Ascension Day (60 page)

‘She starts splutterin’…. “That as may be…” realizin’ now that she’s gettin’ fucked, but not sure how to stop it – and he rams home with the final killer stroke.’ Rodriguez did another sword swipe in the air to accompany his hip thrust. ‘“And that’s supported too by what, from his files, Mr McElroy was faced with when he first saw Larry Durrant.” “What was that?” she asks, wide open again – this girl jus’ wouldn’ learn.’ Rodriguez smiled crookedly and shook his head. ‘ “The fact that at that point Durrant said he wanted to die – didn’t want a plea made on his behalf”.

‘Mr Smooth-southern-ass then looks at the panel long and hard, and says: “Now you can’t get more accepting of guilt than that. You see, it’s not Larry Durrant himself who’s questioned his guilt or felt that his life might be worth pleading for – it’s his lawyers: Mr Coultaine, Mr McElroy, and now myself. And if we’ve been wrong in doing that, then I humbly apologize”.’   Rodriguez was in his element playing to his audience, laying on a thick southern accent for Ayliss and switching to high and squeaky for beehive Elleridge. Rodriguez punched a fist skyward as he finished. ‘Fuckin’ ace!’

Peretti was the first to show his support by slapping the flat of one hand against the table with a ‘Yeah, yeah,’ which set off more table-slapping along with some ‘Wuh-wuh’ frat-boy monkey chants, Rodriguez taking a quick bow before he caught the quizzical glare from Elden on guard duty at the far end.

But as Rodriguez sat back down, the clamour as quickly dying, he knew that it was mainly bravado to fire everyone up, kid them, and himself, that there was still strong hope left. Drag them away from the reality: only eight days left now for Larry, and little hope.

‘Okay. Give me the low-down.’ Roche wheezed heavily into the phone, the panic of the past forty-eight hours and the nervous anticipation waiting for Nel-M’s call back weighing like a rock in his chest. ‘What have you been able to find out about him?’

‘Darrell Christopher Ayliss. One of Mike Coultaine’s old colleagues from way back. One of the best criminal lawyers in Mississippi at the time. We’re talking almost twenty years back to seven years ago, late-nineties – before he went to Mexico.’

‘Mexico?’

‘Yeah, that’s where he hi-tailed it to after his divorce. Messy business. On top of the half, his wife wanted a big chunk of his new partnership. He said, Fuck it, in that case there is no partnership. Headed to Puerto Vallarta and started selling real estate and handling some conveyance for Americans buying there. He sent her maintenance, though not what she was claiming, plus presents and money for their daughter Christmas and birthdays. She apparently pursued him for the extra money for a while, then gave up the ghost when she moved to Oregon a few years back.’

‘Is that why maybe he feels it’s safe to come back here now?’

‘Maybe. But if that’s the case, it was a sudden decision. Like the minute that Coultaine got on the phone and said he needed help, Ayliss was on the next plane. Because from what I can find out, up until now he’s been in Mexico.’

Roche chewed the information over for a moment, his breath falling more steadily. ‘So he owes Coultaine a favour or two, or they’re close enough for that?’

‘Uh-huh. Ayliss was with Bowyer and Turnbull in Jackson before, then did a two-year stint with Payne, Beaton and Sawyer. That’s where he and Coultaine first met – and when Ayliss went back to Jackson to start up a partnership, they kept in contact. And obviously they have since, too.’

‘One of the best criminal lawyers at the time, you say?’

‘From what I hear. Of those in the early nineties tipped to be the next F. Lee Bailey, Ayliss was a prime contender.’ From Roche’s more troubled breathing at the other end, that obviously wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Nel-M forced a tentative chuckle. ‘But after eight years selling condos in Mexico, he’s probably as rusty as shit.’

Silence, just the steady rise and fall of Roche’s laboured breathing. He wasn’t in the mood to be humoured.

‘And the psychiatrist?’ Roche asked after a moment. ‘Have you been able to find out if it’s game-on again with him?’

‘Bateson says, yeah, apparently so.’

‘When?’

‘Day after tomorrow.’

Roche exhaled tiredly. ‘All that palaver with McElroy just to gain three days. Back where we started, and by the looks of it with a stronger lawyer to boot.’

Nel-M had half expected the taunt with it being his plan, but he was damned if he was going to apologize for it. Despite everything once again slipping sideways, it had without doubt been their best plan yet. ‘Three days delay. That might be all we need at this stage. And the second session planned is for some reason two days later; before with McElroy it was scheduled straight the day after. So another day delay there too. You know, ticking away, ticking away.’

‘You want to convince yourself so that you feel better about it, fine. But don’t expect me to buy into it. If this psychiatrist cracks Durrant, whether it’s a day or just an hour before his execution, we’re screwed.’

Nel-M felt like reaching down the phone and squeezing the last feeble breaths out of Roche, but he had a point. ‘Not exactly much we’re gonna be able to do about it. As we’ve just seen, we get rid of the psychiatrist, they’ll just get another one in.’

Nel-M could sense from Roche’s breathing becoming heavier, more troubled, that this was the hardest part for him. Letting go. A lifetime of controlling, manipulating with his grubby little paws, it was completely alien to him admitting that, for once, he couldn’t push and mould things exactly how and where he wanted.

‘We might just have to ride this one out,’ Nel-M added after a moment. ‘And, of course, pray.’

But Roche was hardly listening, his thoughts cannoning frantically in rhythm with his fractured breathing. ‘There must be something we can do…
something
?’

33

Darrell Ayliss was sweating profusely as he paced back through the seemingly endless, cavernous grey corridors of Libreville. He was a large man with an awkward gait, and the sweat poured off him.

Testament to just how hot it was in Libreville, or perhaps equally it was from Durrant’s words still burning through his head from the session just finished with Greg Ormdern. Or the crushing reminder that had run through him like a red-hot pulse in time with the wall clock ticking down the minutes of the session: only six days left now to possibly save Durrant.

Ayliss inhaled deeply of the air outside just before he got in his rented Dodge Stratus, observed the 20 m.p.h speed limit for the two miles of shale road back towards the guard post, then gunned it once clear the other side. He let out a slow, heavy breath, as if blowing off the steam of the prison and the session, and hit play on the tape recorder on his passenger seat.

Ormdern’s voice drifted out, Durrant’s more muted timbre interspersed, the tinny tone of the recorder almost matching how he’d initially heard it through the small speaker in the observation room with Pete Folley at his side, looking on through the glass screen as Ormdern questioned Durrant on a camp-bed set up in the adjoining interview room.

Ormdern had been adamant that there should be no possible distractions in the room, and the sound feed and glass screen at the same time gave Ayliss what he wanted: not only to be able to hear every word, but watch every nuance and beat of Durrant’s expression. He wanted to
feel
the experience, not just hear it.

It had taken almost ten minutes to get Larry fully under, then another few minutes for Ormdern to set mood and place, put Durrant in the moment: Eighteenth of February, the Roche’s Garden District residence.

‘The night that everything went wrong with the robbery and Jessica Roche.’

Ormdern had said that he didn’t want to use overtly leading words like kill or murder
.  ‘There’s part of Larry Durrant probably still in denial, most likely why he’s never described actually pulling the trigger, and I don’t want to inadvertently draw that out… put up his defences.’

‘You’ve already broken in the house… and I want you to tell me what you see there in the rooms, before you’re disturbed by Jessica Roche.’

‘In…in what way? Which rooms?’

‘Let’s start with the library. You went there to rob the house, and that’s where you found the safe, I understand.’

‘Yeah, that’s where I found it. That’s where I was in fact when–’

‘That’s okay,’ Ormdern cut in sharply. ‘What happened with Jessica Roche has been covered many times already. It’s going back before that, I’m interested in.
Before
…’ 

Ormdern dragged the word out, giving it a soothing quality. Larry’s breathing had become agitated, irregular, and as Ormdern repeated himself,  ‘Before…
before
…’ it gradually settled back down.

‘That room… the library itself, for instance… what did it look like?’

‘I don’t know… it was dark. I didn’t really pay attention.’

‘Okay,
okay
… the safe, then? You’d have concentrated on that, because you were about to break it.’

‘Yeah…
yeah
.’ Larry swallowing, a long pause as he applied thought. ‘Straightforward twist-tumbler lock, as I recall.’

‘And the colour?’

‘I don’t know… grey or green, I think.’ Another heavy pause. ‘But it’s difficult. As I say, it was dark, and I was disturbed pretty soon, before I’d really had a chance to –’

 ‘That’s okay, Larry… that’s okay. You’ve done well.’ Now it was Ormdern’s turn to pause. ‘Anything else that stood out in the house or that room, however small or inconsequential?’

Only the sound of Larry’s steady breathing, a faint swallow. Then he started mumbling something indiscernible, and Ormdern lost him for a few moments at that point.

‘Try and focus again, Larry… focus…
focus
…’ repetitive, the voice fading softer each time, ‘….that’s it Larry… that’s it…’ Gently closing in, Ormdern getting the images to settle again behind Durrant’s flickering eyelids. ‘Tell me what you see?’

‘Noth… nothing that stood out that much, really. Lot of books in the room, obviously… along one side.’

Ayliss had to concentrate on the road for a moment. He reached over and turned off the tape as he came off Highway 12 and negotiated the turn on to the Causeway. Lake Pontchartrain spread each side like a dark, moody blanket, the only relief some faint moon glow one side and the reflected lights of New Orleans in the distance. Ayliss didn’t switch on again until he was a few miles into the Causeway.

‘Do you remember which side of the room they were?’

‘Uh… uh. Right-hand side as you walk in, I believe. Oh, and there…
there
…’

‘Yeah?’ Ormdern prompting as Larry paused heavily again. ‘Go ahead, Larry. Tell me.’

‘There was a large clock in the hallway, I seem to remember. One of those ornate grandfather clocks.’

Ayliss clenched a fist tight on the steering wheel. The sort of detail that would seal Durrant’s fate rather than save it. If his memory of detail in the house had been scant, they could have cast doubt on his recall of the murder itself, claimed that it had somehow been suggested or even implanted. Those few details could be enough to support that he was definitely there –
unless
those descriptions didn’t match what Ayliss discovered at the old Roche residence.

‘Okay. We’ve covered what you might have actually seen in the house. But I want to deal now with what you might have actually
felt
while you were there. Your fear and anxiety with what happened with Jessica Roche has already been dealt with in depth… but I wondered if at any time you had the feeling that someone else apart from her was there at the time. Someone watching that you probably didn’t see or know about… only
felt
their presence?’