Magician

by Timothy C. Phillips

  “That’s a lot of material,” I said quietly.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “But nothing in there explains the disappearance,” I said.

  Tiller nodded. “That’s right.”

  “And we both know what that means.” I looked across the files at Tiller.

  Tiller leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Yes. It means we must have missed something.”

  Chapter 3

  Birmingham is a city of many parts, a checkerboard of rich and poor. This peculiar patchwork is the remnant of good times and bad times, economic booms, and sudden deadfalls. Projects have sprung up mere blocks from mansions, as old neighborhoods prospered, or slid into long decline. Some sections are old money, some new. Many more had none at all. Westmoreland Heights was one of the places, and it was the part of Birmingham I had grown up in. Later, as a policeman, I had worked a beat there. Later still, I had worked those same streets as a detective.

  Mountain Brook, Homewood, Cahaba heights, those were the places the yuppie middle class congregated. They played a mindless game of one-upsmanship, each trying to definitively become the best place in town to live.

  The Champion family’s neighborhood was far removed from all of that. They lived in Park Place, the most exclusive section of the metropolitan area. I had been there on two occasions, once as a cop and once as a private detective. Both occasions had been very bad ones.

  The guard at the gate took one look at me and acted as if he’d never seen a black man before. He was courteous after I presented Champion’s sepia card. When no one was looking, I had checked; it wasn’t scented.

  I eased my old Buick up the circular drive. The Champion’s home was of a modest size, for a Zeppelin hanger. I was mildly surprised when no valet appeared.

  I parked and walked to the front door, where I was met by a Hispanic woman in her mid-forties. She wore a white apron, and carried a dust mop. She didn’t really look at me, but silently took my coat and gestured down the long hall to a dimly-lit room, a sitting room by all appearances.

  I had a seat on an exquisitely comfortable leather sofa. The air was quite fragrant, some sort of incense I couldn’t quite place. The walls of the room were decorated with pictures of about sixty-two generations of the Champion line, most of them looking like the present Mr. Champion to some degree, although none wore big furry hats.

  In a few minutes, Champion appeared through the side door. With him was a short, swarthy woman, with thick, black hair. Mrs. Champion. They made a rather odd couple. Whereas Mr. Champion stood over six feet, his wife was perhaps an inch or two over five. His skin was doughy and white, whereas his wife’s was a dusky olive tone. She was also rather pretty, and looked twenty years his junior. She was dressed gaudily, her hair down. Around her neck were several strings of beads, and she was dressed in a black lace dress that covered her from her wrists to her ankles. She looked like a gypsy fortune-teller, her husband the beleaguered seeker of advice.

  They sat down on the couch across from me. Mr. Champion looked at his wife, who sat staring blankly at me without expression. Seemingly satisfied that she wouldn’t speak first, he crossed his long legs and cleared his throat.

  “Ahem. Mr. Longville. We are so glad that you’ve come. We’re very excited that finally, someone as highly recommended as you has agreed—” I cut him off before he could expand.

  “Mr. Champion, forgive me. I have decided that I will take the case. But first you have to hear me out. There are to be conditions. As I have said, a lot of good people have spent many hours investigating your daughter’s disappearance. I don’t plan to take their work for granted. We will have to start from the beginning, and that means going back through everything you went through with the police. I mean all of it, in detail. It will be like starting the entire process over. It might be very taxing for the both of you. Very painful.”

  But they were already nodding.

  “I can assure you, Mr. Longville, that we will cooperate fully,” Diane Champion chirped. Her voice was bright, her English perfect, with a very detectable French accent. I also detected a worldly edge. Maybe she was the same age as her husband, after all, I decided. Perhaps they just aged differently. I rubbed the back of my neck and looked at the Champions. They both sat calmly, staring blandly back at me.

  “Is there anything that either of you remember about the day your daughter disappeared, that you might think would be helpful?”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Longville. The police, they did not try,” Diane Champion purred, and deferred to her husband, who took up where she left off.

  “This whole idea that it was someone we know is ridiculous. All of the people we hired were checked out in advance, by reputable firms.” I started to ask if these were the same reputable firms that now seemed to only want their money, but changed my mind.

  It quickly became obvious that there was nothing more the Champions could tell me.

  “Okay then.” I stood, and their eyes followed me expectantly. “I guess I can get to work.”

  I heaved to my feet and indicated with a nod that I wanted Mr. Champion to follow me. Together we walked into the hall and mounted the stairs. I spoke in a low voice.

  “I want to look at your daughter’s room, Mr. Champion.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you ever go in there?”

  “Heavens no. The maid dusts the room occasionally. Otherwise, it remains as it was. Initially, the police requested that we not enter the room. But that was out of the question, in any case. It’s quite unbearable for either Diane or myself.”

  “I understand. I doubt I’ll find anything, but I want to get an idea of the layout of the house, among other things. There’s no need for you to accompany me, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Then I’ll take my leave of you. Please, make yourself absolutely at home. We’ll stay out of your way. The room is the third door on the right, at the top of the stairs.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Champion.”

  “I cannot thank you enough for agreeing to take this case Mr. Longville. It is a sign, I believe, that you will find something.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Champion turned and walked back down from the stairs. “Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,” he called out.

  I nodded and continued up the stairs. I came to the door, took a breath, and opened it.

  I walked into the small room and looked around at all that was left of little Georgia Champion’s life. The room was preserved as a shrine, that much was obvious. Many pictures of her had found their way to the dresser; three rows of Georgias faced me, all the framed smiles that the Champions had collected over the years. I realized I hadn’t seen any pictures of the girl downstairs. Perhaps the Champions had gathered them up and stored them here, because they were too painful to confront every day.

  Feeling a little ghoulish, I sat down on the tiny bed and looked around. The room would have been picked over many times by the police. I knew there was little hope of finding any new physical evidence.

  What are you hoping for, a vision?

  I shrugged and got to my feet. Who would have dared this crime? And why on the little girl’s birthday? That last fact had made the crime seem all the more audacious, even insane. But was there something about that fact that the police had missed? Was it a crime of opportunity? Had some mad vagrant managed to wander in unseen during all of the merrymaking? If so, how had he made it back out, unseen, with Georgia in tow?

  I saw that the mirror had been removed from the dresser and placed facing against the wall in the corner next to the bed. I leaned over and moved it carefully. There, still quite legible, was a single word: Cauchemar.

  Nine letters, three strange syllables, in a simple, childlike script, written in indelible ink. Doubtlessly, the Champions had been instructed not to bother the writing. I suppressed a shudder. The word stared back at me, inscrutable and full of mystery, like the face of a sphinx—or a message from anothe
r world.

  Chapter 4

  I was back in the Dead Letter Office. Everything was there, just as Tiller had told me it would be. It appeared that every fact had been gone over a million times. Evidence had been carefully photographed, cataloged, and filed away. I pored over the police reports, statements, handwritten, witnessed, retyped. There were photographs of the house, of the guests. Tag numbers, dispatch logs, mug shots. The pictures and video from the birthday party. Each item’s relevance had been carefully noted and explained by the Birmingham detectives. Seemingly, nothing had escaped their notice. What I had in front of me was a heaping pile of good police work.

  The fulcrum of the crime was the birthday party. A large number of guests had attended the party, mostly privileged children like Georgia. It was a child’s party, but lavish by almost any standards. Everyone involved had been questioned multiple times. The police had developed no suspects and found no leads.

  Caterers had served the refreshments and cake. They had also distributed presents. Some clowns had also performed at the birthday party; several grounds people were on the premises, also. A representative from the power company had checked the meter.

  But no cigar. Or, more appropriately, no corpus delecti. Somehow, a person or persons unknown had worked the impossible at 66 Park Place Circle. A little girl had been made to disappear on her ninth birthday, the first day of June.

  “So how’s the search going, Longville?” Tiller said as he entered the little room and patted me on the back.

  I stood and stretched. “I’m just getting started, really. It’s going to be tough. Just what I’ve seen tells me the detectives on this case did a solid job.”

  Tiller put his ever-present cup of coffee down and scratched his beard. “That was my general impression. Last winter I actually got a bug up my butt and took myself a second gander at those files.”

  “I don’t suppose that anything jumped out at you?”

  “Just the uniqueness of it. I’ve been trying to think of a similar crime, and gain some insight that way.”

  I nodded. “There’s the Lindbergh baby. Too bad Bruno Hauptman’s name didn’t pop up on the list of guests.”

  Tiller smiled and eased into the seat across from me. He gazed at me levelly for a moment without speaking again. Then he took a sip of his coffee and cleared his throat. “Anything occur to you about this mess?”

  “Yeah. A little girl vanished into thin air.”

  Tiller’s eyes gleamed. “And that’s just what I expected you to say.”

  I shrugged. “Isn’t that what happened?”

  “Now, listen, Roland. You don’t mean vanished. Neither does anyone else. But all of them, from the tabloids to the cops that worked this case, use that same word when referring to this case.” Tiller looked smugly at me, triumphant in some way.

  “Wait a second, Tiller. I don’t think I’m following you. You aren’t suggesting that the girl actually dematerialized?”

  “Do I look like a moron? Of course not. But we have to rely on what our senses tell us, don’t we? Besides,” he added smugly, “you’re the one who said that she vanished.” He paused. There was something he wanted to say, but he wanted to make sure he said it the right way.

  I shook my head and smiled at him. “A figure of speech. Sure, we rely on our senses, but sometimes we can’t trust our senses. Our perceptions can be wrong. Every cop knows that. We both know how unreliable eye witnesses can be.”

  Tiller leaned in close. “Right you are, Mr. Longville. Right you are.” With that he stood and walked away, back into a darkened room that lay beyond the rows of shelves. In a moment he returned, his hands behind his back. “Mind if I show you something?” he said, a sly smile on his face.

  “I’m game.”

  “Can you identify this item?” Tiller held out a wallet-sized photograph in his right hand.

  “That’s Georgia Champion’s eighth birthday photo.”

  “You have good eyesight. You are also quick learner, Mr. Longville.” He moved his hand in a circle, made it into a fist, and brought it together with his other.

  “Abracadabra.” He held out both fists to me.

  “Okay. Which one?” Tiller asked, with a naughty smile.

  I laughed. “Well, I’ll play along. I have a 50/50 chance. I’ll say the right.”

  Tiller opened his right hand. It was empty.

  “Pretty good. So I was wrong.”

  Tiller opened his left hand, revealing that it, too, was empty. “Tsk tsk.”

  “Nice little magic trick.”

  “Think so? Kindly look in your right coat pocket.”

  I reached into my pocket and felt something there. My eye brows knitted, and I pulled out the photo of Georgia Champion. “How in the hell did you do that?”

  It was Tiller’s turn to laugh. He closed and opened his right hand. It now held my driver’s license.

  “As you say, Mr. Longville, sometimes our perceptions can be wrong.”

  “Very good, indeed. I guess everybody has to have a hobby. I see you got my entire wallet.”

  “Yes, and apparently private eyes are quite well reimbursed. Personally, I have no gold card.”

  “If you’re through, then.” He smiled and handed over my wallet and license. “There, there, all in good order. I am merely making a point.”

  “That the girl was taken so quickly that nobody noticed?”

  Tiller shook his head. “Longville, I expected more from you. You are like the rest of them. You assume that you have a 50/50 chance, when you have none at all. I’ll tell you my theory, and you can take it or leave it. Like I’ve said, and in all modesty, there is nothing about this case I don’t know. So here’s what I think. My little demonstration wasn’t about speed. It’s about misdirection. People wrongly assume magicians are simply fast. Hell, I’m not fast at all.” He paced slowly and bent backward, stretching his back, as if to demonstrate his lack of dexterity.

  “I picked your pocket when I first came in here, and slid a copy of the photo in there. Went into my office and palmed your license. Switched them over there while I was waving my hands around. It’s dark in here. Like I said, you have good eyes, but you never saw me do it. And you were staring intently at me, correct?”

  “Yeah, I see your point. The people at the party were not necessarily staring intently at Georgia. Maybe nobody was even looking in her direction, at the time she was abducted.”

  “That’s part of it. But, the main idea continues to elude you.”

  “Okay, Tiller, you have me. I’m stumped. What is it that I’m missing?”

  “That maybe everyone thought they knew where she was. Maybe they hadn’t a clue. Maybe they all thought they knew exactly where the little girl was. Maybe they were misdirected into thinking so.” With that he sat down and leaned back in his characteristic way. After a pensive moment, he stood again, picked up his coffee and took a sip. He turned and walked back to the door.

  “Anyway, it’s the only answer that really fits. It hasn’t helped me find anyone, but who knows, maybe it’ll help you. Think of it this way.” He reached into his pocket and drew out the photo of Georgia Champion. “Maybe the guy we’re looking for is some kind of a magician.”

  “Not so fast.” I raised an eyebrow and leaned back. “Just how do you know so much about magic?”

  “Well, this is the Magic City.”

  “Funny. But most cops I know don’t practice magic.”

  “Were you ever in the service?”

  “Sure. I was in the army for four years.”

  “Well, I don’t know about you ground-pounders. I’m retired navy. Senior Chief. On a long cruise, you have a lot of down time. People pick up hobbies. I like puzzles, curiosities, and what not. Always have. So I learned a few tricks to pass the time.”

  “Like picking pockets?”

  “Came in handy when the cash got low. Seriously, it was a hobby I had when I was younger. I was never a pickpocket. I just always found magician
s fascinating. There are a lot of them out there, but few really good ones, and damn few masters. I mean those guys who can make you think they read your mind, or levitate.”

  “And you know how to do that stuff?”

  “Well, no. I was only an amateur. But I had my big trick, like all magicians do. I could get out of a pair of handcuffs pretty easy. Sometimes even ropes, if they were tied a certain way. I used to do the handcuff escape thing, when I was younger, at F.O.P. fund raisers. Drove the other officers crazy. They all kept trying to find where I hid the key.”

  “How did you do it?”

  Tiller smiled and shook his head. “Abracadabra.”

  “You’re going to give me that line about a good magician never revealing his tricks?”

  “Not at all. Many tricks, most people just can’t do. They require manual dexterity most people just don’t have.”

  I looked at Tiller like I thought he might be just a little crazy. “So, what do you mean? This guy is just sneakier than other people?”

  Tiller leaned back and looked into the infinite. He didn’t look too comfortable with the suggestion that he himself might also be sneaky. “I’ll put it this way. I think that maybe there might be someone out there who is very good at not being seen.”

  “Like someone who can hide in plain sight.”

  “I’d say. Something like that. Most of us don’t look at each other too closely anyway. There are reasons for that. The man you’re looking for—and incidentally I do agree with the profiler’s assessment that it was a lone male—perhaps he’s developed the art of being nondescript to such a degree that no one gives him a second glance.”

  “So you’re saying he’s an unremarkable looking guy?”

  “Didn’t say that. He could wear an eye patch and have a peg leg. But maybe he’s just learned to give people the cue, ‘you aren’t interested in me.’ Maybe it’s a gift. Ted Bundy used to walk into department stores and walk out with a brand new stereo without paying for it. Nobody stopped him. You know how he did that? Nobody noticed him.”