Harry was in his office reading over the report I compiled. It contained the details of my recent trip to Atlanta and what I learned about the events that lead up to the murder of Candi Kane. I poured two cups of coffee and made them drinkable by adding a couple of fingers of Paul Masson Brandy, and slid one across the desk to Harry. He continued reading.
Christopher Kane taped Darrell Shotgun Mason and his son, Billy Bob, as they discussed their elicit businesses with him. Whether his partner, Lou Crowson, was aware of this is not known. Kane apparently did this for his own protection.
When Shotgun Mason told the power brokers he was in business with, that Christopher Kane made a tape, they wanted Kane killed and the tape destroyed. Kane’s wife just happened to be there at the wrong time, so she was just collateral damage.
Mason was Georgia’s gangland kingpin who owned a string of motels and nightclubs along "The Strip” in Atlanta that doubled as illicit dens for gambling, prostitution, and drugs. His oldest boy, ”Junior" was his partner in crime. They put the names of some of their buddies, who still hadn’t acquired a rap sheet consisting of felonies, as owners of these clubs.
These “club owners” carried messages, held loot, hid fugitives, fenced stolen property, and underwrote the expenses for Shotgun. In exchange,, they received a piece of the action. Mason has been linked to a string of killings that have left 25 people dead in six different states over the past four years. He was one bad hombre.
Christopher Kane’s Law firm was the mouthpiece for Mason and they got paid hefty sums of money to get Mason and his cronies off the hook on everything from prostitution, to drugs, and murder raps.
Some interesting facts surfaced about Mr. Kane and his law partner, Lou Crowson. Their clients were the kind that were in need of criminal defense. Those with the most money were those whose gains had been ill-gotten through vice and corruption. Their law firm had seemed to thrive on these low lifes.
They didn’t simply view their criminal defense work as "just a job," they seemed to move comfortably among the figures of this shadowy underworld. They were well liked, respected, and welcomed into the fold. Crowson, particularly, seemed fascinated by this underground culture, according to Dorfmeier.
Since they were paid a large sum of money, they were expected to deliver the goods and most of the time they did. After Kane and Crowson got their clients off the hook, most of them would go out and commit another murder. Evidently Kane started to wrestle with his conscience over what he was involved in but, unfortunately, Crowson wasn’t experiencing the same pangs of guilt.
Pretty soon the firm was laundering drug and prostitution money. Kane found out his partner was up to his nuts in dirty laundry and his partner found out Christopher Kane was going to go to authorities, so he ratted him out and had him killed.
Earlier, a large chunk of the money Mason had been laundering through the firm had turned up missing. About $500,000, according to certain sources, though later Dorfmeier put the amount closer to $200,000. A meeting was held at a local motel between Mason and Crowson and several other of Mason’s associates, among them Bobby Joe Millen, a local thug with a long rap sheet that included everything from extortion to attempted murder. When Mason asked Crowson about the missing money, Crowson denied any responsibility and blamed it on Christopher Kane. A hit was then ordered on Kane, and Bobby Joe Millen and another career killer, our boy Charlie Johnson, also known as Hogjaw, was contracted to do the dirty work.
At first, Mason didn't believe Kane took the money and, instead, blamed his partner, Lou Crowson. The day after meeting with Crowson, Mason’s boy,