David Kessler - Mercy

“Oh come on. You’re not going to suggest that his mother did it?”

“I’m suggesting that the case against my client was a lot less clear-cut than the prosecution implies. And the fact that we’ve now discovered new evidence that throws the whole prosecution timeline out of whack should at least be investigated further. All we’re asking for is three days .”

“All right,” said the judge. “I’ve heard enough.”

Both Nat and Dawn looked at him anxiously.

Juanita was sitting in the office feeling inadequate and wondering what else she could do. Nat must by now be in Court, arguing the case against the DA. Alex had gone off to San Quentin to talk to Burrow and David was working on recovering more data from Dorothy’s hard drive.

She had faxed the District Court order over to Baker amp; Segal in New York to serve on the airline, ordering them to produce the passenger manifest. But for Juanita, there was very little now to do.

She had spent the last half hour turning over theories in her mind. Currently she was moving increasingly toward the theory that Clayton’s mother did it. When Alex had first proposed the idea, it had seemed unlikely. But now it seemed a lot more plausible. Dorothy’s pregnancy already added a new dimension to it and, when Alex had told her about the rape, things really started to fall into place.

The house was shared and the space under the floorboards where most of the evidence was found was already there. So it was natural that Sally Burrow would hide the evidence there. According to Nat she wasn’t the brightest button and she probably thought that it was easier to dump the evidence there than to dispose of it. Dorothy had probably tried to blackmail Clayton with the evidence that she’d preserved and Sally Burrow had probably found out and murdered Dorothy to protect her son. Her claim now that she had disowned her son was probably just a pretence. And Clayton Burrow for his part was probably protecting his mother.

But there were some things that didn’t make sense. Why the mutilation of the body? It might have been to give the police the impression that it was a sex crime by a maniac and not an attempt to silence a potential accuser. But why then was the body never found? The disappearance of the body would imply deliberate concealment. But then why retain the body parts? Why not dispose of them?

Suddenly Juanita found herself gripped by a thought that was even more sinister.

Maybe Sally Burrow’s relationship with her son was even more complicated. Maybe she retained the evidence in order to give her a hold over her son. Maybe there was some incestuous attraction. That might explain the bad blood between them now. I mean, what if it finally dawned on Sally Burrow that Clayton didn’t reciprocate her perverted love? It would be a case of … what was that phrase Nat had used? …“heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned.”

But there was something else that didn’t make sense: why would Dorothy use the evidence for blackmail rather than just to bring Clayton to trial? Could the semen-stained panties be used to support a successful prosecution? If so, then why not do so? Why try to blackmail him? Indeed, what would be the point of blackmailing him? He was the only son of a deadbeat, trailer-trash mother, whereas Dorothy came from a family with money. She’d inherited eighty-six thousand dollars from her grandfather. What could she possibly hope to get out of Burrow through blackmail?

So maybe it wasn’t blackmail for money. Maybe Dorothy was trying to make him squirm … to make him suffer as he had made her suffer. But then Sally Burrow found out and killed Dorothy to protect her son and tried to make it look like a sex killer — hence the mutilation. Then Sally Burrow told Clayton what she had done, thinking that this, at last, would drive him into her arms and satisfy her sick lust for her son.

But he didn’t want that … didn’t want her in that perverted way and hadn’t wanted her to kill Dorothy. Maybe he was already feeling guilty … guilty that he had made Dorothy suffer and guilty that he had inadvertently brought about her death. Or maybe he just feared that he would become a suspect. So he went back to where his mother had told him she had killed Dorothy and moved the body and buried it so it wouldn’t be found. And he thought he was safe.

But he didn’t know that his mother had retained the other evidence. And in her anger at what she saw as her son’s betrayal, she phoned the police, disguised her voice and tipped them off about the evidence. She couldn’t reveal where the body was buried because she didn’t know. But she could tip them off about the evidence that she had retained. The rest was history: the police raid, the discovery of the evidence, the arrest, trial and conviction.

There wasn’t any hard evidence for it — other than as an alternative interpretation of the evidence against Clayton. But as a theory, it was complete and consistent! It even explained Sally Burrow’s volatile reaction to Nat’s tough questions. It wasn’t that she felt insulted at the suggestion that she had turned her son into a murderer: it was the fear of a guilty person at the prospect of being found out. She knew that close questioning might lead Nat to the answer and she feared saying something that might give her away. So, after she couldn’t drive him away with her initial hostility, she seized upon the first excuse to engineer an argument and then chased him out of her home and up the street.

To Nat, Sally Burrow was just an ignorant redneck, no better than her son. But Nat was a man. He didn’t always see things clearly. Juanita understood the Sally Burrows of this world. Clayton’s mother was a devious woman who used her cunning to protect her son in the hope that it would bring him to her bed and when that failed she punished him for that rejection by framing him for the murder that she had committed.

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.