Breath held, Nel-M did a quick self-check for injuries: pain, blood, flesh or clothing fragments where they shouldn’t be? Nothing. He eased out again and swung off hard at the next cross street.
Nel-M was already fifty yards past the crack house as Rillet came out with Mack Elliott and Jac. They had their hoods yanked off, which Jac could now see were white pillow cases. Rillet stood behind them, looking clownish and ridiculous – though nobody would dare tell him that – in a George Bush mask. Dubbya meets the Ku-Klux Klan in front of a crack house.
‘Yo’ know that car o’ that man?’ Rillet asked.
Mack answered first. ‘No. Never seen him befo’. An’ don’ know the car.’
‘Me neither,’ Jac echoed. ‘Don’t recognize the car or the man.’ Even at first sight, the man inside had been little more than an indistinct shadow. Now he was a good seventy yards away.
Silence again, the George Bush mask giving nothing away. No sign of whether Rillet accepted their claims or not.
But watching the fading brake lights of the Pontiac Bonneville as it turned off of Tricou Street, Jac was suddenly struck with an idea. If he lived to implement it.
25
Soon after Alaysha had put Molly to bed, she took the gun out of her drawer and held it in her hand, turning it slowly, getting the feel of it, flicking the safety catch on and off. A Colt Cobra .38, it felt heavy in her grip, alien, but at the same time reassuring.
Her mother had been anxious about her taking it, getting her to swear on the Madonna and promise that she wouldn’t use it. ‘Unless your life is in danger because Gerry has a gun too.’
‘No, I told you mom. It’s just to frighten him off. He’s not going to come calling with a gun.’
Not him. But the other knock she feared at her door was another matter. They’d have a gun pointed through the gap before the chain was barely off.
She swallowed hard, felt her hand trembling against the weapon in her grip. Sudden concern that if and when it came to it, she wouldn’t have the resolve to actually pull the trigger. She gripped the gun in both hands and stood up, bracing herself in aiming stance, and, after a second, felt the trembling subside; not completely, but enough to squeeze off a shot without missing wildly.
Alaysha went to put the gun back in the drawer, but then at the last second decided it wasn’t a good idea to have it anywhere within Molly’s reach. She opened her wardrobe and put it on a high shelf, tucked under a few of her clothes.
‘Is that Jac McElroy?’
‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
‘I understand that you’re handling the Larry Durrant case?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Because I’ve got some information that I think you’ll find interesting.’
‘Who is this?’
‘That’s not important. But if you want some information that’ll help crack the case, you might want to talk to me.’
‘That’s very true, I would. So, tell me. What it is you know?’
‘No, not over the phone. It’s too sensitive. We should meet.’
‘Whoever told you that I was handling the Durrant case, should also have told you that I’m not that active on it right now. The plea petition’s already in, so now we’re just waiting on its outcome.’ Jac sighed heavily. ‘But, okay, now you’ve intrigued me – let’s meet.’
They arranged to meet at 12.45 p.m. the next day at a coffee bar on Camp Street. Jac could walk round the corner at lunch-time from work. The man said that he’d be wearing a light-blue jacket and carrying a salmon-pink folder under one arm. It was all spy vs spy stuff, but the next day, sitting by the café window sipping at a latte, Jac wasn’t looking out for the man. He knew already that he wouldn’t show.
The idea had come from Stratton’s suggestion about a fake call on his land line to send his snoopers on a wild goose chase, combined with Alaysha’s comment from the other night: ‘But it’s not just what, Jac, you have no idea who – just who is trying to kill you? The final catalyst had been seeing the Pontiac Bonneville speeding away from Rillet’s crack house the other night.
If Jac’s fake caller claimed to have something juicy on the Durrant case, without doubt his snoopers would make sure to be there watching. Bob Stratton, in turn, would then watch them, note their registration number and take photos. More spy stuff, but at least Jac would hopefully, finally, discover who wasn’t keen on him digging too deep into the Durrant case.
The next few days went by in a whirlwind.
As Stratton suggested, Jac waited in the café twenty-five minutes past the appointment time before finally leaving. Stratton said that he’d wait no more than fifteen minutes; by then he should have been able to observe all he needed and take more than enough photos. Jac spoke briefly with Stratton on his cell phone shortly after leaving the café.
‘It was a dark maroon Pontiac Bonneville, as you suspected,’ Stratton confirmed. ‘I got the registration, should have the results back on that tomorrow. And enough photos of the guy in it to fill a wall: black, mid-forties, salt and pepper hair. Tall, well-built, but not heavy or stocky. Wiry-muscly, if you know what I mean.’
Now a description slightly the other way from Durrant than his anonymous e-mailer: less stocky, slightly older.
That night, Jac had another bogus date with Jennifer Bromwell. She was dropped off by her father Tobias, a squat bear of a man who beamed broadly and shook hands with Jac through the open window of his Mercedes S600. Perhaps he suspected something and feared she might be meeting Kelvin, or wanted to check Jac out in person. Blue-blood lawyer, okay, but did he have one eye, one leg or half his face tattooed?
Jac felt slightly guilty at the subterfuge, now having met Mr Bromwell. He sat with Jennifer for fifteen minutes in a bar, talking about the club where Kelvin was gigging that night and his own accident, so sorry about that, she said as she gingerly touched his forehead, as if afraid he might still be delicate enough to crumble, and then for the umpteenth time she thanked him for doing this just before heading off to see Kelvin. Jac headed back to his apartment to hit the phones.
Six more T or E. Levereaux to go.
Two numbers constantly rang with no answer, and another was on answer-phone the three times he’d tried; he’d left a message on his second call.
The same routine every time: ‘I’m trying to locate a Ted Levereaux that used to live in New Orleans and worked at the Bayou Brew bar in the Ninth Ward between nineteen-ninety and ninety-four.’
And variations on the same answers each time: We’ve never lived anywhere but St Louis. Never worked in a bar. My husband’s an Edward, always known as Eddy. I was only thirteen in ninety, couldn’t work anywhere, let alone a bar. Or just: Sorry, got the wrong person.
Jac felt numbed, worn down by it all, the questions, and now the answers too, starting to become mechanical.
And so when a teen boy’s voice said, ‘One minute – I’ll get my pa,’ Jac took a second to snap his concentration back. He checked on his pad to see which number it was: one of the two that before had rung with no answer.
‘Ted Levereaux.’
Jac felt immediately more anxious, a faint edge and tremor now in his voice, when, with the number of times he’d been through the same introduction, it should have come across as plain and matter-of-fact.
‘God in a bucket, Bayou Brew – that takes me back a ways,’ Levereaux exclaimed. Then, realizing he perhaps should have done it the other way round – question before commitment – a wariness crept into his voice as he asked, ‘And why, pray, might you be enquirin’… Mr McElvey, was it?’
‘McElroy. Jac McElroy.’ And Jac went into the rest of his prepared speech that he’d rarely had a chance to use: Larry Durrant. Jessica Roche’s murder. Possible alibi from the regular pool games he used to have. ‘If you could remember which night they might have played the week of her murder?’
‘Jeez. Hardly remember which nights I was there myself, now. You spoke to any of the others worked there then?’ As Jac went through th
e names and outlined what he’d gained so far, Levereaux commented, ‘Didn’t know Harlenson had died, and my goodness… good ol’ Mack, he still aroun’? Still livin’ in the Ninth, you say?’ Levereaux went off at a tangent for a moment about how nice it would be to see Mack again and catch up, before bringing his focus back. ‘I’m sorry, Mr McElroy. Don’ think I can be much help to yer. Too far back.’
‘I wondered if you could try one thing for me. Try, if you can, to remember where you were when you heard Jessica Roche had been shot? I mean, was Durrant’s pool game of that week before or after you heard the news? Because, if you remember the news coming straight after the pool game the night before – there’s a high chance they coincided.’
Put the person in the moment. Jac had read somewhere that they’d remember more. It wasn’t quite the same as everyone recalling where they were when Kennedy was shot. But for New Orleans, Jessica Roche’s murder had been big news, so the chances were reasonable. He’d done the same with Mack Elliott, Nat Hadley and Bill Saunders. Elliott and Saunders had said straight away that it didn’t help, they still couldn’t recall anything – but Hadley had said he’d call him back in twenty-four hours when he’d had a chance to think it over.
‘Yeah, yeah. Know what you mean,’ Levereaux said, and lapsed into thought.
Muted sound of a TV in the background, a women’s voice talking above it for a moment. Snapshot of life at 9.17 p.m. in St Louis; another to add to the brief sound-bite snapshots Jac had gained across half the South the past few nights.
‘Sorry. Still can’ place much from that far back. Not straight off, anyhow.’
‘Do you maybe want to think on it a bit?’ Jac prompted. ‘Call me back?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Okay,’ Levereaux said after a brief pause.
Jac left his number and Levereaux promised to call back the next night.
Jac eased out his breath as he hung up and looked at his notepad on the table.
Four names with lines through them, two names blank, two with question marks; now three, as Jac put a question mark by Levereaux’ name.
Jac had felt each line he’d had to put through a name like a hammer-blow to his chest. And he wondered if that’s why he’d opted so quickly to delay Levereaux rather than pushing him there and then? One more bit of hope left, however slim, rather than another strike against.
But that was how Jac had come to measure everything over the past days: strikes against, another chance gone of being able to save Larry Durrant, balanced against hope remaining.
Another strike against came the following day when Nat Hadley phoned him just before lunch to say that, sorry, he just couldn’t fix in his mind which night the pool game had been in relationship to Jessica’s Roche’s murder.
Then another name added to Jac’s notepad and as quickly crossed off again when at lunch-time he’d gone out again to the Ninth Ward to see the new owner of what used to be the ‘Ain’t Showin’ Mariner’, now a short-order and burger restaurant. Jac was wary of visiting the Ninth at night after the incident with Rillet, but at least the timing had been fortuitous because the proprietor had the previous owner’s number and had been able to raise him straight away on his phone.
But, taking the first bites of a prawn and sliced avocado on rye back on home ground on Felicity Street, a part of Jac wondered whether he wouldn’t have preferred some delay again: two more strikes against in just an hour gave him the uneasy feeling that the few names left on his pad would go the same way, leads evaporating in no time, and then there’d be no hope remaining; nothing left but to sit back and count the days until Durrant died.
Maybe he was kidding himself either way – whether slowly treading water or a quick free-fall, the result would be the same: every name on his pad would end up with a line through it. Coultaine had followed part of the same route at appeal only three years after the murder, and could hardly get anyone to remember anything then. What chance was there, as Larry had aired doubtfully, after twelve years?
On the last few bites, Jac’s cell-phone rang. Bob Stratton with news on the Pontiac registration.
‘Traces back to a holding company of no other than Adelay Roche himself. And the guy driving is one Nelson Timothy Malley, forty-six years of age, down as Head of Security at Roche’s Houma refinery. I’ll get the photos messengered over to you this afternoon.’
A chill ran through Jac with the information. ‘Answers not only who’s been following me, but who apart from Larry Durrant might have killed Jessica Roche.’ Jac swilled back a residue of chewed rye with a gulp of orange juice, but suddenly found it harder swallowing. ‘Looks like the police should have kept doing what they normally do: looking closer to home.’
‘That’s one interpretation, Jac. But don’t get too carried away. The other is that Roche simply wants to know your every move: is convinced that Durrant killed his wife and wants to ensure you don’t get him freed at the last moment on some technicality or rabbit out the hat. Guys as powerful as Roche, seen many a time where they wouldn’t even leave it just to the police, would take justice into their own hands.’
‘So steam-rollering over yours truly in the middle wouldn’t present much of a problem?’
‘True.’ Stratton chuckled lightly. ‘Though there’s another interpretation there, too: we can’t say for sure that they tried to kill you; all we do know is that they’ve been nosin’ and had your phone bugged. The police might have been right on that score: maybe it was just an accident.’
Now it was Jac’s turn to say ‘True,’ but with no laugh attached. He could still feel the cold darkness of the lake shiver through him. Attaching blame, giving it a home, maybe he’d be able to rid himself of it. Or perhaps it meant that he’d keep shivering, because they were still hanging over him like a shadow, listening in on his phone, silently watching, waiting for the next time to try and kill him.
That shiver ran deeper still when, three hours later, the envelope arrived at Jac’s office and he looked at the photos inside. Another for the gallery of Jessica Roche’s possible murderers: Larry Durrant, the mystery e-mailer, now Roche’s henchman: Nelson Malley.
At least it was one bit of positive news after the two rapid name-strikes of earlier, one more shade filled in. Know thy enemy.
Though as quickly countered, the pendulum again swinging the other way, when Ted Levereaux phoned early evening, not long after he returned from work, and told him, sorry, in the end he couldn’t remember anything either. ‘Racked my brain every which way… but nothin’. Nothin’’
Another strike against.
Jac felt weary, tired, his nerves shot from the rollercoaster ride of the past days.
His hand shook as he crossed out Levereaux’ name and looked at the two names remaining: Lenny Rillet and Lorraine Gilliam, the waitress that worked the other shift to Rillet.
Rillet said that he’d phone if he managed to find his old diaries. He’d told Jac and Mack Elliot in parting to say a prayer in thanks to Larry, because that was the only reason he was letting them go. ‘Always felt a sorta kinship with Larry, even more so when he wen’ inside. So I’m curious to see how this one plays out… if you’re gonna be able to save his ass or not?’ But Jac doubted that Rillet would phone. What, you want to not get shot and get a phone call? Lorraine Gilliam’s phone simply didn’t answer, and Mack Elliott wasn’t hopeful that she’d remember anything: ‘Dizzy blonde, if yo’ know what I mean – ‘xcept she was a red-head. Had trouble even recallin’ half the drinks orders in the distance just from the tables to the bar.’
Jac felt lonely, cold and deflated that night. Lonely and cold because Alaysha wasn’t there, had taken Molly to her mom’s for dinner and to stay the night while she worked: her regular four-night-a-week ritual. And deflated from the day’s let-downs and the scant remaining options.
He could have done with sharing his woes with Alaysha, felt her hugging and reassuring him; and, in turn, he’d have reassured her about Gerry, told her that the restraining order ar
riving in the asshole’s lap the next day would surely stop him in his tracks. Hopefully soothe the lines on her brow and the quiver he’d seen on her lips when he’d come back from Rillet’s and she’d told him about Gerry’s second visit.
Jac reached for the brandy bottle to warm himself and lift his spirits, but stopped short after two heavy measures, tucking the bottle back in the cabinet. He knew that if he kept it close, he’d probably half finish it.
But it was enough, with the hectic, wearying day, to slide him into a doze not long after dinner; and so when his cell-phone rang at some stage later – Jac didn’t know how long, he’d lost track of time – it took him a moment to orientate himself.
Lenny Rillet’s voice, coarse and throaty, as if he’d just woken from the dark tomb that was his crack house.
‘That be the same Jac McElroy pinchin’ his ass that he still alive?’ Sharp, rattling chuckle from Rillet. ‘ ‘Cause I thought you’d like t’be the first to know – I foun’ those diaries.’
Leonard Truelle was only twenty yards into the dusk light of the side-street, heading towards his car, when the blow came to his lower back, feeling like someone had hit him with a sledgehammer, his legs buckling as the pain shot up his spine and lanced like an ice-pick through his skull.
Then another blow quickly after, sending his pain sensors into overload as the breath left his body in a strangled groan and he fell to his knees. Something was slipped over his head then, some sort of fabric, the smell of cotton pleasant, welcoming; but the darkness he was plunged into, suddenly not being able to see anything, was decidedly unwelcome, frightening.
Aware now of sound and movement for the first time, rustling, shuffling – they seemed to have come out of nowhere behind him and he hadn’t heard any approach – one person, no, two, he realized, as he felt himself being lifted and carried. But still no voices, nothing said between themselves or to him, which somehow made it all the more terrifying.
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