Текст книги "Ascension Day"

Автор книги: John Matthews

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

30

Sirens filling the night. But this time Jac knew with certainty they were coming for him, not someone else or a nearby fire.

He’d been about to jump straight down from the side of the flat roof when he saw the two police cars only twenty yards to his left by the entrance. One with a patrolman inside, the other unmanned. Jac ran to the right to slip down the end of the flat roof, out of sight of the cars, when a flashlight beam from his room swung across and settled on him, and the shout came, ‘Hey… hey! Stop!’

Jac looked up only briefly before taking the last two strides to the side to scramble down.

The shot came as he’d got half his body over, kicking up the roof asphalt two feet away, a fleck of it flying up and hitting him on one cheek – Jac jolting back for an instant as he thought he might have been hit. And with that jolt, the last strength went from his arms, and he fell down the remaining five feet.

Jac half-rolled to break his fall, scrambling into a run before he’d fully straightened. He headed further to the right away from the police cars, across twelve yards of motel car-park – another shout from the police behind, only half registering above his ragged breathing and the blood-rush like heavy surf through his head – then he was into the road, turning right again, putting more distance between himself and the police cars.

More motels. Small apartment blocks interspersed. Further ahead, wooden-boarded houses and bungalows, some with front verandas.

Jac heard the siren winding up as he was only eighty yards along, then the second siren a few breathless strides later. He glanced desperately over one shoulder as the first car swung onto the road, roof light spinning.

Jac became frantic. The street was too open, wide, himself too visible as he ran along. The police car would see him the instant its headlamps hit him.

And he became aware only then of the cool dampness on one cheek, wiping at the blood there with the back of one hand as his eyes darted wildly for options. The sirens were deafening, smashing the night-time stillness of the street.

A turning on the left twenty-five yards ahead. Would he reach it in time before the squad car caught up? Probably, but it would clearly see him take it, would swing into the turn and catch up with him not long past it.

As Jac came alongside the first bungalows, a curtain was pulled back to see what all the commotion was. Jac’s eyes honed in on a gap between the houses. No gate. The police car had already covered half the distance towards him. No time to dwell on it, no other immediate options. Jac cut across their front yard, heading for the gap.

Old bicycle, dustbins. Some planks that Jac almost stumbled over. A couple of large bushes that Jac sped past, branches whipping back against him – and then he was in a more open lawn area, a fence twenty feet away: six-feet high. Siren closer now, almost alongside. He picked up his stumbling pace and leapt at the fence hard, levering up and scrambling down the other side.

A dog barking almost immediately his feet landed the other side. Low and throaty, menacing. A big dog. Jac’s heart froze, fearing it was there with him in the yard – but then, with another volley of barks, its front paws hit the fence a yard to his side with a bang. Jac jumped back a step, reflex response, relief quickly overlaying the shock as he ran on.

Sirens paused in the same spot now, taking stock of where he’d gone, a faint flicker of a searchlight spilling over the fence he’d just jumped.

Jac picked up pace. A clearer lawn area, he’d covered most of it by the time he heard the sirens moving on again, starting to circle round the block. A side gate, but only waist high. Jac leapt it easily. But as he burst into the front yard, breath heaving, a couple of black teenagers stood by an old Trans Am in the driveway, surprise freezing them for a second as Jac, six yards to their side, sped past, the shout of ‘Hey, man!’ from one of them carrying surprise as much as indignation: wasn’t often you saw a white man running from the police in this neighbourhood.

Jac headed deeper into the street away from the sirens, some sort of plan finally forming in his mind. He glanced anxiously over one shoulder, looking to see when the police cars would reach the turning, though he could have told simply by listening: the tone of the sirens suddenly became starker, clearer as they pulled alongside the opening, flashlight sweeping from a side window.

Jac knew that they’d pick him out easily – he was less than fifty yards into the road – but he kept running in the same straight line.

Jac heard the tyre-screech as they swung into the road, the stronger revving of engines. But still Jac kept on straight, knowing that soon they’d catch up with him – legs pounding flat out, until… until… with one last frantic glance over his shoulder, Jac saw they were already twenty yards into the road. Past the point of no return.

Jac cut off sharply at a tangent again, towards another bungalow on the far side, smiling to himself as he heard the squad cars brake sharply, tyres squealing as they negotiated rapid three-point-turns.

But Jac didn’t run through to the back yard of the bungalow this time, he crouched down by its side gate out of sight, listening to the sirens receding – his frantic heartbeat counting off the seconds until it was safe for him to emerge again. In that instant Jac noticed an Hispanic-looking man eyeing him with concern from a neighbouring window, then suddenly shifting from it, as if about to come out.

Jac eased up – the police car tail lights were just turning off – then ran out again, legs pumping wildly. It was vital he gained as much distance as possible before they realized he wasn’t in the next street. Already seventy yards into the road, hopefully at least a hundred before they caught on and turned back.

Jac listened to the sirens. Still seemed to be the same distance away in the next road. A light rain hit Jac’s face then, and he tilted his head, welcoming it. Felt it cooling his blood-boiled head, felt some of it touch his dry lips.

Some brighter lights Jac could make out now just beyond the end of the road, misty and blurred with the rain. Jac squinted, the lights finally falling into focus: the Toni Morrison Interchange, where Carrollton Avenue and Interstate 10 met, a tangled web of highways and overpasses. And, where the first highway crossed, a barrier that Jac could see at the end of his road where it formed a T. If he could make it to the barrier, the squad car wouldn’t be able to follow him.

Jac looked towards the end of the road. Eighty or so yards. Touch and go whether he’d make it to the end by then? Jac’s legs felt weak, his chest cramped and aching. He wasn’t going to be able to keep up the same pace much longer.

Sudden change in the tone of the sirens. It sounded like they were turning, starting to head his way. Jac pumped harder, pushing himself. The sirens drifted away for a second as they headed back up to the top of the adjacent road, then turned, starting to move closer again.

Jac pushed every muscle to the limit, felt them screaming for release. Sixty… fifty-five yards from the end by the time he heard the sirens spilling out openly as they came alongside the road. Jac glanced back to make sure, saw the spinning glare.

But they seemed to hang there for a second, as if unsure whether he was in the road, and Jac kept tight in by the front fences so that he wasn’t too obvious as the flashlight swayed from side to side, probing. The flashlight finally picked him up, and they turned into the road – but by then he’d gained another dozen yards or so.

Jac pushed even harder, but the more he demanded from every muscle and sinew, the more they seemed to ache and shudder, beg for meltdown into welcome release. It felt like he’d hardly be able to make it ten yards, let alone forty… thirty-five… thirty…

The sirens pressing in closer, filling the air. Jac glanced back as the first set of headlamps reached him: sixty-five, seventy yards behind. Still almost twenty yards to the barrier.

Oh God. God. The sirens deafening, seeming to fill every space in Jac’s head as the squad cars bore down, as if they were about to run him over as the barrier loomed ahead.

But they had to slow down, the front car screeching broadside as Jac reached the barrier and leapt it.

‘Stop…. Stop!’

A frozen second as Jac glanced back from the few yards of waste ground before the highway edge, already checking for gaps in the traffic to dart across. Car door swung wide, a patrolman tensed in aiming stance, his figure part-silhouette in the spinning glare of the roof lights.

Yet Jac saw hesitation too in the patrolman’s eyes, worried that any stray shot would hit the traffic passing behind; and as Jac saw a small gap in the traffic, he turned and ran through the first clear lane, brief pause for a four-wheeler passing in the far lane, then on, jumping the central barrier – Jac only half paying attention to another shout of ‘ Stop!’ More desperate now, but less audible with the traffic noise in between.

And so Jac was startled, falling back a step, when a shot sounded – only realizing that it was a warning shot as he looked back and saw the patrolman lowering his gun from the air to point straight at him.

A moment’s nervous Mexican standoff, Jac praying that he wouldn’t risk a shot with the traffic passing in between – though maybe he would if there was a long, clear break – but then a large truck flashed between them, breaking the spell.

Jac darted into the next lane, letting one car pass, but then had to pause for a second, feigning like a matador as the next car approached faster than he’d timed, another car alongside in the fast lane swinging wide of Jac at the last second, blaring its horn.

Jac scurried across the last lane and leapt the side barrier. Rows of concrete and steel stanchions ahead, supporting the motorway above. Heavier shadows between them.

Jac weaved between the stanchions, trying to make best use of the shadows to lose himself as quickly as possible from view, glancing in between at the patrolmen across the highway: the one who’d fired was peering hard, trying to follow where he’d gone, his partner now on the radio, the second car pulling away, possibly to swing onto the highway further along.

Jac hoped by then he’d be long gone. Another busy four-laner thirty yards away, a ramp to one side swinging up to one of the highways above, another ramp on the far side of the stanchions. A choice of escape routes for once.

But in that moment, above the dull drone and swish of traffic from above, Jac thought he could hear other sirens: three or four, maybe more. He looked around frantically, caught a glimpse of two squad cars in the distance on the highway he’d just crossed, heading fast his way. But the directions of the sirens on the tangle of roads above were harder to place.

Jac ran for the closest ramp; he needed to get out of sight quickly from the highway behind.

More sirens. It sounded as if half the city’s police were hunting him down. Jac had given up on judging direction; they seemed to swirl and echo from all around as he started up the ramp.

Another sound also reached him then, a shudder running through him as he paused mid-step to make sure: the rapid thud-thud of a helicopter winging through the night sky. Jac looked up, but couldn’t see its lights yet; whether because of the clouds, the partial cover of the overhead highway, or it was still too far away, he wasn’t sure.

But he knew with certainty that it would be upon him any second. Jac’s eyes darted desperately: if he continued up the ramp, he’d be more visible from above, but if he headed back down, the two police cars bearing down on the highway behind would see him.

Sweat beads massed on his forehead, mixing with the raindrops, chest heaving as he gasped like a dying frog into the night air. He felt completely worn, exhausted, the sirens echoing and spinning in his head making him feel dizzy, unsteady; his legs trembling so hard that they felt about to buckle at any second. It would have been so easy, welcome surrender, just to lift his hands to the helicopter searchlight or first police car to arrive – he couldn’t go on much further in any case – but instead, as the lights of a car heading up the ramp hit him, he lifted one hand to that, trying to flag it down. It went past.

Sirens moving closer, one on the highway above now sounding no more than fifty yards away. Jac flagged more frantically. A camper van and a car not far behind went past too, the car beeping as Jac took a step in front of it.

Jac could now see the helicopter searchlight as it broke through the clouds: about sixty yards to his right, moving methodically forward with tight sweeps. And the closest siren above now sounded only twenty yards away.

It started raining more heavily then, and Jac mouthed one last silent prayer into the sodden, misty night air as the scream of the sirens and the thud-thud of the helicopter closed in all around him, becoming all-consuming. And as the next two cars on the ramp also swept past him without stopping – the beam of the helicopter searchlight now circling in to within thirty yards – Jac felt any remaining hope slip away.

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 forother 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 shouldbe 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.