Magicide

by Carolyn V. Hamilton

  Pizzarelli crumpled the wax paper that had held the carrot sticks and left it on the desk next to the cup. He followed her to the front door.

  Over her shoulder Cheri said, “And this tape is—where exactly?”

  “Man didn’t say. He said a lot of people would like to get their hands on it, and it’s for us to find.”

  “Do you think the caller has it, or knows where it is?”

  “I tried to get him to be more specific about what’s on it, and he ignored me. Hard to tell over the phone what he knows.” At the Explorer he paused while Cheri unlocked the doors.

  Over the top of the car she said, “Magic, huh? But that’s what Maxwell does.”

  They got in, slammed the doors and Cheri put the key into the ignition. Pizzarelli rolled the air conditioning switch to high. “Before he hung up he said it’s better if we have it, rather than the press or the public.”

  “That’s true of just about everything.”

  “Whatever’s on the tape could be motive. For sure this ain’t no murder by magic. Caller said there’s a big surprise on it, too.”

  They turned out into the Strip traffic as Cheri asked, “Did he say what the surprise is?”

  “Nope.”

  “And what do you think about Lundgren’s story? Fifteen minutes after eating is pretty fast to throw up.”

  “Could have been something else in it.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Tuesday, August 9, 10:00 a.m.

  Larissa awoke with a migraine. The air conditioning and custom blackout shades made the bedroom of her Seven Hills home cool and dark. Only the red LED lights on her alarm clock told her it was daytime. A repeating click accompanied the soft whir of mahogany and rattan blades in the overhead fan.

  She sat up, removed her velvet eyeshade and tossed it on the mauve carpet. With both hands she massaged her temples, eyes closed, like that was going to help. She knew better, but she did it anyway.

  In the dream she’d been back at the MGM Grand, eighteen with high breasts and a beauty that stopped men in their tracks. Maxwell, the star of the show, had been one of those men. He’d pursued her with a desire that had made her feel like the rarest gem in the Taj Mahal.

  She could still see him—tall, wickedly handsome, with a grin that exposed even white teeth and made you think of an innocent little boy. With his curiosity and Qualudes, he’d proven to be hardly that.

  The satin coverlet felt heavy across her legs. She threw it aside and got out of bed. Her head reeled with a pain that threatened to blacken her vision. She counted to ten as the pain settled behind her eyes.

  She rose slowly and walked with care to the bathroom. In her medicine cabinet, she rummaged among two shelves of scripts until she found the bottle of pain-killers. She filled a cup with water from the sink, and swallowed three of the little brown pills.

  She stood in front of the mirror, staring as though she saw a woman she felt she should know, but who was a stranger. With two manicured fingers she touched the side of her face.

  Was her jaw line beginning to round out with the aged weight of her cheeks? Was it too soon to think of a mini-tuck? Probably not if she wanted to keep on working. She groaned and willed herself to feel at least psychologically better.

  Maxwell was dead. Her body throbbed with new pain. Dear, demented Maxwell, whom she both loved and hated, would never command the stage of her life again.

  Though the night before had ended in grisly death, she had to face reality. Last night had been her show’s dark night—her night off—and tonight it would have to be show business as usual.

  Her body felt heavy as she did what she had to do to get ready to go to the theater. What had she been thinking when she’d scheduled this extra rehearsal at 11:30 a.m.? With awkward, measured movements, as if she were an automaton in a magic show, she showered and dressed.

  Maxwell may be gone, but the show would go on.

  By the time she entered her gourmet kitchen, the aching in her body had receded, replaced by a haze of drugged warmth that hummed through her skin.

  She found Peter sitting at the massive glass dining table, a cup of untouched coffee in front of him. His hands cradled the cup and he stared into it as if he expected his fortune to appear in nonexistent tea leaves.

  “Mornin’,” she mumbled as she passed through the dining room and into the kitchen. There she opened the refrigerator to search for the brie and bread.

  “Have you eaten yet?” she called.

  Peter didn’t answer. She closed the refrigerator door, went to the dining room entrance and stared at him. “I’m making toast with brie and tomatoes, luv. Want some?”

  Peter mumbled something unintelligible, and she decided to go ahead and make enough for both of them. While she sliced the bread, she said, “We should call the lawyer.”

  Through the kitchen doorway, she saw him sit back in his chair. “Why?” he asked.

  “Maxwell always said that he would take care of you, and there’s the trust fund, so we’ll need to hear his will.”

  “Have you seen anything in writing on that trust fund lately?”

  “Well….no.” Larissa set the bread slices aside and picked up a tomato. She frowned as she tested a brown spot with her finger. “That’s why we need to call the lawyer.”

  Peter stared at the coffee cup on the table. “I doubt it will mean abracadabra for me.”

  “But Peter, he assured me there is a trust fund, and surely you’ll inherit his effects. And of course, there’s the house and the money…unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “There is that business with Dayan Franklyn.” Her voice turned sarcastic. “Maxwell’s self-pronounced protégé.” She stopped in mid-slice and made a gesture with the knife. “You know I talked to that kid once, on the telephone, and came away with the impression that he could be right cold and calculating. God, what if Maxwell left his effects to Dayan Franklyn?”

  Peter’s hand fluttered to the front of his chest, where he fiddled with a shirt button. “Dayan.” The word came out of his mouth in a soft whisper.

  Larissa arranged the Brie and toast and tomatoes on the cutting board, picked the board up and carried it into the dining room. She set it on the tablecloth next to Peter’s coffee cup. “Oh, we need napkins,” she said.

  She returned to the kitchen and when she came back with the napkins she said, “Peter, by the way, I’m still wondering, who paged you last night?” His head jerked up, and the tightness around his mouth startled her. “You were gone so long I wasn’t sure you’d make it to your seat before the show.”

  “Maxwell.”

  “Maxwell called you?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Larissa sat down in the chair opposite her son. “You two haven’t talked in eleven months. Why would he call you now, just before his show?”

  Peter looked at the food on the board, but he made no move to eat. “How the hell should I know?”

  “He’s always so focused, at least for twenty-four hours before a performance like that.” Larissa began to carefully layer brie and tomato slices on a thick slice of toast. “Did he want something? What did he say?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “Why not?”

  Peter’s shoulders caved, then straightened. “I just don’t, that’s all.”

  “Peter, luv, surely⎯”

  He rose from the table and gave his mother a dark glare. His mouth was so tight he spoke through clamped teeth. “No! That means, not open for discussion, got it?”

  Larissa stared as her son crossed through the kitchen and exited in the direction of the patio and swimming pool. He slammed the Dutch door so hard that envelopes and notes on the nearby phone counter flew up and fluttered to the floor.

  CHAPTER 13

  Tuesday, August 9, 11:00 a.m.

  The sun hammered the windows on the south face of Worthington Towers, making the glass hot to touch. This time of morning Dawn Cunningham pull
ed up the rice paper blinds and closed the louvered shutters, a feeble attempt to keep the temperature even throughout the thirty-sixth floor condominium. She wouldn’t open them again until dusk, when the lights of the Las Vegas Strip mega-resorts below began their nightly dance of fluorescent neon colors.

  After a morning meeting in his law office, Dawn’s husband, Sam, had come home to pick her up for their lunch appointment with the convention planner. He found her fresh out of the shower, wearing only a blue lace bra and panties, rummaging in her closet for the linen dress that had come back from the cleaners.

  “Don’t forget it’s Tuesday,” he said. “Isn’t that real estate closing today?”

  “The closing isn’t until four, darling. Right now I have a bigger concern. I’ll be ready in a minute. Where’s the damned cordless phone?”

  Sam looked at his watch. “You don’t have time to get involved on the phone.”

  “Horrible about Maxwell.” Dawn spotted what she was looking for on the dresser and picked it up. “I need to call Larissa.”

  He jingled the change in his suit pants pocket. “You’ve had all morning to talk to Larissa. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “So sensitive, you are,” she said.

  “Okay, so she’s your best friend, all the way back to Jubilee! at the MGM. You should know her well enough by now to know she’ll maintain, prove herself to be the real trooper, for whom the show is everything.”

  “She must be devastated.” Dawn cradled the phone to her chest as if it were a precious gift. “I remember how she fell head over stilettos for him when he made her his magician’s assistant.”

  “Uh huh, and then he made her go to that Mexican doctor.”

  Larissa’s lips tightened as she punched in Larissa’s private telephone number. “Yeah, that. Don’t remind me.”

  “Carter was there last night, wasn’t he?”

  Her face softened at the mention of Carter, her only child from a previous marriage. “With Andrea, of course.” She cradled the cordless on her left shoulder while she pulled expensive shoes out of a brocade shoebox. “Why?”

  Under furrowed brows Sam rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Couldn’t watch it on TV like the rest of us. Had to be there. Have you talked to him this morning?”

  “Shhhh. It’s ringing.”

  Dawn sat down on the bed next to where she’d dropped her aqua linen dress, still wrapped in the cleaners’ plastic. She slipped on the high-heeled Jimmy Choos.

  “Hello? Larissa? It’s Dawn.” She stood up and frowned. The shoes felt tight and she wondered how old you had to be before your arches fell.

  She walked to the window and gazed out over the Las Vegas Strip. “I’m so sorry about Maxwell, baby. How are you holding up?” Far below the window, cars and pedestrians moved ant-like among flashing hotel marquees, over-the-street walkways, and a new tram rail. “Is Peter okay? Is there anything I can do?”

  Dawn listened to her friend’s assurances, but worried about Peter. “Peter’s so fragile. I wish he would talk to Carter. Friends since childhood and suddenly this chasm of silence between them. I’d give my best pair of shoes to know what’s come between them.”

  She turned from the window to face Sam, still fingering coins in his pockets, shift his body impatiently.

  “Well, keep me posted, baby. You know I’m here if you need me.” In the living room, the doorbell chimed. “Gotta go. I’ll call you again later this afternoon.”

  Sam was already headed for the front door. Dawn tore off the dry cleaner’s plastic wrap, pulled the shift over her head and smoothed it down her hips. “Who is it?” she called.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Carter! I’ll be right out.”

  When Dawn came into the living room, her husband and son stopped talking. She noticed Carter rub the back of his neck, a sure sign that he was nervous.

  Sam glimpsed at his watch again. “We need to leave or we’ll be late. Traffic in this town’s getting grid-locked.”

  Dawn hugged her son. His clothes were still warm from the heat outside, but his body felt stiff and ill-at-ease. “Seeing Maxwell die like that must have been a terrible shock,” she said. “That would surely unsettle any magician.”

  “It was horrible, mom.” Carter, his voice hoarse, stared at the carpet as he spoke.

  “I was on the phone with Larissa,” she said. “She seems okay, but we’re worried about Peter.”

  “Yeah,” Carter said.

  “You’ve talked to him? Oh, baby, how’s he doing? What did he say?

  Carter shrugged. “We saw him at the Dunes Park. I’m thinking—”

  “I’m thinking,” Sam said, “I should go down now and get them to bring the car around.”

  “Good idea.” Dawn waved a dismissive hand in his direction.

  “Mom, I wanted to tell you—”

  Dawn’s finely-arched eyebrows raised in alarm. “Baby, are you all right? Is Andrea all right? It must have been so awful…”

  “Andrea’s fine, just a little shook up.”

  “As are we all.” Dawn gathered up her reading glasses, cell phone, lipstick, and purse. “What a disaster. Not exactly the closer Maxwell had in mind. Sam, I’m right behind you.”

  Her husband was already out the door, and she gestured to Carter to follow. “You know I always liked that effect where Maxwell levitated the elephant and floated it right over the footlights and out into the audience. Bet he got that idea from the Phantom chandelier opening.”

  “Mom, I want to talk to you about Peter.”

  She stopped. The look on Carter’s face made her feel as if he’d conjured a chill to pass through the room.

  “Darling, I want to know all about Peter, but we’ve got this lunch with the head of the convention planning committee. Can we talk tonight?” She opened the lid of her cell phone and punched the key to turn it on.

  “Well, I suppose. I didn’t know you had an appointment.”

  Dawn’s voice was gentle. “That’s because you didn’t call first, baby.”

  Carter’s hand went to the back of his neck.

  “This is an emergency meeting on the MAGIQUE Convention. Now that Maxwell’s… well…out of the picture so to speak, we need a new headliner. I’m thinking we could get Robert the Great.”

  Years ago Maxwell had displaced Robert the Great as regular master of ceremonies for MAGIQUE DU MONDE, the annual international convention of conjurers, magicians, magic suppliers and anyone even remotely related to the magic genre. The second largest convention in Las Vegas after the Consumer Electronics Show, it opened in six days.

  Carter’s smile cancelled out the chill. “Great idea, Mother. He’ll just love playing second fiddle to Maxwell—again.”

  Dawn made a startled noise. “Aiigh, we’ll have to rewrite the whole opening ceremony.” She took one last look into her purse before she snapped it shut. “Come by Thursday evening for dinner, why don’t you? We’ll talk about Peter then. Bring Andrea, too.”

  Carter gave her a weak smile. “Fine, Mother.”

  With an adjusting tug at the hipline of her linen dress, Dawn went to the door. “Walk me down to the car?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Tuesday, August 9, 11:00 a.m.

  “You gonna be all right with this?” Carme Pizzarelli asked. He turned the Explorer onto Swenson Avenue, heading south towards the posh new-in-the-past-five-years Seven Hills community. They were on their way to do a knock and talk with Maxwell’s ex-wife.

  “Of course,” Cheri said evenly.

  She stared out the window, amazed by all the new construction. There was a shopping mall and a new apartment complex she’d never seen before. You didn’t dare leave town for vacation that when you came back there wasn’t something new where your favorite classic casino or historic restaurant used to be.

  “Well, you said you and Larissa go back. I know you got some personal thing, but you never said, and I’m not asking.”

  Cheri had been Pizza’s partner for
a long time, and they’d gotten to know a lot about each other. But there were things about her that less than a handful of Cheri’s friends knew, and one thing that only two other women knew. One of them was Larissa.

  “We roomed together sixteen years ago when I was in college. We haven’t traveled in the same circles for a long time.”

  She continued to stare at the passing cars. If Carme knew the truth about how her friendship with Larissa had ended, he’d blab it all over the Command. That was the last thing she wanted. She had to trust that in their interview Larissa wouldn’t reveal anything too close to Cheri’s home.

  “So you won’t have a problem if it turns out she’s the one who murdered the ex-husband.”

  Could Larissa really be capable of murdering Maxwell? Could disappointment and anger and hatred lead you to kill the father of your child?

  Once, Cheri had that fleeting fantasy to kill the father of her own child, but not the intensity of disappointment and anger and hatred—and even mental instability—that could lead to the act itself. She’d been a cop long enough to know anything was possible and many things were probable. Killing an ex-spouse was one of them. And when someone was murdered, the spouse—followed by the ex—was immediately viewed as the primary suspect.

  But Larissa—sweet, gentle Larissa? In order to do her job, Cheri knew she had to set aside her image of her old friend. She swallowed, realizing her throat was dry. I can do this, she told herself.

  Turning her face to Pizza, she kept her expression impassive. “First we prove she killed Maxwell. Then I’ll worry about whether or not I have a problem.” She hoped her tone didn’t sound as harsh as her words. After all, she knew he had her best interest at heart.

  She’d been pregnant with Tom the last time she’d seen her former roomie. She was so lost in her thoughts she almost didn’t hear Pizzarelli comment, “Real fancy neighborhood. Must be a lotta money in magic. D’you think it’s all done with blue smoke and mirrors, this magic mumbo jumbo?”

  She laughed, and found that helped her to relax. “Along with amazing fire and fog effects.”