“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.
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 amp; 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.”
