Read You Think You Know Me Pretty Well aka Mercy Online
Authors: David Kessler
But Clayton, for his part, still felt guilty that he had brought about the whole calamity and in this final, desperate, last-minute effort to salve his conscience, he resolved to take the rap and become the sacrificial lamb.
That was the theory. The question was, could they prove it? The answer was … that the answer was out of their hands. Now all they could do was hope that one of their lines of inquiry would yield some results.
Just then, the phone rang. Nat’s name flashed up on the display.
“Hi, Nat.”
“Bad news.”
“Oh shit!”
“I’m sorry. I fought like a tiger, but so did the DA.”
“Did the judge say why?”
“He babbled for two minutes, but ultimately it boiled down to res judicata.”
“Did you tell Alex?”
“Not yet. I haven’t been able to reach him. Anyway, I’m on my way back. Look, Juanita … I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You did your best.”
“Then why don’t I feel I did?”
“Don’t blame yourself, Nat.”
“I’d better tell Alex.”
“Okay, bye.”
They ended the call and Juanita sat there for a long time, not moving. The phone rang again.
“Alex Sedaka’s office.”
“Hi this is the Idylwood Care Center. Is it possible to speak to Alex Sedaka?”
Juanita tensed up.
“He’s not in the office at the moment. I’m his paralegal. May I take a message?”
“I’m calling on behalf of Esther Olsen. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
If Clayton Burrow can’t tell me about this “mirror” business, then maybe Jonathan Olsen can.
Alex had just passed the Paradise Drive exit for Corte Madera on his right and was painfully aware of the passage of time. The phone rang.
“Hi, Nat.”
“I’m afraid it’s bad news.”
“Fuck!”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Nat.
“Look, I’ll be back at the office ASAP, but there’s something I’ve got to do first.”
They left it at that. Alex wasn’t normally one to swear. But he felt the shock and pain and anxiety about the deadline now looming before him. And there was only so much he could do in so short a time.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have enough hands to do the work, it was just that he was no longer sure what else he
should
be doing. He had never handled a capital case before and he couldn’t escape the feeling that there were other things that he ought to be doing that he had not yet done.
Of course, he knew that one isn’t supposed to leave anything till the last minute so the fact that he had little more to do was a good sign. It meant that all the important and proper things had been done already. It wasn’t really a case of him forgetting something: it was a case of him having done all that could be done and there being nothing else left to do.
But the thought of spending Burrow’s last day doing nothing troubled him.
However, there was still one lead to follow and that was the one his son had provided with that brief extract of poetry from Dorothy’s computer. This new line of inquiry was quite promising. Dorothy couldn’t confide in her mother and didn’t have any friends, so she confided in her computer in much the same way as Anne Frank had confided in her diary.
But the trouble was that David’s progress in getting information off the hard disk was painstakingly slow. And some of the things he found were quite cryptic. So Alex needed an interpreter. But what interpreter could there be when the whole point of talking to the diary was to make up for her inability to talk to anyone else?
Alex reasoned that even if she didn’t confide in other people, there was one person who might be able to provide some insight into the way her mind was working at the time; and that was her brother Jonathan.
It was for this reason that Alex was driving to Daly City now. Of course there was no guarantee that Jonathan would cooperate. But it was worth a try.
It was then that the phone in the hands-free cradle started flashing and blaring out Dvorak’s
New World
Symphony.
The name in the display said “David.” Alex felt a stab of hope as he answered.
“Hey, Dad, listen! I’ve found her bank account in England!”
“What?” he asked.
“She opened a bank account in London!”
“Great! We’ve got to get a court order for it before—”
“There’s no need! I’ve hacked into it!”
“What do you mean? I mean,
why
?”
Alex hadn’t asked him to do that. He would never ask
anyone
to do anything illegal, let alone his son.
“So that we can get proof that she got there. Opening a bank account and conducting bank transactions proves that.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that! It’s blatantly illeg—”
“Yes, I know! It’s illegal. And you didn’t ask me and I didn’t tell you I was going to do it beforehand. So you’re in the clear and I’m ready to put it in writing.”
Alex was angry.
“It’s not as simple as that. I’m an officer of the court. I’m not allowed to sanction an illegal act, even
after
the fact. I’ll probably have to report what you told me – even though you’re my son. I may even be compromising my position by continuing this conversation. I shouldn’t be allowed to derive benefit from the information.”
“Look, let’s not pussyfoot round, Dad! You’ve got a client on death row and time is of the essence. So let’s save the recriminations for later!”
Alex felt the force of his son’s reciprocal anger. In any case, David was right. Saving the client
was
the highest priority. And the dilemma wasn’t quite as bad as Alex had implied. Ethically he
was
allowed to derive benefit for his client once he had heard what David had said, but he was
also
obliged to report his son’s illegal act at the first reasonable opportunity thereafter. The only admissions of illegal acts that he could keep to himself – and indeed was
obliged to
keep to himself – were those made by his client referring to acts that had taken place in the past.
“Okay, you hacked in. I won’t ask you how. But did you find anything – anything useful, I mean?”
“I sure did. I basically phoned the bank helpline using voice changing software and pretended to be—”
“I said I didn’t want to know
how
!”
“Okay, I’m sorry. But I found something that I think may be relevant.”
“Spill it!”
“After the date when she was supposed to have gone to England, she made a
whole series
of payments to the Finchley Road Medical Centre at various intervals over the next year or so.”
“What sort of amounts are we talking about?”
“Well it was a few thousand at a time – the two biggest of which were ten thousand British pounds each.”
“Ten thousand?”
Alex was in shock.
“Yes.”
“So how much was the total?”
“I added it up and it came to nearly forty thousand British pounds.”
“Holy shit!”
“I hope it helps,” said David, after a brief pause.
“It does and it doesn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well first of all, if I use it, then it’ll mean you’ll have to admit to what amounts to committing a criminal offense.”
“If it’ll save an innocent life, I’m ready to take my chances, Dad. Maybe I can get away with it because it was in England. They’re not likely to extradite me.”
Alex smiled. David was so much like his mother, emotional but fully committed to helping others. Ironically, Debbie was like her father, only more so: professionally ambitious and ego-driven. The truth of the matter was David could be tried for the offense in the US, because he had logged on from the US. But Alex didn’t want to worry him by telling him that now.
“I’ll need you to print it out and fax it over to my office ASAP. I’ll call Juanita and tell her to expect it.”
“Okay, I’ll do it right away. There’s just one thing, Dad.”
“Yes?”
“You said it does help and it doesn’t. What did you mean by that?”
Trust a scientist to pick up on the minutiae!
“It means that it doesn’t make sense. The nurse at the clinic told us that Dorothy had an abortion. Since when does it cost forty thousand pounds sterling for an abortion!”
“I can think of a few theories,” said David.
“Like what?”
“Maybe she paid them to let her take the identity of a dead patient. Or, maybe it was to disguise her appearance with cosmetic surgery so the new identity would work. Then again, maybe they were blackmailing her over something.”
“We’re getting a little paranoid here, aren’t we, David?”
“I can think of something even more paranoid. How do we know that she was transferring the money at all? Maybe she was dead? Maybe they brought in a ringer to milk her account.”
“Alex Sedaka’s office.”
“Hi, Juanita.”
“Oh hi, boss.”
“Listen, you remember that quip you made about Clayton having a face transplant for the school yearbook?”
“What about it?”
“I’m beginning to think you may have been on the right track.”
“Are you bullshitting me?” she asked, not troubling to hide the irritation in her voice.
“I don’t mean Clayton: I mean Dorothy.”
He quickly filled her in on what David had told him about the payments to the medical center and the various theories that went with it.
“So what, now you think she had some sort of plastic surgery to disguise herself so that she could resume life under a new identity?”
“It’s possible.”
“Only in Hollywood,” she said skeptically.
He wondered if she meant action movies, or real-life aging actors trying to extend their careers. However, now wasn’t the time to discuss the movie industry. What mattered was the evidence that Dorothy was alive at least a year after her disappearance.
“Look, David is going to fax over the paperwork to you.”
“It’s coming through even as we speak, boss. I can see it on the machine.”
“Okay, what I want you to do is get Nat to sprint over to the District Court with it for another TRO petition – and I want you to phone the clerk to let them know he’s on his way.”
“But would it make any difference after the last time?”
“
Yes
, because these are transactions
after
she vanished and was presumed dead! Also, the payments are to a business in England – the very place that she bought that airline ticket to. That means she went there and spent money there – long after she was supposedly dead.”
“Shall I tell them to put your ‘face off’ theory into the petition?”
Alex was amused by the mockery. He realized that she was just trying to relieve her own tension.
“Just the facts, ma’am – just the facts.”
“Okay.”
“Then, when you’ve done that, put in another call to the clinic in London. Try and talk to the same nurse you’ve been talking to and tell her that we know about the large payments. Try to take her by surprise and ask her what it was for.”
“Okay, but can I ask you a serious question, boss? Do you think this is kosher?”
“Frankly I don’t. Unless she had some rare form of cancer or something, I can’t think of any reason for her to pay that kind of money. That’s why we need to try and corner them.”
“I think David’s other theory about someone milking the account is plausible.”
“You think a medical clinic would
do
that?”
“Let me put it this way, boss, your assumption that respectable professionals would never do anything dishonest is touchingly naïve.”
“Well thank you for that vote of confidence, Juanita. Anyway, let’s not make any assumptions. Let’s take ‘em by surprise and see if they’re ready to talk.”
“Okay.”
“Meanwhile I’m gonna step on it to Daly City.”
He had already told her, when he called from outside San Quentin, that he was on his way to see Jonathan. But she remembered something else.
“Oh boss, there was something else.”
“Be quick.”
He was approaching the Silva Island overpass and wanted to concentrate on driving.
“Esther Olsen has had a relapse. She was taken to the Idylwood Care Center and she’s been asking for you.”
16:49 PDT (00:49 BST, August 15, 2007)
Susan White was sitting by the phone, desperately hoping against hope for a call from Stuart Lloyd. She didn’t know whether he was actively dealing with the problem and trying to get legal advice or had simply forgotten about it and gone to bed.