“How about white and pink?” Harris asked, thinking of the bottles of shampoo and DMSO.
“To the anomalous trichromat they would appear as exactly the same color.”
Again the officers smiled. That alone would have been sufficient to explain Hunsinger’s fatal error. But the doctor had indicated that the deceased’s color perception was much worse than that.
“The second group, called dichromats”-again Glowacki spelled-“have what’s called a red-green deficiency. That means they confuse colors like the red fruit and green leaves of the cherry tree. Their vision is unable to separate colors that occur at the same position on either side of the color spectrum-those with the same wavelengths. But, like the trichromats, these people are still able to see colors and distinguish among most of them.”
Glowacki paused. There were no questions or comments from the officers.
“You see,” he continued, “most people think that if a person such as those I’ve just described has any trouble at all identifying any colors, that the person is colorblind. Technically, that’s not true. Such people are color-deficient.
“The true colorblind person is called a monochromat.” He did not bother to spell. “The monochromat is unable to match one color with any other color. Everything, to the genuinely colorblind person, is either white, black, or gray.”
“Until now,” Harris commented, “I thought Hunsinger had done his apartment in Art Deco. Everything is white, black, or gray.”
Glowacki nodded vigorously. “I’ve never seen Mr. Hunsinger’s apartment, but I’m not surprised. Without assistance a colorblind person could not help making serious blunders in decorating an apartment. Even a color-deficient person probably would err. For a person like Mr. Hunsinger, it would make great good sense for his decorator to use black, white, and gray. That, after all, is exactly the way he saw life.”
“This question just occurred to me,” said Ewing. “Wouldn’t his colorblindness be a serious problem for him playing football. . you did know he played football?”
“Of course. No, it didn’t hinder him. Remember, he saw things in the same way a normally sighted person sees a black and white television picture. There were times when his colorblindness was a help to him.”
The officers registered incredulity.
“For instance, when two competing teams wear the same colors; say, blue and white. It happens. It can be confusing for the person with normal color vision. But as far as Mr. Hunsinger was concerned, his team was wearing dark pants and white shirts. While the other team wore white pants and dark shirts. That’s the way all team colors appeared to him.”
“One more-maybe the final-question,” said Harris. “To your knowledge, did many other people know Hunsinger was colorblind?”
Glowacki thought for a moment. “I rather doubt it. No one learned it from me. I have never discussed it with anyone other than Mr. Hunsinger. Now it no longer makes any difference to him. But I got the clear impression that while he lived he wanted it kept a secret. He was, after all, a member of an infinitesimal minority. Less than one percent of males are colorblind. I don’t know if it was because he was a private person or he was ashamed of his condition or he was just exceptionally vain.”
“If you had to guess?” Ewing prodded. It was important that they learn all they could about the victim.
“Well,” Glowacki pulled at his lower lip, “I’m no psychologist. But if I had to guess-and this is just a guess-I would say he was too vain to have admitted to being colorblind.”
“Reasons?”
“I remember when contact lenses first became popular, Mr. Hunsinger was among the very earliest to use them. I sensed he had always been embarrassed to appear in public wearing glasses. He used to come in quite regularly because the frames were bent out of shape. They’d been in his pocket getting bent when he should have been wearing them. Then, as I say, at his earliest opportunity, he got contacts, so people wouldn’t know that his vision needed correcting. Even though the contacts he first wore were rigid lenses.”
“Is there a problem with rigid lenses?” asked Harris.
“They have a tendency to pop out rather easily. You can imagine how troublesome that would be in a violent game like football! So as soon as the Toric soft lenses came out he started wearing them.”
“The difference?”
“Well, for one thing, soft lenses need more elaborate care than the rigids. I’m sure that after a game, Mr. Hunsinger’s eyes would be sensitive and red. He’d surely remove the lenses and clean them.”
“As a matter of fact,” Ewing commented, “they were ‘cooking’ when Hunsinger died.”
Glowacki again shook his head, reminded that the man they were discussing had been murdered only yesterday. “Yes, he’d do that. First thing after getting home. Mr. Hunsinger was a bit of a compulsive.”
“ So we’ve been given to believe.”
“And also proud,” the doctor continued. “Proud of his physique. Proud of his appearance. Proud of his accomplishments. Too proud, I’m sure, to ever let it be known that he belonged to an exclusive minority of people who are colorblind. He considered that a blemish, a defect. But one that was, as far as others were concerned, invisible. And I’m sure he did everything in his power to make sure it stayed that way.”
The officers thanked the doctor for his time and information. They advised him that his late patient’s colorblindness was becoming a significant factor in their investigation and warned him not to reveal the fact to anyone, at least while the investigation continued.
They got in their car. Harris inserted the key in the ignition, but did not turn it. Instead, he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “I’ve got a feeling that we’ve got the essence of the thing. How about you?”
“Yeah,” Ewing agreed, “the perpetrator didn’t bother to pour a mixture of DMSO and strychnine into the shampoo bottle because he-”
“Or she-”
“Or she-knew it didn’t matter. Hunsinger, seemingly an ironclad victim of habit, would reach for the second container from the left, assuming that everything was in its proper place-as everything in his life was. The bottle was the same shape and size as the shampoo container. He couldn’t read the label because his contacts were in the ‘cooker,’ where they always were when he showered after a game. And he couldn’t tell the liquid in the bottle was white instead of pink because he was colorblind.”
“We are looking for someone with a motive for killing Hunsinger,” said Harris, “someone who had the opportunity to kill him and who knew his compulsive routines: knew of his showering at home after a game, knew his eyesight was bad-and knew that he was colorblind.”
“Of all that, it seems the best-kept secret was his colorblindness.”
“Well, let’s get crackin’.”
“Right. On to good old Father Koesler.”
In 1954 Robert Koesler was ordained a priest to serve in the Archdiocese of Detroit. He was ordained in Blessed Sacrament Cathedral on June 4. The next day, Sunday, June 5, he offered his first solemn Mass at 10:00 a.m. in his home parish, Holy Redeemer. In the congregation at that Mass were Grace Hunsinger and her seven-year-old son, Hank.
Conrad Hunsinger, Grace’s husband and Hank’s father, was not there. Conrad was not present because he was not a Catholic, and, further, he never attended any church service. Grace was there because a first Mass of a returning ordained young man was an extremely important parochial event for deeply religious Catholics. And Mrs. Hunsinger was a deeply religious Catholic. Hank was there because his mother made him attend.
In three months, Conrad Hunsinger would be dead. Very sudden. A heart attack. Very sad. Robert Koesler would not know any of this. In August 1954, he would be working in his first parochial assignment on Detroit’s east side. He and Conrad Hunsinger had never met.