”When I asked him how many criminal acts he had committed that he had never been arrested for, he said he was doing burglaries, breaking into cars – property crimes, in other words. Then he broke into Robyn Naismith’s house and she had the misfortune of coming home while he was there.”
”He wasn’t described as violent, Benton,” I pointed out.
“Yes. He never profiled as your typical violent offender. The defense claimed that he was made temporarily insane by drugs and alcohol. To be honest, I think this was the case. Not long before he murdered Robyn Naismith he had started getting into PCP. It is quite possible that when Waddell encountered Robyn Naismith he was completely deranged and later had little or no recollection of what he did to her.”
“Do you remember what he stole, if anything?” I asked. “I wonder if there was clear evidence when he broke into her house that his intent was to commit burglary.”
“The place was ransacked. We know her jewelry was missing. The medicine cabinet was cleaned out and her billfold was empty. It’s hard to know what else was stolen because she lived alone.”
“No significant relationship?”
“A fascinating point.”
Wesley stared off at an old couple dancing soporifically to the husky tones of a saxophone. “Semen stains were recovered from a bed sheet and the mattress cover. The stain on the sheet had to be fresh unless Robyn didn’t change her bed linens very often, and we know that Waddell was not the origin of the stains. They didn’t match his blood type.”
“No one who knew her ever made reference to a lover?”
“No one ever did. Obviously, there was keen interest in who this person was, and since he never contacted the police, it was suspected that she had been having an affair, possibly with one of her married colleagues or sources:’ “Maybe she was,” I said.”
But he wasn’t her killer.”
“No. Ronnie Joe Waddell was her killer. Let’s take a look.”
I opened Waddell’s file and showed Wesley the photographs of the executed inmate I had autopsied on me night of December thirteenth. “’Can you tell if this is the man you interviewed six years ago?”
Wesley impassively studied the photographs, going through them one by one. He looked at close-ups of me face and back of the head, and glanced over shots of the upper body and hands. He detached a mug shot from Waddell’s Assessment Protocol and began comparing as I looked on.
“I see a resemblance,” I said.
“That’s about as much as we can say,” Wesley replied. “The mug shot’s ten years old. Waddell had a beard and mustache, was very muscular but lean. His face was lean. This guy”-he pointed to one of the morgue photographs – “is shaven and much heavier. His face is much fuller. I can’t say these are the same man, based on these photos.”
I couldn’t confirm it, either. In fact, I could think of old pictures of me that no one else would recognize.
“Do you have any suggestions about how we’re going to resolve this problem?” I asked Wesley.
“I’ll toss out a few things,” he said, stacking the photographs and straightening the edges against the tabletop. “Your old friend Nick Grueman’s some kind of player in all this, and I’ve been thinking about the best way to deal with him without tipping our hand. If Marino or I talk to him, he’ll know instantly that something’s up.”
I knew where this was going and I tried to interrupt, but Wesley would not let me. “Marino’s mentioned your difficulties with Grueman, that he calls and in general jerks you around. And then, of course, there is the past, your years at Georgetown. Maybe you should talk with him.”
“I don’t want to talk with him, Benton.”
“He may have photographs of Waddell, letters, other documents. Something with Waddell’s prints. Or maybe there’s something he might say in the course of conversation that would be revealing. The point is, you have access to him, if you wish, through your normal activities, when the rest of us don’t. And you’re going to D.C. anyway to see Downey.”