The scores of letters Ronnie Waddell had written Jennifer Deighton from death row were neatly bundled in rubber bands and sorted chronologically. I skimmed through few in my hotel roam that night, because their importance all but disappeared in the light of other items I found.
Inside the briefcase were legal pads filled with handwritten notes that made little sense, for they referred to cases and dilemmas of the Commonwealth from more than ten years ago. There were pens and pencils, a map of Virginia, a tin of Sucrets throat lozenges, a Vick’s inhaler, and a tube of Chapstick. Still in its yellow box was an EpiPen, a 3 milligram epinephrine auto-injector routinely kept by people fatally allergic to bee stings or some foods. The prescription label was typed with the patient’s name, the date, and the information that the EpiPen was one of five refills. Clearly, Waddell had stolen the briefcase from Robyn Naismith’s house on the fateful morning he murdered her. It may be that he had no idea who it belonged to until he carried it off and broke the lock. Waddell discovered he had savaged a local celebrity whose lover Joe Norring, was then the attorney general of Virginia.
“Waddell never had a chance,” I said. “Not that he necessarily deserved clemency in light of the severity of his crime. But from the moment he was arrested, Norring was a worried man. He knew he had left his briefcase at Robyn’s house, and he knew it had not been recovered by the police.”
Why he had left his briefcase at Robyn’s house was not clear, unless he’d simply forgotten it on a night that neither of them could know was her last.
“I can’t even begin to imagine Norring’s reaction when he heard,” I said.
Wesley glanced at me over the arm of his glasses as he continued perusing paperwork. “I don’t think we can imagine it. It was bad enough he had to worry about the world discovering he was having an affair, but his connection with Robyn would have instantly made him the, prime suspect in her murder.”
“In a way,” Marino said, “he was lucky as hell Waddell took the briefcase.”
“I’m sure in his mind he was unlucky either way he looked at it,” I said. “If the briefcase had turned up at the scene, he was in trouble. If the briefcase was stolen, as it was, then Norring had to worry about it turning up somewhere:” Marino got the coffeepot and refilled everyone’s cup. “Somebody must have done something to ensure Waddell’s silence.”
“Maybe.”
Wesley reached for the cream. “Then again; maybe Waddell never opened his mouth. My guess is he feared from the beginning that what he had stumbled upon only made matters worse for him. The briefcase could be used as a weapon, but who would it destroy? Norring or Waddell? Was Waddell going to trust the system enough to badmouth the AG? Was he going to trust the system enough years later to badmouth the governor – the only man who could spare his life?”
“So Waddell remained silent, knowing that his mother would protect what he had hidden on the farm until he was ready for someone else to have it,” I said.
“Norring had ten damn years to find his briefcase;” Marino said. “Why did he wait so long to start looking?”
“1 suspect Norring has had Waddell watched from, the beginning,” Wesley said, “and that this surveillance was stepped up considerably over the past few months. The closer Waddell got to the execution, the less he had to lose, and the more likely he was to start talking. It’s possible someone was monitoring his phone conversation when he called Jennifer Deighton in November. And it’s possible that when word got to Norring, he panicked.”
“He should have,” Marino said. “I personally searched through all of Waddell’s belongings when we was working the case. The guy had next to nothing, and if anything belonging to him was back on the farm, we never found it.”
“And Norring would have known that,” I said.
“Hell, yes,” Marino said. “But he’s going to know, there’s something strange about belongings from the farm being given to this friend of Waddells. Norring starts seeing that damn briefcase in his nightmares again, and to make matters worse, he can’t have someone just barge into Jennifer Deighton’s house while Waddell’s still alive. If something happens to her, there’s no telling what Waddell will do. And the worst possibility would be if he started singing to Grueman.”