Absolute Instinct (Instinct thriller series) Page 26

  “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.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Dancing in the lion's jaw.

  — FROM A HAITIAN VOODOO SONG

  GILES Gahran made for a strange sight standing at the concrete barrier wall created by the Chicago Parks Authority, dressed in black with a long coat flapping around him in the breeze—Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, minus the cool elan. But he carried with him an interesting-looking, curiously irregular shaped, ornately ribboned leather-bound box. Where he stood staring out at the oceanlike enormity of Lake Michigan. Dusk had come on. He'd hoped for darkness by now as a blackening sky had rolled in from the lake to cover Chicago in a blanket of metal-gray turning to onyx.

  His knuckles had gone white holding so tightly to his father-in-a-box, as he fully intended to do away with the parasitic mind-leeching holdover from his childhood. Mother's final gift to him.

  He had come to the enormous great lake of the Great Lakes here in Chicago, with a wind whipping so treacherously up at him from the stone barriers erected along this section of Lincoln Park that he felt as if the Devil of the wind wanted the box, that it meant to rip it from his hands and do with the box what it willed rather than see him throw it into the pounding waves. He imagined the contents spilling out and flying in all directions, flyers to the world here disseminating who he was—the sins of the father making tomorrow's Tribune and Sun-Times. He clutched the box against the wind even tighter. If he pitched it whole into the water, it might float for hours, and some fool might fish it out. But if he dared open it, the wind would stab at its contents with its draconian fingers and lift out whole sections of loose news clippings, photos, documents and send them off like blind birds in a fit of flapping and squawking.

  A true Chicago storm was brewing overhead. A darkness like night had crept like evil itself over the city as if to hold it ransom to darkness, Chicago turning from daylight to midnight within the hour owned now by the power of the storm edge.

  It seemed to Giles that all the forces of nature had aligned with him to be in agreement, in sync, chanting in the powerful wind and the threatening lightning streaks out over the water, and in the rolling thunder, all as if to say, Do it! Do it! Do it now, Giles! Fuck the consequences, just rid yourself of Mother's nasty little
legacy box, bequeathed from so enormous a hatred as to set your backbone to quivering.

  The voice in the wind now pounded his psyche and inner ear. It sounded like his dream father's voice from the far off other side, telling him to go ahead and hurl any and all knowledge locked away in the box into the raging waters to be swallowed whole there in the pounding waves, that it wouldn't float, that no one would ever find the box buried below the lake.

  He lifted the box overhead, preparing to do as all of nature and all of his instincts told him; an it was to destroy any vestige of the carefully guarded, carefully accumulated, carefully passed on reams of information detailing the man who had fathered and abandoned him.

  “Sonofabitch... son of one motherfucking bitch is what you are!” he shouted at the box as a female jogger hastened her speed to get past the strange figure in black with the box held overhead, talking to himself.

  A second jogger along the lake path stopped and stared. The man faintly asked against the wind, “Hey, buddy, you all right? Not thinking of jumping, are you?”

  Barely hearing this, Giles turned to the sound, half expecting to see his dead mother or his living father. His mother had told him that his father would live on forever. Somewhere in the box. Also somewhere in the cumbersome box—no doubt—she had left Father's last known address here in Chicago. Mother had said he'd once lived in Chicago, and that he was killed under strange circumstances in New Orleans, but that could all have been fabricated, he imagined. Perhaps Father was as alive as Giles and living right here in the city? Perhaps his address lay just beneath Giles's fingers, in the box. He imagined a large house filled with rooms, his father coming to the door and welcoming him in with open arms.

  Subconsciously, he supposed it a reason underlying all others for his coming to the Windy City. To finally face his father. To see if he was the monster Mother portrayed after all, and to ask him why he had left Giles with so vile a creature.