John Katzenbach: Just Cause

I wonder what happened to the kid, he thought. Probably out of juvenile hall and out on the street. Or on Death Row beside the letter writer. Or dead.

He looked at the letter.

This really should be a news story, he thought, not an editorial. He ought to hand it to someone on the city desk and let them check it out. I don't do that anymore. I am a man of opinions and positions. I write from a distance, a member of a board which votes and decides and adopts positions, not passions. I have given up my name.

He half rose from his chair to do exactly that, then stopped.

An innocent man.

In all the crimes and trials he'd covered, he tried to remember ever seeing a genuinely innocent man. He'd seen plenty of not-guilty verdicts, charges dismissed for lack of evidence, cases lost by sheer defensive eloquence or stumbling prosecution. But he could not recall someone genuinely innocent. He'd asked Hawkins once if he'd ever arrested someone like that, and he'd laughed. 'A man who really didn't do it? Ah, you screw up a bunch, that's for sure. A lot of guys walk who shouldn't. But bust somebody who's really innocent? That's the worst possible case. I don't know if I could live with that. No, sir. That's the only one I'd ever really lose sleep over.'

He held the letter in his hand. I DID NOT COMMIT. He wondered, Is someone losing sleep over Robert Earl Ferguson?

He felt a hot flush of excitement. If it's true, he thought… He did not complete the idea in his head but swallowed swiftly, curbing a sudden flash of ambition.

Cowart remembered an interview he'd read years before about a graceful, aging basketball player who was finally hanging up his sneakers after a long career. The man had talked about his achievements and disappointments in the same breath, as if treating them each with a sort of restrained and equal dignity. He had been asked why he was finally quitting, and he started to talk about his family and children, his need to put the game of his childhood away finally and get on with his life. Then he'd talked about his legs, not as if they were a part of his body, but as if they were old and good friends. He'd said that he could no longer jump the way he'd once been able to, that now when he gathered himself to soar toward the hoop, the leg muscles that once had seemed to launch him so easily screamed with age and pain, insisting he quit. And he had said that without his legs' cooperation, continuing was useless. Then he had gone out to his final game and scored thirty-eight points effortlessly – shifting, twisting, and leaping above the rim as he had years earlier. It was as if the man's body had given him one last opportunity to force an indelible memory on people. Cowart had thought the same was true of reporting; that it took a certain youth that knew no exhaustion, a drive that would shunt sleep, hunger, love, all in the singular pursuit of a story. The best reporters had legs that carried them higher and farther when others were falling back to rest.

He flexed his leg muscles involuntarily.

I had those once, he thought. Before I retired back here to get away from the nightmares, to wear suits and act responsible and age gracefully. Now I'm divorced and my ex-wife is going to steal the only thing I ever really loved without restriction, and I sit back here, hiding from reality, issuing opinions about events that influence no one.

He clutched the letter in his hand.

Innocent, he thought. Let's see.

The library at the Journal was an odd combination of the old and the new. It was located just past the newsroom, beyond the desks where the soft-news feature writers sat. In the rear of the library were rows of long metal filing cabinets that housed clippings that dated back decades. In the past, every day the paper had been dissected by person, subject, location, and event, each cutting filed away appropriately. Now this was all done on state-of-the-art computers, huge terminals with large screens. The librarians simply went through each story, highlighting the key people and words, then transmitting them into so many electronic files. Cowart preferred the old way. He liked being able to arrange a bunch of inky clips about, picking and choosing what he needed. It was like being able to hold some history in his hand. Now, it was efficient, quick, and soulless. He never neglected to tease the librarians about this when he used the library.

When he walked through the doors, he was spotted by a young woman. She was blonde, with a striking sheet of hair, tall and trim. She wore wire-rimmed glasses, sometimes peering over the top.

'Don't say it, Matt.'

'Don't say what?'

'Just don't say what you always say. That you liked it more the old way.'

'I won't say it.'

'Good.'

'Because you just said it.'

'Doesn't count,' the young woman laughed. She rose and went to where he was standing at a counter. 'So how can I help you?'

'Laura the librarian. Has anyone told you that you'll wreck your eyes staring at that computer screen all day?'

'Everyone.'

'Suppose I give you a name…'

'… And I'll do the old computer magic'

'Robert Earl Ferguson.'

'What else?'

'Death Row. Sentenced about three years ago in Escambia County.'

'All right. Let's see… ' She sat primly at a computer and typed in the name and punched a button. Cowart could see the screen go blank, save for a single word, which flashed continuously in a corner. Searching. Then the machine seemed to hiccup and some words formed.

'What's it say?' he asked.

'A couple of entries. Let me check.' The librarian hit some more characters and another set of words appeared on the screen. She read off the headlines: Tormer college student convicted in girl's murder, sentenced to death penalty; Appeal rejected in rural murder case; Florida Supreme Court to hear Death Row cases. That's all. Three stories. All from the Gulf Coast edition. Nothing ran in the main run, except the last, which is probably a roundup story.'

'Not much for a murder and death sentence,' Cowart said. 'You know, in the old days, it seemed we covered every murder trial

'No more.'

'Life meant more then.'

The librarian shrugged. 'Violent death used to be more sensational than it is now, and you're much too young to be talking about the old days. You probably mean the seventies…' She smiled and Cowart laughed with her. 'Anyway, death sentences are getting to be old hat in Florida these days. We've got…' She hesitated, pushing her head back and examining the ceiling for an instant.'… More than two hundred men on Death Row now. The governor signs a couple of death warrants every month. Doesn't mean they get it, but…' She looked at him and smiled. 'But Matt, you know all that. You wrote those editorials last year. About being a civilized nation. Right?' She nodded her head toward him.

'Right. I remember the main thrust was: We shouldn't sanction state murder. Three editorials, a total of maybe ninety column inches. In reply, we ran more than fifty letters that were, how shall I put it? Contrary to my position. We ran fifty, but we got maybe five quadrillion. The nicest ones merely suggested that I ought to be beheaded in a public square. The nasty ones were more inventive.'

The librarian smiled. 'Popularity is not our job, right? Would you like me to print these for you?'

'Please. But I'd rather be loved…'

She grinned at him and then turned to her computer. She played her fingers across the keyboard again and a high-speed printer in the corner of the room began whirring and shaking as it printed the news stories. 'There you go. On to something?'

'Maybe,' Cowart replied. He took the sheaf of paper out of the computer. 'Man says he didn't do it.'

The young woman laughed. 'Now that would be interesting. And unique.' She turned back to the computer screen and Cowart headed back to his office.