You Think You Know Me Pretty Well

by David Kessler

  “Do you think the latest info about Burrow getting canned elevates her as a suspect?”

  “Why should it?”

  “It kind of strengthens her motive, doesn’t it?”

  “Only if you buy it.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Clayton Burrow was the kind of kid who would probably have got canned from high school sooner or later, regardless of anything that Dorothy Olsen or her brother might’ve done.”

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t blame her … or that his mother didn’t blame her.”

  “No, but I’ve just met the woman and I can tell you that she doesn’t give too bits for her son or his education. There’s no way she would have killed for him. She’s a selfish woman. What’s that word Alex likes using? Narcissistic. She didn’t even notice what Clayton was turning into, when it was happening in front of her nose. When she finally did wake up and smell the coffee, it was only for long enough to resent the monster that she’d unleashed upon the world – almost like a latter-day Frankenstein.”

  “Will you quit with your literary comparisons?”

  Nat, she recalled, had a bachelor’s degree in English Literature.

  “What I mean is, everyone misunderstands Frankenstein. He wanted to create life, but he created something that he couldn’t love. The monster didn’t start out a monster. It started out as a creature with feelings that his creator couldn’t bring himself to love. And love was all the creature wanted. So the creature became a monster because he was starved of the love that he craved. I think it was the same with Burrow. It’s like that saying that Alex misquoted over the phone to you.”

  Juanita raised her eyebrows, quizzically.

  “Hell hath no fury,” Nat explained.

  “Oh, yeah. Everyone misquotes Shakespeare.”

  “Congreve actually. William Congreve. The full saying is ‘Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned. Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.’ But it isn’t just a woman. A man needs love too. And sometimes it’s harder for a man because he’s culturally indoctrinated not to show it.”

  “Are we still in English Lit class? Or have we moved on to Sociology 101?”

  “I’m just saying that monsters are created, not born. And it was Sally Burrow who created Clayton, both the boy and the monster. And all because she couldn’t love him.”

  Juanita had picked up on something in Nat’s words.

  “You feel sorry for him, don’t you?”

  “I don’t really know. It’s the old free will debate. At what point do we stop feeling sorry for the wrongdoer and start blaming him?”

  “And when do we?” asked Juanita as Nat brought in the coffee.

  Nat opened his mouth, but nothing came out. The issue wasn’t quite as straightforward as it sounded. After a second or two, he found his voice.

  “In the immortal words of that guy from Kung Fu: ‘I seek not to know all the answers…’”

  Juanita held up her right hand and put on a mock Chinese accent.

  “‘… but rather to understand the questions.’”

  They burst into childish laughter.

  “You may know your books,” said Juanita. “But I know my TV.”

  “In that case, you should remember that Kwai Chang Caine didn’t have a Chinese accent!”

  And with that, Nat scooped up his coffee and went to his small office. Juanita took a sip of her coffee and then put in a call to Esther Olsen. She introduced herself and quickly came to the point.

  “Look, one of the things we’ve found on the hard disk of Dorothy’s computer is a booking with an online travel agent. But some of the data is missing and we don’t know where it was to. I was wondering if you could help us out.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Mrs. Olsen?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  Juanita thought quickly. There had to be a way to get some more information.

  “In order to make an online booking one normally needs a credit or debit card. Do you know if your daughter had one?”

  “She had a debit card. She got it with her new bank account when she gained control of her trust fund from her grandfather. Jonathan did too.”

  “Do you, by any chance, have any of her old bank statements?”

  Again there was hesitation.

  “Er, no … she used to shred everything.”

  “You’re sure she didn’t leave anything or maybe forget to shred something?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okay, thank you.”

  Juanita put the handset down with the uneasy feeling that Esther Olsen was holding something back.

  13:51 PDT

  David opened the second button of his short-sleeved shirt against the sweltering heat. The air conditioning had broken down again and the early afternoon sun was getting to him. He wished he had worn a loose-fitting T-shirt. Hot weather didn’t agree with him – something Debbie used to tease him about when they were children. But right now he needed his concentration more than ever.

  He had already established that Dorothy had bought a ticket from a now defunct Mexican airline company, Quetzalcoatl Airlines. The receipt was from the EasySabre electronic booking system. And as he had told Juanita, the first company to offer self-service online booking through EasySabre was Compuserve Information Services.

  If Dorothy had a Compuserve account, then it might still have a record of the booking or a copy of the receipt. He also knew that CIS had been taken over by AOL in February, 1998, in a complex three-way deal. Because the Compuserve brand was still popular in its own right, it continued to function under AOL and so David knew that there was a chance that Dorothy’s account might still exist in some passive form even now.

  So after telling Juanita what he had discovered, he logged on to the Compuserve website and spent the better part of the next hour trying to track down and get into her account.

  The difficulty was how to find it. When Compuserve started out, they used ten digit numbers: six digits, then a comma, then four more digits. But then they had changed and allowed their customers to use a name followed by “@compuserve.com.” The trouble was that many customers had the same name, so they had to resort to letters and numbers. Thus one John Smith might become johnsmith@compuserve.com, but another might have to become johnsmith275@compuserve.com.

  He tried “dorothyolsen” as the user ID, reasoning that she’d be more likely to use her full name. But it didn’t offer him a password reminder. It simply flashed up a message that said “Invalid User ID.” He followed up with “dolsen,” but again drew a blank. Various others along those same lines followed, including both names backward and various name and number combinations like “dolsen1,” “dolsen01,” “DOlsen,” etc. But every time he was greeted by the same message: “Invalid User ID.”

  After a while he was cut off because of “too many attempts” and he had to log on from another computer. But the screen reply remained stubbornly the same.

  He took the opportunity to go out and get some sandwiches. But when he came back, all he could do was try more permutations of her name and random numbers, constantly having to break off when he found himself greeted by the “too many attempts” message.

  He knew that this was no way to go about it. His approach was about as unscientific as it could be. The trouble was, there was no mathematical solution. But there might just be a psychological one. He knew that if he was to make any progress, he was going to have to get inside Dorothy’s mind.

  14:08 PDT

  Juanita took a deep breath of fresh air as she left the building. She felt a bit guilty taking an outside lunch. There was still so much work to be done. But there was someone else covering the office, and they had reached an impasse. There was no point sitting round waiting for the phone to ring. Plus she was going stir-crazy. She needed a break from the confinement.

  So she made her way to the deli, grabbed a tray and stood in line. She looked round, wonde
ring what she was even doing there. It wasn’t hunger that had drawn her out of the office; it wasn’t even boredom. It was tension. But even tension wasn’t the right word. It was frustration – the frustration of trying to do a job and knowing that it was an uphill struggle. Fighting the good fight was all very well. But some battles are over before they’ve even begun.

  She took a Caesar salad and mineral water from the refrigerated unit and moved along the line to pay.

  As she carried her tray to her favorite table in the corner, she told herself that she wouldn’t be long.

  Favorite, she thought wryly. Normally she wouldn’t be eating here at all. She’d buy a take-out and eat it at her desk. But on this occasion the strain was too much and she’d needed a break.

  She played round with her salad, but hardly ate a bite.

  What she didn’t realize, in her self-absorbed state, was that through the plate glass window of the deli, she was being watched.

  14:13 PDT

  “I had a visit from Dorothy’s brother back at the office.”

  “Well whoop-de-do!” Burrow mocked. “And how is the wimp?”

  The look on Alex’s face was as neutral as a seasoned poker player. But Burrow seemed to realize that he’d overstepped the mark.

  “I’m sorry. I guess I shouldn’t make fun of him.”

  Had the sarcasm been a glimpse of the “old” Burrow coming through the camouflage, Alex wondered. Or was it just the tension and fear taking its toll on the condemned man?

  The prison guards had gone through the preliminaries even more quickly this time, or at least it had seemed that way to Alex. Just as well because Alex was working against the clock.

  “I was wondering why you singled out Dorothy. Was there any particular reason for it or was she just an easy target?”

  “Is there ever an easy target?”

  Burrow was looking down at his hands, clearly despondent.

  “I’ve seen pictures of her, you know. She wasn’t an ugly duckling.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Well it’s usually the ugly kids that get bullied.”

  “Yeah … usually.”

  “So why d’you pick on her? ‘Cause she was Jewish maybe?”

  Now Clayton looked up, smiling painfully, almost resentfully.

  “Come on, Alex, don’t give me that crock of shit. You’ve known me long enough.”

  “I’ve known you for six weeks! And that’s six weeks as you are now. God knows what you were like then.”

  “So what do you think? I’m some fuckin’ redneck?”

  “We haven’t got time to bullshit each other, Clayton, so I’ll spell it out to you. Yes, you are a fuckin’ redneck! Or at least were!”

  “Okay, you’re right! But I ain’t an anti-Semite … I guess it was… ‘cause she was a dyke.”

  Alex looked at him, surprised.

  Clayton shrugged guiltily. “These days I’d probably get a buzz out of it.”

  “So you’re a normal, red-blooded male,” replied Alex, going with the flow of the irony.

  “So now you know.”

  “So now I know,” the lawyer echoed. He paused for dramatic effect. “Well almost, but not quite.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well actually I do know. That is, I know that she got you kicked out of the school.”

  Clayton looked at him surprised.

  “I suppose Jonathan told you that?”

  “Exactly. But the important thing is that I know. And the even more important thing is that you didn’t tell me. How the fuck am I supposed to defend you if you hold out on me?”

  “Is it so important? I mean, you knew I bullied her in high school. Do the details really matter?”

  “Goddamn right they matter! You told me she framed you. But if she got you kicked out of high school why would she need to frame you? On the other hand it might explain why you killed her!”

  Burrow threw up his hands in mockery.

  “Okay… you got me. Now you can just write me off.”

  Alex was shaking his head wearily.

  “I’m not writing you off, Clayton. When Dusenbury made his offer I came running here to tell you. You’re the one who shot me down in flames.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. You wanted to know where Dorothy Olsen is. I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

  “I don’t like being lied to, Clayton.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Lying, holding out. It’s all the same! If you’re not straight with your lawyer, you can kiss your ass goodbye.”

  “Well it looks like I’m not the only person who’s been lying to you.”

  “And just what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means Dorothy Olsen didn’t get me canned. Her brother did.”

  14:19 PDT

  He had made sure not to catch the woman’s eye as he entered the deli. He lined up with his tray and ordered his hot pastrami on rye, realizing he’d have to be quick. Even though she had found a newspaper and was casually browsing it , she would soon finish her Caesar salad and leave. Then the opportunity would be lost.

  It seemed to take an eternity and he regretted asking for mustard, even though it only added a few extra seconds. While waiting in line at the checkout, he added a bottle of mango juice and then paid with a twenty. He dumped the change on the tray and swept off in the direction of the table in the corner.

  He wondered when she would notice him. She seemed so absorbed in her thoughts that maybe she wouldn’t. She had effectively screened out the background noise of the deli, so why should she look up now? Even when he reached the table, she seemed more absorbed in the newspaper than she was in the movement round her.

  “Is this place taken, Miss Cortez?”

  Juanita looked up.

  “Oh hi, Jonathan.”

  14:22 PDT

  David was frustrated by his lack of progress. Ordinarily, he would just take this sort of thing in his stride. Finding the right user ID was as much an art as a science. It called for both diligence and patience.

  But patience was a virtue only when the luxury of time was available. In this case, David knew, they were operating under a sparse chronological budget. They had less than ten hours before Burrow was scheduled to die.

  The worst part was that there was no guarantee that there was anything worth finding. But at least now he had something specific to look for. That was better than groping in complete darkness. The problem was that even if he could get the user ID, there was no guarantee that he would get the password. In the meantime, it was painstaking work. All he could do was keep trying.

  Fortunately, his father’s enthusiasm and tenacity were contagious. That was why David had skipped lunch to carry on working on this. This was, after all, an emergency. Only in this type of emergency there was no 911 number they could call to bail them out.

  Suddenly David was struck by an off-the-wall idea. He didn’t really place much hope in it, but he typed in “dorothyolsen911” and hit the enter key. Only this time, he didn’t get an “Incorrect User ID” message. Instead he was greeted by the words “Incorrect Password.”

  He selected the password reminder online option and found himself confronting a series of questions: “Date of Birth,” “Mother’s maiden name,” and “Name of High School.” He had already made sure that he had all this information. Once it was typed in, he found himself in Dorothy Olsen’s Compuserve account.

  14:28 PDT

  Nat was holding down the fort at the office.

  “Alex Sedaka’s office.”

  “Oh hi, this is David Sedaka. Could I speak to my father?”

  “He’s not in the office right now. Can I take a message?”

  “Is Juanita there?”

  “No, she isn’t. But I can take a message for her too.”

  “Is that Nat?”

  “Yes.”

  In the short time that Nat had been there, he had never actu
ally spoken to David. He knew that David was a few years younger than himself – twenty-four to his twenty-seven – but there was no time for pleasantries.

  “Okay, well, look,” said David, “do you know when he’s getting back? This could be important.”

  “Well he should be back within the hour, but you can call him on his cell.”

  “Maybe you could do that. I want to get back to the computer and see what else I can find. I have to leave the lab every time I need to make a call. Basically, just tell him that I’ve managed to log in to Dorothy Olsen’s old email account and I’ve found the EasySabre receipt.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “My sentiments exactly,” said David. “It shows that she booked a one-way flight from Mexico to Luton Airport in the UK. The booking was made on May 19, 1998 and the flight date was May 24 of that year – the day after she disappeared.”

  14:34 PDT

  “So how do you manage when there’s only three of you?”

  The crowd in the deli was thinning out, but Juanita and the young man were still engaged in earnest conversation.

  “We’re a small office. Sometimes even three’s a crowd.”

  “Yes, but I mean … in a case like this? One minute, you’re running up to DC to argue a motion before the Supreme Court, next minute you’re meeting the governor here in San Fran.”

  “That’s the way Alex likes to operate. At one time he didn’t have anyone, it was a one-man band. He did everything, research, interviews, drafting briefs, litigation.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s an individualist. He likes to run his own show.”

  “But isn’t it risky? I mean, what if something comes up and he needs to go back to the Capitol to get a ruling?”

  “We can go to the Federal District Court. But we’ve also got a partner firm on standby up in DC.”

  “But I thought Mr. Sedaka went there in person to argue the motion? He was on the TV outside the court afterward.”

  “Yes, he went there for that because that was the last-chance saloon as far as the court proceedings were concerned. But if anything new comes up that the District Court can’t or won’t handle, we’ve got another firm on standby to file a motion and even argue it if it’s called for.”