Color Blind (15 page)

D
read suffocated Jenna as she walked up the path to Amy and Shawn Snow’s split-level home in the Willow Woods subdivision. Yard was kept meticulously, every blade and leaf trimmed tight. Garage open, cars inside. Both clean. The garage
itself
was spotless, no oil stains or outside debris.

If Jenna was them, she wouldn’t want to talk to her, either.

The door behind the screen opened, and a brunette of about fifty stared back at them through empty eyes. She cocked her head, but didn’t speak.

“Hun, who’s at the door?” a male voice asked from behind her.

The man Jenna assumed was Shawn Snow appeared, tall and looming.

“Mr. and Mrs. Snow, I’m Special Agent Hank Ellis, and this is Dr. Jenna Ramey—”

“Oh, God, you’ve found him! You got him! After all these years! Why hasn’t Detective Plieban called? Where is he?” Amy Snow squeaked, high-pitched, giddy.

Behind her, Shawn licked his lips, put his hand on Amy’s shoulder. “Is it true?”

Uh-oh.

“I’m sorry, but we’re not here about your daughter’s death,” Jenna said in little more than a whisper. They hadn’t even thought to look up details of the Snows’ daughter’s death yet. Hadn’t bothered to think about what the couple might make of this visit. Rookie mistake, not doing any homework.

Hank cut in. “We’re here to talk with you about a man you know. Thadius Grogan. Would you mind if we came in?”

Hank offered his badge, Jenna her own identification.

Shawn Snow opened the screen door, but he stepped onto the porch. “What’s this about?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve seen our press conferences on the news today—”

“Oh, we don’t watch the news anymore,” Amy countered. “Too much to be sad about out there. I have enough to worry about without worrying over everyone else’s problems.”

Such a statement would normally seem upbeat and bring visions of vivid colors to mind, but instead, Jenna’s mind settled on a strange orangey-brown hue surrounding Amy Snow. Denial? No. It wasn’t quite the color she usually saw as denial. Close . . .

“Right,” Hank replied. “Thadius Grogan has been connected to a recent shooting. In Thadius’s perception, the victim may’ve had something to do with his daughter’s murder. We believe he may be intent on harming others. We need to know—”

“We think someone encouraged him to perpetuate these acts. It was most likely someone who seemed sympathetic to him. Someone he might’ve known through FFVVC.” On instinct, Jenna picked up where Hank left off. No way to explain it except the truth.

Shawn’s face reddened. “You’re not suggesting that we—”

“Of course not, Mr. Snow,” Jenna cut in before Shawn could finish. “We thought you might be able to tell us some about Mr. Grogan’s lifestyle, people he talked to regularly, seeing as how you were acquainted with him.”

Shawn cackled, wild and angry. “If Thadius hurt someone involved in Emily’s murder, I can’t say I blame him. You want me to help you
stop
him?”

“No.”

Jenna’s response came out so quickly, she wasn’t even sure
she’d
said it at first. Shawn’s statement had drawn forth a strange, tempered cerulean. The blue didn’t match at all the red anger in his voice. He was furious, but his personality screamed the cool blues of defeat.

“We want you to help us find out who
targeted
Thadius. The person who encouraged this behavior is not his friend,” Hank said.

“And you people
are?
”

“Mr. Snow, the person who set Thadius on this path may be the same type of person who harmed his daughter. Your daughter. This person will most likely be a male between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. White. He’ll most likely have never been married, but he’ll be charming, possibly even handsome. The person who did this to Mr. Grogan is a sociopath, and a vicious one. We need to know if you have any idea who this might be.”

Shawn Snow looked at his wife, who had wandered to the corner of the porch and was staring across the street at nothing. Everything.

“Thadius Grogan didn’t have any friends that match that description. Not that I know of,” he said. His eyes didn’t leave Amy as he spoke. Maybe the cerulean Jenna’s psyche had assigned Shawn was his defeat mingled with
devotion
.

Hank’s phone bleated from his pocket. Jenna nodded to him to take the call.

“Excuse me,” Hank said, and he walked across the yard.

“Is there anyone else you can think of who he might’ve trusted?” Jenna asked.

Shawn Snow’s face turned maroon again. “Thadius didn’t trust anyone. I know that much.”

Even you?

“Do you know if Thadius had a housekeeper?”

“What?” Shawn Snow asked, surprised.

“A housekeeper. Or someone who came in and did laundry. Anyone like that?”

Shawn shook his head. “I don’t think so. It wasn’t the sort of thing we talked about.”

“What about you, Mrs. Snow?”

Amy continued gazing in the distance but twisted her head left and right. A tear dripped down her cheek, streaking her caked-on makeup.

“No,” she whispered.

“Do either of you know the name ‘Howie Dumas’?”

Amy Snow continued to stare blankly across the street. Shawn glanced at her, turned back to Jenna, and shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

Shawn crossed to Amy, squeezed her shoulders. “We’d better get inside. This isn’t the best time of year for Ames to be out.”

Jenna fished in her pocket, extended her card. “Call if you think of anything, will you?”

Shawn said nothing, just accepted the tiny slip of cardboard and tugged his wife’s hand, directing her into the house. The door closed in Jenna’s face.

Jenna turned to locate Hank, who was talking on his phone at the curb. She trotted toward him but stopped for her own phone’s steady ring.

“This is Jenna.”

“The list of Cuckoo Nest workers is in your in-box when you have some time, but I’m guessing it might be a while,” Irv said.

“This about the phone call Hank just took?”

“Oh, so you haven’t heard yet. Our friendly neighborhood Punisher strikes again.”

“Grogan?”

“Yep. All for the greater good, I’m sure. He stopped by a store in a nearby shopping plaza. Greentree. Talked to the owner. But there’s good news this time. The dude’s still alive.”

J
enna and Hank ducked under the crime scene tape at the fireworks shop in Greentree Shopping Center, which wasn’t too far from the Pawn Shop where Marley was shot. Woody Fine sat calmly behind his desk, polishing his glasses with his shirt tail.

After introducing himself, Hank started off by asking what Woody and Thadius talked about, how Thadius seemed.

“Calm and deranged at the same time, if that’s possible. Angry and sad. He asked me if I sold fireworks to this guy he had pictures of. Surveillance camera footage from years ago. I do actually remember him a bit. I told him the guy was a customer. Wasn’t about to lie to him.”

“Did he mention Marley Ostin to you?”

Woody nodded. “Yeah. Told me Marley’d given him my name. Guess he got these from him?”

Not exactly.
“Mr. Fine—”

“Woody, please.”

“Woody, did this man mention his visit to Marley Ostin to you at all?” Jenna asked.

The shop owner propped his glasses back on his nose. “Naw. I assumed.”

Regardless of whether or not Thadius’s conscience weighed on him, he’d shot Marley Ostin after he questioned him. What had Marley done that Woody hadn’t? Or what had
Woody
done where Marley had fallen short?

“Did you fear for your life at any point, Woody?” Hank asked.

“He
was
pointing a gun at my head.”

“I think what S.A. Ellis means is did you
believe
this man was going to shoot you?” Jenna clarified.
Such an important distinction.

Woody was quiet while he thought, maybe even reviewed the earlier incident in his mind. “No. I don’t think I did. Believe it, I mean.”

So one of a few things went on here. Either Grogan went into both places with his mind made up
not
to kill Marley Ostin and Woody Fine, and something happened between Thadius and Marley to provoke Thadius to kill the pawn shop owner. Or Thadius went into both places planning to kill both people, and something
stopped
him from killing Woody. How to figure which?

“What were you able to tell him about the surveillance photos?” Jenna asked.

“Not much, that’s for sure. Couldn’t remember the kid’s face or stature. I told him about the young man’s backpack, or rather, a button I saw there. Random thing, but the logo struck me as strange at the time, even back then. He had me draw the button for him. Then he asked me if I’d sold the kid fireworks. Told him I’m sure I did if the kid tried to buy them. I’d have had no reason not to sell ’em. The guy asked me if I’d known what the kid planned to do with them. I asked the guy several times if I could call someone for him. He seemed so distraught, not stable.”

“Back up a minute. What did you tell him when he asked if you knew what the kid planned to do with the fireworks?” Jenna asked.

“Told him the truth—that I had no idea. I don’t ask usually. People buy ’em all the time to set off on beaches or on holidays. It’s legal around here. What else
would
he be doing with fireworks, other than setting them off?”

A muted celadon permeated Jenna’s psyche. The color she’d associated with the law and anything related since she could remember.

Legal.

“Hank, have Irv check Marley Ostin and the pawn shop’s records to see if his dealings, particularly firearms sales, were done by the letter.”

“On it.”

“Woody, can you draw the same sketch for us as you did for the man who held you up?”

“Of course.”

One of the cops in the shop ripped a sheet of paper out of his notebook for Jenna, and she passed it and a pencil he handed her to Woody. “Take your time.”

As Woody’s pencil scratched the paper, she pulled Hank away. “Thoughts?”

“Thadius is still somewhat rational. He’s deciding who lives or dies, probably based on how culpable he perceives the individual.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with Woody’s offer to help him?”

Hank shrugged, but Jenna could tell he was doubtful.

“I think it’s more likely that he’s determining how much he blames them,” Hank said.

“Judging them,” Jenna filled in.

“Exactly.”

“Who’s next on Grogan’s list is the hundred-thousand-dollar question. And how did Thadius get a lead on Marley in the first place?” Jenna asked.

“Grogan built his business into a franchise—he had connections. Someone might’ve hooked him up with a private investigator.”

“The surveillance camera photo stills,” she remembered out loud. “Those had to have come from a private investigator, right? Has to be Dumas’s cover.”

“That’s what I keep thinking, too, though surely Grogan would’ve met with the PI before he hired him. He couldn’t have known the PI
and
Isaac Keaton if the PI
was
Isaac Keaton,” Hank replied.

There, he had her. “So maybe the second UNSUB is the PI.”

Even as Jenna said it, she didn’t believe it. The Gemini may have been partners, but Isaac himself admitted they weren’t equals. Anyone who had to perform and convince someone as competent as Grogan had to be a terrific actor. Something told her the subservient ferry shooter wasn’t that good. Had to be Isaac.

“Finished,” Woody called to them, and they turned back to him.

He pushed the paper across to them. He’d drawn a circle with a small emblem on it.

“What colors were the letters? The background?” Jenna asked.

“The M’s were black. I think all of the lettering was. Red background.”

Hank already had his phone out and was snapping pictures of the drawing. As if Irv didn’t already have his hands full.

“Thank you, Woody. We appreciate this. I may have a few more questions, but that’s it for now,” Hank replied.

Hank read another text as they headed for the store’s exit. “Detective Richards wants to know if we’re ready to put the lineup in front of Yancy Vogul. Chase the MM Society or head back to Yancy?”

Good question.
As tempting as the button emblem might be, Grogan was the goose chase, not the golden egg. Keaton had orchestrated this whole thing. Even if they tried, they couldn’t beat Thadius Grogan to his next target, even if they knew more about the emblem. That would require knowing everything about his thought process, and unfortunately, even Jenna couldn’t read minds. They needed to visit Yancy and show him the lineup. If he recognized Keaton, this would be a new ballgame.

“Let’s put Saleda on the MM Society. I want to see Yancy Vogul’s reactions.”