David Kessler - Mercy

It didn’t really help their cause. Those who wanted Burrow dead wanted him dead regardless of any District Court decisions and those who opposed the death penalty weren’t going to change either. But it made strategic sense to keep Martine Yin onside — especially after Sedaka had alienated her with his boorish reaction to her attempt to get a quote from him as he left his office.

So the clerk who had taken the call from his counterpart at the District Court — acting on his own initiative and hoping that it would win him a few brownie points from his masters — put in a quick call to Martine. He had got the cell phone number from the TV station after introducing himself, and he got through to Martine herself within seconds.

“Martine Yin,” said the woman on the other end.

“Oh, er,” he stuttered nervously. “Is that Martine Yin?”

“Yes,” she said impatiently.

“I’m calling from the DA’s office. I was wondering if you got the news about the temporary restraining order.”

Martine was an old pro who was used to people trying to excite her with the promise of big news.

“What temporary restraining order?” she asked, her tone level.

“The Federal District Court granted it just over half an hour ago.”

Martine listened to the details with growing excitement.

The girl at the call center had told David that the details would be sent to “her” last stored email address. That was no problem for David as he already had the account details and the password. When he had hacked into the Compuserve account with the security questions, the first thing he had been required to do was reset the password to something memorable. He had set it to “1eibbeD” which was “Debbie1” backward. It was his idea of a little joke at his big sister’s expense.

So now it was with excitement that he logged on and typed in the password. But a second after hitting the “Enter” key he got the shock of his life when he was greeted by the words “Incorrect password.”

How the hell could that be?

“Silence her?” Burrow echoed. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? The legal issue isn’t whether it did happen, but whether it could have happened. We can show that she was still alive for a short period after she vanished. We can even show that she went to another country of her own accord. But that still doesn’t prove that that you didn’t kill her. And it certainly doesn’t prove that she framed you.”

Clayton was still struggling to make sense of it all.

“But the whole basis of the prosecution’s case was that I killed her on the night she vanished and buried the body that same night! They implied that I was jealous on the night of the prom while she went to celebrate and I was out in the cold.”

“That may have been the implied motive. And given sufficient time we could argue that this new evidence undermines the entire basis of the prosecution’s case. But time is the one thing we haven’t got. And the courts don’t usually like last-minute appeals like this.”

“But it’s like a basic flaw in the prosecution! I mean, it just blows a hole in their case.”

“It would if we had it in writing.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve got evidence on a computer that she booked a ticket. And we’ve got an oral statement from a nurse confirming that she had the abortion. But we haven’t yet got the passenger manifest to show that she actually boarded the flight. And the nurse can’t give us anything in writing to confirm that Dorothy had the abortion. It’s just an oral statement over the phone at this stage.”

“ Why can’t the nurse give us it in writing? I mean, surely they must have some records of the abortion in England.”

“They do, but they also have certain bureaucratic obstacles. We may be able to get the records in time, but there are no guarantees.”

Clayton’s breath was slowing down.

“So why did you come here?” The tears were about to start again. “To raise my hopes and then smash them against the rocks?”

Alex had to think about this. Why had he come here? Was it just to ask about the rape that he’d suspected from the poem? Or was there more to it than that? Some nagging doubt in his own mind? But a very strange, nagging doubt.

“I need your help, Clayton. I need to understand some things.”

“Like what?”

“Like, why me?”

“I don’t understand.”

“How did I get to be running the final stages of your appeal? A one-man band with no track record in capital cases.”

Burrow shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“What do you mean? I thought you wanted the case.”

“I did want the case. It was an important matter of principle and I was ready to give it my all. But why did you choose me? Why did you want me? There were other law firms lined up to take it — big law firms, prestigious law firms. You could’ve had your pick. Yet you chose me. I mean, I’m flattered, but I still don’t understand why.”

Burrow appeared to be struggling to remember, like it was some distant, faded memory that no longer mattered to him.

“Well … I didn’t know much about you. But I think some other prisoner recommended you. I only have limited association with other prisoners, but I’m not completely isolated. Some other prisoner recommended you … and what did I know about law firms? I needed advice and someone offered it.”

“Do you remember his name? The prisoner?”

Alex was wondering which of his clients was currently in San Quentin.

“Not really.”

“Did he say he was my client?”

“No. But he said he’d seen you on TV. You’d just won some big case, remember. Some drug dealer’s girlfriend had got a long stretch because of her boyfriend. And you took the case to appeal and blew the prosecution apart.”

“Estella Sanchez.”

It was a statement not a question.

“But you didn’t hear about the case directly … someone told you, someone recommended me?”

“That’s right.”

“But you don’t remember who?”

“I don’t think he ever told me his name. In this place you don’t always use names. He was just the guy in the cell next to mine.”

Alex nodded. There was nothing sinister in it. Just one prisoner trying to help another with a bit of advice. And Alex happened to be the man of the moment, because of his success in the Sanchez case.

But there was still another question nagging away at Alex.

“In the poem, Dorothy said: ‘You dragged me before the mirror / And ripped the clothes off of me.’ Do you know what she meant by that?”

“I guess I ripped her clothes off.”

“You ‘guess’?”

Alex was beginning to get a bit irritated with Clayton’s “guessing.” But then again, he realized that Clayton wasn’t trying to run away from morality as such, merely from moral judgment. It was too late to take back what he had already done. All he could do was run away from moral condemnation. But the worst condemnation — the most damning judgment — came from his own conscience. Thus it was from his own conscience that he was fleeing.

“I mean, I did.”

“But what about the mirror?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was there a mirror where you raped her?”

“No … it was in a shed.”

“So, when you raped her, you didn’t drag her in front of any mirror?”

“No.”

Alex looked into Clayton’s eyes and knew that he was telling the truth. So what the hell was Dorothy talking about in the poem?