Free Watch Me by James Carol Page B

great-grandfather was murdered for nothing.’
    We’d left Eagle Creek behind, houses and concrete replaced with fields and trees. There wasn’t a soul in sight. It was easy to imagine it was a century earlier, easy to imagine we were back in a time when a rich white man could arrange to murder a poor black man without fear of repercussions.
    ‘When Randall died, his son Randall Morgan Junior took over,’ Taylor continued. ‘Junior was ambitious, but he wasn’t ruthless like his father. And he was clever, too. He’d worked out early on that the oil was a temporary thing, so he spread his investments. You name it, he invested in it, anything and everything. The one thing that most of his investments had in common was that they turned a profit. Newspapers, radio, banks, construction.’
    ‘When did the oil run out?’
    ‘A couple of decades ago.’
    ‘Morgan Holdings, is it still owned by the Morgans?’
    Taylor nodded. ‘Lock, stock and barrel. This is one family business that’s staying in the family.’
    ‘And judging by the Gulfstream, the company’s doing all right for itself.’
    ‘Yeah, you could say that. Its net worth is easily into ten figures. And it’s just had a bumper payday. Dayton sits on top of the Haynesville Shale, so the Morgans got in on the recent gas boom. It’s been known for a while that the gas was there, but it was too expensive to get to. Improvements in technology and drilling techniques have changed all that.’
    ‘So who’s in charge of the company these days?’
    Taylor smiled. The tension was gone and he’d stopped doing that thing with his fingers on the steering wheel. We were back on safer ground again. Whatever the set-up was now, the present didn’t bother Taylor anywhere near as much as the past. I could relate.
    ‘Technically it’s Clayton Morgan. He’s been the CEO since his father, Jasper, stepped down a few years back. Jasper is still the president. It’s supposed to be an honorary position, but the general consensus is that he still calls the shots.’
    ‘Okay, that answers the who. What about the why? Why did Morgan Holdings lend their Gulfstream to you guys?’
    ‘Because Jasper Morgan stepped down to become Eagle Creek’s mayor. Anything that happens to the town, he takes personally. Very personally indeed. He loves this place like it’s his own flesh and blood. When he saw the film he told us to do whatever we needed to do to catch this guy. Money was no object. He gave us a complete free rein. He wants this guy brought down hard and fast. Dead or alive, he doesn’t care. He just wants him put out of business.’
    That explained Sheriff Fortier’s reaction when we were discussing my fee. At least I now knew whose signature was at the bottom of my blank cheque.

14
    Sam Galloway’s McMansion sat on its own five-acre plot amongst all the other big houses in McArthur Heights. A black wrought-iron fence set on a four-foot brick wall marked the boundary. The top of the fence curved gently. Smooth, long curves that reminded me of the way a kid would draw a bird.
    A row of trees had been planted to shield the house from the street, but they still had some growing to do. They weren’t quite tall enough, the foliage wasn’t quite thick enough, and we kept getting flickering glimpses of the house as we cruised along the boundary.
    Taylor pulled up at a big set of double gates. Like the boundary fence, they were also made from black wrought iron. Unlike the fence, they made me think of a prison rather than a kid’s drawing. They were ten feet tall with rose patterns wound into the metalwork. Our police cruiser was a solid enough piece of American engineering, but if we tried to ram those gates we’d definitely come off worse.
    The driver’s window went down and a wave of superheated air came crashing in. There was a microphone on a column like you’d see at a drive-through restaurant. No keypad. The only way you were getting in was if someone up at the