David Kessler - Mercy

What they didn’t have was any proof that she had actually got there. And this kind of proof would be very hard to get from the United States. Or would it?

If Dorothy had gone to England, she would have had to use money when she got there. Unless she went to some cloistered nunnery she would have had to function in the real world. Of course she had the jewelry, but she could hardly have used that as a negotiable instrument in day-to-day transactions. The fact that she had liquidated her trust fund and bought the jewelry was moderately compelling evidence of her intention to flee. But would she have traded the jewelry for money and risked having a lot of bulky cash on her in London? Or would she had opened a new bank account where her money would be safe and readily accessible when she needed it?

The answer was probably the latter. And, given sufficient time, they could probably get court orders and search through banking records to find her. But time was of the essence. They had only discovered late in the day that she had even been contemplating going to England. Would the courts give them the time they needed now to prove that she actually did? Or would they take a more stubborn and intractable line, on the grounds that the defense should have done this before?

Clayton Burrow had become a pariah and the courts had shown no particular desire to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even David had little regard for Burrow. But they were now seeing faint signs that he might be innocent after all, at least of murder. He couldn’t ignore that, even if the courts could.

The only question was, how to make progress. Assuming that Dorothy had opened a bank account in London, how could he go about finding it and proving it quickly? Well the first thing to do was to work out where she might have banked. The Finchley Road Medical Centre provided a useful starting point. She probably didn’t know London and would likely open a bank account somewhere near where she was staying or where she had some interest.

Using Google as his first source of reference, he searched for British banks. Then, armed with a list of names, he searched for “Finchley Road” in conjunction with various bank names.

It was the first stage of what he suspected would be a long and arduous process.

Alex was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge when the call came through.

“Hi, Juanita.”

“Hi, boss. I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”

“Give me the good news.”

“They told me what treatment Dorothy had at the medical center.”

“What?”

“She had an abortion.”

“An abortion?”

“That’s what they told me.”

“Why would she go all the way to London for an abortion?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, so what was the bad news?”

“They refuse to tell me anything else. They said they can’t send us any written confirmation of the date she arrived or tell us the date she left.”

“So they’re giving us the opposite of what we asked for.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“And they refuse to give it in writing?”

“That’s what she said.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe so, but I don’t think she was lying.”

“No, I accept that, Juanita. It just seems rather strange.”

“Something’s occurred to me, boss. Maybe it was Clayton who got her pregnant, maybe she tried to blackmail him.”

Alex remembered that he hadn’t told Juanita about the poem.

“You think he killed her to silence her?”

“Maybe someone else killed her to protect him.”

“Like who?”

“Like his mother.”

“When I suggested that, Juanita, you ridiculed me.”

His tone was chiding.

“Okay, I’m sorry, boss. But now I’m not so sure.”

Nat felt the warm, humid air as soon as he stepped out into the open. After the air conditioned airline office, it was like stepping into a steam room.

He had just served the court order on the local office of the airline and he had to walk half a block to get to his car. He waited for almost a minute in the car while the air conditioning kicked in. Only then did he take out his cell phone and put in a call to Alex’s number.

“Hi, Nat,” Alex answered.

“I served the order on the local office. They looked kind of … shocked.”

“Do you think they’ll comply?”

“Probably not. They seemed a bit afraid, but I don’t think they can. I think they couldn’t get the information that quick even if they wanted to.”

“What about the other one?”

“I’ve got time to get it back to the office and still make it to the hearing.”

“Are you sure?” Alex asked.

“Positive. I’m only five minutes away.”

Alex knew that five minutes could mean anything from two minutes to twenty. But he didn’t want to micro-manage — especially not someone as dedicated and motivated as Nat.

“Okay, just drop it off there and let Juanita deal with it. Just make sure you’re at the District Court when the ADA gets there.”

“Okay.”

Nat pressed the red button and put the cell phone in the glove compartment. As he did so, a picture fell out. Nat reached down and picked it up. He always carried the picture round with him, ever since he’d found it … a reminder. It was a picture of a young man, one of those spontaneous, frat party pictures where the alcohol-fueled revelry is interrupted when someone pulls out a camera and starts taking pictures. In this case, it was just a snapshot of a young man raising his glass and smiling. The previous picture in the sequence had been a reverse angle shot of the young woman who had taken this picture, evidently taken by the man. She too was smiling with delight. But that picture wasn’t here now. He kept it at home.

Whether the two people loved each other or were just posing was anyone’s guess. It took a bit of supplementary information to answer that one.

“A restraining order?” said the warden incredulously.

“It’s only temporary. They’ve scheduled a full hearing at four thirty that my assistant is going to handle.”

“Then why did he issue it? The execution isn’t scheduled until a minute past midnight.”

The warden didn’t sound angry, just puzzled.

“I think the reasoning was that if the DA convinces him to let it go ahead then a TRO is easier to rescind than a fixed stay but, on the other hand, if we convince him to halt the execution, then the order’s already in place.”

“Okay, well I’m at the mercy of the system as much as your client,” said the warden, amiably. “I guess what happens now is in the hands of the court.”

“Yes. Look, I need to see Burrow to let him know where things stand.”

“Of course.”

A few minutes later, Alex was face to face with his client. He told him about the verse of the poem that David had found.

“A poem? You came here to ask me about a fucking p oem ?”

Burrow was incredulous.

“No, I came to tell you about the temporary restraining order.”

“Which may get torn up in the next ten minutes.”

Alex just stared at him. It was like a Mexican standoff. Except that the threat and counter-threat weren’t physical. In fact there was no counter-threat. Alex owed Burrow nothing but his best professional services. And it was up to his client to be honest with him.

“Did you rape her, Clayton? Is that what she’s talking about?”

“You know nothing, Alex! You don’t know what it was like as a kid, surrounded by friends, cheering you on every time you found an easy target.”