The boys from biloxi, p.30
The Boys from Biloxi, page 30
“Please go home and sit with your mother, Keith. I’ll go back over there and ask around. I’ll call you when I know something.”
Keith was too stunned to argue. Gage walked him to his car and watched him drive away, and kept mumbling to himself, “This cannot be happening.” Sirens wailed in the distance.
Other than a nasty blow to the head, Egan appeared to be in good shape. Her wound was treated and she was strapped to a gurney and taken away in an ambulance. A secretary in the chancery clerk’s office was injured when a large filing cabinet toppled over and pinned her underneath. She left in the second ambulance. Lyle managed to grapple his way around to the side of the courthouse where he removed his brown shirt and stuffed it and the detonator into a large plastic garbage can. He was determined to get to his truck, drive away, go to the motel, and regroup. And as soon as physically possible, get the hell out of Biloxi. His plans went haywire, though, when he tripped and fell on a sidewalk. A first responder saw him, saw the blood and the exposed bone, and called for a stretcher. Lyle tried to resist, said he was fine and so on, but he was losing strength and fading. Another medic stepped over and they managed to get him on the stretcher and into an ambulance.
The fire was confined to the west end of the second floor and was extinguished quickly. The fire chief was the first one into the district attorney’s office. The walls of the reception room were charred and cracked; an interior wall had been blown in half. The desks and chairs were splintered. The metal file cabinets were dented and ripped open. Debris and plaster dust covered the floor and mixed with the water to form sticky mud. The door leading to Jesse’s office had been torn, and from where he stood the fire chief could see the victim.
The remains of a corpse had been blown face-first into an exterior wall. The back of his head was missing, as were the left leg and right arm. The white shirt was nothing but shreds, all covered in blood.
* * *
For the Rudy family, the clock had never ticked slower. The afternoon dragged on as they waited for the inevitable. Keith and Ainsley sat with Agnes in the sun room, her favorite place in their home. Beverly and Laura were due any moment. Tim was trying to catch a flight out of Missoula.
Gage and Gene Pettigrew manned the front of the house and kept the crowd away. Friends descended on the home and were asked to please leave. Maybe later. The family wasn’t receiving guests. Thanks for your concern.
A Biloxi policeman arrived with the news that Egan Clement was being treated at the hospital and doing okay. She suffered a concussion and a cut that required a few stitches. Evidently she was somewhere near the door of the office when the explosion occurred. The FBI and state police were on the scene.
“Can you keep Fats Bowman away from it?” Gage asked.
The policeman smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Sheriff Bowman will not be involved.”
The corpse would not be moved for hours. There was no hurry. The crime scene would be examined for days. A few minutes after three, an FBI technician carefully removed the wallet from the left rear pocket of the deceased and confirmed his identity.
The wallet was handed to Biloxi’s chief of police, who left the courthouse and drove straight to the Rudy home. He knew Keith well and was burdened with the responsibility of breaking the unspeakable news. The two of them huddled in the kitchen, away from Agnes and the girls.
Keith recognized the wallet and looked at his father’s driver’s license. He gritted his teeth and said, “Thank you, Bob.”
“I’m so sorry, Keith.”
“So am I. What do you know?”
“Not much so far. The FBI lab guys are on the way. Some type of bomb that went off somewhere close to your father’s desk. He didn’t have a chance.”
Keith closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “When can we see my dad?”
The chief stuttered and stumbled for words. “I don’t know, Keith. I’m not sure you want to see him, not like this.”
“Is he in one piece?”
“No.”
Keith took another deep breath and struggled to keep his composure. “I guess I gotta tell Mom.”
“I’m so sorry, Keith.”
Chapter 39
Fortunately, at least for the investigation, Special Agent Jackson Lewis was on the Coast when he heard the news. He arrived at the courthouse at 12:45, and quickly established that the FBI was in charge. He made sure the building was locked and secured. Only the front door would remain open, for investigators. He asked the sheriff’s deputies to control the crowd and traffic, and he asked the Biloxi police to question the spectators and get the name of every person who was in the building at noon. When two FBI technicians arrived, he ordered them to photograph the license plates of every vehicle parked downtown.
He asked the state police to go to the hospital and take statements of those who were injured. In the ER, they found half a dozen people with cuts severe enough to require stitches. Four were complaining of severe pain in their ears. One unidentified man had a broken leg and was in surgery. Egan Clement was being x-rayed. A secretary was being treated for a concussion.
The officers decided their visit was premature, so they left for two hours. When they returned, they found Egan Clement in a private room, sedated but awake. Her mother stood on one side of her bed, her father on the other. Egan had been informed of Jesse’s death and was, at times, inconsolable. When she was able to talk, she told them what she remembered. She had left the office around 11:30 to run a quick errand and stop by Rosini’s Grocery for deli sandwiches. Chicken for her, turkey for Jesse. She returned to the courthouse around noon and remembered how it cleared out at lunchtime every Friday, especially in August. She walked up the stairs, and passed a UPS delivery man without speaking, which she thought was odd because Russ always spoke. No big deal. It wasn’t Russ. And he was carrying boxes away from the second floor. Odd, too, for a Friday. She glanced back at him, and that was the last thing she remembered. She did not hear the blast, did not recall being knocked out by it.
The officers didn’t press and said they would return later. They thanked her and left. She was sobbing when they closed the door.
As the hours passed, more crime scene vans arrived from Jackson and they parked haphazardly in the street in front of the courthouse. Two large tents were erected to protect the team from the August sun and heat and to serve as temporary headquarters. The deputies encouraged those in the crowd to leave. Downtown streets were cordoned off, and as shoppers and employees left for the day, the empty parking spaces were secured with orange cones.
Jackson Lewis asked the Biloxi police to inform the downtown merchants and office workers that they could remain open over the weekend, but there would be no parking. He wanted the area locked down for the next forty-eight hours.
In a brief statement to the press, the chief of police confirmed that Mr. Jesse Rudy, the district attorney, had been killed in the explosion. He would not confirm that it was actually a bomb and deferred further questions until a later, unspecified time.
* * *
The man with the compound fracture and head injury had no wallet or ID on him and was unable to cooperate with the ER team when he was wheeled in. He drifted in and out of consciousness and was unresponsive. Regardless, surgery was needed immediately to repair his leg. X-rays of his head revealed little damage.
Lyle was actually alert enough to talk, but he had no desire to. His thoughts were only of escape, which at the moment looked unrealistic. When the anesthesiologist tried to quiz him, he became unconscious again. The surgery lasted only ninety minutes. Afterward, he was moved to a semi-private room for recovery. An administrator appeared and politely inquired if he could answer a few questions. He closed his eyes and appeared unconscious. After she left, he stared at his left leg and tried to collect his thoughts. A thick white plaster cast began just below his right knee and covered everything but his toes. The entire limb was suspended in midair by pulleys and chains. An escape was impossible, so he lost unconsciousness when anyone entered the room.
* * *
Agnes whispered to Laura that she would like to lie down. Laura took one elbow, Beverly the other, and Ainsley followed them out of the sun room and down the hallway to the master bedroom. The shades were pulled tight; the only light a small lamp on a dresser. Agnes wanted a daughter on each side, and they lay quietly together in the dark and unbearable gloom for a long time. Ainsley sat on the corner of the bed, wiping her cheeks. Keith came and went but found the room too heavy and miserable. Occasionally, he walked to the den and chatted with the Pettigrew brothers, who were still guarding the front door. Beyond it, out in the street, neighbors were milling about, waiting to see someone from the family. There were several news teams with brightly painted vans and cameras on tripods.
At five o’clock, Keith walked to the end of the driveway and nodded to the neighbors and friends. He faced the cameras and made a brief statement. He thanked the people for coming and showing their concern. The family was trying to accept the horrific news and waiting for relatives to arrive. On behalf of the family, he was requesting everyone to honor their privacy. Thanks for the prayers and concerns. He walked away without taking questions.
Joey Grasich appeared from the crowd and Keith invited him into the house. Seeing a childhood buddy brought out a lot of emotions, and Keith had his first long cry of the day. They were alone in the kitchen. So far, he had shown little emotion in front of the women.
After half an hour, Joey left and drove around the block. Keith checked on the women and said he was going to the hospital to see Egan. He ducked through the backyard and met Joey on the next street. They got away without being seen and drove to the law office where they parked. They walked three blocks to the barricades and chatted with a Biloxi policeman who was guarding the sidewalk.
Behind him, the courthouse was crawling with police and investigators. Every firetruck and patrol car in the city and county was there, along with half a dozen from the state highway patrol. Two FBI mobile crime units were parked on the lawn near the front door.
The window of Jesse’s office had been blown out and the bricks around it were charred black. Keith tried to look at it but turned away.
As they were walking back to the office, they saw a woman place a bouquet of flowers on the front steps of Rudy & Pettigrew. They spoke to her, thanked her, and noticed several other arrangements folks had dropped off.
At the hospital, Keith tapped on the door to Egan’s room and eased inside. Joey didn’t know her and stayed in the hall. Her parents were still there, and she had held her composure for some time, until she saw Keith. He hugged her gently, careful not to touch a bandage.
“I just can’t believe it,” she said over and over.
“At least you’re safe, Egan.”
“Tell me it’s not true.”
“Okay, it’s not true. You’ll go to work tomorrow and Jesse’ll be yelling about something, same as always. This is just a bad dream.”
She almost managed a smile, but clutched his hand and closed her eyes.
Her mother nodded and Keith thought he should leave. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said and carefully kissed Egan on the cheek.
As he and Joey left her room and headed for the elevators, they passed Room 310, semi-private. Lying in the first bed, with his leg in the air, was the man who killed Jesse Rudy.
Chapter 40
Dinner was a cold sandwich under a hot tent, eaten while standing and waiting. Their midnight snack was a slice of even colder pizza, also under the tent. The FBI teams did not rest during the night. Jackson Lewis kept them there and had no plans to release them until the job was finished. For hours they meticulously scoured every inch of the crime scene and collected thousands of samples of debris. The first explosives expert arrived from Quantico at 9:30. He viewed the bomb site, sniffed the air, and said quietly to Jackson Lewis, “Probably Semtex, military stuff, far more than necessary to kill one man. I’d say the bomber got a bit carried away.”
Agent Lewis knew from training and experience that the crime scene yields the best evidence, though it’s sometimes overlooked because it’s so obvious. This was his biggest case yet, one that could make his career, and he vowed to miss nothing. He had ordered that no one and nothing leave the courthouse without approval. Each of the thirty-seven people identified so far as being in the courthouse had been cleared to go home, but only after their bags, purses, and briefcases were searched. Each would be interviewed later. He had the names and addresses of the injured, now numbering thirteen, with only two hospitalized. All trash baskets and garbage cans were collected and taken to a tent.
Lewis had suffered through three weeks without a cigarette, but he broke under the pressure. At 9:00, after dark, he lit a Marlboro and walked around the exterior of the courthouse, puffing away and thoroughly enjoying the tobacco. His wife would never know. The streets were blocked; there was no traffic. With the 11:00 p.m. Marlboro, he noticed a dark blue Dodge half-ton pickup parked on a side street facing north. It was a nice truck, certainly not abandoned. The nearest store had been closed for six hours. There were no apartments above the stores and offices; no lights were on. Down the street were some small homes, all with plenty of parking of their own. The truck was out of place.
The man with the broken leg had not been identified, and Lewis’s suspicion was growing by the hour. The state police had attempted to question him on two occasions, but he was barely conscious.
* * *
Jesse’s death was welcome news along the Strip. The club owners and their employees relaxed for the first time in months, maybe years. Maybe now with Rudy gone the good times could roll again. In the strip joints, bars, pool halls, and bingo parlors a lot of drinks were poured and glasses raised. Real drinks, not the feeble stuff they sold to their customers but top-shelf liquor that was seldom touched.
Hugh Malco, Nevin Noll, and their favorite bartender had a celebratory dinner at Mary Mahoney’s. Thick steaks, expensive wines, no expense was spared. Because the restaurant was crowded and people were watching, they controlled their euphoria and tried to give the appearance of old friends just having dinner. Occasionally, though, they whispered pleasant thoughts and exchanged grim smiles.
For Hugh, the occasion was bittersweet. He was delighted Jesse Rudy was gone, but so was his father. Lance should be dining with them and savoring the moment.
* * *
Lance heard it on the ten o’clock news out of Jackson. He stared at a fifteen-inch black-and-white television with rabbit ears and took in the face of Jesse Rudy as the anchor breathlessly reported his death.
From across the hall, Monk asked, “Ain’t he the guy who sent you here?”
“That’s him,” Lance said with a smile.
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“Not a clue.”
Monk laughed and said, “Right.”
The report switched to a shot of the Biloxi courthouse. A voiceover said, “Although authorities have yet to comment, a source tells us that Jesse Rudy was killed instantly around noon today when an explosion occurred in his office. About a dozen other people were injured. The investigators will make a statement tomorrow.”
* * *
At midnight, the truck was still there.
There was a flurry in the tent at 12:45 when the contents of a garbage can were spread on a table for a look. In addition to the usual litter and crap, a small unidentified device was found, along with a short-sleeved UPS shirt once worn by someone named Lyle. The FBI explosives expert took one look and said, “That’s the detonator.”
The 2:00 a.m. cigarette was forgotten as Lewis supervised the sickening task of removing the corpse. Jesse’s remains were pieced together on a stretcher. An ambulance took him to the basement of the hospital where the city leased a room for its morgue. There, he would await an autopsy, though the cause of death was obvious.
At 3:00 a.m. Lewis took a break for another cigarette as he made the same walk around the courthouse. It cleared his mind, got the blood flowing. The truck had not been moved.
It had license plates issued by Hancock County. Lewis waited impatiently through the night and called the sheriff in Bay St. Louis at 7:00 a.m. The sheriff went to the courthouse and to the office of the tax assessor. The license tags had been reported stolen four days earlier.
At 9:00 a.m., the stores were opening, though the streets were still blocked. The courthouse, of course, was closed. Working from his dining room table at home, Judge Oliphant issued a search warrant for the Dodge pickup. Under its seat, FBI agents found a set of license plates issued by Obion County, Tennessee. Hidden under the floor mat was a key to Room 19 of the Beach Bay Motel in Biloxi.
Judge Oliphant issued a search warrant for Room 19. Since Agent Lewis had the key, he did not bother with notifying the manager of the motel. He and Agent Spence Whitehead, accompanied by a Biloxi city policeman, entered the small room and found a pile of dirty laundry and an unmade bed. Someone had been there for a few days. Between the mattress and box springs, they found a wallet, some cash, two pistols, keys on a ring, and a pocketknife. The Tennessee driver’s license identified their man as Henry Taylor, address in the town of Union City, date of birth May 20, 1941. Thirty-five years old. The wallet also held two credit cards, two condoms, a fishing license, and eighty dollars in cash.
Agent Lewis placed the two pistols in a plastic bag. They left the other items precisely as they found them, and returned to the courthouse. Technicians collected fingerprints from the weapons, and Agent Whitehead returned them to Room 19.
