Just Cause (72 page)

He spat the words out like obscenities.

'I'm going to walk free, Tanny Brown, and you know it.' He laughed. 'Walk free.'

But Ferguson's words contradicted a nervous shift in his body. His shoulders hunched forward, his feet moved wide, as if poised to receive a blow in a prize fight.

Tanny Brown saw the movement. 'Just give me the chance,' he said. 'You know I'd love it.'

'I'm not going with you,' Ferguson said. 'You got a warrant?'

'You're coming with me,' Brown insisted. His voice was even, furious. 'I'm going to see you back on Death Row. Hear? Where you belong. It's all over.'

'It's never over,' the killer responded, stepping back.

'Ain't nobody going nowhere,' cracked a brisk voice.

All three men pivoted toward the sound.

Cowart saw the twin barrels of the shotgun before the small, wiry body of Ferguson's grandmother came into view. The gun was leveled at Tanny Brown.

'Nobody going nowhere,' the old woman repeated. 'Least of all Death Row.'

Brown instantly moved his pistol, bringing it to bear on the woman's chest, crouching as he did so. She was wearing a ghostly white nightgown that fluttered around her figure when she moved. Her hair was pinned up, her feet bare. It was as if she'd stepped from the comfort of her bed into a nightmare. She cradled the shotgun under her arm, pointing it at the policeman, just as she had when she'd fired at Cowart.

'Miz Ferguson,' Tanny Brown said quietly, while holding himself in firing position. 'You got to put that weapon down.'

'You ain't taking this boy,' she said fiercely.

'Miz Ferguson, you got to show some sense…'

'I don't know nothing about showing sense. I know you ain't taking my boy.'

'Miz Ferguson, don't make things harder than they are.'

'Hard makes no difference to me. Life's been hard. Maybe dying's gone be easy.'

'Miz Ferguson, don't talk that way. Let me do my job.

It will all come right, you'll see.'

'Don't you sweet-talk me, Tanny Brown. You ain't brought nothing but trouble into this home.'

'No,' Brown said softly, 'it hasn't been me that brung the trouble. It's been your boy here.' He had slid immediately into rhythmic southernisms, as if trying to speak the same language to a confused foreigner.

'You and that damn reporter. I shoulda killed you before.' She turned toward Cowart and spat her words. 'You ain't brought nothing but hate and death with you.'

Cowart didn't reply. He thought there was some truth in what she said.

'No ma'am,' Brown continued, soothing. 'It ain't been me. And it ain't been him. You know who it's been that brought the trouble.'

Ferguson stepped to the side, as if measuring the shotgun blast's spread. His voice had a cruel, clear edge to it. 'Go ahead, Granmaw. Kill him. Kill 'em both.'

The old woman's face filled with a sudden surprise.

'Kill 'em. Go ahead. Do it now,' Ferguson continued, moving back toward the old woman.

Tanny Brown took a step forward, still ready to fire.

'Miz Ferguson, he said, I've known you a long time. You knew my folks and cousins and we went to church together once. Don't make me…'

She interrupted angrily. 'Y'all left me behind some years ago, Tanny Brown!'

'Kill 'em,' whispered the grandson, stepping next to her.

Brown's eyes switched toward Ferguson. 'You freeze! You son of a bitch! And shut up.'

'Kill them,' Ferguson said again.

'It's not loaded,' Cowart said abruptly.

He remained rooted in his spot, wanting desperately to dive for cover but incapable of ordering his body to respond to his fear. He thought: It's a guess. Try it.

'She used up her last shot on me the other day. It's not loaded,' he said.

The old woman turned toward him. 'You're a fool if'n you think that.' She stared coldly at the reporter. 'You gone bet your life I didn't have no fresh shells?'

Tanny Brown kept his pistol aimed at the woman. 'I don't want to shoot, he said.

'Maybe I do,' she replied. 'One thing's I know. You ain't taking my grandson again. Gone have to kill me first.'

'Miz Ferguson, you know what he's done…'

'I don't care what he's done. He's all I got left and I ain't gone let you take him away again.'

'Did you ever see what he did to that little girl?' Cowart asked suddenly.

'I don't care, she replied. 'No business of mine.'

'That wasn't the only one, Cowart said slowly. 'There have been others. In Perrine and Eatonville. Little black children, Miz Ferguson. He's killed them, too.'

'Don't know nothin' about no children, she answered, her voice quavering slightly.

'He killed my partner, too,' Tanny Brown said quietly, as if speaking the words loudly would cause whatever restraint he still had to shatter and break.

'I don't care. I don't care about none of that.'

Ferguson stepped behind his grandmother. 'Hold them there, Grandmaw,' he said. He-ducked away, down the house's central corridor.

'I'm not going to let him get away, Brown said.

'Then either I'm gonna shoot you, or you're gonna shoot me,' the old woman replied.

Cowart could see Brown's finger tighten on the trigger. He could also see the gunpoint waver slightly.

Silence like weak morning light filled the room. Neither the old woman nor Tanny Brown moved.

He won't do it, Cowart thought. If he was going to shoot her, he already would have. In the first moment, when he first saw the shotgun. He won't do it now.

Cowart looked over at the policeman and saw tidal surges pulling at the man's emotions.

Tanny Brown felt his insides squeeze together. Acid ill taste ruined his tongue. He stared across at the old woman and saw her wispy aged fragility and steel will simultaneously.

Kill her! he told himself.

Then: how can you?

It was all in balance in his head, weights furiously sliding back and forth.

Robert Earl Ferguson stepped back into the room. He was dressed now, a gray sweatshirt thrown over his head, hightop sneakers on his feet. He carried a small duffel bag in his hand.

He tried one last time. 'Kill 'em, Granmaw,' he said. But his voice lacked the conviction that he thought she might do what he demanded.

'You go,' she said icily. 'You go and don't ever come back.'

'Granmaw, he said. He spoke her name not with affection or sadness but a frustrated inconvenience.

'Not to Pachoula. Not to my house. Never again. Y'all too filled with some evil I can't understand. You go do it someplace different. I tried,' she said bitterly. 'I may not have been much good, but I tried my best. It'd been better if you'd a died young, not to bring all this wrong down here. So you take it and never bring it back. That's all I can give you now. You go now. Whatever happens now, after you leave my door, that's your business, no more mine. Understand?'

'Granmaw…'

'Ain't no more blood, no more, after this,' she said with finality.

Ferguson laughed. He dropped all inflection from his voice and replied, 'Okay. That's the way you want it, it's fine with me.'

The killer turned toward Cowart and Brown. He smiled and said, 'I thought we'd get this finished today. Guess not. Some other time, I suppose.'

'He's not going,' Brown said.

'Yes, he is, said the old woman. 'You want him, then you gone have to find him someplace other than this my home. My home, Tanny Brown. It ain't much, but it's mine. And you gone have to take all this evil business someplace else, same as I told him. Same goes for you. I won't have no more of it here. This is a house where Jesus dwells, and I want it to stay that way.'

And Tanny Brown nodded. He straightened up, a movement that spoke of acquiescence. He did not drop the pistol but kept it trained on the grandmother, while the killer slid past him, a few feet apart, moving steadily but warily toward the front door. Brown's eyes followed him, the barrel of his pistol wavering slightly as if trying to follow the killer's path.

'Just go,' said the old woman. Some deep sadness creased her voice and her old eyes seemed rimmed with red grief tears. Cowart thought suddenly, He's killed her, too.

Ferguson stepped into the doorway, moving gingerly around the splintered door. He looked back once.

Brown, furious defeat riding his words, said, 'It makes no difference. I'll find you again.'

And Ferguson replied, 'And if you do, it still won't mean a damn thing, because I'll walk away clean again. I always will, Tanny Brown. Always.'

Whether or not this was a false boast was irrelevant. The word's possibility reverberated in the space between the two men.

Cowart thought the world had been turned upside down. The killer was walking free, the policeman rooted in spot. He told himself, Do something! but was unable to move. All he could see was a constancy of fear and threat like some awful nightmare vision before him. It's up to me, he thought. He started to blurt this out, stopped, and then saw the killer's face widen abruptly with surprise. Then he heard the shout.

'Everyone freeze!'

High-pitched and nerve-edged, the words shattered the glassine air.

Andrea Shaeffer, crouched over into a shooter's stance, arms extended, nine-millimeter pistol cocked and ready, was ten feet behind Ferguson's grandmother, down the hallway leading toward the rear kitchen door, which she'd slipped past without being seen or heard.

'Drop that shotgun!' she yelled, trying to cover anxiety with noise.

But the old woman did not. Instead, turning as if in some sepia-toned, herky-jerky antique film, she spun toward the sound of the detective's voice, swinging the shotgun barrel in front of her as if readying to fire.

'Stop!' screamed Shaeffer. She could see the twin barrels like predator's eyes pointing directly at her chest. She knew only that death often walked with hesitation and this time she could not let it slip through her grasp.

Cowart's mouth opened in a single, incomprehensible shout. Brown called, 'No!' but the word was swallowed by the deep burst of the detective's pistol as Shaeffer fired.

The huge handgun bucked violently in her hands and she fought to control it, suddenly alive with evil intent. Three shots burst through the morning still, exploding in the small, dark house, deafening, echoing through the rooms.

The first shot picked up the elderly woman and threw her back as if she weighed no more than a breath of wind. The second shot crashed into the wall, sending wood and plaster fragments into the air. The third bullet shattered a window and disappeared into the morning. Ferguson's grandmother's arms flung out, and the shotgun clattered from her grasp. She tumbled backward, smashing into the wall, and then slumping down, arms outstretched, as if in supplication.

'Jesus, no!' Tanny Brown cried again.

The policeman stepped toward the woman, then hesitated.

He tore his eyes away from the fast-growing splotch of crimson blood that stained Ferguson's grandmother's nightgown. He fixed first on Cowart, who was standing, frozen, in spot, mouth slightly agape. The reporter blinked, as if awakening from a bad dream, said, 'Jesus Christ,' himself, then suddenly turned toward the front door.

Ferguson had disappeared.

Cowart pointed and shouted, not words but simply surprise and anger. Tanny Brown jumped toward the empty space.

Andrea Shaeffer entered the room, her hands shaking, her eyes locked onto the dying woman.

Brown tore through the front door, out onto the porch. Sudden quiet shocked him; the world seemed a wavy, infirm sight of mists and shafts of dawn light. There was no sound. No sign of life. His eyes swept the yard, then he turned toward the side, instantly seeing Ferguson moving rapidly for the car parked by the side of the shack.

'Stop!' he shouted.

Ferguson paused, but not in response to the command. Instead he squared himself to the policeman and raised his right hand. There was a short-barreled revolver in it. He fired twice, wildly, the shots slashing the air around the detective. Brown was pierced with a sudden familiar memory: The deep booming sounds were like those of his partner's gun. Fury, like a storm, burst within him. He shouted out 'Stop!' again, and ran insanely forward on the porch, rapidly returning fire.

His shots missed the killer but struck the car. A window exploded glass. The demon sound of metal scoring metal and ricocheting off into the morning filled the air.

Ferguson fired again, then turned away from the car and ran toward the line of trees on the far side of the clearing. Tanny Brown anchored himself on the edge of the porch and screamed to himself to take careful aim. He took a deep breath, his eyesight glowing red with fury and anger and saw the killer's back dancing onto the small pistol sight. He thought, Now!

And pulled the trigger.

The gun jumped in his hand and he saw his shot fly astray, splintering into the trunk of a tree.

Ferguson spun once, facing Tanny Brown, fired another wild shot and disappeared into the darkness of the forest, running hard.

As Brown went through the front door, Shaeffer walked quickly over to Ferguson's grandmother. She knelt down, her pistol still in her hand, reached out with her free hand and gently touched the woman's chest, like a child touching something to see if it is real. She drew back fingertips smeared with blood. The old woman tried to breathe in one final time; it made a sucking, rattling sound. Then she wheezed out in death. Shaeffer stared at the figure in front of her and then turned toward Cowart.

'I didn't have a choice…' she said.

The words seemed to force action back into the reporter's limbs. He stepped across the room and seized the shotgun from the floor. He swiftly cracked it open and stared at the two empty chambers, one for each barrel.