Cruel & Unusual

  "Marino and I have talked several times. It appears you have several cases going on right now that aren't connected by evidence, necessarily, but by a peculiar coincidence in timing.”

  "I think we're dealing with more than coincidence. You know about Ronnie Waddell's print turning up in Jennifer Deighton's house.”

  "Yes.”

  He stared off at a stand of evergreens backlit by the setting sun. "As I've told Marino, I'm hoping there's a logical explanation for how Waddell's print got there.”

  "The logical explanation may very well be that he was, at some point, inside her house.”

  "Then we're dealing with a situation so bizarre as to defy description, Kay. A death row convict is out on the street killing again. And we're supposed to assume someone else took his place in the chair on the night of December thirteenth. I doubt there would have been many volunteers.”

  "You wouldn't think so," I said.

  "What do you know about Waddell's criminal history?”

  "Very little.”

  "I interviewed him years ago, in Mecklenburg.“ I glanced over at him with interest. "I'll preface my next remarks by saying that he was not particularly cooperative in that he would not discuss Robyn Naismith's murder. He claimed that if he killed her, he didn't remember it. Not that this is unusual. Most of the violent offenders I have interviewed either claim to have poor recall; or they deny that they committed the crimes. I had a copy of Waddell's Assessment Protocol faxed to me before you got here. We'll go over it after dinner.”

  “Benton, I'm already glad I'm here.”

  He stared straight ahead, our shoulders barely touching. The slope beneath us got steeper as. we rode in silence for a while. Then he said, "How are you, Kay?”

  "Better. There are still moments.”

  "I know: There will always be moments. But fewer of them, I hope-. Days, perhaps, where you don't feel it.”

  “Yes," I said. "There are days when I don't.”

  "We've got a very good lead on the group responsible. We think we know who placed the bomb.”

  We raised the tips of our skis and leaned forward as the lift eased us out like baby birds nudged from the nest. My legs were stiff and cold from the ride, and trails in the shade were treacherous with ice. Wesley's long white skis vanished against the snow and caught light at the same time. He danced down the slope in dazzling puffs of diamond dust, pausing every now and then to look back. I waved him on by barely lifting a pole as I made languid parallel toms and floated over moguls. Halfway into the run I was limber and warm, thoughts flying free.

  When I returned to my room as it was getting dark, I discovered Marino had left a message that he would be at headquarters until five-thirty and for me to call ASAP.

  "What's going on?”

  I said when he answered..

  "Nothing that's going to make you sleep better. For starters, Jason Story's badmouthing you to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen - including reporters.”

  "His rage has to go somewhere," I said, my mood darkening again.

  "Well, what he's doing ain't good, but it also ain't the worst of our problems. We can't locate ten print cards for Waddell.”

  "Not anywhere?”

  "You got it. We've checked his files at Richmond P.D., the State Police, and the FBI. That's every jurisdiction that should have them. No cards. Then I contacted Donahue at the pen to see if I could track down Waddell's personal effects; such as books, letters, hairbrush, toothbrush - anything that might be a source for latent prints. And guess what? Donahue says the only things Waddell's mother wanted were his watch and ring. Everything else Corrections destroyed.”

  I sat heavily on the edge of the bed.

  “And I saved the best for last, Doc. Firearms hit paydirt and you ain't going to believe it. The bullets recovered from Eddie Heath and Susan Story was fired from the same gun, a twenty-two.”

  “Dear God,” I said.

  Downstairs in the Homestead Club, a band was playing jazz, but the audience was small and the music was not too loud to talk over. Connie had taken Lucy to a movie, leaving Wesley and me at a table in a deserted corner of the dance floor. Both of us were sipping cognac. He did not seem as physically tired as I was, but tension had returned to his face.

  Reaching behind him, he took another candle from an unoccupied table and set it by two others he had claimed. The light was unsteady but adequate, and though we did not get long stares from guests, we did get glances. I supposed it seemed a strange place to work, but the lobby and dining room were not private enough, and Wesley was much too circumspect to suggest we meet in his room or mine.

  “There would seem to be a number of conflicting elements here,” he said. “But human behavior is not set in stone. Waddell was in prison for ten years. We don't know how he might have changed. I would categorize Eddie Heath's murder as a sexually motivated homicide while, at first glance, Susan Story's homicide appears to be an execution, a hit.”

  “As if two different perpetrators are involved,” I said, toying with my cognac.

  He leaned forward, idly flipping through Robyn Naismith's case file. “It's interesting,” he said, without looking up. “You hear so much about modus operandi, about the offender's signature. He always selects this type of victim or chooses this sort of location and prefers knives and so on. But, in fact, this isn't always the case. Nor is the emotion of the crime always obvious. I said that Susan Story's homicide, at first glance, does not appear to be sexually motivated. But the more I've thought about it the more I believe there is a sexual component. I think this killer is into piquerism.”

  “Robyn Naismith was stabbed multiple times,” I said. “Yes. I'd say that what was done to her is a textbook example. There was no evidence of rape - not that this means it didn't occur. But no semen. The repeated Plunging of the knife in her abdomen, buttocks, and breasts was a substitute for penile penetration. Obvious piquerism. Biting is less obvious, not at all related to any components of the sexual act, it is my opinion, but again a substitute for penile penetration. Teeth sinking into flesh, cannibalism, like John Joubert did to the news delivery boys he murdered in Nebraska. Then we have bullets. You would not associate shootings with piquerism unless you thought about it for a moment. Then the dynamics, in some instances, become clear. Something penetrating flesh. That was the Son of Sam's thing.”

  “There's no evidence of piquerism in Jennifer Deighton's death.”

  “True. This goes back to what I was saying. There isn’t always a clear pattern. Certainly, we're not talking about a clear pattern here, but there is one element that the murders of Eddie Heath, Jennifer Deighton, and Susan Story have in common. I would classify the crimes as organized.”

  “Not as organized with Jennifer Deighton,” I pointed out “It appears the killer attempted to disguise her death as a suicide and failed. Or perhaps he did not intend to kill her at all and got carried away with a choke hold.”

  “Her death before she was placed inside her car probably wasn't the plan,” Wesley agreed. “But the fact is, it appears there was a plan. And the garden hose hooked up to the exhaust pipe was severed with a sharp tool that was never recovered. Either the killer brought his own tool or weapon to the scene, or he deposed of whatever it was he found at her house and used. That's organized behavior. But before we go too far with this, let me remind you that we don't have a twenty-two bullet or other piece of evidence that might link Jennifer Deighton's homicide with the homicides of the Heath boy and Susan.”

  “I think we do, Benton. Ronnie Waddell's print was recovered from a dining room chair inside Jennifer Deighton's house.”

  “We don't know that it was Ronnie Waddell who pumped slugs into the other two.”

  “Eddie Heath's body was positioned in a manner reminiscent of Robyn Naismith's case. The boy was attacked &e night Ronnie Waddell was to be executed. Don't you there's some weird thread here?”

  “Let's put it this way,” he said. “I don't wa
nt to think it.”

  “Neither of us wants to. Benton, what's your gut feel He motioned for the waitress to bring more cognac, candlelight illuminating the clean lines of his left cheek bone and chin.

  “My gut feeling? Okay. I have a very bad gut feeling about all of this,” he said. “I believe Ronnie Waddell is the common denominator, but I don't know what that means. A latent print recently found at a scene was identified as his, yet we can't locate his ten print cards or anything else that might effect a positive identification.

  He also wasn't printed at the morgue, and the person who allegedly forgot to do so has since been murdered with the same gun used on Eddie Heath. Waddell's legal counsel, Nick Grueman, apparently knew Jennifer Deighton, and in fact, it appears she faxed a message to Grueman days before she was murdered. Finally, yes, there is a subtle and peculiar similarity between Eddie Heath's and Robyn Naismith's deaths. Frankly, I can't help but wonder if the attack on Heath wasn't, for some reason, intended to be symbolic.”

  He waited until our drinks had been set before us, then opened a manila envelope that was attached to Robyn Naismith's case. That small act triggered something I had not thought of before.

  “I had to get her photographs from Archives,” I said.

  Wesley glanced at me as he slipped on his glasses.

  “In cases this old, the paper records have been reduced to microfilm, the printouts of which are in the file you've got. The original documents are destroyed, but we keep the original photos. They go to Archives.”

  “Which is what? A room in your building?”

  “No, Benton. A warehouse near the state library - the same warehouse where the Bureau of Forensic Science stores evidence from its old cases.”

  “Vander still hasn't found the photograph of the bloody thumbprint Waddell left inside Robyn Naismith's house?”

  “No,” I said as Wesley met my eyes. We both knew that Vander was never going to find it.

  “Christ,” he said. “Who retrieved Robyn Naismith's photos for you?”

  “My administrator,” I replied. “Ben Stevens. He made a trip to Archives a week or so before Waddell's execution.”

  “Why?”

  “During the final stages of the appeals process, there are always a lot of questions asked and I like to have ready, access to the case or cases involved. So a trip to Archives is routine. What's a little different in the instance we're talking about is I didn't have to ask Stevens to get the photos from Archives. He volunteered.”

  “And that's unusual?”

  “In retrospect, I must admit that it is.”

  “The implication,” Wesley said, “is that your administrator may have volunteered because what he was really interested in was Waddell's file - or more specifically, the photograph of the bloody thumbprint that's supposed to be inside it.”

  “All I can say with certainty is if Stevens wanted to tamper with a file in Archives, he couldn't do so unless he had legitimate reason for visiting Archives. If, for example, it came back to me that he had been there when none of the medical examiners had made a request, it would look odd.”

  I went on to tell Wesley about the breach of security in my office computer, explaining that the two terminals involved were assigned to me and Stevens. While I talked, Wesley took notes. When I fell silent he looked up at me.

  “It doesn't sound as if they found what they were looking for,” he said.

  “My suspicion is that they didn't.”

  “That brings us around to the obvious question. What were they looking for?”

  I slowly swirled my cognac. In the candlelight it was liquid amber, and each sip deliciously burned going down. “Maybe something pertaining to Eddie Heath's death. I was looking for any other cases in which victims may have had bite marks or cannibalistic-type injuries, and had a file in my directory. Beyond that, I can't imagine what anyone might have been looking for.”

  “Do you ever keep intradepartmental memos in your directory?”

  “In word processing, a subdirectory.”

  “Same password to access those documents?”

  “Yes.”

  “And in word processing you would store autopsy reports and other documents pertaining to cases?”

  “I would. But at the time my directory was broken into there wasn't anything sensitive on file that I can think of.”

  “But whoever broke in didn't necessarily know that.”

  “Obviously not,” I said.

  “What about Ronnie Waddell's autopsy report, Kay? When your directory was broken into, was his report in the computer?”

  “It would have been. He was executed Monday, December thirteenth. The break-in occurred late on the afternoon of Thursday, December sixteenth, while I was doing Eddie Heath's post and Susan was upstairs in my office, supposedly resting on the couch after the formalin spill.”

  “Perplexing.”

  He frowned. “Assuming Susan is the one who went into your directory, why would she be interested in Waddell's autopsy report - if that's what this is all about? She was present during his autopsy. What could she have read in your report that she wouldn't have already known?”

  “Nothing I can think of.”

  “Well, let me rephrase that. What pertaining to his autopsy would she not have learned from being present the night his body was brought to the morgue? Or maybe I'd better say the night a body was brought to the morgue, since we're no longer so sure this individual was Waddell,” he added grimly.

  “She wouldn't have had access to lab reports,” I said. “But the lab work wouldn't have been completed by the time my directory was broken into. Tox and HIV screens, for example, take weeks.”

  “And Susan would have known that.”

  “Certainly.”

  “So would your administrator.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “There must be something else,” he said.

  There was, but as it came to mind I could not imagine the significance.

  “Waddell - or whoever the inmate was - had an envelope in the back pocket of his jeans that he wanted buried with him. Fielding wouldn't have opened this envelope until he had gone upstairs with his paperwork after the post.”

  “So Susan couldn't have known what was inside the envelope while she was in the morgue that night?”

  Wesley asked with interest.

  “That's right. She couldn't have.”

  “And was there anything of significance inside this envelope?”

  “There was nothing inside but several receipts for food and tolls.”

  Wesley frowned. “Receipts,” he repeated. “What in God's name would he have been doing with those? Do you have them here?”

  “They're in his file.”

  I got out the photocopies. “The dates are all the same, November thirtieth.”

  “Which should have been about the time Waddell was transported from Mecklenburg to Richmond.”

  “That's right. He was transported fifteen days before his execution,” I said.

  “We need to run down the codes on these receipts, see what locations we get. This may be important. Very important, in light of what we're contemplating.”

  “That Waddell is alive?”

  “Yes. That somehow a switch was made and he was released. Maybe the man who went to the chair wanted these receipts in his pocket when he died because he was trying to tell us something.”

  “Where would he have gotten them?”

  “Perhaps during the transport from Mecklenburg to Richmond, which would have been an ideal time to pull something,” Wesley replied. “Maybe two men were transported, Waddell and someone else.”

  “You're suggesting they stopped for food?”

  “Guards aren't supposed to stop for anything while transporting a death row inmate. But if some conspiracy were involved, anything could have happened. Maybe they stopped and got take-out food, and it was during this interval that Waddell was freed. Then the other inmate was taken onto Richmond and
put in Waddell's cell. Think about it. How would any of the guards or anybody else at Spring Street have any way of knowing the inmate brought in wasn't Waddell?”

  “He might say he wasn't, but that doesn't mean that anyone would have listened.”

  “I suspect they wouldn't have listened.”

  “What about Waddell's mother?”

  I asked. “Supposedly, she had a contact visit with him hours before the execution. Certainly, she would know B the inmate she saw was not her son.”

  “We need to verify that the contact visit occurred .But whether it did or didn't, it would have been to Mrs. Waddell's benefit to go along with any scheme. I don't imagine she wanted her son to die.”