Ascension Day
Page 45
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Truelle said, a hint of vehemence to lift it beyond stock defence.
Jac rolled on as if Truelle hadn’t spoken. ‘And the main test as to whether that account might have been “implanted” is the amount of incidental detail recalled outside of the murder itself.’ Jac patted the file and smiled again. ‘And guess what Greg Ormdern discovered?’ Jac watched Truelle’s face redden, but it quickly transformed to bluster.
‘As I said, ridiculous… ridiculous!’ Truelle leant forward, gesturing with one hand as if to throw the report back across the desk. ‘And I strongly resent your implication.’
Jac had fully expected Truelle’s professional hackles to rise. What else could he do? And perhaps, as Jac, he’d have backed off and, if hit with more of the same, pretty soon packed up his tent and headed off. But as Ayliss, a world-weary criminal lawyer, he felt he could bluff it out. In fact, it was expected of him; anything less wouldn’t have been true to Ayliss’s character.
Just the other night he’d commented to Alaysha that that was one advantage of being Ayliss to compensate for all the padding and discomfort: he was like Jac’s alter-ego, the heavyweight criminal lawyer that Jac hoped to be in five or ten years time. And so under the guise of Ayliss, he was able to get away with all the things he might not get away with as Jac.
Jac eased his best syrupy Ayliss smile with southern drawl to match. ‘Now come on, Mr Truelle. You and I both know the truth of what’s going on here. And if you don’t, now we’ve got Mr Ormdern’s report to tell us.’
Truelle looked at the envelope reluctantly, as if unwilling to accept its existence. He felt his stomach sinking deeper with every double-time pulse-beat, and wished the floor would open up. Detail? He’d embellished with quite a bit of detail, he thought, even covering elements after the event that he thought the police would question Durrant about. ‘The first thing you saw about the murder was in a TV shop window late the next day… You’d made sure to avoid all newspapers and early morning TV… but then there she was suddenly…’ That hadn’t even come up in police questioning, but it was there nevertheless, embedded in Durrant’s sub-conscious. No, he’d added more than enough detail.
‘You’re wrong or misguided, or simply not telling the truth. I implanted no false memory on Mr Durrant, and I don’t believe for a minute that Mr Ormdern’s report suggests that I did.’ Truelle briefly challenged Ayliss’s smile as best he could with his own.
Jac didn’t flinch for a second, his steady gaze boring straight through Truelle. Unmoved, unimpressed. Again he continued as if Truelle hadn’t spoken. ‘So, we’ve covered incidental detail – or rather lack of it.’ He nodded towards the file. ‘But the part of the equation that was always missing was opportunity. When might you have been able to implant all of this in Durrant’s mind? The esteemed Mr Ormdern reckons you’d have needed at least an hour-long session, maybe more, for all that mental conditioning. But the problem was that all of the sessions were sequential with diary entries to match. No gaps.’
Truelle adopted again his best nonplussed poker face, blinking slowly, the writhing snakes of nerves in his stomach coiling tighter. It was like watching an impending car crash. Knowing that you wouldn’t like what you saw, that it would turn your stomach, but remaining transfixed all the same in case the cars miraculously missed each other at the last second, or just to see how dramatic and gory it might be.
‘And then I discovered this…’ Jac took the cassette player from his pocket and pressed play. Truelle’s voice with the date and time of the session, then two faint clicks straight after, which Jac ensured Truelle heard by turning up the volume. ‘That’s it right there, you see. Those two faint clicks.’ Jac quickly slotted in another tape and ran the same segment with Truelle announcing the date and time, again turning the volume up for the two clicks. ‘And again there… and the same on five other tapes. And the background noises too are different to the session where Larry describes the murder… and on which there’s only one click.’
‘I… I did the introductions afterwards rather than before on those. It happens a lot.’
Jac twisted his mouth as if he’d tasted something sour. ‘On its own, that story might wash. But, combined with Ormdern’s findings about lack of incidental detail, it answers how you did it. The sessions were mostly two a week, and you used one of the later sessions in your diary, just before Larry’s murder confession, to mentally condition him. Then you shifted all the other session tapes forward to cover it by putting in new intro dates and times. The gap was then shifted back five or six weeks, before the month of tapes with diary entries to match requested at trial. The gap wouldn’t have shown.’
‘You’ve got quite a vivid imagination there, Mr Ayliss, I must say.’ Truelle pushed a tame smile, but inside the writhing tension in his stomach had wormed its way through every vein and nerve-end. He pressed his hand firmer on the desktop to kill any visible trembling. ‘But if you really felt you had something with all of this, you’d be at the DA’s office right now with it, not sitting here with me.’
‘That’s where I’m headed next. I came here first to see what you had to say, purely as a courtesy. You see, if you turn State’s evidence, you could probably cut a deal that would keep you clean and clear, or at least doing easy time – six months, a year tops.’ Jac held one hand out. ‘If not, you’re probably looking at five years.’
Five years? Truelle swallowed anxiously. Though that was nothing to what he faced from Nel-M: thrown off a high building after a tango, or, if he was lucky, quick and painless: two bullets in a back-street parking-lot, like Raoul Ferrer.
Jac watched intently every small tic and nuance of Truelle’s expression. Everything in the balance; the final gauntlet down, the tension crackled like raw electricity between them. Jac knew that he didn’t have enough to go to the DA or Candaret. Everything depended on how Truelle responded to the bluff, which way he jumped now.
Truelle let out a sudden snort, half-laughter, half-derision. ‘Do you really think I’d do something like this? Conspire to frame an innocent man?’ Truelle leant forward, his voice firming with each word. ‘If so, you’re deluded, Mr Ayliss. Because I’d never, ever have agreed to something like that.’ The second truth to pass between them: he never would have gone along with the scheme if he’d believed Durrant had been innocent.
Jac flinched fleetingly at the fresh conviction in Truelle’s voice, but hopefully covered well, feeling in that instant as if they were two poker players bluffing the hell out of each other. The game to see who crumbled and folded first. He kept his stare level and even on Truelle, laying on thick the Ayliss drawl.
‘Yes, I do believe that’s exactly what you did. Because I believe this man actually committed the murder.’ Jac took from Ormdern’s envelope one of the photos Stratton had taken of Nelson Malley and slid it towards Truelle. ‘Do you know this man?’
‘No… no, I don’t.’
Truelle had hardly glanced at the photo. ‘Are you sure?’ Jac pressed, sensing a niche of uncertainty again.
‘Yes, I’m… look, Mr Ayliss.’ Truelle’s red-faced bluster resurfaced. He pushed Malley’s photo back across the desk-top. ‘Forget this man, and any others you might wish to put in the frame. The DNA evidence puts Durrant at the murder scene. He was there that night, and he killed Jessica Roche. Get used to it.’
Truelle glared his words home hard, clinging to his belief in them: DNA! The final raft of moral justification he’d held on to all along. He was doing nothing wrong, because in the end Durrant had done it. Roche and Nel-M had been telling the truth all along: he was guilty.
But with each word and accusation of Ayliss’s, he’d found himself drifting further and further into a sea of doubt, with that raft all that was left to cling to. No, no, no… no! Durrant did do it! He killed her! And if Ayliss did finally prise his grip from that raft, there’d be nothing to hold on to… sailing free into the night air as Nel-M let him loose from his dance grip.
Further adrift… Truelle clinging so hard, his nails dug painfully into one thigh. He stood up abruptly. ‘I’d like you to leave now, Mr Ayliss. I believe we’ve discussed everything we have to.’ Get Ayliss clear of his office before he fell apart completely.
‘I know it’s hard to face.’ Jac grimaced tautly. ‘But deep down you know the truth of what’s happened here, Mr Truelle. And you’re probably the only person left now that might be able to save Larry Durrant.’
Last few fingers wrenched loose… sailing free. Truelle didn’t respond directly or even look at Ayliss, simply buzzed on his intercom. ‘Mr Ayliss is leaving now, Cynthia.’ And put the hand quickly back on his desktop, bracing as he felt himself sway slightly, as if he’d been drinking.
Jac wrote down his Ayliss cell-phone number and slid it across. ‘And remember, be careful where you call from with anything too juicy or incriminating. Your phones might well be bugged.’ He slipped Malley’s photo into the envelope and looked back from the doorway as Cynthia held the door open. ‘It’s not going to simply go away, or be any easier to face in front of the DA. Especially with five years hanging over your head.’ Jac smiled tightly and waved the envelope. ‘Twenty-four hours – again, purely as a courtesy. Then I go to him with all this.’
Nel-M had been tapping his fingers so incessantly against the steering wheel, he could feel them starting to go numb. Where the fuck was she? Already twenty-five minutes Ayliss had been in there, and still no sign of her.
He had her number from her last call, and called it back.
‘Hi again,’ Melanie Ayliss said. ‘I shouldn’t really be talking on this now.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘You know, while I’m driving.’
‘I thought you’d be jumping in a cab?’
‘I’d already booked this from back in Portland… didn’t take long to get the paperwork done.’
Nel-M closed his eyes. No wonder Ayliss had fucking divorced her! He felt like screaming, I thought I told you it was urgent!... but no point in alienating her. He took a fresh breath. ‘He’s still here – but maybe not for much longer. Where are you now?’
‘On Simon Bolivar… just crossed Melpomene.’
Six or seven minutes, thought Nel-M. No more.
‘Okay. See you soon.’
But just as it hit the six minute mark, he saw Ayliss head out of Truelle’s office towards his car. Nel-M phoned again, a couple of rings before it answered, Ayliss already back at his car, getting in.
‘He’s just leaving!’ Nel-M’s voice sharp with immediacy.
‘But I’m right there.’
‘Where?’
‘On Canal Street… just turning into Royal.’
‘What car have you got?’
‘Uuuh… Blue Chevy Metro.’
Ayliss starting up, looking around, pulling out.
And Nel-M spotted her then: Blue Metro, brown-haired woman at the wheel with a cell-phone in her hand.
‘He’s just pulled out!’ Nel-M screamed. ‘Grey Buick Century… heading your way.’
‘What? Where… where?’
The woman frantically scanning the road ahead as she assimilated the information, Ayliss’s car twenty-five yards away at that point, starting to pick up speed.
And at only ten yards away, she finally spotted him, her eyes locking fully on the car and Ayliss inside as they came alongside. Her eyes went wide for a second, and then she did something foolish – although nothing would have surprised Nel-M about her by that stage. She braked. Hard.
The car behind, a Dodge Dakota, didn’t have a chance, crushing most of the back of the Metro into a concertina. Nel-M closed his eyes and cringed; and when he opened them again, it wasn’t pretty. Though she still looked alive. Just.
Ayliss had kept going, might not have even noticed the conflagration twenty yards behind him. Quick decision to make: head into Truelle’s office and pull out fingernails until he found out what had happened, or keep tailing Ayliss? The sound of a distant siren made his mind up: there’d be a scene here now, police cars arriving at any second. He could catch up with Truelle later and, besides, he’d need Ayliss’s whereabouts for when his ex got out of the hospital.
Nel-M swung out to follow Ayliss, but at that moment the man driving ahead decided to stop to assist the accident victims, his car blocking the road.
‘Out the fucking way!’ Nel-M screamed, his head out the window. ‘You fucking numb-brained mor–’ Nel-M’s voice trailed off as he saw a squad car ahead turn into the road.
Nel-M looked over his shoulder, one arm across the passenger seat as he did a hasty three-point turn, praying that he was able to get around the block quick enough not to lose Ayliss.
The perfect set-up.
Over a couple of shots of Jim Beam, which rapidly became three, four, five and more, Leonard Truelle pondered whether Darrell Ayliss’s claim might be right.
In the very beginning, he’d had strong doubts, but he’d had little choice then: Raoul Ferrer’s hefty street debt one side, which they offered to clear, his drink problem and the threat of exposure and getting struck off, the other; then the final sweetener on top: $250,000. On one side crushing problems, on the other all the decks cleared and a hefty chunk of cash on top.
But when they’d still sensed some reluctance from him, they’d started piling it on about Durrant being guilty in any case. Adelay Roche had put feelers out on the criminal network, and Durrant’s name was the main one to come back as having killed his wife. But the coma and selective memory situation had conveniently blotted it out. The police couldn’t even apply standard question and interrogation tactics in such a situation, and in any case simply didn’t have enough evidence to haul him in.
Truelle had offered to get the information out of Durrant conventionally, but they’d said no. Too risky. If he’d blotted out the recall, or his memory of it was sketchy, the police still wouldn’t have enough to nail him. And with taped sessions, they couldn’t later go back and add or embellish; then it would look suspicious, as if the memory had been falsely embedded.
No, all the details had to be there, so there was no possible error or come-back. That’s what they were paying for: over $400,000 with Ferrer’s debt.
He should have pulled out right then, but the money and all his problems cleared at the same time was just too tempting.
And so he’d gone along with it, used the next session to condition Durrant: ‘You went to a house that night on Coliseum Street, Lawrence… large antebellum mansion in the Garden District with grand white columns on its front portico. You know the type. It was a planned house robbery, Lawrence, and you felt guilty about it because you’d promised your wife not to commit any more robberies. And unfortunately, while you were there a woman was still in the house that you didn’t know about…. and it all went wrong… terribly wrong…’
A masterful mix of what he’d been fed from Roche and Nel-M, along with what he knew himself about Durrant’s background.
He shifted the previous session tapes to cover, and the next session dropped the right prompts to tease it all back out of Durrant’s memory as the tape ran. Then two days later he phoned the police.
Telling himself all along that he could pull back from the brink later, when he had Ferrer off his back and had worked out how to cover for his drink problem so that he didn’t get struck off and… and then, as the police investigation gathered steam, the DNA evidence on Durrant came in!
Eighty per cent of that doubt and g
uilt suddenly lifted from his shoulders. They’d been telling the truth all along! Durrant was guilty.
And that’s pretty much how the years since had rolled on: guilty about what he’d done, but consoling himself all along that the end justified the means… though always with that twenty per cent of nagging doubt. That percentage swung back and forth at times: higher with the first news of Durrant’s execution date, thirty or forty per cent, maybe even…
Truelle suddenly jolted in his seat. Nel-M!
He relaxed again as he managed to focus through the haze of the five Jim Beams swimming around in his head – just a black man of similar height and build. Truelle knocked back the rest of his drink, lifted a hand towards the barman for another.
A minute after Ayliss had left his office, there’d been an almighty bang outside, and as he looked down at the accident he saw the police car swing in and Nel-M backing up and doing a three-point turn. Nel-M had been watching outside as Ayliss paid him a visit!
He told Cynthia to cancel the rest of his day’s appointments, he had something urgent to attend to. ‘And if anyone calls for me, anyone… you don’t know where I’ve gone.’
He hastily left the office, past the policemen surveying the accident, heading for a bar or anywhere that Nel-M might not find him. For that reason, he avoided Ben’s or any of his regular haunts, went deep into the CBD before he felt he was on safe enough ground, a sprawling Irish-flavoured tavern on Julia Street.