machine. We need it to be sent again.”
“I thought you said last time you called that it was the Chief Administrator who sent it?”
“Well he must have authorized it. But I think
“Look … how do I know that you’re not just bullshitting me?”
“I can’t prove it. I mean, if you turn on your TV to CNN or Eyewitness News you’ll see about the impending execution. Either you take my word or you don’t. But we have client whose life depends on your decision.”
The nurse thought about it — but only for a moment.
23:51 PDT
Jonathan Olsen was sitting in front of the TV screen glued to the report about the impending execution. He was beginning to wonder if he had done the right thing, giving Nat the pass to witness the execution. He had waited years for the chance to see the look on Clayton’s Burrow’s face as he breathed his last breath. It was poetic justice — the bully who had beaten him up when he was younger and had subjected his sister to years of mental torture,
In a way it eased his conscience about his father. He hadn’t intended to kill him. But in retrospect, that was poetic justice too. His father had also been an abuser, even if his abuse had been borne of his own guilt and suffering.
He wondered what Alex would do with the knowledge. It wasn’t directly relevant to Dorothy’s fate, but, now that Alex knew, the knowledge was out there. Of course they couldn’t prove anything. Whoever had set things up to make it look like suicide had done too good a job for that. The authorities could hardly re-open the case now.
The thing that troubled Jonathan more was that he had been too close to Dorothy. She had blamed her mother for turning a blind eye to Edgar’s abusive behavior and, after that day with the mirror, had never spoken to her again.
But was she being fair?
Certainly their mother should have done more to rein in her husband’s excesses. She wasn’t some old- fashioned 1950’s housewife who greeted her husband with a hot dinner as soon as he came home from work. She had a duty to protect her daughter.
But looking back on it now, it was never quite so clear-cut. Edgar Olsen had been an extremely forceful personality and he could be a holy terror when roused. Esther had tried to encourage Dorothy to act in a way that would placate Edgar. And when that failed, she tried to persuade Dorothy to stop. But Dorothy had a mind of her own. And their mother was definitely a junior partner in the practice. She was also constantly being put on the defensive because of her infidelity. Although technically it wasn’t infidelity. The one-night stand that had brought Dorothy into the world had taken place
But that hadn’t prevented Edgar Olsen from using it as a bludgeon against both Esther and Dorothy. When it was Esther he was angry with, “whore” was the epithet that he threw. And when Dorothy crossed him, he called her a “little mamzer” — the Jewish word for a bastard. Edgar Olsen loved to lash out verbally and cause pain to others to numb himself to the pain of guilt that he felt over the death of his three-year-old son.
But Jonathan now felt guilty about his unquestioning alliance with Dorothy.
Was it right to punish his mother? Was it right to snub her?
Unlike Dorothy, he had continued to speak to Esther after the incident with the mirror, but always coldly and without emotion.
The phone rang. It jolted him. He sensed that this was no ordinary call. It was something special. Perhaps it was the time that alerted him. No one would call him at this time in the ordinary course events. And yet it was too early for the execution.
“Hallo?”
“Hi is that Jonathan Olsen?” asked a man’s voice.
“Yes, it is,” he said nervously.
“My name is Rodrigo Alvarez. I’m calling from the Idylwood Care Center.”
23:52 PDT (07:52 BST)
Susan White opened her eyes and tried to adjust to the light that was streaming into the room, even with the blinds half closed. The phone … that infernal noise … it wouldn’t stop.
Her hand groped for the phone, eventually finding it. She managed to pick up the handset without knocking over everything on the bedside cabinet.
“Yes!” she practically shouted.
“Susan … Susan!”
“Wha … what is it?”
“Sorry to wake you. Listen. It’s important.”
“Danielle?” said Susan, recognizing the voice. “What is it?”
“We had another phone call from that woman.”
“What woman?”
“In America. At that law firm.”
“Juanita?”
“I think so.”
“What about her? Did she get it?”
Susan was now rubbing her eyes and stretching her arms.
“Get what? Wait a minute. Listen! She said that you or someone sent her something but that she didn’t receive it. They were having trouble with their fax machine.”
Susan White sat bolt upright.
“They didn’t get the fax?”
23:54 PDT
“Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you now to take your seats. There will be no standing during the procedure and anyone who stands up or speaks while the procedure is in progress will be asked to leave. The curtain will be opened in a few minutes.”
They had filed in and taken their seats. The execution procedure had already been explained to them and there would be no further explanation of the technical side.
There had been some recent changes in the execution procedure in the State of California. It was still a three-drug procedure consisting of an initial injection of sodium thiopental, a barbiturate sedative to render the prisoner unconscious, followed by pancuronium bromide to paralyze the muscles and finally potassium chloride to stop the heart.
The spectators — witnesses on behalf of society, officially — took their seats, avoiding each other’s eyes. Even among those who approved of the death penalty, there was a kind of guilty embarrassment about being part of the procedure. That was why the executioner’s identity was kept secret and not — as was sometimes falsely claimed — to protect him or her from revenge at the hands of the prisoner’s family.
Nat took his place at the end, positioning himself in such a way so that he was close to where he thought Burrow’s head would be.
