David Kessler - Mercy

The governor smiled.

“Mr. Sedaka.”

The tone was polite, friendly. Alex nodded for Dusenbury to continue.

“It’s been quite a roller-coaster for you, Alex, this past twenty-four hours.”

“Quite,” said Alex, stiffly, the first word he’d used since regaining consciousness. He wasn’t altogether comfortable with this situation.

“I feel bad about what happened to Burrow.”

Alex was tempted to say “and well you should.” But this time he resisted the temptation to give voice to his emotions.

The truth of the matter was that he no longer knew what he felt. Burrow was innocent of murder and by all accounts a wretched figure in the end. But he had still been the bully who had made Dorothy’s youth a living hell — the rapist who had violated her when she was already suffering a tortured life.

Nat had obstructed justice — to the point of sending an innocent man to the death chamber. But he had had the excuse of having been subjected to the most excruciating mental torture not only at the hands of Clayton Burrow, but also at the hands of Edgar Olsen.

How could Alex express outrage or indignation, when his own moral compass had been sent haywire by the turbulent force-field that raged round him?

“I’d like to make up for it, in some way,” said the governor.

“How?” asked Alex, skeptically. He hadn’t meant it to sound cold, but that was the way it came out, as if he was brushing off Dusenbury’s offer before he even knew what it was.

“I can grant David an amnesty on the computer hacking charges.”

“I thought those charges are federal?”

“Okay, but I can protect him against Section 484 charges — ”

“He’s not going down on a State 484’cause there was no pecuniary gain. The only thing I’m worried about is a US 1030.”

“Well I can’t help you there ‘cause that’s federal. But I’m pretty sure you can get him a good lawyer. In any case, I don’t think he has too much to worry about. He can always cite the fact that he was trying to save an innocent man’s life.”

“That’s not a defense in law.”

“No!” the governor’s voice boomed into life. “But it’ll make one hell of a plea in mitigation!”

Alex could see that the governor was just trying to be helpful. There was no reason to fight him.

“I guess you’re right.”

“Besides,” Dusenbury continued. “I have a feeling the feds won’t be too anxious to bring the case to trial. It’ll throw a spotlight on the execution of an innocent man and give too much impetus to the anti-capital punishment lobby. There’s a big debate over that right now. New Jersey’s getting rid of it. They had that big amnesty in Illinois. And this great state of ours has a backlog so long that even if we execute five people a month it’ll take eleven years just to clear up the backlog!”

“What happened to Nat?”

“We don’t know. Some clothes washed ashore at Maintop Island, but no body.”

Alex felt saddened by this, in some inexplicable way.

“They think he’s dead?”

“They assume it,” said the governor. “But it’s not yet official.”

“Is he classified as a fugitive?”

“Technically he’s a wanted man … obstruction of justice. But in reality we’re just waiting for his body to turn up.”

Alex remembered the famous case of the three prisoners who escaped from Alactraz. Only one body ever turned up — and it was so badly decomposed that they couldn’t be sure if it was one of the escapees — but it was widely assumed that all three of them had drowned. Even though bodies tend to float after a few days, on the Pacific coast a body could be swept out to sea and never found unless it had a chance encounter with ship or boat.

And as for the clothes, the body of the Alcatraz escapee that turned up weeks later was naked. A body could be stripped of its clothes by the currents and decomposition. It did not imply intent or volitional action by the person who wore the clothes or indeed anyone else.

In a moment of intense longing, Alex tried to sit up, managing to raise his torso a few inches from the mattress. But his strength deserted him and he slumped back to the mattress, a smile of resignation breaking out across his face.

“How did they find me?”

Alex realized that he was looking up at the ceiling when he said this. He could have looked at the governor, but somehow he felt uncomfortable doing so. In any case what he really wanted to do was close his eyes altogether. He was still tired and all he really wanted to do was sleep the sleep of the innocent.

“The patrol helo saw the car leave the cliff and radioed in for some emergency relief from the coastguard.”

Even through the haze of confusion and the intense desire for sleep, Alex noted that Dusenbury had used the military term “helo” rather than the civilian term “chopper.” He resolved to ask him about this … some time.

“I think maybe it’s time for me to go,” said the governor. “There are a couple of people here to see you.”

For a moment, Alex thought Dusenbury meant the police. But he was pleasantly surprised when David entered the room with Debbie in tow.

Debbie!

She had come all the way out here from New York to be with him. He looked at her and gave her a welcoming smile. She returned it, but even through her gentle smile, Alex could see the hard person beneath it.

In some ways she and Nat were kindred spirits: both conceived during wild unprotected sex by alcohol-fueled students, both very determined people who could set their sights on an objective and then go for it with an almost ruthless tenacity. Not that Debbie would send an innocent man to his death.

It was ironic that while Debbie had gone to work in New York to put some distance between herself and Alex, Nat had actively sought Alex out as an employer. Alex had asked Nat, in the car, about why he had pushed so hard to work for him, but the answer to that question had been denied when the car went over the edge.

He thought about it now and remembered how familiar Esther Olsen had looked only 24 hours ago, when he first saw her in the governor’s office. He remembered his reckless student days of frat parties and drunken one-night stands. He remembered looking at the picture of Dorothy Olsen and thinking about her resemblance to Debbie — not the eyes, for Debbie got her eyes from Melody — but some of the other features that Debbie got from her father. And he remembered how Esther had told him that Dusenbury had fathered both Jonathan and Jimmy but not Dorothy. He remembered also that Edgar Olsen had hated Dorothy because he knew that she was not his daughter.

A chill went up Alex’s spine as he realized the answer that Nat had been about to give him, before he was snatched away forever.