“Nobody disappeared that I heard of.”

“Why don't you work there anymore?”

I asked.

“Health reasons.”

I heard what sounded like a cupboard door shut from somewhere inside the space she guarded.

I kept trying. “Do you remember when Ronnie Waddell's mother came to the penitentiary to visit him on the afternoon of his execution?”

“I was there when she came in.”

“You would have searched her and anything she had with her. Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“What I'm trying to determine is if Mrs. Waddell might have brought anything to give her son. I realize that visiting rules prohibit people from bringing in items for the inmates “

"You can get permission. She got it.”

"Mrs. Waddell got permission to give something to her son?”

"Helen, you're letting all the heat out," a voice sounded sweetly from behind her.

Intense blue eyes suddenly fixed on me like gun sights in the space between Helen Grimes's meaty left shoulder and the door frame. I caught a flash of a pale cheek and aquiline nose before the space was empty again. The lock rattled and the door was quietly shut behind the erstwhile prison guard. She leaned up against it, staring at me. I repeated my question.

"She did bring something for-Ronnie, and it wasn't much. I called the warden for permission.”

"You called Frank Donahue?”

She nodded.

"And he granted permission?”

"Like I said; it wasn't much, what she brought for him.

"Helen, what was it?”

"A picture of Jesus about the size of a postcard, and something was wrote on the back. I don't remember exactly. Something like 'I will be with you in paradise; only the spelling was wrong. Paradise was spelled like 'pair of dice; all run together,' Helen Grimes said without a trace of a smile.

"And that was it?”

I asked. "This was what she wanted to give her son before he died?”

"I told you that was it. Now, I need to go in, arid I don't want you coming here again.”

She put her hand on the doorknob as the first few drops of rain slowly slipped from the sky and left wet spots the size of nickels on the cement, stoop.

When Wesley arrived at my house later in the day, he wore a black leather pilot's jacket, a dark blue cap, and a trace of a smile.

"What's happening?” I asked as we retreated to the kitchen, which by now had become such a common meeting place for us that he always took the same chair.

"We didn't break Stevens, but I think we put a pretty big crack in him. Your having the lab request left where be would find it did the trick. He's got good reason to fear the results of DNA testing done on fetal tissue from Susan Story's case.”

"He and Susan were having an affair," I said, and it was odd that I did not object to Susan's morals. I was disappointed in her taste.

"Stevens admitted to the affair and denied everything else.”

"Such as having any idea where Susan got thirty-five hundred dollars?” I said.

"He denies knowing anything about that but we're not finished with him. A snitch of Marino's says he saw a black Jeep with a vanity plate in the area where Susan was shot and about the time we think it happened. Ben Stephens drives a black Jeep with the vanity plate”

"Stevens didn't kill her, Benton," I said.

"No, he didn't. I think what happened is Stevens got spooked when whoever he was dealing with wanted information about Jennifer Deighton's case.”

"The implication would have been pretty clear,". I agreed. "Stevens knew that Jennifer Deighton was murdered.”

"And coward that he is, he decides that when it is time for the next payoff, he'll let Susan handle it. Then he'll meet her directly afterward to get his share.”

"By which time she's already been killed.”

Wesley nodded. "I think whoever was sent to meet her shot her and kept the money: Later - maybe mere minutes later - Stevens appears in the designated spot, the alleyway off Strawberry Street.”

'What you're describing is consistent with her position in the car," I said. "Originally, she had to have been slumped forward in order for the assailant to have shot her in the nape of the neck. But when she was found, she was leaning back in the seat.”

"Stevens moved her.”

"When he first approached the car, he wouldn't have immediately known what was wrong with her. Ht couldn't see her face if she were slumped forward against the steering wheel. He leaned her back in the seat.”

"And then ran like hell.”

"And if he'd just splashed on some of his cologne before heading out to meet her, then he would have cologne on his hands. When he leaned her back in the seat; his hands would have been in contact with her coat probably in the area of her shoulders. That's what I smelled at the scene.”

"We'll break him eventually.”

"There are more important things to do, Benton," I said, and I told him about my visit with Helen Grimes and what she had said about Mrs. Waddell's last visit with her son.

"My theory," I went on, "is that Ronnie Waddell wanted the picture of Jesus buried with him, and that this may have been his last request. He puts it in an envelope and writes on it 'Urgent, extremely confidential,' and so on.”

"He couldn't have done this without Donahue's permission," Wesley said. "According to protocol, the inmate's last request must be communicated to the warden.”

“Right, and no matter what Donahue's been told, he's going to be too paranoid to let Waddell's body be carried off with a sealed envelope in a pocket. So he grants Waddell's request, then devises away to see what's inside the envelope without a hassle or a stink. He decides to switch envelopes after Wadded is dead, and instructs one of his thugs to take care of it. And this is where the receipts come in.”

"I was hoping you'd get around to that," Wesley said.

"I think the person made a little mistake Let's say he's got a white envelope on his desk, and inside it are receipts from a recent trip to Petersburg. Let's say he gets a similar white envelope, tucks something innocuous inside it, and then writes the same thing on the front that Waddell had written on the envelope he wanted buried with him.”

“Only the guard writes this on the wrong envelope.”

"Yes. He writes it on the one containing the receipts.”

"And he's going to discover this later when he looks for his receipts and finds the innocuous something inside the envelope instead.

"Precisely," I said. "And that's where Susan fits in. If I were the guard who made this mistake, I'd be very worried. The burning question for me would be whether one of the medical examiners opened that envelope in the morgue, or if the envelope was left sealed. If I, this guard, also happened to be the contact for Ben Stevens, the person forking over cash in exchange for making sure Waddell's body wasn't printed at the morgue, for example, then I'd know exactly where to turn.”

"You'd contact Stevens and tell him to find out if the envelope was opened. And if so, whether its contents made anybody suspicious or inclined to go around asking questions: It's called tripping over your paranoia and ending up with many more problems than you would have had if you'd just been cool. But it would seem Stevens could have answered that question easily.”

"Not so," I said. "He could ask Susan, but she didn't witness the opening of the envelope. Fielding opened it upstairs, photocopied the contents, and sent the original out with Waddell’s other personal effects.”

"Stevens couldn't have just pulled the case and looked at the photocopy?”

'Not unless he broke the lock on my credenza," I said.

"Then, in his mind, the only other alternative was the computer.”

"Unless he asked Fielding or me. He would know better than that. Neither of us would have divulged a confidential detail like that to him or Susan or anyone else.”