he said to her? Whether she fought? What did he tell you?'
'Here, goddammit, read for yourself!'
Lieutenant Brown seized a sheaf of papers from the file on his desk and tossed them toward Cowart. He looked down and saw that it was the transcript of the confession, taken by a court stenographer. It was short, only three pages long. The two detectives had gone through all of his rights with him, especially the right to an attorney. The rights colloquy occupied more than an entire page of the confession. They'd asked him whether he understood this and he'd replied he had. Their first question was phrased in traditional cop-ese: 'Now, on or about three P.M. on May 4, 1987, did you have occasion to be in a location at the corner of Grand and Spring streets, which is next to King Elementary School?' And Ferguson had replied monosyllabically, 'Yes.' The detectives had then asked him whether he had seen the young woman later known to him as Joanie Shriver, and again, his reply had been the single affirmative. They had then painstakingly brought him through the entire scenario, each time phrasing their narrative as a question and receiving a positive answer, but not one of them elaborated with even the meagerest detail. When they had asked him about the weapon and the other crucial aspects of the crime, he'd replied that he couldn't remember. The final question was designed to establish premeditation. It was the one that had put Ferguson on Death Row: 'Did you go to that location intending to kidnap and kill a young woman on that day?' and he'd replied again with a simple, awful 'Yes.'
Cowart shook his head. Ferguson had volunteered nothing except a single word, 'Yes,' over and over. He turned toward Brown and Wilcox. 'Not exactly a model confession, is it?'
Wilcox, who had been sitting unsteadily, shifting about with an obvious, growing frustration, finally jumped up, his face red with anger, shaking his fist at the reporter. 'What the hell do you want? Dammit, he did that little girl just as sure as I'm standing here now. You just don't want to hear the truth, damn you!'
'Truth?' Cowart shook his head and Wilcox seemed to explode. He sprang from behind the desk and grabbed hold of Cowart's jacket, pulling the reporter to his feet. 'You're gonna get me really angry, asshole! You don't want to do that!'
Tanny Brown jackknifed his bulk across the desk, seizing the detective with one hand and jerking him backward, controlling the smaller, wiry man easily. He did not say anything, especially when Wilcox turned toward his superior officer, still sputtering with barely controlled anger. The detective tried to say something to Brown, then turned toward Cowart. Finally, choking, fists clenched, he stormed from the office.
Cowart straightened his jacket and sat back down heavily. He breathed in and out, feeling the adrenaline pumping in his ears. After a few minutes of silence, he looked over at Brown.
'You're going to tell me now that he didn't hit Ferguson, right? That he never lost it during thirty-six hours of interrogation?'
The lieutenant paused for an instant, thinking, as if trying to assess the damage done by the outburst before replying. Then he shook his head.
'No, truth is, he did. Early on, once or twice, before I stopped him. Just slapped Ferguson across the face.'
'No punch to the stomach?'
'Not that I saw.'
'How about telephone books?'
'An old technique,' Brown said sadly, his voice growing quieter. 'No. Despite what Mr. Ferguson says.'
The lieutenant turned away for the first time, looking out the window. After a moment or two, he said, 'Mr. Cowart, I don't think I can make you understand. That little girl's death just got under all our skins and it's still there. And it was the worst for us. We had to make some sort of case out of that emotional mess. It bent us all. We weren't evil or bad. But we wanted that killer caught. I didn't sleep for three days. None of us did. But we had him, and there he was, smiling back at us just like nothing was wrong. I don't blame Bruce Wilcox for losing it a bit. I think we were all at the edge. And even then, with the confession – you're right, it's not a textbook confession, but it was the best we could get out of that closemouthed son of a bitch – even then it was all so fragile. This conviction is held together by the thinnest of threads. We all know that. And so, you come along, asking questions, and each one of those questions just shreds a little bit of those threads and we get a little crazy. There. That's my apology for my partner. And for sending you to the Shrivers. I don't want this conviction to shatter. More than anything else, I don't want to lose this one. I couldn't face those folks. I couldn't face my own family. I couldn't, face myself. I want that man to die for what he did.'
The lieutenant finished his confession and waited for Cowart's reply. The reporter felt a sudden rush of success and decided to press his advantage. 'What's the policy with your department on taking weapons into interrogation rooms?'
'Simple. You don't. Check them with the sergeant on duty. Every cop knows that. Why?'
'Would you mind standing up for a moment.'
Brown shrugged and stood.
'Now, let me see your ankles.'
He looked surprised and hesitated. 'I don't get it.'
Indulge me, Lieutenant.'
Brown stared angrily at him. 'Is this what you want to see?' He lifted his leg, putting his shoe up on the desk, raising his trouser leg at the same time. There was a small, brown-leather ankle holster holding a snub-nosed.38-caliber pistol strapped to his calf.
The lieutenant lowered his leg.
'Now, you didn't point that weapon at Ferguson and tell him you were going to kill him if he didn't confess, did you?'
'No, absolutely not.' Cold indignation rode the detective's voice.
'And you never pulled the trigger on an empty chamber?'
'No.'
'So, how would he know about that gun if you hadn't shown it to him?'
Brown stared across the desk at Cowart, an ice-like anger behind his eyes. 'This interview is finished,' he said. He pointed at the door.
'You're wrong' Cowart said, rising. 'It's just beginning.'
5. Death Row Again
There is a zone reporters find, a space like the marksman's narrowing of vision down the barrel, past the sight and directly to the center of the target, where other considerations of life fade away, and they begin to see their story take shape within their imaginations. The gaps in the narrative, the prose holes that need information start to become obvious; like a gravedigger swinging shovels of soil on top of a coffin, the reporter fills the breaches in his story.
Matthew Cowart had reached that place.
He drummed his fingers impatiently on the linoleum-topped table, waiting for Sergeant Rogers to escort Ferguson into the interview room. His trip to Pachoula had left him energized with questions, suffused with answers. The story was half-settled in his mind, had been from the moment that Tanny Brown had angrily conceded that Ferguson had been slapped by Wilcox. That small admission had opened an entire vista of lies. Matthew Cowart did not know what precisely had happened between the detectives and their quarry, but he knew that there were enough questions to warrant his story, and probably to reopen the case. What he hungered for now was the second element. If Ferguson hadn't killed the little girl, then who had? When Ferguson appeared in the doorway, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lip, arms filled with legal folders, Cowart wanted to jump to his feet.
The two men shook hands and Cowart watched
Ferguson settle into the chair opposite him. 'I'm gonna be outside,' the sergeant said,
