The next envelope bore the extremely familiar address, 1234 Washington Boulevard. It was a Chancery missive, containing the parochial help-wanted listing. This too was a fairly recent wrinkle.
In the good old days, notice of a changed assignment had come in much the same fashion as a draft notice. Except that instead of “Greetings,” the assignment letter would invariably begin, “For the care of souls, I have it in mind to assign you to. .” There would follow the name of the parish that would be the priest’s residence for the next approximately five years.
Now that priests were becoming an endangered species, it had become a seller’s market. The Chancery now regularly listed openings in parochial assignments for pastors or associate pastors accompanied by thumbnail descriptions of the type of ministry expected. One applied, or did not, depending on one’s interest. Seldom was pressure brought to bear. It may have been a better system than the previous practice. Koesler thought it was.
Suddenly, for no explicable reason, but, indeed, the way it usually happened with Koesler, everything fell into place. It was as if a curtain had suddenly lifted, revealing the stage. Suddenly the connection between the multicolored vestments, the blind man beginning to see, and the Hunsinger murder was clear.
It was a thrilling moment and Koesler savored it.
He needed to make only one phone call. If he received an affirmative response, it would be at least possible that he had found the solution to a murder.
Driving out to Dr. Glowacki’s office with Sergeant Ewing, Lieutenant Harris was trying to figure out why he so resented this trip.
The bottom line, he finally concluded, was that he disliked having amateurs mess in his profession. There were just far too many people who considered themselves competent, without benefit of any training or preparation, to do police work. His intolerance of that sort of intruder doubled when the amateur meddled in homicide cases.
Especially when the homicide got a lot of publicity, the homemade experts seemed to come out of the woodwork-psychologists, psychiatrists, soothsayers, fortunetellers, mystics.
Of course, Father Koesler did not fit any of the stereotyped categories. And, Harris had to admit, the priest had been of help in the past. But it was not, he thought, a good precedent to invite amateurs in on a case. He wished his old friend, Walt Koznicki, who was coming to Glowacki’s office in a separate vehicle, would not do it. It was about the only bone Harris had to pick with Koznicki.
They had discussed it a few times but had never reached a mutually agreeable solution. Koznicki would protest that Koesler was the sole exception to the rule banning nonprofessionals from cases. And Koznicki would explain that there were times when Koesler’s expertise in things Catholic was helpful in certain cases. Harris would argue that, religious expertise or not, the police were well able to solve homicides without outside help.
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?”