Absolute Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  Petersaul had gone from the museum gallery people to locate the mysterious other artist, Gahran. They failed to locate Gahran, who had left Milwaukee in what appeared a sudden flurry of activity. This they had learned from his landlady who'd been surprised when he paid up all his back rent.

  “Did he say where he was going?” asked Petersaul, mulling over this news.

  “He only said he would soon be a household name. I took it to mean due to his art, nothing like being wanted by the FBI.”

  “We only want to question him, ma'am,” Cates had said.

  “You ought've been here last night then when the fire department was called out and they traced an odor in the vents to the man's apartment.”

  “Fire department?”

  “A whole truckload of firemen tearing around the building in gas masks, yes. We all thought it was some sorta terrorist thing, you know.”

  The agents telephoned the nearest firehouse and asked if anyone there had cited Giles Gahran for causing undue alarm at his apartment building.

  A Captain Edward Lee was pat on. “Damn,” he muttered when he learned who they were and who they were interested in. “Stay put. I'll come to you!”

  Lee was soon filling their ears with information and his regrets at not having looked closer at their guy, Giles Gahran. Cates and Petersaul learned that the fire marshal, Captain Lee, had left Gahran without giving him a citation for causing the choking odors that had permeated the building.

  “Ah-ha, odors of decay and death?” asked Cates.

  “Filthy odors like purification?” Petersaul eagerly added.

  Fire Marshal Ed Lee shook his head while chanting “No.” “It was really just the opposite, cleaning fluids... lots of cleaning fluids, including muriatic acid, enough to burn out the lining of your nostrils and throat, but this guy seemed oblivious to the odors escaping the place and working into the vents.”

  “Muriatic acid,” repeated Cates.

  “Did he offer up any explanations as to why he was so bent on cleaning house?” Petersaul asked.

  Ed Lee gritted his teeth hard, obviously angry with himself. Petersaul thought Lee looked like an even wilder wild-eyed version of the actor Billy Bob Thornton.

  The Billy Bob look-a-like, thin and angular of face, rubbed his day-old stubble and said, “Something to do with a final pa... pa... patina? I think it was something he'd had to put over his sculptures. Keep 'em from breaking in transit. The guy talked like nonstop.”

  “Sculptures? Transit?”

  “Yeah, he was crating up, preparing to leave. Back of my head, I thought just for a couple seconds of calling in the cops. Cops get real interested in this kinda quick exit, don't they? But everything seemed to check out. Crates were carrying his stone sculptures. Soapstone I think it was, but don't quote me.”

  “Crates? He was crating up stuff...” Petersaul shared an astonished look with Jared Cates.

  “Yeah, but it was just his artwork. He even pried open one of the boxes to give me a look inside. Not my type art, but it was you know, different.”

  Petersaul replied rapid-fire fashion. “Different? Just how different? Give me some detail here, Captain.”

  “Weird shit, you know. A lady holding out her hand, a bird sitting on her finger. Couldn't see much else, you know, looking downward from overhead and the statue was lying on its side, stuffing all round it like exploded bedding.”

  “But why do you say it was weird?” pressed Petersaul, while Cates rolled his eyes.

  “No eyes.”

  “No eyes?” she repeated.

  “You know, only blank indications of eyes, and no features really, just like a blank face, like it wasn't yet finished is how I took it to be. Or like it was 'spose to represent all mankind, some shit like that you know, so it had to be kinda blank to be... whataya call it... representational, symbolic?”

  “I see... blank features.”

  Captain Lee muttered, “Certainly not my cup of tea. I mean I wouldn't go outta my way to see it. Like something my wife would drag me to.”

  “And what kind of art do you like, Captain?” asked Cates.

  “Oh, I ain't much for any art, but if I gotta have it, give me dogs 'round a poker table or pool table and I'm happy. The wife, she likes canopy trees over a road leading to a light in the distance, but not me.”

  “You only looked into the one crate then?” Petersaul tried to get the conversation back on track.

  But Lee was off track and seemed only too happy to remain that way. “I saw that unbelievable damn Picasso they got in Chicago once. Not my cup a tea neither. I says to the wife on our way to the Sears Tower—observation deck, you know—I says to Maddy, 'And they paid big freakin' dollars for that pile of rusting metal shit to sit out here on the plaza!' Hadda-be the fix was in, the politicians getting their cut, you know?”

  “So, where did Gahran say he was moving his crates to?”

  “He didn't say.”

  “And you didn't ask?”

  “I didn't ask. Saw no point in it.”

  “You confiscate anything from the apartment when you wrote up the citation?”

  “Sure.”

  “What?”

  “Old rags he was using . * . for the patina, he said.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Dumpster behind the station house. Smelled to high heaven. We confiscated his fuckin' acid mop, too—stuff they use for cleaning pools.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nah, just the rags and the acid. Left him his bleach and Tide. Damn fool had mixed 'em all together. Amazing he didn't faint dead away, but he just seemed oblivious to everything going on.”

  “And you saw no sign of any bones?” asked Cates.

  “Bones? Oh, wait a minute. Has this got to do with what they found at that UPS place in Chicago? Holy shit! Is he the guy... that Orion guy?”

  “It could have something to do with the Chicago business, yes, but Gahran and Orion, we believe, are two separate people.”

  “Did you see any evidence of bones about the place?”

  “No... no bones.”

  “Anything else? Anything you want to add to your statement?” asked Petersaul who'd jotted down notes on a pad.

  “Yeah... come to think of it. He had this strange box.”

  “Box?”

  “A beautiful leather-bound thing tied with velvety sash and all.”

  “That seem even a little weird to you, Captain?”

  “Seemed a lot weird, but in my line you see it all, so I shrugged it off, you know. But he also had this huge, long shoulder bag. Figured it was an easel bag for carrying his easel, but I noticed that even though the elongated bag appeared stuffed full, bulging, an easel stood in the corner. Didn't really pay it much mind. Figured it was a second, old easel he meant to leave behind. Now... I don't know.”

  Petersaul handed Lee her card, saying, “Anything else comes to mind—anything at all about this guy—you call, understood, Captain?”

  They said good-bye to the fleeing fire marshal who seemed now to want to put distance between himself and the FBI agents. Lee was muttering angrily to himself the entire way out of the building, paying no heed to the landlady's calling after him in search of some answers to questions of her own. Petersaul returned to combing through the immaculately cleaned apartment. It appeared absolutely empty, save for the silent furniture left behind in the furnished one-bedroom, oversized living room, bath and kitchenette.

  “We need blue lights and Luminol spray on every inch of this place,” she said. “All I smell is blood here.”

  “No way you can smell it over the cleaning odors.”

  “I feel it then. Will you make the call?”

  “Sure.” Cates got on his cell phone and dialed Sands's office.

  “I'm going to check out the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom cabinet, see if he left any prescription bottles or anything useful behind.”

  He didn't answer, as he was speaking to Sands directly.
“Yeah, Dr. Sands. We got what might turn out to be a lair here.”

  Petersaul dialed for Darwin but Darwin wasn't answering his phone. In fact, it failed to ring. It'd been deactivated, the carrier said in a mechanical voice.

  Frustrated, Petersaul attempted to get hold of Dr. Coran and only -after eleven rings did someone answer. It was a gruff male voice announcing, “Oregon State Pen. Dr. Coran is inside death-row lockup. Call back later. This phone has been confiscated.”

  “Tell her Pete called!” she shouted to the sound of a click. “Fuck! Now what?”

  Petersaul rejoined Cates in the living room. They stood in silence for a long several seconds until Cates finally burst out, “Well? What'd he think of our findings?”

  “Couldn't get him. Couldn't get anyone.”

  “No one?”

  “I believe Darwin and Dr. Coran are on death row with Towne. Darwin told me they had a two o'clock appointment there, but apparently, it was pushed back.”

  “Then we call the fucking governor.”

  “Yeah... yeah, we call Hughes.”

  “Let's go to the Chicago field office, set it up as a three-way with the governor. That'd be easier for all concerned and you can help me get all the details in,” she told Cates.

  “It's your show. Darwin did leave you in charge.”

  “He trusts me. Look, Cates, Darwin has... well, he has a personal reason for stopping this execution. I can't give you any details as he promised me to secrecy, but I... trust me... he has good reason, and Robert Towne is unjustly accused. He believes that. And if he believes it so strongly, then I do as well.”

  “Kinda like on faith, huh? All right. I'll follow your lead with the governor. We'll see if we can't sway him.”

  They rushed to Chicago to go to the FBI field office there, a good hour and a half even with the siren at full blast.

  # # #

  AGENTS Cates and Petersaul stepped from Police Plaza One where they had gone to see the body of Lucinda Wellingham and had met Chicago's top M.E., Horace Keene, who graciously and earnestly shared all that he and his team had learned about Lucinda's death and the awful coffin she'd been found in at UPS. The agents stepped out into a Chicago downpour and into a blackened sky, the clock tower across the street at the LaSalle Bank read 5:48 P.M.

  “Time's running out for that guy up in Portland,” Cates commented, fighting with the wind to light a cigarette from where they stood beneath the canopy outside Police Plaza One. “What is it, tomorrow midnight? Nothing we got here is going to change a lotta minds in Oregon.”

  “We need to compare our notes,” she replied. “There's a Bennigan's across the street. Let's go have a meal and we can decide what to pass along to Darwin that's going to help out there in Portland.”

  “Tell me, Pete, you sleeping with our young boss?”

  “What a goddamn question to pose to me in the rain in the midst of an investigation with a wind howling so loud I can't hear myself think!”

  “Don't call it the Windy City for nothing,” short and stubby Cates replied.

  “I always heard that Windy City referred to the politicians here,” she said, stalling.

  He just stared at her, his silence a kind of friendly fire-acid bath.

  “Fuck, Jared.” She stared long into Cates's steely gray, unflinching eyes. “Does everybody know it?”

  “Everybody knows it.”

  “Fuck... and we've been so cautious. Never anything in the office, never so much as a glance.”

  “That was the giveaway. You two never make eye contact, and never check each other out. It's unnatural, like an ignored instinct. Sore thumb, Pete. Besides, you are working in the middle of an office full of detectives. Pete, I know it's none of my business but—”

  “It'd destroy his marriage and screw with his kids' heads, Jared, if it ever got out.”

  “Then cut it off. End it.”

  “I will. I will.”

  “You sound like a junky or a gambler now.”

  “I fucking will!”

  “That's sounding a little more convincing.”

  They dodged cabs and traffic for the restaurant. Once sitting inside, along with ordering a meal, they exchanged notepads and discussed the case and its most salient aspects, creating a list of items to share with Darwin in Portland.

  “I'll call him,” Cates volunteered. “I'm senior here, partner, and he doesn't have a hard-on for me.”

  “No, he's expecting to hear from me.”

  “Christ, Pete, do you hear yourself? You sound like a high-school girl on a prom date. This is an FBI investigation, not a sock hop.” “They don't do sock hops anymore, they do raves and hazings, Cates. Get with the times.”

  Cates pulled out his cell phone and began to dial. She put a finger over his phone and said, “I will call him, and it will be a professional call. That's the end of it, Cates. No more.” She left the table for a quiet corner of the room, pulled out her own cell phone and speed dialed Darwin's private cell number.

  # # #

  REPEATEDLY Jessica and Darwin had been put off by the Oregon state penal authorities, who cited a litany of reasons why they could not visit Towne until after four in the afternoon. But finally they were in, after they had undergone frisking and scanning, their telephones confiscated along with their guns.

  Darwin introduced Jessica to Robert Towne who looked so much like his brother that Jessica did a double take. “I thought you guys were half brothers, different moms. You look like twins.”

  “To authorities, we are twins in here,” replied Darwin, going to his brother and hugging him. “Rob, Dr. Jessica Coran has helped me tremendously.”

  “Little Brother has told me all about you, and how hard you've worked for my reprieve and in gathering evidence for a new trial. But like I've told this knucklehead, I'm done for and prepared to meet my Maker.”

  Jessica shook the hand Towne offered. She took an instant liking to him. He was Darwin all over again, the spitting image. “I swear Darwin didn't tell me how closely you two resemble one another.”

  “Not for long,” joked Towne.

  “Not if things keep hurtling 'long downhill,” added Darwin.

  “We are doing all we can to free you, Mr. Towne, to prove your innocence.”“How can you know I am innocent? We only just met.”

  “I've come to trust my instincts over the years, and I trust my faith in Darwin and all that he's uncovered. Besides, all the holes in the case lead to one conclusion. The evidence in your case has to be viewed side by side with Millbrook, Minnesota, Milwaukee and now Chicago.”

  “Yeah, I heard about Chicago.” A brief moment of hopeful light entered his eyes. “Heard through the prison grapevine.”

  They were in a sealed, locked room with cameras panning, monitored by guards at a video station outside. They were within six feet of Towne's cell, within fifty feet of the chamber were he was scheduled to die.

  “We've got people all over the thing in Chicago, Rob, doing everything possible to pull a rabbit outta the hat.”

  Jessica added, “Not to mention our agent who's lit a fire under Minnesota authorities. He sent us the blood type found under the victim's nails.”

  “All the way from a two-year-old corpse in a cemetery in Millbrook, Bro,” added Darwin.

  “So we need to take your blood type and match it against the findings there. I've brought my medical bag in order to conduct the test. All I need is your OK to go ahead.”

  “What's the use? It won't change any minds, no matter the outcome of any damn tests you got, Doctor.”

  Darwin fell into a chair, stunned. “This makes no sense, Rob, just giving up, like... like a whipped dog.”

  Jessica noted Darwin with his brother, how alike they were in mannerism and speech pattern if Darwin chose to use the easygoing language of his youth.

  “Got no reason, Darwin, to trust on anything no more. I've made peace with going over. I can't take another false hope that's going to die on the vine. Told m
y lawyers that already. Told 'em I didn't wanna see you but one time more and then I'm done, Bro... Done and over with and you can get back to your life, your kids, man, that woman of yours. No more wasting your life over me, Darwin.”

  Darwin shot to his feet and got in his brother's face. On profile, they really did look the part of twins, Jessica thought. “Damn you, Rob! Damn it, if your blood type is anything other than AB-negative, then that cell door has got to swing open for you, man! Now give the doc here some blood and do it now. With this, the governor's got to listen to reason.”

  “Only one problem with that, Little Brother...”

  “What problem?”

  “Already know my blood type... and it's AB-negative all the way.”

  “Jesus... God... why?” Darwin moaned.

  “Are you simply saying this because you've made up your mind to die, Mr. Towne?” asked Jessica.

  “I asked the doc here to give me the test moment I heard what you had got from that dead woman in Minnesota. Talk to the prison doc, Old Doc Waters, if you don't believe me.”

  “Is that why you didn't want to see us earlier, Mr. Towne? Because you want no more false hopes?” asked Jessica.

  He turned to Darwin. “I told 'em I didn't want to see you, Little Brother. Sorry but that's the way it is. I want you to give it up now, Darwin.”

  Jessica met Darwin's gaze. Darwin asked, “When the hell are we going to get those DNA results from Cellmark?”

  “I'm going to get on the phone to them personally, and I'll see if I can get the real Fischer to get on their asses, too.”

  “I appreciate all you've both done for me,” said Towne, “really, I do. But I have to be reasonable now, practical. I know there's no way I'm getting outta this business alive... not in this life, not now. I've got to let it go. Else I can't make my peace, Darwin, with God, you know.”

  “You do that, Robert,” Darwin angrily replied. “Make your goddamn peace with God! Meanwhile, we're going to find a way to get you outta this fix. I swear it.”

  “Your family is missing you, boy. You're going to lose that pretty wife and those kids. Now you just get on back to Wisconsin where you belong, Little Brother, and forget about me!”