“You are dealing with Dr. Jessica Coran, Mr. Towne,” said Sharpe. “She has thought of everything, every contingency.”
Towne flashed on the power and light men. “They have a tape of the switch as it went down, the power and light guys working for you?”
“That's right. Walked right out with it.”
“Will that be enough?”
“There's one other exhibit for the jury.”
“His blood type… of course. You've got his blood type on the record.”
“Courtesy of your friend Dr. Waters, who will attest to it as a disinterested party, who, in giving Towne a routine blood exam discovered it could not be Towne's blood, thus staying the execution of Darwin as well.”
“This state means to kill somebody. I'm still not going to rest till we get Darwin outta here.”
They got past the last checkpoint and Towne's deep inhalations grew even greater as they pulled out onto the highway leading away from the prison.
“We have one more tape to make, Mr. Towne,” said Richard.
“A tape of you, dated, showing that you are in federal custody, Mr. Towne.”
“I think you two have earned the right to call me Rob,” he replied. “And even though it's belated and sounds pretty pitiful… thanks… thanks a whole… a whole heap. But I still won't rest till I see Darwin again outta that hellhole and off death row.”
“Then you have a crusade, Rob. Something to live for,” said Sharpe.
“And we have it on good authority that the lab in Minnesota will have a DNA string to match against yours within twenty-four hours.”
“Lotta good it'd have done me tonight at midnight.”
Jessica replied, “Precisely why we have put everything on the line.”
“Where're we going now… I mean to hide out?” he asked.
“Taking a flight out,” said Richard, “all arranged.”
“Getting you out of Oregon altogether.” Jessica looked over her shoulder and watched the power and light van following them to the airport. She dialed a number for the van. “Are you all set back there?”
On the other end she heard cheers and put the phone up to Towne's ear. “Not everyone in Oregon hates your guts, Rob.”
“That's a comfort. Now where're we going?”
“Chicago.”
“Chicago?”
“Everything is pointing to Chicago, yes. We have agents on the trail of a man believed to have killed a woman in Milwaukee and-”“But the cops in Chicago released the guy!” protested Towne. “Said he had proof he didn't kill that girl.”
“Darwin had a long talk with Agents Petersaul and Cates just before we came to see you, Rob,” countered Jessica.
“Petersaul and her partner are closing in on another suspect,” added Richard.
Towne looked hopefully into her eyes. “Who is this guy?”
“A kind of shadowy second to Orion with whom Lucinda Wellingham had spent a little time close to the end of her life. Likely grooming him for his own showing.”
“Another artist… fits in with the sketches. I tried to tell these fools here I haven't a lick of artistic talent but-”
Bouncing through a bit of turbulent roadwork, Jessica added, “We suspect this guy reacts badly to major events happening in his life.”
Richard told him, “We suspect that his mother's death rather unleashed him on the world. His chance at a showing in Milwaukee, perhaps out of some sudden incident that set him on a rage, perhaps fear of success-who knows-precipitated his killing of his benefactress. Perhaps your wife and Louisa Childe in Millbrook were in a sense benefactors.”
“We've uncovered an unsolved case connected to him as well, years ago in Millbrook, the disappearance of an art dealer-agent type who had some dealings with Gahran. Male this one.”
“Most of his victims,” added Richard, “we again suspect were fill-ins… ahhh… stand-ins for Mommy Dearest, Nurse Ratched, the Evil Queen or whoever he hates most in this life.”
“And a study of the victims not only shows how close in age they were but in matronly appearance, all save Lucinda Wellingham, and this other art dealer, of course, but these two also represented power, authority figures who held his future in their hands, like his mother, we surmise.”
“Big events set him off?”
“One reason he takes months, sometimes years to strike again,” she said. “He lives a quiet, patient, long-suffering lifestyle between in which he buries his urges in his artistic endeavors-puts them in his work, so to speak.”
Clearing his throat, Richard smirked. “He literally puts the 'objects' of his rage into his work.”
“Sounds better and better for this, doesn't he?” asked Towne, a half-satisfied smile creasing his stern features. “How… what else you got on him?” pressed Towne.
“Not to get your hopes up too high,” Jessica said, sipping hot coffee from a Thermos, “but this guy was born in 1980 to a single mother, Larina Gahran. Ring any bells?”
“Gahran… Larina… son named Giles? No, none.”
“Didn't mean a thing to us, either. You see, he's remained under the radar. Never been arrested, so he shows up on no one's screen. Certainly not the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program-VICAP.”
Outside the tinted car windows the black landscape of Oregon turned to lighted strip malls, gas stations, fast-food restaurants and the debris of urban sprawl as they neared the airport.
In the darkness of the cab, Richard again broke the stillness. “Guy's mother is said to have berated him all his life, or so school records show a distinct psychosis involving his relationship with her-was a disability check recipient, former nurse, in of all places, Millbrook, Minnesota.”
“How do you know all this now and not before?” asked a frustrated Towne, accepting a cup of the hot coffee from Jessica.
“Once Petersaul and Cates got on his trail, it led back to Millbrook,” began Richard, “so I called my contact there, Brannan, and he dug up all he could find on Giles Gahran and faxed it to Petersaul, who in turn, contacted Jessica on her cell just before we arrived at your address, Mr. Towne.”
“Then it's all good, solid information, right? All to the good, right?”
“You tell me. Born and raised in Millbrook with a history of medical problems, yes.” Richard held a smug look of assurance. “Everything points to Giles Gahran.”
“That's his name, Giles Gahran,” repeated Towne.
“Now Darwin's got to play out his hand first, and as soon as possible, we will bring him home, too,” Jessica assured him.
Sharpe continued with, “Records show that Gahran attended Millbrook schools, and Brannan's got hold of a yearbook photo he's forwarded to Chicago PD and FBI.”
“Our first victim, Louisa Childe was killed only blocks from where this kid went to high school. He has no college record other than a Portland arts school-”
“Wait… whoa up there. You have him in Portland? at the time of Sarah's murder?” asked Towne.
“We do,” replied Sharpe.
“And this only after his mother died and Childe was killed,” added Jessica. “His tuition in Portland was seeded by money coming out of her estate, the house sale.”
“Sold out and moved to Portland soon after the Childe killing,” Richard said, his hands like fluttering birds, insistent of the truth. “Only weeks after Giles Gahran's mother dies, two years ago, Louisa Childe's mutilated body is discovered in late November, determined to have been killed in mid-November.”
“Your wife was murdered in mid-November too,” added Jessica. “Joyce Olsen murdered in Milwaukee in the same manner in mid-November.”
“Records also show his having attended Portland's prestigious Kanar Institute of the Arts. While in attendance there, your wife is killed.”
“Damn… Sarah was taking classes there…”
“Gahran next shows up in Milwaukee, having not quite completed his studies in Portland, and now we have not one but two killings using the same MO in Milwaukee.”
“Sounds like you're all over this guy now like he fell outta the sky. Where they hell was all this when I was locked up all this time?”