You think you know me pretty well (an Alex Sedaka thriller)

by David Kessler

  “Is that what you think?” asked Juanita. Without waiting for an answer, she started walking down the corridor, forcing Jonathan to hasten to keep up with her. When they had reached the door to the law firm’s office, Jonathan still seemed to be considering Juanita’s question.

  “I don’t think anything,” he replied cautiously. “I’m just speculating – like you.”

  He opened the door for her. Nat was sitting at the reception desk, manning the phones. He looked up.

  “Oh, Nat, this is Jonathan, Dorothy Olsen’s brother.”

  They nodded politely and mouthed “hallo.” Then Nat turned away to the computer screen that had been the object of his attention when they entered. Jonathan, for his part, appeared to be in a dream.

  “Well, thank you, Jonathan. It was a pleasure talking to you.”

  Juanita’s words seemed to snap Jonathan out of his reverie.

  “Oh yes, thank you.”

  He turned abruptly and left.

  Juanita was puzzled by his sudden urgency.

  14:54 PDT

  “So how d’you hook up with Jonathan Olsen then?”

  Juanita was back at the front desk and Nat was sitting there with a cup of coffee.

  “He came here while you were out.”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t here when I got back?”

  “Yes, but he saw me at the deli and invited himself to join me.”

  “Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “He was probably hanging round outside aimlessly and decided to go for something to eat and just got lucky.”

  “Or maybe he followed you.”

  Juanita smiled.

  “You’re getting paranoid.”

  “You sure?”

  Juanita shrugged.

  “Maybe you’re right. So what? His sister’s dead and we’re trying to save the neck of the man who he thinks did it. He wants to talk. He wants to understand.”

  “And that’s it?”

  She looked up and met his eyes.

  “You’re very suspicious today, Nat.”

  “It just seems kind of strange that he comes round, talks to Alex, and then just happens to bump into you outside.”

  “Okay, maybe he did follow me. He wants to talk. He needs to talk.”

  “To us?”

  “To someone – anyone.”

  “Just talk?”

  Juanita thought about this for a moment.

  “Okay, maybe more than just talk.”

  “Like what?”

  “I think he was trying to pump me for information. That’s why I stretched the break for so long.”

  “I’d’ve thought it would’ve been the opposite way round.”

  “You have to understand that I wasn’t just sitting on my tush spilling my guts. I was pumping him for information too.”

  “What did he want to know?”

  “Well at first he was asking about how many people we have working here – shit like that.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Then he starts asking about why we took the case and did we really think that Burrow was innocent.”

  “It seems funny to wait till today and then come round in person asking dumb-ass questions like that.”

  “I think he was using that as a stalking horse for what he was really after.”

  “And what was that?”

  “He wanted to know about the deal Dusenbury offered.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell him anything.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Oh Juanita!”

  “I told you! I had to, I was pumping him for information too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the airline ticket Dorothy bought just before she disappeared.”

  “You know about it?”

  “Yes, David Sedaka told me.”

  “So how did Jonathan react?”

  “He was jumpy.”

  “Did he admit to knowing about it?”

  “No. He said he didn’t know where the ticket was to… acted all innocent and asked me where it was to.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “How could I? I don’t know.”

  “But I thought you said David Sedaka told you.”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t know. He was only able to recover partial information.”

  “Oh, but he told me—”

  “What?”

  Nat looked embarrassed.

  “Sorry, I forgot. He called again. He managed to hack into Dorothy’s old Compuserve account and he found the EasySabre receipt. It was for a flight from Mexico to London.”

  Juanita’s heart skipped a beat.

  “London? We’d better tell Alex! We need to check if she made that flight!”

  15:06 PDT

  While Nat was telling Juanita about David Sedaka’s last success, David’s tenacity was beginning to pay off in yet bigger dividends as he made yet another discovery on the hard drive. Again, he had to leave the lab to go to the phone. The office they had let him use, had a computer on the desk. He switched it on as he called his father’s office.

  “Alex Sedaka’s office,” Juanita answered.

  “Oh hi, Juanita. I’ve found something else that could be of interest.”

  “What?”

  “Well after I found the receipt, I decided to check the hard disk on the computer doing a word search for London and one of the things I found was a deleted PDF of a brochure from something called the Finchley Road Medical Centre.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a private medical center in London, catering to wealthy clients – mostly women.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Anything from cosmetic surgery, liposuction and gastric bands for weight loss to abortions.”

  15:14 PDT

  “Okay, we’ve got less than nine hours left and the name of the game is saving our client from death by lethal injection, even if he’s less than enthusiastic about saving himself.”

  They were sitting round the conference table. Alex had finally made it back to the office and things had taken on a new urgency.

  “Surely we’ve got enough for a stay already?” Juanita ventured.

  Alex was shaking his head.

  “I wish we could be sure. But the fact is, the way things are, we don’t even know if she made that flight.”

  “What about the medical center?” Juanita reminded him.

  “A bit of information on her computer?”

  “It shows that she had some interest in the medical center.”

  “Yes but what interest? For herself? For a friend?”

  “She didn’t have friends.”

  “That’s a pretty slim argument Juanita.”

  “If you take the ticket and the brochure together it shows intent to get to London.”

  Nat chipped in his two bits.

  “The prosecution will argue that the intention was thwarted by Burrow’s action in murdering her.”

  Juanita felt like she was in a minority of one.

  “So are we just gonna sit on our asses till evidence drops from the sky like manna from heaven?”

  Alex looked at her sympathetically.

  “I didn’t say that. But we shouldn’t get our hopes up either. We need to keep digging. In the meantime, I’m going over to the District Court to file for an ex parte temporary restraining order based on the proof of ticket purchase and downloaded brochure on her computer.”

  Nat nodded.

  “You could also try and make something from the fact that the information was deleted from her computer.”

  “Technically she reformatted the entire hard disk, Nat. But I take your point. We can argue new evidence.”

  “And what am I going to do?” asked the intern.

  “Actually, we’re going together, Nat. I need you there.”

  “Isn’t that kind of.. like… duplication of resources?”

  Alex shook his head.

  “If we get
the TRO ex-parte, I’ll need you to serve it on the warden while I wait for the State to show up. They’ll try and get it overturned ASAP, so we’ll need to be there for a full hearing.”

  “What do you want me to prepare?” asked Juanita.

  “I’ll need copies of the airline receipt and a statement from David. If he can get it notarized by someone at Berkeley that’ll help, but it isn’t vital. Also get him to email over the brochure.”

  Juanita looked edgy.

  “Do you think they’ll grant it – the TRO?”

  Last minute temporary restraining orders on executions were common in capital cases. Sometimes lawyers even waited till the eleventh hour to apply so as to give the court no choice. Of course strictly speaking the court always had a choice. But judges were reluctant to refuse such a request when they didn’t know what might come out of it. And to rule against a defense petition ex parte – when the State wasn’t even present – meant they couldn’t even share the blame with anyone else if hindsight proved the decision wrong.

  “I reckon they’ll grant the TRO. But the State won’t wait till tomorrow to argue the matter. They want to fry Burrow tonight.”

  “Then maybe we should wait till the last minute,” said Nat. “That way we might get more evidence.”

  “Let’s not start playing games. If we cut it too fine, the District Court will assume we’re empty-handed and that’ll make them more likely to brush us off.”

  Nat was shaking his head.

  “But if we get the TRO ex parte, they’ll just show up at the full hearing and argue res judicata.”

  Res judicata meant “already judged” – a standard prosecution response to last-minute defense petitions based on alleged new evidence.

  “That’s why I need Juanita to keep digging. Hopefully we’ll be able to hit ‘em with even stronger.”

  “What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?” asked Juanita.

  “There’s the question of whether or not she made the flight. While we’re at the District Court we’ll file a discovery motion to get the information from Sabre, the parent company of EasySabre.”

  Nat looked dubious.

  “If we file for discovery before the same court, won’t it alert the judge to the possibility that maybe she didn’t make the flight?”

  “That’s a risk we have to take. We haven’t got the time to go shopping between courts.”

  Nat nodded. Juanita spoke up again.

  “Do you think we should try and get a British law firm to file a request to UK immigration and border control to see if she entered?”

  Alex looked at his watch.

  “There’s no time. London’s eight hours ahead of us. And in any case they probably won’t appreciate that time is of the essence in a capital case.”

  “A judge would, surely.”

  “Yes but before you get to a judge you’ll find yourself talking to some two-bit clerk. Aside from that, it’s unlikely that UK immigration will be able to respond fast enough to our request.”

  Juanita shrugged and pouted.

  “There is something you can do right away Juanita.”

  She felt another jolt of adrenaline.

  “Shoot.”

  “Contact the Finchley Road Medical Centre by phone and ask them if Dorothy Olsen had treatment there and if so for what.”

  “Isn’t that privileged information?”

  “Not in England. Only lawyers have privilege in England: doctors and priests don’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. But it is confidential – which means that they might refuse to disclose it unless ordered to so by a court.”

  “But you just said we can’t get a court order in England at such short notice! And how do we even contact them out of hours?”

  Alex thought a moment.

  “Okay, let’s play it like this: you call them and talk to one of the night staff. Make it clear to them that an innocent man’s life is on the line. At minimum we just need basic confirmation that she was there, when she arrived and when she left. We’re not asking them for confidential details about the treatment.”

  Juanita was looking at her watch.

  “I’m thinking, it might be kind of difficult.”

  “Why?”

  “Well the night staff wouldn’t have the power to greenlight anything.”

  “That’s why I want you to do it. Talk to the nursing staff on the graveyard shift. They’re probably not very busy, so they might be in a talkative mood. If they come up with anything useful, we’ll get ‘em to wake up the head-honcho.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Any other business?”

  Alex looked round. They all exchanged glances and shrugged. It was like a football huddle, complete with the adrenaline rush, but sans the testosterone. Juanita suddenly remembered something.

  “There was one thing. This business about Jonathan and Dorothy only being half siblings.”

  “Yes,” said Alex. “I tried to get Jonathan to open up about that, but he clammed up like a shell.”

  “I was wondering if it might be worth checking out further.”

  “It’s not as important as the medical center Juanita. Anyway, how can we check at short notice?”

  “You could ask Mrs. Olsen.”

  “I’d rather not. Not unless we have to. She’s a frail old woman and she doesn’t need that kind of heavy-duty problem.”

  “Maybe we can just Google ‘Edgar Olsen’ and see what comes up.”

  “Okay. But first talk to the medical center ASAP.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  “Okay, let’s kick some judicial butt!” said Alex, forcing an artificially enthusiastic smile.

  Minutes later, Alex and Nat were gone and Juanita was on her own. She was calling the Finchley Road Medical Centre on the speakerphone with one hand, and, being adept at multi-tasking, Googling “Edgar Olsen” with the other.

  Why delay? she thought. I’m a woman. I can do two things at once.

  It might even be a complete red herring. But it was still hanging over them. They were whistling in the dark and had to grab hold of any lifeline that came their way.

  Several items came up that referred to a “car crash.” Most of these were from local newspapers and they dated back thirty years. Juanita was amazed that newspaper editions from long before the existence of the world wide web had been digitized and made available online. However, in order to access them one almost invariably had to register with the newspaper or organization.

  Juanita had a dummy email account just for this sort of thing, to avoid getting spam in her main mailbox, but she still had to go through the whole process of registering and confirming her membership before eventually being able to log on and find what she was looking for.

  February 17, 1977 – Pomona, CA – A three-year-old boy was killed when the car his father was driving collided with a pick-up truck on Route 66. Jimmy Olsen was in the back seat of the car traveling east when a driver headed west swerved across the median line. Edgar Olsen, the boy’s father, tried to avoid the pick-up truck but was hit from the side. The boy was taken to Pomona Valley Hospital a short time later but pronounced dead on arrival. The driver of the pick-up truck was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.

  So the late Edgar Olsen had two dead children.

  15:23 PDT (23:23 BST)

  Susan White was at the nursing station when the call came. But it was another nurse who took the call.

  “Yes… it comes through to here when the switchboard is closed … I’m afraid the Chief Administrator isn’t here now. It’s almost midnight – well twenty past eleven … I don’t think that would be practical … What do you mean a matter of life and…?”

  The nurse noticed Susan White looking at her, like a puma coiled to spring into action, almost as if Susan could hear the other side of the conversation.

  “Look, wait a minute, there’s someone else here who may be able to help you.”


  The nurse covered the mouthpiece of the receiver with her hand.

  “It’s some woman with a foreign accent. She says she needs to speak to someone in a position of authority and it’s a matter of life and death. She sounds a bit…”

  “Okay, I’ll deal with it.”

  Susan virtually snatched the phone away.

  “Hallo, my name is Susan White. To whom am I speaking?”

  “I’m Juanita Cortez. Are you in the administration?”

  “No, I’m a staff nurse here. All the admin staff have gone home. May I ask what this is about?”

  “I work for Alex Sedaka. He’s a lawyer and he’s representing a client on death row for the murder of a girl called – ”

  “Dorothy Olsen!”

  “You know about it?”

  Susan struggled to keep her breathing under control. This was not what she had been expecting. Before, she had been paralyzed by fear. Now she was almost relieved.

  “I saw a report about it on the news.”

  “Then you must know that time is of the essence.”

  “I know.”

  “So can you give me some more information?”

  Susan White was about to blurt something out, but she held back. There were data protection issues involved. She couldn’t just discuss a patient’s details over the phone with a complete stranger, not without some sort of formal authorization.

  Who was this person? Was she who she said she was? Did she have standing to receive any information at all? Maybe she was a member of one of those religious “pro-life” organizations in the American Bible Belt. Could a nurse give out the information? Did the disclosure need some kind of authorization from the Data Protection Registrar? Or the courts? Or the patient – if indeed the patient was still alive?

  Susan White had never wanted to think of herself as a “jobsworth” – but to disclose information about a patient over the phone was truly more than her job was worth – especially this particular patient … in the light of what had been done.

  She took a deep breath and spoke.

  “Look, I can’t give out information over the phone – I mean, I’ll need to speak to the Administrator—”