Ascension Day

by John Matthews

  But the messenger simply smiled as he took her signature for George Jouliern’s letter, and walked away.

  Her hands still trembled faintly now as she read the letter again. How many read-throughs for it to finally sink home that it was all over? She was safe.

  If you’re reading this, then it means I’m no longer around and Malastra has probably put together the pieces of our little scam

  But with you trying to save your mother, out of all of us you were probably the only one to have noble, unselfish reasons for doing what you did, and that touched me. I knew too that you were only roped into all of this by Gerry. All in all, I thought it would be unfair if Malastra’s hammer came down on you as well. So I took the precaution of erasing all the video-cam shots where you’re passed the envelopes. Hopefully I’ve been successful in burying everything. Good luck with your mom.

  Alaysha’s eyes filled, and she closed them as a faint shudder ran through her. Hopefully, finally, shaking off the last of the nightmare. Jac too would be so pleased, so relieved to hear; but at that moment, it looked like he had more than enough on his plate.

  The ups and downs and last-minute dramas of the Durrant case had filled every news channel throughout the day.

  And when she did finally speak to Jac close to midnight and he told her breathlessly, ‘I made it! That’s it… it’s official! They’ve stopped the execution!’, it was as if the last of his nightmare was falling away from him too. Falling away with each excitable, faltering breath. He was quick to reassure that he was fine, just minor injuries, then, hardly pausing for breath, he told her the rest: the Sancti Spiritus post office, Truelle and Nel-M, the hospital, the delayed execution, the tape from Truelle’s briefcase that finally saved the day. ‘And then when I get hold of Candaret with just forty minutes to spare, he starts arguing the toss. I think that’s the first time I’ve told a State Governor exactly what I thought of them.’

  ‘Oh, Jac… Jac. That’s great, fantastic! You must be ecstatic… not to mention exhausted.’

  ‘Yeah… yeah.’

  But at that moment, as Jac finally paused for breath, realizing that he’d talked non-stop for almost twenty minutes – or perhaps suddenly remembering that he still had one nightmare to sort out, his own false murder-rap – and he asked how she was, Alaysha didn’t mention anything, simply said she was okay.

  ‘Fine… everything just fine here with me and Molly.’

  This was his day. There’d be time enough for her to tell Jac when they were together face to face. Hopefully a lot of time.

  47

  Two Christmases.

  It took eight days to clear up Jac’s own problems with his false murder rap.

  The first breakthrough came when Nel-M’s rental-car was seen on a cam around the corner on St. Joseph Street a minute after the murder. Then the timing of the calls on his cell-phone to Strelloff, and finally when the police searched Nel-M’s apartment, they found a jacket with blood-spots that matched Strelloff’s and fibres from the same jacket on the hallway outside Alaysha’s apartment. The charges against Jac were dropped.

  By then it was December 16th, and Jac was told that it might take yet another five days to sort out the immigration issues, both ends, of him flying into Cuba falsely as Darrell Ayliss, and flying out again as Jac McElroy. Diplomatic machinations between the USA and Cuba were slow. So Jac phoned Alaysha and asked if her and Molly would like to spend Christmas in Cuba.

  ‘There’s this great beach near Havana – Playa Paraiso. Pure white sand, crystal clear Caribbean waters…’

  Alaysha arrived with Molly four days later. And between playing on the beach with Molly in the day and sipping rum punches, candlelight lobster dinners, dancing the samba and making love at night, they’d get occasional calls from Mike Coultaine with updates on Roche. About right, Jac thought wistfully: their heaven while hearing about Roche’s hell.

  The first main detail to come out was about the DNA evidence, Roche apparently almost gloating over the ingenuity of the set-up. After his wife’s death, he’d contacted Dr Thallerey and asked him to send back her blood and ovary samples, ‘Something to remember her by. I’ve even kept a lock of her hair…’ But he did so after Lieutenant Coyne had questioned Thallerey, so no suspicions were raised. Then Nel-M broke into Durrant’s apartment and placed some spots of Jessica Roche’s blood on one of his jackets.

  ‘That’s why Dr Thallerey was killed,’ Coultaine explained. ‘When they heard over your tapped line that you were planning to visit Thallerey, Roche feared that that detail might come out, and you’d put all the pieces together.’

  The motive, though, behind killing his wife, Roche was more reluctant to talk about, and took another five days of police questioning to finally come out. Jessica Roche had suddenly become a keen ‘green’ and ecologist, and discovered a false report he’d had made by a marine survey company regarding water quality by one of his plants. She’d pushed him to become more green and make the necessary changes at the plant, and, when he dug in his heel, she threatened to blow the whistle.

  ‘Roche said that he could have bitten the bullet over that one plant and made the changes – but he’d apparently been doing the same thing for the past eight years with false water-reporting at all his plants. And that’s what he feared coming out.’

  Far from the noblest of motives, Jac thought, but as Coultaine went on to explain, the resultant shares collapse from the news would have ruined Roche. Not to mention the five-year jail term for fraud.

  Larry spent that first Christmas out of Libreville with Mack Elliott, though he had a full day with Franny and Joshua at a top downtown hotel, the Royal Sonesta, on Boxing Day. Turkey and all the trimmings, champagne and the best cigars, all courtesy of Governor Candaret’s office. Gracious gesture, but also a great photo-opportunity with strong media points scored for Candaret’s next year Presidential bid, Jac thought. He was becoming cynical.

  It was a trait he found useful handling Larry’s compensation claim against the State of Louisiana over the following months. $500,000 was offered, $2 million was demanded, and they’d probably settle somewhere in-between on the courtroom steps.

  The Durrant case was big news. The biggest. Criminologists and legal experts had started busily debating the ingenuity of the set-up against Durrant, and no doubt would for many years to come, and with talk from the police about Roche hyper-ventilating so hard under questioning that he almost collapsed a couple of times, the Times-Picayune came out with a story headline that had half of New Orleans smiling: ‘A Breathless Set-up by a Breathless Man’.

  Torvald Engelson had played up the dramatics of saving Durrant at the first execution attempt, describing that last-second blood-drop as ‘like an angel’s teardrop’, which, combined with Larry’s heavy religious leanings, became another headline: ‘Angel’s Teardrop Saves the Man that Planned to go to Heaven.’

  And with all the hoopla, Jac was suddenly in demand. Beaton was keen to have him back, and there were offers too from three other firms when Mike Coultaine called with a proposition. He admitted that he’d only retired early because he found old-man Beaton such a pain-in-the-ass, but he would love nothing more than to return and keep his hand in, say, three days a week. ‘And it just so happens that Dale Keller, one of the best lawyers it’s ever been my privilege to know – apart from Darrell Ayliss, of course – is also looking to hang up his own shingle.’

  Jac liked the idea, it turned out that John Langfranc was also keen to jump ship – probably his only chance of ever becoming a full partner – taking far more loyal clients with him than Beaton had anticipated or was happy about. Two months after Christmas, Keller, McElroy, Coultaine & Langfranc was founded. Larry Durrant’s compensation claim was one of their first main cases.

  Durrant’s case also opened the floodgates for other possibly false or questionable imprisonments. In the months that followed, they took on four more cases from Libreville’s death-row, one of which was that of Hector ‘Roddy’ Ro
driguez. Jac launched a fresh appeal, arguing that while the day’s delay before Rodriguez visited his victim looked like premeditation – it was not to murder, since Rodriguez had only gone there to warn the man off; it was his victim’s violent reaction to that visit that led to the murder. Jac was seeking a reduction to manslaughter and a ‘time-served’ sentence. Chances were high.

  There’d also been some re-shuffling at Libreville: Haveling was still there, but Bateson and two more of his clique had been suspended pending enquiries, while Tally Shavell had been transferred to Wetumpka Penitentiary in Alabama, where apparently they had an even harder-assed prison fixer. The bets were that if Shavell didn’t keep his head down low there, he wouldn’t last more than six months.

  Alaysha stopped lap-dancing five months later, when, having turned more of her attention to interior decoration, her client list finally started to grow. She also started to become franker about telling people that she used to lap-dance, stopped trying to cover up or being embarrassed by it.

  ‘And now?’ they’d ask.

  ‘The same. Except now it’s just for an audience of one.’ A saucy glance at Jac as she joked.

  Jac’s mother had also broken out more on her own, finally getting her work visa and with her past art expertise landing a job at a gallery on Chartres Street two days a week, which within three months became full-time. She and Jean-Marie moved out of Aunt Camille’s place in Hammond and into their own place in Bywater, only a mile from Jac and Alaysha.

  With Jac busy with the new company, he and Alaysha had stayed as neighbours, constantly in and out of each other’s apartments, and while they’d talked about getting a place together, they didn’t finally start house-hunting until late summer – just as Katrina hit.

  The hurricane completely transformed the city. Some districts, like the Ninth Ward, were totally flattened, and when they were re-built would never be the same again. The most vital criterion for New Orleans house-hunters would forever now be ‘find a place on high ground’.

  Everything from the new firm was shifted in box files to a make shift office in Baton Rouge, and when they finally returned six weeks later, the city still looking like a war-zone and the smell of damp seeping through their newly-painted walls, Coultaine commented, ‘Oh well, just think of all the compensation and re-building claims.’ Jac shook his head and smiled wryly. As bad as his father: always look to the bright side.

  Larry’s compensation was finally settled soon after they moved back into New Orleans: $1,500,000.

  Larry had been seeing Joshua regularly every other weekend and some weekdays too, and whether from that pressure or other problems between Francine and Frank – apparently things had become increasingly tense between them – they finally split up just a month before Katrina hit.

  Larry and Francine started seeing each other tentatively again then: occasional dinners out, or often she’d cook dinner for them all when Larry came round to see Joshua. When the compensation paperwork was being completed, Larry remarked to Jac how scared he was by the whole process.

  ‘So afraid of making the same mistakes as last time. It’s… it’s like starting out all over again.’

  You and the city, Jac thought, but when he told Alaysha, she thought it was cute, touching. ‘Almost like they’re teenagers on their first dates all over again.’

  Jac and Alaysha started looking at houses again in late November, and finally found a place on the West Bank at Algiers Point – a period bungalow with great river views from its front terrace – to move into just a week before Christmas.

  Their first Christmas with family – Jean-Marie, his mother and Alaysha’s – since the nightmare of a year ago.

  It was a mad rush. They were still unpacking boxes from their apartments as they put the last decorations on the Christmas tree. And as Jac opened one of their Christmas cards, he suddenly paused, his eyes starting to fill.

  It was from Larry:

  Jac, thanks for everything! Josh told me that he’d never seen snow before, so I thought it was a good idea to bring him and Fran up here to Aspen.

  Merry Christmas!

  But it was the small Polaroid inside that had brought a lump to Jac’s throat: Larry with an arm around Fran and Josh each side, the three of them by a snow-laden fir tree as they smiled at the camera.

  Hands trembling as the emotions gripped him, Jac passed the photo to Alaysha. ‘Isn’t that… that picture worth a thousand –’

  Alaysha, hearing the tremor in his voice, simply touched one finger against his lips, seeing in his eyes in that moment all the softness and vulnerability that had first drawn her to him; and as she looked at the photo and felt the tears softly sting her eyes too, she started planting gentle kisses where a second ago her finger had been. ‘Yes, it is, Jac… yes it is.’

  And Jac, feeling those kisses, was reminded of all the times in the dead of night when he’d suddenly find himself back in the dark water, struggling to make it to the surface, breathe again… and Alaysha would lay the same kisses on one cheek as she shook him gently back awake, ‘Are you okay, Jac… are you okay?’

  The dreams were less frequent now, the stark, chilling memories fading with each passing month – until finally, hopefully, they’d be like Larry Durrant’s memory of being at the Roche house that night all those years ago.

  Someone else’s memory, not even his.

  * * *

  THE END