David Kessler - Mercy

Martine stopped and held the nation in her gaze.

“What is also not clear is how Burrow responded to the offer. His lawyer visited him in San Quentin this morning immediately after his meeting with the governor. But Mr. Sedaka was tight-lipped when he left the penitentiary after relaying the offer to his client. Since then, neither Mr. Sedaka nor the governor’s office has been ready to answer questions.

“Martine Yin, Eyewitness News , the state governor’s office, San Francisco.”

“How the fuck did she find out!”

Alex had barely got through the front door of the office when Juanita told him about Martine’s broadcast. In the face of Alex’s explosive response, she didn’t so much as bat an eyelid, let alone flinch.

Juanita was a dark-haired, super-fit Latina beauty, with penetrating eyes that would have made her a good interrogator. She had only known Alex Sedaka for a few months, but that was long enough for her to realize that on the rare occasions when he showed anger, it was not directed at her — even if it might seem that way to an outside observer.

“I don’t know,” she replied coolly. “I called Eyewitness, but they weren’t saying … something about ‘protecting their sources.’ The usual press freedom bullshit.”

Alex took a deep breath. He hadn’t meant to yell. When he could trust his voice to hold at an acceptable level of calm, Alex spoke again.

“They probably don’t even know themselves.” Nat looked at him blankly. “Anonymous tip-off,” Alex added.

“You look like you could use a cup of coffee, boss.”

Juanita was already striding energetically to the kitchen, followed by Alex’s eyes, by the time he replied: “Thanks, Juanita.”

Nat was looking awkward.

“What next?”

“Conference time. We need to work out a strategy.”

Alex followed Juanita into the kitchen, leading Nat the same way. Juanita was putting fresh coffee beans into the DeLonghi Prima Donna, and pressing the button.

“So what happened?” she asked over the rumble of the machine.

Alex quickly filled Juanita in on the events at the penitentiary while the grinding in the background stopped and gave way to an orchestration of burping and frothing.

“So what are we going to do?”

“Well as long as Burrow insists he’s innocent there’s nothing much we can do regarding Dusenbury’s offer.”

Juanita frowned.

“Your throwing in the towel?”

“You know I’m not a quitter — but I am changing lanes.”

“Meaning?”

“Did you find anything online?”

“Not yet.”

She sounded frustrated.

“The thing is, as I was saying to Nat, we’ve all been assuming that he was guilty. But maybe we’ve been overlooking something.”

“Like what?” asked Juanita.

“Well maybe he’s protecting someone,” Alex ventured.

Juanita screwed her nose up.

“Like who?”

“Or maybe he was framed.”

This time it was Nat who made a dismissive gesture.

“That ain’t changing lanes. That’s doing a bootleg one-eighty!”

“I’m not saying he was right… just on the right track . Maybe it wasn’t Dorothy who framed him. Maybe someone else killed Dorothy and then framed Clayton.”

But Nat wasn’t letting up.

“And how did they put his fingerprints on the knife?”

“He slept with a knife under his pillow,” said Alex. “Why shouldn’t it have his dabs?”

“With her blood on the blade?”

“If some one else killed her and framed him, they’d be able to get some of her blood and smear it on.”

As they made their way to the reception area, Alex realized that his theory sounded desperate.

“And presumably they also got hold of her blood-stained panties?” Juanita suggested.

Nat chuckled, but didn’t join in.

“It wouldn’t have been difficult. Why is it any harder to believe than that Clayton was the killer and took them himself?”

“But what about Burrow’s semen?” asked Juanita.

“That’s a new theory I’m working on.”

Juanita raised her eyebrows quizzically.

“Maybe they weren’t such enemies as everyone else assumed.”

Juanita stared at him hard before bursting out laughing.

“Ah come one boss! You don’t think they were screwing do you?”

“Why not. Maybe they were in a secret relationship. Some one else had a thing for her. The other guy got jealous — or maybe the other girl — and the next thing you know, Dorothy gets killed and Burrow gets framed.”

“Except that Burrow wasn’t even incriminated until over a year later,” said Juanita. “If the aim was to frame Burrow, they waited a long time.”

“There’s also the small matter of breast tissue in Burrow’s freezer,” Nat chipped in.

“Technically it was his mother’s freezer,” Juanita shot back.

“Wait a minute, wasn’t there something about that DNA test they did on the tissue,” said Alex.

“What do you mean boss.”

“I just remember there was something unusual about the DNA. Nothing we could use in court, just something odd… I think.”

Nat and Juanita looked at each other blankly.

“I’ll get the file,” said Juanita, getting up and heading for the broom closet that doubled as the file and records room.

File wasn’t exactly the word. It was several boxes full of files and ring binders. But Juanita’s filing system was so efficient and well-organized that she knew exactly where to look for it. It was the forensic evidence file, with the lab reports. There were several of these, but she found the right one almost immediately and brought it back to the office.

They huddled round it as she flicked through the file.

“Okay, here it is,” she said with delight. “They did a standard nucleic STR DNA test on the breast tissue, comparing it to Esther Olsen and Jonathan Olsen.”

“That would be Dorothy’s younger brother,” Alex said.

Juanita was reading the summary of conclusions at the end of the report.

“Yes. Now there’s a note here that says that the test concluded that the breast tissue came from a half -sibling of Jonathan Olsen.”

“Yes that was it,” said Alex, perking up. “How did it compare to Esther Olsen?”

Juanita flipped over a few pages.

“They matched. But they couldn’t do a comparison with Dorothy’s father because he was dead… Ah wait a minute… it says here they also did separate test looking at mitochondrial DNA. That’s DNA that’s not from the cell nucleus, but rather from non-nucleic material in the mother’s ovum. And in that test, all three of them matched exactly: the breast tissue, Esther and Jonathan.”

“But I thought mitochondrial DNA was only passed on to girls,” said Nat.

“No, it’s passed on to boys too,” Juanita corrected, “but they can’t pass it on any further. That’s because it’s contained in the somatic cells and female germ cells, but not in the nucleus of either. Sons have their mother’s mitochondrial DNA in their somatic cells, but not in their sperm. So they can’t pass it on to the next generation.”

“So if Jonathan, Dorothy and Esther all had the same mitochondrial DNA,” said Alex, “it means that Dorothy and Jonathan are blood siblings and that Esther Olsen was their mother.”

“That’s right,” Juanita confirmed. “But the differences between Jonathan and Dorothy in the nucleic DNA test imply that they had different fathers .”

Stuart Lloyd was still frozen with indecision. He had told Susan White that he would look into the matter and get back to her. She had accepted it reluctantly and put the receiver down. But he was still unsure of where to go from here.