You Think You Know Me Pretty Well aka Mercy (36 page)

“Why would it take her six weeks?”

“Oh she would’ve suspected before, Jonathan. But she was probably in denial. May 16 is round about the time she would have finally realized.”

“And what if it was?” asked Jonathan slowly.

“And we know that she had an abortion. So maybe she was talking to you about her
intention
to have an abortion.”

“Again,” said Jonathan irritably, “so what?”

“Well she had the abortion in England. So if she talked to you about the pregnancy and having an abortion – and if she
had the abortion in England
– then don’t you think that would suggest that she probably
talked
to you about going to England for the abortion?”

Jonathan opened his mouth to speak. But no words came out. He looked away, unwilling to meet Alex’s eye.

“You see, Jonathan, I’m not trying to corner you into an admission that you knew what Dorothy was planning – although I think you did. But the thing that has me puzzled is
why
she went to England for an abortion. Why not have it done right here?”

Jonathan finally turned to look at Alex.

“And is that just a question? Or do you have some sort of an answer in mind?”

“Well she booked the ticket right after her father blew his brains out. And then there’s the whole question of who she blamed for her pregnancy.”

“Well I think that, at least, should be obvious,” Jonathan sneered.

“Oh I’m not doubting for a minute that Clayton Burrow got her pregnant. But the question isn’t who made her pregnant, but rather who she
thought
was responsible at the time. And remember, Clayton Burrow raped her
once
. What are the chances of getting her pregnant with one shot?”

Alex studied Jonathan for a reaction. But there was none. He pressed on.

“And then there’s another thing: we’ve found some files on Dorothy’s computer that suggests some resentment toward her father. I told you about that reference to him ‘ripping the clothes’ off of her, didn’t I? So could it be that Clayton wasn’t the only one who forced himself physically on Dorothy? Could it be that her father
routinely
forced himself on her?”

There was a ghost of a smile on Jonathan’s face. But it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. Alex continued.

“Dorothy was estranged from both her mother and her … and Edgar Olsen. You told me at our first meeting that Dorothy got a raw deal. When I asked you to elaborate on this all you said was that there are sins of commission and sins of
omission.
Could one of those sins of omission be a mother turning a blind eye to a husband’s sexual abuse of her daughter?”

“You got any more theories?”

Alex knew that he was playing a dangerous game. Jonathan may not have been violent in the past, but he had zapped him with a taser just now and he had him handcuffed to the radiator.

“Well all of this leads to the question of whether Dorothy believed that it was her father who got her pregnant. And that in turn leads to the question of how she might have reacted to that belief.”

“You think, after years of abuse, she suddenly took it into her head to get revenge?”

“This wasn’t just abuse. Now she was pregnant, remember. A whole different ball game. And it certainly must have thrown her hormones out of whack.”

“Let’s say it’s true. So what? What are you here for? And what does it have to do with Clayton Burrow? You can’t say that my father killed Dorothy, because he died before she did. So it’s a nice theory, but it doesn’t really add up to a hill of beans as they say.”

“No, not in itself. But it would explain a number of things. For example, why did Dorothy go to London to have an abortion? Possibly to get away from the US before she got arrested for murder. Even if they eventually decided that Edgar’s death was suicide, she wasn’t to know that at the time. Those evidence technicians are very good at recognizing when a crime scene has been staged. Maybe she panicked and fled.”

“You said it explains a number of things,” said Jonathan. “That’s only one.”

“Well, then there’s the money. She paid the London clinic forty thousand pounds. That’s a sizeable chunk of her inheritance. Why would she do that? Could it be that they found out what she had done and started blackmailing her?”

“A clinic? Blackmailing someone?”

“Maybe not the clinic itself. Maybe someone on the staff using the clinic as a conduit for the money.”

Alex was staring at Jonathan, still waiting for a reaction. Finally Jonathan smiled.

“It’s a very interesting theory, but there’s just one problem: you’ve got it backward.”

22:11 PDT

Lee Kelly had stayed silent throughout the drive to the police station. It was not like him to get caught doing a job, but to get caught twice in one day was particularly embarrassing. However, it wasn’t professional pride he was worried about. It was prison.

This was a domestic burglary – and they were taken much more seriously. The fact that he did it while out on bail made it all the more grave.

But there was more to it than that. The person whose house he was breaking into was that of his own lawyer’s legal intern, Would that fact come up in the case? And the reason he was doing it was because Alex had asked him to. He was not supposed to breathe a word of this to anyone. It could get Alex disbarred. But was he to think about himself first, or his lawyer? If he kept quiet, could Alex save him? Could Alex keep him out of prison? Would the truth come out in spite of his silence? Did Nat realize the connection?

As they searched him they found the passport – Dorothy’s passport. But the overworked cop at the desk didn’t even bother to look inside it. He just logged it as “US passport” and bagged it along with everything else in Lee’s possession and marked the evidence bag. The only job of the custody officer was to secure the prisoner and inventory the items in his possession at the time of arrest and bag them up and store them until he was released. It was up to the assigned case officers to investigate.

Of course, Lee knew that they might look at it later. But the risk was small. Would Nat tell the police about it? Would he even know it was gone? Nat had seen Lee trying to flee empty-handed. Would he even realize what Lee was there for?

The custody officer had also found the picture of the young woman. He was about to bag it up with the rest of Lee’s possessions when Lee spoke.

“Can I keep that? It’s my mother.”

The custody officer looked at the picture and then back at Lee skeptically. This man was born in the fifties. The picture was in color and looked like it was more recent than that
-
and it was of a young woman. If it had been this man’s mother when she was young, he would have expected it to be an old black and white picture. But still…

“You’re not supposed to have anything on you other than the clothes on your back when you’re in the lock-up – just in case you try and harm someone, or yourself.”

Lee mouthed the word “please,” and gave the custody officer his most pitiful look.

“Well … okay then.”

The custody officer gave it back and Lee quickly put it away.

“Thank you. Look, would it be all right if I called my lawyer now?”

22:14 PDT

“What do you mean I’ve got it backward?”

They were sitting there eyeball to eyeball. Jonathan had the height advantage sitting on the bed whereas Alex was on the floor. But Alex did not feel as if he were at a disadvantage. It was Jonathan who was angry. It was Jonathan who was afraid.

“Dorothy never thought Edgar got her pregnant. He wasn’t even her father.”

“She
knew
that?”

“Of course she knew it!”

“And what else did she know?”

“She knew that it was Clayton Burrow who got her pregnant.”

“How could she have been so sure?”

He was wondering if Jonathan was going to say that she knew Edgar Olsen was sterile.

“Because my father didn’t touch her! I mean, not sexually.”

This caught Alex by surprise.

“According to that poem we found, he ripped the clothes off of her.”

“There’s more than one way to abuse a person. He didn’t abuse her physically. He abused her psychologically.”

“Ripping her clothes off doesn’t exactly sound like purely
psychological
abuse.”

“He only did that once, in a moment of rage. Basically he just snapped because she was flaunting her sexuality in front of him.”

“Okay, so he didn’t sexually assault her. So what
did
happen? She found out that she was pregnant and you say she blamed Clayton Burrow. But Burrow didn’t die the very next day. Edgar Olsen did!”

“How do you know?” asked Jonathan, fear now in his voice.

“Because your mother heard you talking about it on the 16
^th
May. Edgar Olsen died on the 17
^th
.”

Jonathan lowered his head. He appeared to be going through some inner turmoil. Finally he raised his head, dry eyed, but with a hardened expression on his face.

“Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s true, Dorothy came to me on the 16
^th
when she finally realized she was pregnant. I’d known something was up before then because of the way she was acting. But that was when she finally told me – about the rape and about the pregnancy. She’d only just found out for sure that she was pregnant, although she’d suspected it for some time. I tried to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. There was nothing I could say. She was both afraid and angry – afraid because she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about the baby and angry with Burrow at what he had done. She must have brooded about it all night, because the following day she decided to kill him.”

“To kill him?”

“Yes.”

“To kill
Burrow
?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“With my father’s gun.”

“And what? She went to Edgar’s place to get his gun and he caught her?”

“No, not exactly. You see, my father bought the gun way back in the eighties when there were all those crime scares. But by the late nineties crime was going down and he more or less forgot about the gun. So it just sat there at the back of the closet at our house.”

“Wait a minute. I thought he was no longer living at the house?”

“That’s right, he wasn’t. He’d moved out into a condo. But he didn’t take all his stuff with him. I mean, he took the important stuff, but he didn’t go through everything.”

“And one of the things he left behind was the gun?”

“Like I said, things had changed. I guess he wasn’t so paranoid by then. Or maybe he just forgot it ‘cause it was at the back of a closet. At any rate, for whatever reason, he didn’t take it.”

“And Dorothy found it?”

“Found it. Looked for it. Knew it was there. Whatever. The following day she came to my room with the gun and told me she was going to kill Burrow.”

“So what made her kill your father instead?”

“Did I say she did?”

“Well he died, didn’t he? And the cause of death was gunshot wounds from his own gun. Or are you going to tell me that it
really was
suicide?”

“I wanted to stop her.”

“What?”

“I didn’t want her to do it.”

“Why not? You hated Burrow. He beat the crap out of you. And now he’d raped your sister.”

“I didn’t give a shit about Burrow! But I didn’t want Dorothy to get into trouble for it. I may have only been a kid but I knew that people who commit crimes like that usually get caught. Rape you can get away with because rapists can always say the girl consented. But amateur murderers usually get caught. And she was an amateur. I knew that if she killed him she’d get caught.”

“And what? You thought you could do it and get away with it?”

“Hell, no! I knew that with my luck I’d’ve botched it big time. I may have been a bit hot-headed but I knew my limitations.”

“So what did you do?

“I persuaded her to give me the gun. I told her that we should think about it and plan it properly. I was going to put it back.”

“But you didn’t put it back, did you?”

“Not back in
our
house, no. You see, I knew that if I put it back in the closet or wherever – the way she was feeling – she might take it again and kill him and get caught. So I decided to take it to my dad’s place.”

“And what? Just give it to him without an explanation?”

“I didn’t exactly have a clear plan. I just knew I had to get the gun out of the way – to stop Dorothy using it. When I got to his place, I told him I missed him and wanted to see him. He invited me in. He was usually happy to see me. He never treated me badly the way he did with Dorothy. Then, when he went to the bathroom, I crept into his bedroom and tried to hide the gun in a closet there. But he caught me and demanded to know what I was doing. He accused me of snooping. He could do that, you know, go from being friendly one minute to being angry the next. He didn’t usually do that with me, but he did with Dorothy and he knew that Dorothy and I were close. Then he saw the gun.”