Mercy

“Yes.”

“And Clayton Burrow?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, now look at the senior year pictures in the 1998 yearbook.”

“Okay,” she said, by now sounding really bored.

“Do you see Dorothy?”

“And Toto,” she said, snorting her laughter though her nose.

Alex ignored her.

“Do you see Clayton Burrow?”

“Ye-” She broke off and surveyed the spread of pictures more carefully. “Er, no, actually I don’t. Unless he had a temporary face transplant.”

“So what does that tell you?”

“That he was away on yearbook day?”

“He’d’ve had a second chance on ‘make-up’ day.”

“Maybe he was away then too.”

“Then they’d’ve listed him and put ‘No photo available’, wouldn’t they?”

“I guess.”

“So what does that tell us?”

She looked at him puzzled.

“I don’t know.”

“It tells us that he wasn’t there.”

“But like you said, they would have listed him and put ‘no photo av-’”

“Wasn’t there at the school!”

“But you just said-”

“Wasn’t there at all. Not just on those days.”

Juanita turned to face Alex, as the mist began to clear.

“You mean like … he dropped out of school before that?”

“It’s a possibility.”

She was still trying to take it in.

“And what does that mean?”

“It means … did he fall … or was he pushed?”

Before Juanita could reply, or even think of anything suitably smart to say, the phone rang. She reached for the receiver. But Alex was so keyed up, his hand got there first.

“Alex Sedaka.”

“Hi Mr. Sedaka?” said an unfamiliar male voice.

“Yes.”

“I’d like to talk to you about the Dorothy Olsen case.”

“Okay.” Alex was disappointed. He had been hoping that it was the prison calling to tell him that Burrow had changed his mind.

“I mean, I need to see you.”

A second phone line rang. Juanita went to another room to get it.

“Can you tell me what this is about?” asked Alex.

“I’d prefer to tell you in person.”

Alex was wary of such offers. Ordinarily he would be inclined to play ball, if only out of curiosity. But right now his time was at a premium.

“Can you at least tell me who this is?”

Ten miles away, in Daly City, the young man on the other end of the line was looking at a photograph on a mantelpiece.

“My name is Jonathan Olsen.”

12:49 PDT

“Alex Sedaka’s office,” said Juanita, answering the phone in Nat’s office.

“Oh hi, it’s David here.”

“Hi, David. What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if I could speak to my father.”

“He’s on the other line at the moment. Can I take a message?”

“Yes, tell him I’ve found something.”

“Can you tell me what it is? I can pass it on to him.”

“I’d rather tell him direct.”

“Trust me, David, it is probably better if I explain it to him.”

She could almost see him smiling at the picture of the computer-savvy secretary explaining it to the boss. “Okay, well basically I’ve recovered the most recent virtual memory file.”

“Do you want to send that to us to take a look at?”

“Well actually I’ve already taken a look at it.”

“And?”

“I understand that Dorothy Olsen went missing right after her high school prom in May 1998.”

“That’s right.”

“Well I’ve found a fragment of an EasySabre receipt dated just four days before she disappeared.”

“EasySabre?”

“An online subsidiary of American Airlines Sabre booking system. They offered it through Compuserve.”

This took Juanita by surprise.

“But I thought they checked all the airlines when she vanished. And they certainly must have checked them after they arrested Burrow.”

“Yes, but EasySabre wasn’t only used by American Airlines. It wasn’t even only used for flights to and from the US. Pretty much all the airlines used it — including this one.”

“Which one?”

“Quetzalcoatl Airways.”

“Wait a minute, weren’t they that Mexican outfit that went bust a few years ago?”

“That’s the one.”

“But surely they would have checked it out at the time? I mean, didn’t they check all the airlines that flew from the US?”

“Yes but Quetzalcoatl didn’t fly from the US. And I think they went bust before Burrow was arrested. Remember that when Dorothy vanished initially there was no evidence of a crime? It was just a missing person’s case and she wasn’t a juvenile. They filed a report and pretty much left it at that. It was her mother who checked the airlines initially and she only had civil powers of inquiry. By the time Burrow was arrested, that airline didn’t even exist.”

“But you said this EasySabre wasn’t only used for flights to and from US airports. So there would still have been a record of it.”

“Yes, but the cops probably only checked for flights from the US. Don’t forget, by the time Burrow was arrested, they had so much physical evidence, they thought it was an open and shut case. They probably didn’t think it was worth checking flights that originated from outside the US. And you know the old rule: if you don’t look, you don’t find.”

“But wouldn’t the defense have pressed for discovery?”

Juanita waited in silence But the truth of the matter was they both knew the answer.

“An overworked public defender? A crap defense? You know the story, Juanita. They do regular re-runs at the Hall of Justice every day of the week. He got a bum deal.”