Absolute Instinct

SIXTEEN

Jessica and Darwin had little difficulty finding a computer. They were everywhere these days, and so they located a computer cafe on the outskirts of Portland, wishing to stay close to the airport, the governor's mansion and the prison.

Jessica telephoned and roped Eriq Santiva in on their side, Eriq promising to pressure Cellmark. “As much as possible.” But the savvy Cuban also added, “But I gotta agree with you, Jess. Getting Fischer onto their heads at this Minnesota testing facility… that would far outweigh anything I can say or do to move them along.”

“There's gotta be a way.”

“I've already talked to Sharpe about this, Jess, and he-”

“Richard? When?”

“Less than an hour ago, maybe forty minutes. He called from a flight to Oregon out of San Francisco.”

“What was his request?”

“I sent men from our Minnesota field office to camp on them. He said a Millbrook detective wasn't enough of a presence.”

“And you complied with the request?”

“It's a favor to Richard. He seemed adamant, and I'm going to need him soon. Things may be popping with that China deal we've been brokering, and as always the State Department's first priority is to international cooperation among crime-fighting organizations worldwide.”

“So you want Richard back at Quantico for a briefing.”

“Very good, Jess. Go to the head of the-”

“Thanks, Eriq, for your help.”

“Tell me, Jess.”

“Yes?”

“You've met this guy Towne now. What do you think? What does your gut tell you about him?”

“Innocent, railroaded,” she shot back, “and sadly broken.”

“I gotta tell you I was shocked… well, truly surprised… to learn you'd taken up the cause of a death-row inmate. You of all people.”

“I had a good guide to this one, Eriq.”

“And this thing in Chicago? It certainly smacks of a connection. Is it connected?”

“Too soon to be absolutely certain, but yeah, we have people working on connecting the dots there.”

They said their good-byes and he wished her luck and foolishly reminded her that time was running out fast now.

Darwin's pained face met hers when she got off the line with Eriq. He looked stricken.

“What is it? Your brother? What?”

“Damn fools Petersaul and Cates.”

“What about them?”

“They gave all their findings to Hughes's office, and it was… was good stuff.”

“Christ, it won't be, not by time Hughes and his people have poked holes in it, and put their spin on it.”

“Damn fool Amanda!”

“What's with Petersaul?”

“Said she couldn't get hold of either of us or Sharpe. Called while we were without our phones in with Robert. Damn!”

“Why didn't she just leave a message?”

“She did on my voice mail. It's why I called her back but too late. She thought she was doing right.”

“No way she could know the governor's as big an ass as… as… as the governor's ass.”

Darwin laughed at this.

“I've got my plea in now to Fischer. All we can do now is pray that he puts on the needed pressure, and that Cellmark gets the DNA mapping done for the signature of the killer, and then we match it to Rob's, and we'll have the conclusive proof we need to free him.”

Jessica pressed send on the E-mail, a detailed needs list directed at her boss's boss.

“What if he doesn't get it?”

“The E-mail?”

“The E-mail, its contents, the reason for all of this?”

“We have to hope he does.”

“Hope is become a shredded, unraveling cord, Jess, or haven't you noticed? Damn that blood type. Why couldn't it have gone in our favor?” he asked.

“Because God is enjoying the drama a little too much, maybe? But wait a minute. Just hold on a minute.”

He stared at her, trying to fathom her thoughts. “What? What're we holding on for?”

“We need to… I mean what if… could it possibly work?”

Still confused, Darwin placed both hands on her shoulders and amid the cafe crowd gripped her strongly and said, “Spit it out.” “No… not here. In the car on the way to pick up Richard at the airport. I've got to think this through.”

He plunked down enough bills to cover the coffee and pastries they'd nibbled on along with the usage fee for the computer. “If you've got a new direction, I want to hear about it. Come on.”

They sat out on the airport taxi strip, having flashed their FBI badges out the windows of the rented LeSabre. Now they watched as the jumbo jet arriving from San Francisco, and carrying Richard Sharpe, touched down with a bark of burning tires, calmed, slowed and came to a stop to make a forty-five-degree turn for the terminal. Jessica anxiously awaited Richard as the jet lazily taxied toward the terminal.

Sharpe, traveling light with only a carry-on, found them and he and Jessica hugged and kissed for a long, warm reunion.

Darwin hung back, standing at the open driver's side door. In a moment, Jessica put the two men together to shake hands.

A deepening dusk had fallen over Portland. By midnight tomorrow night, Robert Towne would be executed. Time seemed now to be pouring through the hourglass like a flash flood through a baked dry, thirsty ravine. Unstoppable, unless Jessica's plan could be made to work. She feared letting Richard know of it, feared he would on the one hand oppose it as too dangerously criminal, outside the bounds of the law and their duty, and on the other hand he might agree to it almost as quickly as Darwin had, which would make him another accomplice in the act, another culpable party.

They would have to broach the subject carefully with Richard or attempt it without his knowledge. The decision was hers entirely. Darwin had made it clear that, with or without Richard's assistance, he would break his unlawfully prosecuted, unlawfully convicted brother out of prison if only for a few days, until they could prove conclusively via DNA evidence out of Minnesota that Robert Towne was indeed not the Spine Thief.

“Why don't you two just hug as well as shake one another's arms off,” she said of the two men greeting one another with mutual admiration and a kind of benevolent pissing contest as to which would stop shaking the other's hand first. To end it, Jessica pushed them into one another for a hug, saying, “After all we've been through, we could all use a group hug.”

“I just got off the phone with Howland at Cellmark, and they're unsure,” Sharpe told them. “I've bugged this Dr. Howland there repeatedly, and Eriq has stationed men on their doorstep.”

“What's taking so damn long?” pleaded Darwin.

“Dr. Howland refuses to let anything out until she is satisfied, and apparently, it takes a great deal to satisfy her.”

Jessica gave him a glare. “I hope you don't mean she came at you the way the governor of the great state of Oregon came at me.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked. “Did that man lay a hand on you?”

She groaned. “No… no, but not for lack of trying. He is a sexual predator, it would seem, not above selling his principles for a cause, if a girl is willing. He likely seldom gets turned down, and it didn't please him any.”

Darwin got in her face. “Why the hell didn't you tell me about this, Jessica?”

“I don't want either of you two going into this meeting with Hughes like a pair of raging, insulted bulls, damn it. Just forget about that crap for now. Richard, we've worked out something that will spare Towne should the governor rebuke us again, and should the DNA evidence not materialize by tomorrow afternoon.”

“What sort of duplicity are you planning, Jess?”

“You know me and authority figures, and particularly assholes in authority… like Hughes and his lackey, Warden Donald Gwingault. Also a real charmer.”

“I want to hear all about it.”

When she and Richard climbed into the rear of the car, Darwin behind the wheel, Jessica's eyes met Darwin's in the rearview mirror, and she shrugged and said, “I could never keep a secret from Richard.” She then launched into her and Darwin's plan.

“Stalling the execution isn't in the cards anymore, so far as I can see. No reprieve. Not with the way these people twist reality and facts, like they've done with news coming out of Chicago,” she told Richard.

Richard's phone rang. He opened it. “Oh, good, Dr. Howland from Cellmark,” he announced for the others. “Tell me you have good news for us.”

Silence as Richard listened to the voice at the other end.

“What? A lab mishap… spoiled test… had to start over? When did this all occur?”

Again he listened, fuming. “So this is what you told Agent Santiva? And all along you've been stalling for time. Well now, Doctor, time is fast, fast running out here in Oregon.”

He cut her off, afraid of what he might say next, afraid it might jeopardize any further attempt to get the DNA to them at the last.

“More bad news,” commented Darwin.

“Pour it on,” she agreed.

“Some idiot in Howland's lab has, she fears, destroyed what little sample they had to work with, and she-heroically, she feels-has salvaged a minuscule microscopic spec of it from the bottom of the vial it had been transported in.”

“Some fool photographed the sample on an electron microscope, no doubt,” said Jessica, trying to understand this lab “accident.” “That process will destroy any sample for further analysis.” “What does that mean for Robert?” asked Darwin, certainly knowing the answer.

“It means that they lost another day,” said Richard. He then nervously cleared his throat and added, “It means you've got a hell of a lawsuit when… I mean if…”

“We've still got the news out of Chicago for help,” said Jessica, “but I fear it is not going to be enough to dissuade this governor.”

“As it turns out, Chicago authorities let Keith Orion walk, not having enough evidence on him,” Richard informed them.

“Damn, you've got to be kidding,” said Darwin. “Didn't anyone look at his artwork? And he's got a crate with his name on it with a dead girl inside minus her spine, and… and shit!”

“We've been so busy setting up meetings and getting shunted off,” Jessica said to Richard, “that we didn't hear this latest.”

“Orion showed off to the crowd when released, and he gave a series of 'exclusive' press interviews.”

“God, I hate that about our media. This has all been a boon to the sonofabitch's career,” Jessica complained through gritted teeth.

Placing a hand in hers, Richard replied, “No doubt about his reveling in the attention. People are buying his work now as never before. Amazing but true. Kill somebody and you're fifteen minutes of fame is assured in the U.S. of A.”

“Power of the press,” said Darwin.

“Power of the tube,” added Jessica.

“Orion did prove he's not as stupid as first glance. He did not send the crated body to himself. The paperwork was forged by another hand, someone slick enough to get a UPS clerk to attach Orion's corporate number to make it look like Orion sent the crate to himself from his Milwaukee show.”

“You learned all this in airports while between flights?” she asked.

“CNN nonstop at the airports, yes, along with what I learned from Eriq. He's been closely monitoring Chicago.”

They drove to the governor's mansion, the thrum of the car the only sound for some time. The darkening countryside pressed in around them. A shrieking hawk sounded in the distance.

Richard broke the silence. “Eriq tells me that questioning of the Milwaukee-based UPS clerk has led to a composite drawing of a man who bears no resemblance to Orion. The sketch is in all the newspapers and the search is on in earnest for Lucinda Wellingham's killer. There is a real disparity here. Earlier victims, save for Sarah Towne in Portland, were hardly noticed by media and the public, — while Lucinda has been made the darling of the dead victims, a poster child for them by CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and the print media as well. Lucinda's rich father has put up a quarter million dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of his daughter's slayer.”

Darwin turned into the driveway for the mansion. They were waved through by guards at the gate after a show of badges.

“We spent some time today with Towne's lawyers,” Jessica said. “They've tried to make the case that while he is of sound mind, he is driven by depression in turning down an appeal defense. At this point, I believe in strength in numbers.”

“At trial he only had a court appointed lawyer. There they are… the defense team, waiting for us,” said Darwin, pointing as he pulled to a stop.

After introductions and handshakes, the large delegation filed into the mansion and down the corridor to the end of the hall, there to pressure Governor Hughes to allow Towne's defense team to arrange for a DNA test, requiring a postponement of the execution-a governor's reprieve.

On entering, Jessica saw that J.J. Hughes had gathered his own team of lawyers.

The FBI agents had agreed to allow the lawyers to talk to the lawyers, and Hughes seemed happy with this, asking the others to retire with him for brandy and cigars. Richard played the underpaid, overtaxed, easily impressed civil servant to the hilt, ingratiating himself with Hughes, smoking his cigar, drinking his brandy and agreeing that it was a good thing to let the lawyers hash it out. Darwin fumed in a corner. Jessica remained silent, sipping at her brandy from a Waterford Crystal snifter. Jessica gravitated to Darwin and quietly asked him to remain calm, to allow Richard to do his thing.

Raucous laughter broke out between Hughes and Sharpe, Richard telling a dirty joke about a monk on a camel at a Los Angeles brothel. Even Jessica was beginning to wonder if Richard were acting or not with his Hugh Grant imitation.

Finally, Richard subtly brought the subject around to Towne and the stay of execution. The words amnesty, pardon, acquittal came through and Hughes was no longer laughing.

“Without definitive new and compelling evidence, I will tell you the same as I have told your cohorts here, a stay of execution is out of the question and will not be granted for Robert Towne.”

“Why you fat, pompous, racist windbag!” Richard exploded as if Hughes had attacked the queen or the Union Jack, his true colors now unfurled. “All that we've done in the past few days, all the holes large enough to drive your limousine through, and you can't see past your bloody pride and the ignorance of your constituents?”

“Out! All of you, out of my house now!”

Jessica tried to smooth it over, hoping the lawyers in the other room-heated discussion also coming from that quarter-might have made better inroads. She tried to calm the governor when Mrs. Dornan pushed through a back door and entered. She announced like a parrot on cue, “The governor wishes for you to leave now. I should not wish to be forced into the position of having to call security.”

“Who needs security when they have a bitch like you?” shouted Jessica. To the others, she announced, “Come on. This is an absolute waste of our time.”

When they got to the steps outside, Jessica punched Richard hard in the arm. “You,” she began. “I was worried Darwin was going to lose his temper, and what do you do? Get into a shouting match with Hughes, a bloody pissing contest.”

“You were right about the man. He's infuriating.”

“And we all handled him badly,” Jessica glumly replied. “We ought to know how to get what we want from a smalltime politician, people of our experience.”

Darwin leapt to Richard's defense. “But Richard didn't say or do anything I didn't want to say or do, and besides, he was dead on.”

She gritted her teeth. “Darwin, while Richard is right, it does no good for your brother's situation.”

The lawyers now joined them, all three looking dejected. The lone female of the group, a Marilyn Stuttgart told them as her colleagues walked ahead of them to their cars, “Governor Hughes points to the release of Orion in Chicago and the discrepancies between the victims of Towne, ranging in age only from forty-eight to Sarah Towne who would have been fifty days after her murder. As tight a margin as anyone has ever seen, while this Lucinda Wellingham person was only in her mid-twenties.”

“He and his lawyers think the Chicago connection is only a copycat killer also working Milwaukee. Is that what you mean to say?” asked Jessica.

“That's right. Afraid so. Wish you people hadn't given so much ammunition and guns to the enemy before we got here.”

“Our first lover's spat, hey, Ms. Stuttgart?”

“I'm afraid my partners are taking a nosedive. They're talking of getting roaring drunk until the execution is over and done with. Can you blame them?”

“No… no, I can't.”

“The governor's twisted the Chicago find entirely to suit his preconceived notions and racism, and he's had all day to perfect his arguments. Everything we came here tonight to argue had long before been decided.”

“Set in stone,” one of the male partners shouted over his shoulder ahead of them where they all walked to the cars. Ms. Stuttgart continued, “I can also tell you, he hates your guts, Dr. Coran. Whatever you did to him to piss him off… well, it sealed Towne's fate I'm afraid.”

She rushed off in tears now, unable to hold the emotional flood back a moment longer.

Darwin caught up to Stuttgart and rammed his face close to hers. “Then try new strategies, go drastic, do something even if it's wrong.”

“Like what? We've exhausted every avenue.”

“File papers against the fuck-king governor,” Darwin fired back.

This stopped her from climbing into the car alongside her partners. She called into the car's black interior, “Shanley, Ayers, did you hear that? Take Governor James Hughes to court in his own state. You guys wanna put up drywall the rest of your lives?”

The lawyers screeched off and out of sight down the tree-lined sandy red earth path and out onto the highway in the distance.

“So much for pinning hope on a gaggle of lawyers,” Jessica said. “No need to rip out a few spines there.”

“What do you call a thousand lawyers without a single spine among them?” asked Richard.

When no one could find the answer other than stuttering, Richard delivered the punch line. “A snafu… Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.”

“Richard has had run-ins with divorce lawyers,” Jessica explained to Darwin as she and Sharpe again climbed into the rear seat.

“Oh, yeah… I see,” Darwin replied, getting behind the wheel and starting up the engine. He peeled out, leaving smoking rubber behind them.

As they found the highway for the hotel, Richard remarked to Darwin, “I'm afraid only Cellmark in St. Paul can save your brother now.”

“Not if we work together on our last-straw plan,” said Jessica.

“It's madness,” protested Richard, “and it could get Darwin killed in his brother's stead, even if you could get Towne into full agreement.”

Darwin shouted over his shoulder, “If I can manage to take his place, I will not for a moment hesitate, Sharpe.”

“If we could bait and switch this prisoner free,” mused Jessica, “I mean since you two look so startlingly alike, and with his guards all being white…”

The others stared at her. “Well, it's a known fact that cross-cultural and cross-race eyewitness testimony have been proved notoriously wrong in accurately identifying people.”

“But are you sure they look enough alike, Jess?”

“We're like a pair of twins,” Darwin assured him.

“It's still too damned risky.”

Jessica ignored Richard's negativism. “We could get you inside and him out,” she said to Darwin.

“Then what?” asked Richard. “We all become fugitives except for Darwin who is executed in his brother's stead?”

“No, we videotape Towne, hold him someplace, and we stick it to Hughes. We get him to grant the stay of execution on the grounds that it is the wrong man-literally the wrong man now-that he has on death row.”

Richard vigorously shook his head. “That's blackmail of a high-ranking public official, isn't it?”

“So our combined list of criminal activity grows?” she asked. “And at this point, what other recourse have we? What help or support has been offered? Even from our own FBI field offices here?”

“So we go to death row and we break a man out as if it's to be as easy as… as changing out a roll of toilet paper.” Richard remained skeptical.

“It's our only recourse, Richard! The only one the system's left us. I didn't wake up this morning and say, 'Why don't I break the law, today?' but you went your rounds with Hughes, you know what we're up against.”

“Whoa, I didn't say it lacked nobility, just common sense, Jess.”

She suggested, “I say we use the media.”

“Leak the story at the crucial right moment, ingenious,” replied Darwin. I can see the governor choking on the headlines now: 11th Hour Stay for Towne in STRANGE TWIST As Towne's Twin Surrogate Laughs in Governor's Face. Hey my fifteen minutes of fame!”

“Will the real Robert W. Towne please stand up?” joked Jessica.

“How can you two be so cavalier about this?” asked Richard. “A thousand things could go wrong with this so-called plan, one of them horribly wrong.”

Darwin only replied, “Here's another headline: Officials Unsure When and for How Long the Amazing Switch Took Place.”

“Dramatic Desperate Act to Save a Brother from Execution,” added Jessica.

Sharpe gave up, joining in the speculation about headlines. “Towne's Whereabouts Still Unknown While Brother Is Executed.”

“It's the only fucking way we're ever going to get a stop-execution order,” said Darwin.

“And Big Jim Hughes will get his well-deserved hefty dose of the Geraldo moment coming to him,” Jessica added. Laughter filled the car. Sharpe added, “It may well be worth it to be handed our walking papers just to see Hughes brought down.”

“And if we all go to jail for it?” asked Jessica. “For a conspiracy to save an innocent man from execution by the state… Gentlemen, sometimes morality is more important than the law.”

“Ask Huck Finn,” said Darwin.

Sharpe replied, “Here here. I like it.”

“If it is the only way to stop this gross injustice,” said Jessica, wrapping her arm around Richard's, “then it is the only way, and if it means our jobs-”

“Then may God blind me… ahhh… if we don't act.”

“Just do it. Trust me, Nike will be calling us to do an ad.”

Darwin didn't hesitate. “I'm in.”

“If you harbor any doubts, Richard, you go… fly back to Quantico before it goes down,” Jessica said to Richard.

“You mean no point in our losing both incomes?” he asked, patted her hand, and added, “No, dear one, I'm like Darwin put it… in. I'm in. I'll stay and see it through, Jess.”

“Then we do the bait and switch.”