law.'
Brown rose and fixed the reporter with a single, fierce glance. Cowart glared back.
There's likely to be a few more laws broken before we get through with all this,' the policeman said quietly.
15. Standing Out
A burst of heat seemed to bridge the territory between the pale blues of the ocean and the sky. It wrapped them in a sticky embrace, squeezing the breath from their lungs. The two uneasy men walked slowly together, keeping their thoughts to themselves, their feet kicking up puffs of gray-white dust, crunching against the odd shells and pieces of coral that made up
Tarpon Drive. Neither man thought the other an ally; only that they were both engaged in a process that required the two of them, and that it was safest together. Cowart had parked his car adjacent to the house where he'd found the bodies. Then they'd begun walking door-to-door, armed with a photograph of Ferguson appropriated from the Journal's photo library.
By the third house, they'd established a routine: Tanny Brown flashed his badge, Matthew Cowart identified himself. Then they'd thrust the photo toward the inhabitants, with the single question, 'Have you seen this man before?'
A young mother in a thin yellow shift, her hair drooping in blonde curls around her sweat-damp forehead, had shushed her crying child, hitched the baby over to her hip, and shaken her head. A pair of teenage boys working on a dismantled outboard engine in the front of another yard had studied the picture with a devotion unseen in any schoolroom and then been equally negative. A huge, beer-gutted man, wearing oil- streaked jeans and a denim jacket with cut-off sleeves and a Harley Davidson Motorcycle patch above the breast had refused to speak with them, saying, 'I ain't talking to no cops. And I ain't talking to no reporters. And I ain't seen nothing worth telling.' Then he'd slammed the door in their faces, the thin aluminum of the frame rattling in the heat.
They moved on, working the street methodically. A few folks had questions for them. 'Who's this guy?' and 'Why're you asking?'
Cowart realized quickly that Brown was adept at turning an inquiry into a question of his own. If someone asked him, 'This got something to do with those killings down the street?' he would turn it back on the questioner, 'Do you know anything about what happened?'
But this question was greeted with blank stares and shaken heads.
Brown also made a point of asking everyone if the
Monroe Sheriff's Department had questioned them. They all replied that they had. They all remembered a young woman detective with a clipped, assured manner on the day the bodies were discovered. But no one had seen or heard anything unusual. They're all over it,' Tanny Brown mumbled. 'Who?'
'Your friends from Monroe. They've done what I would've done.'
Cowart nodded. He looked down at the photograph in his hand but refused to put any words to the thoughts that seemed to lurk just beyond the glare of the day.
Sweat darkened the collar of the detective's shirt, Romantic, huh?' he grunted.
They were standing on the outside of a low, chain link fence that protected a faded aqua-colored trailer with an incongruous pink plastic flamingo attached with gray duct tape to the front door. The sun reflected harshly off the steel sides of the trailer, making the entire edifice glow. A single airconditioning unit, hanging from a window, labored against the temperature, clanking and whirring but continuing to operate.
Ten yards away, roped to a skew pole sunk into the hard-rock ground, a mottled brown pit bull eyed the two men warily. Matthew Cowart noticed that the dog had closed its mouth tight, despite the heat which should have caused its tongue to loll out. The dog seemed alert, yet not terrifically concerned, as if it was inconceivable to the animal that anyone would question its authority over the yard or trespass within its reach.
'What do you mean?' Cowart replied.
'Police work.' Brown looked over at the dog and then to the door. 'Ought to shoot that animal. Ever see what one of those can do to you? Or to a kid?'
Cowart nodded. Pit bulls were a Florida mainstay. In
South Florida, drug dealers used them as watchdogs.
Good old boys living near Lake Okeechobee raised them in filthy, illegal farms, training them for fights. Homeowners in dozens of tract developments, terrified of break-ins, got them and then acted surprised when they tore the face off some neighbor's child. He'd written that story once, after sitting in a darkened hospital room across from a pitifully bandaged twelve-year-old whose words had been muffled by pain and the inadequate results of plastic surgery. His friend Hawkins had tried to get the dog's owner indicted for assault with a deadly weapon, but nothing had come of it.
Before they could move from the front, the door to the trailer opened and a middle- aged man stepped out, shading his eyes and staring at the two men. He wore a white I-shirt and khaki pants that hadn't seen a washing machine in months. The man was balding, with unkempt strands of hair that seemed glued to his scalp, and a pinched, florid, unshaven face. He moved toward them, ignoring the dog, which shifted about, beat its tail twice against the ground, then continued to watch.
'Y'all want somethin'?'
Tanny Brown produced his badge. 'Just a question or two.'
'About those old folks got their throats slit?'
'That's right.'
'Other police already asked questions. Didn't know shit.'
I want to show you a picture of someone, see if you've seen him around here. Anytime in the last few weeks, or anytime at all.'
The man nodded, staying a few feet back of the fence.
Cowart handed him the photograph of Ferguson. The man stared at it, then shook his head.
'Look hard. You sure?'
The man eyed Cowart with irritation. 'Sure I'm sure. He some sort of suspect?'
'Just someone we're checking out,' Brown said. He retrieved the picture. 'Not hanging around here, or maybe driving by in a rental car?'
'No' the man said. He smiled, displaying a mouth of brown teeth and gaps. 'Ain't seen nobody hanging around. Nobody casing the place. Nobody in no rental car. And for damn sure, you're the only Negro I seen around here, ever.'
The man spit, laughed sarcastically and added, 'He looks like you. Negro.'
He pronounced the word knee-grow, elongating the two syllables into a harsh singsong, imbuing the word with mockery, turning it into an epithet.
Then the man turned, grinning, and gave a little whistle to the dog, who rose instantly, back hairs bristling, teeth bared. Cowart took a step back involuntarily, realizing that the man probably spent more time, effort, and money on maintaining the dog's mouth than his own. The reporter retreated another step before noticing that the detective hadn't budged.
After a moment punctuated only by the deep-throated continual growling of the dog, the policeman stepped back and silently moved down the street. Cowart had to hurry to keep pace.
Brown headed back toward the reporter's car. 'Let's go' he said.
There are a few other houses.'
'Let's go,' Brown repeated. He stopped and gestured broadly at the decrepit homes and trailers. 'The bastard was right.'
'What do you mean?'
'A black man driving down this street in the middle of the day would stand out like a
