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

by David Kessler

  In the control room on the other side of the execution chamber the warden watched tensely. The execution had gone reasonably smoothly, but it had not been an easy case.

  But he felt in some way surprised that it had come this far. Throughout the day, he had had this feeling that something was going to stop this execution from taking place, even after the temporary restraining order had been overturned.

  But in the end, it had gone ahead and in a few moments it would be all over.

  The hotline from the governor rang!

  The jolt it sent through the warden was sharper than a shock from an electric chair. After a momentary convulsion that was physical as well as psychological, he grabbed the phone.

  “San Quentin.”

  “It’s the governor! Pull the plug! He’s innocent.”

  “Shit!”

  Not waiting for anyone else to act, the warden leaped out of his chair to hit the abort button. As the significance of the action became apparent, the room erupted into pandemonium, with deputies spinning the wheel that opened the door to the execution chamber and another running in to rip the tubes out of Burrow’s arms. By this time, the chaos had spread to the spectators.

  00:08 PDT

  Alex Sedaka arrived in the reception area just as the spectators were being herded out. He had been allowed into the high security section because of his pass. But they had told him that he couldn’t go in to the spectator’s section because the procedure had already started. He had wanted to give Burrow some comfort in his last moments and he cursed himself for his lateness.

  But now the doors to the spectator’s section had been thrown open – somewhat earlier than expected – and people were positively charging out in a state bordering on hysteria. This was not the usual press stampede to phone in their stories. These people were in a state of shock – as if something untoward had happened.

  “What is it?” he asked frantically as one man barged past him.

  He had heard of things going wrong with executions before, although usually that was with the electric chair, like heads catching fire. With the old gas chamber it was usually frothing at the mouth and going into spasm.

  But this was a lethal injection procedure. The worst thing that could go wrong was the prisoner regaining consciousness before the other drugs had taken effect. And that was supposed to have been precluded by the new execution protocol that provided for a continuous dose of sodium thiopental while the other drugs were being administered.

  The hysteria all round him was such that he almost forgot his recent discovery, not to mention his concerns about Nat. But what he saw next brought it all flooding back to him. For the last person to emerge from the spectator’s room was Nat. He looked completely unfazed even as he walked up to Alex. There appeared to be not just an air of calm about him, but almost an air of relief, as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

  “We found Dorothy’s passport,” said Alex.

  Surprise flipped across Nat’s face, followed by fear … followed by a smug calm.

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes. And the picture of Esther when she was younger.”

  “And what conclusions have you drawn?”

  “I … I’m not sure. I know that you’ve had an obsession with this case for some time. And maybe even an obsession with the Olsen family. The passport shows that she went to England but never came back here or entered another country. ”

  “But you still don’t know what to make of it,” Nat taunted.

  “No.”

  “And presumably it was your burglar friend Lee who found the passport and picture?”

  “Yes. Lee.”

  “I should’ve guessed. I should have searched him.”

  “I also know about Dusenbury and Jimmy … and Jonathan.”

  Nat smiled.

  “You really have been doing your homework.”

  “But I still don’t understand the rest, what you did … the why and the wherefore.”

  “Does it really matter now? Isn’t it more important that the man who tormented Dorothy has finally got what he deserved?”

  “Do you mean Clayton Burrow or Edgar Olsen?”

  Nat shrugged.

  “Both, I guess.”

  “To be perfectly honest, Nat, that’s not what concerns me right now. What concerns me is you. I want to know what your interest in this case is.”

  “My … interest?”

  “Oh come on, let’s not play games, Nat. You badgered your way into my office, battering down my defenses with flattery. You set your sights on working for me and you made it happen. You went about it like a military campaign. You also made sure that I got the Clayton Burrow case. You were working with the Public Defender’s office and you got some con to recommend me to Burrow. Hell, I wouldn’t even be surprised if you persuaded the other law firm to drop the case.”

  “Oh no, that I didn’t do. That was just luck. They wanted out and I saw my opportunity. If they hadn’t dropped out, I’d’ve probably gone to work for them. Although I must confess I liked it a whole lot more this way – for reasons that should have figured out by now.”

  “Then perhaps you’d like to tell me.”

  “Well firstly, I liked the irony of defending the man who was found guilty of killing her.”

  “Except that he didn’t kill her, did he?”

  “No,” replied Nat, swallowing nervously. “I did.”

  00:09 PDT

  Juanita was waiting for the second page of the fax to come through. But there seemed to be a problem. The machine was making frantic noises like it was making valiant efforts to print the page, but it wasn’t happening. After a few more seconds, the machine fell silent and it flashed a message on the LCD display: “Black toner empty.”

  “Damn!” she cursed.

  She raced to the office supply cupboard and found another, angrily ripping the box open and tearing the wrapping off the cartridge. There was a frantic haste in her movements as she opened the fax machine and removed the old cartridge, tossed it aside, pulled off the tape that covered the flow-hole of the cartridge and slotted it into the machine.

  Then came the long wait for the machine to restart. The motor cranked to life and started huffing and puffing like an aging locomotive struggling up a high-grade track to the top of a hill. Even then it wasn’t over: the LCD display invited her to choose “Y” or “N” for whether she had changed each of the four cartridges. And even then, after more cranking and wheezing, the LCD announced: “Cleaning.”

  Every time! She thought to herself. Every fucking time!

  00:10 PDT

  “I had a feeling that you were going to say that,” said Alex, meeting Nat’s eyes unflinchingly. “I assume you were one of her classmates. I don’t remember your picture in the year book. Which one were you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Nat.

  “Is he dead?” asked one of the crowd of people, a reporter.

  “The doctor’s still checking.”

  “Why was it called off?” asked the reporter.

  “They got a call from the governor,” said another reporter.

  For a moment, Alex and Nat had got distracted by the exchange. But now they looked at each other again.

  “Okay,” said Alex. “I don’t need to know the minutiae now. But I want to understand why. Why did you kill her? What had she done to you?”

  “You really don’t get it, do you?” asked Nat with a sneer in his voice. “I was doing her a favor.”

  “A favor?”

  “Yeah, you know … like in that movie - They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”

  Alex was beginning to understand. “You wanted to put her out of her misery?”

  Nat nodded.

  “Think about it. An abusive father. An indifferent mother who turned a blind eye to what her father was doing to her. Bullying in school, not just at the hands of Clayton Burrow but most of her class. Burrow was just the ring leader, but how do you think the
rest of them reacted to a cross-dressing bull-dyke?”

  “So what was it? A mercy killing?”

  “You could call it that. I know that’s not a defense in law, but it’s the truth.”

  “But when did you do it?”

  “What do you mean, when?”

  “Well it wasn’t round about the time she vanished. We know that she went to London and had an abortion. We know that she never came back. You had her passport at your place and it didn’t have any exit stamp from England. What happened, Nat? Did you go over to England and kill her there?”

  “I had to. It was hard. To do something like that is never easy. But I had to. I finally killed her when she was over there.”

  “What do you mean ‘finally’? Had you been trying before?”

  “Oh, I’d been trying to kill her for a long time.”

  00:11 PDT

  Looking at the clock on the wall, Juanita was frantic. The fax machine was taking ages to go through its self-cleaning routine. She shifted uncomfortably, waiting for it to finish and start printing again.

  But what was the point? Looking at the clock on the wall, she realized that it was too late. Unless they had taken a long time reading out the warrant or Clayton had made a particularly long final statement, he had to be dead by now.

  While she waited, she remembered Jonathan’s call about his mother. She thought she should tell Alex. But when she called, it went straight to his voicemail. She decided to send him a quick, tersely-worded text.

  Finally the machine finished its routine, the chugging sound gave way to a rapid high-pitched whirring and the printing started up again.

  Juanita’s heart leaped into her mouth as she waited for the machine to spit out the next sheet of paper.

  00:12 PDT

  David had finally recovered the MP3 file. He wasn’t sure if the recovery process was bit perfect, but even if there were a few inaudible or distorted parts, they would still have the bulk of it.

  He had copied it over to a PC in the lab; now he had to run it and listen to it. But the PC didn’t have any speakers, it was built as a high-spec functional machine, not a games machine – so, although it had a sound card, it had no speakers.

  He wandered off in search of another computer that he could borrow. The trouble was, most of the offices were locked, making it impossible to check them out. The offices that were open told the same story: no speakers.

  Finally, on a hunch, he decided to check the drawers in some of the offices and labs that were open. He eventually found what he was looking for: a set of headphones.

  He raced back to the lab and plugged the speakers into the PC. Then he put them and played the MP3 file, listening to the voice of a girl who may or may not have been dead, addressing her daddy.

  00:13 PDT

  “How did you kill her?”

  “Slowly?”

  “I thought you said it was a mercy killing?”

  “Some things can’t be rushed.

  He was still facing Nat. In the background, several other people seemed to be taking an interest in them.

  “He’s dead!” said a reporter in the background.

  Alex and Nat half-turned.

  “Are you sure?” asked another.

  “Yeah, they’ve just confirmed it.”

  “Why did they try to halt it?”

  “The warrant was withdrawn.”

  “Procedural or substantive?”

  Some of the reporters were looking at Alex from a few yards away, as if hoping for a reaction from him.

  “God knows.”

  Alex, for his part, kept his eyes locked on Nat.

  “So what did you do with the body?”

  “I buried her.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere deep.”

  Nat hadn’t noticed the uniformed men who came up behind him, until Alex motioned to them with his eyes. When Nat did eventually look to his side he noticed them – a slightly fat older one of just below average height and a lean younger one, maybe two inches taller. They were wearing the uniform of Marin County Deputies.

  “Nathaniel Anderson?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have a warrant for your arrest for obstruction of justice.”

  One them flashed the warrant in front of him, while the other clamped his hand behind his back and handcuffed him. Nat offered no resistance and made no attempt to run. As he was about to be led away, he smiled at Alex.

  As Alex watched them leading Nat away, he switched his iPhone back on. As soon as it came on, a message came through. He looked at it. It was a message from Juanita.

  Had call from Jonathan. Esther Olsen died.

  As he walked out into the corridor toward the entrance area and the exit from the prison, Alex felt the pain in the pit of his stomach. He had been moved by the death of Clayton Burrow. But it was nothing compared to the gut-wrenching feeling that ripped at him now. This poor woman, who had wanted only to bring happiness to her daughter, had instead alienated the girl and lost her love forever. This woman who had tried to ease her husband’s pain and guilt as best she knew how, had lost him – and lost her daughter trying to keep him. This woman who had gone to unimaginable lengths to give her tormented husband a son, had lost the son’s affection and love. This woman who had sacrificed everything and let other people walk all over her for the sake of those she loved had died alone … unloved.

  He remembered what Nat had told him about how he had expressed himself so forcefully to Sally Burrow, criticizing her hands-off parenting technique that had left her son Clayton bereft of any sort of moral guidance. At the time, he had chided Nat – albeit mildly – for his loose tongue and lack of tact. But now when he thought about it again he realized that Nat was right – that there is a time to speak out and tell the other person what one really thinks of them … and why.

  He could still see Nat ahead of him, accompanied by the two county deputies, and was determined to have his say. He wanted Nat to know what he thought of him. It was a futile, fruitless gesture, but he was determined to go through with it.

  He hastened his steps, lengthening his stride to close down the distance between them. By the time he reached the entrance area, he had caught up with them. But he didn’t want a scene inside the prison gates. Instead he waited until the entrance security staff had let them out into the floodlit courtyard, where the two groups of demonstrators were still assembled, kept apart by lines of law enforcement officers. Then, as the deputies escorted Nat to the waiting police car, Alex strode up to them.

  Sensing his approach, all three turned to face him. The two cops bridled at his proximity. Only Nat remained calm.

  “I just want you to know that not only have you deprived an innocent man of his life, you’ve also deprived a mother of peace and resolution of her grief.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nat scoffed. “If Clayton was innocent, then he couldn’t have told her where the body was in any case.”

  “No, but you could.”

  “Maybe I still can.”

  “No, you can’t! Esther Olsen died half an hour ago.”

  Alex didn’t understand why of all the things he had said to Nat in this confrontation, this was the first thing to really touch him.

  There was an uncomfortable twitching on Nat’s face and then the man who had been so arrogant only moments before broke down in tears, crying like a baby, his nose running pathetically. The arresting officers looked embarrassed and the older one took pity on him and unlocked the handcuffs so that he could reach for his handkerchief, while the younger officer was opening the driver’s door.

  Removing the handcuffs was strictly against the rules, but Nat had been passive until now and his comparatively small size made him look unthreatening. But the cop had misread the situation. For in a second, Nathaniel’s grief had turned to rage. His knee shot out like lightning, catching the older officer square in the groin.

  But Nat wasn’t finished yet, for he followed up by r
eaching out to the officer’s belt, snapping open a press stud and yanking out a can of mace. The officer made a grab at it, but not in time to stop Nat letting off a burst that burnt his eyes and left him screaming.

  By this stage, the younger cop had reacted, hearing the commotion behind him. He turned but only in time to see the cloud of vapor shoot out from the can and into his face. As he spun away, closing his eyes against the searing pain, Nat jumped him, smashing his face down on the trunk of the car. With his field of vision populated by stars and his head spinning, he was powerless to resist when he felt Nat reaching for his holster and yanking out his gun. He slumped to the ground as Nat gripped the handle of the sidearm, effectively leaving the gun in Nat’s hands.

  Alex, who after a moment of stunned surprise had tried to help the older officer, turned to see what Nat was doing. He was just in time to see Nat swinging the gun in his direction. He realized in that moment that he still didn’t know what Nat’s motives had been and therefore what his current intentions were. For a split second he thought that he was doomed, as if Nat had some grievance with him too.

  But instead Nat just smiled.

  “We’re taking a ride.”

  “They’ll never let you get away with it. They’ll scramble a helicopter!”

  Nat took a step forward and brandished the gun in Alex’s face.

  “I said, let’s go.”

  And with that, he grabbed Alex’s arm and hustled him into the driver’s side of the police car. He zipped round and got in the other side, pointing the gun at Alex through the windshield to make sure that the lawyer didn’t get any smart ideas.

  The keys were in the ignition, where the young cop had just put them. But Alex hesitated.

  “Do you really want to do this, Nat?”

  Outside the car, the officers were on the ground and the prison guards had now reacted, some of them racing toward the car from the prison gates.