“You've met this guy Towne now. What do you think? What does your gut tell you about him?”
“Innocent, railroaded,” she shot back, “and sadly broken.”
“I gotta tell you I was shocked… well, truly surprised… to learn you'd taken up the cause of a death-row inmate. You of all people.”
“I had a good guide to this one, Eriq.”
“And this thing in Chicago? It certainly smacks of a connection. Is it connected?”
“Too soon to be absolutely certain, but yeah, we have people working on connecting the dots there.”
They said their good-byes and he wished her luck and foolishly reminded her that time was running out fast now.
Darwin's pained face met hers when she got off the line with Eriq. He looked stricken.
“What is it? Your brother? What?”
“Damn fools Petersaul and Cates.”
“What about them?”
“They gave all their findings to Hughes's office, and it was… was good stuff.”
“Christ, it won't be, not by time Hughes and his people have poked holes in it, and put their spin on it.”
“Damn fool Amanda!”
“What's with Petersaul?”
“Said she couldn't get hold of either of us or Sharpe. Called while we were without our phones in with Robert. Damn!”
“Why didn't she just leave a message?”
“She did on my voice mail. It's why I called her back but too late. She thought she was doing right.”
“No way she could know the governor's as big an ass as… as… as the governor's ass.”
Darwin laughed at this.
“I've got my plea in now to Fischer. All we can do now is pray that he puts on the needed pressure, and that Cellmark gets the DNA mapping done for the signature of the killer, and then we match it to Rob's, and we'll have the conclusive proof we need to free him.”
Jessica pressed send on the E-mail, a detailed needs list directed at her boss's boss.
“What if he doesn't get it?”
“The E-mail?”
“The E-mail, its contents, the reason for all of this?”
“We have to hope he does.”
“Hope is become a shredded, unraveling cord, Jess, or haven't you noticed? Damn that blood type. Why couldn't it have gone in our favor?” he asked.
“Because God is enjoying the drama a little too much, maybe? But wait a minute. Just hold on a minute.”
He stared at her, trying to fathom her thoughts. “What? What're we holding on for?”
“We need to… I mean what if… could it possibly work?”
Still confused, Darwin placed both hands on her shoulders and amid the cafe crowd gripped her strongly and said, “Spit it out.” “No… not here. In the car on the way to pick up Richard at the airport. I've got to think this through.”
He plunked down enough bills to cover the coffee and pastries they'd nibbled on along with the usage fee for the computer. “If you've got a new direction, I want to hear about it. Come on.”
They sat out on the airport taxi strip, having flashed their FBI badges out the windows of the rented LeSabre. Now they watched as the jumbo jet arriving from San Francisco, and carrying Richard Sharpe, touched down with a bark of burning tires, calmed, slowed and came to a stop to make a forty-five-degree turn for the terminal. Jessica anxiously awaited Richard as the jet lazily taxied toward the terminal.
Sharpe, traveling light with only a carry-on, found them and he and Jessica hugged and kissed for a long, warm reunion.
Darwin hung back, standing at the open driver's side door. In a moment, Jessica put the two men together to shake hands.
A deepening dusk had fallen over Portland. By midnight tomorrow night, Robert Towne would be executed. Time seemed now to be pouring through the hourglass like a flash flood through a baked dry, thirsty ravine. Unstoppable, unless Jessica's plan could be made to work. She feared letting Richard know of it, feared he would on the one hand oppose it as too dangerously criminal, outside the bounds of the law and their duty, and on the other hand he might agree to it almost as quickly as Darwin had, which would make him another accomplice in the act, another culpable party.
They would have to broach the subject carefully with Richard or attempt it without his knowledge. The decision was hers entirely. Darwin had made it clear that, with or without Richard's assistance, he would break his unlawfully prosecuted, unlawfully convicted brother out of prison if only for a few days, until they could prove conclusively via DNA evidence out of Minnesota that Robert Towne was indeed not the Spine Thief.
“Why don't you two just hug as well as shake one another's arms off,” she said of the two men greeting one another with mutual admiration and a kind of benevolent pissing contest as to which would stop shaking the other's hand first. To end it, Jessica pushed them into one another for a hug, saying, “After all we've been through, we could all use a group hug.”
“I just got off the phone with Howland at Cellmark, and they're unsure,” Sharpe told them. “I've bugged this Dr. Howland there repeatedly, and Eriq has stationed men on their doorstep.”
“What's taking so damn long?” pleaded Darwin.
“Dr. Howland refuses to let anything out until she is satisfied, and apparently, it takes a great deal to satisfy her.”
Jessica gave him a glare. “I hope you don't mean she came at you the way the governor of the great state of Oregon came at me.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked. “Did that man lay a hand on you?”
She groaned. “No… no, but not for lack of trying. He is a sexual predator, it would seem, not above selling his principles for a cause, if a girl is willing. He likely seldom gets turned down, and it didn't please him any.”
Darwin got in her face. “Why the hell didn't you tell me about this, Jessica?”
“I don't want either of you two going into this meeting with Hughes like a pair of raging, insulted bulls, damn it. Just forget about that crap for now. Richard, we've worked out something that will spare Towne should the governor rebuke us again, and should the DNA evidence not materialize by tomorrow afternoon.”
“What sort of duplicity are you planning, Jess?”
“You know me and authority figures, and particularly assholes in authority… like Hughes and his lackey, Warden Donald Gwingault. Also a real charmer.”
“I want to hear all about it.”
When she and Richard climbed into the rear of the car, Darwin behind the wheel, Jessica's eyes met Darwin's in the rearview mirror, and she shrugged and said, “I could never keep a secret from Richard.” She then launched into her and Darwin's plan.
“Stalling the execution isn't in the cards anymore, so far as I can see. No reprieve. Not with the way these people twist reality and facts, like they've done with news coming out of Chicago,” she told Richard.
Richard's phone rang. He opened it. “Oh, good, Dr. Howland from Cellmark,” he announced for the others. “Tell me you have good news for us.”
Silence as Richard listened to the voice at the other end.
“What? A lab mishap… spoiled test… had to start over? When did this all occur?”
Again he listened, fuming. “So this is what you told Agent Santiva? And all along you've been stalling for time. Well now, Doctor, time is fast, fast running out here in Oregon.”
He cut her off, afraid of what he might say next, afraid it might jeopardize any further attempt to get the DNA to them at the last.
“More bad news,” commented Darwin.
“Pour it on,” she agreed.
“Some idiot in Howland's lab has, she fears, destroyed what little sample they had to work with, and she-
