Marcus Dean disappeared and refused to take calls from Lance Malco. Word eventually got around that the IRS was investigating neither Carousel nor Marcus Dean Poppy.
On the Strip in 1963, swindling a thousand bucks from the wrong person could get one permanently injured—severe head wounds, missing limbs, blindness. At ten thousand dollars, a swindler was as good as dead. Nevin Noll finally found Fortier and delivered the ultimatum: Seven days to return the cash, or else.
* * *
A week passed, then another. No one had seen Poppy. Lance was convinced he had indeed fled the area for good and kept the cash. A construction crew hired by Ginger descended upon Carousel and began sprucing it up for a grand reopening.
Fortier was lying low too and had left the Strip, but not the Coast. He was selling used cars for a friend in Pascagoula and living in a small apartment there. Late on a Saturday night, he came home from a party half-drunk, with his girlfriend Rita. They quickly got undressed, hopped in the bed, and were getting steamed up when a man stepped from the closet eight feet away and began firing a handgun. Earl took three bullets in the head, as did Rita, who managed one quick scream before the end.
A next-door neighbor, Mr. Bullington, heard the shots and described them as “muffled thuds,” certainly not the wall-splitting sounds of a gun being fired in close quarters. Ballistics would say the gunman probably used some type of silencer, which would make sense for a murder that was carefully planned.
Mr. Bullington also heard the scream and it prompted him to turn off his lights, ease to the rear window in the kitchen, and watch. Seconds later, he saw a man leave their building, hurry across a small parking lot, and disappear around a corner. White, about six feet tall, medium build, dark hair under a dark cap, age about twenty-five. Mr. Bullington waited a moment, then left through his rear door, and, staying in the shadows, followed the man. He heard the sound of a car engine being started, and, hiding behind some bushes, watched as the killer drove away in a light brown 1961 Ford Fairlane, Mississippi tags but too far away to see the numbers.
Fortier was dead in his bed, but Rita was not. For three days her doctors waited to pull the plug, but she hung on. On the fourth day she started mumbling.
The murders were newsworthy along the Coast but not surprising. Fortier was described as a used-car salesman with a checkered past. He had worked in the Biloxi clubs and had served time for aggravated assault. Rita’s last job was waiting tables at a steak house in Pascagoula, but her trail quickly led to a long career as a waitress at Carousel. An employee who knew them both said their romance had been on and off for many years. In his opinion, she was only a waitress and had not worked the rooms upstairs. Not that it mattered when she was on life support.
Pascagoula was in Jackson County, the domain of Sheriff Heywood Hester, a relatively honest public servant who loathed Fats Bowman and his machine next door. Hester immediately called in the state police and gave the investigation his full attention. His citizens took a dimmer view of gangland shootings than those in Harrison County and he was determined to solve the crime and bring someone to justice.
A week after she was shot, Rita managed to scrawl on a notepad the name Nevin. Avoiding the Biloxi authorities, an undercover cop from the state police hung around the Strip long enough to catch wind of the bad blood between Lance Malco and Marcus Dean Poppy. It was common knowledge that Nevin was one of Malco’s underbosses. It was easy enough to find out that he owned a light brown 1961 Ford Fairlane, which Mr. Bullington identified.
In a surprise attack, Nevin Noll was awakened at three in the morning by a knock on his door. He treated every suspicious knock the same, and grabbed a small handgun from under his mattress. At the door, he was informed that the police had a warrant for his arrest and another one to search his apartment. They had the place surrounded. Come out with your hands up. He complied and no one was hurt.
He was driven to Pascagoula and thrown in jail with no bond. The police searched his apartment and found a small arsenal of handguns, rifles, shotguns, brass knuckles, switchblades, billy clubs, and every other weapon a self-respecting hoodlum might need. The state police and Sheriff Hester attempted to interrogate him, but he demanded a lawyer.