At noon, Gene Pettigrew left for the two-hour drive to the New Orleans airport. He picked up Tim Rudy, who’d traveled all night from Montana, and they headed home. He had a thousand questions and Gene had few answers, but they talked nonstop. Of the four Rudy siblings, Tim seemed the angriest. He wanted blood revenge. As they entered Biloxi and drove past the Strip, he uttered vile threats at Red Velvet and Foxy’s and was convinced beyond all doubt that the Malcos had killed his father.
At home, Agnes broke down again when she saw her youngest child. The family had another good cry, though Keith was getting tired of the tears.
As the walls closed in, the family asked for privacy and their visitors slowly left the house. At 6:00 p.m. they, along with the Pettigrew brothers, gathered in the den to watch the local news, which was all about the bombing. The anchor flashed a color photo of Jesse in a dark suit, smiling with confidence, and it was difficult to absorb. The story switched to a live shot of the courthouse where the investigation was still in high gear. A close-up showed the burned-out second-floor window of the DA’s office. The chief of police and the FBI had addressed the press hours earlier, and revealed virtually nothing. The newscast ran a small segment in which Jackson Lewis said, “The FBI is still investigating the scene and will continue to do so for a few more days. We cannot comment at this time, but we can say that we have no suspects at this early stage.”
The Rudy story consumed almost all of the half-hour news, which was followed by CBS weekend news out of New York. Gage Pettigrew had been approached by a CBS correspondent who asked to speak to the family and had been told to get lost. Gage had also seen an ABC crew downtown trying to get near the courthouse. Thus, they knew the networks were in town.
Near the end of the CBS segment, the anchor reported the murder of a district attorney in Biloxi, Mississippi. He switched to a reporter somewhere near the courthouse who babbled for a moment or so but said nothing new. Back in New York, the anchor informed the audience that, according to the FBI, Jesse Rudy was the first elected district attorney to be murdered while in office in U.S. history.
* * *
There were no plans to attend Mass on Sunday morning. Agnes was not ready to be seen in public and her children didn’t want the attention either. Late morning, they enjoyed a family brunch in the sun room with the Pettigrew brothers serving as waiters and mixing Bloody Marys.
As a child, Jesse had attended Mass at St. Michael’s Catholic Church on the Point. It was known as the “Fishermen’s Church” and had been built in the early 1900s by Louisiana French and Croatian immigrants. He had practically grown up in St. Michael’s, rarely missing weekly Mass with his parents. Life revolved around the church, with daily prayers, christenings, weddings, funerals, and countless socials. The parish priest was a father figure who was always there in times of need.
Jesse had brought his bride home from the war and had not been married at St. Michael’s. But, Lance and Carmen Malco were married there in 1948, in front of a large crowd of families and friends. Jesse was sitting in the back row.
Two days after the bombing, and with the community still stunned and reeling, St. Michael’s was packed for Mass as friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and voters sought refuge and strength in their faith. Everyone needed to offer a prayer for the Rudy family. Jesse was their greatest success story, and his violent, senseless death hit the community hard.
Throughout the Point, Back Bay, and the rest of Biloxi, the Catholic churches were busier than usual on the somber Sunday morning. St. John’s, Nativity, Our Mother of Sorrows, as well as St. Michael’s, welcomed large crowds of mourners, all firmly believing they had some connection to Jesse Rudy.
Chapter 42
Early Monday morning, a nurse juiced Henry’s IV again and knocked him out. He was rolled into surgery where his doctors spent an hour resetting his tibia and wrapping his lower leg with a smaller plaster cast. According to those up the hospital’s chain of command, it was rather urgent that the patient be patched up as well as possible so he could be on his way. There was no mention of the police or FBI. Indeed, little mention of anything; just the clear message that Henry Taylor needed to be released.