“Technically he’s a wanted man … obstruction of justice. But in reality we’re just waiting for his body to turn up.”
Alex remembered the famous case of the three prisoners who escaped from Alactraz. Only one body ever turned up — and it was so badly decomposed that they couldn’t be sure if it was one of the escapees — but it was widely assumed that all three of them had drowned. Even though bodies tend to float after a few days, on the Pacific coast a body could be swept out to sea and never found unless it had a chance encounter with ship or boat.
And as for the clothes, the body of the Alcatraz escapee that turned up weeks later was naked. A body could be stripped of its clothes by the currents and decomposition. It did not imply intent or volitional action by the person who wore the clothes or indeed anyone else.
In a moment of intense longing, Alex tried to sit up, managing to raise his torso a few inches from the mattress. But his strength deserted him and he slumped back to the mattress, a smile of resignation breaking out across his face.
“How did they find me?”
Alex realized that he was looking up at the ceiling when he said this. He could have looked at the governor, but somehow he felt uncomfortable doing so. In any case what he really wanted to do was close his eyes altogether. He was still tired and all he really wanted to do was sleep the sleep of the innocent.
“The patrol helo saw the car leave the cliff and radioed in for some emergency relief from the coastguard.”
Even through the haze of confusion and the intense desire for sleep, Alex noted that Dusenbury had used the military term “helo” rather than the civilian term “chopper.” He resolved to ask him about this … some time.
“I think maybe it’s time for me to go,” said the governor. “There are a couple of people here to see you.”
For a moment, Alex thought Dusenbury meant the police. But he was pleasantly surprised when David entered the room with Debbie in tow.
She had come all the way out here from New York to be with him. He looked at her and gave her a welcoming smile. She returned it, but even through her gentle smile, Alex could see the hard person beneath it.
In some ways she and Nat were kindred spirits: both conceived during wild unprotected sex by alcohol-fueled students, both very determined people who could set their sights on an objective and then go for it with an almost ruthless tenacity. Not that Debbie would send an innocent man to his death.
It was ironic that while Debbie had gone to work in New York to put some distance between herself and Alex, Nat had actively sought Alex out as an employer. Alex had asked Nat, in the car, about why he had pushed so hard to work for him, but the answer to that question had been denied when the car went over the edge.
He thought about it now and remembered how familiar Esther Olsen had looked only 24 hours ago, when he first saw her in the governor’s office. He remembered his reckless student days of frat parties and drunken one- night stands. He remembered looking at the picture of Dorothy Olsen and thinking about her resemblance to Debbie — not the eyes, for Debbie got her eyes from Melody — but some of the other features that Debbie got from her father. And he remembered how Esther had told him that Dusenbury had fathered both Jonathan and Jimmy but not Dorothy. He remembered also that Edgar Olsen had hated Dorothy because he knew that she was not his daughter.
A chill went up Alex’s spine as he realized the answer that Nat had been about to give him, before he was snatched away forever.
