until that moment he had been living in some moral twilight, all the deaths that circumscribed his relationship with Blair Sullivan and Robert Earl Ferguson out of his control. That was no longer the case.

Cowart let his head sink into his hands and thought, Is he killing someone now? Today? Tonight? When? Next week? He raised it again and looked up into the mirror hanging above the dresser.

'And you, you goddamn fool, you were worried about your reputation?'

He shook his head, watching his own reflection admonish him. Not going to have a reputation now, unless you do something and do it quickly, he told himself.

What can you do?

He was reminded of a story his friend Edna McGee had once written for the Journal. She had learned that the police in one Miami suburb were investigating a half dozen rape-assaults that had occurred along a single stretch of highway. When she had confronted the detectives handling the investigation, they had insisted she not write a word. They complained that a story in the paper would alert the serial rapist to the fact that they were on to him, and he would change his routine, alter his distinctive style, move to a different location, and slip through the decoys and stakeouts they had planned. Edna McGee had considered this request, then ignored it, believing it wiser to warn the other, unsuspecting women who were nightly traveling the rapist's route.

The stories had run, front page, Sunday edition, above the fold, along with a police composite of the suspect that stared out in malevolent black and white from the hundreds of thousands of newspapers that hit the streets. The detectives working the case were, predictably, furious, thinking that their quarry would be scared off.

But that wasn't what had happened. The rapist hadn't committed any half dozen rapes. The number had actually been in excess of forty. Almost four dozen women had been assaulted, but most, in pain and humiliation, had refused to go to the police. Instead, they had gone home after being victimized, thanking their lucky stars they were still alive, trying to mend their ripped bodies and torn self-esteem. One by one, they had all called Edna, Cowart remembered. Tears and hesitancy, sobbing voices, barely able to wring through their misery the horror that had befallen them, but anxious to tell this reporter, if perhaps she could save another woman, somewhere, from falling prey to this man. Within a few days of the story running, they had all called. Anonymous and terrified, but they had called. Each one thought they had been alone, a solitary, single victim. By the end of the week, Edna had the full license plate number of the rapist's car, a much improved description of the vehicle and the assailant, and dozens of other small details that had led the police to the man's door one night, a fortnight after the stories ran, just as he was readying himself to head out.

Cowart leaned back remembering. He weighed Ferguson's threat in his hands to see if it had substance.

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 splashes. Her eyes pitched past Cowart immediately, searching the space behind him desperately. Before he could speak, she asked again, Ts 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.