Ascension Day

31

May, 1992.

At first, Adelay Roche wasn’t too concerned about the direction of the police investigation. The account of a robbery gone wrong seemed to have been accepted, the crime-scene evidence supported that, and so Lieutenant Coyne was trawling for suspects almost exclusively in that area: house robbers with violent past form.

But every now and then there’d be a quick aside, a question thrown in out of the blue amongst the standard question line — as if slipped in like that the lieutenant thought he might not notice — that made Roche start to worry that Coyne was having increasing doubts about the robbery-gone-wrong theory. Was starting to fish closer to home.

The eye-witness had thankfully been distant enough to not be too precise; though perhaps if they got Nel-M in a line-up, it would be a different matter. And over that final shot to the head Roche had vented more than a few choice words at Nel-M.

Roche was convinced it was the one detail that didn’t sit comfortably with Coyne. And if he kept digging, he might unearth more inconsistencies, things he wasn’t happy with.

Roche phoned to check how much Coyne might have been raking around in the background; after all, it might just be his own empty paranoia.

Pretty much the same routine each time: ‘Lieutenant Coyne said that he’d be in touch with you about my wife’s investigation. I wondered if he’s made contact yet?’ The concerned husband checking on police progress; he’d started to get more on Coyne’s back, so his following-up wouldn’t look unusual. ‘Oh right… right.’

Roche was alarmed at the extent of Coyne’s background calls. He’d been busy. Very busy. Coyne obviously hadn’t found anything yet, otherwise he’d have been on his doorstep with handcuffs and a caution; but as the asides and questions started to become more frequent, Roche worried that soon Coyne might stumble on something.

They needed to get Coyne back on track with the robbery gone wrong theory, stop his focus shifting, and soon after Roche struck on the idea of putting someone else in the frame; sufficiently roped and tied that Coyne would stop looking elsewhere. The only thing he could think of that with certainty would head Coyne off at the pass. Stop everything dead.

House robbers and the city’s low-lives were more Nel-M’s territory, and within a week he’d put together a potential list for Roche.

Larry Durrant was initially way down the list, mainly because his past form hadn’t been that violent, the most serious a pistol-whipping ‘in the course of’. But the details about his car accident and selective amnesia moved him higher. His scheduled recovered memory sessions with a psychiatrist, Leonard Truelle, higher still. By the time they’d dug down and uncovered Truelle’s drinking and gambling problems, and his heavy book-debt to a street loan shark, Raoul Ferrer, Durrant was top of the list.

There was only one thing left to find out: whether Truelle, with the bait set how they planned, would go for it?

The first news bulletin complete with Jac’s photo went out on a local TV station, WWL, at 11.45 p.m.

Derminget asked if they could delay to another bulletin in half an hour or an hour, but was told that was the last news bulletin of the day.

‘It’s either then, or wait until seven-thirty a.m. tomorrow.’

Immediacy, Derminget was convinced, was the main key to McElroy’s lawyer being able to talk him in. A bulletin the next morning lacked immediate threat, gave McElroy too long to dwell on it.

So Derminget decided to mislead Langfranc that, along with the APB, he’d hold fire with the news bulletin for half an hour — though he did keep to his promise about the APB. One out of two, at least, and at first the late-night bulletin would probably only draw the attention of a few bleary-eyed bar-flies — it would take more than half an hour in any case for any worthwhile calls to come in.

But the desk clerk at the Palmetto motel recognized the photo straightaway and dialled 911 while the tail-end of the bulletin was still on screen: ‘…a lawyer with local firm, Payne, Beaton amp; Sawyer, Mr McElroy has been in the news recently for other reasons: his plea petition handling of Libreville death row inmate, Lawrence Durrant, whose execution is scheduled for ten days time.’

Derminget was notified of the call only minutes after putting the phone down from his last-shot warning call to Langfranc. Derminget paused only fleetingly before giving the nod to dispatch the closest squad cars. If McElroy’s reaction to Langfranc’s warning call was to flee, he’d never forgive himself — or more to the point, Captain Broughlan, head of the station house, would never forgive him — for letting the opportunity to grab McElroy slip from his grasp.

Two squad cars arrived at the Palmetto motel within only eight minutes. Impressive. But that was the last thing to go right.

Captain Broughlan scanned down the catalogue of disasters filed in Derminget’s report at first light the next morning, the sharp glint in his eyes only softened by a teasing leer of disbelief as he finished and looked across at Derminget.

‘So, you had half the Eighth and First tight on his ass, a chopper too — and he disappeared right under your noses?’ Broughlan threw up invisible dust with one hand. ‘Thin air.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And no sign of him since? Nothing from any other calls in?’

‘No, none that have panned out.’ Derminget nodded dolefully. His bloodhound eyes, quite sexy to women when he eyed them broodingly across a late-night cocktail bar, now morose and defeated, looked pathetic. ‘He obviously got in a car passing on the interchange.’

‘Obviously.’ Broughlan smiled tightly. ‘Busy that time of night?’

‘Busy enough. We’re not going to be able to narrow down to anything useful from nearby cams. Our only hope is that whoever picked him up will catch a later news bulletin and phone in. There’s a lot of coverage right now.’

‘Yeah, Jem, lot of coverage,’ Broughlan echoed, his tone suddenly harder, warier. ‘And the reason for that is it’s a big event. Would have been anyways with a lawyer on the run for murder — but the fact that it’s Larry Durrant’s lawyer, with only days now till his execution, has shot the story into the stratosphere.’ Broughlan held his palms out. ‘So, as you say, a lot of coverage to help us succeed — but also a lot of eyes watching for if we don’t.’ Broughlan tilted his swivel chair back a fraction, but his eyes stayed keenly, sharply on Derminget. ‘And with half of New Orleans watching on the outcome — we can’t afford to fail, Jem. That’s simply not an option. Find Jac McElroy, and find him quick.’

Clive Beaton didn’t see the 11.45 p.m. bulletin, but he received a call minutes later from Tom Payne relating the bombshell news.

The minute he put down the phone from Payne, he called John Langfranc at home.

Langfranc didn’t hold anything back — little point, with an ongoing investigation most of it would soon be out in the open — but most importantly, it was the only way to get across to Beaton the main details of why Jac thought he’d been set up.

‘That as may be,’ Beaton said curtly. ‘But until such time as the police adopt that stance, he’s a fugitive. And so for now that’s how this firm must deal with him.’

‘I see.’ Langfranc had expected little else. Beaton distancing the firm as quickly as possible. ‘Are you saying also that you don’t want me to continue representing Jac McElroy or his girlfriend?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. That whole business of you knowing the gun was being hidden could get awkward. It’s one thing knowing after the event, but during — the cry could come up of withholding. And without that — McElroy calling you in the process of that action — you’ve got no rationale for him running off. One of the main defence pillars collapses.’

‘I understand. Okay.’ Resignation in Langfranc’s voice, but he held back from outright dissention; Beaton had a point. ‘And what about Durrant? It’s his BOP hearing tomorrow. Do you want me to go along?’

‘I’m not sure yet what to do there. I need overnight to think on it some more.’

But Beaton had decided within the first minute of hearing the news: more distance. Although he didn’t want the firm to in any way appear non-caring or negligent, so having the next morning prepared McElroy’s dismissal letter and immediately notified the local media that due to the circumstances now surrounding Mr McElroy, he was no longer with the firm, next on his list was prison Warden Haveling. ‘And given the sudden nature of those circumstances, we’ve unfortunately been left short on time to get someone else there for his BOP hearing later today.’

Haveling mentioned another possible option for the hearing, which Beaton, having engineered a few emergencies to fill Langfranc’s diary for the day, duly relayed to Langfranc: ‘Apparently, Durrant’s got a good friend inside, Hector Rodriguez, who has basic paralegal experience and, more to the point, is fully conversant with the BOP procedure. Good chance he’ll sit in with him.’

Langfranc wasn’t happy, was sure there’d been some Beaton sleight-of-hand in the background — he hadn’t become senior partner for nothing — but he reminded himself of that groan of disapproval, like the low rumbling of an approaching storm, when he’d told Beaton he’d been aware of McElroy disposing of his girlfriend’s gun. While Beaton’s pen was in dismissal-letter-signing flow, he didn’t want to tempt fate.

Langfranc sighed resignedly. ‘I suppose all the main arguments McElroy has already submitted in the petition before them. This Rodriguez should be able to handle it from there.’

But as Beaton agreed offhandly, ‘Yes, he should,’ and hung up, the words left a sour tang in Langfranc’s mouth; he was getting almost as bad as Beaton. Almost, because while he might now and then spin the right rhetoric, he hadn’t yet got to the stage of believing it himself.

Jac found it hard to stop shaking. Another car had passed him on the ramp, but a trailer-truck behind stopped.

He’d originally told the truck driver, half an eye fixed on the approaching helicopter light over the driver’s shoulder, that he wanted to go to Gramercy — the first place to spring to mind on Highway 10 Westbound — then, when the driver mentioned stopping before that for gas and a quick coffee, Jac quickly amended: ‘Well, on the way there. Small community between the Highway and Great River Road. I’ll point it out when we get closer.’

The truck driver — pushing forty, but trying to cling to youth with shoulder-length hair and an earring — obviously hadn’t seen the news bulletin yet, but if they stopped in a busy roadside cafe, chances are someone there would have.

He had some Garth Brooks playing in the background, which after a moment with a ‘Don’t bother you none?’, he turned up. Perhaps he’d had it up loud before, so hadn’t noticed the sirens; though at such a busy junction, sirens wailing were perhaps nothing unusual.

At only one point, about six miles into the drive, did the driver eye him curiously — the t-shirt and the rain outside perhaps not correlating. ‘Not the best night to be out?’

‘Break-down,’ Jac said. ‘Tow-truck kept me hanging for forty minutes. But I didn’t want to miss out totally on seeing this old friend. Haven’t seen him for a while; since college, in fact.’

The truck driver nodded thoughtfully. The casual college-buddy dress, Jac flustered and wet from the rain, his uncertainty about where his ‘old friend’ lived. Jac hoped that the component parts slotted in.

But in the long gaps when they didn’t talk at all, above Garth Brooks and the thrum of the truck’s wheels on the road, Jac could still hear the thud-thud of the helicopter blades, pushing the images of the night through his mind… Gerry with half his skull blown away… ‘You’ve shot him… you’ve shot him!’…Sirens wailing as he ran through the night… ‘You’ve got to give yourself up to the police, Jac’… The ram hitting the door… The helicopter light moving in… ‘Your new girlfriend… I’ll bet you she hasn’t told you what we did together…’

‘That coffee stop’s about five miles up the road now.’

‘What?’ The thudding so heavy in his head that it took a second for the words to register. Truck stop. Crowds of people. Jac peered at the road ahead. He had to get dropped off before then. But they hadn’t passed any houses or signs of life for a while. ‘I… I think where I want is not far ahead now,’ Jac said hopefully. ‘This looks familiar.’

But as another two miles rolled by with nothing either side, Jac became desperate. The TV on in the truck stop. People looking between the TV and himself, pointing: ‘It’s him.. it’s him!’

Finally, a few shacks and wood-frame bungalows appeared two hundred yards to his left.

‘Yes, here… here!’ A dead-and-alive place, but it was the best he was going to get. He couldn’t afford to wait longer. Quick smile and ‘Thanks’ as he stepped down, a ‘S’okay buddy’ from the driver. But again that curious stare, Jac concerned that some things hadn’t added up for the driver, and as soon as he got down the road he’d get on his cell-phone to the police.

Jac ran down the narrow road leading to the houses. Ditches either side, fields beyond. A small farming community.

The town, if it could be called that — half a dozen streets with forty or so small wood-frame bungalows — was deserted. The only person he saw was an old black man eyeing him with lazy curiosity from his front veranda as he went by. Jac slowed from a run to a rapid walk.

White man walking around in the dead of night in a small black farming community? Hands would be reaching to phone for the police as quickly here as at the truck stop; and as Jac got round the corner, already he could hear a siren approaching. Becoming stronger for a moment before drifting into the distance as it passed on Highway 10.

Jac eased his breath, swallowing back against his hammering nerves. This was ludicrous. Only an hour he’d been on the run, and already there was nowhere left for him to go. Truck stop. Small town. And as more people saw the news bulletin, it would get worse. Heading back to the city would be out of the question, as would contacting family or friends — by now almost certainly monitored. And the main reason he wanted to stay loose and free — trying to save Larry Durrant in the remaining days left — a million miles away. Impossible.

Jac shook his head. He had to face it. There was nowhere left for him to go. Nothing left that he could do.

‘I’m sorry… sorry,’ Jac mouthed softly towards the night sky, letting the raindrops hit his face for a second. Wash away the guilt. ‘I did everything I could.’

Jac found a phone booth in the next street, but his body was still shaking as he approached it, the images still thudding through his mind — Larry Durrant’s pleading face now among them: Promise me, Counselor… you won’t just forget about me and leave me here to rot… because there’s somebody I’ve been apart from already far too long… If I could just see his face, see that it wasn’t me — I could turn and shout that out to her in the courtroom: It wasn’t me, ma… it wasn’t me… This is a dying man’s drink, isn’t it?You don’t see much hope left… Jac imagining that his last steps towards the phone booth were Larry Durrant’s as he approached the execution chamber, and now there was nothing left to stop that.

Jac’s hand shook wildly as he fed in the coins to call John Langfranc. But as the last dime slid in, Jac was struck with another thought.