“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.”
Darwin got it. “Two strikes against us going in.”
Mrs. Dornan fought past them with doughnuts and coffee for her boss.
“In this man's mind, women are subservient as well. Watch how Dornan acts around him. She knows how to play him to keep her job. Now let me do mine.”
Darwin stared at the doting personal secretary and read her body language around the governor. Jessica continued in Darwin's ear, “You were right all along about this being about race.”
“How is my acting as your boy going to help?”
“He's already heard your pleas for your brother. He's not responded well to them yet, has he? And your ranting at him is only going to solidify his feelings against Robert. Now leave. Do it for Robert.”
Darwin clenched his teeth and glared past her at Governor Hughes, now putting down a doughnut and coffee while simultaneously puffing away on one of his Cuban cigars. “All right… for Robert.”
Now back with the governor, Jessica asked that he indulge her.
“A very nice word, 'indulge.' All right, Dr. Coran, indulge away. Whatever you like, Doctor, after all, I rushed back here to bend over backward for the FBI and your boss. I turned this time over just for you.”
“Good. I'm glad those field operatives who were late picking us up at the airport weren't getting signals from you or your staff to do so. That takes a great deal off my mind and the director's.”
“I hope you will convey my apologies to Mr. Fischer… ahhh… that is when you next speak to him. I had no idea such… games were being played. But you hafta understand how high emotions are running here on the eve of Towne's execution.”
“Can we cut to the chase, Governor?”
“Absolutely.” He sipped at his brandy, took a long pull on his cigar, and stood, coming around his desk. There he leaned his considerable behind into the sharp apex of the edge where two sides met. She thought him a water buffalo scratching an itch where the sun had never shone. He rubbed at the itch through his tailor-made pants. From his new position, he towered over her where she sat. “Indulge more, Dr. Coran,” he said with undisguised abandon now that Dornan had again left the room and he found himself completely alone with Jessica.
She shook loose from her head the awful picture of him nude. She got up and paced the room, putting some distance between them.
Jessica, huddled near the window, keeping her distance. Using a conference table, she spilled out autopsy photos, including those of the two victims from Minnesota and Wisconsin as if in error. It effectively stopped his advance.
“What's the matter, Governor? Can't you handle the truth? Go ahead, look at them.” She held up Sarah Towne's autopsy photo. “All three women are victims of the same brutal monster, the single Spine Thief. In all three cases neither the killer nor the backbones have been dragged into the light, no recoveries. Only questions.”
“Exactly, all you have are questions. I see no new evidence laid before me.”
“Your own prosecutors never found the goods to positively link Towne with his wife's murder. Now we will have compelling new DNA evidence coming out of the two-year-old Minnesota case, and we are building a case in Milwaukee against the real culprit.”
He pointed to the clock on the wall over his shoulder. “You're telling me nothing that will stop time, Dr. Coran. That's not going to happen unless I see some real proof. While I don't doubt your sincerity, emotion alone cannot sway me from my duty.”
“All right, we have a match on the killer's blood type, and further tests will reveal the killer is not even a black man, and soon after we will have the real killer's precise DNA fingerprint, sir, and that, combined with the vigilantism obvious in the court transcript that proves Towne could not get a fair trial here is all the more reason to warrant a stay of-”
“A few days while you run tests. Will you remain here during that time?” he asked.
“If that's what it takes. Until we get the results from Cellmark on the DNA.”
“Quite a speech, Doctor. Perhaps you can sell it to the press, but I remain unmoved.”
“But the blood type found at the scene of the crime in Millbrook, it…”
“It what, Dr. Coran?”
“It does not match Robert Towne's blood type!” she lied.
“Really? I'm flabbergasted.”
“So you can't possibly contemplate going ahead with this execution knowing that?”
“Like the Titanic, this ship is set on a course, and it will take an iceberg to keep it from its destination, Doctor, and your little fib about the blood test isn't quite a big enough chunk of ice, nor do I see two-year-old blood scrapings suddenly uncovered in a lab in St. Paul-quite possibly engineered by the brother out there in the hallway-”
“Christ,” she muttered. “The blood was scraped from the dead woman's nails during a formal, on-the-record exhumation overseen by a competent M.E. and one of our top agents.”
“Yes, your live-in lover, I am given to understand.”
She rankled at this. She knew any moment now she would so lose it as to be escorted out of the building. The man was infuriating. “You had me investigated, too, then.”
“I like to know with whom I am conducting business, and it appears from the casual observer that you Eastern FBI folk have some sort of pool going as to whether or not you can come clear across the country and tell us what to do in Oregon.”
“Geez, how did you ever get elected governor?”
“Good old-fashioned politicking, dear. Want that brandy now? I know from your dossier, Dr. Coran, you tend to drink a little heavy in times of stress.” He poured her a large tumbler with the emblem of state on it. “The three of you, Sharpe, Towne's brother, and yourself, Doctor, to any out-sider, you look like a crusading clique bet up out of some misguided notion gotten up at a liberal prayer meeting, like one of those Baptist revival meetings. Now take the g'damn brandy and drink.”
“Are you going to look at these other bodies, Hughes?”
He stood holding the brandy out to her, his eyebrows rising and lowering as if suggesting they get a great deal closer before he consider anything further she had to say on the subject. “Toast gets buttered on both sides in Oregon, Dr. Coran…Jessica. May I call you Jessica'?” he asked again.
“No, you may not”-she registered his shock at this- “and I'm not here to butter your toast. I believe you have Dornan to do all the buttering up you require. Now it's time for you to recognize the extraordinary detective work on the part of the accused's brother, Agent Darwin Reynolds and Agent Richard Sharpe. You vile man. All this time you've strung this out, entertaining Darwin's calls, his letters, seeing him tonight, all just a fucking game with you, all just to watch him squirm for Towne's life while you never once considered the man's innocence, not once!”
“Of course, I have! Who in his right mind… in this position… Look here, all has changed. Knowing what motivates Reynolds is blood. The man's prejudiced in the extreme. He's family. His brotherly affection for Towne is what drives him. Even Hitler had a mother someplace who likely kept saying, 'My boy couldn't possibly do such awful things.'“
“No doubt, but Towne is no Hitler, and Agent Reynolds has compiled an impressive list of items that surely must give you pause.”
“Pause is one thing, a reprieve is quite another. This state has a long-standing history of punishing the guilty, Dr. Coran, and that means carrying through with jury decisions. And who am I, one man, to overturn a jury decision?”
He let the unspoken unless hang in the air.
“You're not simply one man, sir. You represent the pinnacle of law in your state. You are governor.”
“I am quite aware of my office!”
“Then exercise it for a change!”
They glared across the crime-scene photos at one another. She finally broke the icy stare and silence, saying,
