Just Cause

Cowart felt suddenly elated. 'No shit,' he laughed.

Wilcox turned toward Brown. 'You want me to cuff her and read her her rights?'

The detective shook his head, reached over, and grasped the shotgun, cracking it open to check the double chambers. He pulled out the spent shell and flipped it to Cowart. 'Here. A souvenir.'

Then he turned back to Ferguson's grandmother. You got any other weapons lying around?'

She shook her head at him.

'You go

She shook her head again and spat on the ground, still defiant.

'Okay, then, you can watch. Bruce?'

'Boss?'

'Find a shovel in the storeroom.',

The police lieutenant holstered his revolver and handed the emptied shotgun back to the old woman, who scowled at him. He walked back to the outhouse and gestured to Cowart. 'Here,' he said, handing the reporter the crowbar. 'Seems like you earned first swipe at this thing.'

The old wood protested slowly at the assault first with the crowbar, then with the shovel Wilcox discovered by the side of the shack. But when it finally cracked and gave way, it tore apart rapidly, exposing a fetid hole in the earth. Quicklime had been used for sanitation. White streaks covered the gray-brown mass of waste.

'In there somewhere, Cowart said.

'I hope you got all your shots,' Wilcox muttered. 'Anybody got any open cuts or sores? Better be careful.'

He grabbed the shovel out of Brown's hands.

'It was my search fucked up three years ago. Mine, now,' he whispered grimly. He took off his coat jacket and found a handkerchief in a pocket. This he tied around his face, over his nose and mouth. 'Damn, he said, his words muffled by the makeshift mask. 'You know this ain't a legal search, he said to Brown, who nodded. 'Damn.' Wilcox said again.

Then he stepped down into the ooze and muck.

He groaned once, muttering a series of expletives, then he set to uncovering each layer of refuse, scraping away with the shovel.

'You keep your eyes on the shovel, he said, breathing through his mouth, hard. 'Don't let me miss something.'

Brown and Cowart didn't reply. They just watched Wilcox's progress. He kept at it steadily, carefully, slowly working his way through the pile. He slipped once, catching himself before sliding down into the hole, but coming up with waste streaking his arms and hands. Wilcox simply swore hard and continued working with the shovel.

Five minutes passed, then ten. The detective continued to dig, pausing only to cough away some of the stench.

Another half dozen swipes with the shovel and he muttered. 'Got to be down a couple of years, now. I mean, how much shit can that old lady produce in a year?' He laughed unhappily.

'There!' Cowart said.

'Where?' Wilcox asked.

'Right there, said Ta

The corner of some solid object had been uncovered by a swipe with the shovel.

Wilcox grimaced and reached down gingerly, seizing the object. It came free with a sucking sound. It was a rectangular piece of thick synthetic material.

Brown crouched down, staring, took the material by the corner and held it up.

'You know what this is, Bruce?'

The detective nodded. 'You bet.'

'What?' Cowart asked.

'One slice of car carpet. You remember, in Ferguson's car, on the passenger side, there was a big piece of carpeting cut out. There it is.'

'You see anything else?' Brown asked.

Wilcox turned back and poked with the shovel in the same location. 'No, he said. 'Wait, unh-hunh, well, what have we here?'

He plucked what appeared to be a solid mass of refuse from the muck, and handed it to Brown. 'There it is.'

The police lieutenant turned toward Cowart. 'See, he said.

Cowart stared hard and finally did see.

The lump was a pair of jeans, a shirt, and sneakers and socks all rolled tightly together, tied with a shoelace. The years of being under the refuse, covered with lime, had worn them away to tatters, but they were still unmistakable.

'I'll bet the farm,' Wilcox said, 'that there's blood residue on those clothes somewhere.'

'Anything else down there?'

The detective struggled for another moment with the shovel. I don't think so.'

'Come on out, then.'

'With pleasure.' He scrambled from the pit.

The three men wordlessly walked back into the yard. They spread the items out carefully in the sun.

'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.

'Ta

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, Ta

20. Traps

Ta

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 cha