For a further union, a deeper communion,
through the dark cold and empty desolation.
Surveillance of Giles Gahran's rented apartment in
Chicago continued. Watching for any sign of him, Petersaul and Cates spent the time discussing and arguing their next step.
Petersaul shook her head from behind the wheel of the unmarked sedan. “No way we collar him without a warrant or provocation.”
“We approach him, he runs, you got provocation.”
“Yeah, but suppose he never comes out?”
“We don't know that he's even inside there, Pete. If the local PD has him at Michigan Avenue!”
“Do you really think they actually spotted him, or someone who looks like him? Our collaring this bastard will make up for our screw up with the governor in Oregon, Cates.”
“Wait a minute! We didn't screw up. How'er we to know the governor of Oregon is a prick? When Darwin didn't give us a heads up on the guy, Pete? All we did was report the facts. Hell… people sure can distort the facts.”
“We get a collar that turns out to be this brutal guy who's ripped out the spines now of four women in four separate venues…”
“Three venues. Two were killed on our watch in our town, Olsen and Wellingham, and let's not forget the reward for the arrest and conviction. Honey, with that kind of money I might even begin to look good to you, and we could retire to Acapulco until we got our heads straight and want to surface. I hear the diving there's great. You scuba? Snorkel? Have any desire to see me in a bathing suit?”
She exaggeratedly shook her head and pulled at her ears and hair. “God let me get that image outta my mind.”
They laughed at the good-natured ribbing.
“I'm serious about you getting interested in a nice guy who is unattached, though, Petie girl. I mean-”
“Will you stop mothering… I mean fathering me! You keep it up, I'm going to put in for a new partner.”
He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, God forbid someone tell you what's good for you, and all 'bout the pain of forbidden fruit from one who knows. Experience, baby, nothing like it, along with adversity in human relationships.”
“Adversity? You?”
“Adversity-father of invention I say, and damn sure the invention of the lie, and the biggest of all lies, the one we tell oursel-”
“Shut up! There he is! It's got to be him. He fits Gahran's description and he's carrying an oversized bag.”
“The easel bag. He's got it on his back.”
“You reckon it's chock-full with another spinal rack?”
“That'd give us all the evidence we need,” replied Cates, “unless he's carrying art books.”
“How do you want to approach? You front, me back or vice versa?” “All the evidence we need could be sitting up there in his apartment. Maybe we should let him go in, knock on the door.”
“We need that fucking warrant!”
“A warrant can take hours if we get a liberal judge, and even then it won't give us the latitude we need. Better to get him to invite us in,” advised the senior agent, Cates. “Then anything in plain sight is fair game.”
“But he's not likely to do that.” She whipped out her,9mm automatic and taped it to her leg. “Here's my invitation, and besides, who can resist a long-legged, young, impressionable, shapely art groupie? I'll tell him Lucinda Wellingham sent me. He'll be so freaked by that-”
“-that he'll kill you, Pete!”
“-that he'll invite me in to see his etchings. He makes one wrong move, and that's when I drop his ass, cuff him and call you in to help me search.”
“Sounds fuckin' risk free, sure. No, Pete… can't let you do that. I let you do that, and you get even a scratch on your pretty little derriere, and Darwin'll have my ass.”
“It'll just require a little undercover work. It's legal. It won't come back to haunt us. I follow him to the local bar, get him to pick me up. What could be simpler?”
“All right… if you're sure, but the moment I think you're in danger, I come crashing in with guns blazing, you got that?”
“You're on.”
“Gotta treat this guy like the snake he is,” began Cates. “And dead or alive, I don't care how we do it, Pete, but I do say we nab this guy, take the glory ourselves.”
They sat huddled in the chilly sedan outside the apartment rented to their quarry, a cold wind whipping around the car, fingers of cold drafting up through every vent. “You ready to go knock at the door of the supposed son of Mad Matthew Matisak?” “Yeah, sure… but we call Darwin first. We let him know our every step, just as he ordered.”
“Come on with that shit,” Cates complained, his curmudgeon features pinched in consternation. “He ain't here to blow your nose, Pete.”
Amanda Petersaul frowned, ignored Cates, and dialed Darwin's number as the suspect, one Giles Gahran, went through his front door without noticing them, straight up to his room where a light came on.
The phone rang in Robert Towne's pocket inside the van, inside the hangar as the filming of his brief statement was underway.
Towne raised his hands in a gesture of confusion as the phone continued to ring.
“Shit! Cut! Cut!” shouted the serious young man directing the tape who had played one of the power and light decoys at the prison. “Can't work like this, people,” he kiddingly said.
“Answer the call,” Jessica said. “It could be Petersaul in Chicago with good news.”
“Maybe you should answer it,” countered Towne. “She's not going to recognize my voice.”
“Are you kidding? You sound just like Darwin.” Still, Jessica took the ringing phone he extended. She announced herself to the caller, adding, “What can I do for you?”
“This is Petersaul. Where's Darwin? I've an update for him. It's urg-”
“He's somewhat indisposed at the moment.”
“Indisposed? How so?”
Petersaul's tone gave her away in the slight twinge of building anger. “This is urgent,” she repeated. “Put him on, Dr. Coran.”
“I'd have to smuggle the phone into the Oregon state pen to do that.”“
What? What are you talking about?”
“He's exchanged places with his look-a-like brother, Robert-”
“-Towne, I know… I know they are brothers. Now please explain to me whose brilliant idea it was to put Darwin on death row! Are you people all as crazy as… as…”
“As Darwin? It was my idea, but Darwin is loving it, and we have everything under control. He's not going to be executed, and neither is his brother.”
“So you're all now fugitives?”
“One way to look at it. So, what have you got for us, and how soon can we take this guy Gahran into custody and start sweating out a confession?”
“We're sitting outside his apartment.”
“Really! Excellent! How did you locate him?”
“Followed the trail of a train ticket to a taxicab that brought him here. It helped that we had the composite drawing got up from the fire marshal and the landlady in Milwaukee.”
“Do you have a warrant for search and seizure?”
“Not yet, but we've been here less than an hour, trying to determine if he's in or out. Now we know he's in.
