“You know, Benton, it very well may be that the explanation for the receipts is so simple that we’ve completely overlooked it,” I said.
“I’m all ears.”
“Whenever you go anywhere for the Bureau, I imagine you have the same routine I do when traveling for the state. You document every expense and save every receipt. If you travel often, you tend to wait until you can combine several trips on one reimbursement voucher to cut down on the paperwork. Meanwhile, you’re keeping your receipts somewhere.”
“All that makes good sense in terms of explaining the receipts in question,” Wesley said. “Someone on the prison staff, for example, had to go to Petersburg. But how did the receipts then turn up in Waddell’s back pest?” I thought of the envelope with its urgent plea that it accompany Waddell to the grave. Then I recalled a detail that was as poignant as it was mundane. On the afternoon of Waddell’s execution, his mother had been allowed a two-hour visit with him.
“Benton, have you talked to Ronnie Waddell’s mother?”
“Pete went to see her in Suffolk several days ago. She’s not feeling particularly friendly or cooperative toward people like us. In her eyes, we’re the ones who sent her son to the chair.”
“So she didn’t reveal anything significant about Waddell’s demeanor when she visited him the afternoon of his execution?”
“Based on what little she said, he was very quiet and frightened. One interesting point, though. Pete asked her what had happened to Waddell’s personal effects. She said that Corrections gave her his watch and ring and explained that he had donated his books, poetry, and so on to the N-double-A-C-P.”
“She didn’t question that?” I asked.
“No. She seemed to think it made sense for Waddell to do that.”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t read or write. What’s important is that she was lied to, as were we when Vander tried to track down personal effects in hopes of getting latent prints. And the origin of these lies most likely was Donahue.”
“Waddell knew something,” I said. “For Donahue to want every scrap of paper that Waddell had written on and every letter ever sent to him, then there must be something that Waddell knew that certain people don’t want anyone else to know.”
Wesley was silent.
Then he said, “What did you say is the name of the cologne Stevens wears?”
“Red.”
“And you’re fairly certain this is what you smelled on Susan’s coat and scarf?”
“I wouldn’t swear to it in court, but the fragrance is quite distinctive.”
“I think it’s time for Pete and me to have a little prayer meeting with your administrator.”
“Good. And I think I can help get him in the proper frame of mind if you’ll give me until noon tomorrow.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Probably make him a very nervous man,” I said.
I was working at the kitchen table early that evening when I heard Lucy drive into the garage, and I got up to greet her. She was dressed in a navy blue warm-up suit and one of my ski jackets, and was carrying a gym bag.
“I’m dirty,” she said, pulling away from my hug, but not before I smelled gun smoke in her hair. Glancing down at her hands, I saw enough gunshot residues on the right one to make a trace element analyst ecstatic.
“Whoa,” I said as she started to walk off. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” she asked innocently.
“The gun…
Reluctantly, she withdrew my Smith and Wesson from her jacket pocket.
“I wasn’t aware you had a license for carrying a concealed weapon,” I said, taking the revolver from her and making sure it was unloaded.
“I don’t need one if I’m carrying it concealed in my own house. Before that I had it on the car seat in plain view. “
“That’s good but not good enough, “I said quietly. “Come on.”
Wordlessly, she followed me to the kitchen table, and we sat down.
“You said you were going to Westwood to work out,” I said.
“I know that’s what I said.”
“Where have you been, Lucy?”
“The Firing Line on Midlothian Turnpike. It’s an indoor range.”