Color Blind (12 page)

Hardeman squinted at her, and the waxy skin on his face constricted. “If you wanted to know which grief
stages
he went through, you can stop at anger and denial. He displayed shock, guilt. But he never passed those initial ones. Probably my fault in the end, of course.”

“How do you mean?” Hank prodded.

The detective let the hooked stick rest on the table, smoothed his hands through his sandy hair. “Ah. I thought I was doing the right thing by his girl. Kept everything close, tight. That way, when we found the bastard who did it, we’d know it for sure, no question. Thought I was doing right by
Thadius
that way, too. Narelle. Thought their lives would be better if I could make an arrest they’d never doubt. That way, they’d know Emily’s killer didn’t go free. Turned out it kept ’em from a death certificate. Lots of awful stuff happened. Phone calls to the house from phone companies, wanting to sell Emily a new long-distance plan. Mail to ’em from the Gap about a sale on blue jeans.”

“Detective Hardeman, did Thadius Grogan’s behavior change when that mail came, the phone calls?” Sure, it was torturous, but if he’d developed a habit of fixating himself on finding the killer, those were unlikely triggers.

Hardeman shook his head, glanced at his bottle. “Not his behavior. Narelle’s. It’s probably what spurred her forward to ending it.”

Now
that
made sense. “Did you notice his interest in the case escalate after Narelle’s death? A renewed interest in forwarding you leads on the case, sending articles about new police procedures, anything like that?”

“Eh, probably the opposite, now you mention it. Before, he was calling every other day, telling me some new idea he had or tidbit he thought might be of consequence. After, he stopped calling as much. Thought at first the support group he was involved in was influencing him for the better. He had people to talk to and all that. Then someone pointed me to a website he’d started about Emily. It had lots of stuff. Antipolice rants, ways families who’d gone through this sort of business could help themselves. Had a timeline of events leading up to her death, even a letter to her killer.”

In other words, everything Isaac Keaton would’ve needed to key him into Thadius’s exact frame of mind. Still, the timeline could be quite useful. “He was reaching out to the killer?”

“More like warning him,” Hardeman replied.

So already, Thadius had ventured into a personal manhunt. People who launched vigilante operations did several specific things with a few variations. “When was the last time you spoke to Thadius Grogan?”

The detective stood and paced. His clothes hung around him as though they belonged to someone with a bigger budget for meals.

“I guess a few years ago, not too long after Narelle died. We still hadn’t released all the information we had about Emily’s murder—still haven’t, to this day, in fact, though I daresay at this point it’s more about the chief not wanting to eat crow than anything else. But yeah, Thadius had gotten really interested in paying for the details of the case file.”

The detective stopped short, biting back further comments.

“What was that conversation like?” Hank asked.

“I—” Hardeman cut off, hung his head. “I hate it. I really do. I could’ve played it all so differently.”

“You did the best you could, Detective,” Jenna replied. No one knew what to do in these situations, and gut was all a good investigator had.

Hardeman folded his lips in a pained smile. “That’s what I try to tell
myself
, too.”

“What did Thadius say that last time you spoke?” Hank asked again, putting an end to the awkward tension left hanging by his last statement.

“Tried to pay me for the information,” he said after a long pause.

“You mean he tried to bribe you?” Hank confirmed.

Hardeman folded his lips again. He was protective of Thadius. Hardeman’s name solidified in Jenna’s mind in a light blue. Did he have children? Maybe he saw himself in Thadius.

“I wouldn’t tell him anything. Didn’t. I knew by then it’d come to no good,” Hardeman said.

Time to change directions. “In the time you knew Thadius Grogan, did he have any good friends? Did any new acquaintances become prominent in his life after his wife died?”

The detective sat back down at his ship in a bottle, resumed the tedious task of inserting the Legos into their delicate places. “Nah. Not really. That victim support group was really the only place he ever mentioned going that I can think of.”

Victim support. A breeding ground for anguish and eggshells.

“Thank you, Detective. We may have some follow-up questions later,” Hank said, acknowledging Hardeman’s return to his ship as his signal that his patience with the interview was over.

“Hmph,” Hardeman grunted as Jenna and Hank walked out the way they’d come.

“Victim support,” Hank echoed her thoughts as soon as they were out of earshot.

“Only place better to suck in someone who wants to believe would be a church,” Jenna mused. “I want to see that website, too. Once Thadius decided to find things for himself, he’d have looked for someone more sympathetic than the police. Or someone who
seemed
sympathetic. Biggest issue now is which came first for Isaac, the support group or Thadius?”

“Has to be Thadius, right? Surely you can’t wander into an AA meeting hoping to stumble upon the perfect target,” Hank said.

She glared at him. “Are all victims and survivors alcoholics now?”

“Emphasis on the anonymous, Jenna.”

Jenna stopped walking. “But they
aren’t
anonymous.”

“What?”

She’d never found the beauty in getting together with a bunch of people who “shared” her journey in being part of the lives and deaths of a psychopath. Maybe it was because she knew she’d never be understood. The other people in those meetings didn’t help
catch
their mothers.

Still, just because Jenna didn’t want to sit with a group of strangers and sing “Kumbayah” didn’t mean others didn’t. Her own brother was one, in fact.

“Anonymous is a misnomer. These groups aren’t anonymous. It’s one reason Charley started going by Padgett, so his music career wouldn’t suffer for his name being Ramey, but also to divert media attention. He didn’t want there to be a record of him at meetings.”

“They don’t take attendance, right? Participation would take a serious dive . . .”

“No, they don’t take attendance, but the odds of people who meet there
staying
strangers are slim to none. They get to know one another, become friends. Overlap of names is inevitable. So-and-So knows Billy Bob Smith from survivors’ assistance. So-and-So goes out into the community to—I don’t know—a play, where So-and-So meets Whatsername. They sit together, and pretty soon, they’re looking at their programs. Billy Bob Smith’s name appears in black and white. So-and-So says, ‘Oh! Billy Bob Smith! I know him! He comes to survivors’ assistance meetings with me!’ Bam! Anonymity blown.”

“Why did Billy Bob’s parents not own a baby name book?”

“
Point is
, we turn up some names of the people in that group with Grogan, we narrow our list of potential Isaacs to something manageable.”

Hank smirked. “You think these not-so-anonymous people who’ve had enough crime in their worlds to last them a few lifetimes and then some will walk willingly into a police investigation? I think you of all people should know better than that.”

Jenna put her hands on her hips. “You underestimate the value of being one of them.”

Red flashed in. Empowerment. If Hank wasn’t the one she was talking to, she might’ve never felt challenged. Yet here she was, volunteering to open up to people she didn’t know at all. By her own account, it was the exact thing Thadius Grogan had done that got him into trouble.

Hank couldn’t hide his slight smile. “You said it, not me.”

T
hadius Grogan stepped off the bus at the Greentree Shopping Center, thoughts of the teal stripes in his head. Em had always been artistic, eccentric. She liked lots of makeup around her eyes, bright colors. One day, she’d come home with teal stripes in her dark hair.

A dilapidated storefront toward the left end of the shopping center bore a sign in the shape of an Acme rocket bearing the words
SPARK YOUR INTEREST
. This was the place.

The sun shone on his face as he crossed the parking lot, envelope clutched tight in his hand. If only he hadn’t told her he thought the stripes were silly. It might’ve been different then, right?

The sign on the door said,
BACK IN THIRTY MINUTES
. Thadius cupped his hands to the glass and could see the man inside, sitting at the checkout counter eating a sandwich. He rapped on the glass with his knuckles.

Guy must not have many people ignore the little plastic clock on the door, because he stood almost immediately. He dug a key out of his pocket, twisted it in the bolt. “Can I help you, sir?”

Thadius glanced behind him. No one in the bare lot, the bus gone. He shoved the man backward into his store. The man hit a tower of Roman candles behind him, sending the cardboard display crumbling to the floor, the contents scattering.

Thadius closed the glass, rekeyed the lock. “Help me? I doubt it.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

I didn’t tell my daughter her hair was gorgeous.
Thadius pulled out the gun and leveled it with the man’s head. “You better hope you’re Woody, or this interview will be very short.”

The man blinked and straightened his glasses where they were skewed on his face, his mouth slack. “Mister, the cash is in the drawer! Take whatever you want!”

Thadius took a step toward him. “I don’t want your money. I’ll ask again. Are. You. Woody?”

The man nodded like a bobble head. “Yes. Yes, I am. How can I . . . be of assistance?”

“Perfect,” Thadius replied, and he gestured with the SIG toward the back. “Let’s talk in there.”

The man, reluctant to turn around, backed toward the rear, nearly tripping several times over fallen Roman candles. They reached the small back room. No windows, only white walls and a desk. Thadius indicated the chair. “Sit.”

Woody did as he was told, and Thadius dumped the same video surveillance photos he’d shown the pawn shop owner onto the desk next to the computer, the coffee mug full of pens and pencils. “What do you remember about the guy in the picture?”

The shop owner blinked rapidly as his brain clearly tried to process what was happening. He touched the very edge of the grainy surveillance photo, leaned over it.

“Where was this taken?”

“Marley Ostin’s pawn shop. Ostin said he sent him here. This was a few years ago. I need to know everything you know about him. Go!” Thadius barked.

“Sir, I can’t possibly remember something that long ago. This picture’s dated five years ago.”

Thadius closed his eyes. Five years and two days ago, he’d told Emily no respectable businesswoman had hair that looked like it came out of a gumball machine. Five years and two days ago, he’d canceled their date to go eat Indian food and told her they’d reschedule when she washed the mess out.

“I’m aware,” Thadius whispered.

Woody blinked more, tweaked his glasses again. He touched his face a lot, the picture. The desk. His face.

“Talk,” Thadius growled.

“I think he might’ve been in,” Woody said, but he sounded more like he was trying to appease than anything.

Thadius thrust the SIG into Woody’s neck. “Gonna need more than that, buddy.”

Now Woody blinked double time, shook his head. “I can’t think with that thing in my neck! It’s all I can focus on. Please! I’ll do anything I can, just give me some room.”

Thadius took one step back, eased the gun away from Woody’s skin. The man released his held breath, which transformed into a fast pant. His eyes homed in on the zoomed photo. “Okay, okay. I think he came in. Yes. He definitely came in. I remember him because he had a backpack he put the fireworks in. Maybe was a student. Looked young in the face.”

The camera angle didn’t show the kid’s face well, but Thadius bought the youthful description. “Tell me more about his face, clothes. The backpack. Anything.”

“I could tell you about his face, but I probably wouldn’t be right,” Woody said. “It was so long ago. The clothes . . . shady. The backpack. It . . . had a weird button on it. The MM Society. I remember thinking the words ‘secret society,’ but I don’t remember anything else. Didn’t ask about it or anything.”

Thadius cocked his head. Woody was calmer, more helpful than Marley Ostin. Smart. “A logo?”

Woody nodded, blinked more.

“Draw it,” Thadius commanded.

Woody looked straight on, never eyeing Thadius. He plucked a piece of paper from his printer, grabbed a pencil. He sketched feverishly, two letter M’s with the word “Society” down the middle of them.

“I think it was red with black letters, but I’m . . . I can’t be sure.”

Thadius grabbed the paper, folded it, and pocketed it. “One more thing. Did you sell him fireworks?”