13

A HOLE IN THE STORY

He had no plan.

Matthew Cowart faced the day after the execution of Blair Sullivan with all the enthusiasm of a man who’d been told he was next. He drove his rental car rapidly through the night, down more than half the length of the state, jumping on Interstate 95 south of Saint Augustine. He cruised the three-hundred-plus miles at an erratic pace, often accelerating to ninety miles per hour, oddly surprised he was not stopped once by a trooper, though he passed several heading in the opposite direction. He soared through the darkness, fueled by all the furious contradictions ricocheting back and forth in his head. The first morning sunshine began to rise as he pushed past the Palm Beaches, shedding no light on his troubles. It was well after dawn when he finally deposited the car with a surly Hertz agent at Miami International Airport, who had difficulty understanding why Cowart had not returned the vehicle to its North Florida origin. A Cuban taxicab driver, jabbering about baseball and politics without making a distinction between the two and using an energetic mixture of languages, muscled his way through the city’s morning rush-hour traffic to Cowart’s apartment, leaving the reporter standing alone at the curbside, staring up into the wavy, pale blue heat of the sky.

He paced about his apartment uncomfortably, wondering what to do. He told himself he should go in to the newspaper but was unable immediately to summon the necessary energy. The newspaper suddenly no longer seemed a place of sanctuary, but instead a swamp or a minefield. He stared down at his hands, turning them over, counting the lines and veins, thinking how ironic it was that so few hours earlier he’d been desperate to be alone and now that he was, he was incapable of deciding what to do.

He plumbed his memory for others trapped in the same type of circumstances, as if others’ mistakes would help diminish his own. He recalled William F. Buckley’s efforts to free Edgar Smith from Death Row in New Jersey in the early sixties and Norman Mailer’s assistance to Jack Abbott. He remembered the columnist standing in front of a bank of microphones, angrily admitting to being duped by the killer. He could picture the novelist fighting through the glare of camera lights, refusing to talk about his murderous charge. I’m not the first reporter to make an error, he thought. It’s a high-risk profession. The stakes are always tough. No reporter is immune from a carefully executed deception.

But that only made him feel worse.

He sat up in his seat, as if talking to someone in a chair opposite him and said, “What could I have done?”

He rose and started pacing about the room. “Dammit, there was no evidence. It made sense. It made perfect sense. Dammit. Dammit.”

Rage suddenly overcame him, and he reached out and swept a stack of newspapers and magazines from a countertop. Before they had settled, he picked up a table and overturned it, crashing it into a sofa. The thud of the furniture smashing together was intoxicating. He started to mutter obscenities, picking up pace, assaulting the room. He seized some dishes and threw them to the floor. He swept clear a shelf filled with books. He knocked over chairs, punched the walls, finally throwing himself down next to a couch.

“How could I have known?” he shouted. The silence in the room was his only answer. A different exhaustion filled him, and he leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. Abruptly, he laughed. “Boy,” he said, affecting a lugubrious Hollywood-Southern accent, “you done fucked up good. Fucked up righteous. Done fucked up in a unique and special way.” He drew out the words, letting them roll around the disheveled apartment.

He sat up quickly. “All right. What are we going to do?” Silence. “That’s right,” he laughed again. “We just don’t know, do we?”

He rose and walked through the mess to his desk and tore open a bottom drawer. He shuffled through a stack of papers until he found a year-old copy of the Sunday paper with his first story. It had already started to yellow slightly. The newsprint felt brittle to his touch. The headline jumped at him and he started reading through the story.

“Questions raised about Panhandle murder case,” he abbreviated the words of the opening paragraph out loud. “No shit.”

He continued to read as far as he could, past the lead and through the opening page to the jump and the double-truck inside. He wouldn’t look at the picture of Joanie Shriver but stared angrily at the photos of Sullivan and Ferguson.

He was about to crumple the paper and throw it into the wastebasket when he stopped and looked at it again. Grabbing a yellow highlight pen, he started marking the occasional word or phrase. After he finished the entire story a second time, he laughed. In all the words written, there was nothing wrong. There was nothing really untrue. Nothing inaccurate.

Except everything.

He looked at what he’d written again: All the “questions” had been correct. Robert Earl Ferguson’s conviction had been based on the flimsiest evidence concocted in a prejudicial atmosphere. Was the confession beaten out of Ferguson? His stories had only cited what the prisoner had contended and the policemen denied. It was Tanny Brown, Cowart thought, who had been unable to explain the length of time Ferguson had been held in custody before “confession.” It had deserved to be set aside. The jury that had convicted him had been steamrollered into their decision by passions. A savagely murdered little white girl and an angry black man accused of the crime and represented by an incompetent old attorney. A perfect formula for prejudice. His own words—illegally obtained—putting him on the Row. There was no question about all that, about the injustice that had beset Ferguson in the days after Joanie Shriver’s body had been discovered.

Except for one isolated detail. He had killed the little girl. At least, according to a mass murderer.

His head spun.

Cowart continued to scan through his story. Blair Sullivan had been in Escambia County at the time of the murder. That had been confirmed and double-confirmed. There was no question Sullivan had been in the midst of a murderous spree. He should have been a ­suspect—if the police had bothered to look past the obvious.

The only outright lie—if it was one—that he could detect belonged to Ferguson, when he had accused Sullivan of confessing to the crime. But that was Ferguson talking—carefully attributed and quoted, not himself.

And yet, everything was a lie, the explosive coupling of the two men completely obscuring whatever truth lay about.

He thought, I am in hell. The simple, terrible reality was, for all the right reasons, all the wrong things had happened.

The first two times the telephone rang, he ignored it. The third time, he stirred himself and, despite knowing there was no one he wanted to talk to, plucked the phone from its cradle and held it to his ear.

“Yes?”

“Christ, Matt?”

It was Will Martin from the editorial department.

“Will?”

“Jesus, fella, where the hell have you been? Everyone’s going slightly bananas trying to find you.”

“I drove back. Just got in.”

“From Starke? That’s an eight-hour trip.”

“Less than six, actually. I was going pretty fast.”

“Well, boy, hope you can write as fast as you can drive. The city desk is screaming for your copy and we got a couple hours before first-edition deadline. You got to get your rear in gear, in here, pronto.” The editor’s singsong voice was filled with excitement.

“Sure. Sure . . .” Cowart listened to his own voice as if it were someone else talking on the telephone. “Hey, Will, what’re the wires moving?”

“Wild stuff. They’re still doing new leads on that little press conference of yours. Just what the hell happened up there, anyway? Nobody’s talking about anything else and nobody knows a damn thing. You ought to see your phone messages. The networks, the Times and Post, and the newsweeklies, just for starters. The three local affiliates have the front door staked out, so we got to figure a way of getting you in here without too much fuss. There’s a half-dozen calls already from homicide cops working cold cases that just happen to be on the route that Sullivan took. Everybody wants to know what that killer told you before taking his evening juice, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

“Sullivan confessed to a bunch of crimes.”

“I know that. The wires have run that already. That’s what you told everybody up there. But we’ve got to get the inside story right now, son. Chapter and verse. Names, dates, and details. Right now. You got it on tape? We got to get that to a typist, hell, a half-dozen typists, if need be, get some transcripts made. C’mon, Matty, I know you’re probably exhausted, buddy, but you got to rally. Pop some NoDoz, gulp some coffee. Just get on in here. Pump out those words. You got to move, Matty, move, before this place gets crazy. Hell, you can sleep later. Anyway, sleep’s overrated. Better to have a big story anytime. Trust me.”

“Okay,” Cowart said helplessly. Any thought of trying to explain what had happened had dissipated in the waves of enthusiasm Will poured over the phone line. Cowart realized if Martin was this way—a man dedicated to a slow, thoughtful, editorial-page-consideration pace of events—the city desk was probably frantic with excitement. A big story has a universal impact on the staff of a newspaper. It catches hold of everyone, sucks them in, makes them feel as if they’re a part of the events. He took a deep breath. “I’m on my way,” he said quietly. “But how do I get past the camera crews?”

“No problem. You know where the downtown Marriott Hotel sorta hides behind the Omni Mall? On that little back street by the bay?”

“Sure.”

“Well, a home-delivery truck will pick you up, right on the corner, in twenty minutes. Just jump in and come in the freight entrance.”

“Cloak and dagger, huh?” Cowart was forced to smile.

“These are dangerous times, my son, demanding unique efforts. It was the best we could come up with on short notice. Now, I suppose the CIA or the KGB could think of something better, but who’s got the time? And anyway, outwitting a bunch of television reporters shouldn’t be the hardest damn thing in the world.”

“I’m on my way.” Then suddenly, he thought of the tapes in his briefcase containing the confession and the truth about Joanie Shriver’s murder. He couldn’t let anyone hear those words. Not until things had settled, and he’d sorted out what he was going to do. He scrambled. “Look, I need to shower first. Hold the pickup for, say, forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour.”

“Not a chance. You don’t need to be clean to write.”

“I’ve got to collect my thoughts.”

“You want me to tell the city editor you’re thinking?”

“No, no, just say I’m on my way, I’m just getting my notes together. Thirty minutes, Will. Half an hour. Promise.”

“No more. Got to move, son. Got to move.” Will Martin made slapping sounds to punctuate the urgency of the moment.

“A half hour. No more.”

“Okay. I’ll tell the city editor. Man’s gonna have a heart attack and it’s only ten A.M. The truck will be waiting for you. Just hurry. Keep the poor guy alive another day, huh?” Martin laughed at his joke and hung up.

Cowart’s head spun. He knew he was running out of choices, that the detectives would arrive at his office momentarily. Things were moving too rapidly for him to contain. He had to go in and write something. Things were expected of him.

But instead of grabbing his jacket, he seized his briefcase and pulled out the tapes. It only took him a second to locate the last tape; he’d been careful to number them as each was completed. For a moment he held the tape in his hand and considered destroying it, but instead, he took it over to his own stereo system and plugged it into the tape deck. He wound the tape through to the end, then backtracked it a few feet and punched the Play button. Blair Sullivan’s gravel voice burst through the speakers, filling the small apartment with its acid message. Cowart waited until he heard the words: “. . . Now I will tell you the truth about little Joanie Shriver.”

He stopped the tape and rewound it a few feet, to where Blair Sullivan said, “That’s all thirty-nine. Some story, huh?” And he’d responded, “Mr. Sullivan, there’s not much time.” The killer had shouted then, “Haven’t you paid any attention, boy?” before continuing with, “Now it’s time for one more story . . .”

He rewound the tape again, backing it up to “Some story, huh?”

He went to his record and tape collection and found a cassette he’d recorded some years back of Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain. It was an older tape, frequently played, with a faded label. He knew that there were a few feet of blank tape on the end of that recording. He put the tape in the player and found the end of the music. Then he removed the tape and placed it in his portable machine, put the small portable directly in front of his stereo speakers, and replaced Blair Sullivan’s confession in the larger unit. He punched the Play button on the Sullivan recording and the Record button on the Miles Davis.

Cowart listened to the words boil around him, trying to blank them from his imagination.

When the tape was finished, he shut both machines off. He played the Sullivan section on the end of the Miles Davis tape. The clarity of the voice speaking was diminished—but still brutally audible. Then he took the tape and replaced it on the shelf with the rest of his records and tapes.

For a moment he stared at the original Sullivan tape. Then he rewound it to the spot he’d duplicated on the Davis, punched the Record button and obliterated Sullivan’s words with a breathless silence.

It would seem an abrupt ending, but it would have to do. He didn’t know if the tape would stand up to any professional scrutiny by a police lab, but it would buy him some time.

Cowart looked up briefly from the computer screen and saw the two detectives moving through the newsroom. They maneuvered between the desks, zigzagging toward him, ignoring the dozens of other reporters in the room, whose heads rose and whose eyes followed their path, so that by the time they arrived at his desk, everyone was watching them.

“All right, Mr. Cowart,” Andrea Shaeffer said briskly. “Our turn.”

The words on the screen in front of him seemed to shimmer. “I’ll be finished in a second,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the computer.

“You’re finished now,” Michael Weiss interjected.

Cowart ignored the detectives. In a moment, the city editor had rushed up and positioned himself between the two policemen and the reporter.

“We want to take a full statement, right now. We’ve been trying to do that for days and we’re getting tired of the runaround,” Shaeffer explained.

The city editor nodded. “When he finishes.”

“That’s what you guys said the other day, after he found the bodies. Then he had to talk to Sullivan. Then because of what Sullivan says to him, he has to be alone. Now he’s got to write it all up. Hell, we don’t need a statement, all we have to do is buy a damn subscription to your paper.” Exasperation filled her voice.

“He’ll be right there,” said the city editor, shielding Cowart from the two detectives, trying to steer them away from his desk.

“Now,” she repeated stubbornly.

“When he finishes,” the editor repeated.

“Do you want to get arrested for obstruction?” Weiss said. “I’m really getting tired of waiting for you jerks to finish your job so that we can do ours.”

“I’ll call that bluff,” the city editor replied. “We’ll get a nice picture of you two handcuffing me to run on the front page tomorrow. I’m sure the sheriff in Monroe County will love seeing that.” He held out his hands angrily.

“Look.” Shaeffer stepped in. “He has information pertinent to a murder investigation. How goddamn unreasonable is it to ask him for a little cooperation?”

“It’s not unreasonable,” the city editor answered, glaring at her. “He also has a first-edition deadline staring him in the face. First things first.”

“That’s right,” Weiss said angrily. “First things first. We’ve just got a problem with what you guys think comes first. Like selling papers instead of solving murders.”

“Matt, how much longer?” the city editor asked. Neither side had moved much.

“A few minutes,” Cowart replied.

“Where are the tapes?” Shaeffer asked.

“Being transcribed. Almost finished.” The city editor seemed to think for an instant. “Look, how about you read what Sullivan told our man while you’re waiting?”

The detectives nodded. The editor guided them away from Cowart’s desk, giving the reporter a single “get going” glance as he led the detectives into a conference room where three typists wearing headsets were working hard on the tapes.

Cowart breathed in deeply. He had worked his way through a description of the execution and maneuvered through the substance of Sullivan’s confession. He’d listed out all the crimes that Sullivan had confessed to.

The only remaining element was the deaths that concerned the two Keys detectives. Cowart felt stymied. It was a crucial part of the story, items that would occupy a prominence in the first few paragraphs. But it was the element that threatened him the most. He couldn’t tell the police—or write in the newspaper—that Ferguson had been involved with the crimes without opening up the question why. And the only answer to why those killings had taken place went back to the murder of Joanie Shriver and the agreement the dead man claimed had been struck between the two men on Death Row.

Matthew Cowart sat frozen at his computer screen. The only way he could protect himself, his reputation, and his career, was to conceal Ferguson’s role.

He thought, Hide a killer?

His imagination echoed with Sullivan’s words. “Have I killed you?”

For a single instant, he considered simply telling the truth about everything, but, in the same instant, he wondered, What was the truth? Everything pivoted on the words of the executed man. A lover of lies, right to his death.

He looked up and saw the city editor watching him. The man spread his arms and made a circling gesture with both hands. Wind it up, the movement said. Cowart looked back at the story he was writing, knowing that it would parade into the paper untouched.

As he wavered, he heard a voice over his shoulder.

“I don’t buy it.”

It was Edna McGee. Her blonde hair flounced about her face as she shook her head from side to side. She was staring down at some pages of typed paper. Sullivan’s confession.

“What?” Cowart spun in his seat, facing his friend.

She frowned and grimaced as her eyes ate words. “Hey, Matt, I think there’s a problem here.”

“What?” he asked again.

“Well, I’m just going through these quick, you know, and sure, well, I know he’s telling you straight about some of these crimes. Got to be, I mean, with the details and everything. But, well, look here, he told you he killed this kid who was working in a combination convenience store and Indian souvenir stand on the Tamiami Trail a couple of years back. He says he stopped for a Coke or something and shot the kid in the back and took the register contents before heading down to Miami. Well, shit, I remember that crime. I covered it. Remember, I started out doing a piece about all the businesses that have sprung up around the Miccosukkee Reservation, and I did a sidebar on some of the crime that has plagued the folks out there in the ’Glades? Remember?”

He gripped the desk.

“Matt, you okay?”

“I remember the stories,” Cowart replied slowly.

Edna looked at him closely. “Well, they were mostly about people getting mugged on their way to the bingo games, and how the Indians have established an additional security patrol because of all these cash businesses they’ve got.”

“I remember.”

“Well, I did a bit of research on that shooting. I mean, it happened pretty much the way Sullivan says it did. And it sounds like he was inside that store at some point. And sure, the kid got shot in the back. That was in all the papers. . . .” She waved the sheaf of typed conversation in the air. “I mean, he’s got it all right, in a sort of superficial way. But, he didn’t do it. No way. They busted three teenagers from South Dade for the crime. Forensics matched up the weapon with the bullet in the kid’s back and everything. Got a confession from one and testimony against the shooter by the wheelman. Open and shut, as they say. Two of those kids are doing a mandatory twenty-five for first-degree. The other got a deal. But there ain’t no doubt who did the crime.”

“Sullivan . . .”

“Well, hell, I don’t know. He was in South Florida then. No doubt. I mean, I got to check the dates and everything, but sure. He probably passed right by, right about the time that crime hit the front page of the paper. The murdered kid was the nephew of one of the Indian elders, so it made a splash all over the local pages. TV was all over it, too. Remember?”

He did, vaguely, and wondered why he hadn’t when Sullivan was talking to him. He nodded.

Edna shook the pile of papers in her hand. “Hell, Matt, I’m sure he was probably telling the truth about most of these crimes. But all of them? Who knows? There’s one that doesn’t wash. How many others?”

Cowart felt sick to his stomach. The words, “probably telling the truth” punished him. What does it mean if he lied once? Twice? A dozen times? Who did he kill? Who didn’t he kill? When was he telling the truth and when wasn’t he?

Maybe it was all a lie and Ferguson was telling the truth. His image of Ferguson suddenly flip-flopped from a twisted, murderous gargoyle back to the angry man trapped by injustice. Sullivan’s lies, half-truths, and misinformation all rolled together in an impossible mess.

Innocent? Cowart thought.

He stared at the computer screen but remembered Sullivan’s words.

Guilty?

He did.

He didn’t.

Edna flapped the sheaf of papers in her hand. “There’s a couple of others here that may not wash. I’m just guessing, though. I mean, why? Huh? Why would he claim some murders that he didn’t do?”

She paused and answered her own question. “. . . Because he was one weird guy, right up to the end. And all those mass murderers seem to get off on being the biggest or the toughest or the worst. You remember that guy Henley in Texas? Helped do twenty-eight with that other guy. So, there he is, sitting in prison, when word comes out that John Gacy in Chicago has done thirty-three. So Henley calls up a detective in Houston and tells him, ‘I can get the record back . . .’ I mean, weird doesn’t really describe it, does it?”

“No,” replied Cowart, his insides collapsing in a turmoil of doubt.

Edna leaned over to look at the lead to his article. “At least thirty-nine crimes. Well, that’s what he said. But you better qualify it.”

“I will.”

“Good. Did he give you any real details about the killings in the Keys?”

“No,” Cowart answered quickly. “He just said he’d managed to arrange for them to be done.”

“Well, he had to tell you something . . .”

Cowart scrambled. “He talked about some informal prison grapevine that even gets to Death Row. He said anything could be arranged for a price. But he didn’t say what he paid.”

“Well, I wonder. I mean, you’ve got to write what he said. But sorting it all out. Well, hell.”

She looked up and across the newsroom toward where the two detectives were reading transcripts. “You suppose they’ve got any real evidence? I think they’re just hoping you’ll wrap the whole thing up for them nice and easy.” The cynicism in her voice was evident.

He looked up at her. “Edna,” he started.

“You want some help checking these suckers out, right?” Edna’s voice immediately filled with enthusiasm. She slapped her hand against the sheaf of papers. “Got to know what’s a definite, what’s a maybe, and what’s a no way, right?”

“Yes. Please. Can you do it?”

“Love to. Take a few days, but I’ll get to work on it right away. I’ll tell the higher-ups. You sure you don’t mind sharing the story?”

“No. No problem.”

Edna gestured at the computer screen. “Better be careful not to be too explicit about old Sully’s confession. It may have some more little problems. Don’t dig any hole in the story you can’t jump out of.”

Cowart wanted to laugh or be sick, he was uncertain which.

“You know, you got to appreciate old Sully. Never wanted to make anything easy on nobody,” she said, turning away.

He watched Edna McGee saunter across the newsroom to the city editor and start talking animatedly with him. He watched as they both stared down at the sheet of transcribed statements. He saw the man shake his head and then hurry over to where he was working.

“This right?” the city editor demanded.

“That’s what she says. I don’t know.”

“We’re gonna have to check every bit of all this out.”

“Right.”

“Christ! How’re you writing the story?”

“Just as the dying man’s words. Allegations unproven. No idea where the truth lies. Questions abound. All that sort of stuff.”

“Go heavy with the description and be careful with details. We need some time.”

“Edna said she’d help.”

“Good. Good. She’s going to start making calls now. When do you think you’ll be able to get on it?”

“I need some rest.”

“Okay. And those detectives . . .”

“I’ll be right there.”

Cowart looked back at the page. He plucked Sullivan’s words from his notebook and closed the piece with: “Some story, huh?”

He punched a few buttons on the keyboard, shutting the screen down in front of him and electronically transporting his article over to the city desk so it could be measured, assessed, edited, and dummied on the front page. He no longer knew whether what he’d done compounded truth or lies. He realized that for the first time in his years as a journalist, he had no idea which was which, they had become so tangled in his head.

Adrift in a sea of ambiguity, he went in to see the detectives.

Shaeffer and Weiss were livid.

“Where is it?” the woman demanded as he walked through the door into the conference room. The three typists were stapling pages together at a large meeting table where the afternoon news conferences were held. When they heard the anger in the detectives’ voices, they hurried, leaving a stack of paper behind as they left the room. Cowart didn’t reply. His eyes swept away to a large picture window. Sunlight reflecting off the bay streamed into the room. He could see a cruise liner getting up steam, heading out Governor’s Cut toward the open ocean.

“Where is it!” Shaeffer demanded a second time. “Where’s his explanation of the deaths of his mother and stepfather?”

She shook a typed transcript in his face. “Not a word in here,” she almost shouted.

Weiss stood up and pointed a finger right at him. “Start explaining, right now. I’m tired of all this runaround, Cowart. We could arrest you as a material witness and chuck you in jail.”

“That’d be fine,” he replied, trying to summon up an indignation to match that of the two detectives. “I could use some sleep.”

“You know, I’m getting damn tired of you two threatening my man here,” came a voice from behind Cowart. It was the city editor. “Why don’t you two detectives do some work on your own? All you guys seem to want is for him to provide you with all the answers.”

“Because I think he’s got all the goddamn answers,” Shaeffer replied slowly, softly, her voice filled with menace.

For a moment, the room remained frozen with her words. The city editor finally gestured at chairs to try and slice through some of the tension that sat heavily in the room. “Everybody sit down,” he said sternly. “We’ll try to get this sorted out.”

Cowart saw Shaeffer take a deep breath and struggle to control herself. “All right,” she said quietly. “Just a full statement, right now. Then we’ll get out of your way. How’s that?”

Cowart nodded. The city editor interjected. “If he agrees, fine. But any more threats and this interview is ended.”

Weiss sat down heavily and removed a small notepad. Shaeffer asked the first question.

“Please explain what you told me in Starke at the prison.”

She was watching him steadily, her eyes marking every movement he made.

Cowart fixed his eyes back hard on to hers. It’s how she looks at suspects, he thought

“Sullivan claimed he’d arranged for the killings.”

“You said that. How? Who? What were his exact words? And why the hell isn’t it on the tape?”

“He made me turn the tape machine off. I don’t know why.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Continue.”

“It was a brief element to the entire conversation . . .”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Okay. You understand how he sent me down to Islamorada. Gave me the address and all. Told me to interview the people I found there. He didn’t say they’d be dead. He didn’t give any indication of anything, just insisted I go . . .”

“And you didn’t demand some explanation before heading down there?”

“Why? He wouldn’t give me one. He was adamant. He was scheduled to die. So I went. Without asking any questions. It’s not so damn unreasonable.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“When I first got back to his cell, he wanted me to describe the deaths. He wanted me to tell him all the details, like how they were sitting, and how they’d been killed and everything I noticed about the scene. He was particularly interested in learning whether they had suffered. After I finished telling him everything I remembered about the two dead bodies, he seemed satisfied. Downright pleased.”

“Go ahead.”

“I asked him why and he said, ‘Because I killed them.’ And I asked how he’d managed that and he replied, ‘You can get anything you want, even on Death Row, if you’re willing to pay the price.’ I asked him what he’d paid, but he refused to say. Said that was for me to find out. Said he was going to go to his grave without shooting his mouth off. I tried to ask him about how he’d arranged it, but he refused to answer. Then he said, ‘Ain’t you interested in my legacy at all?’ He told me then to turn on the tape recorder. And he started confessing to all these other crimes.”

Lies tripped readily from his mouth. He was surprised at how easily.

“Do you think there was a connection between the subsequent confession and the murders in Monroe County?”

That was the question, Cowart thought. He shrugged. “It was hard to tell.”

“But you think he was telling you the truth?”

“Yes, sometimes. I mean, obviously he sent me down there to that house knowing something was going to happen. So he had to know they were going to be murdered. I think he got what he wanted. But how he paid the bill . . .” Cowart let his voice drain away.

Shaeffer rose abruptly, staring at Cowart. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks. Can you remember anything else?”

“If I do, I’ll let you know.”

“We’d like the original tapes.”

“We’ll see,” the city editor interjected. “Probably.”

“They may be evidence,” she said acidly.

“Well, we still need to make copies. Maybe by this afternoon, late. In the meantime, if you want, you can take a transcript.”

“Okay,” she said. Cowart glanced over at the city editor. The detective suddenly seemed extremely accommodating.

“If I need to get hold of you?” she asked him.

“I’ll be around.”

“Not planning on going anywhere?”

“Just home to bed.”

“Uh-huh. Okay. We’ll be in touch for the tapes.”

“With me,” said the city editor.

She nodded. Weiss snapped shut his notepad.

For an instant, she fixed Cowart with a glare. “You know, Mr. Cowart, there’s one thing that bothers me. In your press conference after the execution, you said that Blair Sullivan talked to you about the killing of that little girl up in Pachoula.”

Cowart felt his insides tumble. “Yeah . . .” he said.

“But none of that’s on this transcript, either.”

“He made me shut the machine off. I told you.”

She smiled, a look of satisfaction. “That’s right. That’s what I figured happened. . . .” She paused, letting a little silence heat up the room. “. . . Except, then we’d hear Sullivan’s voice saying something like: ‘Turn off that tape machine,’ wouldn’t we?”

Cowart, fighting panic, shrugged, nonchalantly. “No,” he replied slowly. “He spoke of that crime at the same time he talked about the Monroe killings.”

Shaeffer nodded. Her eyes squeezed hard on Cowart’s face. “Ah, of course. But you didn’t say that earlier, did you? Odd, though, huh? Every other crime goes on the tapes except those two, right? The one that first brought you to him and the one he ended with. Kinda unusual, that, what d’you think?”

“I don’t know, Detective. He was an unusual man.”

“I think you are, too, Mr. Cowart,” she said. Then she pivoted and led her partner from the conference room. He watched as she marched through the newsroom and out between the exit doors. He could see the knotted muscles of her calves. She must be a runner, he thought. She has that lean, unhappy look, driven and pained. He wanted to try to persuade himself that she’d believed his story but knew that was foolish.

The city editor also let his eyes follow the detectives through the room. Then he breathed deeply and stated the obvious. “Matty,” he said quietly, “that gal doesn’t believe a word you said. Is that what happened with Sullivan?”

“Yes, kinda.”

“This is all very shaky, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Matty, is something going on here?”

“It’s just Blair Sullivan,” Cowart replied quickly. “Mind games. He ran them on me. He ran them on everyone. It was what he did with himself when he wasn’t killing folks.”

“But what about what that detective was implying?”

Cowart tried for a reply that would make some sense. “It was kinda like Sullivan made a distinction between some crimes. The ones that were important, the two that aren’t on tape, were, I don’t know, different for him. All these others were just run-of-the-mill. Stuff for his legend. I’m not a shrink. I can’t explain what was going on in his mind.”

The city editor nodded. “Is that what’s going into the paper?”

“Yes, more or less.”

“Let’s make sure what we put in the paper errs on the side of caution, okay? If you have doubts about something, leave it out. Or make certain it’s covered. We can always come back to it.”

Cowart tried to smile. “I’m trying.”

“Try hard,” the city editor said. “You know, it raises more questions than it answers. I mean, who was Sullivan trying to protect? You’re gonna find out, right? While Edna checks out the rest of the statement, you’re going to work on that angle?”

“Yes.

“Helluva story. A person arranging a murder right before his own execution. What are we talking about, a corrupt prison guard? An attorney, maybe? Another inmate? Get some rest and get on it, okay? You got an idea where to start?”

“Sure,” he answered. Not only where to start, but, he thought, where to finish: Robert Earl Ferguson.

Despite his fatigue, Cowart hung on in the newsroom throughout the remainder of the day, into the early evening. He ignored the news crews staked out in front of the building waiting for him for as long as he could. But when the news directors at each station started calling the managing editor, he was forced to go outside and made a short, unsatisfactory statement. This, of course, angered them more than placated them. They didn’t leave after he ended the interview. He took no calls from other reporters trying to interview him. He simply waited for the cover of darkness. After the first edition came up, he read the words he’d written slowly, as if afraid they could hurt him physically. He made a change or two for the late edition, adding more doubt about Sullivan’s confession, underscoring the essential mystery of the executed man’s actions. He spoke briefly with Edna McGee and the city editor one last time, a false coordination of work. He rode the freight elevator down through the bowels of the newspaper, past the computer makeup rooms, the classified advertising sections, the cafeteria, and the assembly docks. The building hummed and quivered with the noise of the presses as they pumped out tens of thousands of issues of the newspaper. He could feel the vibration from the machines right through the soles of his feet.

A delivery truck gave him a lift for a few blocks, dropping him a short way from his apartment. He tucked a single issue of the next day’s paper beneath his arm and walked through the growing city night, suddenly relieved by the anonymous sound his shoes made pacing against the pavement.

He eyed the front of his apartment building from a short distance, scanning the area for other members of the press. He saw none, and then checked for signs of the Monroe detectives. It would not be crazy to suspect they were following him. But the street appeared empty and he quickly cut through the shadows on the edges of the streetlamps, and into his lobby. For the first time since he’d moved in, he regretted the lack of security in the modest building. He hesitated for an instant in front of the elevator, then burst through an emergency door and raced up the fire stairs, his breath coming in short bursts, his feet pounding against the linoleum risers.

He opened the door to his apartment and entered the shambles. For an instant he stood in the center, waiting for his heart to settle, then went to the window and stared out across the dark bay waters. A few reflected city lights sliced through the wavy black ink, only to be devoured by the expanse of ocean.

He felt himself completely alone, but he was wrong. He did not understand that a number of people, though miles distant, were actually in the room with him, like ghosts, waiting for his next move.

Some, of course, were less far. Such as Andrea Shaeffer, who’d parked an entire block distant, but who’d intently watched his erratic course down the street through a pair of night-vision binoculars, as the reporter ducked in and out of the fringe darkness. So precise had her concentration been that she had failed to notice Tanny Brown. He stood in a shadow of an adjacent building, letting the night surround and conceal him. He stared up at the lights of Cowart’s apartment until they were extinguished. Then he waited until the unmarked patrol car carrying the woman detective slowly headed off into the city night before moving, alley-cat-like, for Cowart’s apartment.