Absolute Instinct Read online

  “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. H
e'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.”

  THIRTEEN

  Don't go looking for airborne, fire-breathing dragons, until you run out of grounded 'gators and crocks.

  — GOVERNOR J. J. HUGHES

  Portland, Oregon 8 P.M.

  THE Honorable Governor James Jason Hughes proved to be an expansive man, exuding the dignified air of a man above the common fold who might have regaled people in another time, a man for whom the old European designation for those in power, highness—as in your high-ness—was turned into high-ass, as he physically and metaphorically carried his overweight ass on his shoulder. He indeed proved expansive, both in size and generosity, filling the room with his pancake griddle—sized face and frying-pan hands in welcome, smiling wide all the while. Jessica immediately decided it was all for show. “J.J,” he repeatedly said, “just J. J. to anyone who knows me!”

  Hughes offered them coffee, pastries, a seat, and sent Mrs. Dornan chasing after his needs even as Darwin and Jessica declined any refreshments. When Mrs. Dornan had gone, Hughes offered cigars and brandy, California wine if Jessica preferred.

  “We are here, Governor Hughes, on a very important matter,” Jessica began.

  “Of course, you are. Everyone who comes through that door comes with the most important matter on Earth troubling them, I can assure you, and I have heard tales... well, stories that would curl that Dante Inferno guy's hair.”

  Jessica started to correct him on Dante Alighieri, but she immediately squelched the notion. Darwin exchanged a troubled look with her as Hughes continued on about Ore-gonian politics and the economy, the war over timber and proposed offshore drilling rights, tree lovers, beetle lovers, the recent find in the state of a boy who had been abducted from his mother twelve years before by an estranged husband now living in a cabin on a mountain in the deep woods.

  “Yes, sir.” He slowed to take a breath, but before Jessica could get a word in, he added, “Why else? Why indeed come through that door... Why else come to me?” The big, wide-shouldered man sat back in his Corinthian leather chair and guffawed at some mental image. “I've had heads of state come in here with their hands out, and I've had clowns and acrobats parade in here from the Barnum & Bailey Circus. This office is ripe for Ripley's Believe It or Not, I can tell you stories, Dr. Coran—Jessica. May I call you Jessica?”

  Not replying, Jessica noted that J.J. spoke exclusively to her and not to Darwin. Darwin must have noticed, too. He jumped right in. “This is a man's life, we're talking about.” Darwin sat on edge. “An innocent man. This isn't an episode of Ripley's and it sure isn't any circus.”

 
; Jovial Hughes rankled at this. He sternly and firmly replied, punctuating his every word from behind his desk with his lit cigar. “Young man, Agent Reynolds, believe me when I tell you this, I certainly meant no offense by sharing with you and Dr. Coran here the absurdities that come across my desk. I did not in the least mean to imply that your brother's case has anything smacking of that nature to it, but rather—”

  “My brother? Towne is—”

  “We have investigators working for us night and day, Agent Reynolds. And as I was curious about your... Let's say profound interest in a case so many miles from your territory, I began to ask discreet questions.”

  “You had me investigated. Then you know I'm Towne's ta^/” brother.”

  “Half or whole, it will only play one way in the press and in the hearts and minds of my constituency.”

  “You can't really sit there and play politics as usual, Governor,” Jessica said, rising to her feet to put a hand on Darwin's shoulder and ease him back into his own chair.

  “I have seen nothing to prove this man's innocence, but I have seen—”

  “He was assumed guilty from the moment of arrest,” shouted Darwin, losing control again, “and he has never been given a fair trial! That alone is grounds for a stay.”

  “As I was about to say, I have seen nothing to persuade me to act against the wishes of the state or the people of Oregon, or in fact, the wishes of Robert W. Towne.”

  “Let me apologize for my colleague, Governor,” said Jessica, ushering Darwin to the door. “Wait outside!” she told him.

  “What? I didn't come all this way to be put out on the doorstep like some errant cat.”

  “Just do as I say, or we're going to get nowhere with this man. Darwin, the man's a covert racist anxious to see your brother die. Now damn it, step outside.”

  “What good can I do from outside?”

  “If he sees you are taking orders from me, a white woman, he's going to take me more seriously. Trust me. I know the type. He won't deal with a black man, and he doesn't like dealing with women, either.”