In his third year of law school at Ole Miss, Keith had visited Parchman on a field trip with a class in criminal justice. One visit was enough and he had never thought about going back. However, the letter from Stofer intrigued him. He also had a perverse desire to see how awful the place was now that so many of his enemies were there. As a DA, he would have no trouble gaining access to death row. He could even arrange a meeting with Hugh, though he had no desire to do so.
A week after meeting with Alfonso, he took the day off and drove alone five hours to Parchman. He enjoyed the solitude, the absence of constantly ringing phones, and the daily grind around the courthouse. He thought a lot about his father, which was not unusual when he was in the car by himself. He longed for the lost friendship of a man he practically worshipped. Typically, when those thoughts became burdens, he popped in a cassette and sang along with Springsteen and the Eagles.
North of Jackson, when the hills flattened and the Delta began, his thoughts turned to Lance and Hugh Malco, two men he had known his entire life and who were now locked away in a miserable prison far from their beloved Coast. Lance had been there for five years and by all accounts was surviving as well as could be expected. He was in a safer camp in the general population, had his own cell with a television and a fan and better food. With more money than anyone else at Parchman, he could bribe his way into almost anything but freedom. And, after five years, there was little doubt he was scheming to manipulate the parole board and get out. Keith was watching as closely as possible.
Hugh, on the other hand, was stuck in an eight-by-ten cell for twenty-three hours a day, in suffocating heat in the summer and freezing cold in the winter.
Keith had seen death row and had sat on an empty bunk, with the door still open, as had all the law students on his field trip. He could not imagine how anyone, especially a person raised with such privilege, could survive from one day to the next.
A fleeting image made him smile as he neared the prison’s front gate. The two boys, Biloxi All-Stars, blasting back-to-back home runs in a playoff game against Gulfport.
Keith parked and managed to purge the Malcos from his thoughts. He checked in at the administration building and was practically waved through. Because he was a district attorney, the authorities brought Haley Stofer to him. For two hours he listened as the inmate told his remarkable story of being forced undercover by Jesse in return for a lighter sentence. Stofer took full credit for getting the indictment against Lance Malco for prostitution, the charges that finally nailed him. He admitted he skipped out on Jesse, was later captured and returned to Harrison County, and faced the full wrath of the DA when he met him. Jesse showed some gratitude and agreed to a fifteen-year sentence. The max was thirty. Now, Stofer had served enough time, in his opinion, and wanted out. His contact in New Orleans was a cousin who still worked for the traffickers and knew everything about their smuggling routes into Mississippi. Sheriff Bowman was a key figure and was about to get even richer.
* * *
Such a major bust would be too complicated for the DA’s office, so Keith called FBI agents Jackson Lewis and Spence Whitehead. They in turn contacted the Drug Enforcement Agency, and a plan came together.
Keith leaned on the state police and arranged for Stofer to be transferred to the jail in Pascagoula, in Jackson County. It took him a month to make contact with the cousin in New Orleans. So far, everything Stofer said was verified by the DEA.
* * *
Just after midnight on September 3, Fats Bowman, with his longtime chief deputy Rudd Kilgore behind the wheel, took a leisurely drive north from Biloxi and arrived at one of Fats’s farms in rural Stone County. Two other deputies blocked the only gravel road leading to the farm. Fats and Kilgore met two operatives in a pickup truck with a camper over its bed. The four men waited at a hay shed near an open pasture, drinking beers, smoking cigars, and watching the clear, moonlit sky.
A team of DEA agents materialized from the woods and quietly arrested the two deputies guarding the gate. A dozen more heavily armed agents moved through the darkness and monitored what was left of the little gang. At 1:00 a.m., on schedule, a Cessna 208 Caravan swept low over the pasture and circled. On its next pass, it dipped to less than a hundred feet off the ground and dropped its cargo, six plastic boxes heavily wrapped in thick plastic. Fats, Kilgore, and the two operatives quickly loaded the packages into the pickup and were about to leave when they were surrounded by some serious-looking men with plenty of firepower. They were arrested and whisked away to an undisclosed location.