The next of kin may also donate a body.
Governor Hughes only needed the least provocation and excuse to disappear before they could get to him. He'd gotten clear of his office the moment it appeared the FBI agents from Quantico and Milwaukee were running late. He was off to his next appointment, and his appointment was in the next county.
Mrs. Agnes Dornan, the governor's appointment secretary, a thin, tall, big bird of a woman with pinched features and a stern glare, dressed them down for having wasted her boss's precious time. She then spewed forth noises from her gritted teeth as she searched and scanned her book for a moment of the governor's time. “Now… let's see… mmmm… a suitable time when the governor can see a pair of FBI agents from the East bent on discussing a reprieve for a convicted murderer… mmm… One who has been determined guilty of mutilating his wife by the great state of Oregon.”
“Listen, lady!” began Darwin, but Jessica placed both hands against his massive chest and moved him off from the frightened secretary.
“Damn it, Darwin, let me handle this. You're too personally involved. Sit it out.”
She turned back to the secretary while Darwin retreated to a corner and leaned against a window, looking out on the well-manicured lawns of the mansion and muttering under his breath, “Fucking place… fucking governor.”
The secretary looked relieved that she had only to deal with Jessica at this point, and not the brutish black giant in the corner.
“Now… Mrs…. Dornan, is it?”
“Yes, dear.”
“I'm going to get on the phone now to call the Director of the FBI. You know, the one who answers only to the President of the United States and the State Department, and I'm going to turn him over to you, and you can tell him when we can see the fucking governor of Oregon. Is that understood?”
Mrs. Dornan's icy silence and stare clearly meant she would call Jessica's bluff if it were up to her.
Jessica dialed the number. Darwin looked on with interest. Mrs. Dornan's chin rose still higher in the air.
Jessica called out, “William Fischer, please. No, this is an emergency. Do not put me on hold. Do you recognize this number? Yes, Dr. Jessica Coran, and I am calling on urgent business from the great state of Oregon. Now put me through to Will wherever the director is at, and I mean now.”
She silently hummed “What I Did for Love.” Mrs. Dornan's chin had fallen slightly off.
Then Jessica said into the phone, “Will? is that you? Good! You sound like you're inside a drum. Bad connection? What? You're in the can? Oh, shit. Sorry… I mean sorry to catch you there, but this is extremely important, Will. What? Oh, really? I–I suppose, yes… if I can get back in time. Sure… I'd love to see Mercedes, too, and how is Tricia? Uh-uh… yeah, that's so cute. Uh-uh. Look, Will, I need you to set someone here straight.”
Jessica paused a moment, her eyes going to Mrs. Dornan.
Then Jessica yelled into the phone for emphasis. “Straight, straight! I want you to set the governor's personal secretary straight.”
Mrs. Dornan swallowed hard.
Jessica continued her phone conversation. “Yes, it's what we talked about, and it appears you were right about Governor Hughes-strictly a nine to fiver. Yeah, skipped out on us. Yes. Everyone here is so very ready and excited about the prospect of executing Robert Towne day after tomorrow, seems almost like a preternatural hatred for Towne here, and the sonofa… The man won't even see us, and his secretary doesn't think she can fit us in before the bloody execution!” She laughed aloud at this. “Yeah, lotta good it'll do to see the man about a reprieve after the execution. Macabre is right. Whole thing here is surreal.” Jessica laughed more, and the voice on the other end laughed with her.
Darwin's lips curled into a grin. Mrs. Dornan crossed her arms in defiance.
Jessica held out the phone to her. “He wants to speak to you.”
“Me?” Mrs. Dornan hesitated taking the phone. “William Fischer wants to talk to me?
“Yes, the FBI director wishes to speak to you. Seems he's on a fact-finding mission in Minnesota, St. Paul, to be exact, but they patched me through, and the director wants to say hello to you, Mrs. Dornan.”
“I–I… me? Talk to William Fischer?”
Jessica shook the cell phone at her. “Yes, please take the phone.”
Mrs. Dornan took the phone in hand and placed it to her ear only to shove it off her ear as Richard Sharpe shouted on the other end, “You will accommodate my people, young lady, or your boss will hear directly from me! Do you understand?”
“Ahhh… yes, sir… of course, sir. There's just been a litrle misunderstanding here. That's all. We'll rectify the situation, I am sure.”
“Today. Rectify it today.”
Mrs. Dornan stared at the phone, now gone dead.
Darwin and Jessica stood united before her. “So, when can we see Governor Hughes?” Jessica asked.
Mrs. Dornan had gotten on the phone, located Governor James Hughes, and promised him it was in his best interest to cut the fund-raiser short and get back to the mansion to see Dr. Coran and Special Agent Reynolds. When she'd gotten off the line, she informed them that it could be upwards of two hours before Hughes might return, but that he did want to speak to them today, knowing that time was drawing short for Robert W. Towne.
“We'll call in, keep tabs, and be back,” Jessica said. “Can you get us a cab? We're both famished.”
“I recommend the Capitol House Inn,” she said, all smiles now. “It's not too far, and there's a lovely view of the lake, and they have the very best seafood if you like seafood, and no one does steaks better.”
“That sounds positively lovely indeed,” Jessica replied.
Once in a cab leaving the mansion, Darwin asked, “You had Richard Sharpe on the line the whole time?” Reynolds laughed. It was good to see him relax enough to do so.
Jessica joined him in laughter. “Saw a statistic the other day, says we laugh an average thirteen times a day. Not hardly enough.”
“Gotta hand it to you. You played Mrs. Dornan like a fiddle.” He laughed again. His handsome good looks reminded her of Sidney Poitier.
“I think she's otherwise known as Agnes of Oregon.”
Again Darwin's laughter filled the cab.
“The bad news is that Richard really is in St. Paul.”
“Not Millbrook?” asked Darwin.
“Trying to hurry along the DNA testing on the sample taken from Louisa Childe's corpse. It's at Cellmark of St. Paul.”
“Man, I hope they don't take as much time as Millbrook has on this case-two years.”
“Yeah, in two years, Argentina will likely see six more presidents if the past few years are any indication.” she joked. She then explained what little she'd actually understood from Richard's cryptic and frustrated remarks at their last conversation. But now Sharpe had lived up to his name in playing along with her sudden, out-of-the-blue call asking him to impersonate Fischer, the FBI's top cop. His ranting had covered his British accent well enough for the likes of Mrs. Agnes Dornan, and he'd wisely not turned on the camera component of his phone.
Jessica and Darwin were soon seated across from one another in a clean, well-lit mountainside restaurant overlooking a bay filled with rental boats and pleasure craft. Life floating by. People enjoying a leisure that Jessica had begun to wonder more and more about. She couldn't recall the day when she had not carried the badge of FBI M.E., even on holiday.
“See why Robert ran here from Milwaukee. Came as far away as the continent would take him. Beautiful place. All this open country, fresh air, clean water, fishing, hiking, hunting. He taught himself all those things, you know?”
“Now he's imprisoned on death row.”
“Yeah…” Darwin dropped his gaze. “Yeah… could've just as easily have stayed in goddamn Milwaukee for all that he's accomplished.” He laughed only dully.
She tried to cheer him. “We'll convince the governor. We have to.”
“Yeah, what choice otherwise? Break Robert out of a maximum-security prison?”
“Hope it doesn't come to that.”
They ordered salmon steaks. When in Rome, she joked. “This is salmon country.”
She lifted her glass, toasting to their successful mission and then sipped her white merlot while Darwin lifted and drank his Guinness beer.
“I don't like this waiting.”
“I know. It's hard for me, so it must be excruciating for you.”
“It's like all the time is bleeding out, like Robert's blood is being drained with each second. People want his blood, Jess. My blood.”
“We're going to beat this thing, Darwin. Trust me.”
“Geez, all this time, and I haven't so much as thanked you… all the trouble you've gone to, you and Sharpe.”
“Not at all… not at all. Why don't you tell me more about Robert?”
The waiter arrived with their meals. After the clatter of dishware and a few bites, Darwin said, “My brother, Robert and I, we had things rough for the first few years of our lives. He's older than me by almost two years. His mother left him to get away from our father. Our father takes up with another woman, my mother. She follows suit. My father was a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic and not a happy-go-lucky one, I can tell you, but a mean drunk.”
“I'm sorry to hear that.”
Darwin dropped his gaze. “It was like living with a Satanic Incredible Hulk, who might come through the door anytime. Now Robert… he did what he could to protect me all those years, and then when something really major happened, we were taken off by Family and Child Welfare Services.”
“This was where?”
“Chicago. South Side. I was soon adopted by the people who raised me as their own, but Robert stayed in the system until he was sixteen, bouncing in and out of foster homes only to return. He disappeared after that-got on a bus… ran.”
“And you lost touch?”
“Years went by, yeah. Then I read about him in the FBI bulletins, and I see him on CNN for murdering his wife.”
“But if you haven't seen or heard from him in all those years, how could you know he was innocent?”
“I didn't, not until I visited him in jail. Since we had different names, I arranged it by claiming to be investigating the Louisa Childe killing in Millbrook. I'd done my homework before seeing him. Oregon authorities bought my story, and I had clearance to see and interview Towne on the basis of my FBI status. They thought-”
“You were doing research… behavioral-science aspect of his case.”
“Exactly. Then I get back home to Milwaukee, and damned if a third woman hasn't been killed in a like manner.”
“Weird coincidence all right.”
“It was so close to home this time, I thought anyone looking at it from the outside might conclude that I had something to do with Joyce Olsen's killing just to clear my brother's name. You know, throw up a red herring, a flare.”
“To make it appear the killer's still on the loose.”
“That's when I got a notion. You see, I had read your book, so I decided to get you to come and take a look at what the police had in Milwaukee.”
She ate from her salmon dinner. She drank more wine, not knowing what to say.
“Tomorrow we can go out to the prison and see Rob. I know when you meet him, you'll know he's incapable of what they're wanting to execute him for. He's just too gentle.”
“Even though your father has a history of violence and Robert didn't have the stable home you had, Darwin? Can you be so sure?”
“Yes, I have an absolute faith in Robert.”
“You just remember the older brother who threw himself between you and an abusive father.”
“No… no. I've gotten to know him. I tell you, he's innocent.”
She breathed deeply and nodded. “I trust your instincts, Darwin. I'm working under the assumption you are right on and keenly attuned to the facts here.”
“Will you come with me to the prison tomorrow? Regardless of how it goes with the governor tonight? Will you meet Robert?”
“Yes, I will, but don't we have to make petition to see him at this late date?”
“We're FBI. Besides, tomorrow I go see him as his only living relative.”
“I see.” She lifted her wineglass to him, and he lifted his beer in toast. “To success with the governor tonight.”
“To success.”
With dinner completed, they pushed from the table in the restaurant and bags in hand, they walked across the room. It felt as if every eye in the place followed them, curious and wondering if one or both had stepped from the pages of some tabloid or Hollywood gossip magazine. They checked in and located their rooms, wanting to settle in for the calm before the storm, before meeting J.J. Hughes, the single-most important man of the hour.
“I'm going to attempt a brief nap,” Jessica told Darwin as they reached her room.
“Jet lag kicking in?”
“That and ordinary fatigue. Wake me when it's time.”
“Will do. I'm not likely to sleep.”
“Perhaps you ought to. We need to be clearheaded when we see the man. Now that he's given us the slip the first go-round, I suspect he really doesn't want to talk to anyone about Towne's pending execution.”
“I know you're right, but still… don't think I can sleep. Catch the news… see what's what on CNN.”
Jessica unlocked her door and tossed her bags inside. They had booked adjoining rooms for the duration. “I have a feeling this could drag on.”
As Darwin followed suit, unlocking his door, he asked, “So, when's Sharpe going to get on a plane for here with some physical evidence?”
“I'll let you know the minute I know. I imagine he's about ready to shoot someone in Minnesota by now.”
A couple passed by staring unabashedly at them. The eyes of the couple were as large as plate-glass windows, and desperate to follow their movements.
“You get the sense we've stepped back in time?” she asked. “To a kind of puritanical period?”
“Welcome to Portland, Dr. Coran. I tell you it's a major cause why Robert was so quickly condemned, she being a white woman.”
“Get some rest, Darwin,” she pleaded. “Call the desk for a wake-up call. And I'll do the same.”
“All right… I will,” he assured her with the lie.
IN St. Paul, Minnesota, Richard Sharpe paced the Cellmark laboratory waiting room when finally a young lady, looking as if she'd just stepped off a college campus, came toward him. “Agent Sharpe?”
“Yes, and you?”
“Amanda Howland. I'm night supervisor of the lab here.”
“Really? And so young. Congratulations. Now, have you good news for me?”
“I'm afraid not.”
“What?”
“It's just impossible to run the kinds of tests you require in so short a time. I'm not sure who led you to believe we could do it in a few short hours, but that's just not going to happen without a court order.”
“A man's life is at stake.”
“I understand that, but there's no physical way we can rush such sophisticated tests within such a brief span. You say you're here on behalf of a medical examiner, a Dr. Jessica Coran… Well, sir, she should know-”
“We all know how much time it takes to do DNA tests, but in the case of the Lanark boy-the one believed to be a missing and exploited child, your offices did the DNA work in twenty four hours.”
“Not without a court order. I'm sorry.”
“God of the heavens, I can get a federal court order across town. I'll be back with it within an hour, an hour and a half at the most. In the meantime, you get your people on this full time front burner, Dr. ahhh… ahhh… Dr.-”
“Howland, Amanda Howland. I can only tell you that the blood analysis done on the nail scrapings proved conclusively to be AB-neg. So, it is not the victim's blood type, it belongs to someone she obviously scratched.”
“Her killer's blood… all this time buried with her due to some… some inanity perpetrated by the very people who are charged with speaking for the victim. Now you look here, Dr. Howland, someone… some one of you Minnesotans has to make amends… to make up for the gross inadequacy uncovered here. Is Cellmark going to step up to the plate and take its best swing at this thing or not?”
“Baseball metaphors notwithstanding, sir, we can only do what time permits, but if you are sure you can get the federal court order, then I will see to it that Cellmark bats it out of the park.”
“All the same, we need a game clincher here if we're to save a man from being executed for a crime he may well not have committed.”
“You just get me the order as quickly as you can. My superiors see the discrepancy between when we began on this project and when we got the order… Well, it's my job, sir.”
“All right, but promise me you'll go out on that limb and waste no more precious time.” “I've already started the ball rolling, but I'll stay myself to oversee until it gets done. Now get me the paper.”
“I'll send word to Oregon that the Millbrook killer is AB-negative. That may be enough to clear Towne.”
“Unless he, too, is AB-neg. In which case…”
“Yes, well, apparently authorities in Oregon are so entirely convinced of this man's guilt that such a match could get him the chamber a day earlier, I suppose.”
Amanda Howland's eyes and forehead narrowed at this, creasing as she mulled it over, and then her eyes went wide. “Ahhh, one of those subtle English deliveries is what you have. That was a joke, right?”
Even as he rushed away from Dr. Howland, Sharpe pulled out his cellular phone to call Jessica, waking her with the news that at least they had a blood typing on the killer, that he was AB-negative. “So, what is Robert Towne's blood type?”
“I don't… I don't know, actually. Let me get Darwin on that. He can find out more readily than I can. He has had access to Towne. In fact, we go to see him tomorrow on death row. Turns out that Darwin is Towne's biological half brother, Richard.”
“What?”
“You heard me right.”
“This puts another complexion on things altogether.”
“It changes nothing and explains much about Darwin and his behavior, that's all.”
“And if Robert Towne proves to be AB-negative? What then, Jess?”
“What then? Millions of people are AB-negative. If he is AB-neg, then it proves nothing, but if he is not AB-neg, then it proves him innocent just as surely as any DNA evidence.”
“I don't think the governor or the people of Oregon are going to see that as clearly as you, darling. And in the meantime, the DNA tests here are slow going yet. I'm on my way to gather up a federal court order and rush it through as we speak.”
“I'll let you go then. I have to get freshened up for our belated meeting with Governor Hughes.”
They said their good-byes and Jessica was left with the knowledge of the killer's having an AB-negative blood type. She wondered if it were a trump card or a discard, and she wondered how she would feel if it turned out to be the later.
She went to the washbasin and threw water on her face and toweled off. She then banged on the wall for Darwin, going to the adjoining door and throwing open her side, continuing to bang.
No answer.
“Where the hell'd he get off to?”
Jessica found Darwin in the hotel lobby bar downing whiskey shooters with beer chasers. She instantly grabbed him and pulled him from the bar. “Are you nuts?”
“What's up? What's sa-matta? You never see a black man get loaded before?”
“Don't wimp out on me now, Darwin. Damn you, be a man a little longer. We're off to see the fucking wizard and you're getting plastered? Shit.”
“For all the good it'll do, hell.” He staggered with her to a darkened booth. “I'm not going to be able to help Rob. I just know it. He's going down like the prover-pro-ver-bial… yeah, proverbial stone down the fucking well and no matter what kind of song and dance we do for Hughes, it isn't going to mean one damn fucking thing on account… on account've the guv like veryone else. Did I say 'veryone' else?” He laughed.
He was smashed. She motioned a waiter over and ordered two pots of black coffee be brought to their table. Once she had plied him with coffee and prescription uppers she'd found at the bottom of her purse, she got him on the elevator and back to his room. There she ordered him to strip and get into a cold shower.
He smiled at the notion but did as told while she turned her back. He came to her and placed his powerful arms around her while standing there naked.
“Damn it to hell, Darwin, get your hands off me and get into the goddamn shower now!” She almost melted under his touch, and for that she was angry at him, angry at the situation he had created, and most of all angry at herself for having such feelings for the younger man, for thinking even for a moment of betraying Richard's trust.
Darwin turned her around and kissed her full on the lips, his hands going everywhere. She pushed away and slapped him hard across the face, so hard he got the point in no uncertain terms.
To stave off her feelings, she blurted out the news from Richard about the AB-negative blood. He only stood there, his enormous manhood hard and throbbing. He grabbed a towel and the white cloth against his black body created a stark contrast. He stepped into the bathroom and into the shower without a word.
When he had finished showering, Darwin silently dressed in the clothes and suit she'd laid out for him. She joked lightly about having to do his laundry for him next. He muttered a preference for another tie. They said nothing about what had passed between then.
“The blood test'll prove it. Robert's got AB blood. But the motherfuckers over at the prison are not going to let us in till tomorrow to conduct any medical test. Some nonsense atop their nonsense. Warden Gwingault's orders.”
“That's great news, Darwin, but Oregon authorities appear to have lost your brother's medical records, and they roll-up-the-streets-at-nine, so we'll get in there first thing in the morning. A test for blood type we can get results on in a matter of hours, but I fear now that the DNA test is going to take more time than we have. So… we have to convince Hughes it's worth waiting for.”
“Rob's most likely got the same blood type as me, right?” he asked as he dressed.
She shook her head and threw the tie he wanted across the bed. “Wish I could say it works that way but unfortunately, Darwin, it doesn't.”
“But when we were kids, I gave him my blood once, a transfusion. Our father'd hit him over the head with a half empty Jim Beam bottle. He bled something fierce and I couldn't get it to stop, and he'd gone unconscious, so I called nine-one-one. It was after that they took us into custody.”
“And you were how old at the time?”
“Five, six… going on. Rob two years older.”
She shook her head at this. “Didn't happen.”
“What didn't happen?”
“The hospital personnel may have gone through some sleight-of-hand with you, Darwin, allowing you to think they had taken your blood, but they don't take blood from kids so young. Quite possibly they used plasma packs stored for such emergencies.”
“Using his blood type.”
“Exactly.”
“Then there's no knowing how the Minnesota blood type will work out for Rob…”
“We'll get it done.”
“And if it's a match, Jess? What then? What is it, a one-in-four, one-in-five chance?”
“Odds aren't that simple. Many more AB-negs out there than any other type. But we can get lucky. Even if it is the same blood type, we can also determine if the blood comes from a white male, black male, Asian, or other nationality.”
He raised his hands. “If it ain't his blood, we'll know it.”
“The problem comes in making Governor Hughes and everyone in Oregon believe the blood evidence was not manufactured.”
“No one can question that. Sharpe did the gathering from the exhumation. An unbiased and independent-”
“Yes, but a two-year-old degenerated scraping from fingers turned to bone, Darwin. You've got to brace yourself for the possibility that the DNA tests could, after all this time-”
“Prove inconclusive, I know, but hell, I read where they did it with Columbus, Abraham Lincoln, some Egyptian pharaoh's bones. What's two damn years?”
“Those are extremely time-and-labor intensive, sophisticated tests, Darwin, conducted by experts in DNA matching and topology. Besides, few people outside law enforcement even understand the significance of that sample even if it does go our way.”
“We just have to educate people then.”
“Yeah, stomp out ignorance like the brushfire it is. It's why I need your big, ugly feet sober.”
Darwin bit his lip. “I do apologize. I just lost it there for a time.”
“You're under a hell of a lot of stress keeping your relationship with Towne a secret all this time. People could, you know, misconstrue your intentions in doing that as well.”
“I'm coming clean with it tomorrow at the prison. Everyone is going to know then. But I do it on my own terms, in my own way.”
“All right. Your secret is safe with me. Now let's go take down the governor.”
“I'm with you.”