The Vanished Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  Rhyme frowned again.

  Sachs tried, "Angry?"

  "Oh, hell-ooooh. Yeah, I'll say."

  "Go on," Rhyme said, struggling against impatience. "Tell us what else he said."

  "That was it. That was all. What I just told you. I mean, there were little things. Oh, he got his digs in like he always did. The claws. Just like old times. . . . You know what he did when he called?"

  "What was that?" Rhyme encouraged.

  "All he said was, 'It's Erick.' Not 'Hello.' Not 'Oh, John, how are you? Remember me?' No. 'It's Erick.' I hadn't talked to him since the fire. And what does he say? 'It's Erick.' All these years since I got away from him, working so hard to get away . . . and then it's like I haven't gotten away at all. I know I hadn't done anything wrong. And here he's making it sound like something's all my fault. It's like you take an order from a customer and then when you bring the food they claim it's not what they ordered. But everybody knows what happened--they changed their mind and they're making it sound like you got it wrong. Like it's your fault and you're the one who gets in trouble."

  Sachs continued, "Can you tell us anything about him in general? Other friends, places he liked to go, hobbies."

  "Sure," came the snappy voice. "All of the above: illusion."

  "What?" Rhyme asked.

  "That was his friends, places he liked to go to, hobbies. You get what I'm saying? There was nothing else. He was like totally absorbed in the profession."

  Sachs tried again. "Well, what about his attitude toward people? His outlook? How he thought about things?"

  A long pause. "Fifty minutes, twice a week for three years I've been trying to figure him out and I can't. For three years. And he still hurts me. I--" Keating broke into a harsh, eerie laugh. "You catch that? I said 'hurts.' I meant to say 'haunts.' He still haunts me. How's that for Freudian? I'll have something to share next Monday at nine A.M., won't I? He still haunts me and I don't have a clue what his fucking outlook is."

  Rhyme could see everyone on the team was growing frustrated with the man's rambling. He said, "We heard his wife was killed in the fire. Do you know anything about her family?"

  "Marie? No, they'd only gotten married a week or two before the fire. They were really in love. We thought she'd calm him down. Make him haunt us less. We were hoping that. But we never got to know her."

  "Can you give us the names of anybody who might know something about him?"

  "Art Loesser was first assistant. I was second. We were his boys. They called us 'Erick's boys.' Everybody did."

  Rhyme said, "We have a call in to Loesser. Anyone else?"

  "The only one I can think of is the manager of the Hasbro circus at the time. Edward Kadesky's his name. He's a producer in Chicago now, I think."

  Sellitto got the spelling of the man's name. Then asked, "Did Weir ever call back?"

  "No. But he didn't need to. Five minutes and he got the claws in. Hurting and haunting."

  It's Erick . . .

  "Look, I should go. I have to iron my uniform. I'm working the Sunday morning shift. It's a busy one."

  After they hung up, Sachs walked to the speakerphone to hit the disconnect button. "Brother," she muttered.

  "Needs more meds," Sellitto observed.

  "Well, at least we've got a lead," Rhyme said. "Track down that Kadesky."

  Mel Cooper disappeared for a few minutes and when he returned he had a printout of a database of theatrical companies. Kadesky Productions had its office on South Wells Street in the Windy City. Sellitto placed a call and, not surprisingly, being late Saturday night, got the answering service. He left a message.

  Sellitto said, "Okay--Weir's messed up his assistant's life. He's unstable. He's injured people in the audience and now he's a pattern doer. But what's making him tick?"

  Sachs looked up at this. "Let's give Terry a call."

  Terry Dobyns was an NYPD psychologist. There were several on the force but Dobyns was the sole behavioral profiler, a skill he'd learned and honed at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. Thanks to the press and popular fiction the public hears a lot about psychological profiling and it can be valuable--but only, Rhyme felt, in a limited type of crime. Generally there's nothing mysterious about the workings of a perp's mind. But in cases where the motive is a mystery and his next target is hard to anticipate, profiling can be valuable. It helps investigators find informants or individuals who might know the suspect, anticipate his next move, set up decoys in appropriate neighborhoods, run stakeouts and look for similar crimes in the past.

  Sellitto thumbed through an NYPD directory of phone numbers and placed a call to Dobyns at home.

  "Terry."

  "Lon. You've got speakerphone echo. Let me deduce that Lincoln's there too."

  "Yep," Rhyme confirmed. He had a fondness for Dobyns, the first person he saw when he awakened after his spinal cord accident. Rhyme recalled that the man loved touch football, opera and the mysteries of the human mind in roughly the same degrees--and all passionately.

  "Sorry it's late," Sellitto offered, not sounding sorry at all. "But we need some help with a multiple doer. We've got a name but not much else."

  "This the one in the news? Killed the music student this morning? And that patrol officer too?"

  "Right. He also killed a makeup artist and tried to kill a horseback rider. Because of what they and the student quote represented. Two straight women, one gay man. No sexual activities. We're at a loss. And he's told Lincoln that he's going to start up again tomorrow afternoon."

  "He told Lincoln? Over the phone? A letter?"

  "In person," Rhyme said.

  "Hmm. That must've been quite a conversation."

  "You don't know the half of it."

  Sellitto and Rhyme gave the man a rundown on Weir's crimes and what they'd learned about him.

  Dobyns asked a number of questions. Then he fell silent for a moment and finally said, "I see two forces at work in him. But they reinforce each other and lead to the same result. . . . Is he still performing?"

  "No," Kara said. "He hasn't performed since the fire. Not that anybody's heard."

  "Public performing," Dobyns said, "is such an intense experience, it's so compelling, that when it's denied someone who was successful the loss is profound. Actors and musicians--magicians too, I'd guess--tend to define themselves in terms of their careers. So the result is that the fire basically eradicated the man he had been."

  The Vanished Man, Rhyme reflected.

  "That in turn means he's now motivated not by ambition to succeed or to please his audience or a devotion to his craft but by anger. And that's aggravated by the second force: the fire deformed him and damaged his lungs. So as a public person he'd be particularly self-conscious of the deformities. They'd multiply the anger logarithmically. We could call it the Phantom of the Opera syndrome, I suppose. He'd see himself as a freak."

  "So he wants to get even?"

  "Yes, but not necessarily in a literal sense: fire quote murdered him--his old persona--and by murdering someone else he feels better; it reduces the anxiety that the anger builds up in him."

  "Why these victims?"

  "No way of knowing. 'What they represented.' What did they do again?"

  "Music student, makeup stylist and a lawyer though he referred to her as an equestrian."

  "There's something about them that's tapped into his anger. I don't know what it could be--not yet, not without more data. The textbook answer is that each one of them devoted their lives to what Weir would consider 'crucible moments.' Important, life-changing times. Maybe his wife was a musician or they met at a concert. The makeup stylist--that could be a mother issue. For instance, the only happy times he might've had with her were as a young boy sitting in the bathroom and watching her put on makeup. The horses? Who knows? Maybe he and his father went horseback riding once and he enjoyed it. The happiness of moments like that was taken away from him by the fire and he's targeting people who remind him of those times. Or i
t could be the opposite; he has bad associations with what the victims represent. You say his wife died during a rehearsal. Maybe there was music playing at the time."

  "He'd go to all this trouble, staking them out, making these elaborate plans to find them and kill them?" Rhyme asked. "This must've taken months."

  "The mind has to scratch its itches," Dobyns said.

  "One other thing, Terry. He also seemed to be talking to an imaginary audience. . . . Wait, I thought it was 'respected' audience. But I just remembered--it was 'revered.' Talking to them like they were really there. 'Now, Revered Audience, we're going to do this or that.' "

  " 'Revered,' " the psychologist said. "That's important. After his career and his loved one were taken away from him he shifted his reverence, his love, to an audience--an impersonal mass. People who prefer groups or crowds can be abusive, even dangerous, to individual human beings. Not only strangers but their partners, wives, children, family members too."

  John Keating, Rhyme reflected, in fact sounded like a child who'd been abused by his father.

  Dobyns continued, "And in Weir's case this frame of mind is even more dangerous because he's not talking to real audiences, only his imaginary one. This suggests to me that actual people have no value to him at all. He won't have any problem killing even in large numbers. This guy's going to be a tough one."

  "Thanks, Terry."

  "You get him in jar, let me know. I'd like to spend some time with him."

  After they hung up Sellitto began, "Maybe we could--"

  "Go to bed," Thom said.

  "Huh?" the detective asked.

  "And it's not a question of 'could.' It's a question of 'are.' You're going to bed, Lincoln. And everybody else is leaving. You look pale and tired. No cardiovascular or neuro events on my watch. If you'll recall, I wanted you to go to bed hours ago."

  "All right, all right," Rhyme conceded. In fact, he was tired. And, though he wouldn't admit it to anyone, the fire had scared him badly.

  The team departed for their respective homes. Kara found her jacket and as she put it on Rhyme observed that she was clearly upset.

  "You okay?" Sachs asked her.

  A dismissing shrug. "I had to tell Mr. Balzac why I needed to ask him about Weir. He's totally pissed off. I've got to go pay penance."

  "We'll write him a note," Sachs joked gently, "excusing you from class."

  The girl smiled wanly.

  Rhyme called out, "Hell with the note. If it wasn't for you we wouldn't have a clue who the perp was. Tell him to give me a call. I'll fix his clock."

  Kara offered an anemic, "Thanks."

  "You're not going to the store now, are you?" Sachs asked.

  "Just for a little. Mr. Balzac is helpless with the details. I'll have to log in the receipts. And show him my routine for tomorrow."

  Rhyme wasn't surprised that she was going to do what the man asked. He noted she'd said, Mr. Balzac. Sometimes he was "David." Not now. This echoed what they'd heard earlier: despite the Conjurer's coming close to destroying John Keating's life, the assistant had referred to the killer with the same respectful appellation. The power of mentors over their apprentices . . .

  "Go on home," the policewoman persisted. "I mean, Jesus, you did get knifed to death today."

  Another faint laugh, accompanied by a shrug. "I won't be there long." She paused in the doorway. "You know, I have that show in the afternoon. But I'll come back tomorrow morning if you want."

  "We'd appreciate it," Rhyme said. "Though we'll try to nail Weir's ass before lunch so you won't have to stay long."

  Thom walked her into the corridor and out the front door.

  Sachs stepped into the doorway and inhaled the smoky air. "Phew," she exhaled. Then disappeared up the stairs. "I'm showering," she called.

  Ten minutes later Rhyme heard her walk downstairs. But she didn't join him in the bedroom right away. From different parts of the house came thuds and creaks, muted words with Thom. Then finally she returned to the guest room. She was wearing her favorite pajamas--black T-shirt and silk boxers--but she had two accoutrements that were atypical of her sleep gear. Her Glock pistol and the long black tube of her issue flashlight.

  She set them both on the bedside table.

  "That guy gets into places too damn easy," she said, climbing into bed next to him. "I checked every square inch of the house, balanced chairs on all the doors and told Thom if he hears anything to give a shout--but to stay put. I'm in the mood to shoot somebody but I'd really rather it wasn't him."

  II

  METHOD

  Sunday, April 21

  "A magical effect is like a seduction. Both are built through careful details planted in the mind of the subject."

  --SOL STEIN

  Chapter Twenty-nine Sunday morning passed in frustration as the search for Erick Weir stalled.

  The team learned that after the fire in Ohio the illusionist had remained in the burn unit of a local hospital for several weeks and then left on his own, without officially checking out. There was a record that he sold his house in downtown Las Vegas not long after that but no public record of buying another. In that cash-fat city though, Rhyme supposed, one could easily buy a small place in the desert with a stack of greenbacks, no questions asked, no public filings involved.

  The team managed to find Weir's late wife's mother. But Mrs. Cosgrove knew nothing of Weir's whereabouts. He'd never contacted them after the disaster to send his condolences about their daughter's death. She reported, though, that she wasn't surprised. Weir was a selfish, cruel man, she explained, who'd become obsessed with her young daughter and virtually hypnotized her into marrying him. None of the other Cosgrove relatives had had any contact with Weir.

  Cooper compiled the remaining information from the computer searches on Weir but there wasn't much. No VICAP or NCIC reports. There were no other details on the man, and the officers tracking down Weir's family found only that both parents were deceased, that he was an only child and that no next of kin could be located.

  Late in the morning Weir's other assistant, Art Loesser, returned their call from Las Vegas. The man wasn't surprised to learn that his former boss was wanted in connection with a crime and echoed what they'd learned already: that Weir was one of the world's greatest illusionists but that he took the profession far too seriously and was known for his dangerous illusions and hot temper. Loesser still had nightmares about being his apprentice.

  I said "hurts." I meant to say "haunts." He still haunts me.

  "All young assistants're influenced by their mentors," Loesser told the team via speakerphone. "But my therapist said that in Weir's case we were mesmerized by him."

  So both of them are in therapy.

  "He said being with Weir created a Stockholm syndrome relationship. You know what that is?"

  Rhyme said he was familiar with the condition--where hostages form close bonds with, and even feel affection and love for, their kidnappers.

  "When did you last see him?" Sachs asked. The assessment exercise over, she was in soft clothes today--jeans and a forest-green knit blouse.

  "In the hospital, the burn unit. That was about three years ago. I'd go visit him regularly at first but all he'd talk about was getting even with anybody who'd ever hurt him or who didn't approve of his kind of magic. Then he disappeared and I never saw him after that."

  But then, the former protege explained, Weir had called out of the blue about two months ago. Around the same time, Rhyme reflected, he'd called his other assistant. Loesser's wife had taken the call. "He didn't leave a number and said he'd call back but he never did. Thank God. I'll tell you, I don't know that I could've handled it."

  "Do you know where he was when he called?"

  "No. I asked Kathy--I was afraid he was back in town--but she said he didn't say and the call came up 'out-of-area' on caller ID."

  "He didn't tell your wife what he might be calling about? Any clue where he might be?"

  "She said he sou
nded odd, agitated. He was whispering, hard to understand. I remember that from after the fire. His lungs'd been damaged. Made him even scarier."

  Tell me about it, Rhyme thought.

  "He asked if we'd heard anything about Edward Kadesky--he was the producer of the Hasbro show when the fire happened. That was it."

  Loesser couldn't provide any other helpful information and they hung up.

  Thom let two policewomen into the lab. Sachs nodded a greeting and introduced them to Rhyme. Diane Franciscovich and Nancy Ausonio.

  They were, he recalled, the respondings at the first murder and had been given the assignment of tracking down the antique handcuffs.

  Franciscovich said, "We talked to all the dealers the director of the museum recommended." Beneath their crisp uniforms both the tall brunette and the shorter blonde looked exhausted. They'd taken their assignment seriously, it seemed, and probably hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

  "The handcuffs are Darbys, like you thought," Ausonio said. "They're pretty rare--and expensive. But we've got a list of twelve people who--"

  "Oh, my God, look." Franciscovich was pointing to the evidence chart, where Thom had written: * Perp's identity: Erick A. Weir.

  Ausonio flipped through the sheets she held. "Erick Weir placed a mail order for a pair of the cuffs from Ridgeway Antique Weapons in Seattle last month."

  "Address?" Rhyme asked excitedly.

  "Post office box in Denver. We checked. But the lease lapsed. There're no records of a permanent address."

  "And no record that Weir ever lived in Denver."

  "Method of payment?" Sachs asked.

  "Cash," was the simultaneous response from Ausonio and Rhyme, who added, "He's not going to make stupid mistakes. Nope. That trail's dead. But at least we've got a confirmation that this's our boy."

  Rhyme thanked the officers and Sachs walked them to the door.

  Another call came in on Rhyme's phone. The area code on the caller ID looked familiar but Rhyme couldn't place it. "Command, answer phone. . . . Hello?"

  "Yessir. This's Lieutenant Lansing, State Police. I'm trying to reach Detective Roland Bell. I was given this number as his temporary command post."

  "Hey, Harv," Bell called, walking closer to the speakerphone. "I'm here." He explained to Rhyme, "Our liaison on the Constable case up in Canton Falls."