“Then, see, the guys with guaranteed contracts who won’t put out are just bein’ shortsighted. No contract, guaranteed or not, is forever. So when the floater’s contract is up, that’s all she wrote. He’s out.
“That’s what the Hun knew. And that’s what separated him from almost everyone else. He knew no contract was forever. And he was one who gave his 110 percent and-mostly ‘cause of the years he put in-he played with more pain than any other player I’ve ever known. But not because he gave a damn for the team. Just because he knew no contract was forever. And he intended to get every penny he could from the game.
“And that pretty much explains the Hun.”
“Interesting,” Harris said. “Very interesting. But how did he do it? How was he able to keep on playing week after week, season after season with all those injuries and all that pain? Was he some kind of superman?”
“No; the Hun was no superman. But he had a king-sized determination. And we’d help him as much as we could.”
“How’s that?”
“Pills. Painkillers.” Brown noticed Harris’s eyebrow arch. “Oh, nothing illegal; the team doctor prescribed ’em. I just doled ’em out. The Hun got ’em after just about every game. Almost all the time, they did the job.”
“What did you give him?”
“Dilaudid.” Brown reached back to unlock the medicine cabinet. He removed a bottle from one of the shelves, took off the bottle cap, and shook a pill into his hand. He showed the pill to Harris and Ewing. “Dilaudid.”
“Little, isn’t it?” said Harris. “Looks like a BB. That could do the job? On a man the size of Hunsinger?”
Brown nodded vigorously. “Yup. That’s why it’s so little. Because it’s so powerful. Works like morphine. Got a real kick. It did the job, even for the Hun.” Brown chuckled. “But you’re right about one thing: it’s so little the Hun wouldn’t believe it could kill all the pain. He wasn’t one for moderation. As, for example, that poison he kept in the apartment-strychnine. Most people’d be content to use traps or some commercial product. Not the Hun; he’s gotta have the king of rat poisons.”
“So what did you do?” Harris asked.
“Huh?”
“What did you do to convince him one little pill would be enough?”
“Oh, yeah, right. Well, he wasn’t one to take no for an answer. So I used to give him two pills. . no, not two Dilaudid. The Hun may have been big but he was no horse.” Brown reached again into the medicine cabinet, searching for another container. “I used to give him two pills. But I kept reminding him that one was all he needed. The warning that one was enough, along with always breaking down and giving him a second pill, worked. As long as the Hun thought he was getting double strength, he was satisfied. But the second pill wasn’t much more than a placebo.”
Brown found the bottle for which he’d been searching. He removed the container, opened it, and shook another pill into his hand, where it rested alongside the Dilaudid. He showed both pills to the officers. “Papazole. It’s an-antithyroid-medication, — but-unlike the Dilaudid, it’s of very weak strength. You could take lots of Papazole in this strength without doing yourself any damage. For all practical purposes, the Papazole was a placebo.”
Harris studied the two pills. “You mean you were able to pass them both off as Dilaudid?”
“Sure, the Hun couldn’t tell the difference.”
“Well,” Harris said with some satisfaction, “they look to be the same size and shape, but they’re different colors. I mean, the Dilaudid is yellow and the Papazole is white.”
“Sure. But the Hun couldn’t tell. .” Brown’s voice trailed off; a look of extreme dismay appeared on his face.
“Because the Hun was colorblind.” Harris completed Brown’s statement.’
“Brownie!” Murray exclaimed. “You knew! I thought I was the only one who knew as well!”
“Yes, Brownie knew.” Harris could feel the adrenalin pumping. The familiar euphoria that came with closing in for the kill. “Brownie knew. But Brownie didn’t tell anybody. Why is that, Brownie?”
“I. . I didn’t think it was important.”
“Didn’t think it was important? A man has a condition that affects less than 1 percent of all human males, and you didn’t think it was important? We asked you, first time around, to list all Hunsinger’s impairments and idiosyncrasies. You mentioned his compulsions and astigmatism, but not his colorblindness. Because you didn’t think it was important? You said he had astigmatism, which affects a goodly proportion of the populace. But you neglected to say he was colorblind, a condition so rare it is almost unique? Because you didn’t think it was important!
“Let me tell you what happened last Sunday, Brownie. At ten you left the Pontiac Inn. Instead of coming here as you usually do, you hurried to Hunsinger’s apartment. You already knew about the new security system in the lobby. You were able to study it on the previous Tuesday evening when you came to the meeting of the discussion club. You timed your entrance to the lobby, synchronizing it so you wouldn’t be caught by the sweeping closed-circuit camera. You flipped open the lock with one of your plastic credit cards.
“You went up to Hunsinger’s apartment, got the strychnine, switched the bottles of shampoo and DMSO, poured the strychnine into the DMSO. The liquid in the bottle where the pink shampoo usually rested now was white. But you knew it didn’t make any difference to your plan. The bottles were the same shape and size, just like those two pills you just showed us. You knew it didn’t matter that the liquid in each of the bottles was a different color, just like you knew it didn’t matter that the two pills you always gave Hunsinger, which were supposed to be identical, were, in reality, different colors. The different-colored liquid and the different-colored pills would make no difference to Hunsinger because you knew that Hunsinger was colorblind!
“Then you got out of the building the same way you got in, by synchronizing your exit through the lobby with the moving camera. And you hurried back out here to get here just before the team arrived from the inn. And that’s what you did last Sunday. You killed Henry Hunsinger!”
“It’s not true. I didn’t do it.”
“You got an explanation that’s different from mine? One you can corroborate with any witnesses? You can’t account for two hours last Sunday morning. No one can testify as to your whereabouts for those two hours. We’ve been looking for someone with a motive for killing Hunsinger. You had one: he was corrupting physically and morally everyone on the team he could. We’ve been looking for someone who had the opportunity: I just explained how you did it.
“And finally, we’ve been looking for the ‘smoking gun’-the one who, along with motive and opportunity, knew that color meant nothing to Hunsinger because the poor bastard was colorblind.
“I think we’ve got our man.” As Ewing began handcuffing Brown, Harris removed a card from his wallet and began to read, “You have the right to remain silent. .”
Brown, face ashen, looked at the floor. “I think I’d better talk to a lawyer.”
Father Koesler, even late that day, was still embarrassed by his colossal faux pas. Imagine involving the police in a fallacious guilt theory! He wondered if either Mr. or Mrs. Galloway might sue for something or other. He’d heard of litigation for false arrest. He wondered if there were some such process for false accusation. Of course, neither of them was actually accused of anything. But his had been such an egregious error that he thought mere embarrassment insufficient penalty.
Koesler had not felt so mortified since his school days. Well, perhaps once since then. Oddly, it had been during another homicide investigation. The one in which everyone was looking for a local monsignor who had mysteriously disappeared. That time too he’d had a theory that had proven to be without foundation. Yes, his embarrassment on that occasion had easily equaled his present chagrin. And for roughly the same reason.
When would he settle down and address only the questions he was asked instead of wandering around in a field wherein he was destined to remain an amateur?