Mercy

caught breaking into domestic premises — indeed the first time in his life that he had done it since the three strikes law was introduced. But the fact that they were domestic premises made it likely that he would get at least some kind of custodial sentence. And the fact that he went out and did the job right after being released on bail would also count heavily against him.

One thing was for certain: he wouldn’t make bail this time. He knew it and Alex wasn’t even going to ask for it. In the meantime, Alex wanted to know what Lee had found that had got him so excited.

“First of all I found Dorothy’s passport.”

“Her passport?”

“Yes. From way back when.”

“Well let’s see it!”

“They took it away from me.”

“Shit! Did they say anything?”

“No, they didn’t take it away as evidence. They just listed it as one of my possessions and bagged it up with the rest.”

Alex was relieved. He knew that he could get it. If it was classified as evidence in this case, then he’d have to file a discovery motion and it would take an eternity — far too long to help Burrow. But if it was simply listed as one of Lee’s possessions, then he could get Lee to sign a property release in his favor and they would hand it straight over to him.

“I don’t suppose you took a peek inside, did you?”

Lee smiled a mischievous smile that belied his age.

“Sure did.”

“And?”

“It showed a stamp for when she entered England. But I couldn’t see any sign that she ever left.”

“Then how did Nat get it?” Alex wondered out loud.

“Could he have followed her there?”

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

“There was something else I found. I don’t know if it’s significant. It’s just strange the way I found it.”

“What do you mean.”

“Well as I was putting the passport in my pocket, something fell out. I looked down and it was a picture — a photo.”

“The passport photo? What, like, it was loose?”

“No, it wasn’t the passport photo. It was another photo. It must have been tucked inside one of the pages of the passport.”

“Well what was it a picture of?”

“Just some broad. She looked a bit like the girl in the passport, but maybe a bit older.”

“Older?”

Alex was getting excited.

“I don’t know if it was the same woman. It probably wasn’t. I just thought it was interesting that it was tucked inside the passport. I mean, if the passport is significant then maybe the picture tucked inside it was too. Otherwise why put it there?”

“Well did you make sure they didn’t lose the picture when they bagged it up?”

“I did better than that. I got to keep the picture. I told them it was my mom and they let me keep it.”

For a moment Alex was a bit skeptical about this. But then he remembered how convincing a talker Lee could be. It was the most effective item in his burglar’s tool kit.

“So you’ve still got it?

“Sure.”

Lee reached into his pocket and took out the small picture. He handed it over to Alex. The lawyer took one look at it and froze.

In an instant, Alex had recognized the woman in the picture: it was a young Esther Olsen.

23:05 PDT

Nat closed the door behind him, trying not to make a noise.

It was sad really. It had taken them so long to finally meet and yet he couldn’t stick round. There was somewhere he had to be by midnight, indeed before midnight.

He felt guilty about many things. Guilty about hurting people he loved. Guilty about lying to people who trusted him. Guilty about not having made the right choices in life.

In many ways, he realized, he and Clayton Burrow were kindred spirits. But in other crucial respects they were different. Nat had ideals. Even now — doing what he was doing — he still had ideals.

Maybe he was making up his own rules, instead of following those of society. Maybe the world would not approve of what he was doing. Jonathan had been right when he said there was sins of omission as well as commission.

But the one thing Nathaniel Anderson knew was that he had to stick to his path. He had chosen it and now he was going to follow it to the end of the road, regardless of the temptations to stop or go astray.

The only thing he regretted was that he couldn’t share the end with Jonathan. Jonathan was entitled to witness the crowning moment. But Jonathan couldn’t be there with him.

As he got in his car and drove off, Nat felt an almost physical twinge of pain in the pit of his stomach at leaving Jonathan in that state.

23:07 PDT

Alex was still thinking about the picture as he waited for the case officer.

To judge by the all-too-familiar Budweiser can in the hand of a toga-clad youth in the background, it looked like it was taken at a frat party. The thought brought back a flood of memories from his own student days — those wild nights of carousing and getting laid — not always with protection. He was never as wild as the worst of the frat boys, but not quite the nerdy scholar that Juanita had imagined him to be.

Even Melody had been less than an angel, as he discovered when she gave in to his urging in the back of his blue Pontiac Firebird. The resulting pregnancy hadn’t exactly forced them into marriage — that was on the cards anyway — but it had certainly hastened it.

No, there was nothing unusual in a pretty girl smiling for the birdie at a drunken frat party. The question was why should Nat have such a picture? Where did he get it and why had he kept it? The same of course applied — in spades — to Dorothy’s passport.

He was still struggling to think of a reason when the case officer entered. Alex was surprised that it was an African-American woman, in her mid-thirties — a tall, striking woman of exquisite complexion with an athletic build.

“Hallo, Mr. Sedaka, my name is Grace Nightingale. Sergeant Grace Nightingale. I’m the case officer in the Lee Kelly case. I understand you asked to see me.”

“Yes. Thank you for agreeing to see me at such short notice.”

Despite his professionalism, he felt a wave of attraction for her.

“What can I do for you?”

Alex quickly outlined the background to the Clayton Burrow case, the fact there was circumstantial evidence that Dorothy had gone to England, the fact that the passport confirmed this and the fact that Nat was actually his legal intern. In his effort to summarize these facts in the shortest possible time, he effectively gabbled and he realized that it probably sounded to Sergeant Nightingale that he was on the verge of hysteria.

“Look, Mr. Sedaka, this is all very interesting, but I’m not involved in the Clayton Burrow case in any way. And