Jessica dialed the number. Darwin looked on with interest. Mrs. Dornan's chin rose still higher in the air.
Jessica called out, “William Fischer, please. No, this is an emergency. Do not put me on hold. Do you recognize this number? Yes, Dr. Jessica Coran, and I am calling on urgent business from the great state of Oregon. Now put me through to Will wherever the director is at, and I mean now.”
She silently hummed “What I Did for Love.” Mrs. Dornan's chin had fallen slightly off.
Then Jessica said into the phone, “Will? is that you? Good! You sound like you're inside a drum. Bad connection? What? You're in the can? Oh, shit. Sorry… I mean sorry to catch you there, but this is extremely important, Will. What? Oh, really? I–I suppose, yes… if I can get back in time. Sure… I'd love to see Mercedes, too, and how is Tricia? Uh-uh… yeah, that's so cute. Uh-uh. Look, Will, I need you to set someone here straight.”
Jessica paused a moment, her eyes going to Mrs. Dornan.
Then Jessica yelled into the phone for emphasis. “Straight, straight! I want you to set the governor's personal secretary straight.”
Mrs. Dornan swallowed hard.
Jessica continued her phone conversation. “Yes, it's what we talked about, and it appears you were right about Governor Hughes-strictly a nine to fiver. Yeah, skipped out on us. Yes. Everyone here is so very ready and excited about the prospect of executing Robert Towne day after tomorrow, seems almost like a preternatural hatred for Towne here, and the sonofa… The man won't even see us, and his secretary doesn't think she can fit us in before the bloody execution!” She laughed aloud at this. “Yeah, lotta good it'll do to see the man about a reprieve after the execution. Macabre is right. Whole thing here is surreal.” Jessica laughed more, and the voice on the other end laughed with her.
Darwin's lips curled into a grin. Mrs. Dornan crossed her arms in defiance.
Jessica held out the phone to her. “He wants to speak to you.”
“Me?” Mrs. Dornan hesitated taking the phone. “William Fischer wants to talk to me?
“Yes, the FBI director wishes to speak to you. Seems he's on a fact-finding mission in Minnesota, St. Paul, to be exact, but they patched me through, and the director wants to say hello to you, Mrs. Dornan.”
“I–I… me? Talk to William Fischer?”
Jessica shook the cell phone at her. “Yes, please take the phone.”
Mrs. Dornan took the phone in hand and placed it to her ear only to shove it off her ear as Richard Sharpe shouted on the other end, “You will accommodate my people, young lady, or your boss will hear directly from me! Do you understand?”
“Ahhh… yes, sir… of course, sir. There's just been a litrle misunderstanding here. That's all. We'll rectify the situation, I am sure.”
“Today. Rectify it today.”
Mrs. Dornan stared at the phone, now gone dead.
Darwin and Jessica stood united before her. “So, when can we see Governor Hughes?” Jessica asked.
Mrs. Dornan had gotten on the phone, located Governor James Hughes, and promised him it was in his best interest to cut the fund-raiser short and get back to the mansion to see Dr. Coran and Special Agent Reynolds. When she'd gotten off the line, she informed them that it could be upwards of two hours before Hughes might return, but that he did want to speak to them today, knowing that time was drawing short for Robert W. Towne.
“We'll call in, keep tabs, and be back,” Jessica said. “Can you get us a cab? We're both famished.”
“I recommend the Capitol House Inn,” she said, all smiles now. “It's not too far, and there's a lovely view of the lake, and they have the very best seafood if you like seafood, and no one does steaks better.”
“That sounds positively lovely indeed,” Jessica replied.
Once in a cab leaving the mansion, Darwin asked, “You had Richard Sharpe on the line the whole time?” Reynolds laughed. It was good to see him relax enough to do so.
Jessica joined him in laughter. “Saw a statistic the other day, says we laugh an average thirteen times a day. Not hardly enough.”
“Gotta hand it to you. You played Mrs. Dornan like a fiddle.” He laughed again. His handsome good looks reminded her of Sidney Poitier.
“I think she's otherwise known as Agnes of Oregon.”
Again Darwin's laughter filled the cab.
“The bad news is that Richard really is in St. Paul.”
“Not Millbrook?” asked Darwin.
“Trying to hurry along the DNA testing on the sample taken from Louisa Childe's corpse. It's at Cellmark of St. Paul.”
“Man, I hope they don't take as much time as Millbrook has on this case-two years.”
“Yeah, in two years, Argentina will likely see six more presidents if the past few years are any indication.” she joked. She then explained what little she'd actually understood from Richard's cryptic and frustrated remarks at their last conversation. But now Sharpe had lived up to his name in playing along with her sudden, out-of-the-blue call asking him to impersonate Fischer, the FBI's top cop. His ranting had covered his British accent well enough for the likes of Mrs. Agnes Dornan, and he'd wisely not turned on the camera component of his phone.
Jessica and Darwin were soon seated across from one another in a clean, well-lit mountainside restaurant overlooking a bay filled with rental boats and pleasure craft. Life floating by. People enjoying a leisure that Jessica had begun to wonder more and more about. She couldn't recall the day when she had not carried the badge of FBI M.E., even on holiday.
“See why Robert ran here from Milwaukee. Came as far away as the continent would take him. Beautiful place. All this open country, fresh air, clean water, fishing, hiking, hunting. He taught himself all those things, you know?”
“Now he's imprisoned on death row.”
“Yeah…” Darwin dropped his gaze. “Yeah… could've just as easily have stayed in goddamn Milwaukee for all that he's accomplished.” He laughed only dully.
She tried to cheer him. “We'll convince the governor. We have to.”
“Yeah, what choice otherwise? Break Robert out of a maximum-security prison?”
“Hope it doesn't come to that.”
They ordered salmon steaks. When in Rome, she joked. “This is salmon country.”
She lifted her glass, toasting to their successful mission and then sipped her white merlot while Darwin lifted and drank his Guinness beer.
“I don't like this waiting.”
“I know. It's hard for me, so it must be excruciating for you.”
“It's like all the time is bleeding out, like Robert's blood is being drained with each second. People want his blood, Jess. My blood.”
“We're going to beat this thing, Darwin. Trust me.”
“Geez, all this time, and I haven't so much as thanked you… all the trouble you've gone to, you and Sharpe.”
“Not at all… not at all. Why don't you tell me more about Robert?”
The waiter arrived with their meals. After the clatter of dishware and a few bites, Darwin said, “My brother, Robert and I, we had things rough for the first few years of our lives. He's older than me by almost two years. His mother left him to get away from our father. Our father takes up with another woman, my mother. She follows suit. My father was a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic and not a happy-go-lucky one, I can tell you, but a mean drunk.”
“I'm sorry to hear that.”
Darwin dropped his gaze. “It was like living with a Satanic Incredible Hulk, who might come through the door anytime. Now Robert… he did what he could to protect me all those years, and then when something really major happened, we were taken off by Family and Child Welfare Services.”
“This was where?”
“Chicago. South Side. I was soon adopted by the people who raised me as their own, but Robert stayed in the system until he was sixteen, bouncing in and out of foster homes only to return. He disappeared after that-got on a bus… ran.”
“And you lost touch?”
“Years went by, yeah. Then I read about him in the FBI bulletins, and I see him on CNN for murdering his wife.”