Ascension Day

19

18February, 1992 .

Silence. The thrum of the city pushed away and cushioned by the resplendent mansions of the Garden District, each sprawling edifice with its cosseted oleander-, juniper-, bamboo- and magnolia-rich grounds a punctuation space of tranquillity separated from its neighbour; on and on until the city itself and its hubbub seemed distant, remote. Almost another world.

Jessica Roche was wrapped in the spacious cocoon of that silence, the only sound coming from the house itself: the TV on low with a Cheers re-run, a grandfather clock ticking in the hallway, the faint hum and churn of the dishwasher in the kitchen — their maid Rosella had packed it and wiped all surfaces clean when she’d left for the day fifty minutes ago — the sharpest sound the turning of magazine pages as Jessica Roche flicked through a recent Elle Decor.

She glanced fleetingly at her watch. Over two hours gone, they’d be well into the desserts, brandies and after-dinner speeches by now. ‘One of those boring business functions, all of the talk will be about trends and quotas and how to improve tanker facilities at Port Arthur. You wouldn’t enjoy it.’

But at the back of her mind she’d begun to wonder if Adelay was purposely keeping her away from business functions because of their recent argument. It had all been behind closed doors, nothing overt that anyone else would have been aware of, even Rosella.

Maybe this was his way of punishing her, shutting her out in the cold for a while. Leave the trophy wife at home to cool-off, realize her ‘place’. Or perhaps, keeping her away from business functions, a more direct message: don’t get involved in my business matters and things that don’t concern you.

In sober reflection, possibly she had been too volatile, rash, taken things a step too far — or at least threatened to. But then, as so often, he’d been so annoyingly offhand and condescending. Trophy Wife. At the time, it had seemed the only way for him to pay her any notice, take her seriously; otherwise, he’d have just rolled straight over her.

She stroked her stomach gently with one hand as she felt it twitch and tighten. Hopefully finally some activity there, rather than just unease. Dr Thallerey, her obstetrician, had said that the next month or so would be the most telling for the treatment.

Perhaps she should back-step with Adelay and try and calm the waters over the next few days. The last thing she wanted — they wanted — was any upset that might affect the success of the treatment. After all, they finally had something to look forward to, some hope where before…

She froze, a tingle running up her spine. A sound out of place among the other faint noises of the house. A door opening, maybe a window. Somewhere towards the other side of the house.

She held her breath, listening more intently. Soft rustling, scratching? Faint pad of steps towards her, or were they heading along the corridor? Hard to pick-out clearly as a gust of wind outside rustled the oleander bush close by the drawing-room window.

The door to the hallway was ajar just a few inches. She got up and moved closer to it, trying to hone her hearing to the sounds beyond; fearful now of actually opening it. If somebody was there, the first thing she should be doing is shutting it sharply, locking it, and lunging for the phone to dial 911.

Something there, but very soft, not… she back-stepped sharply, her heart in her throat, as the door started swinging wider open. Although by only a few inches — their grey Persian cat scurrying quickly through.

She reached down and scooped it up. ‘Majestic! It’s only you.’ She hugged it close, feeling her heart still racing against its soft fur. She looked along the corridor to the rec-room with its basket; obviously the door hadn’t been left sufficiently open, as it usually was, and it’d had to scratch and paw the door wider open. ‘But stop sneaking around so will you, you gave me…’

The phone rang in the library. Adelay’s business line; she’d better get it. He’d told her before going out that he was expecting an important call, and had specifically requested that she pass on his number at the function rather than let it go to answer-phone. No point in upsetting him even more. Majestic was abruptly dropped again as she went across the hallway to answer it.

Everything had gone smoothly. Breaking in the side-window and wire-crossing the alarm had taken no more than a few minutes, but then had come the trickiest part: edging three doors down the corridor without being heard.

He glided silently, feet floating an inch above the floor, each step hardly connecting before lifting and gliding again. He was sure he’d made no sound — but then the hackles suddenly rose on his neck as he passed the last but one door and saw the cat staring back at him from the near darkness. Hackles also raised, back hunched, as if it wasn’t sure whether to lunge forward or shrink back.

He swiftly reached out and closed the door, all but the last inch; the sound of it touching home would carry.

He glided silently on, breath held, gently opened the library door and, again, left it open only an inch as he headed towards the leather seat at its far end, sat down and waited.

Four or five minutes until the call came through, he checked from his watch. They’d left more than enough leeway.

But it felt like a lifetime waiting in the silence of the big house, his own heartbeat almost in time with a ticking-clock in the hallway and, beyond that, the muted sound of pages turning. And when after a few minutes there were some stronger, closer sounds — it made him sit up sharply. Rustling, scratching. The cat was trying to paw its way out of the room!

Movement now too from across the hallway, her getting up to investigate. He slid the silenced.38 from his jacket. He might not even have to wait for the phone call.

A suspended moment, then the sound of the cat scampering across the hallway and her voice riding a sharp intake of breath.

‘Majestic! It’s only you. But stop sneaking around so will you, you gave me…’

The phone ringing only a few feet to his side sounded obscenely loud. He took his own intake of breath in anticipation and pointed his gun towards the door.

Lieutenant Coyne of NOPD’s 6^th District didn’t arrive on the scene until 2.44 a.m., over two hours after the first squad car arrived.

There were a few reasons for that. First, there’d been a reported ‘major’ incident on Magazine Street. Started as a simple fender-bender, but the Saturday night specials had quickly come out and first radio reports were that ‘World War Three’ had erupted. Two shop windows were smashed, a passer-by hit in the leg from the stray bullets, and, amazingly, one of the combatants took four bullets and still survived. Second, he didn’t like to arrive on crime scenes too early, felt that it took a while for all the confusion and emotions to settle down and anything clear start to emerge. But in this case there was a third reason: when it came to big-shot or celebrity incidents, Coyne had often found the participants high-handed and difficult; and as shots went, they hardly came any bigger than Adelay Roche.

Hopefully Roche would have vented his worst — whether blubbering or barking that they should be out there chasing his wife’s murderer rather than tramping his best shag-pile — on his assistant, DS Dave Friele, who he’d sent there within minutes of the radio alert coming through, while he stayed to finish things up on Magazine Street.

‘Tell me,’ was all he said to Friele as he slipped under the yellow tape across the front doorway.

‘Homicide. Two.38 calibre wounds, one to the stomach, the other to the head — close range. Victim: Jessica Anne Roche, age thirty-two, married, no children.’ Friele glanced at his notepad only once. ‘Her husband, Adelay Roche, was first to discover her.’

‘At what time?’

‘Twelve twenty-six. Or, at least, that’s the time logged for his 911 call.’

‘And what estimated time for the shooting?’

‘Two hours beforehand, maybe more. Medics found no trace of warmth from her body, and rigor had already set in. Though obviously we’ll know more from the full autopsy.’

‘Obviously. But for now, it doesn’t look like Mr Roche simply shot his wife, then waited half an hour before calling 911?’

‘No, doesn’t look like it.’

‘And where was the illustrious Mr Roche tonight?’

‘At a business dinner function.’

‘Okay. First thing to check: time he arrived at the dinner, time he left…’ They’d been edging down the hallway as Friele gave the details, and as the main drawing-room came into view with Adelay Roche at its far end, Coyne turned back to Friele. ‘How’s he been?’ he asked, lowering his voice. ‘Been ranting why aren’t you out there on his wife’s killer’s trail rather than asking him stupid questions? Telling you that you’re useless?’

‘No. He’s been pretty subdued as it happens. Still in shock, I suppose.’

Coyne looked thoughtfully at Roche. It wasn’t a cold night, but he had a blanket draped over his shoulders while a uniformed officer spoke to him, getting fill-in details: neighbours’ names, numbers he could be reached on, other relatives of his wife that would need to be informed. ‘…And would you like us to do that for you, sir?’ Roche looked frail and shaken, answered stiltedly. Real shock, or an act?

Coyne smiled tightly as he turned back to Friele. ‘Obviously that’ll come when he gets to know you better. What else?’

‘Sign of break-in at the side of the house — a window-pane removed and alarm wired through — which appears to support the MO of an intruder who was subsequently disturbed by Jessica Roche. Although the actual shooting took place in the library.’

By the pause, Coyne knew that it was meant to be significant. ‘Any reason for that?’

‘The safe’s there. It looks like maybe he was casing it when he was disturbed.’

‘But hadn’t started to break it?’

‘No.’ Friele’s gaze shifted to the open doorway two doors down on the opposite side, the muted sounds of somebody making dictaphone notes drifting through.

‘Okay. Let’s take a look at her.’ Coyne had specifically asked that the body not be moved until he arrived.

Despite the many corpses Coyne had viewed through the years, it never got easier. One side of Jessica Roche’s face, closest to where the bullet had exited, had half collapsed, her teeth and gums on that side exposed all the more and stained reddy-brown in a rictus grimace. The blood pools by her stomach and head had already congealed to a sticky brown film, the latter carrying faintly glistening fragments of skull and white brain matter. The smell of body waste was strong and pervasive, one disadvantage of the two-hour wait, and hit high in his synapses like an ammonia burst, making him dizzy for a second. He pulled the cover back over the body and straightened up.

He looked towards the forensics officer speaking into a palm-held recorder, now examining dusted patches on the desk; the safe and window-frame had already been done.

‘Any joy on prints?’

The officer shook his head. ‘Not by the looks of it. Probably wearing gloves. No tell-tale clusters on the window where he broke in, at least.’

‘And ballistics?’ Coyne addressed Friele. ‘We got the two bullets?’

‘They found one — the head shot.’ Friele pointed. ‘Deflected through and was found a foot away, embedded in the carpet. The stomach shot looks like it’s still inside her, will have to be retrieved at autopsy.’

Coyne was halfway through a scan of the room, looking for anything significant or out of place, when some excitable voices and movement from the hallway broke his attention.

A patrol-man slightly ahead of his side-kick leant into the library doorway. ‘Lieutenant. Looks like we might have a witness. A woman a hundred yards down the street was out walking her dog, and saw a man leaving the Roche’s house about the time of the shooting.’

Coyne followed the patrolman back along the hallway, and looked towards the woman standing by the three patrol cars beyond the taped-off front gate, their flashing lights reflecting starkly on her face. She’d obviously seen the squad car lights and drifted along to investigate.

‘She get a good look at him?’ Coyne asked.

‘Not sure, sir. We thought it best to leave her for you to question.’

Coyne had interviewed the eye-witness, but her description was far from conclusive: African-American, stocky build, six foot to six-two, maybe more, thirty-plus, maybe forty, wearing a dark-blue or black jacket, maybe dark-grey or brown.

‘The ‘maybes’ had concerned Coyne: her core description was vague enough, could fit ten per cent of African-American adult males, without stretching the boundaries further. And with sixty per cent of New Orleans African-American, they were a million miles from a ‘workable suspect list’, as 6^th District chief, Captain Vincent Campanelli, had demanded on day one of the investigation.

Pat Coyne looked thoughtfully towards his neatly-tended garden beyond the small back verandah, as if it might give him clearer focus on the events of twelve years ago. Strange, he thought: often he could recall the events of that time clearer than things that had happened only months ago.

‘Would she recognize him again, I asked… not sure, she said. I took that as a “No”, but thought: if we narrowed down the list of possible suspects and got a few faces in front of her — we just might get lucky. So we started working things from the other end — putting together a list of house burglars with that MO.’

‘Was Larry Durrant one of those on that list?’

‘No. No, he wasn’t. Mainly because his past MO hadn’t been violent. We were looking at a particularly brutal killing “in the course of” here. Somebody who could kill without raising much sweat. We had half-a-dozen suspects who’d shot and wounded or beaten their targets half to death in past robberies, two that we suspected of killing but had never managed to nail — and two more who’d tied up and tortured their robbery victims. We were spoilt for choice without looking at the likes of Larry Durrant.’

‘So were you surprised when his confession came in?’

‘Purely on a MO level, yeah.’ Coyne shrugged. ‘But then everything else tied in: not only the jacket with the DNA match, but his descriptions of the murder itself. Things that only the killer could possibly have known — particularly the head shot.’

‘Why was that?’

Coyne shrugged with a palm out. ‘Okay, first off it was the one thing that might not fit in with a robbery-gone-wrong theory, more hit-man territory. But that’s also why we held it back from any official releases, press or otherwise — so that we could filter out any false confessions. All we released was that Jessica Roche had been shot twice, apparently while disturbing an intruder. Most people would assume: sudden surprise, blam-blam from five paces, and out. And that’s pretty much what came in.’ Coyne smiled ingenuously. ‘Celebrity murder like that, we actually expected more — but there were six confessions in all. Three were white, one was way off the mark of the eye-witness description, and of course the other two we grilled like all hell. They got all manner of things wrong with internal descriptions of the house, but most tellingly neither of them mentioned the close-up head shot. The only one to describe that was Larry Durrant.’

Coyne was silent for a second, the only sound from a couple of bees hovering by a nearby azalea bush. The muted sounds of the city beyond like a more distant swarm.

‘But we’re getting a touch ahead of ourselves here,’ he continued. ‘Hand in hand with us narrowing down the general suspect list, we also took a closer look at Adelay Roche. My superior, Captain Campanelli, wasn’t at all comfortable with that — felt we’d get all kinds of back-lash from Roche. Word had it that he was pretty buddy-buddy with the Assistant Commissioner at the time. But it’s standard procedure, you know, looking close to home. And Roche wasn’t giving us any grief at that stage — which also struck me as somewhat strange, not running completely true to form.’

Coyne took a fresh breath. ‘But after months of digging into Adelay Roche’s background, we found nothing. No possible link to him killing his own wife, and, most importantly, no motive: no other woman, no arguments, no pressures or problems that anyone was aware of, and no big insurance policy on her — not that he’d need the cash. In fact everyone we spoke to said they seemed very much in love. And to cap it all, they were hopeful of soon having their first child. Mrs Roche was undergoing fertility treatment, with high chances of success, according to her doctor. Perhaps if her doctor had said that the fertility treatment hadn’t gone well and there was no possible hope of future children… then we might have had the seed of something. Or lack of seed, in this case. The Henry the Eighth motive, I think it’s known as.’

Coyne smiled dryly, but noticed that his visitor mirrored it only half-heartedly, as if the subject was too weighty for humour. Or perhaps because of what he’d mentioned when they first sat down.

‘But even if I had gone to Campanelli with that, he’d no doubt have told me that I was being too much of a cynical prick — as often was his wont to do — and I was stretching things too far. Then just as the dust was settling on the Adelay Roche front, he did run more true to form and start screaming why weren’t we making more progress in finding his wife’s killer. Maybe it took him a while to get over the initial shock and become obnoxious again, who knows? Then just two weeks later, Durrant’s confession landed in our laps.’

‘And did you feel comfortable with it, you know — given your concerns about Durrant’s MO?’

Coyne held out one palm. ‘I had some reservations. But listening to Durrant’s voice on tape, there was only one possible conclusion: he had to have been there. So either he was the killer, or a fly on the wall at the time. And when the DNA evidence came in, that sealed it.’

Coyne’s visitor looked faintly crestfallen at that moment, perturbed. It took him a second to decide where to head next.

‘And the eye-witness?’

‘Incidental by that stage. All she was able to do was provide a general fit for Durrant’s appearance, not an exact ID. Early on, we’d narrowed down our list of hard-hitting robbers to three possibles and put them in a line-up with five others, including two police officers. She was split between three of them — two suspects and a police officer. Which I suppose from a hundred yards away at night, is understandable. So we didn’t want to push our luck with Durrant, otherwise the defence could have had a field day. But, by then, we didn’t need to.’

His visitor glanced absently towards the garden for a second before bringing his attention back. ‘And were there any other witnesses or others on the scene at the time that weren’t mentioned in the police report? Perhaps, say, because they didn’t come forward?’

‘No, the lady with the dog was the only one. Or, at least, if anyone else was there, they weren’t seen by her or any of the Roche’s neighbours we questioned.’ Coyne raised an eyebrow, was about to ask why, when his visitor leant forward and passed across three photos.

‘This is someone in touch recently by e-mail, claiming that he was there at the time and so knows Durrant’s innocent. Probably a hoaxer, or maybe even a friend of Durrant’s — but you never know. Strike any chords?’

Coyne studied them, grimacing tightly after a moment. ‘Can’t say that they do — even if there was more to pull a match from here.’ Coyne shrugged as he handed the photos back. ‘But, like I say, doesn’t become a factor here: nothing to match to. No other sightings. If there had been, they’d have been in the report.’

His visitor nodded, his gaze towards the garden this time seeming to stop in mid-space — as if something was hanging there he couldn’t quite bring into focus — before he looked back at Coyne.

‘Thanks for that, Mr Coyne. You’ve been most helpful.’ He switched off the tape recorder and put the photos back in his briefcase.

‘Perhaps my assistant, Dave Friele, will remember more,’ Coyne said. ‘He’s still with the department, though now he’s moved to Central — Eighth Division. But that’s about all of importance I can think of now, what with the passage of the years… Mr… Mr Langford.’

‘Langfranc,’ his visitor corrected. ‘John Langfranc. It was meant to be my colleague, Jac McElroy, making this call today. But, as I say… with his accident… I… I’ve had to take things over from him.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry to hear about that, Mr Langfranc.’ Coyne grimaced tightly as he stood to show Langfranc out. ‘But feel free to call me if there’s anything else you need clarification on.’