Ascension Day

28

As Jac opened the door, he heard the last couple of frantic steps on the stairs and the entrance door slamming. He ran a couple of steps past Gerry’s body, then halted: Gerry might still be alive, surely he should be tending to him first, seeing what could be done? And with the moment’s indecision, he knew that the assailant was by then long gone. He moved a step closer to Gerry’s body, inspecting. A lot of blood, but any sign of breathing? He knelt down, feeling for a pulse among the blood; and if the full horror hadn’t hit him then, he’d have known by Alaysha’s gasps and screams.

‘Oh God… oh God… No!’ She brought one hand up to her mouth, as if to stop hyper-ventilating.

No pulse that Jac could feel, though he was no expert, but then he noticed the portions of skull amongst the blood, one section almost three inches round, seeing then too the glistening brain matter — and he straightened up quickly, taking a deep breath as he felt his stomach turn, the bile starting to rise.

He looked up sharply, like a cat caught in headlamps, as Mrs Orwin’s door opened across the hallway. Her eyes darted rapidly, going over the scene a couple of times — the body on the floor, Jac, the blood all around — as if the first time she didn’t believe what she saw. Then she started shouting.

‘You’ve shot him! You’ve shot him!’

‘No… No!’ Jac implored, reaching a bloodied hand towards her. ‘It was another man who came by on the corridor… Shot him and ran off.’

‘You’ve… I… I…’ Mrs Orwin started shaking heavily, and as Jac moved a step towards her, still with the same hand held out imploringly, she hastily closed her door.

Jac shook his head in disbelief, but as he looked back at Alaysha, her eyes were transfixed on the gun. ‘What is it?’

‘I… I think I recognize that gun. I think it… it’s mine.’

‘What do you mean, you think it’s yours? I didn’t even know you had a gun.’

‘I didn’t… but I…’ Alaysha swallowed, trying to get her frantic breathing under control. ‘I picked it up from my mom’s the other day… be… because of Gerry coming round.’ As she was met with Jac’s questioning, penetrating stare, she shook her head. ‘I was frightened, Jac, okay… he had me and Molly terrified! Terrified.’

‘And what else is there you haven’t told me, Alaysha? All that crap from Gerry about dirty secrets that — ’ Jac stopped, it all hitting him in that second: the killer breaking into her apartment to get the gun, her fingerprints still on it, Mrs Orwin as an eye-witness. The perfection of the set-up.

‘I was trying to tell you, Jac.’

But Jac wasn’t paying attention, his mind still reeling. Mrs Orwin probably already on the phone to the police... ‘We’ve got to get rid of this gun, Alaysha.’

‘What?’

‘Your fingerprints are no doubt on it… and it’s traceable right back to you through your mom. Have you got a…? Never mind.’ He could see that Alaysha was practically in a trance, frozen, biting at the back of one knuckle, so he ran past her into the apartment, grabbed a napkin from the table and, seeing the bag he’d brought the wine in still folded on a side-table, picked that up as well and ran back out. He lifted the gun with the napkin, wrapping it around once, and tossed it in the bag, shaking Alaysha gently by one shoulder as he stood. ‘It’s a set up, Alaysha… a set-up. Don’t you see?’

‘But, why…I… ’ And in that moment, finally, she did see. Perhaps this was the other way they dealt with these things, rather than her disappearing and turning up in the river months later. A frame-up that got her locked up with the key thrown away. She nodded hastily, ‘Yeah, yeah… okay,’ patting his chest in acceptance as she said it, but also a parting, take care, gesture.

He grimaced back tightly, and was about to lean in for a parting kiss on one cheek, but he could imagine the alert being put out as Mrs Orwin spoke, there might even be a squad car just a block away. And whether just dutifully filling that gap in his imagination, he swore he could hear distant sirens in that moment. In the end he just gripped Alaysha’s shoulder once more in reassurance, and ran off, leaping the steps three and four at a time, as Gerry’s killer had done only a minute before.

The sirens seemed louder, closer, almost filling the air, as Jac’s feet hit the pavement outside.

He didn’t know whether they were for him, they could have been heading to something else nearby, but he instinctively headed away from them. He took the second turning off eighty yards along — felt the first would be too obvious — running flat-out all the way.

The sirens still closing in, seeming to echo all around him now.

He paused ten yards into the turn-off, taking stock, his breath already falling short. They were coming from two directions now, that’s why the echo. Hardly mattered which way he ran. If he kept straight on, he’d be heading towards the French Quarter where there was usually stronger police presence, especially at night.

But he had to keep moving, the urgency of the sirens pressing in on him, screaming, get away, run. And keep running. He decided to take the next turn-off on the left. The closest siren seemed to be coming from the right.

As Jac made the turn, the night-time activity of the street was busier, some groups of people milling between the bars and restaurants there, a dozen or so sitting at the pavement tables by one bar. As Jac noticed a few eyes on him starkly, questioningly, he thought it was purely because he was running and was now out of breath, frantic; but as a woman he passed sucked in breath sharply, taking half a step back, he took in his appearance for the first time as he looked down.

His bloodied hand, from feeling for Gerry’s pulse, had brushed against his shirt at some point, and some of it was also smeared on the bag in his hand. While nobody might guess it was a gun in the bag, it could as easily be a body part he’d just removed.

The siren closest by stopped. Jac could feel his heart still pounding hard, but at least the constriction eased a bit.

He had to get rid of the bloodied bag with the gun. Perhaps a restaurant row somewhere with bins out back in an alley? Like the street he was on now.

He scanned frantically back and forth as he cleared the corner, saw what looked like a service alley ten yards to the right, and darted towards it. He paused, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to its darkness and shadows. A couple of small bins halfway down, then a delivery truck parked in tight behind. There might be some larger bins beyond it, but Jac couldn’t tell from where he was. He ran towards the bins and the truck.

But what Jac hadn’t noticed as he was surveying the alley was the patrol car gliding silently along behind him. They’d seen him run towards the alley, but perhaps wouldn’t have paid him too much attention if he hadn’t started running again.

They stopped by its entrance, and the officer in the passenger seat shone his torchlight down, calling out as its beam hit Jac’s back.

‘Hey… hey, there!’

Jac turned sharply, his shock slow to register because it took him a second, squinting against the glare, to make out the police car and patrolman shouting from its window. But he could tell from the look on the patrolman’s face that the image he cut — blood on his shirt, the bloodied bag in his hand — hit home quicker. He turned and ran.

‘Hold it! Stop!’

Jac glanced back as the shout came. But the patrolman hadn’t got out of the car and didn’t have his gun aimed through the window. And, by then, Jac prayed that he was too far away for a decent shot.

The patrol car swung back, turning, its headlamps bathing the alley for a moment; then, as if deciding that it might be too tight a squeeze past the delivery truck, it pulled off again with a screech of tyres, siren winding up.

Jac knew that they were going to try and race him around the block, head him off, and he put on an extra spurt, his chest aching now with the effort, legs weakening.

Again, the siren seemed to echo and spin around him, so he couldn’t tell whether they were still behind him in the parallel street, running alongside, or just ahead.

He burst out of the alley at full pelt, eyes darting for the next alley on the opposite side: Thirty yards along. He cut across at an angle after eight strides, just in front of a green Dodge Neon which was forced to brake sharply, and got to the mouth of the alley as the police car made the turn, its siren spilling onto the street — Jac unsure whether they’d seen him take the alley or not.

The siren closer, closer, filling all of Jac’s senses above his pounding heart and ragged breath.

The police car slowing, the patrolmen inside craning their necks — and then Jac had his answer as it screeched and swung in after him, its headlamps washing the walls and fencing of the narrow alley.

But he was only ten yards from its end by then, and it had to slow halfway down to negotiate past some bins and a badly parked motorbike.

Jac heard a faint bang behind him, sounded like one of the bins falling, but he’d turned off by then, frantically scanning for the next alley — twelve yards away on the opposite side — though as he took his first strides towards it, he had second thoughts: too obvious, just where they’d expect him to go.

He changed tack to the alley twenty-five yards along on the same side, effectively doubling back on himself, hoping and praying that he made it to the turn before they hit the street and saw him.

They flew out with their spinning siren scream just as he made the turn, Jac again unsure whether they’d seen him… a silent prayer into the night air as he listened to the direction of their siren above his pounding step.

And as he heard the siren fade slightly, heading away from him, his gasping breath fell heavier with an added burst of relief.

His step eased a fraction at the same time, unsure what to do next. He should put more distance between himself and the siren, but already he felt exhausted, his legs like jelly, the ache in his chest so heavy that he felt as if a knife had been plunged into it. And the more he ran on with the bloodied bag in his hand, the more attention he drew, perhaps running into another squad car… he had to get rid of it before he went much further.

The sound of the siren had paused, not moving away any more, as if they were edging down the alley opposite very slowly, or perhaps they’d already stopped, realizing he wasn’t there, and were about to head back.

Jac picked up pace again, and it was then that he noticed the boarding sheet to one side, a rusted chain looped through a hole in it, and the gap between it and the next seven-foot-high boarding sheet. Could he squeeze through it?

The siren. Same distance away or moving closer? He had to decide quickly.

The gap appeared too narrow, but the board looked like it might have some give. And as Jac became surer that the siren was moving closer again, he barged against it, pressing hard.

He got a shoulder and part of one thigh through, but couldn’t get further. He pushed again, got a few more inches in, but not enough. Closer. If he didn’t hurry, he’d still be there, stuck half-in, half-out, as the squad car rolled by the alley.

With a heavy, grunting shove, he finally felt something give, the chain biting deeper into the rotting board, and he slipped through.

Long weeds and grass. Rubbish strewn between. Closer. Jac pushed the board back so that it was adjacent with the adjoining board, didn’t look like there’d ever been a gap, and eased out his breath. A dark, derelict building seven yards behind, an old warehouse or shop. Looked like it had been sealed off for development, then abandoned.

The siren stopped then, but a moment later there was the sound of radio static on the night air. If they weren’t actually by the entrance of the alley, then they were very close. Jac held his breath.

The sound of another siren. Moving closer, louder. It cut off when it was only half a block away, then seconds later there was the sound of another engine idling and more radio static on the air, voices conferring.

Jac closed his eyes. Oh God. They’d called in support to close the net.

The voices more urgent for a moment, one of them calling out, ‘Yeah, yeah… sure.’ Then a car door closing and an engine revving stronger. Jac not sure at first what it all meant, until he saw headlamp lights point up the alley, then the sound of the patrol-car engine edging closer, echoing slightly as it bounced off the sides of the narrow alley.

It was moving slowly, ever so slowly, and Jac became aware of another light at that moment, shifting back and forth along each side: the patrolman obviously hanging his torch out the window, every inch of the alley being scoured and checked.

Jac sucked in his breath as they came closer — only six or seven yards away now — but in that instant he also became aware of movement and rustling in the grass, something brushing against one leg. His first thought, with all the rubbish around, was rats, but he daren’t move. His whole body in that instant frozen, breath held, swallowing back even to try and calm the pounding of his heart in case they heard it as they edged alongside.

The rustling moved away from his leg, but Jac was worried that even that faint sound might be heard by them, and they’d stop to investigate — his eyes wide as the torchlight hit the board at his side. It moved gradually away in a steady sweep, then suddenly returned, lingering longer this time.

The sound of the engine idling and the radio static now seemed deafeningly loud, as if Jac was actually inside the car with them, and the torch-beam stayed on the boarding for a full eight seconds — though to Jac it felt far longer — before finally shifting.

The car, though, didn’t start edging forward again immediately, as if the driver was more uncertain about the boarding — then its engine rattle slowly, tooslowly, receded along with the fading torch-beam. Jac didn’t finally ease out his breath again until it was a good thirty yards past and he was sure that they’d gone, that one of them suddenly wasn’t going to pace back to investigate.

The sound of radio static stayed in the background for a while longer, between anything from half a block to two blocks away it sounded to Jac, with a fresh siren joining them at one point — before it all finally faded away.

Yet still Jac stayed where he was, breathless, body winding down, listening to the sounds of the night for almost ten minutes more — until he was sure that the police had cleared from the area and no more sirens were coming for him. Then he started thinking about what to do next.

He looked at the bag in his hand, then the wild grass and earth at his feet. It wasn’t ideal, he’d have preferred an absolute guarantee of disappearance, but there was still a high chance that it would never be found here. And if he ran on with it, more eyes raised, more risk.

Jac looked around briefly, then started clawing at the earth with his hands.

But what Jac hadn’t noticed was the man at a third floor window further along, who had seen him crouched in the rough grass and wondered if he might have anything to do with the sirens he’d heard below a few minutes ago. And as he watched Jac dig and bury the bag, thought he might have his answer.

Nel-M was late getting to the phone, slightly out of breath.

Glenn Bateson, a harrowed edge to his voice. ‘I tried you earlier.’

‘I just got back in,’ Nel-M said. He’d spent half the evening waiting, tapping his fingers anxiously on his steering wheel while McElroy and the girl ate. So after phoning Roche to tell him it was all done, he felt he’d earned a celebratory meal and dived straight into a plate of crawfish and crab claws at Deanie’s, bib up to his neck, smiling and raising a glass of chilled Chablis to the air as he imagined McElroy at that moment being grilled by the police, or perhaps already in lock-up and making his one call to one of his buddies to save his sorry ass. And he’d started to feel mellow, relaxed for one of the first times in weeks. The sense that now, finally, it was the end of everything with McElroy and Durrant. But with the edge in Bateson’s voice, he could feel the first bubbles of anxiety returning. ‘What is it?’

‘You wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Yes, I would — just fucking tell me.’

‘McElroy. He’s arranged for a psychiatrist to come and see Durrant. Some guy called Ormdern.’

‘When for?’

‘Two days time, straight after the BOP hearing, then another session the day after. McElroy will be there as well, presumably to — ’

‘No, he won’t.’

‘What do you mean — no he won’t? I just picked this up fresh and hot from Haveling’s diary, and — ’

‘Can’t say it plainer than that, my friend. McElroy won’t be there. And if you want to know why — I suggest you keep an eye on local news channels between now and tomorrow morning.’ Nel-M sniggered, but he could still feel a tightness in his chest where Bateson’s word psychiatrist had hit him, as if part of his crawfish hadn’t digested and had decided to burn a hole through his ribs. Almost certainly everything with the psychiatrist would now be axed too, but it was an uncomfortable reminder of how close they’d come. More brownie points scored with Roche when he told him, more back-pats for his timely ingenuity. ‘Or, if I were you — you know those special occasions when prisoners are allowed to watch TV? Like the World Series or President’s inauguration, or last episode of Seinfeld or Friends? And you get them all in one room looking at an oversized screen? Why don’t you arrange that now for the local news — then just watch Larry Durrant’s face when the piece about Jac McElroy comes on.’

‘What have you been up to?

Nel-M had never liked Bateson, and while he’d invited the question, Bateson’s folksy, slyly gleeful tone made his skin crawl. I’m not one of your good ol’ boys, asshole! he felt like screaming. But he immediately slipped into similar sly mode for his response.

‘Now, that would be telling.’

Jac went to a cash machine on Gravier Street and took out $300 to add to the fifty in his wallet, then started thinking about how to get a change of shirt. He knew he’d be hard pushed to find any shops open, his only hope was probably the French Quarter, so he’d drifted that way, trying to keep in the shadows of the buildings. A police car had passed him on the way, but he’d just kept walking normally, one hand by the stain on his shirt, as if he was scratching his stomach. The car just kept drifting past, didn’t pay him any attention.

Then, as he approached the corner of Bourbon and Iberville and saw a Lenny Kravitz look-a-like handing out promotional cards for a new club, he was struck with an idea.

Jac took one of the cards, ‘Thanks,’ nodding towards Lenny K’s chest. ‘And have you maybe got some club t-shirts to sell, like the one you’re wearing?’

‘Nah. Just paid me to hand out these here cards.’

‘Maybe at the club itself?’

‘Doubt it. I think these were jus’ printed up for the bar-staff.’

‘Shame. They’re nice, jazzy design.’ Jac smiled tightly. ‘How about you selling me that one? Fifty bucks?’

Lenny K smiled incredulously. ‘Man, I got another hour out here wit’ these. An’ how am I gonna explain away losing my shirt?’

‘Shrunk in the wash, amorous stalker ripped it off.’ Jac shrugged, smiling again. Despite the protests, there was a hint of temptation; though maybe, with the connected hassle, $50 for a ten-dollar T-shirt still wasn’t enough. ‘A hundred bucks.’

Lenny K looked each way, as if concerned who might be viewing the transaction, and part of his eye-shuffling also took in the stain on Jac’s shirt; one last cloud of doubt before he finally nodded, ‘Okay, man, let’s do it,’ pulling back into the shadow of a shop doorway as he pulled off his shirt and held it out.

Jac peeled five twenties from his wallet and they made the exchange, and, as soon as he was round the corner, he ducked into another shop doorway to change into the t-shirt. He bundled his old shirt in his hand and threw it in a bin halfway along North Rampart Street, then headed towards the phone kiosk fifty yards along to call John Langfranc.

Jac checked his watch. 9.32 p.m. Just under fifty minutes since the shooting.

Langfranc answered quickly, and equally Jac started speaking rapidly, at one point garbling and running ahead of himself with pent-up tension as he struggled to explain.

‘Whoa, whoa, back up a bit,’ Langfranc said. ‘So, God’s sake, I can get this clear in my mind.’ He took a heavy breath. ‘Somebody comes by and shoots dead your girlfriend’s ex, straight after you’ve just shut the door on him after an argument? And rather than run off with the gun, he drops it right there… and he’s gone before you open the door again to see what’s happened? Have I got it straight so far?’

‘Yeah, yeah. That’s right. As I opened the door, I just heard his last few footsteps on the stairs.’

‘But then you picked up the gun and ran off with it? That’s the bit I don’t get. Why was that again, Jac?’

Jac sighed, his frayed nerves riding on it wearily. ‘This is the client-confidential part, John, okay? Because as for the official line — I think we should make out that the killer ran off with the gun, as would normally happen, or just no mention of it at all.’

‘Goes without saying, Jac. Without saying.’ Langfranc sounded mildly offended to even be asked.

‘The thing is, Alaysha recognized the gun. It’s hers, or rather her mother’s — but it was at Alaysha’s apartment at the time. That’s why I ran off and dumped the gun — because I was sure it would have her prints on it. It looks like whoever did this must have broken into her apartment earlier and got the gun, and then — ’ Jac was speaking rapidly again, slightly breathless as he fought to explain, and as he heard a police siren close by, his breath froze in his throat, the siren’s passage counted in tight pulse beats in his neck before his breath finally eased as it drifted past, heading away from him. ‘- then he uses it on her boyfriend, and the set-up’s complete.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, Jac, but it’s not good. Not good. I know you and so I know that you’re telling the truth. But listening to this now wearing the hats of a couple of hard-boiled homicide cops — who don’t know you and on top have heard it all before — it sounds like a story, Jac. And not even a good one at that.’

‘There’s a witness, too.’

From Jac’s downbeat tone, Langfranc knew already that it was bad news. ‘And don’t tell me — they didn’t see the shooter, either?’

‘No. Old woman across the hallway. Opened her door a minute after the shot was fired — shooter long gone and just me and Alaysha standing by the body. Started screaming, “You’ve shot him, you’ve shot him!” ’

Low groan from Langfranc and a throaty, doom-laden ‘Terrific.’

‘I need your help, John. That’s why I called now.’

‘Help, yeah. Miracles take longer.’

‘I need someone I know to represent Alaysha. I need to know what’s happening, which direction everything might go.’

‘I can understand that.’ Langfranc was quiet for a second. ‘But this isn’t just protectiveness for your girlfriend, is it Jac? Something else is worrying you about this.’

‘Yeah.’ Deflated sigh. The seed of doubt had been there from the moment he’d realized it was Alaysha’s gun, rankling deeper as he’d ducked between the shadows of the night-time streets during the past forty-five minutes. ‘The question that’s bothered me is why frame Alaysha? With everything else that’s been going on, I thought I’d have been the main target for something like that. So if they’ve gone to the trouble of lifting her gun from her apartment, what else might be waiting in the wings? Some hefty Accomplice to Murder rap, perhaps, from other evidence they’ve planted? That’s why I need to know the lay of the land, John, before coming forward.’

‘I can see that. There wasn’t a Times-Picayune photographer there to snap you as you left the apartment block with the gun, was there?’

‘No.’ Jac chuckled, and Langfranc joined him a second later, as if making sure first that Jac was ready to see the light side. Though Langfranc’s chuckle quickly died when Jac told him that he was spotted by a patrol-car a few blocks away. ‘And I ran.’ Jac sighed heavily. ‘It was dark, though, and I was probably too far away for a good ID.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ Langfranc took a fresh breath as he focused on the remaining options; what few were left after Jac’s catalogue of horrors and errors. ‘Did the old girl across the hall see the gun?’

‘No, don’t think so.’

‘Okay. Hopefully then we’ll get away with the story of the killer running off with it. Or, as you say, just don’t mention the gun — because that’s what the cops will naturally assume. Hopefully, too, the story will wash that you ran off in pursuit of the shooter. As for why you’re still AWOL, I’ll think of something in the meantime.’ Langfranc sucked in his breath. ‘All will depend, though, on what Alaysha might have already told them. How long will the cops have been with her now?’

‘Half an hour, maybe more.’

‘I’d better get there. Couple of good detectives could pull her apart in that time, have her head reeling. Did you prime any sort of story with her?’

‘No. No time. But she’s bright — she’ll know not to mention the gun, particularly with it being hers.’

‘Let’s hope so. Because if she mentions the killer dropping that gun on the hall floor — we’re buried before we’ve started. And you also have to pray that the cops don’t find that gun.’

‘Don’t worry — where I’ve hidden it, they’re not going to find it. At least, not in a hurry.’

‘Remember. You didn’t tell me that.’

‘I didn’t tell you that.’