Just Cause Page 4

  But in Pachoula, he thought, even in the eighties, when a little white girl is raped and murdered and the man that did it is black, a more primal America takes over. An America that people would prefer not to remember.

  Is that what happened to Ferguson? It was certainly possible.

  Cowart picked up the telephone to call the attorney handling Ferguson’s appeal.

  It took most of the remainder of the morning to get through to the lawyer. When Cowart finally did connect with the man, he was immediately struck by the lawyer’s licorice-sweet southern accent.

  “Mr. Cowart, this is Roy Black. What’s got a Miami newspaperman interested in things up here in Escambia County?” He pronounced the word “here” he-yah.

  “Thanks for calling back, Mr. Black. I’m curious about one of your clients. A Robert Earl Ferguson.”

  The lawyer laughed briefly. “Well, I sorta figured it would be Mr. Ferguson’s case that you were calling about when my gal here handed me your phone message. Whatcha wanna know?”

  “First tell me about his case.”

  “Well, State Supreme Court has the package right now. We contend that the evidence against Mr. Ferguson was hardly sufficient to convict him. And we’re saying right out that the trial judge shoulda suppressed that confession of his’n. You oughta read it. Probably the most convenient document of its sort I ever saw. Just like the police wrote it up in the sheriff’s department up here. And, without that confession, they got no case at all. If Robert Earl doesn’t say what they want him to say, they don’t even get two minutes in court. Not even in the worst, redneck, racist court in the world.”

  “What about the blood evidence?”

  “Crime lab in Escambia County is pretty primitive, not like what y’all are used to down there in Miami. They only typed it down to its major group. Type O positive. That’s what the semen they found in the deceased was, that’s what Robert Earl is. Of course, the same is true of maybe a couple thousand men in that county. But his trial attorney failed to cross-examine the medical folks on that score.”

  “And the car?”

  “Green Ford with out-of-state plates. Nobody identified Robert Earl, and nobody said for sure that it was his car that little gal got into. This wasn’t what you call circumstantial evidence, hell, it was coincidental. Shoulda been laughed out of the trial.”

  “You weren’t his trial attorney, were you?”

  “No, sir. That honor went to another.”

  “Have you attacked the competency of the representation?”

  “Not yet. But we will. A third-year fella at the University of Florida law school coulda done better. A high school senior coulda done better. Makes me angry. I can hardly wait until I write that brief up. But I don’t want to shoot off all the cannons right at the start.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Cowart,” the attorney said slowly, “do y’all understand the nature of appellate work in death cases? The idea is to keep taking little old bites at the apple. That way you can drag that sucker out for years and years. Make people forget. Give time a bit of a chance to do some good. You don’t take your best shot first, because that’ll put your boy right in the old hot seat, if you catch my drift.”

  “I understand that,” Cowart said. “But suppose you’ve got an innocent man sitting up there?”

  “That what Robert Earl told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Told me that, too.”

  “Well, Mr. Black, do you believe him?”

  “Hmmm, maybe. Maybe more’n most of the times I hear that from someone enjoying the hospitality of the state of Florida. But you understand, Mr. Cowart, I don’t really indulge in the luxury of allowing myself to subscribe to the guilt or innocence of my clients. I have to concern myself with the simple fact that they been convicted in a court of law and I got to undo that in a court of law. If I can undo a wrong, well, then when I die and go to heaven I trust they will welcome me with angels playing trumpets. Of course, I also maybe sometimes undo some rights and replace them with wrongs, so there’s the very real possibility that I may be met at that other place with folks carrying pitchforks and wearing little pointy tails. That’s the nature of the law, sir. But you work for a newspaper. Newspapers are a helluva lot more concerned with the public’s impression of right and wrong, truth and justice, than I am. Newspaper also has a helluva lot more influence with the trial judge who could order up a new trial, or the governor and the state Board of Pardons, if you catch my drift, sir. Perhaps you could do a little something for Robert Earl?”

  “I might.”

  “Why don’t you go see the man? He’s real smart and well-spoken.” Black laughed. “Speaks a sight better’n I do. Probably smart enough to be a lawyer. Sure a helluva lot smarter than that attorney he had at his trial, who must have been asleep most of the time they were putting his client in the electric chair.”

  “Tell me about his trial attorney.”

  “Old guy. Been handling cases up there for maybe a hundred, two hundred years. It’s a small area, up in Pachoula. Everybody knows each other. They come on down to the Escambia County courthouse and it’s like everyone’s having a party. A murder-case party. They don’t like me too much.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Of course, they didn’t like Robert Earl too much, either. Going off to college and all and coming home in a big car. People probably felt pretty good when he was arrested. Not exactly what they’re used to. Of course, they ain’t used to sex murders neither.”

  “What’s the place like?” Cowart asked.

  “Just like what you’d expect, city boy. It’s sort of what the papers and the chamber of commerce likes to call the New South. That means they got some new ideas and some old ideas. But then, it ain’t that bad, either. Lots of development dollars going in up there.”

  “I think I know what you mean.”

  “You go up and take a look for yourself,” the attorney said. “But let me give you a piece of advice: Just because someone talks like I do and sounds like some character outa William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor, don’t you naturally assume they are dumb. ’Cause they aren’t.”

  “So noted.”

  The lawyer laughed. “I bet you didn’t think I’d read those authors.”

  “It hadn’t crossed my mind.”

  “It will before you get finished with Robert Earl. And try to remember another thing. People there are probably pretty satisfied with what happened to Robert Earl. So don’t go up expecting to make a lot of friends. Sources, as you folks in the papers like to call ’em.”

  “One other thing bothers me,” Cowart said. “He says he knows the name of the real killer.”

  “Now, I don’t know nothing about that. He might. Hell, he probably does. It’s a small place is Pachoula. But this I do know . . .” The attorney’s voice changed, growing less jocular and taking on a directness that surprised Cowart. “. . . I do know that man was unfairly convicted and I mean to have him off Death Row, whether he did it or not. Maybe not this year, in this court, but some year in some court. I have grown up and spent my life with all those good ole boys, rednecks, and crackers, and I ain’t gonna lose this one. I don’t care whether he did it or not.”

  “But if he didn’t . . .”

  “Well, somebody kilt that little gal. I suspect somebody’s gonna have to pay.”

  “I’ve got a lot of questions,” Cowart said.

  “I suspect so. This is a case with a lot of questions. Sometimes that happens, you know. Trial’s supposed to clear everything up, actually makes it more confused. Seems that happened here to old Robert Earl.”

  “So, you think I ought to take a look at it?”

  “Sure,” said the lawyer. Cowart could feel his smile across the telephone line. “I do. I don�
�t know what you’ll find, excepting a lot of prejudice and dirt-poor thinking. Maybe you can help set an innocent man free.”

  “So you do think he’s innocent?”

  “Did I say that? Nah, I mean only that he shoulda been found not guilty in a court of law. There’s a big difference, you know.”

  2

  ONE MAN ON DEATH ROW

  Cowart stopped the rental car on the access road to the Florida State Prison and stared across the fields at the stolid dark buildings that held the majority of the state’s maximum-security prisoners. There were two prisons, actually, separated by a small river, the Union Correctional Institution on one side, Raiford Prison on the other. He could see cattle grazing in distant green fields, and dust rising in small clouds where inmate work crews labored amidst growing areas. There were watchtowers at the corners and he thought he could make out the glint of weapons held by the watchers. He did not know which building housed Death Row and the room where the state’s electric chair was kept, but he’d been told that it split off from the main prison. He could see twelve-foot-high double rows of chain link fence topped with curled strands of barbed wire. The wire gleamed in the morning sun. He got out and stood by the car. A stand of pine trees rose up straight and green on the edge of the roadway, as if pointing in accusation at the crystal blue sky. A cool breeze rustled through the branches, then slid over Cowart’s forehead amidst the building humidity.

  He had had no difficulty persuading Will Martin and the other members of the editorial board to cut him loose to pursue the circumstances surrounding the conviction of Robert Earl Ferguson, though Martin had expressed some snorting skepticism which Cowart had ignored.

  “Don’t you remember Pitts and Lee?” Cowart had replied. Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee had been sentenced to die for the murder of a gas-station attendant in North Florida. Both men had confessed to a crime they hadn’t done. It had taken years of reporting by one of the Journal’s most famous reporters to set them free. He’d won a Pulitzer. In the Journal newsroom, it was the first story any new reporter was told.

  “That was different.”

  “Why?”

  “That was in 1963. Might as well have been 1863. Things have changed.”

  “Really? How about that guy in Texas, the one the documentary filmmaker got off Death Row there?”

  “That was different.”

  “How much?”

  Martin had laughed. “That’s a good question. Go. With my blessing. Answer that question. And remember, when you’re all finished playing reporter again, you can always come home to the ivory tower.” He’d shooed Cowart on his way.

  The city desk had been informed and promised assistance should he need any. He had detected a note of jealousy that the story had landed in his lap. He recognized the advantage that he had over the cityside staff. First, he was going to be able to work alone; the city desk would have assigned a team to the story. The Journal, like so many newspapers and television stations, had a full-time investigative squad with a snappy title like “The Spotlight Team” or “The I-team.” They would have approached the story with the subtlety of an invading force. And, Cowart realized, unlike the regular reporters on the staff, he would have no deadline, no assistant city editor breathing down his neck, wondering every day where the story was. He could find out what he could, structure as he saw fit, write it as he wanted. Or discard it if it wasn’t true.

  He tried to hold on to this last thought, to armor himself against disappointment, but as he headed down the road and pulled into the prison, he sensed his pulse quickening. A series of warning signs was posted on the access road, informing passersby that by entering the area they were consenting to a search, that any firearms and narcotics violations would be punished by a term in prison. He passed through a gate where a gray-jacketed guard checked his identification against a list and sullenly waved him through, then parked in an area designated VISITORS and entered the administration building.

  There was some confusion when he checked with a secretary. She had apparently lost his entrance request. He waited patiently by her desk while she shuffled through papers, apologizing rapidly, until she found it. He was then asked to wait in an adjacent office until an officer could escort him to where he was to meet Robert Earl Ferguson.

  After a few minutes, an older man with a gray-tinged Marine Corps haircut and bearing entered the room. The man had a huge, gnarled hand, which he shot forward at Cowart. “Sergeant Rogers. I’m day officer on the Row today.”

  “Glad to meet you.”

  “There are a few formalities, Mr. Cowart, sir, if you don’t mind.”

  “Like?”

  “I need to frisk you and search your tape recorder and briefcase. I have a statement you need to sign about being taken hostage . . .”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s just a statement saying you’re entering the Florida State Prison of your own wish and that, if taken hostage during your stay here, you will not sue the state of Florida, nor will you expect extraordinary efforts to secure your freedom.”

  “Extraordinary efforts?”

  The man laughed and rubbed his hand through his brush of hair. “What it means is that you don’t expect us to risk our asses to save yours.”

  Cowart smiled and made a face. “Sounds like a bad deal for me.”

  Sergeant Rogers grinned. “That it is. Of course, prison is a bad deal for just about everybody, except those of us who get to head home at night.”

  Cowart took the paper from the sergeant and signed it with a mock flourish. “Well,” he said, still smiling, “can’t say you guys give me a lot of confidence right here at the start.”

  “Oh, you ain’t got nothing to worry about, not visiting Robert Earl. He’s a gentleman and he ain’t crazy.” As he spoke, the sergeant methodically searched through Cowart’s briefcase. He also opened up the tape recorder to inspect the insides and popped the battery compartment to ascertain that there were batteries in the space. “Now, it’s not like you were coming in to visit Willie Arthur or Specs Wilson—they were those two bikers from Fort Lauderdale that let a little fun with that girl they picked up hitchhiking get out of hand—or Jose Salazar—you know, he killed two cops. Undercover guys in a drug deal. You know what he made them do before he killed ’em? To each other? You oughta find out. It’ll open your mind to how bad folks can be when they set their minds right to it. Or some of the other lovely guys we got in here. Most of the worst come from downstate, from your hometown. What y’all doing down there anyway, that makes folks kill each other so bad?”

  “Sergeant, if I could answer that question . . .”

  They both grinned. Sergeant Rogers put down Cowart’s briefcase and gestured for him to hold his hands up in the air. “Sure helps to have a sense if humor around here,” the sergeant said as his hands flitted across Cowart’s body. The sergeant patted him down rapidly.

  “Okay,” the sergeant said. “Let me brief you on the drill. It’s gonna be just you and him. I’m just there for security. Be right outside the door. You need help, you just yell. But that ain’t gonna happen, because we’re talking about one of the non-crazy men on the Row. Hell, we’re gonna use the executive suite . . .”

  “The what?”

  “The executive suite. That’s what we call the interview room for the best behaved. Now, it’s just a table and chairs, so it ain’t no big deal. We’ve got other facilities that are more secure. And Robert Earl won’t have no restraints. Not even leg irons. But no hand contact. I mean you can give him a smoke . . .”

  “I don’t.”

  “Good. Smart man. You can take papers from him, if he hands you documents. But if you wanted to hand him anything, it would have to go through me.”

  “Like hand him what?”

  “Oh, maybe a file and hacksaw and some road maps.”
/>   Cowart looked surprised.

  “Hey, just kidding,” the sergeant said. “Of course, in here, that’s the one joke we never much make. Escape. Not funny, you know. But there’s lots of different ways to escape a prison. Even Death Row. A lot of the inmates think talking to reporters is one way.”

  “Help them escape?”

  “Help them get out. Everyone always wants the press to get excited about their case. Inmates never think they got a fair shake. They think that maybe if they make enough of a stink, they’ll get a new trial. Happens. That’s why prison people like me always hate to see reporters. Hate to see those little pads of paper, those camera crews and lights. Just gets everyone riled up, excited about nothing much. People think it’s the loss of freedoms that makes for trouble in prisons. They’re wrong. Worse thing by far is expectations getting raised and then smashed. It’s just another story for you guys. But for the guys inside, it’s their lives you’re talking about. They think one story, the right story, and they’ll just walk on out of here. You and I know that ain’t necessarily true. Disappointment. Big, angry, frustrating disappointment. Causes more trouble than you’d like to know. What we like is routine. No wild hopes, no dreams. Just one day exactly like the last. Don’t sound exciting, but of course, you don’t want to be around a prison when things get exciting.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. But I’m just here checking a few facts.”

  “In my experience, Mr. Cowart, there ain’t no such thing as a fact, except two maybe, one being born and one being dying. But, no problem. I ain’t as hard-core as some around here. I kinda like a little change of pace, as long as it’s within reason. Just don’t hand him nothing. It’ll only make it worse for him.”

  “Worse than Death Row?”

  “You got to understand, even on the Row there’s lots of ways of doing your time. We can make it real hard, or not so tough. Right now, Robert Earl, he’s got it pretty good. Oh, he still gets his cell tossed every day, and he still gets a strip search after a little meeting like this one here today, but he’s got yard privileges now and books and such. You wouldn’t think it, but even in prison there’s all sorts of little things we can take away that will make his life a lot worse.”