Mercy

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Dorothys Poem (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About The Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#ulink_90f4f80a-2871-5d19-8fa6-7737af384fba)

The times stated at the beginning of each chapter (usually in Pacific Daylight Time) refer to the time at the start of the events in that chapter. Thus chapters may overlap chronologically with subsequent chapters. This should be borne in mind in the reader’s understanding of events.

09:30 Pacific Daylight Time (August 14, 2007) (#ulink_4284a94c-668c-5206-a746-369227295464)

It’s hard to sit still when your client is scheduled to die in fifteen hours.

Alex Sedaka felt gripped by that all-too-familiar urge to stand and pace up and down like a caged lion. But he knew he couldn’t do so. It would be undignified—and hardly befitting the governor’s office. So instead, he sat there tensely in the brown leather upholstered mahogany armchair, as his client’s life hung in the balance.

‘I know he had a fair trial, sir. That’s why I can’t get the courts to reconsider the case. But justice isn’t a game. It’s a search for the truth—at least it should be.’

Alex felt the gaze of suspicious eyes upon him, his shoulders hunched against the strain of the task that awaited him. Since hitting fifty, he had become somewhat self-conscious about his appearance, despite the fact that tennis and rock climbing had kept him lean and fit, as well as tanned.

But it was not the ravages of time that had aged him: it was his work. Three decades of professional cynicism, defending scum and lowlifes, had worn away the youthful charm from the face that Melody had fallen in love with —or given it character, as she liked to say. Only this very morning, he had stared at his wedding picture with a mixture of joy and pain and had been surprised at how much he had changed.

But right now he was self-conscious, not about his looks, but rather about what he was going to say next. He had held the freedom of other men in his hands on numerous occasions. But this was the first time he had been entrusted with another man’s life.

As if on cue, the governor’s voice came back at him with quiet cynicism.

‘It’s not my duty to second-guess the courts now, is it?’

At the back of Alex’s mind, a question was nagging away at him. Do I plead for justice or mercy? Do I place the emphasis on the lingering doubts or argue about the ethics of ‘a life for a life’? And he had to think on his feet.

‘No, sir, of course it’s not your duty to second-guess the courts. But sometimes an unusual case can slip through the system. And you have the power to make a difference.’

He monitored the governor’s face for a reaction to the obsequious flattery. The face remained neutral. Alex took it as the green light to continue.

‘The courts are bound by a rigid code of rules. But sometimes the rulebook goes out the window. Every case is different and this case is a classic example. The whole trial took place in an atmosphere of anger and vengeance. All those comparisons with Carrie—’

‘Carrie?’

‘The book by Stephen King…about the girl with psychic powers who was bullied in high school.’

‘Oh, right,’ the governor replied suppressing a smile. ‘I saw the movie.’

Alex squirmed.

‘Well anyway…The press kept making comparisons. They just didn’t let up.’

The governor scratched his head, looking puzzled. He had rejected Alex’s written request for clemency a few days ago, but agreed to this eleventh-hour, face-to-face meeting at his San Francisco office, the location chosen by mutual agreement over LA, San Diego, Fresno and Riverside because of its proximity to San Quentin.

‘I don’t mean to sound like I’m making fun of you—’cause I ain’t—but you’re contradicting yourself now. You said before that Burrow got a fair trial.’