someone you'd better talk to fast. But I didn't, damn you! That man almost cost me my life. I spent three years on Death Row for something I didn't do because of cops like you. I thought I was a dead man just because I was convenient for the system. So, screw you, Detective. I ain't gonna be convenient for nobody no more. I may be black, but I'm no killer. And just because I am black, doesn't make me one.'
Ferguson slid back into his seat. 'You wanted to know why I chose to live here? Because here people understand what it is like to be black and always be a suspect or a victim. That's what everyone here is. One or the other. And I've been both, so that's why I fit. That's why I like it, even though I don't have to be here. You understand that, Detective? I doubt it. Because you're white, and you'll never know.'
He rose again, and stared out the window. 'You'll never understand how someone can think this is home.' He turned to her. 'Got any more questions, Detective?'
The wealth of his fury had overcome her. She shook her head.
'Good,' he said quietly. 'Then get the hell out.'
He pointed toward the door. She stepped toward it.
'I may have more questions,' she said.
He shook his head. 'No, I don't think so, Detective. Not again. Last time I was polite to a couple of detectives it cost me three years of my life and nearly killed me. So, you've had your chance. And now it's finished.'
She was in the doorway. She hesitated, as if reluctant to leave but feeling at the same instant an immense relief at getting out of the small space. She turned toward him, but he was already closing the door on her. She had a quick glimpse of his eyes, narrowed in anger, before the door slammed shut. The clicking sound of the locks being thrown echoed in the hallway.
19. Plumbing
For most of the ride, the three men were silent.
Finally, as they turned off the highway, the police cruiser bumping against the hard- packed dirt of the secondary road, Bruce Wilcox said, 'She's not gonna tell us a thing. She'll grab that old shotgun of hers and kick us off her place fast as a hungry mosquito can bite your naked ass. We're wasting our time.'
He was driving. Next to him in the front seat, Tanny Brown stared through the windshield without replying. When a shaft of light slipped through the canopy of trees and struck him, it made his dark skin glisten, almost as if wet. At Wilcox's words, he raised a hand and made a small dismissive gesture, then dropped back into thought.
Wilcox humphed and drove on for a moment or two. 'I still think we're wasting our time.'
'We aren't,' Brown growled as the car skidded and swayed on the rough road.
'Well, why not?' the detective asked. 'And I wish you two'd fill me in on all this.'
He twitched his head toward Cowart, sitting in the center of the rear seat, feeling more or less like one of the prisoners who generally occupied that location.
Brown spoke slowly. 'Before Sullivan went to the chair, he implied to Cowart that there was evidence that we missed out at the Ferguson homestead. That it's still there. That's what we're doing now.'
Wilcox shook his head. 'Tanny, you ain't telling me the half of it. You know, he was just jerking your chain.' He spoke as if Cowart wasn't in the car. 'I supervised that search myself. We took the place apart. Tapped every wall for a hollow spot. Pulled up the floorboards. Sifted through all the coals in that old stove to see if he'd burned anything. Crawled under the damn house with a metal detector. Hell, I even brought that damn tracking dog in, scented him, and led him through the place myself. If the creep had hid something, I'da found it.'
'Sullivan said you missed something,' Cowart insisted.
'Sullivan told the pencil pusher back there a lot of things, Wilcox said to his partner. 'Why are we paying any damn attention to it?'
'Hey,' Cowart said. 'Give it a rest, will ya?'
'Where'd he tell you to look?'
'He didn't. Just said you missed something. Made an obscene joke about having eyes in my backside.'
Wilcox shook his head. 'And anyway, it won't do no good to find something.' He glanced over at Brown. 'You know that, boss, well as I. Ferguson's history. Gotta move on.'
'No,' Tanny Brown answered slowly. 'He's not.'
'So we find something? What's the point? Fruit of the poisonous tree. We can't use anything against Ferguson that stems from an illegal act. You gotta go back to that confession. If he'd a told us where everything was, exactly how he killed little Joanie, the whole shooting match, and then the judge tosses out that confession? Well, everything that follows goes, too.'
'But that's not what happened,' Cowart said.
Brown interrupted. 'Right. Not exactly. It might give some lawyers something to argue over.' He hesitated before continuing. '… But I'm not expecting to win this case in court.' He did not amplify.
After a second's silence> Wilcox started in again. 'I don't eyen think Ferguson's grandmother'll let us look around unless we've got a warrant. Hell, I don't think she'd even tell us if the sun was up without an order from a judge. Waste of time.'
'She'll let Cowart look.'
'When we drive him up? No way.'
'She will.'
'She probably hates the press worse'n I do. After all, they helped put her little darling on the Row in the first place.'
'Then got him out.'
'I don't think that's the way she thinks. She's an old Baptist Bible-thumper. She probably believes that Jesus Hisself came down and opened the prison gate for her darling little boy, because she bombarded Him with prayers every Sunday at the meeting house. Anyway, even if she does let him in and let him poke around, which she won't, he doesn't even know what to look for. Or even how to look for it.'
'Yes, he does.'
'Okay, then suppose, just suppose, for the sake of fuckall, that he finds something. What does that do for us?'
'One thing,' Brown replied. He rolled down his window, letting some of the day's heat slip into the police cruiser, where it quickly overcame the stale cold of the air conditioner. He spoke softly, his voice barely cresting the wind noise from the window. 'Then we'll know that about this, at least, Sullivan was telling the truth.'
'So what?' Wilcox snapped. 'What the hell does that do for us?'
The question drew more silence from the police lieutenant.
'Then we'll know what we're dealing with,' Cowart finally interjected.
'Hah!' Wilcox snorted.
He drove on, gripping the steering wheel tightly, frustrated by the sense that his friend and partner and his adversary had shared some information to which he was not privy. It gave him an angry, hateful feeling within. He drove hard, raising a cloud of brown dust behind, half-wishing some mangy old dog or squirrel would run out in front of the car. He punched the accelerator, feeling the rear fishtail slightly on the dirt, scrabbling for thrust.
Cowart watched a tree line on the edge of a distant forest. 'Where does that go?' he asked, pointing.
'Eventually to where we found Joanie. Edge of the same swamp. Runs back a half dozen miles or so before spreading out and curling toward town. Quicksand that'll kill ya and mud so thick you step in, it's
