Ascension Day (58 page)

‘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 café, 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.

32

Rodriguez thought he was doing fine. Until the woman on the left of the two men that made up the Board of Pardons  panel started to speak.

Mid-forties, severe, hair in a small beehive, black-rimmed almond-shaped glasses which she perched on the front of her hairdo or end of her nose, peering unwaveringly at Rodriguez and Larry Durrant.

The questioning from the two men, one bearded in his mid-fifties, the other a clean-cut late thirties, had been mostly perfunctory, filling in the details:
When did you become more strictly religious, Mr Durrant? Five years into your term… any particular reason for the timing? Soon after your mother dying. Did you feel that might have been a factor, then? A catalyst for something that was already there, you say… is that how you’d like it termed in our report? Okay. And your correspondence degree in literature? How long did that take? Three years. That’s a long haul and a lot of application. Very commendable.

Larry answered most of the questions directly at first, but at that point Rodriguez took over more, as it became obvious that Larry was uncomfortable expanding too much about his personal achievements; private and guarded to a fault, even when his life depended on it.

Rodriguez had been nervous about speaking on behalf of Larry at first, especially with what was at stake: Larry’s very life riding on how he handled things. But with Jac obviously not able to be there, what other choice was there? And faced with that Hobson’s choice, he’d egged himself on: ‘
You can do it… can do it
! Pacing up and down anxiously in his cell repeating set pieces and lines, and the same too in the waiting room for the six minutes that felt like a lifetime before they were called in; except then there was just pacing, the words seemed to have suddenly evaporated from his brain.

The amenable attitudes of the two men eased his nerves a fraction, the words starting to come back again, but Mrs Beehive worried him; that cool, unflinching stare each time he caught her eye. The only saving grace was that she hadn’t spoken yet, and so Rodriguez was able to focus more on the two men.

Rodriguez waxed lyrical about Durrant’s literary expertise and character in general and, as he’d done before with Jac, he’d brought with him a few books and prison magazines to illustrate Larry’s writing and editing skills. A couple of approving nods from the BOP panel, but as Rodriguez used much the same line he had with Jac then, ‘As you can see, he’s a long way from the Larry Durrant he was when he first came to Libreville eleven years ago,’ he couldn’t help thinking about the absent lawyer.

Bateson had hauled himself and Larry into the TV room straight after breakfast, and he should have guessed from the gathering there, mostly his and Larry’s clique along with Shavell and a handful of his die-hards – few prisoners without strong allegiances either way – that it wasn’t for a run-of-the-mill Presidential or State Governor announcement, or a re-run of the last Saints game.

 The item about Jac was first up as the bulletin shifted from national to local news. A wry smile from Bateson as Rodriguez looked around, a more open leer from Shavell, and the same numbed shock on Larry’s face that hit Rodriguez in that instant, though with an added tinge of warped acceptance – as if Larry had seen so much, was so tired of it all with death now close, that nothing would really surprise him any more.

But the little show quickly backfired on Bateson as the news item fully unfolded. ‘…
police were apparently close to apprehending Mr McElroy late last night in the Mid-City area, but in the end that bid failed
…’ BC on his feet, punching the air with one fist: ‘Go, Jac…
Go
!’ ‘…
and so he remains at large, with the police appealing to the public for fresh sightings and information on Mr McElroy, with the accompanying warning that he should not be approached directly
.’ As Rodriguez got to his feet, joining the chorus of two or three that had quickly joined BC, Bateson, red-faced, hastily wound everything up, barking along with two other guards for them to clear the room.

‘And heavy contributions to the prison magazine too, I see?’

Rodriguez brought his attention back to the bearded man, though the question was aimed equally at himself and Larry, who was nodding. The panel had been introduced at the outset of the meeting, but Rodriguez had promptly forgotten their names. They’d simply become Bearded-man, Clean-cut and Beehive. 

‘Yes… in fourteen of the sixteen editions, I believe,’ Rodriguez said, doing the quick calculation: started four years ago, quarterly, only two editions that Larry hadn’t contributed to. ‘He’s been one of the strongest voices and role-models for black inmates at Libreville.’