Just Cause

Brown also made a point of asking everyone if the

Monroe Sheriff's Department had questioned them. They all replied that they had. They all remembered a young woman detective with a clipped, assured ma

"Your friends from Monroe. They've done what I would've done.'

Cowart nodded. He looked down at the photograph in his hand but refused to put any words to the thoughts that seemed to lurk just beyond the glare of the day.

Sweat darkened the collar of the detective's shirt, Romantic, huh?' he grunted.

They were standing on the outside of a low, chain link fence that protected a faded aqua-colored trailer with an incongruous pink plastic flamingo attached with gray duct tape to the front door. The sun reflected harshly off the steel sides of the trailer, making the entire edifice glow. A single airconditioning unit, hanging from a window, labored against the temperature, clanking and whirring but continuing to operate.

Ten yards away, roped to a skew pole sunk into the hard-rock ground, a mottled brown pit bull eyed the two men warily. Matthew Cowart noticed that the dog had closed its mouth tight, despite the heat which should have caused its tongue to loll out. The dog seemed alert, yet not terrifically concerned, as if it was inconceivable to the animal that anyone would question its authority over the yard or trespass within its reach.

'What do you mean?' Cowart replied.

'Police work.' Brown looked over at the dog and then to the door. 'Ought to shoot that animal. Ever see what one of those can do to you? Or to a kid?'

Cowart nodded. Pit bulls were a Florida mainstay. In

South Florida, drug dealers used them as watchdogs.

Good old boys living near Lake Okeechobee raised them in filthy, illegal farms, training them for fights. Homeowners in dozens of tract developments, terrified of break-ins, got them and then acted surprised when they tore the face off some neighbor's child. He'd written that story once, after sitting in a darkened hospital room across from a pitifully bandaged twelve-year-old whose words had been muffled by pain and the inadequate results of plastic surgery. His friend Hawkins had tried to get the dog's owner indicted for assault with a deadly weapon, but nothing had come of it.

Before they could move from the front, the door to the trailer opened and a middle-aged man stepped out, shading his eyes and staring at the two men. He wore a white I-shirt and khaki pants that hadn't seen a washing machine in months. The man was balding, with unkempt strands of hair that seemed glued to his scalp, and a pinched, florid, unshaven face. He moved toward them, ignoring the dog, which shifted about, beat its tail twice against the ground, then continued to watch.

'Y'all want somethin'?'

Ta

'About those old folks got their throats slit?'

'That's right.'

'Other police already asked questions. Didn't know shit.'

I want to show you a picture of someone, see if you've seen him around here. Anytime in the last few weeks, or anytime at all.'

The man nodded, staying a few feet back of the fence.

Cowart handed him the photograph of Ferguson. The man stared at it, then shook his head.

'Look hard. You sure?'

The man eyed Cowart with irritation. 'Sure I'm sure. He some sort of suspect?'

'Just someone we're checking out,' Brown said. He retrieved the picture. 'Not hanging around here, or maybe driving by in a rental car?'

'No' the man said. He smiled, displaying a mouth of brown teeth and gaps. 'Ain't seen nobody hanging around. Nobody casing the place. Nobody in no rental car. And for damn sure, you're the only Negro I seen around here, ever.'

The man spit, laughed sarcastically and added, 'He looks like you. Negro.'

He pronounced the word knee-grow, elongating the two syllables into a harsh singsong, imbuing the word with mockery, turning it into an epithet.

Then the man turned, gri

After a moment punctuated only by the deep-throated continual growling of the dog, the policeman stepped back and silently moved down the street. Cowart had to hurry to keep pace.

Brown headed back toward the reporter's car. 'Let's go' he said.

There are a few other houses.'

'Let's go,' Brown repeated. He stopped and gestured broadly at the decrepit homes and trailers. 'The bastard was right.'

'What do you mean?'

'A black man driving down this street in the middle of the day would stand out like a goddamn Fourth of

July rocket. Especially a young black man. If Ferguson had been here, he'd have had to sneak in under cover of midnight. He might have done that, maybe. But that's a big risk, you know.'

'Where's the risk at night? Nobody'd see him.' The policeman leaned up against the side of the car. 'Come on, Cowart, think about it. You've got an address and a job. A killing job. What you've got to do is come to some place you've never been. Find a house you've never seen before. Break in and kill two people you don't know, and then get out, without leaving any evidence behind and without attracting any attention. Big risk. Take a lot of luck. No, you want to do some homework first. Got to see where you're going, what you're up against. And how's he go

Cowart shook his head. 'Happens all the time,' he replied.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, it happens. Suppose Sullivan gave him the layout. All the information he needed.'

Brown paused. 'Maybe,' he said. 'But I'd think that after spending three years on the Row, Ferguson might be wary of doing something that might put him back there, if he wasn't real careful.'

That made sense to the reporter. Still, he was reluctant to give up on the idea. 'Why does he have to come last week? Maybe tie came last year. First thing, after getting out of prison. Soon as the hubbub dies down and his face has been out of the newspapers and television for a couple of weeks. Comes down, i

Brown nodded his head, eyeing Cowart. 'Not bad. for a reporter,' he said. 'Maybe. It's something to think about.' He allowed a small grin to rub the edges of his lips before adding, 'But, of course, that isn't what you want to know, is it? You want to know how he couldn't do it. Not how he could, right?'

Cowart opened his mouth to reply but then stopped.

And here's another little idea, Cowart,' Brown continued. 'You'll like this one 'cause it makes your man seem i

Blair Sullivan did arrange, like he said, for these killings to happen – but not with Bobby Earl.

Somebody totally different. And what he wanted to guarantee is that nobody would look under the right stone for the slime that he made those arrangements with. How better could he guarantee that than by telling you that Mr. I