They never reached an agreement. So the argument occurred less and less frequently. But Harris continued to believe that Koznicki’s better judgment was clouded when it came to Father Koesler.
Besides, Harris had just developed a theory concerning the Hunsinger case and had anticipated testing it today. That had been before receiving the call this morning from Koznicki, who had been called earlier by Koesler. Harris had objected. But Koznicki made it clear that while he wasn’t outright ordering Harris to Glowacki’s office, neither was it merely an invitation.
Harris turned off Ford Road into the parking lot adjacent to Dr. Glowacki’s office building. Koesler was already there. They exchanged greetings with the priest, Ewing more warmly than Harris. In a brief time they were joined by Koznicki. The four entered the building and were immediately admitted into Glowacki’s consultation office.
It was Koesler’s show. “I’ll explain my idea as thoroughly but as quickly as possible,” he began. “At the beginning of this investigation, when I was allowed to sit in on a series of interviews with possible suspects in the case, it soon became obvious that six of the suspects had the opportunity-and a sufficient motive-to kill Hunsinger. But none of those six possessed the final bit of information known to everyone in this room-that Hunsinger was colorblind and thus could not have detected that the liquid he thought was shampoo was white, not pink. I think that bit of information has been referred to as ‘the smoking gun.’ Am I right so far?”
“Well,” Ewing said, “it’s not necessarily that none of those suspects ‘possessed’ the knowledge that Hunsinger was colorblind; the fact is that, at least so far, we haven’t been able to prove that one or any of them knew-or to get one or any of them to admit it.”
“So far,” Harris emphasized.
“Of course,” Koesler admitted, “that was sloppy of me. All right. None of those suspects would admit they knew of Hunsinger’s condition.
“But what if. . what if we’re looking for the wrong type of person?”
Harris did not care for Koesler’s use of the first person plural. But he said nothing.
“What, exactly, are you driving at?” Koznicki asked.
“A couple of unrelated things got me started thinking of another way of approaching this case. This morning I was reading a passage from a Gospel. It was about Christ curing a blind man. Only it wasn’t one of those instantaneous cures. This one happened in stages. At first the man could see, but indistinctly. He could see people but they looked to him as if they were walking trees. In other words, he was no longer totally blind, but his sight definitely was impaired.
“The other thing that happened was that I was telling a friend about an incident involving a couple of mischievous nuns who deliberately set out a color-mixed set of vestments because they were certain I would have the first Mass the next day. They wanted to play a joke on me. But they blundered. The pastor traded with me and took the early Mass.
“Now, if I had seen that mixed bag of vestments, I would have understood the joke. But the pastor didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. When he told me about it, all straight-faced, he didn’t know what to make of it. And he suggested, in jest, I think, that maybe they were not in complete possession of their sanity.
“Don’t you see?” Koesler, who had thought this theory through to its conclusion, mistakenly assumed the others would understand completely even without a complete explanation. It was a bad habit of his. Earnestly he continued. “Instead of accusing the nuns of being crazy, the pastor, if he didn’t understand the joke, should have assumed the nuns were colorblind. Or”-he glanced at the ophthalmologist-“I should more correctly say color- deficient.”
Koesler paused a moment, in vain, for some sign of comprehension or support from the others.
“Would you care to amplify whatever point it is you are trying to make, Father?” Inspector Koznicki was attempting, more than anything else, to rescue Koesler from the embarrassing silence.
“Certainly, Inspector. My point is just this: the man midway through his cure is not totally blind, but partially blind. Just as the nuns, if they hadn’t been clowning around, presumably might not be totally colorblind, but merely color-deficient. I checked this all out with Dr. Glowacki earlier, before I phoned you.”
“So,” Harris was growing impatient, “you have a couple of nuns who are either joking, crazy, or color- deficient. So what?”
“So,” Koesler continued, “that got me thinking about the murder of Hank Hunsinger. Well, to be honest, though I’ve tried not to, I have thought of little else these past few days.
“And, to try to sum this up, I thought of the police trying to find a suspect who knew that Hunsinger was colorblind and would be unable to distinguish one color from the next. But what if. . what if it were not a case of knowing about Hunsinger’s colorblindness? What if the murderer were color deficient and not able to tell the difference between the clear color of the DMSO and the pink color of the shampoo?”
There was another silence.
“That’s so, isn’t it?” Ewing turned to Glowacki. “That such a person would not be able to tell the difference between the colors?”
“Oh, absolutely,” the doctor responded. “That was another thing the Father and I discussed this morning. We call the impairment a red-green deficiency.”
“It’s cute, Padre,” said Harris, “but I’m afraid you’ve come up with a hypothesis without a foundation. We know that Hunsinger was colorblind. Someone else who knew it would know that he or she didn’t have to be concerned about the color of the liquid containing the poison. There’s no reason to think that it could have been the other way ’round-that the perpetrator couldn’t tell the difference between the bottles.”
“Well, I beg to differ with you, Lieutenant. But I think it does make better sense my way.” Although the priest spoke firmly, he genuinely dreaded this argument. He wished that all of them, especially Lieutenant Harris, whose mild animosity toward himself Koesler had perceived, had bought his theory.
“Let me suggest this, please,” he continued. “Suppose the killer were normal-sighted. Just to avoid fooling with pronouns let me assume the killer was a man.
“He goes to Hunsinger’s apartment. His objective is to get the strychnine into the DMSO. He wants the DMSO to carry the poison into Hunsinger’s bloodstream, quickly killing him. In order to get Hunsinger to use the tainted DMSO, the killer decides to mask the DMSO as shampoo because he knows that the Hun routinely showers at his apartment after the game.
“Now I’ll grant you that the quickest and easiest way of doing this, since the containers of the shampoo and the DMSO are identical-I remember that correctly, don’t I?”
Koznicki nodded slowly, encouragingly.
“Since the containers are identical, the killer simply exchanges the two bottles, relying on Hunsinger’s compulsive routines to cause him to use the DMSO because it’s in the spot reserved for the shampoo. Hunsinger uses the poisonous DMSO because he can’t tell any difference in the bottle shapes, he can’t read the label because of poor eyesight, and he can’t tell the difference in the colors because he’s colorblind.”
“That’s about the way it stacks up,” Harris noted.
“All right,” said Koesler, “but the killer has no plans to revisit the scene of the crime after the murder. In fact, he knows he can’t. Because, again routinely, Hunsinger is showering to prepare for a. . uh. . date.
“So the killer knows that he will necessarily leave behind a scene that looks like this: There will be an open bottle of DMSO on the spot reserved for shampoo. And the police will quickly discover what is in the bottle and the cause of death. In effect, the killer is leaving a clue telling the police that he knows about Hunsinger’s colorblindness-a condition that Hunsinger has gone out of his way to conceal.
“On the other hand, in the theory I propose, the scenario is the same, except for the reason for not exchanging bottles. Now the killer is not leaving a clue for the police. Now the killer is leaving a clear bottle instead of one with a pink liquid, for the very simple and reasonable reason that the killer himself cannot tell the difference.”
Another silence.
“Two things wrong with that, Padre,” said Harris, finally.
“One, you’re thinking-or trying to think-like an investigator. Whereas criminals, in real life, rarely think that ingeniously. That’s why we catch so many of them. You’d be surprised how many homicides are committed in the manner they are simply because that was the simplest way of doing it. It is very possible-probable-the killer didn’t even advert to the different colors. . or, if he did, didn’t care.
“And two, your case is built on the supposition that one of our suspects is. . uh. . color-deficient. When there’s no indication that that is so.”
