Jac felt his pulse twitch in his jaw as Pyrford, in smug, sing-song tones, informed him that Morvaun Jaspar’s next police interview was later that morning.
‘Eleven-thirty. Be there or be square. Not that I care either way.’
‘I’ll be there.’ Jac slammed the phone down sharply enough to hopefully make Pyrford jump the other end.
Fourteen minutes later the Fedex messenger arrived, and, as he left with the tape, Jac eased out a tired breath, closing his eyes for a second. Two days. But at least there was a fresh glimmer of hope again with his anonymous e-mailer. A chance rather than no chance.
Pyrford’s call had unsettled him. Pyrford had no doubt made the appointment tight to give Jac little time to prepare himself, and it wasn’t the best time for it to be happening, right in the middle of organizing the e-mail to Larry Durrant. And there had been that nagging glitch in Morvaun’s demeanour that made Jac worry Morvaun was holding something back from him. Some big surprise that the police would suddenly spring. But it wasn’t just that, Jac realized; it was something else not so easily quantified.
Jac had immediately warmed to Morvaun Jaspar when they first met. Sixty-seven, sharp as a razor, the product of an African-American father and Irish/French/African-American mother, he had wavy, black hair and an easy, full smile showing one gold tooth five from the back on the top row. ‘All mine,’ he’d proudly proclaim to anyone, interested or not, ‘except this one.’ His dress was often wild and eccentric, somewhere between Mr Bo-Jangles and Vivienne Westwood.
Morvaun had been a serial forger for over twenty years. Before that he’d been a make-up man for a local theatre group, and when it disbanded the only work he could find was piece-meal with a brief flurry at Carnival time. Morvaun took a side-step into forging to supplement his income. Where before he was dealing with skin, hair and flesh tones, now he was dealing with paper, photos and document stamps. The core aim of both was the same: to create an illusion.
And sometimes there was crossover between the two, which had provided Jac with the vital key to getting Morvaun off the last charge.
Morvaun’s last lawyer had retired, and when he approached the firm, Beaton swiftly passed it down the rungs to Jac. Possibly because it was too lightweight, possibly because — like Durrant — he saw it as hopeless. But Jac quickly saw some hope in Morvaun Jaspar’s case, mainly because this time there’d been no forged documents involved.
Antonio Amador, a Mexican national, had used the documentation of his brother, Enrique, who’d gained American citizenship six years previous. All Morvaun had done was make Antonio look like Enrique.
One drawback to their scheme was that Antonio wouldn’t be able to use the documentation to work, otherwise it would look like Enrique had two jobs. But that hardly mattered since Antonio’s main aim was to move freely back and forth across the Mexican border running cocaine. Apprehended one day during a routine search, Antonio promptly gave Morvaun’s name in a plea bargain.
But Jac argued in court that no forging of documents had taken place, and since all Mr Jaspar had done was make Antonio look like his brother — unless he’d informed Mr Jaspar in advance that it was to perpetrate some criminal activity — Mr Jaspar himself had committed no crime. ‘Given the circumstances, it’s unlikely that Antonio Amador would have shared that information with Mr Jaspar.’
The judge agreed and directed the jury accordingly. It was unlikely, and on its own it was no crime to make one person look like another. Hollywood did it all the time.
Some chuckles from the courtroom floor, and a beaming hug of thanks for Jac from Morvaun when, forty minutes later, the jury acquitted him. But the police and the prosecuting attorney were far from pleased.
‘Good result, Jac. Good result,’ Langfranc congratulated him on his return. ‘But you want to watch out you’re not pushing your luck too far. The police might now target Jaspar, go all the harder on him.’
Pushing your luck. As soon as Langfranc said it, Jac realized that the Morvaun Jaspar case, along with a few others, embodied how he saw himself as a lawyer. Beaton would hand him these hopeless cases that nobody else wanted, and because he was eager to prove them all wrong and not fail, he’d go that extra mile, or two. Push his luck.
Perhaps it went deeper than that. Trying desperately to prove that in no way was he continuing his father’s cycle, a scream back at the world and Aunt Camille: ‘He was never a failure, and nor am I.’
Jac realized that his main strength was also his Achilles Heel, and began to worry that one day Langfranc would be right, that he’d push his luck too far.
Jac busied himself with preparation for Morvaun’s police interview, but felt his chest tighten with anxiety as it approached eleven, his mouth suddenly dry. With still no answer back from Haveling, Jac wondered if finally his luck was about to run out.
‘No, I told you, Jac. I’m happy to help out and send the e-mail.’
‘No morning-after second thoughts?’
‘None. But if you’re fishing for reasons why someone you just met would help out with something momentous like this. Well, you know, it’s not often we get a chance to change things in this life — I mean, really make a difference. And helping to save a man’s life must surely come close to the top of that poll. If this works, I can look at Durrant’s face in future newscasts and think smugly to myself: “Hey, I actually helped save that man’s life. I made a difference for once”.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘But how about you after last night? No morning-after second thoughts?’
‘None. Because, you know, it’s not often we get a chance to really make a difference with things in this life.’
A chuckle. ‘So the spicy dish went down okay, and I’m not talking here about the Jambalaya?’
‘A treat. Except that it left my legs a bit weak heading back to my place.’
‘Well, at least you didn’t have far to go. If you couldn’t make it a dozen paces, then I was rougher on you than I thought.’
Nel-M waved one hand, indicating for Vic Farrelia to wind forward to the next conversation. They’d already played the tape once, this was just a highlights re-run.
So, that explained why he hadn’t seen the girl going into McElroy’s building that night, or why there was no trace of her belongings in his apartment: she was his neighbour! And with the earlier call from that other girl, it certainly looked like McElroy’s love life was more complicated than most.
As the tape came to McElroy’s conversation with Rodriguez ‘…I gotta get back on communication-room duty to receive it. Also to send out those last few sample e-mails from JD…’ Nel-M suddenly sat forward, the final pieces of the puzzle falling into place.
On that first taped call, McElroy’s new girlfriend had suggested someone else sending an e-mail; now she was doing it herself! But still he was no closer to knowing why an e-mail from Josh Durrant held such a crucial key to keeping his father alive.
A bloodless coup. All over in less than twenty minutes. Jac shouldn’t have worried.
From the outset, it was clear that the police evidence was slim, and while with a good deal of posturing and dark innuendo Lieutenant Pyrford tried to make more of it than it was, the crunch came when he passed across Alvira Jardine’s forged passport.
‘Do you recognize it now?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Morvaun said indignantly, his glasses perched on the end of his nose as he inspected it. ‘And you should be ashamed of yo’selves tryin’ to link a piece of shit like this with my handicraft. An eight-year-ol’ could do a better job.’ Morvaun pointed out its many flaws and failings as Pyrford’s jaw twitched. ‘If you’d taken the trouble to study in detail any o’ my — ’