The afternoon was stretching thin.
As I drove, Ralph scribbled notes on his pad and collected his thoughts. “So, Griffin could have known that the Hayes couple had their own cuffs. That puts him on our short list.”
“Yes, but according to Colleen’s description, her abductor was a large man; Griffin has a slight build.”
He processed that. “True.”
“Also, when I brought up Hayes’s name, Griffin didn’t seem familiar with it.”
Ralph certainly knew, as I did, that killers are often accomplished liars, but even for them, first impressions are hard to fake. Often, our faces betray us before our minds can start coming up with ways to hide what our bodies have already subconsciously expressed.
“But, Pat, he has to be related to this somehow. He might not be at the center of it, but his connection with the crime scene tape and the cuffs is too much of a coincidence. They tie him to both the murder in Illinois and Colleen’s abduction last night. Besides, he called Hendrich ‘a source,’ and mentioned he’d shipped ‘stuff’ to him. Is that how you’d phrase things if you’d only worked with the guy once?”
“I see what you mean,” I admitted, “but both the cuffs and police tape could have come from a cop-there’s no saying the police tape came from the killer.”
“We need to find out more about Hendrich.”
“Yes, we do,” I said. “And cross-reference the names on the evidence room forms and the chain of custody list against the officers who worked the case in Illinois. An officer may have moved from-”
“Waukesha to Champaign.”
“Yes.”
While we’d been driving, Thorne had sent Lyrie to Hendrich’s home address, but we hadn’t heard from him yet whether he’d found out anything from him.
I said to Ralph, “It looks like we have a few things to follow up on.” I ticked them off on my fingers as I exited the highway to get to HQ: “Check that police tape for prints, locate Bruce Hendrich, look into the people at the Waukesha sheriff’s department who had access to the Oswald handcuffs, and find out how Colleen Hayes came to contact Timothy Griffin in the first place. Oh yeah, it’d be good to check the nearest video store to see if Timothy and Mallory rented The Fugitive and When Harry Met Sally.”
“You think they made that up?”
“Those two videos weren’t among the twelve in their living room, not by the TV or on the shelves. That points to renting them. People like to save time, money, and effort, so they most often shop, get gas, and rent videos from the grocery stores, service stations, and video stores closest to their homes. We should start there, see if they’re customers.”
“Good call.”
“I think we have enough to get a warrant to look through Griffin’s receipts, see what else Hendrich might have sold him.”
“Or bought from him.”
I nodded. “Also, we should get the warrant to cover Griffin’s subscription list so we can cross-check the people who get his catalog against our suspect list and tip list.”
“Nice.” He jotted a few more notes.
I gave him an inventory of the items that were in the living room and included the photo that had a price tag on it in the bedroom. “Have them compare that list to the items on the receipts that he hasn’t sold yet. And to the catalog.”
“Did you write down that stuff when you were in the bedroom?”
“No.”
“You just listed like four dozen different things. You’re saying you remembered them?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. Why?”
He blinked. “Just checking.”
I felt the juices flowing. Admittedly, we still had more questions than answers, but a slowly emerging web of interrelationships was beginning to form. I mentally unwound and then rewound them, exploring the possibilities, evaluating the implications. Even though I couldn’t pin down anything solid yet, it felt good to have enough facts to be able to start sorting through them, searching for a pattern.
“How many do you think are women?” Ralph said, drawing me out of my thoughts.
“Who?”
“The people who buy that stuff from Griffin, you know, like Colleen. I mean, on the one hand you’ve got the revulsion most women feel toward violence, but on the other hand some ladies get off on that kind of stuff, on killers, you know, the lost boys-want to be their pen pals in prison, marry them when they get out, that sort of thing.”
Since males are generally more interested in crime and, in fact, much more inclined to commit violent acts than women, I expected that most of Griffin’s customers would be men. After all, ninety-five percent of the people in the prisons of the world are men-closer to ninety-eight percent if you look just at violent acts. Blame it on genetics, trace it back to upbringing, whatever it is, there’s no arguing that men corner the market on crime, especially cruel and brutal ones. “It’ll be interesting to see how it breaks down,” I acknowledged.
“How far to the department?”
“A couple minutes.”
Ralph turned to the dispatch radio. “I’ll call this stuff in, get Ellen on the search warrant. If there’s one thing the Bureau is good at, it’s expediting search warrant requests.”
At least that’s one thing, I thought.
“I could make some sort of smart comment about that,” I said, “but I’ll refrain.”
“I’m counting that as a smart comment, Tonto.”
“Wasn’t Tonto just the sidekick?”
“Yeah.” A tiny smile. “He was.”