'This is all very shaky, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

'Matty, is something going on here?'

'It's just Blair Sullivan,' Cowart replied quickly. 'Mind games. He ran them on me. He ran them on everyone. It was what he did with himself when he wasn't killing folks.'

'But what about what that detective was implying?'

Cowart tried for a reply that would make some sense. 'It was kinda like Sullivan made a distinction between some crimes. The ones that were important, the two that aren't on tape, were, I don't know, different for him. All these others were just run-of-the-mill. Stuff for his legend. I'm not a shrink. I can't explain what was going on in his mind.'

The city editor nodded. 'Is that what's going into the paper?'

'Yes, more or less.'

'Let's make sure what we put in the paper errs on the side of caution, okay? If you have doubts about something, leave it out. Or make certain it's covered. We can always come back to it.'

Cowart tried to smile. 'I'm trying.'

'Try hard,' the city editor said. 'You know, it raises more questions than it answers. I mean, who was Sullivan trying to protect? You're gonna find out, right? While Edna checks out the rest of the statement, you're going to work on that angle?'

'Yes.'

Helluva story. A person arranging a murder right before his own execution. What are we talking about, a corrupt prison guard? An attorney, maybe? Another inmate? Get some rest and get on it, okay? You got an idea where to start?'

Sure,' he answered. Not only where to start, but, he thought, where to finish: Robert Earl Ferguson. despite his fatigue, Cowart hung on in the newsroom throughout the remainder of the day, into the early evening. He ignored the news crews staked out in front of the building waiting for him for as long as he could. But when the news directors at each station started calling the managing editor, he was forced to go outside and made a short, unsatisfactory statement.

This, of course, angered them more than placated them. They didn't leave after he ended the interview.

He took no calls from other reporters trying to interview him. He simply waited for the cover of darkness. After the first edition came up, he read the words he'd written slowly, as if afraid they could hurt him physically. He made a change or two for the late edition, adding more doubt about Sullivan's confession, underscoring the essential mystery of the executed man's actions. He spoke briefly with Edna

McGee and the city editor one last time, a false coordination of work. He rode the freight elevator down through the bowels of the newspaper, past the computer makeup rooms, the classified advertising sections, the cafeteria, and the assembly docks. The building hummed and quivered with the noise of the presses as they pumped out tens of thousands of issues of the newspaper. He could feel the vibration from the machines right through the soles of his feet.

A delivery truck gave him a lift for a few blocks, dropping him a short way from his apartment. He tucked a single issue of the next day's paper beneath his arm and walked through the growing city night, suddenly relieved by the anonymous sound his shoes made pacing against the pavement.

He eyed the front of his apartment building from a short distance, scanning the area for other members of the press. He saw none, and then checked for signs of the Monroe detectives. It would not be crazy to suspect they were following him. But the street appeared empty and he quickly cut through the shadows on the edges of the streetlamps, and into his lobby. For the first time since he'd moved in, he regretted the lack of security in the modest building. He hesitated for an instant in front of the elevator, then burst through an emergency door and raced up the fire stairs, his breath coming in short bursts, his feet pounding against the linoleum risers.

He opened the door to his apartment and entered the shambles. For an instant he stood in the center, waiting for his heart to settle, then went to the window and stared out across the dark bay waters. A few reflected city lights sliced through the wavy black ink, only to be devoured by the expanse of ocean.

He felt himself completely alone, but he was wrong. He did not understand that a number of people, though miles distant, were actually in the room with him, like ghosts, waiting for his next move.

Some, of course, were less far. Such as Andrea Shaeffer, who'd parked an entire block distant, but who'd intently watched his erratic course down the street through a pair of night-vision binoculars, as the reporter ducked in and out of the fringe darkness. So precise had her concentration been, that she had failed to notice Tanny Brown. He stood in a shadow of an adjacent building, letting the night surround and conceal him. He stared up at the lights of Cowart's apartment until they were extinguished. Then he waited until the unmarked patrol car carrying the woman detective slowly headed off into the city night before moving, alley-cat like, for Cowart's apartment.

14. Confession

Tanny Brown listened outside the door to Cowart's apartment. He could hear distant city-night sounds of traffic penetrating the still darkness, blending with the frustrated buzzing of a bottle-green bug that seemed suicidally intent upon assaulting the light fixture in the hallway. He started when he heard a pair of voices from an adjacent apartment rise in sudden laughter, then fade away. For an instant he wondered what the joke was. He listened again at the door, but no sound emanated from Cowart's apartment. He put his hand on the door handle gently, just twisting it slightly until he met resistance. Locked. He peered at the dead bolt above it and saw that the bolt was thrown.

He clenched a fist in disappointment. He hated the idea of asking Cowart for admittance. He had wanted to slip into the apartment with the stealth of a burglar, to rouse Cowart abruptly from sleep, perched like a wraith on the edge of the reporter's dream, demanding the truth.

He heard a whirring, metallic noise behind him and turned swiftly, in the same motion trying to back into a shadow. A hand went automatically to his shoulder holster. It was the elevator, rising to another floor. He watched as a small shaft of light slid through the closed entrance door, passing upward. He lowered his hand. wondering why he felt so jumpy. Fatigue and doubt He looked back at the door in front of him, realizing that if someone spotted him standing there, they would in all likelihood summon the police, taking him for some intruder with evil intentions.

Which, he thought with a twitch of humor, was exactly what he was.

Brown breathed in deeply, clearing his head of exhaustion, concentrating on what had brought him to Cowart's door. He felt the warm breath of anger on his forehead and he rapped sharply on the thick wooden panels.

Cowart sat cross-legged on the floor amidst the ruins of his apartment, assessing his next step. When the four pistol-like cracks sounded on his door, his first thought was to remain still, frozen like a deer in headlights; his second was to take cover and hide. But instead he rose and walked unsteadily toward the sound.

He took a deep breath and asked, 'Who's there?'

Trouble, thought Brown to himself, but out loud, said, 'Lieutenant Tanny Brown. I want to talk to you.' There was a moment of silence. 'Open up!'

Cowart wanted to laugh out loud. He opened the door and peered around its edge. 'Everyone wants to talk to me today. I thought you'd be some more of those damn television guys.'

'No, just me,' replied Brown.

'Same questions, though, I bet,' Cowart said. 'So, how'd you find me? I'm not in the book and the city desk won't give out my home address.'

'Not hard,' the detective replied, still standing in front of the door. 'You gave me your home phone number back when you were getting Bobby Earl out of prison. Just a matter of calling the telephone company and telling them it was a police matter.'