Mercy. David Kessler

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t know,’ she replied coolly. ‘I called Eyewitness, but they weren’t saying…something about “protecting their sources.” The usual press freedom bullshit.’

      Alex took a deep breath. He hadn’t meant to yell. When he could trust his voice to hold at an acceptable level of calm, Alex spoke again.

      ‘They probably don’t even know themselves.’ Nat looked at him blankly. ‘Anonymous tip-off,’ Alex added.

      ‘You look like you could use a cup of coffee, boss.’

      Juanita was already striding energetically to the kitchen, followed by Alex’s eyes, by the time he replied: ‘Thanks, Juanita.’

      Nat was looking awkward.

      ‘What next?’

      ‘Conference time. We need to work out a strategy.’

      Alex followed Juanita into the kitchen, leading Nat the same way. Juanita was putting fresh coffee beans into the DeLonghi Prima Donna, and pressing the button.

      ‘So what happened?’ she asked over the rumble of the machine.

      Alex quickly filled Juanita in on the events at the penitentiary while the grinding in the background stopped and gave way to an orchestration of burping and frothing.

      ‘So what are we going to do?’

      ‘Well as long as Burrow insists he’s innocent there’s nothing much we can do regarding Dusenbury’s offer.’

      Juanita frowned.

      ‘You just had me spend a lot of time online and now you’re just going to give up?’

      ‘Did you find anything?’

      ‘Not yet.’

      She sounded frustrated.

      ‘The thing is, as I was saying to Nat, we’ve all been assuming that he was guilty. But maybe we’ve been overlooking something.’

      ‘Like what?’ asked Juanita.

      ‘Well maybe he’s protecting someone,’ Alex ventured.

      Juanita screwed her nose up.

      ‘That doesn’t make sense. If he was trying to protect someone then why not just confess to the murder and say that he doesn’t remember where he buried the body?’

      ‘Or maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe he was framed.’

      This time it was Nat who made a dismissive gesture.

      ‘Ah, come on. You’re not buying that, are you?’ He put on a redneck hillbilly tone, gesticulating at the same time. ‘“She faked her own death and framed me.” That’s just a crock of shit straight out of a comic book.’

      ‘Maybe it wasn’t Dorothy who framed him. Maybe someone else killed Dorothy and framed Clayton.’

      ‘How did they put his fingerprints on the knife?’ Nat wasn’t letting up.

      ‘He slept with a knife under his pillow,’ said Alex. ‘Why shouldn’t it have his dabs?’

      ‘With her blood on the blade?’

      ‘Maybe she got some of her own blood and wiped the knife on it—using gloves and being careful not to leave any fingerprints of her own.’

      ‘So we’re back to blaming Dorothy,’ Juanita chimed in, handing them their coffee mugs.

      Alex realized that his theory didn’t stand up. As they made their way to Juanita’s office, he shifted back to his earlier line.

      ‘Well maybe it was her. Maybe Dorothy set him up for some kind of revenge.’

      ‘And presumably she also planted the blood-stained panties?’

      Nat chuckled when Juanita said this. But Alex wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

      ‘She could have done.’

      ‘And Burrow’s semen?’ asked Juanita.

      ‘Maybe they slept together.’

      Juanita was trying very hard not to roll her eyes.

      ‘So let’s see,’ she said. ‘Dorothy Olsen sleeps with Burrow, gets his semen, stains her panties with blood and his semen, plants them under the floorboards in his apartment, takes the knife from under his pillow, wipes her blood on it and plants that too, then calls the police using a voice changer device and tips them off.’

      ‘That’s the theory,’ said Alex, realizing how absurd it all sounded.

      ‘Now all we need is motive,’ Juanita suggested, echoing Alex’s own comment at his meeting with Burrow at San Quentin.

      ‘There’s also the small matter of breast tissue in Burrow’s freezer,’ Nat chipped in.

      ‘Technically it was his mother’s freezer,’ Juanita shot back.

      ‘Whatever,’ Nat replied.

      Alex was shaking his head.

      ‘What sort of DNA comparison did they do at the time?’ he asked.

      ‘How do you mean?’ Nat replied.

      ‘There are different types of DNA test. Short Tandem Repeat? Low Copy Number?’

      Nat and Juanita looked at each other blankly.

      ‘I’ll get the file,’ said Juanita, getting up and heading for the broom closet that doubled as the file and records room.

      File wasn’t exactly the word. It was several boxes full of files and ring binders. But Juanita’s filing system was so efficient and well-organized that she knew exactly where to look for it. It was the forensic evidence file, with the lab reports. There were several of these, but she found the right one almost immediately and brought it back to the office.

      They huddled round it as she flicked through the file.

      ‘Okay, here it is,’ she said with delight. ‘They did a standard nucleic DNA test on the breast tissue.’

      ‘Remind me who they compared it to,’ said Alex.

      Juanita’s eyes skimmed the page.

      ‘They compared it to…ah, yes, here it is: both to Mrs Olsen and Jonathan.’

      ‘That would be Dorothy’s younger brother,’ Alex said.

      Juanita was reading the summary of conclusions at the end of the report.

      ‘Yes. Now there’s a note here that says that the test concluded that the breast tissue came from a half-sibling СКАЧАТЬ