John Katzenbach - Just Cause

She lay back on the bed. She decided she was not ready to leave Robert Earl Ferguson quite yet.

The light rain and gloom persisted into the following morning, carrying with it a penetrating damp cold. The gray sky seemed to blend with the murky brown of the Raritan River as it flowed by the edge of the brick and ivy campus at Rutgers. She made her way across a parking lot, tugging the inadequate comfort of her trench coat tight around her, feeling like some odd sort of refugee.

It did not take her long to get swept up in the stolid pace of the university bureaucracy. After arriving at the Criminology Department and explaining to a secretary why she was there, she'd been rerouted to an administration building. There she'd received a lecture on student confidentiality from an assistant dean who, despite a tendency to drone on, had finally provided her with permission to speak with the three professors she was" searching for. Finding the three men had proven equally difficult. Office hours were erratic. Home telephone numbers weren't available. She'd tried waving her badge about, only to realize that it had little impact.

It was noontime when she found her first professor, eating lunch at the faculty union. He taught a course on forensic procedure. He was wiry-haired, slight of build, wore a sportcoat and khaki slacks, and had an irritating habit of looking off into the air next to her as he spoke. She had only one concrete area of questioning, the time surrounding the murders in the Keys, and felt a bit foolish chasing it, especially knowing what she did about the prison guard. Still, it was a place to start.

'I don't know what sort of help I can be,' the professor replied between bites of tired green salad. 'Mr. Ferguson is an upper-echelon student. Not the best, but quite good. B-plus, perhaps. Not an A, I doubt that, but solid. Definitely solid. But then, that's to be expected. He has a bit more practical experience than many of the students. Little joke, I guess, right there. Real aptitude for procedure. Quite interested in forensic sciences. Steady. No complaints.'

'And attendance?'

'Always take attendance.'

'And the days in question?'

'Class met twice that week. Only twenty-seven students. Can't hide, you know. Can't send your roommate in to pick up the assignments. Tuesdays and Thursdays.'

'And?'

'Right here. In my notebook.'

The professor ran thin fingers down a column of names. 'Ahh. Perfect.'

'He was there?'

'Never missed a class. Not this month. A few other absences, earlier in the year. But I showed those as excused absences.'

'Excused?'

'Means he came to me with a good reason. Got the assignments himself. Did the makeup work. That sort of thing. That's dedication, especially in these days.'

The professor snapped his notebook shut and returned to his plate of greens and dried fruit.

Shaeffer found the second professor outside a lecture hall in a corridor swamped with students hurrying to classes. This man taught the history of crime in America, a large survey course designed to accommodate a hundred students. He carried a briefcase and an armful of books and couldn't remember whether Ferguson was present on specific dates, but he did show the detective a sign-in sheet, where Ferguson's signature appeared prominently.

It was creaking toward afternoon, a gray, rancid light filling the hallways of the university, and Shaeffer felt angry and disappointed. She had not held much hope that she would discover his absence from the university at the time of the murders; still, she was frustrated by the sense that she was wasting time. She thought she knew little more about the man than she had when she'd started out in the morning. Surrounded by the constant press of students, even Ferguson had begun to diminish in her mind. She started asking herself, What the hell am I doing?

She decided to head back to her motel, then, at the last moment, changed her mind again and decided to knock on the door of the third professor. If there was no answer, she told herself, she'd go straight back to Florida.

She found his cubicle after several wrong turns and rapped sharply on the door, then stepped back as it swung open to reveal a stocky man, wearing 1960s-style granny glasses beneath an uncombed mop of straggly sand-colored hair. The professor wore a loose-fitting tweed sportcoat with a dozen pens stuck in the breast pocket, one of which seemed to have leaked. His tie was loose around his collar and a substantial paunch tugged at the belt of his corduroy trousers. He had the appearance of someone awakened from a nap taken in his clothes, but his eyes moved swiftly to take in the detective standing in front of him.

'Professor Morin?'

'Are you a student?'

She produced her badge, which he inspected. 'Florida, huh?'

'Can I ask you a few questions?'

'Sure.' He gestured for her to enter his office. 'I was expecting you.'

'Expecting?'

'You want to know about Mr. Ferguson, right?'

'That's correct,' she said as she stepped into the cubicle. It was a small space, with a single dirty window that overlooked a quadrangle. One wall was devoted to books. A small desk and computer were tightly jammed against the other wall. There were copies of newspapers taped to the few remaining empty spots. There were also three bright watercolors of flowers hung about, contradicting the grimy appearance of the office. 'How did you know?'

'He called me. Said you'd be checking on him.'

'And?'

'Well,' the professor said, speaking with the bubbly enthusiasm of someone who has been shut in too long, 'Mr. Ferguson has a fine attendance record. Just perfect. Especially for the time period he said you were interested in,'

He sat down hard in a desk chair that bounced with his weight. 'I hope that clears up any misunderstandings you might have.' The professor smiled, displaying perfectly white, even teeth, which seemed to contradict his disheveled appearance.

'He's quite a good student, you see. Quite intense, you know, which puts people off. Very much a loner, but I guess Death Row has something to do with that. Yes, intense, dedicated, wound tight. Don't see that in too many students. A little scary, but ultimately refreshing. Like danger, I suppose.'

Professor Morin burbled on. 'Even the policemen and women we get in here trying to advance their careers, they just see this as part of a process of collecting credits and getting ahead. Mr. Ferguson is more of a scholar.'

There was a single hardbacked chair in a corner, scarred and worn with hard use, which she slid into. It was obviously designed to keep visiting students and their concerns totally uncomfortable, and thereby in the office as briefly as possible.

'You know Mr. Ferguson well?' she asked.

The professor shrugged. 'As well as any. Actually, yes. He's an interesting man.'

'How so?'

'Well, I teach "Media and Crime," and he has a good deal of natural expertise in that area.'

'And so?'

'Well, he's been called upon on numerous occasions to give his opinions. They are always, how shall I say it? Intriguing. I mean, it's not every day that you teach a course to someone who has firsthand experience in the field. And who might have gone to the electric chair had it not been for the media.'

'Cowart.'

'That's correct. Matthew Cowart of the Miami Journal. A Pulitzer Prize and well deserved, I might add. Quite a job of reporting and writing.'

'And what are Ferguson's opinions, Professor?'

'Well, I would say he is extremely sensitive to issues of race and reporting. He wrote a paper examining the case of Wayne Williams in Atlanta. He raised the issue of the double standard, you know, one set of rules reporting on crime in the white community and another for reporting on crimes in the black community. It's a distinction I happen to subscribe to as well, Detective.'