"Just Cause" - читать интересную книгу автора (Katzenbach John)

2. One Man On Death Row

Cowart stopped the rental car on the access road to the Florida State Prison and stared across the fields at the stolid dark buildings that held the majority of the state's maximum-security, prisoners. There were two prisons, actually, separated by a small river, the Union Correctional Institution on one side, Raiford Prison on the other. He could see cattle grazing in distant green fields, and dust rising in small clouds where inmate work crews labored amidst growing areas. There were watchtowers at the corners and he thought he could make out the glint of weapons held by the watchers. He did not know which building housed Death Row and the room where the state's electric chair was kept, but he'd been told that it split off from the main prison. He could see twelve-foot-high double rows of chain link fence topped with curled strands of barbed wire. The wire gleamed in the morning sun. He got out and stood by the car. A stand of pine trees rose up straight and green on the edge of the roadway, as if pointing in accusation at the crystal blue sky. A cool breeze rustled through the branches, then slid over Cowart's forehead amidst the building humidity.

He had had no difficulty persuading Will Martin and the other members of the editorial board to cut him loose to pursue the circumstances surrounding the conviction of Robert Earl Ferguson, though Martin had expressed some snorting skepticism which Cowart had ignored.

'Don't you remember Pitts and Lee?' Cowart had replied. Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee had been sentenced to die for the murder of a gas-station attendant in North Florida. Both men had confessed to a crime they hadn't done. It had taken years of reporting by one of the Journal's most famous reporters to set them free. He'd won a Pulitzer. In the Journal newsroom, it was the first story any new reporter was told.

'That was different.'

'Why?'

That was in 1963. Might as well have been in 1863. Things have changed.'

'Really? How about that guy in Texas, the one the documentary film-maker got off Death Row there?'

'That was different.'

'How much?'

Martin had laughed. 'That's a good question. Go. With my blessing. Answer that question. And remember, when you're all finished playing reporter again, you can always come home to the ivory tower.' He'd shooed Cowart on his way.

The city desk had been informed and promised assistance should he need any. He had detected a note of jealousy that the story had landed in his lap. He recognized the advantage that he had over the cityside staff. First, he was going to be able to work alone; the city desk would have assigned a team to the story. The Journal, like so. many newspapers and television stations, had a full-time investigative squad with a snappy title like 'The Spotlight Team' or The I-team.' They would have approached the story with the subtlety of an invading force. And, Cowart realized, unlike the regular reporters on the staff, he would have no deadline, no assistant city editor breathing down his neck, wondering every day where the story was. He could find out what he could, structure as he saw fit, write it as he wanted. Or discard it if it wasn't true.

He tried to hold on to this last thought, to armor himself against disappointment, but as he headed down the road and pulled into the prison, he sensed his pulse quickening. A series of warning signs was posted on the access road, informing passersby that by entering the area they were consenting to a search, that any firearms and narcotics violations would be punished by a term of prison. He passed through a gate where a gray-jacketed guard checked his identification against a list and sullenly waved him through, then parked in an area designated VISITORS and entered the administration building.

There was some confusion when he checked with a secretary. She had apparently lost his entrance request. He waited patiently by her desk while she shuffled through papers, apologizing rapidly, until she found it. He was then asked to wait in an adjacent office until an officer could escort him to where he was to meet Robert Earl Ferguson.

After a few minutes, an older man with a gray-tinged Marine Corps haircut and bearing entered the room. The man had a huge, gnarled hand, which he shot forward at Cowart. 'Sergeant Rogers. I'm day officer on the Row today.'

'Glad to meet you.'

'There are a few formalities, Mr. Cowart, sir, if you don't mind.'

'Like?'

I need to frisk you and search your tape recorder and briefcase. I have a statement you need to sign about being taken hostage…'

'What's that?'

'It's just a statement saying you're entering the Florida State Prison of your own wish and that, if taken hostage during your stay here, you will not sue the state of Florida, nor will you expect extraordinary efforts to secure your freedom.'

'Extraordinary efforts?'

The man laughed and rubbed his hand through his brush of hair. 'What it means is that you don't expect us to risk our asses to save yours.'

Cowart smiled and made a face. 'Sounds like a bad deal for me.'

Sergeant Rogers grinned. 'That it is. Of course, prison is a bad deal for just about everybody, except those of us who get to head home at night.'

Cowart took the paper from the sergeant and signed it with a mock flourish. 'Well,' he said, still smiling, 'can't say you guys give me a lot of confidence right here at the start.'

'Oh, you ain't got nothing to worry about, not visiting Robert Earl. He's a gentleman and he ain't crazy.' As he spoke, the sergeant methodically searched through Cowart's briefcase. He also opened up the tape recorder to inspect the insides and popped the battery compartment to ascertain that there were batteries in the space. 'Now, it's not like you were coming in to visit Willie Arthur or Specs Wilson – they were those two bikers from Fort Lauderdale that let a little fun with that girl they picked up hitchhiking get out of hand – or Jose Salazar – you know, he killed two cops. Undercover guys in a drug deal. You know what he made them do before he killed 'em? To each other? You oughta find out. It'll open your mind to how bad folks can be when they set their minds right to it. Or some of the other lovely guys we got in here. Most of the worst come from downstate, from your hometown. What y'all doing down there anyway, that makes folks kill each other so bad?'

'Sergeant, if I could answer that question…'

They both grinned. Sergeant Rogers put down Cowart's briefcase and gestured for him to hold his hands up in the air. 'Sure helps to have a sense of humor around here, the sergeant said as his hands flitted across Cowart's body. The sergeant patted him down rapidly.

'Okay,' the sergeant said. 'Let me brief you on the drill. It's gonna be just you and him. I'm just there for security. Be right outside the door. You need help, you just yell. But that ain't gonna happen, because we're talking about one of the non-crazy men on the Row. Hell, we're gonna use the executive suite…'

'The what?'

'The executive suite. That's what we call the inter- view room for the best behaved. Now, it's just a table and chairs, so it ain't no big deal. We've got other facilities that are more secure. And Robert Earl won't have no restraints. Not even leg irons. But no hand contact. I mean you can give him a smoke…'

I don't'

'Good. Smart man. You can take papers from him, if he hands you documents. But if you wanted to hand him anything, it would have to go through me.'

Like hand him what?'

'Oh, maybe a file and hacksaw and some road maps.'

Cowart looked surprised.

'Hey, just kidding,' the sergeant said. 'Of course, in here, that's the one joke we never much make."Escape. Not funny, you know. But there's lots of different ways to escape a prison. Even Death Row. A lot of the inmates think talking to reporters is one way.' 'Help them escape?'

'Help them get out. Everyone always wants the press to get excited about their case. Inmates never think they got a fair shake. They think that maybe if they make enough of a stink, they'll get a new trial. Happens. That's why prison people like me always hate to see reporters. Hate to see those little pads of paper, those camera crews and lights. Just gets everyone riled up, excited about nothing much. People think it's the loss of freedoms that makes for trouble in prisons. They're wrong. Worse thing by far is expectations getting raised and then smashed. It's just another story for you guys. But for the guys inside, it's their lives you're talking about. They think one story, the right story, and they'll just walk on out of here. You and I know that ain't necessarily true. Disappointment. Big, angry, frustrating disappointment. Causes more trouble than you'd like to know. What we like is routine. No wild hopes, no dreams. Just one day exactly like the last. Don't sound exciting, but of course, you don't want to be around a prison when things get exciting.'

'Well, I'm sorry. But I'm just here checking a few facts.'

'In my experience, Mr. Cowart, there ain't no such thing as a fact, except two maybe, one being born and one being dying. But, no problem. I ain't as hard-core as some around here. I kinda like a little change of pace, as long as it's within reason. Just don't hand him nothing. It'll only make it worse for him. 'Worse than Death Row?'

'You got to understand, even on the Row there's lots of ways of doing your time. We can make it real hard, or not so tough. Right now, Robert Earl, he's got it pretty good. Oh, he still gets his cell tossed every day, and he still gets a strip search after a little meeting like this one here today, but he's got yard privileges now and books and such. You wouldn't think it, but even in prison there's all sorts of little things we can take away that will make his life a lot worse.'

'I've got nothing for him. But he may have some papers or something

'Well, that's okay. We ain't so concerned with stuff being smuggled out of the prison…'

The sergeant laughed again. He had a booming laugh to match his forthright speech. Rogers was obviously the sort of man who could tell you much or make your life miserable, depending on his inclination. 'You're also supposed to tell me how long you're gonna be.'

'I don't know.'

'Well, hell, I got all morning, so take your time. Afterwards I'll give you a little tour of the place. You ever seen Old Sparky?'

'No.'

'It's an education.'

The sergeant rose. He was a wide, powerful man, with the sort of bearing that implied he'd seen much trouble in his life and always managed to deal with it Successfully.

'Kinda puts things in perspective, if you know what

I mean."

Cowart followed him through the doorway, feeling dwarfed by the man's broad back.

He was led through a series of locked doors and a metal detector manned by an officer who grinned at the sergeant as they passed through. They came to a terminal center where several wings of the immense wheel-like prison building came together. In that moment, Cowart was aware of the noise of prison, a constant cacophony of raised voices and metallic clangs and crashes as doors swung open, only to be slammed shut and locked again. A radio somewhere was playing country music. A television set was tuned to a soap opera; he could hear the voices, then the ubiquitous music of commercials. He felt a sensation of motion about him, as if caught in a strong river current, but, save for the sergeant and a pair of other officers manning a small booth in the center of the room, there were few people about. He could see inside the booth and noted an electronic board that showed which doors were open and which were shut. Cameras mounted in the corners by the ceiling and television monitors showed flickering gray images from each cell tier as well. Cowart noticed that the floor was a spotless yellow linoleum, worn bright by the flood of people and the never-ending efforts of prison trustees. He saw one man, wearing a blue jumpsuit, diligently swabbing a corner area with a dirty gray mop, endlessly going over and over a spot that was already clean.

'That's Q, R, and S wings,' said the sergeant. 'Death Row. Actually, I guess you'd have to say Death Rows. Hell, we've even got an overcrowding problem on Death Row. Says something, don't it? The chair's down there. Looks like the other areas, but it ain't the same. No, sir.'

Cowart stared down the narrow, high corridors. The cell tiers were on the left, rising up three stories, with stairs at either end. The wall facing the cells contained three rows of dirty windows that swung open to let in the air. There was an empty space between the catwalk outside the bank of cells and the windows. He realized the men could lie locked in each small cell and stare out across and through to the sky, a distance of perhaps thirty feet that might as well have been a. million miles. It made him shudder.

'There's Robert Earl over there,' the sergeant said. Cowart spun about and saw the sergeant pointing toward a small barred cage in a far corner of the terminal area. There were four men inside, sitting on an iron bench, staring out at him. Three men wore blue jumpsuits, like the trustee. One man wore bright orange. He was partially obscured by the bodies of the other men.

'You don't want to wear the orange,' the sergeant said quietly. 'That means the clock's ticking down on your life.'

Cowart started toward the cage but was stopped by the sergeant's sudden grip on his shoulder. He could feel the strength in the man's fingertips.

'Wrong way. Interview room's over here. When someone comes to visit, we search the men and make a list of everything they have – papers, law books, whatever. Then they go into isolation, over there. We bring him to you. Then, when it's all said and done, we reverse the process. Takes goddamn forever, but security, you know. We do like to have our security.'

Cowart nodded and was steered into an interview room. It was a plain white office with a single steel table in the center and a pair of old, scarred brown chairs. A mirror was on one wall. An ashtray in the center. Nothing else.

He pointed at the mirror. 'Two-way?' he asked.

'Sure is, replied the sergeant. 'That a problem?'

'Nope. Hey, you sure this is the executive suite?' He turned toward the sergeant and smiled. 'Us city boys are accustomed to a bit more in the way of creature comforts.'

Sergeant Rogers laughed. 'Why, that's what I would have guessed. Sorry, this is it.'

'It'll do,' Cowart said. 'Thanks.'

He took a seat and waited for Ferguson.

His first impression of the prisoner was a young man in his mid-twenties, just shorter than six feet, with a boyish slight build, but possessing a deceptive, wiry strength that passed through his handshake. Robert Earl Ferguson had rolled his sleeves up, displaying knotted arm muscles. He was thin, with narrow hips and shoulders like a distance runner, with an athlete's easy grace in the manner he walked. His hair was short, his skin dark. His eyes were alert, quick, penetrating; Matthew Cowart had the sensation that he was measured by the prisoner in a moment's time, assessed, read, and stored away.

'Thank you for coming,' the prisoner said.

'It wasn't a big deal.'

'It will be,' Ferguson replied confidently. He was carrying a stack of legal papers, which he arranged on the table in front of him. Cowart saw the prisoner glance over at Sergeant Rogers, who nodded, turned, and exited through the door, slamming it shut with a crash.

Cowart sat, took out a notepad and pen, and arranged a tape recorder in the center of the table. 'You mind?' he asked.

'No,' Ferguson responded. 'It makes sense.'

'Why did you write me?' Cowart asked. 'Just curious, you know. Like, how did you get my name?'

The prisoner smiled and rocked back in his seat. He seemed oddly relaxed for what should have been a critical moment.

'Last year you won a Florida Bar Association award for a series of editorials about the death penalty. Your name was in the Tallahassee paper. It was passed on to me by another man on the Row. It didn't hurt that you work for the biggest and most influential paper in the state.'

'Why did you wait to contact me?'

'Well, to be honest, I thought the appeals court was going to throw out my conviction. When they didn't, I hired a new lawyer – well, hired isn't quite right -I got a new lawyer and started being more aggressive about my situation. You see, Mr. Cowart, even when I got convicted and sentenced to die, I still really didn't think it was happening to me. I felt like it was all a dream or something. I was going to wake up any moment and be back at school. Or maybe like someone was just going to come along and say, 'Hey, hold everything. There's been a terrible mistake made here… ' and so I wasn't really thinking right. I didn't realize that you have to fight hard to save your life. You can't trust the system to do it for you.'

There's the first quote of my story, Cowart thought.

The prisoner leaned forward, placing his hands on the table, then, just as rapidly, leaned back, so that he could use his hands to gesture in short, precise movements, using motion to underscore his words. He had a soft yet sturdy voice, one that seemed to carry the weight of words easily. He hunched his shoulders forward as he spoke, as if being pushed by the force of his beliefs. The effect was immediate, it narrowed the small room down to the simple space between the reporter and the prisoner, filling the arena with a sort of superheated strength.

'I thought just being innocent was going to be enough, you see. I thought that's the way it all worked. I thought I didn't have to do anything. Then, when I got here, I got some education. Real education.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, the men on Death Row have a kind of informal way of passing information about lawyers, appeals, clemency, you name it. You see, over there… ' he gestured toward the main prison buildings, 'the convicts think of what they're gonna do when they get out. Or maybe they think about escaping. They think about how they're going to do their time, and they think about making a life inside. They have the luxury to dream about something, a future, even if it's a future behind bars. They can always dream about freedom. And they have the greatest gift of all, the gift of uncertainty. They don't know what life will hold for them.

'Not us. We know how we're gonna end up. We know that there will come a day when the state will send two thousand five hundred electric volts into r brain. We know we've got five, maybe ten years.

It's like having a terrible weight around your neck all the time, that you're struggling to hold up. Every minute goes by, you think, Did I waste that time? Every night comes, you think, There's another day gone. Every day arrives, you realize another night lost. That weight around your neck is the accumulation of all those moments that just passed. All those hopes just fading away. So, our concerns aren't the same.'

They were both quiet for an instant. Cowart could hear his own breath easing in and out, almost as if he'd just run up a flight of stairs. 'You sound like a philosopher.'

'All the men on Death Row are. Even the crazy ones who scream and howl all the time. Or the retards who barely know what is happening to them. But they know the weight. Those of us with a little formal education just sound better. But we're all the same.' 'You've changed here?' 'Who wouldn't?' Cowart nodded.

'When my initial appeal failed, some of the others, some of the men who've been on the Row five, eight, maybe ten years, started to talk to me about making a future for myself. I'm a young man,Mr. Cowart, and I don't want it to end here. So I got a better lawyer, and I wrote you a letter. I need your help.'

'We'll get to that in a minute.' Cowart was uncertain precisely what role to play in the interview. He knew he wanted to maintain some sort of professional distance, but he didn't know how great. He had spent some time trying to think of how he would act in front of the prisoner, but had been unsuccessful. He felt a little foolish, sitting across from a man convicted of murder, in the midst of a prison holding men who'd committed the most unthinkable acts, and trying to act tough.

'Why don't you start by telling me a little bit about yourself? Like, how come a person from Pachoula doesn't have an accent?'

Ferguson laughed again. 'I can, if you want to hear it. I mean, if'n I'z wan'ta, I'z kin speechify lak da tiredest ol' backwoods black you done ever heard… ' Ferguson sat back, sort of slumping into his chair, mimicking a man rocking in a rocking chair. The slow drawl of his words seemed to sweeten the still air of the small room. Then he pitched forward abruptly and the accent shifted. 'Yo, mutha, I ken also talk like a homeboy from da streets, 'cause I know dat sheeit jes' as well. Right on.' Just as quickly, that disappeared too, replaced by the wiry earnest man sitting with elbows on the table and speaking in a regular, even voice. 'And I can also sound precisely as I have, like a person who has attended college and was heading to a degree and perhaps a future in business. Because that's what I was as well.'

Cowart was taken aback by the quick changes. They seemed to be more than simple alterations in accent and tone. The changes in inflection were mimicked by subtle alterations of body English and bearing, so that Robert Earl Ferguson became the image he was projecting with his voice. 'Impressive, Cowart said. 'You must have a good ear.'

Ferguson nodded, 'You see, the three accents reflect my three parts. I was born in Newark, New Jersey. My momma was a maid. She used to ride the bus out to all the white suburbs every day at six A.M…, then back at night, day in, day out, cleaning white folks' homes. My daddy was in the army, and he disappeared when I was three or four. They weren't ever really married, anyway. Then, when I was seven, my momma died. Heart trouble, they told us, but I never really knew. Just one day she was having trouble breathing and she walked herself down to the clinic and that was all we ever saw of her. I was sent down to Pachoula to live with my grandmother. You have no idea what that was like for a little kid. Getting out of that ghetto to where there were trees and rivers and clean air. I thought I was in paradise, even if we didn't have indoor plumbing. They were the best years of my life. I would walk to the school. Read at night by candlelight. We ate the fish I caught in the streams. It was like being in some other century. I thought I'd never leave, until my grandmother got sick. She was scared she couldn't watch over me, and so it was arranged I would be sent back to Newark to live with my aunt and her new husband. That's where I finished high school, got into college. But I used to love coming down to visit my grandmother. Vacations, I would take the all-night bus from Newark down to Atlanta, change there for Mobile, get the local to Pachoula. I had no use for the city. I thought of myself as a country boy, I guess. I didn't like Newark much.'

Ferguson shook his head and a small smile creased his face. 'Those damn bus rides,' he said softly. 'They were the start of all my troubles.'

'What do you mean?'

Ferguson continued shaking his head but answered, 'By the time I got finished riding, it was nearly thirty hours. Humming along the freeway, then right through every country town and back road. Bouncing along, a little carsick, needing to use the can, filled up with folks that needed to bathe. Poor folks who couldn't afford the plane fare. I didn't like it much. That's why I bought the car, you see. A secondhand Ford Granada. Dark green. Cost me twelve hundred bucks from another student. Only had sixty-six thousand miles on it. Cherry. Sheeit! I loved cruising in that car…'

Ferguson's voice was smooth and distant.

'But…'

'But if I hadn't had the car, I never would have been picked up by the sheriff's men investigating the crime.'

'Tell me about that.'

'There's really not that much to tell. The afternoon of the killing, I was at home with my grandmother. She would have testified to that, if anybody'd had the sense to ask her…'

'Anybody else see you? Like, not a relative?'

'Oh, uh, oh, I don't recall anyone. Just her and me. If you go see her, you'll see why. Her place is an old shack about a half mile past any of the other old shacks. Dirt-road poor.'

'Go on.'

'Well, not long after they found the little girl's body, two detectives come out to the house to see me. I was in the front, washing the car. Boy, I did like to see that sucker shine! There I was, middle of the day, they come out and ask me what was I doing a couple of days before. They start looking at the car and at me, not really listening to what I say.'

'Which detectives?'

'Brown and Wilcox. I knew both those bastards. Knew they hated my guts. I should have known not to trust them.'

'How'd you know that? How come they hated you?'

'Pachoula's a small place. Some folks like to see it just keep on keepin' on, as they say. I mean, they knew I had a future. They knew I was going to be somebody. They didn't like it. Didn't like my attitude, I guess.'

'Go on.'

'After I tell them, they say they need to take a statement from me in town, so off I go, not a complaint in the world. Christ! If I knew then what I know now… But you see, Mr. Cowart, I didn't think I had anything to fear. Hell, I barely knew what they were taking a statement about. They said it was a missing persons case. Not murder.'

'And.'

'Like I said in my letter, it was the last daylight I saw for thirty-six hours. They brought me into a little room like this one, sat me down and asked me if I wanted an attorney. I still didn't know what was going on, so I said no. Handed me a constitutional-rights form and told me to sign it. Damn, was I dumb! I should have known that when they sit a nigger in that chair in one of those rooms, the only way he's ever going to get to stand up again is when he tells them what they want to hear, whether he did it or not.'

All jocularity had disappeared from Ferguson's voice, replaced with a metallic edge of anger constrained by great pressure. Cowart felt swept along by the story he was hearing, as if caught in a tidal wave of words.

'Brown was the good cop. Wilcox, the bad cop. Oldest routine in the world.' Ferguson almost spat in disgust.

'And?'

'I sit down, they start in asking me this, asking me that, asking me about this little girl that disappeared. I keep telling them I don't know nothing. They keep at it. All day. Right into the night. Hammering away. Same questions over and over, just like when I said 'No,' it didn't mean a damn thing, They keep going. No trips to the bathroom. No food. No drink. Just questions, over and over. Finally, after I don't know how many hours, they lose it. They're screaming at me something fierce and the next thing I know, Wilcox slaps me across the face. Wham! Then he shoves his face down about six inches from mine and says, "Have I got your attention now, boy?" '

Ferguson looked at Cowart as if to measure the impact that his words were having, and continued in an even voice, filled with bitterness.

'He did, indeed. He kept screaming at me then. I remember thinking that he was going to have a heart attack or a stroke or something, he was so red in the face. It was like he was possessed or something. "I want to know what you did to that little girl!" he screams. "Tell me what you did to her!" He's shouting all the time and Brown walks out of the room so I'm alone with this madman. "Tell me, did you fuck her and then kill her, or was it the other way around?" Man, he kept that up for hours. I kept saying no, no, no, what do you mean, what are you talking about. He showed me the pictures of the little girl and kept asking, "Was it good? Did you like it when she fought?

Did you like it when she screamed? Did you like it when you cut her the first time? How about when you cut her the twentieth time, was that good?" Over and over, over and over, hour after hour.'

Ferguson took a deep breath. 'Every so often he would take a break, just leave me in that little room alone, cuffed to the chair. Maybe he went out, took a nap, got something to eat. He'd be out five minutes once, then a half hour or more. Left me sitting there a couple of hours one time. I just sat there, you know, too scared and too stupid to do a damn thing for myself.

I guess he got frustrated, finally, with my refusing to confess, because eventually he started to whale on me. Started by just slapping me about the head and shoulders a bit more frequently. Stood me up once and punched me in the stomach. I was shaking. They wouldn't even take me to the can, and I wet myself. I didn't know what he was doing when he took the telephone book and rolled it up. Man, it was like being hit with a baseball bat. Knocked me right to the floor.'

Cowart nodded. He had heard of the technique. Hawkins had explained it to him one night. The telephone book had the impact of a leather sap, but the paper wouldn't cut the skin or really leave a bruise.

I still wouldn't say anything, so finally he left. Brown comes in. I haven't seen him in hours. I'm just shaking and moaning and figuring I'm gonna die in that room. Brown looks at me. Picks me up off the floor. All sugar and spice. Man, he says he's sorry for everything that Wilcox has done. Man, he knows it hurts. He'll help me. He'll get me something to eat. He'll get me a Coke. He'll get me some fresh clothes and he'll let me go to the bathroom. Man, all I got to do is trust him. Trust him and tell him what I did to that little girl. I tell him nothing, but he keeps at it. He says, "Bobby Earl, I think you're hurt bad. I think you're gonna be pissing blood. I think you need a doctor real bad. Just tell me what you did, and we'll take you right over to the infirmary." I tell him I didn't do nothing and he loses it. He screams at me, "We know what you did, you just got to tell us!" Then he takes out his weapon. It wasn't his regular gun, the one he wears on his hip, but a little snub-nosed thirty-eight he had hidden in an ankle holster. Wilcox comes in right then and cuffs me with my hands behind my back, grabs my head and holds it so I'm looking right down the, barrel of that little gun. Brown says, "Start in talking now." I says, "I didn't do anything!" and he pulls the trigger. Man! I can still see that finger curling around the trigger and tugging back so slow. I thought my heart stopped. It clicks down on an empty chamber. I'm crying now, just like a baby, blubbering away. He says, "Bobby Earl, you got real lucky with that one. You think you're real lucky today? How many empty chambers I got in here?' He pulls the trigger again and it clicks again. "Damn!" he says. "I think it misfired." And then he cracks open that little gun, swings the cylinder right out and pulls out a bullet. He looks at it real careful like and says, "Man, how about that? A dud. Maybe it'll work this time." And I watch him put it back into the gun. He points the gun right at me and says, "Last chance, nigger." And I believe him this time and I say, "I did it, I did it, whatever you want, I did." And that was the confession.'

Matthew Cowart took a deep breath and tried to digest the story. He suddenly felt that there was no air in the small interview room, as if the walls had grown hot and stifling, and he was baking in the abrupt heat. 'And?' he asked.

'And now I'm here,' Ferguson replied. 'You told this to your attorney?' 'Of course. He pointed out the obvious: There were two police detectives and just one of me. And there was a beautiful little dead white girl. Who do you think was going to get believed?'

Cowart nodded. 'Why should I believe you now?' 'I don't know,' Ferguson replied angrily. He glared at Cowart for an instant. 'Maybe because I'm telling the truth.'

'Would you take a polygraph test?'

'I took one for my attorney. Got the results right here. Damn thing came back "Inconclusive." I think I was too jumpy when they strapped all those wires onto me. Didn't do me no good at all. I'd take another one, if you want. Don't know if it'd do any good. Can't use it in court.'

'Of course. But I need some corroboration.'

'Right. I know that. But hell, that's what happened.'

'How can I prove that story, so I can put it in the paper?'

Ferguson thought for a moment, his eyes still burrowing into Cowart's. After a few seconds, a small smile tore through some of the intensity in the convicted man's face.

'The gun,' he said. 'That might do it.'

'How so?'

'Well, I remember before they took me into that little room, they made a big deal of checking their sidearms at the desk. I remember he had that little sucker hidden under his pants. I bet he'll lie to you about that gun, if you can figure out a way of tripping him up.'

Cowart nodded. 'Maybe.'

The two men grew quiet again. Cowart looked down at the tape recorder and watched the tape spinning on its capstan. 'Why did they pick you?' he asked.

'I was convenient. I was right there. I was black. They made the green car. My blood type was the same – of course, they figured that out later. But I was there and the community was about to go crazy -I mean, the white community. They wanted somebody and they had me in their hand. Who better?'

'That seems like mighty convenient reasoning.'

Ferguson's eyes flashed, an instant moment of anger, and Cowart saw him ball his hand into a fist. He watched the prisoner fight and regain control.

'They always hated me there. Because I wasn't a dumb backwoods shuffling nigger like they were used to. They hated that I went to college. They hated that I knew all the big-city things I did. They knew me and they hated me. For what I was and for what I was going to be.'

Cowart started to ask a question, but Ferguson thrust both hands straight out, gripping the edge of the table to steady himself. His voice was barely contained, and Cowart felt the man's rage pour over him. He could see the sinews on the prisoner's neck stand out. His face was flushed, his voice had lost its steadiness and quavered with emotion. Cowart saw Ferguson struggling hard with himself, as if he were about to break under the stress of remembering. In that moment, Cowart wondered what it would be like to stand in the way of all that fury.

'You go there. You take a look at Pachoula. Escambia County. It's right south from Alabama, not more than twenty, thirty miles. Fifty years ago, they just would have hung me from the nearest tree. They would have been wearing white suits with little pointy hats and burning crosses. Times have changed,' he spoke bitterly, 'but not that goddamn much. Now they're hung up with all the benefits and trappings of civilization. I got a trial, yes sir. I got an attorney, yes sir. A jury of my peers, yes sir. I got to enjoy all my constitutional rights, yes sir. Why, this damn lynching was nice and legal.' Ferguson's voice shook with emotion. 'You go there, Mr. White Reporter, and start asking some questions and you'll see. You think this is the nineteen eighties? You're gonna find out that things haven't moved along quite as quickly. You'll see.'

He sat back in the chair, glaring at Cowart.

The prison sounds seemed distant, as if they were separated by miles from the walls, corridors, and cells. Cowart was suddenly aware how small the room was. This is a story about small rooms, he thought. He could feel hatred flooding from the prisoner in great waves, an endless flow of frustration and despair, and felt swept along with it.

Ferguson continued to stare across the table at Cowart, as if considering his next words. 'Come on, Mr. Cowart. Do you think things work the same in Pachoula as they do in Miami?'

'No.'

'Damn right they don't. Hell, you know the funniest thing? If I had done this crime – which I didn't – but if I had, and it was down in Miami? Well, you know what would have happened with the shabby evidence they had against me? I'd have been offered a deal to second degree and sentenced to five to life. Maybe do four years. And that's only if my public defender didn't get the whole thing thrown out. Which he would have. I had no record. I was a college student. I had a future. They had no evidence. What do you think, Mr. Cowart. In Miami?'

'In Miami, you're probably right. A deal. No doubt.'

'In Pachoula, death. No doubt.'

'That's the system.'

'Damn the system. Damn it to hell. And one more thing: I didn't do it. I didn't damn do the crime. Hey, I may not be perfect. Hell, up in Newark, I got into a couple of scrapes as a teenager. Same thing down in Pachoula. You can check those out. But dammit, I didn't kill that little girl.'

Ferguson paused. 'But I know who did.'

They were both silent for an instant.

'Let's get to that,' Cowart said. 'Who and how?'

Ferguson rocked back in his seat. Cowart saw a single smile, not a grin, not something that preceded a laugh, but a cruel scar on the man's face. He was aware that something had slipped from the room, some of the intensity of anger. Ferguson changed in those few seconds, just as effectively as he had earlier when he had changed accents. 'I can't tell you that yet,' the prisoner replied.

Bullshit,' Cowart said, letting a touch of displeasure slip into his own Voice. 'Don't be coy.'

Ferguson shook his head. 'I'll tell you,' he said, 'but only when you believe.'

'What sort of game is this?'

Ferguson leaned forward, narrowing the space between the two men. He fixed Cowart with a steady, frightening glare. 'This is no fucking game,' he said quietly. 'This is my fucking life. They want to take it and this is the best card I've got. Don't ask me to play it before I'm ready.'

Cowart did not reply.

'You go check out what I've told you. And then, when you believe I'm innocent, when you see those fuckers have railroaded me, then I'll tell you.'

When a desperate man asks you to play a game, Hawkins had once said, it's best to play by his rules.

Cowart nodded.

Both men were quiet. Ferguson locked his eyes onto Cowart's, watching for a response. Neither man moved, as if they were fastened together. Cowart realized that he no longer had any choice, that this was the reporter's dilemma: He had heard a man tell him a story of evil and wrongs. He was compelled to discover the truth. He could no more walk away from the story than he could fly.

'So, Mr. Cowart,' Ferguson said, 'that's the story. Will you help me?'

Cowart thought of the thousands of words he'd written about death and dying, about all the stories of pain and agony that had flowed through him, leaving just the tiniest bit of scar tissue behind that had built up into so many sleeping nightmare visions. In all the stories he'd written, he'd never saved anyone from even a pinprick of despair. Certainly never saved a life. 'I'll do what I can,' he replied.