Robert Walker - Absolute Instinct

She curled up in the leather seat. Fatigue claimed dominance, her eyes heavy with it, as if lavished on with a brush.

“Picture the Olsen kitchen again. You were there, you saw it, right?”

Jessica joined him there. “All neat and tidy.”

“I had a look in the trash bin. Guess what I found inside?”

“I haven't a clue.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing… hmmm… should I be impressed, Sherlock?”

“Freshly cleaned out. Same as in Millbrook. Now look into the dishwasher,” he added as he “opened” an imaginary dishwasher between them in the cab of the car. “The killer is our neat freak. He even turned on the dishwasher and did the dishes.” He paused to let this sink in. “A check with her landlord, and I'm told Joyce Olsen was not obsessively neat about the place.”

“Still, how do you know she didn't do her dishes?”

“There are six dishes inside. No way is a woman going to wash four cups and two saucers. It's not economical, and from all accounts, Olsen was economical. Besides the noise of the washer would drown out the noise of his bone-saw activity.”

Jessica found herself playing devil's advocate now. “She was expecting him, perhaps, so she put her dishes away when the doorbell rang… out of habit or nervousness.”

“Look, the broom in Minnesota used to smear all the blood and any tracks and here… here it's a mop swept over the evidence.”

“Done in Portland as well?”

“Not to mention the size and depth of the wounds, and the M.E.s all agreeing that he used a scalpel-styled knife, and a bone cutter, for the removal of the spinal cords.”

Darwin allowed all he'd said to settle in.

Outside the car, the bustle of traffic in downtown Milwaukee moved like a herd of water buffalo going across a wide stream-slow going at best. Neon lights, electronic billboards and display windows vied for attention.

“All right, I see the similarities,” Jessica conceded. “No great stretch.”

“I tell you, Towne is innocent, and the real killer has surfaced again,” pushed Reynolds.

“I can see that you believe this.”

“You will, too, if you take the time to review the Portland and Minnesota cases. In Oregon, a moblike mentality prevailed in the community-a fucking witch-hunt engineered intentionally or not around the same kind of brainless thinking as… as went into the guilty verdict in To Kill a Mockingbird, or countless real-life cases I can give you chapter and verse on if-”

She held up her hands in mock surrender. “So, you are saying that they railroaded a conviction based on his being black? Come on.”

“Worse than that. They rammed it to him for being black and supposedly killing a white woman. The machine ran a single-minded track and steamrolled over an innocent man.”

Her silence telegraphed the fact that her skepticism hadn't significantly diminished.

“I'm telling you that's how it went down. They railroaded Robert onto death row. Oregon's still got that Wild West approach to law and order, an inherent vigilantism is at work there. Rob Towne didn't get a fair trial, and he'd never get a fair appeal, either, so he says why bother?”

“What does the governor think?”

“Hughes? Ahhh… He's persuaded-that is, moved by the political winds-and is persuaded that no way can he overturn a Court TV verdict. He's the consummate-”

“-politician, I'm sure, and easily led by his political advisors.”

“Exactly, but he's begun to listen somewhat. There is hope, Dr. Coran, and you're it.”

“Me? Meaning?”

“Meaning that I'm going to send Governor Hughes a copy of your report.”

“You mean you're going to shove it down his throat, right?”

“Perhaps, yes.”

“Does Hughes know you're a cross between James Earl Jones and Michael Dorn?”

“I've met with him. First time was the day after the trial verdict last year. Yeah, he knows I can hurt him, but I don't operate like that.”

“Sorry… meant no offense. That was rude… thoughtless of me.”

“I'll forgive your insensitive response, Doctor, if you'll seriously look over the evidence and report your findings to Hughes.”

“So this has been a setup? Hughes is expecting a report?”

“Yes, he is.” Darwin hesitated just a beat. “Hughes wants us, you in particular, to put the Millbrook and Milwaukee killings alongside what he has in Portland, kind of overlay each atop the other to see what comes of it, forensics-wise, I mean.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that the governor of Oregon asked for all this to come his way? That he's anxiously awaiting my opinion?”

“Evidence is evidence.”

“And state's evidence is state's evidence. Hughes isn't likely to want to pick a fight with his own people, to reverse the process that arrested, tried and convicted Towne. Come on, Darwin. Out with the truth. I can't work with you if you're going to play fucking games.”

“This is the truth! I've dogged the governor's office since Towne was convicted, and I've wired him about you, about the new findings. He's gotta listen to us. I'll make him listen to us.”

“Whataya going to do? Corner him with a sucker punch? You know governors of state, you know they hate granting reprieves, even short ones. And look at what you've done with me. You've blown it with me.”

“How have I blown it with you?” he sounded genuinely surprised.

“Come on, Darwin. You've already prejudiced and compromised me, by-”

“-by informing you? That's all I've done.”

“You've told me your opinion and that you fully expect your opinion to be upheld by my findings. In forensics, that's putting the cart before the horse-conclusion made, now go prove it. Besides, you're lying about Hughes's level of interest in reviewing Towne's case.”

He pulled the car into an underground police crime lab facility that looked like a bank, nondescript with no indication it was FBI. Once in the lot, as he located a space and pulled into it, Darwin leaned heavily into his steering wheel and sighed. “Ail right. I'm sorry. You're right, of course, but I simply want you to review the facts and keep an open mind.”

“Who is Towne to you? Really?”

Reynolds lifted his gaze to her, his jaw set. “He's a black brother, and I'm a member of For Blacks Only. Look, Towne is just another in a long, long line of black men who've been shafted by the American judicial system.”

“Are you saying this is some sort of crusade, a cause?”

“It's as good a cause as any, Dr. Coran. An innocent life at stake.”

“And you're not clouded by the passion of the crusade?”

“Not in the least. All right… perhaps some… All the same, I'm right and Oregon is dead wrong.”

“And this guy Towne couldn't possibly be guilty? Couldn't possibly have done this to his wife, not even a chance he'd read about what happened to the Childe woman in Minnesota and-”

“I understand your skepticism, and I applaud it. Fact is, I want you to pit it all against the case files, and I am certain you'll see that Hughes and his state attorney's office are the guilty party here.”

“Towne could as well be proven guilty by my scrutiny, by DNA testing, Darwin. Are you ready to accept that possibility?”

“I am prepared for whatever verdict you decide, Dr. Coran. Will you review the material I've amassed?”

She sighed heavily now. “Tonight, I'll go over everything you want to share on the cases. But for the moment, I have an autopsy to get to.”

The modest, claustrophobic changing area for female doctors at the Milwaukee FBI crime lab run by Dr. Ira Sands left little shoulder room between the lockers. As a result, Jessica had donned her surgical garb as quickly as possible to join Ira Sands out in the larger arena of autopsy room #1. There Joyce Olsen's now cleaned and stark white body lay awaiting her attention, lying not on its back as in any normal autopsy, but on its front atop a gleaming metal slab, built-in suction tubes running down either side, to carry away any loose or falling matter.