Mercy

“Something about me brushing off the reporters outside, but it wasn’t clear how he knew.”

“Uh-huh,” Juanita mumbled, to make it clear that she still couldn’t speak.

“So he knew about the travel receipt to London and didn’t tell us at first?”

“Yes.”

“And then it slipped out.”

“Yes.”

“And you think a fax arrived from England?”

“Yes.”

“Because it was listed in the journal printout?”

“Yes?”

“How many pages?

“One.”

“Okay, listen, I promised Lee I’d rep him at the arraignment and I don’t want to bail out on him. But this is too important to mess round with. So what I want you to do is go outside on some pretext and call the clinic on your cell phone. Tell them to re-fax the papers or whatever it was they sent. Then stand by the fax machine and make sure you’re there when they come through.”

“Okay.”

19:32 PDT

David Sedaka was feeling the frustration. He was making progress, but it was painfully slow. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a problem. Any sort of data recovery is a painstaking process. Just as debugging a computer program is naturally slow. But normally that doesn’t matter because the time is available. And when the job is done, the achievement is all the more satisfying.

But when time is in short supply, every minute is a minute of torture. And for David, the pain was growing.

If it wasn’t for the fact that a human life was at stake, David would have called it a day and gone home for some rest. Sometimes the best way to make progress on a problem is to put it aside for a while and sleep on it. But right now that was not an option. He had to solve it today. And looking at his watch he knew that meant less than four and a half hours.

But once again, his search macro looking for combinations of the word “you” had come to his aid. He had modified the macro slightly and found another verse of the poem. He was moved by the words he read. It was as if Dorothy had poured her heart out into this poem, talking to her computer and saying to it all the things that she longed to say to a friend — if only she had had one.

But the words also shocked him. Three words in particular.

“I killed you.”

19:36 PDT (03:36 BST, August 15 2007)

“More sandwiches?” Nat asked, looking Juanita up and down.

“You don’t have a monopoly on fresh air.”

She hoped she hadn’t sounded too aggressive when she said it. She was feeling the tension, knowing — or at least strongly suspecting — that this man was up to something.

As soon as she left the building she walked up the street and turned a corner. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t visible from Nat’s office, as well as make sure that he wasn’t following her. She didn’t think he was likely to, but she had to be sure. If Nat was up to something, what was his game and what was his motive?

She remembered that Martine Yin had blown the story about Dusenbury’s offer of clemency. They still didn’t know the source of the leak. Could it have been Nat? Certainly he was one of the few people who knew. The governor was sure that it was no one on his tight-knit staff and Juanita knew that it wasn’t her or Alex.

Maybe that was it. Nat was the source of the leak and now he had intercepted the fax from London with the intention of leaking it to the press.

But why? Nat wasn’t a journalist. They had seen his resume and, apart from the Grand Tour, all it showed was academic studies and an impressive legal internship with the Public Defender’s office. Why would a budding lawyer risk his career to pass on a few juicy tit-bits to the press?

The obvious answer was money. Some of the papers would pay a lot for a scoop like that. But then you’d expect him to be dealing with magazines like the National Enquirer, not respectable news networks. Maybe the fax from London was nothing. Maybe it was just a formal statement that they couldn’t supply the requested information.

There was no time to think about it. She keyed in their number.

“Finchley Road Medical Centre,” a woman’s voice answered.

“Hallo, could I speak to Nurse White please?”

“Susan? I’m afraid she’s off duty.”

“When did she finish?”

“At two.”

“What?”

“Two am. She worked the ten pm till two am shift.”

“I don’t understand. She sent us a fax a couple of hours ago.”

“Wait a minute, are you calling from America?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, I should have said. I’m calling from the law firm of Alex Sedaka.”

“Oh yes. Look, I don’t know any more than I told the man.”

“What man?”

“The man who called earlier … from the law firm.”

“From the law firm?”

“Yes. He called not long ago.”

“Our law firm?”

“I … I think so.

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him that I didn’t think Mr. Lloyd could have sent the fax because he wasn’t here at that time as far as I know. Also, I’m sure he would never disclose confidential information about a patient without permission.”

“And did the man you spoke to give his name?”

“I think he did, but I can’t remember. I got the impression that he represented the patient.”

Juanita felt her mouth going dry.

“Represented the … you mean Dorothy Olsen?”

“I think so … yes.”

“I want you think carefully. Could the man’s name have been Nathaniel — or Nat — Anderson?”

“I think it was — yes!”

So that was it! He had phoned them pretending to be Dorothy’s representative to get them to send her details! He wasn’t leaking information to the press or trying to sabotage their efforts. He was bending the rules in order to help them! He knew that the clinic wouldn’t release the information without some sort of authorization. So he phoned them and pretended to be Dorothy’s representative and asked them to fax over the information! She smiled with relief.

But why had he intercepted their fax? If it contained the information they needed then why not produce it?

She realized why. Because they hadn’t sent the information! They presumably sent a letter asking for signed papers from Dorothy herself. Or maybe they’d sent something else referring to Nat’s request. But whatever it was,