John Katzenbach - Just Cause

Brown stirred in his seat, eyeing the reporter. 'How about this for a reason,' he said after a momentary hesitation. 'We're in something together. Have been from the start. It's not finished, is it?'

'No,' Cowart conceded.

'The problem, from my point of view, is that I'm in something, but I don't know what it is. Why don't you enlighten me?'

Cowart leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling, trying to determine what he could say to the detective, and what he should not.

'It's always pretty much like this, isn't it?' he said.

'What?'

'Cops and reporters.'

Brown nodded his head. 'Uneasy accomplices. At best.'

'I had a friend once,' Cowart said. 'He was a homicide detective like you. He used to tell me that we were both interested in the same thing, only for different purposes. For a long time neither of us could ever really understand the other's motives. He thought I just wanted to write stories, and I thought he just wanted to clear cases and make his way up the bureaucratic ladder. What he would tell me helped me write the stories. The publicity his cases got helped him in the department. We sort of fed each other. So there we were, wanting to know the same things needing the same information, using a few of the same techniques, more alike than we'd ever acknowledge, and distrusting the hell out of each other. Working the same territory from different sides of the street and never crossing over. It was a long time before we began to see our sameness instead of our differences.'

Brown refilled his drink, feeling the liquor work on his frayed feelings. He swallowed long and stared over at Cowart. 'It's in the nature of detectives to distrust anything they can't control. Especially information.'

Cowart grinned again. 'That's what makes this so interesting, Lieutenant. I know something you want to learn. It's a unique position for me. Usually I'm trying to get people like you to tell me things.' Brown also smiled, but not because he thought it amusing. It was a smile that made Cowart grasp his glass a bit tighter and shift about in his seat.

'We've only had one thing to talk about, from the very start. I haven't had enough to drink to forget that one thing, have I, Mr. Cowart? I don't think there's enough liquor in your apartment to make me forget. Maybe not in the whole world.'

The reporter grew silent, then he leaned forward. 'Tell you what, Detective. You want to know. I want to know. Let's make a trade.'

The detective set his glass down slowly. 'Trade what?'

The confession. It starts there, right?' That's right.'

'Then you tell me the truth about that confession, and

I'll tell you the truth about Ferguson.'

Brown held his back straight, as if memory thrust rigidity into his body and his words.

Mr. Cowart,' he replied slowly. 'Do you know what happens when you grow up and live your life in one little place? You get so's you can sense what's right and wrong in the breeze, maybe in the smell of the day, the way the heat builds up around noon and starts to slip away at dusk. It's like knowing the notes of a piece of music so that when the band plays them in your head, you've already heard them. I'm not saying everything's always small-town perfect and there ain't terrible things happening. Pachoula isn't big like Miami, but it doesn't mean we don't have husbands who beat their wives, kids that do drugs, whores, loan sharks, extortion, killings. All the same. Just not quite so obvious.'

'And Bobby Earl?'

'Wrong from the start. I knew he was waiting to kill somebody. Maybe from the way he walked or talked or that little laugh he would make when I would pull his car over. He came from mean stock, Mr. Cowart, no different from a dog that's been bred for fighting. And it got all tarnished and banged-up worse living in the city. He was filled with hate. Hated me. Hated you. Hated everything. Walking around, waiting for that hate to take over completely. All that time, he knew I was watching him. Knew I was waiting. Knew I knew he was waiting, too.'

Cowart looked over at the narrow eyes of the detective and thought, Ferguson wasn't the only one filled with hate. 'Give me details.'

'None to give. A girl complains he followed her home. Another tells us he tried to talk her into his car. Offered her a ride, he said. Just trying to be friendly. But then a neighborhood crime watch patrol spots him cruising their streets at midnight with his headlights off. Somebody's committing rapes and assaults in the next couple of counties, but forensics can't match him up. A patrol car rousts him from outside the junior high one week before the abduction and murder, right before the end of school, and he's got no explanation for why he's there. Hell, I even ran his name through the national computer and I called the Jersey state police, see if they had anything up there in Newark. No instant winners, though.'

'Except Joanie Shriver turns up dead one day.'

Brown sighed. The liquor slopped over some of his anger. 'That's correct. One day Joanie Shriver turns up dead.'

Cowart stared at the police lieutenant. 'You're not telling me something.'

Brown nodded. 'She was my daughter's best friend. My friend, too.'

The reporter nodded. 'And?'

Brown spoke quietly. 'Her father. Owned those hardware stores. Got 'em from his father. Gave me a job after hours in high school sweeping out the place.

He was just one of those people who put color way down on his list, especially at a time when everybody else had it at the top of theirs. You remember what it was like in Florida in the early sixties? There were marches and sit-ins and cross burnings. And in the midst of all that, he gave me a job. Helped me when I went away to college. And when I came back from

Vietnam, he pointed me to the police force. Made some calls. Pulled some strings. Called in a favor or two. You think those little things don't amount to much? And his son was my friend. He worked in the store next to me. We shared jokes, troubles, futures. That sort of thing didn't happen a lot back then, though you probably didn't know that. That means something, too, Mr. Co wart, in this equation. And our children played together. And if you had any idea what that meant, well, you'd understand why I don't sleep much now at night. So I had a couple of debts. Still do.'

'Go on.'

Do you have any idea how much you can hate yourself for letting something happen that you could no more have prevented than you can prevent the sun from rising, or the tide from flowing in?' Cowart looked hard, straight ahead. 'Perhaps.' Do you know what it's like to know, to know absolutely, positively, with complete certainty, that something wrong is going to happen and yet be powerless to stop it? And then, when it does happen, it steals someone you love right from beneath your arms? Crushes the heart of a real friend? And I couldn't do a thing. Not a damn thing!'

The force of Brown's words had driven him to his feet. He clenched a fist in the air between them, as if grasping all the fury that echoed within him. 'So, get it now, Mr. Cowart? You beginning to see?' 'I think so.'

So there the bastard was. Smirking away in a chair.

Taunting me. He knew, you see. He thought he couldn't be touched. Bruce looked at me, and I nodded. I left the room, and he let the bastard have it. You think we beat that confession out of Robert Earl Ferguson? Well, you're absolutely right. We did.'

Brown slapped one hand sharply against the other, making a sound like a shot. 'Wham! Used the phone book, just like the bastard said.'

The detective's eyes pierced Cowart. 'Choked him, hit him, you name it. But the bastard hung in there. Just spat at us and kept laughing. He's tough, did you know that? And he's a lot stronger than he appears.' Brown took a deep breath. 'I only wished we'd killed him, right there and then, instead.'