“We don’t know yet. Everything is preliminary, Keith.”
Keith was suspicious but let it pass. It was too early to press the investigators but he felt certain they knew more than they were sharing. At least there was the possibility of a suspect.
Joint efforts by state and federal law enforcement were notoriously fraught with suspicions and turf battles. After some shadowboxing, it was agreed that Jackson Lewis and the FBI would take the lead in the investigation. Moffett feigned frustration, but he was under direct orders from the governor to yield to the Feds.
* * *
In the ninety days before the murder, Henry Taylor had either made or received 515 calls. Every number had been checked; most were local to family, friends, a couple of ladies he seemed to know well. Thirty-one were long distance but none were suspicious. Two weeks before the murder, he had received a phone call from a pay phone in Biloxi, but it was impossible to know who placed it.
Taylor ran his business out of a small shop in an old warehouse. A federal magistrate issued another eavesdropping warrant and the office phone was tapped. Its records were collected from the phone company and were being analyzed. Virtually all the calls were business-related; again, none seemed suspicious.
Agent Lewis was puzzled. To pull off such a spectacular bomb blast would almost certainly require phone activity. Where did the explosives come from? How did he get them? Lewis and Whitehead had searched his little bomb lab behind his home and found no explosives, only residue and gadgets for detonators. There had to be contact with the man with the money, or some go-between.
Several calls from his home revealed that his broken leg was causing considerable trouble and he was unable to work. He chatted with two part-time employees and wasn’t happy with either. One claimed Taylor owed some back wages; they argued. He called his doctor and complained. He tried to borrow money from a brother, but the conversation didn’t go well. There were fewer and fewer calls to his office from prospective customers.
His story was that he had gone fishing in the Gulf and slipped at a marina, breaking his leg. Six weeks after the murder, he was still on crutches and in constant pain.
He made an interesting call on October 14. A Mr. Ludlow took Taylor’s call at the bank and listened to his troubles. He wasn’t working much, broken leg and all, and he was in a bind, needed to borrow some money. They seemed to know one another from past dealings. Henry wanted $10,000 and was willing to put a second mortgage on his home. Mr. Ludlow said he would ponder it. He called back the next day and said no.
A target in financial trouble. They kept listening.
Chapter 44
The Harrison County Board of Supervisors decided to spend some money repairing its courthouse and went overboard on an office suite for its new district attorney. When Keith moved in a week before Thanksgiving, he was impressed with the remodeling, the fine furniture, the latest office equipment. The walls, floors, and ceilings still smelled of fresh paint. Handsome rugs were on all the floors. Modern art adorned the walls, though he would soon replace it. All in all it was a superb effort and a meaningful gesture.
His most pressing problem was the lack of a staff. Jesse’s longtime secretary refused to enter the courthouse and Keith could not coax her out of retirement. Nor was his own assistant ready to return. Egan Clement was depressed and still frightened. A lady from the land records office volunteered to answer the phone for two months.
During the first few days, he fought the emotions that surfaced every time he walked into his father’s old office, but finally found the resolve to move forward. Jesse wouldn’t want him moping around when there was work to do. The knot in his stomach eventually subsided, then went away. When he wasn’t busy he left the office and went for long drives in the country north of town. What he needed was his first jury trial; nothing like a good courtroom brawl to make a lawyer forget his troubles.
He called his first grand jury to order and presented half a dozen cases: small-time drug trafficking, an assault from a nasty domestic dispute, and an armed home invasion that almost turned deadly.