John Katzenbach - Just Cause

'Can they be processed?' Cowart asked after a moment had passed.

Brown shrugged. 'I suspect so.' He looked at the items quietly. 'Don't really need to.'

'That's right,' said Cowart.

Wilcox was trying to clean himself up as best as possible. He looked up from the task of shaking the clods of waste from his clothes over toward his partner.

'Tanny, he said softly. 'I'm sorry, buddy. I should have been more careful. I should have figured.'

Brown shook his head. 'You know more now than you did then. It's okay. I should have double-checked the search report.' He continued to look down at the items. 'Damn,' he said, finally. 'Dammit to hell.' He looked up at Cowart. 'But now we know, don't we?'

Cowart nodded.

The three men picked up the clothing and particle of carpet gingerly and turned back toward the house. They saw the old woman standing alone, watching them from her perch on the back stoop. She stared at them helplessly. Cowart could see her hands quivering at her sides.

'It don't mean nothing!' she yelled, searching for defiance. One arm rose slowly from her side and she shook a fist at them. 'Throw all sorts of old stuff away! It don't mean nothing at all!'

The two detectives and the reporter walked past her, but she continued to shout after them, the words soaring across the yard, up into the pale blue sky. 'It don't mean nothing! Can't you hear? Damn your eyes, Tanny Brown! It don't mean nothing at all!'

Tanny Brown drove the police cruiser aimlessly down the streets of the town where he'd grown up, Cowart next to him, waiting for the detective to say something. Wilcox had been dropped at the crime lab with the items seized from the outhouse. The reporter had thought that they would return immediately to the police offices to map out their next step, but instead found himself moving slowly through the town. 'And so?' he finally asked. 'What's next?' 'You know,' Brown said slowly, 'it's not really much of a town. Always played second fiddle to Pensacola and Mobile. Still, it was all I knew. All I ever really wanted. Even when I went away in the service and then to Tallahassee for college, always knew I wanted to come back here. What about you, Cowart? Where's home for you?'

Cowart pictured the small brick house where he'd grown up. It had been set back from the street, with a large oak tree in the front yard. It had had a front porch with a creaky, swinging love seat in the corner that was never used, and had grown rusty with the passing of winters. But almost immediately the picture of the house faded and what he saw was his father's newspaper, twenty years earlier, through a child's eyes, before computers and electronic layout machines. It was as if his understanding of the world had been channeled through the battered, steel-gray desks and wan fluorescent lights, past the cacophony of constantly ringing telephones, the voices raised in newsroom give-and-take, the whooshing sound of the vacuum tubes that linked the newsroom with composing, the machine gun rat-a-tat-tat of fingers slamming the keys of the old manual typewriters that banged out the history of the day's events. He'd grown up wanting nothing more than to get away, but away had always been interpreted to mean something the same, only bigger, better. Finally, Miami. One of the nation's finest newspapers. A life defined by words.

Maybe, he thought, a death defined by them, as well.

'No home,' he replied. 'Just a career.'

'Aren't they the same?'

'I suppose. It's hard to make distinctions.'

The detective nodded.

'So what are we going to do?' Cowart asked again.

The detective had no easy response. 'Well,' he said slowly, 'we know who really killed Joanie Shriver.'

Both men felt a palpable, physical depression with those words. Brown thought, I knew. All along, I knew. But he still couldn't shake the sensation that something had changed.

'You can't touch him, right?'

'Not in a court of law. Bad confession. Illegal search. We've been all over that.'

'And I can't touch him, either,' Cowart said, bitterness streaking his voice.

'Why? What happens if you write a story?'

'You don't want to know.'

Brown suddenly steered the car to the curb, jamming on the brakes. He slammed the car out of gear and pivoted toward the reporter in a single motion.

'What happens?' he asked furiously. 'Tell me, dammit! What happens?'

Cowart's face reddened. 'I'll tell you what happens: I write the story and the whole world jumps on our backs. You think the press was tough on you before?

You have no idea what they're like when they smell blood in the water. Everyone's going to want a piece of this mess. More microphones and notepads and camera lights than you've ever seen. Stupid cop and stupid reporter screw up their jobs and let a killer go free. There isn't a front page, a prime-time news show in this country that won't scream for that story.'

'What happens to Ferguson?'

Cowart scowled. 'It's easiest for him. He simply denies it. Smiles at the cameras and says, "No, sir. I didn't do anything. They must have planted that evidence there." A setup, he'll say, a cheap trick by a frustrated cop. He'll say you planted the evidence there after finding it someplace else – someplace where Blair Sullivan told me to find it, just like the knife. Got me to go along, or tricked me into going along, makes no difference. I'm the conduit for covering your mistakes. And you know what? A lot of people will believe it. You beat a confession out of him once. Why not try some other scheme?'

Brown opened his mouth, but Cowart wasn't done. Then, suppose he files a defamation suit? Remember Fatal Vision? He filed a crazy suit and right away everyone seemed to forget that he was convicted of slaughtering his wife and kids when they got so damned concerned over what that writer did or didn't do. Who do you think is going to be slicker on the air? More persuasive? What are you going to do when Barbara Walters or fucking Mike Wallace leans across the table, cameras rolling, lights making you sweat, and asks you, "Well, now, you really did order your man to beat Mr. Ferguson, right? Even though you knew it was against the law? Even though you knew if anyone found out, he would go free?" And what good is it going to do for you to say anything? How're you going to answer those questions, Detective? How're you going to make it seem like you wouldn't go and plant evidence at Ferguson's home? Tell me, Detective, because I'd surely like-to know.'

Brown glared at Cowart. 'And what about you?'

'Oh, they'll be just as tough on me, Detective. America is used to killers, familiar with the species. But failures? Ahh, failures get special, unique attention. Screwups and mistakes aren't the American way. We tolerate murder, but not defeat. I can just see it: "Now, Mr. Cowart, you won a Pulitzer Prize for saying this man was innocent. What do you expect to win by saying he's not?" And then it'll get tougher. "Guilty? Innocent? What do you want, Mr. Cowart? Can't have it both ways. Why didn't you tell us this before? Why did you wait? What were you trying to cover up? What other mistakes have you made? Do you know the difference between the truth and a lie, Mr. Cowart?' "

He took a deep breath. 'You got to understand one thing, Detective.'

'What's that?'

'There's only going to be two people anyone thinks is guilty here. You and me.'

'And Ferguson?'

'He walks. Inconvenienced but free. Maybe even a hero in the right places, with the right people. Even more of a hero than he currently is.'

'To do…'

'To do whatever he likes

Cowart opened the car door and stepped out of the vehicle. He stood on the sidewalk, letting the breeze dry his emotions. His eyes swept down the street, stopping at an old-fashioned barber shop that still had the traditional revolving pole, and watched the tri-colors swirl in an endless route, always moving but never arriving. He was only peripherally aware that Brown had gotten out of the car and was standing a few feet behind him.