I help you?'
'Yes. I'm looking for Amy Kaplan.'
'She was just here. Is she expecting you?'
'I spoke with her on the phone the other day. My name is Cowart. I'm from Miami.'
'You're the reporter?'
He nodded.
'She said you were going to be here. Let me see if I can find her.' There was a note of bitterness in the woman's voice. She did not smile at Cowart.
The woman stood up and walked across the office, disappearing for an instant into the faculty lounge, then reemerging with a young woman. Cowart saw she was pretty, with a sweep of auburn hair pushed back from an open, smiling face.
'I'm Amy Kaplan, Mr. Cowart.'
They shook hands.
'I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch.'
She shrugged. 'Probably the best time. Still, like I said on the telephone, I'm not sure what I can do for you.'
'The car,' he said. 'And what you saw.' 'You know, it's probably best if I show you where I was standing. I can explain it there.'
They walked outside without saying anything. The young teacher stood by the front of the school and turned, pointing down a roadway. 'See,' she said, 'we always have a teacher out here, checking on the kids after school. It used to be mostly to make sure the boys don't get into fights and the girls head straight home, instead of hanging around and gossiping. Kids do that, you know, more'n anybody it seems. Now, of course, there's another reason to be out here.'
She looked over at him, eyeing him for an instant. Then she went on. '… Anyway, on the afternoon Joanie disappeared, just about everyone had cleared off and I was about to go back inside, when I spotted her, down by the big willow over there…' She pointed perhaps fifty yards down the road. Then she put her hand to her mouth and hesitated.
'Oh, God, she said.
'I'm sorry,' Cowart said.
He watched the young woman fixing her eyes on the spot down the road as if she could see it all again, in her memory, in that moment. He saw her lip quiver just the slightest bit, but she shook her head to tell him she was all right.
'It's okay. I was young. It was my first year. I remember, she saw me and turned and waved, that's how I knew it was her.' Some of the firmness of her voice had slid away in the heat.
'And?'
'She walked just under the shadows there, right past the green car. I saw her turn, I guess because somebody'd said something to her, and then the door opened, and she got inside. The car pulled away.'
The young woman took a deep breath. 'She just got right in. Damn.' She whispered the swearword under her breath. 'Just right in, Mr. Cowart, as if she hadn't a care in the world. Sometimes I still see her, in my dreams. Waving at me. I hate it.'
Cowart thought of his own nightmares and wanted to turn to the young woman and tell her that he, too, didn't sleep at night. But he didn't.
That's what's always bothering me,' Amy Kaplan continued. I mean, in a way, if she'd been grabbed and struggled or called for help or something…' The woman's voice was broken with remembered emotion, '… I might have done something. I'd have screamed and maybe run after her. Maybe I could have fought or done something. I don't know. Something. But it was just a regular May afternoon. And it was so hot, I wanted to get back inside, so I didn't really look.'
Cowart stared down the street, measuring distances. 'It was in the shadows?'
'Yes.'
'But you're sure it was green. Dark green?'
'Yes.'
'Not black?'
'You sound like the detectives and the attorneys. Sure, it could have been black. But my heart and my memory say dark green.'
'You didn't see a hand, pushing open the door from inside?'
She hesitated. 'That's a good question. They didn't ask that. They asked me if I saw the driver. He would have had to lean across to open the door. I couldn't see him…' She strained with recall. 'No. No hand. Just the door swinging open.'
'And the license plates?'
'Well, you know, Florida plates have that orange outline of the state on a white background. All I really noticed was that these were darker and from somewhere else.'
'When did they show you Robert Earl Ferguson's car?'
'They just showed me a picture, a couple of days later.'
'You never saw the car itself?'
'Not that I recall. Except on the day she disappeared.'
'Tell me about the picture.'
'There were a couple, like taken by an instant camera.'
'What view?'
1 beg your pardon?'
'What angle did they take the pictures from?'
'Oh, I see. Well, they were from the side.'
'But you saw the car from the back.'
'That's right. But the color was right. And the shape was the same. And…'
'And what?'
'Nothing.'
'You would have seen the brake lights when the car took off. When the driver put it into gear, the brake lights would have flashed. Would you remember what shape they were?'
I don't know. They didn't ask me that.'
'What did they ask?'
'There wasn't a lot. Not by the police. Not at the trial. I was so nervous, getting up there to testify, but it was all over in a few seconds.'
'What about the cross-examination?'
'He just asked me whether I was sure about the color, like you did. And I said I could be wrong, but I didn't think so. That seemed to please him real well, and that was it.'
Cowart looked down the roadway again, then at the young woman. She seemed resolved to the memories, her eyes staring off away from him. 'Do you think he did it?'
She breathed in and thought for an instant. 'He was convicted.'
'But what do you think?' She took a deep breath. 'The thing that always bothered me was that she just got into the car. Didn't seem to hesitate for an instant. If she didn't know him, why, I can't see why she'd do that. We try to teach the kids to be safe kids and smart kids, Mr. Cowart. We have classes in safety. In never trusting a stranger. Even here in Pachoula, though you might not believe it. We aren't so backwoods backwards as you probably think. A lot of people come here from the city, like I did. There's people here, too, professional people who commute down to Pensacola or over to Mobile, because this is a safe, friendly place. But the kids are taught to be safe. They learn. So I never understood that. It never made sense to me that she just got into that car.'
He nodded. 'That's a question I have, too,' he said.
She turned angrily toward him. 'Well, the first damn person I'd ask is Robert Earl Ferguson.'
