Kay Scarpet - Cruel And Unusual Part 14

"Jerks like him donat change or get better with time."

"Lucy, thatas unkind. Marino is not a jerk."

"He was last time I was here."

"You werenat exactly nice to him, either."

"I didnat call him a smarta.s.s brat."

"You called him a number of other names, as I recall, and were continually correcting his grammar."

A half hour later, I left Lucy inside the morgue office while I hurried upstairs. Unlocking the credenza, I retrieved Waddellas case file, and no sooner had I boarded the elevator when the buzzer sounded from the bay. Marino was dressed in jeans and a dark blue parka, his balding head warmed by a Richmond Braves baseball cap.

"You two remember each other, donat you?"

I said. "Lucyas visiting me for Christmas and is helping out with a computer problem," I explained as we walked out into the cold night air.

The Seaboard Building was across the street from the parking lot behind the morgue and cater-cornered to the front of Main Street Station, where the Health Departmentas administrative offices had relocated while its former building was being stripped of asbestos. The c.o.c.k in Main Street Stationas tower floated high above us like a hunteras moon, and red lights atop high buildings blinked slow warnings to low-flying planes. Somewhere in the dark, a train lumbered along its tracks, the earth rumbling and creaking like a ship at sea.

Marino walked ahead of us, the tip of his cigarette glow glowing at intervals. He did not want Lucy here, and I knew she sensed it. When he reached the Seaboard Building, where supplies had been loaded onto boxcars around the t.i.the of the Civil War, I rang the bell outside the door. Vander appeared almost immediately to let us in He did not greet Marino or ask who Lucy was. If a creature from outer s.p.a.ce were to accompany someone he trusted, Vander would not ask any questions or expect to be introduced. We followed him up a flight of stairs to the second floor, where old corridors and offices had been repainted in shades of gunmetal gray and refurnished with cherry-finished desks and bookcases and teal upholstered chairs.

"What are you working on so late?" I asked as we entered the room housing the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, known as AFIS.

"Jennifer Deightonas case," he said.

"Then what do you want with Waddellas ten print cards?" I asked, perplexed.

"I want to be sure it was Waddell you autopsied last week," Vander said bluntly.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Marino looked at him in astonishment.

"Iam getting ready to show you."

Vander seated himself before the remote input terminal, which looked like an everyday PC. It was connected by modem to the State Police computer, on which resided a data base of more than six million fingerprints. He hit several keys, activating the laser printer.

"Perfect scores are few and far between, but we got one here."

Vander began typing, and a bright white fingerprint filled the seen. "Right index finger, plain whorl."

He pointed to the vortex of lines swirling behind gla.s.s. "A d.a.m.n good partial recovered from Jennifer Deightonas house."

"Wherein her house?" I asked.

"From a dining room chair. At first I wondered if there was some mistake. But apparently not."

Vander continued staring at the screen, then resumed typing as he talked. "The print comes back to Ronnie Joe Waddell."

"Thatas impossible," I said, shocked.

"You would think so," Vander replied abstractedly.

"Did you find anything in Jennifer Deightonas house that might indicate she and Waddell were acquainted?"

I asked Marino as I opened Waddellas case file.

"No."

"If youave got Waddellas prints from the morgue," Vander said to me, "weall see how they compare to whatas in AFIS."

I pulled out two manila envelopes, and it struck me wrong immediately that both werenat heavy and thick. I felt my face get hot as I opened each and found the expected photographs inside and nothing else. There was no envelope containing Waddellas ten print cards. When I looked up, everybody was looking at me.

"I donat understand this," I said, conscious of Lucyas uneasy stare.

"You donat have his prints?" Marino asked in disbelief.

I rifled through the file again. "Theyare not here."

"Susan usually does it, right?" he said.

"Yes. Always. She was supposed to make two sets. One for Corrections and one for us. Maybe she gave them to Fielding and he forgot to give them to me."

I got out my address book and reached for the phone. Fielding was home and knew nothing about the fingerprint cards.

"No, I didnat notice her printing him, but I donat notice half of what other people are doing down there," he said. "I just a.s.sumed shead given the cards to you."

Dialing Susanas number next, I tried to remember seeing her get out the spoon and print cards, or rolling Waddellas fingers on the ink pad.

"Do you remember seeing Susan print Waddell?" I asked Marino as Susanas phone continued to ring.

"She didnat do it while I was there. I would have offered to help if she had."

"No answer."

I hung up.

"Waddell was cremated," Vander said.

"Yes," I said.

We were silent for a moment.

Then Marino said to Lucy with unnecessary brusqueness, "You mind? We need to talk alone for a minute."

"You can sit in my office," Vander said to her. "Down the hall, last one on the right."

When she was gone, Marino said, "Waddellas supposedly been locked up ten years, and thereas no way the print we got from Jennifer Deightonas chair was left ten years ago. She didnat even move into her house on Southside until a few months ago, and the dining room furniture looks brand-new. Plus, there were indentations on the carpet in the living room that make it appear a dining room chair was carried in there, maybe on the night she died. Thatas why I wanted the chairs dusted to begin with."

"An uncanny possibility," Vander said. "At this moment, we canat prove that the man who was executed last week was Ronnie Joe Waddell."

"Perhaps there is some other explanation for how Waddellas print ended up on a chair in Jennifer Deightonas house," I said. "For example, the penitentiary has a wood shop that makes furniture."

"Unlikely as h.e.l.l," Marino said. "For one thing, they donat do woodworking or make license plates on death row. And even if they did, most civilians donat end up with prison-made furniture in their house."

"All the same," Vander said to Marino, "it would be interesting if you could track down who and where she bought her dining room set from."

"Donat worry. Itas a top priority."

"Waddellas complete past arrest record, including his prints, should all be in one file at the FBI," Vander added. "Iall get a copy of their print card and retrieve the photograph of the thumbprint from Robyn Naismithas case. Where else was Waddell arrested?"

"Nowhere else," Marino said. "The only jurisdiction that will have his records should be Richmond."

"And this print found on a dining room chair is the only one youave identified?"

I asked Vander.

"Of course, a number of those lifted came back to Jennifer DOW" he said. "Particularly on the books by her bed and the folded sheet of paper - the poem. And a couple of unknown partials from her car, as you might expect, maybe left by whoever loaded groceries into her trunk or filled her tank with gas. Thatas all for now."

"And no luck with Eddie Heath?"

I asked.

"There wasnat much to examine. The paper bag, can of soup, candy bar. I tried the Luma-Lite on his shoes and clothes. No luck."

Later, he walked us out through the bay, where locked freezers stored the blood of enough convicted felons to fill a small city, the samples awaiting entry into the Commonwealthas DNA data bank. Parked in front of the door was Jennifer Deightonas car, and it looked more pathetic than I remembered, as if it had gone into a dramatic decline since the murder of its owner. Metal along the sides was creased and dented from being repeatedly struck by other car doors. Paint was rusting in spots and Sc.r.a.ped and gouged in others, and the vinyl top was peeling. Lucy paused to peer inside a sooty window.

"Hey, donat touch nothing," Marino said to her.

She looked levelly at him without a word, and all of us went outside.

Lucy drove off in my car and went straight to the house without waiting for Marino or me. When we walked in, she was already in my study with the door shut.

"I can see sheas still Miss Congeniality," Marino said.

"You donat win any prizes tonight, either."

I opened the fireplace screen and added several logs.

"Sheall keep her mouth shut about what we were talking about?"

"Yes," I said wearily. "Of course."

"Yeah, well, I know you trust her, since youare her aunt. But Iam not sure it was a good idea for her to hear all that, Doc."

"I do trust Lucy. She means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me. I hope the two of you will become friends. The bar is open, or Iall be glad to put on a pot of coffee."

"Coffee would be good."

He sat on the edge of the hearth and got out his Swiss Army knee. While I made coffee, he trimmed his nails and tossed the shavings into the fire. I tried Susanas number again, but there was no answer.

"I donat think Susan took his prints," Marino said when I set the coffee tray on the butleras table."

Iave been thinking while you were in the kitchen. I know she didnat do it while I was at the morgue that night, and I was there most of the time. So unless it was done right when the body was brought in, forget it."

"It wasnat done then," I said, getting more unnerved. "Corrections was out of there in minutes. The entire scene was very distracting. It was late and everybody was tired. Susan forgot, and I was too busy with what I was doing to notice."

"You hope she forgot."

I reached for my coffee.

"Somethingas going on with her, based on what youave been telling me. I wouldnat trust her as far as I could throw her," he said.

Right now I didnat.

"We need to talk to Benton," he said.

"You saw Waddell on the table, Marino. You saw him executed. I canat believe we canat say it was him."

"We canat say it. We could compare mug shots and your morgue photos and still not say it. I hadnat seen him since he got popped more than ten years ago. The guy they walked out to the chair was about eighty pounds heavier. His beard, mustache, and head had been shaved. Sure, there was enough resemblance that I just a.s.sumed. But I canat swear it was him."

I recalled Lucyas walking off the plane the other night. She was my niece. I had seen her but a year ago, and still I almost had not recognized her. I knew all too well how unreliable visual identifications can be.

"If someone switched inmates," I said. "And if Waddell is free and someone else was put to death, please tell me why."

Marino spooned more sugar into his coffee.

"A motive, for G.o.das sake. Marino, what would it be?"

He looked up. "I donat know why."

Just then, the door to my study opened and both of us turned as Lucy walked out. She came into the living room and sat on the side of the hearth opposite Marino, who had his back to the fire, elbows on his knees.

"What can you tell me about AFIS?" she asked me as if Marino were not in the room.

"What is it you wish to know?" I said.

"The language. And is it run on a mainframe."

"I donat know the technical details. Why?"

"I can find out if files have been altered."

I felt Marinoas eyes on me.

"You canat break into the State Police computer, Lucy."

"I probably could, but Iam not necessarily advocating that. There may be some other way to gain access."

Marino turned to her. "Youare saying you could tell if Waddellas records was changed in AFIS?"