You Think You Know Me Pretty Well

by David Kessler

  He lifted his coffee cup out of the holder and took a single sip. Then he put the cup back down and looked round. Golden Gate Avenue looked normal, neither calm nor exceptionally busy. There was no sense of anything important going on twenty yards from where he sat.

  He stared at the lacquered, grainy wood of the dashboard, admiring its elegance. It was a trivial thought – but it helped to stave off the boredom … for a couple of minutes at least.

  The day was warm – not hot, just warm – hence his decision to take the jacket off. He tended to sweat in any sort of cumbersome clothing.

  Finally the Bluetooth earpiece crackled to life.

  “You know Mrs. Olsen, I presume.”

  “We’ve seen each other briefly,” Alex’s embarrassed voice came through the earpiece. “But we’ve never actually been introduced.”

  09:40 PDT

  Alex walked over awkwardly to the chair where Mrs. Olsen was sitting. He held his hand out toward her, not expecting her to rise. She took it limply and he made sure that his own handshake was suitably gentle.

  But when he opened his mouth, a polite “How do you do?” was all the lawyer could muster.

  What did you say in a situation like this? Do you belatedly express condolences for her bereavement? Apologize for the fact that you’re representing the man convicted of murdering her daughter? Or keep your own counsel and remain silent?

  For a few seconds he hovered, unsure of what to do next. The normal procedure was for the lawyer for the condemned man to meet the governor either alone or, more usually, with one of the governor’s staff present. But the sight of Mrs. Olsen in this room had thrown his entire game plan out the window.

  “Well sit down, sit down,” said the governor amiably, pointing to a chair.

  Alex shuffled awkwardly toward the vacant chair. He sat down and looked straight at the governor – anything to avoid meeting Mrs. Olsen’s unforgiving eyes. Dusenbury spoke again.

  “I’ve been following the Burrow case closely. I was most impressed by your work.”

  “Most of the work was already done. I only came in on it six weeks ago.”

  Dusenbury, Alex remembered, was a lawyer by training, and by all accounts a wily old bastard.

  “Well all I can say is that you’ve been pretty busy in those six weeks,” said Dusenbury. “If the press reports are anything to go by.”

  “Mr. Governor – ”

  “Chuck,” the governor interrupted. “Everybody calls me Chuck.”

  “Sir…” He couldn’t bring himself to address this man as Chuck. “I know this is going to sound rather rude, but I was expecting this to be a meeting in which I could plead the case for clemency for my client. This isn’t usually the way it’s done.”

  Alex gave Mrs. Olsen a quick glance to make sure that she hadn’t taken offense at his remark. Her eyes remained neutral, but there was the merest hint of a nervous smile, as if she were reaching out to him in a way that he couldn’t understand.

  “I know, son, I know,” the governor responded. “But this is an unusual case, ain’t it?”

  Alex couldn’t argue with that.

  “I’ll put it to you real simple,” said the governor. “The reason Mrs. Olsen is here is because she’s asked me to offer your client clemency.”

  09:43 PDT

  There are things I have done in my life that I’m not proud of. There were things I shouldn’t have done. I was a product of my upbringing. I wasn’t always taught right from wrong. And I was taught to hate people for things they had no control over or for things that I thought were bad because that’s the way I was brought up.

  But whatever wrongs I am guilty of, murder is not one of them. I may have been a bully in my youth, but I was never a murderer. Dorothy Olsen suffered at the hands of many people, myself included. But I did not kill her.

  Clayton Burrow stopped writing and put the pen down, his hand aching. He opened and closed the hand several times to alleviate the cramp. But it was nothing compared to the pain inside: pain … fear … guilt? He didn’t really know. He just had this constant urge to cry. He wouldn’t do so of course – at least not now. Crying was unmanly and, with a prison guard stationed outside his cell twenty-four hours a day, he wasn’t going to let the bastards see him broken. But at night, when the lights were dimmed (they never switched them off altogether on death row) he would bury his face in his pillow and give in to the weakness that he managed to hide from others in the light of day.

  He looked down at the letter and scanned the words. At the time of writing, it had felt like the right thing to say and the right time to say it. But re-reading his words now, all he could think was how pathetic it all sounded. This was to be his final letter, to be read out before his execution. Or was it? Maybe it was to be his final plea for clemency to the state governor. Maybe it was to be his letter to Mrs. Olsen if his request for clemency was granted. He wasn’t really sure.

  Was it meant to be a letter of appeasement or a letter of defiance … an apology or a denial? What did he want to write? He didn’t even know that. All he knew was that he was feeling bitter and angry … and afraid … and …

  Alone.

  That was the worst part. In all his twenty-seven – nearly twenty-eight – years on this earth, he had always been one to surround himself with friends. Or perhaps “cronies” was a better word. He liked to surround himself with people who cheered him on and told him he was an okay guy. Never a great athlete, he was nonetheless a good one, with a muscular build, defined rather than developed. He was also blessed with a smooth, “golden boy” handsome face that belied his rather spiteful nature. And he had enough puerile wit and energetic sporting prowess to be popular with the girls and the guys alike. He was always on the right side in the high school clique, always with the majority in any lynch-mob situation, always in with the in-crowd rather than the geek or freak on the butt end of the bullying – be it verbal or physical.

  He was very rarely alone. And that meant a lot to him. It meant more than he ever realized, because he was actually quite afraid of being alone. But he never knew this until he found himself in a situation in which he was unable to avoid it. Throughout his happy, time-wasting, fun-loving years at high school, he had never even had to think about it. Because he was never alone, he never knew how badly it would affect him when he was.

  Looking back on it now, he probably had an inbuilt defense mechanism against solitude. Whenever he was alone he would rush to find human company. He was always the first to stride up to a friend or a group and stick his face into the conversation. He was always the one to approach the new kid in the class and size them up as friend or foe: friend to be used as a sounding board, foe to be bullied, or at least harassed.

  Even in his own home he avoided solitude. He was an only child, but he always had friends over for sleepovers. More often than that, he slept over at friend’s places. He preferred that because he was embarrassed by his mother. He didn’t know who his father was – neither did his mother.

  Now, he had to dwell in solitude for the first time in his life, he had to confront his fears. And this was a young man who had never known fear before.

  But his fear of solitude – the fear that had always been there but that he had concealed from himself for so long – was now confronting him like an inner demon who would let him have no peace.

  His mother didn’t visit. She had written him out of her life. And his old school friends – the ones whose lives he had brightened up with his antics – seemed to have no desire to share a moment’s company with their fallen idol.

  But it wasn’t solitude as such that he feared. Solitude merely opened the door to his own personal Room 101 – that secret, terrifying inner chamber where one’s worst fears become a reality. It forced him to engage in introspection. And it was introspection that he feared the most. Human company had merely been a way to stave off the need to look inside himself at the miserable squalor of his own soul. But stripped of that shield, intro
spection was all he had. Now at last, in the deafening silence of solitude and living under the shadow of death, he had to take a look at himself for what he really was.

  And he didn’t like what he saw.

  He saw a man who had wasted every opportunity that had presented itself. He saw a man who had been needlessly cruel toward the weak. He saw a man who had achieved popularity with the mob at the expense of the frail and the vulnerable.

  But most of all he saw a man who had no chance to redeem himself.

  He knew that Dorothy Olsen must also have had inner demons, probably far worse than his. But he had just trampled all over her. And for what? For some cheap puerile thrills that meant nothing to him now.

  He wished he could have his life over again. He wished he could have those moments back so that he could make wiser – and kinder – decisions. But God grants no second chances … if there even was a God.

  He looked down at the letter and realized how little it really said – how little of what he really wanted to say.

  Seized by anger, he picked up the letter and ripped it to shreds.

  Through the bars, the cell guard watched with an implacably neutral look on his face.

  09:45 PDT

  Alex sat there in stunned silence. Whatever he had expected, it had not been this. Clemency? Before he had even put his well-rehearsed arguments? And the mother of the victim had specifically requested it.

  Then reality kicked in.

  “She’s asked me to offer your client clemency.”

  The words had been chosen very carefully.

  “When you say ‘asked you’,” Alex said cautiously, “does that mean you haven’t decided yet?”

  “You know my views on the death penalty.”

  “Yes, sir, I do. And I’ve always respected your courage in taking that position.”

  He regretted saying this as soon as the words were out of his mouth. It sounded sycophantic, and the governor was too shrewd a politician not to see right through it.

  “And you also know that I’m pretty much my own man, especially now that I’m quitting politics.”

  Alex nodded. Like many others, he wasn’t quite sure if he believed this, but now was hardly the time to give voice to his skepticism.

  “Nevertheless, it would be inappropriate for me to set myself up against the will of the legislature and the courts.”

  Alex panicked at the thought of this opportunity already slipping away.

  “But you said – ”

  “Unless … there was some compelling reason. You see, son, even though I have the luxury of being able to ignore public opinion, I believe that I have a duty at least to respect it. Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson: ‘a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them’. The people who elected me may not agree with my decision. But I owe it to them at least to explain it to them. History will judge me harshly if I fail in my duty to put my reasons on record – and those reasons had better be good.”

  Alex took a deep breath and regained his composure, trying to read the governor. He wasn’t sure if the governor was really thinking about his place in history. But now was not the time to get diverted down a blind alley of speculation over his motives. Dusenbury was throwing him a lifeline – or at least waving it in his face. That was all that mattered.

  “So you need reasons,” Alex edged forward hesitantly. “And as yet you haven’t got them.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you want me to supply them.”

  “No, I want your client to supply them.”

  Alex was beginning to understand.

  “Is that why you said ‘offer’ my client clemency … rather than ‘give’?”

  Dusenbury smiled.

  “You picked up on that real quick. That’s just what it is, son: an offer.”

  “So presumably,” Alex pressed on, “there’s a quid pro quo?”

  09:48 PDT (17:48 British Summer Time)

  The clinic was quiet as the late afternoon melted into early evening. But the spacious TV room, with its well-scrubbed pale blue walls and clean gray leather furniture, was sufficiently sound-proofed and isolated from the wards to have the TV on. They had it on all day and all night. The nurses on night duty especially liked to take short coffee breaks there, flopping down on the armchairs and watching late-night TV. They preferred the all-night news stations – British or American – to the late-night quizzes and casinos, which were little more than premium line rip-offs.

  Susan White, a middle-aged nurse of the “old” school, flopped down in front of the TV with a cup of coffee and started skimming through the channels, trying to catch up on the news. While surfing, she caught the tail end of a report about a clinic in America being picketed by hordes of anti-abortionists, or “pro-lifers” as they liked to call themselves, and realized how lucky she was to be here in Britain.

  She liked her coffee strong but milky and the machine never quite got it right. She also liked it sugary, and that the machine usually did get that right. It was often hard for her to get a coffee break, even though she was entitled to three per shift, because the other nurses frequently came to her with their problems, both personal and professional. So she made sure to get her caffeine fix before her shift started.

  Using the remote, she turned the sound down, mindful of the fact that at this time most of the in-patients were sleeping. On the screen, a well-groomed, thirty-something woman, with somewhat underplayed oriental looks, was talking to the camera. She was wearing a smart blue suit, with a mid-length skirt and slightly tight jacket, designed to emphasize her firm, athletic figure, without over-emphasizing it.

  But then a face came on that caught Susan’s attention. A photograph of a young woman, almost like a mug shot. Susan felt an uneasy stirring as her eyes focused on the screen.

  She picked up the remote and turned up the volume. The voiceover of an American female reporter could be heard. It was one of those generic, female anchorwoman voices, the kind that all sound alike, the trained confident voice that always carries a trace of sarcasm or bitchiness, but only the merest hint. Or maybe it was just the hard edge that was required to make it in what once had been a man’s world.

  “Dorothy Olsen never had a happy life. She was bullied at school, her parents broke up when she was in her teens and she never had any real friends. Just over nine years ago, on May 23, 1998 – the day of her high school prom – Dorothy Olsen disappeared, never to be seen again.”

  The picture changed to that of a man whom the nurse didn’t recognize. This one was definitely a mug shot.

  “Clayton Burrow is the man convicted of murdering Dorothy Olsen. At the time she first disappeared, she was classified as a missing person. It was widely assumed that the harsh treatment she received at the hands of her classmates, which drew comparisons with Stephen King’s famous novel Carrie, prompted her to run away. There was speculation that she had committed suicide, although no body was ever found.”

  Susan White raised the Styrofoam coffee cup to her lips with a growing sense of unease. The picture of Burrow disappeared, to be replaced by the reporter.

  “Foxy news” was how one of the young male nurses had described it, whenever he saw her. The joke was wearing thin now.

  In the background, the grim, bland entrance to San Quentin State Prison was visible.

  “However,” the reporter continued, “all that changed just under eight years ago, on October 19, 1999, when the police, acting on an anonymous call, found parts of Dorothy Olsen’s body in Clayton Burrow’s freezer. They also found other incriminating evidence hidden under the floorboards, which Burrow was unable to explain, such as a blood-stained knife with Burrow’s fingerprints and blood-stained panties with semen traces. DNA matched the semen to Clayton Burrow and the blood to Dorothy Olsen. There was also evidence that Dorothy Olsen had bought some expensive jewelry with money from her trust fund shortly before she disappeared. But none of it
has ever been found.”

  Nurse White felt something wet and hot on her wrist and fingers. She realized that her hand was shaking and she had spilt the coffee. She put the cup down and wiped the front of her uniform. But she didn’t take her eyes off the screen.

  “Despite his protests of innocence, Burrow was unable to explain away the evidence against him and, on February 20, 2001, he was found guilty of murder with special circumstances. Just over a week later he was sentenced to death. Now he is scheduled to die in just over fourteen hours. Martine Yin, Eyewitness News, San Quentin.”

  Susan White gripped the arms of the chair tensely, her heartbeat picking up speed.

  9:50 PDT

  “As you say, Alex, a quid pro quo.” Dusenbury turned to Mrs. Olsen. “Esther, maybe you’d like to explain.”

  Esther Olsen sat up slowly. It was a struggle, but she forced herself. Alex sensed her difficulty as he watched her painful movements. He adjusted his chair to face her, moving slightly to make it easier for her to look at him.

  “Mr. Sedaka,” – her voice was shaky – “I do not know you, but you are a good man. At least, I have been told that you are a good man.”

  Alex nodded. There was not much he could say really. To agree would sound conceited; to disagree, ungracious. In any case that was clearly just the preamble to what she wanted to say.

  “I know that you only came in on this case recently and I know that you have a duty to help your client.”

  Again he nodded, trying to make it reassuring. Whatever she was about to say, he knew that it must be painful. It must have cost her a hell of a lot to reach the decision to ask the governor to grant clemency to the man who had murdered her daughter.

  “Mr. Sedaka, in Hebrew your name means both ‘charity’ and ‘righteousness’ and I hope those are ideals that you live up to.”