Robert Walker - Absolute Instinct

“At trial he only had a court appointed lawyer. There they are… the defense team, waiting for us,” said Darwin, pointing as he pulled to a stop.

After introductions and handshakes, the large delegation filed into the mansion and down the corridor to the end of the hall, there to pressure Governor Hughes to allow Towne's defense team to arrange for a DNA test, requiring a postponement of the execution-a governor's reprieve.

On entering, Jessica saw that J.J. Hughes had gathered his own team of lawyers.

The FBI agents had agreed to allow the lawyers to talk to the lawyers, and Hughes seemed happy with this, asking the others to retire with him for brandy and cigars. Richard played the underpaid, overtaxed, easily impressed civil servant to the hilt, ingratiating himself with Hughes, smoking his cigar, drinking his brandy and agreeing that it was a good thing to let the lawyers hash it out. Darwin fumed in a corner. Jessica remained silent, sipping at her brandy from a Waterford Crystal snifter. Jessica gravitated to Darwin and quietly asked him to remain calm, to allow Richard to do his thing.

Raucous laughter broke out between Hughes and Sharpe, Richard telling a dirty joke about a monk on a camel at a Los Angeles brothel. Even Jessica was beginning to wonder if Richard were acting or not with his Hugh Grant imitation.

Finally, Richard subtly brought the subject around to Towne and the stay of execution. The words amnesty, pardon, acquittal came through and Hughes was no longer laughing.

“Without definitive new and compelling evidence, I will tell you the same as I have told your cohorts here, a stay of execution is out of the question and will not be granted for Robert Towne.”

“Why you fat, pompous, racist windbag!” Richard exploded as if Hughes had attacked the queen or the Union Jack, his true colors now unfurled. “All that we've done in the past few days, all the holes large enough to drive your limousine through, and you can't see past your bloody pride and the ignorance of your constituents?”

“Out! All of you, out of my house now!”

Jessica tried to smooth it over, hoping the lawyers in the other room-heated discussion also coming from that quarter-might have made better inroads. She tried to calm the governor when Mrs. Dornan pushed through a back door and entered. She announced like a parrot on cue, “The governor wishes for you to leave now. I should not wish to be forced into the position of having to call security.”

“Who needs security when they have a bitch like you?” shouted Jessica. To the others, she announced, “Come on. This is an absolute waste of our time.”

When they got to the steps outside, Jessica punched Richard hard in the arm. “You,” she began. “I was worried Darwin was going to lose his temper, and what do you do? Get into a shouting match with Hughes, a bloody pissing contest.”

“You were right about the man. He's infuriating.”

“And we all handled him badly,” Jessica glumly replied. “We ought to know how to get what we want from a smalltime politician, people of our experience.”

Darwin leapt to Richard's defense. “But Richard didn't say or do anything I didn't want to say or do, and besides, he was dead on.”

She gritted her teeth. “Darwin, while Richard is right, it does no good for your brother's situation.”

The lawyers now joined them, all three looking dejected. The lone female of the group, a Marilyn Stuttgart told them as her colleagues walked ahead of them to their cars, “Governor Hughes points to the release of Orion in Chicago and the discrepancies between the victims of Towne, ranging in age only from forty-eight to Sarah Towne who would have been fifty days after her murder. As tight a margin as anyone has ever seen, while this Lucinda Wellingham person was only in her mid-twenties.”

“He and his lawyers think the Chicago connection is only a copycat killer also working Milwaukee. Is that what you mean to say?” asked Jessica.

“That's right. Afraid so. Wish you people hadn't given so much ammunition and guns to the enemy before we got here.”

“Our first lover's spat, hey, Ms. Stuttgart?”

“I'm afraid my partners are taking a nosedive. They're talking of getting roaring drunk until the execution is over and done with. Can you blame them?”

“No… no, I can't.”

“The governor's twisted the Chicago find entirely to suit his preconceived notions and racism, and he's had all day to perfect his arguments. Everything we came here tonight to argue had long before been decided.”

“Set in stone,” one of the male partners shouted over his shoulder ahead of them where they all walked to the cars. Ms. Stuttgart continued, “I can also tell you, he hates your guts, Dr. Coran. Whatever you did to him to piss him off… well, it sealed Towne's fate I'm afraid.”

She rushed off in tears now, unable to hold the emotional flood back a moment longer.

Darwin caught up to Stuttgart and rammed his face close to hers. “Then try new strategies, go drastic, do something even if it's wrong.”

“Like what? We've exhausted every avenue.”

“File papers against the fuck-king governor,” Darwin fired back.

This stopped her from climbing into the car alongside her partners. She called into the car's black interior, “Shanley, Ayers, did you hear that? Take Governor James Hughes to court in his own state. You guys wanna put up drywall the rest of your lives?”

The lawyers screeched off and out of sight down the tree-lined sandy red earth path and out onto the highway in the distance.

“So much for pinning hope on a gaggle of lawyers,” Jessica said. “No need to rip out a few spines there.”

“What do you call a thousand lawyers without a single spine among them?” asked Richard.

When no one could find the answer other than stuttering, Richard delivered the punch line. “A snafu… Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.”

“Richard has had run-ins with divorce lawyers,” Jessica explained to Darwin as she and Sharpe again climbed into the rear seat.

“Oh, yeah… I see,” Darwin replied, getting behind the wheel and starting up the engine. He peeled out, leaving smoking rubber behind them.

As they found the highway for the hotel, Richard remarked to Darwin, “I'm afraid only Cellmark in St. Paul can save your brother now.”

“Not if we work together on our last-straw plan,” said Jessica.

“It's madness,” protested Richard, “and it could get Darwin killed in his brother's stead, even if you could get Towne into full agreement.”

Darwin shouted over his shoulder, “If I can manage to take his place, I will not for a moment hesitate, Sharpe.”

“If we could bait and switch this prisoner free,” mused Jessica, “I mean since you two look so startlingly alike, and with his guards all being white…”

The others stared at her. “Well, it's a known fact that cross-cultural and cross-race eyewitness testimony have been proved notoriously wrong in accurately identifying people.”

“But are you sure they look enough alike, Jess?”

“We're like a pair of twins,” Darwin assured him.

“It's still too damned risky.”

Jessica ignored Richard's negativism. “We could get you inside and him out,” she said to Darwin.

“Then what?” asked Richard. “We all become fugitives except for Darwin who is executed in his brother's stead?”

“No, we videotape Towne, hold him someplace, and we stick it to Hughes. We get him to grant the stay of execution on the grounds that it is the wrong man-literally the wrong man now-that he has on death row.”

Richard vigorously shook his head. “That's blackmail of a high-ranking public official, isn't it?”

“So our combined list of criminal activity grows?” she asked. “And at this point, what other recourse have we? What help or support has been offered? Even from our own FBI field offices here?”