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

by David Kessler

  “I’m so … sorry. I wish…”

  He trailed off. It was foolish to wish. You can’t take back what’s already happened. Life doesn’t offer many second chances.

  And he knew that in life – once you make a choice at the fork in the road – you can never go back. He had learned that from Melody – and Nat had learned it from just about every major event in his troubled, painful life.

  But the other thing that Alex had learned was that if it’s a mistake to make a snap decision on what to do, it’s an even bigger mistake to rush to judgement over a fellow human being.

  “There’s one thing I still don’t understand. You didn’t just get me to take on the Clayton Burrow case. You badgered your way into my office before that … before I got the case. Why did you do that? Why didn’t you just try to get a job with the law firm that already had the case? They were a much bigger law firm. They were more likely to have a vacant position. Did you try them as well? Didn’t they have a vacancy? Or did you mailshot a load of firms and just strike it lucky with me?”

  Through his tears, Nat turned slightly in Alex’s direction and opened his mouth to speak.

  Then it happened.

  Alex was at the curve that overlooked Gull Rock. He had to make a sharp right turn to take him away from the cliff face and then a hairpin turn to the left to take him back to the cliff face, which was shallower from then on.

  But he never even made it to the hairpin turn. It may have been the tires. It may have been oil on the road. But when he made the sharp right turn he lost control of the car and it skidded off the road and onto a steep decline. At this point, the cliff was bare of foliage that might offer traction or friction.

  Nat screamed, while Alex struggled frantically to regain control as he saw the car heading for that sheer drop onto the rocks below. Somehow he managed to hold it together for a split second, so they missed the sheer drop.

  They skidded sideways onto a slightly shallower drop where some foliage offered a trace of resistance, but then the car bounced and started tumbling sideways down into a steep gully, bouncing every time the roof or wheels hit the foliage beneath them.

  Their seat belts held them in place but, even before they hit the bottom, Alex could see blood oozing from Nat’s head from the impacts.

  And then – completely inverted – they hit rock bottom amid a shattering of glass. The rocks and the ocean waves lapping away at them and water flooding into the vehicle.

  Alex looked round and saw in the dim light that Nat was unconscious, or at least dazed into that semi-conscious twilight world that made even the most basic life-preserving actions impossible.

  He quickly unfastened his own seat belt, falling out of his seat in the process and then frantically struggled to unfasten Nat’s. He caught Nat to stop him falling and hitting his head. Then it was an even more frantic struggle to open a door and effect an escape before they were fully submerged. He would have preferred to get out through the driver’s door, on the side closest to the rocks, where there was still a thin sliver of land to offer them temporary safety. But it would have been hard to pull Nat past the steering wheel.

  He considered getting out on the driver’s side and then swimming round to the passenger side to rescue Nat. But he wasn’t sure if he would make it. And the thought of leaving Nat, even temporarily, seemed like cowardice. So instead he leaned past Nat, opened the door and then pushed Nat out, following immediately.

  In the rough waves of the Pacific Ocean, he couldn’t tell if the tide was coming in or going out. But he knew that he had to get himself and Nat onto the rock-strewn foot of the cliff as quickly as possible. The water was still shallow enough to stand in and keep his chin above water. But he didn’t know how long it would stay that way and the waves were too rough to keep his balance for long.

  So he got behind Nat, held him and leaned back into the classic life-saving position, kicking to propel himself round the car and toward the sliver of land at the foot of the cliff that offered their only hope of salvation. He noticed a stirring in his arms and he realized that Nat was regaining consciousness.

  Then an almighty wave swept them onto the precious strip of land, Alex’s back crashing into the wall of the cliff with some considerable force. He realized that nothing was broken, but realized too that he had been lucky. For an instant he let go of Nat to rub his back and soothe the pain. But then, as Nat pulled himself up onto a rock and struggled to his feet in a state bordering on sleepwalking, the undertow took hold. While Alex in his half-seated position close to the cliff face was able to hold his position, Nat, who was standing a yard or so further out, was caught by the undertow and swept off his feet. Before he was able to grab on to the rock that he had used to get into a standing position, he was dragged out to sea.

  He screamed again as he twisted his body to face Alex and reached out with his arms like a child desperate to be held. And despite the dim light, Alex was able to discern that the look of fear in Nat’s eyes was also like that of a child.

  Or was it a look of sadness?

  Whatever it was, it remained frozen in Alex’s memory as the tidal current – evidently going out – pulled Nat away from him.

  He didn’t see Nat go under at any time. All he saw was a head bobbing up and down on the turbulent surface, drifting further and further away. And all he heard was a voice crying out indiscernibly from the distance.

  09:55 PDT

  It wasn’t Melody. It wasn’t his wife whose beautiful face smiled down at him when he opened his eyes.

  But it was another beautiful angel.

  He didn’t know her name. But she had a young, innocent, fresh face and the clear complexion of one who has a long life ahead of her and everything to live for.

  Is this heaven?

  Was she his guide to paradise?

  He wanted to ask her. But he didn’t trust his mouth to speak.

  Then he felt a plastercast on his leg and he realized that he wasn’t in heaven. He was in a hospital. They had saved him.

  Someone had saved him.

  He couldn’t remember. He remembered the car crash and the waves – and he remembered trying to save Nat. But that was all. After that it was a blank.

  “Mr. Sedaka.”

  Alex nodded weakly.

  “There’s someone who’d like to have word with you.”

  Alex was confused, but not frightened. After everything he’d been through yesterday, there was very little that could frighten him.

  He nodded, still weak, but gaining strength.

  He felt the upper half of his body being raised.

  I’m being raised from the dead like a Freemason, he thought, with ironic humor. Eventually a man came into view. It took a few seconds for Alex’s eyes to refocus on the face of the man who stood further back than the nurse. But there was no mistaking that ample girth.

  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.

  H
ow 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.

  Dorothy’s Poem

  (with apologies to Sylvia Plath)

  I cannot be, can never be

  What I thought you wanted me

  To be, to be, or so it seemed

  When I didn’t understand

  What a fool I was, tee hee

  Daddy, I know I am guilty

  Though someone killed you first

  I killed you as surely as if

  I had pulled the trigger myself

  Bang Bang! All over

  And now I have to cross the Atlantic

  Because I have to flee

  Across the ocean, safe and sound

  To where they’ll never find me

  You see

  I never knew much about

  The little boy you had before me

  The son who died

  The one you loved so much

  That you couldn’t let him go

  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

  I tried to ask you when I was older

  Tiptoeing delicately round the subject

  But you gave me a look that warned me off

  And I knew so well already

  The anger you were capable of

  But it was that poor dead toddler

  Who cast a pall over me

  A lightning rod for your anger

  I started trying to be a he

  I thought you wanted a he

  Just act like a boy, that’s what Mom suggested

  And that would make you happy

  It would give you back the thing you had lost

  The son you always wanted back

  We thought that you wanted a he

  But all these efforts to win your love

  They only backfired on me

  They brought out your suppressed guilt

  And your latent misery

  Killer, Killer, that’s what you are!

  Not by malice but by reckless disregard

  Then covering it up like a bully

  With a wall of anger against others

  As if they were to blame

  So you could feel less guilty

  You dragged me before the mirror

  And ripped the clothes
off of me

  Forcing me to face the fact

  That I am not, that I am not

  The thing that you want me to be

  You crushed the hope out of me

  Not in cold blood, but angrily

  And only when you died

  Did I resolve the mystery

  Of your vicious assault on my dignity

  Because I was too young to understand

  You were only trying to set me free

  You didn’t really want to change me

  You wanted an alternative reality

  You wanted to turn back the clock

  And resurrect a child of three

  But I saw things differently

  My needs were shaped more selfishly

  I had to escape my cell, I had to escape my shell

  And find my own path to liberty

  Now I must kill the little girl I used to be

  But that won’t be the end of me

  Like some shapeshifting creature

  Like Fantomas, like the Phoenix

  I’ll be reborn in the flames

  I cannot slay my inner demons

  For they are stronger than me

  So instead, I will bury them deeply

  Lay them to rest subconsciously

  Daddy, Daddy, only then will I be free

  Afterword

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