'No, I've just been in dozens of places like it. After a while, you get so you can recognize the type.' He smiled. 'That's what being a cop is all about, remember?'
Cowart stared down at the toy store at the end of the shopping mall.
'I was here once. A man kidnapped a woman and child coming out of the store. Just snatched them at random as they walked through the door. Drove them around for half the day, periodically stopping to molest the woman. A state trooper heading home after the day shift finally stopped the car when he thought something was suspicious. Saved her life. And the kid's. Shot the guy when he pulled a knife. One shot. Right through the heart. Lucky shot.'
Brown paused and followed Cowart's eyes toward the toy store.
'They were buying party favors for the kid's second birthday,' the reporter said. 'Red and blue balloons and little conical white hats with clowns on them. They still had the bag when they were rescued.'
He remembered seeing the bag clutched tightly in the woman's free hand. The other held her child, as they were gently deposited in the back of an ambulance. A blanket had been draped around them, though it had been May and the heat was oppressive. A crime like that has a frost all its own.
'Why'd the trooper stop them?' Brown asked.
'He said because the driver was acting suspiciously. Weaving. Trying to avoid being looked at.'
'What page did your story go on?'
Cowart hesitated, then replied, 'Front page. Below the fold.'
The detective nodded. 'I know why the trooper stopped the car.' He spoke quietly. 'White woman. Black man. Right?'
Cowart knew the answer, but was slow to say yes. I Why do you want to know?'
Come on, Cowart. You were once quick with the statistics to me, remember? Wanted to know if I knew the FBI stats on black-on-white crime. Well, I do know them. And I know how rare that sort of crime is. And I also know that's what gets your goddamn story on the front page instead of being cut to six paragraphs in the middle of the B-section roundup. Because if it had been black-on-black crime, that's where it would have landed, right?'
He wanted to disagree, but could not. 'Probably.'
The policeman snorted. ' 'Probably' is a real safe answer, Cowart.' Brown gestured widely with his arm. 'If you think the city editor would have sent one of the reporters from downtown all the way out here if he wasn't damn sure it was a front-page story? Nah, he'd have had some stringer or some suburban reporter file those paragraphs.' Brown turned toward the restaurant door, speaking he started to cross the parking lot. 'You want to know something, Cowart? You want to know why this is a tough place to live? It's because everyone knows how close they are to the ghetto. I don't mean in miles.'
What's Liberty City, maybe thirty, forty miles away from here, right? No, it's the closeness of fear. They know they don't get the same dollars, the same programs, the same schools, the same any damn thing. So they have to cling to that dream of lower-middle-class status just like it was some life preserver leaking air. They all know what it's like in the ghetto, it's like it sucks away at them, trying to pull them back all the time. All those get-up-early-and-be-on-time-every-morning jobs, all those paychecks that get cashed as soon as they get cut, those little hot houses, are all that keeps it away.'
'What about in North Florida? Pachoula?'
'Pretty much the same. Only up there, the fear is that the Old South – you know, the backwoods, no plumbing, tar paper shack poverty – will reach out and snag you once again.'
'Isn't that what Ferguson came from? From both?'
The detective nodded. 'But he rose up and made it out.'
'Like you.'
Brown stopped and turned toward Cowart. 'Like me,' he said with a low edge of anger in his voice. 'But I don't welcome that comparison, Mr. Cowart.'
The two entered the restaurant.
It was well past the lunch hour and before the evening rush, so they had the place to themselves. They sat in a booth alongside a window overlooking the parking lot. A waitress in a tight white outfit that exaggerated her ample bosom, and a gum-chewing scowl that indicated that any suggestive remarks would be greeted with little enthusiasm, took their order and passed it through a window to a solitary cook in the back. Within seconds they could hear the sizzle of hamburgers frying, and seconds later the scent hit them.
They ate in silence. When they'd finished, Brown ordered a slice of key lime pie with his coffee. He took one bite, then speared another, this time gesturing with the fork toward Cowart.
'Hey, homemade, Cowart. You ought to try a piece. Can't get this up in Pachoula. At least, not like this.'
The reporter shook his head.
'Hell, Cowart, I bet you're the type that likes to stop at salad bars for lunch. Keep that lean, ascetic look by munching on rabbit food.'
Cowart shrugged in admission.
'Probably drink that shitty bottled water from France, too.'
As the detective was speaking, Cowart watched as the waitress moved behind him, into another booth. She had a razor-scraper in her hand, and she bent over to remove something from the window. There was a momentary scratching sound as she cleaned tape from glass. Then she straightened up, putting a small poster under her arm. Cowart caught a glimpse of a young face. The waitress was about to turn away when, for no reason that he could immediately discern, he gestured for her.
She approached the table. 'Y'all gonna try that pie, too?' she asked.
No,' he answered. 'I was just curious about that poster.' He pointed at the paper she'd folded under her arm.
'This?' she said. She handed it over to him, and he spread it out on the table in front of him.
In the center of the poster was a picture of a young black girl, smiling, wearing pigtails. Underneath the picture, in large block letters, was the word MISSING.
This was followed by a message in smaller lettering:
DAWN PERRY, AGE 12, FIVE FEET TWO INCHES, 105 POUNDS,
DISAPPEARED THE AFTERNOON 8,12,90, LAST SEEN WEARING
BLUE SHORTS, WHITE I-SHIRT AND SNEAKERS, CARRYING
BOOK BAG. ANYONE WITH ANY KNOWLEDGE OF HER
WHEREABOUTS CALL 555-1212 AND ASK FOR DETECTIVE
HOWARD.
This message was completed with a large print: REWARD.
Cowart looked up at the waitress. 'What happened?'
The waitress shrugged as if to say that giving information wasn't part of her job. 'I don't know. Little girl. One day's she's there. The next, she's not.'
'Why are you taking the sign down?'
'Been a long time, mister. Months and months. Ain't nobody found that girl by now, I don't suspect this sign's gonna make any difference. And anyway, my boss asked me to yesterday, and I forgot until just now.'
Cowart saw that Brown had started examining the poster. He looked up. 'Police ever come up with anything?'
'Not that I'd know. Y'all want something else?'
'Just a check, Brown replied. He smiled, creased the flyer and slid it onto the table between them. 'I'll take care of this for you, he said.
The waitress walked away to make their change.
'Makes you wonder, doesn't it?' Brown said. 'You get into the right frame of mind, Cowart, and all sorts of terrible things just pop right in, don't they?'
