“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.”