10:25 a.m.
6 hours until the gloaming
In light of our current projects, the ten o’clock meeting had been cancelled. It seemed more prudent to pursue our leads than to sit around a table talking about them.
While we were working, Ellen showed up and told us she’d interviewed the two waste management workers who drove the truck of Dahmer’s things. Both claimed they didn’t know Griffin or anything about him, but Strickland did know Detective Browning and went deer hunting with him.
It was a link.
Links form a chain.
Chains form a case.
She went on. “When I asked him if he might have mentioned to Browning where Dahmer’s possessions had been deposited, his memory seemed to become a bit fuzzy.”
Yes, so information could’ve easily been passed from Strickland to Browning to Griffin, if the links were connected.
As she was finishing up, Radar walked in and informed us that he’d just spoken with Colleen Hayes downstairs. “She was brought over here to see Vincent-he’s still in custody. Anyway, I thought we could finally get some answers from her about those cuffs. I pressed her about why she’d purchased a pair that had been used in the Oswalds’ arrest. It took some prodding, but she told me that a guy at work had thrown out a catalog. She saw it in the trash, flipped through it, saw the cuffs. She thought it would be…well, discreet to order them through there.”
That was a little disappointing. “So she didn’t ask specifically for the ones involved in the Oswalds’ arrest?” I said.
“It didn’t sound like it, no.”
So, the killer could have found out about the cuffs from Griffin’s records and chosen Colleen that way. The connection between Adele and Colleen might not be the breakthrough clue we were hoping it would be after all.
“Does she know who threw out the catalog?”
He shook his head. “No, and she said she didn’t know who the guy was she ordered them from either, that it was all done through a post office box. The cuffs were shipped to her house.”
Another corner of the labyrinth closed off, moving us inexorably in another direction.
As far as the rest of our progress, Miriam Flandry’s stroke hadn’t seemed in any way suspicious and no autopsy had been done. The search for consulting firms had come up dry, but Lyrie had found that four people on the suspect list and tip list did live in the Franklin Heights area.
I turned to Thompson who’d arrived during our recap and had, as promised, brought plenty of chocolate cream-filled and glazed doughnuts for everyone. “Don’t you go to church in that area?” I asked him. “Over near Franklin Heights?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you follow up on those names. See what you can dig up.”
“Right.” He grabbed three doughnuts and left again. Didn’t even get a chance to sit down.
The rest of us went back to work.
It took a little while, but all three airlines that flew out of General Mitchell Airport and serviced the cities we were looking at faxed us the flight manifests we’d requested and we took our time inspecting them. In the end, however, we didn’t come up with any names that matched.
It was possible this whole airline idea was off base.
Come on, Pat, you’re missing something here!
I rubbed my head, then studied the maps on the corkboard again, thought about what Calvin had said about consulting firms, businesses that do businesses with other businesses.
Roads you can’t see…
Notice the obvious, Pat…The truth isn’t as obscure as it appears…Our preconceptions blind us to-
“Hang on,” I said. “Chartered flights. Private jets. And let’s take a closer look not just at consulting firms but at any businesses that have satellite offices in those cities.”
Agreement from the team.
We pulled out phone books and began to make some calls.