“But you said this EasySabre wasn’t only used for flights to and from US airports. So there would still have been a record of it.”
“Yes, but the cops probably only checked for flights from the US. Don’t forget, by the time Burrow was arrested, they had so much physical evidence, they thought it was an open and shut case. They probably didn’t think it was worth checking flights that originated from outside the US. And you know the old rule: if you don’t look, you don’t find.”
“But wouldn’t the defense have pressed for discovery?”
Juanita waited in silence But the truth of the matter was they both knew the answer.
“An overworked public defender? A crap defense? You know the story, Juanita. They do regular re-runs at the Hall of Justice every day of the week. He got a bum deal.”
Strangely, this didn’t upset or bother Juanita. The fact of the matter was that whatever the reason for this monumental oversight, the current news was heartening. At least it meant that there was a way forward. Juanita could barely contain her excitement.
“So where did she fly to?”
David hesitated again.
“Unfortunately I don’t have that information. I don’t even know where the flight was from.”
“I don’t understand. How can you know that she bought a ticket but not where it was to?”
“It’s to do with the way the computer stores information. It was on the disk swap area.”
“What’s that?”
“You know how computers use disk swapping if they haven’t got enough RAM for what they’re trying to do? They use part of the disk as virtual RAM. Well in this case, part of the receipt got copied onto the virtual disk area.”
“But why only part of the receipt?”
“The receipt as a whole probably spanned a cluster or sector boundary. So the part of the receipt it didn’t have room for got written onto the disk swap area. The other part probably only ever existed in RAM. If it wasn’t for the cluster spanning and the remnant in the swap area, I wouldn’t have been able to recover it at all.”
“So you’ve got the date and the airline, but no idea where the ticket was from or to?”
“It was probably from Mexico. It couldn’t have been from the US because they’d’ve caught it when they checked EasySabre for outgoing flights.”
Juanita thought for a moment.
“She could have driven down to Mexico and then caught the flight.”
“Easily. But I guess that doesn’t help us unless we can find out where she went to from there.”
“And can you?”
Juanita was praying that David would come back with an affirmative reply.
“I don’t expect to find the other half of the receipt. I’ve pretty much covered the disk swap area. It was the first thing I checked, after the file allocation table and directories.”
“Wouldn’t she have downloaded the receipt?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. But if she reformatted the whole disk that suggests that she was being secretive. So the answer is probably no.”
“And there’s nothing you can do?”
Again there was a brief hesitation in David’s response.
“Nothing on the computer itself.”
Juanita smiled to herself.
“Why do I hear that sound in your voice?” she asked.
“What sound?”
“Like the vocal equivalent of a gleam in your eye?”
“Well … let’s just say that I have an idea of one way I might be able to get it.”
“How ‘might’ is ‘might’?”
In the time it took him to take a breath, her heart skipped a beat.
“I won’t bullshit you. It’s a long shot.”
12:53 PDT
“How long are we going to hang round here?” asked the driver.
Martine looked at her watch. He was right: they’d been here a long time and nothing was happening. It wasn’t just that nothing was happening, it was also that there was no sign that anything was going to happen. Worse still, some of the other news crews were starting to appear. They were parked further up the street and trying to make it look like they weren’t interested. But it was obvious that they were.
They were actually parked more strategically than Martine’s crew. If anyone left the governor’s office building, they’d have to follow the one-way system toward Larkin Street. That meant that CNN just up the road had a better chance of staying on their tail.
“So what do you think we should do?” asked Martine. “Go back to San Quentin?”
They’d have a full crew there later on in the day as the execution time loomed nearer. But the question was, should they sit it out there now or stay here in the hope that something broke from the governor’s office?
Martine knew that she could call in another team to cover the governor’s office and get back to the penitentiary. But this was her story and she wanted to be in the right place and the right time when the story broke. Her gut told her that she was closer to the story here outside the governor’s office than treading water back in Marin County.
But nagging away at Martine was the thought that the real story was with Burrow’s lawyer Alex Sedaka.
He was the one who had to carry the message of the governor’s conditional offer of clemency to Burrow. If Burrow was reluctant, he was the one who would have to persuade him. If Burrow accepted the offer then he would be the one who had to convey that acceptance to the governor, along with any details of where the body was buried. Before the day was done, many people would know one way or the other. But Alex Sedaka would be the first to know.
And Martine intended to be the second.
“Change of plan. We’re going to pay Alex Sedaka a little visit.”
13:11 PDT
Nat was driving back to the office from the mobile home park in San Pablo, wondering how he was going to summarize his meeting with Sally Burrow. He decided not to tell Alex about the leading question that had led to the premature termination of the interview. But the question was, what would he tell him?
Sally Burrow’s attitude — if it was sincere — suggested that she would not have done anything to help her son, least of all kill for him. She sounded convincing when she said that they had led separate lives and she hadn’t noticed what her son was turning into.
This strengthened, all the more, Nat’s conviction that it was Sally Burrow’s hands-off approach to both that had led Burrow down that slippery road to become the bully that he became
But a bully was one thing — a murderer was another thing entirely.
Nat knew that he had to concentrate on how he summed this up for Alex. The boss was in a very tense mood at the moment, and Nat felt that he was likely to snap at any moment. He had shouted at Juanita over something that wasn’t her fault. How would he react to Nat coming home empty handed from his visit to Clayton’s mother at the trailer park?
But then again, it had always been a long shot. Alex knew that. All Nat could do was report back on what Sally Burrow had said.
He was getting near the building when he noticed activity. It looked like some news people staked out by the building, one with a shoulder-mounted camera. The annoying thing was their van was parked in his reserved parking space! He drove past, glaring at them angrily. Then he noticed someone with a familiar face entering the building and he decided not to go in just yet.
13:19 PDT
“So why exactly did you want to see me?” asked Alex.
He had led Jonathan into the meeting room and got Juanita to make coffee for both of them. But Jonathan Olsen wasn’t in any hurry to talk. He seemed more concerned with looking round, almost as if he was admiring the decor.