“He might. This guy’s been in the system. He’s not interested in getting caught, and it’s probably a challenge to see who he can fool. He eradicated bite marks from Eddie Heath’s body. If he ransacked Jennifer Deighton’s house, he left no evidence. The only evidence he left in Susan’s case was two twenty-two slugs and a feather. Not to mention, the guy altered his fingerprints.”

“You think that was his idea?”

“It was probably something that the warden cooked up, and swapping records with Waddell may simply have been a matter of convenience. Waddell was about to be executed. If I wanted to trade an inmate’s prints with someone, I’d choose Waddell’s. Either the inmate’s latents are going to come back to someone who is dead or - and this is more likely - eventually the dead person’s records will be purged from the State Police computers, so if my little helper is messy and leaves prints somewhere, they aren’t going to be identified at all,” I stared at him, dumbfounded.

“What?” Surprise flickered in his eyes.

“Benton, do you realize what we’re saying? We’re sitting here talking about computer records that were altered before Waddell died. We’re talking about a burglary and the murder of a little boy that were committed before Waddell was dead. In other words, the warden’s operative, as you call him, was released before Waddell was executed.”

“I don’t believe there can be a question about that.”

“Then the assumption was that Waddell was going to die,” I pointed out.

“Christ.”

Wesley flinched. “How could anyone be certain? The governor can intervene literally at the last minute.”

“Apparently, someone knew that the governor wasn’t going to.”

“And the only person who could know that with certainty is the governor,” he finished the thought for me.

I got up and stood before the kitchen window. A male cardinal pecked sunflower seeds from the feeder and flew off in a splash of blood red.

“Why?” I asked without turning around. “Why would the governor have a special interest in Waddell?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it’s true, he won’t want the killer caught. When people get caught, they talk.”

Wesley was silent.

“Nobody involved will want this person caught. And nobody involved will want me on the scene. It will be much better if I resign or am fired - if the cases are screwed up as much as possible. Patterson is tight with Norring.”

“Kay, we’ve got two things we don’t know yet. One is motive. The other is the killer’s own agenda. This guy is doing his own thing, beginning with Eddie Heath.”