David Kessler - Mercy

“He’s still denying the murder,” said Alex with a sigh.

Esther Olsen nodded in reluctant acceptance.

“But he has admitted something.”

A hint of a smile crept onto her face and she tried to sit up. But she dropped back onto the pillow, fatigued. Alex leaned forward.

“You’re too weak,” he said comfortingly. “Don’t try.”

“What did he say? What did he admit?”

“I don’t really know how to say this…”

“ Tell me.”

What Alex said next could — at least in theory — have got him disbarred.

“He admitted to raping your daughter.”

Esther Olsen nodded slowly, as if accepting the solace of at least a partial admission.

“This is good,” she said, more to herself than to Alex. “This is good.”

“Mrs. Olsen … did you know about it? At the time, I mean?”

For the first time since they had met, Esther Olsen couldn’t hold Alex’s gaze. She looked away, almost guiltily.

“Mrs. Olsen?”

“We hardly spoke to each other.”

“I know that, Mrs. Olsen. But you were still living under the same roof as your daughter. Did you know?”

She nodded slowly.

“Yes, I knew. I overheard her talking to Jonathan.”

“About the rape?

“Yes.”

“When was that?”

“A week before she vanished.”

“Exactly a week?”

“Yes. I mean she vanished on a Saturday and this was the Saturday before.”

Alex was quickly doing the arithmetic in his mind. Dorothy had vanished on the 23 rdof May. But she was raped on her birthday, April the first. Why would she be telling Jonathan about the rape seven weeks after it happened? He remembered that Jonathan had said “she came to the house in tears.” That must have been on the day it happened.

But on May 19 she had booked a ticket to England and then she vanished a few days later. So when Mrs. Olsen overheard Dorothy talking to Jonathan a week before she vanished, was it the rape she was talking about or the…

“Mrs. Olsen … did you know that Dorothy was pregnant?”

Esther looked at him, surprised. But even before she spoke Alex knew that it was not surprise about the pregnancy: it was surprise that Alex knew about it. Her face betrayed more than she intended. They both knew that the secret was out.

“Yes, I knew.”

“And did you also know that she had an abortion?”

Esther Olsen looked surprised.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“This I did not know.”

She sounded sincere. But this didn’t make sense. Dorothy must have decided on the abortion before she bought the ticket.

“You didn’t hear her talking about it to Jonathan?”

“I heard whispering.”

“And she didn’t mention having an abortion?”

“Yes, she mentioned it.”

“But I thought you said-”

“I said I didn’t know she had one. But I knew that she was considering it. She talked about it to Jonathan. Of course he couldn’t really advise her. He was just a child. But I think she was using him as a sounding board for her own thoughts. I wished she could have talked to me about it. She was the loneliest child in the world and she couldn’t come to her mother for advice.”

“Why didn’t you talk to her ?”

“I couldn’t approach her about it. I couldn’t so much as mention it without running the risk that she would accuse me of eavesdropping. We would have had a shouting match and she would have ended up hating me even more. I had to wait for her to come to me. She never did. And that is the biggest regret of my life.”

“What would you have told her?”

“Just being there for her would have been enough. But I don’t know if I could have advised her. We belonged to different generations. My decision was different to hers.”

The words landed on Alex like a punch from a hard-hitting heavyweight.

“ Was different?”

“When I had to make such a choice, I chose to have the baby.”

Alex was stunned by this.

“When you had to…” He trailed off and composed himself. “Wait a minute, you were raped ?”

“Okay, look, I can’t come round now.” The voice was muted. “I’m expected to keep working as long as there’s a chance of saving him. I’ll try and get away as soon as I can. Love you.”

Nat put the phone down.

The reception area had been empty when the fax arrived. Juanita had gone out to buy sandwiches and he had heard the fax machine from the other room, but hadn’t thought anything of it. He wouldn’t even have bothered to check it if it wasn’t for the fact that he was restless. It was now the end of what would normally have been the working day and, although he often worked overtime when they had a big case coming up in the morning, this was normally the time that he would head home.

But he was wandering aimlessly into the reception area with his umpteenth cup of coffee of the day when he noticed that the paper tray of the fax machine was empty. Juanita must have been so busy that she had forgotten to refill it. He took some new paper out of a half-open packet, fanned it and put it into the tray.

When he slid the tray into place the fax machine came to life and started printing. He realized that there must have been a fax stacked up in the memory. It turned out to be just one page. He picked it up, glancing at it as he walked back across the reception area.

When he saw the letterhead he practically spilt his coffee. And when he started reading it he had to sit down and put the cup on the desk.

This was something that he had not expected — and he was not pleased. He quickly went over to the shredder.

Alex had initially been cool to David’s attempts to analyze the poem. But his interest perked up when David told him about the stylistic resemblance between Dorothy’s poem and the Sylvia Plath poem. In the absence of any other directions, David took this as a green light to continue searching for more verses. If possible, he wanted to find the whole thing.

It might not be of any further help, but there was nothing better to look for. They had found out about the flight to England and the medical center. Further hacking of the bank account was taboo. This was the only thing left.

By now he had the routine down pat. He set the computer to do another search for sequences with several instances of the word “you” in close proximity. In seconds the scanning tunneling microscope and computer combination had thrown up another result.

I knew his name was Jimmy

And he died when he was three

In a car accident, with you at the wheel

No wonder you felt guilty

You never spoke about him

Amazing!

“No, Mr. Sedaka, I wasn’t raped. But it was an unwanted pregnancy. I made the mistake of having a one-night stand with a virtual stranger three days before I was married.”

This caught Alex from left of field. Esther Olsen didn’t seem the type. Then again, was there such a thing as “the type?”

Besides, who was he to judge? His own youth had been equally reckless. He had got Melody pregnant while she was in the middle of her medical studies. They married in haste four months later. And like Esther Olsen, Melody had carried the pregnancy to term and had the baby. It had almost derailed Melody’s career. Only Melody’s tenacity and determination — together with a supportive mother of her own — had kept it on track.

“How did it happen?”

“It was at one of those drunken frat parties. You know the type.”

“I know the type,” Alex confirmed. “So what was it, you had unprotected sex with a stranger and you got pregnant by him?”