Magicide

by Carolyn V. Hamilton

  “You know her well?” Cheri asked.

  “I’ve never met the woman, if that’s what she is.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Come on, Cher, we’ve all heard the rumors. Where’ve you been? Oh that’s right—you’re a cop now. Guess you don’t hit the entertainment circles much. Tell the truth, luv—don’t you miss it?”

  Cheri ignored the question by asking another. “You’ve seen Regine’s act, I take it? Is she a closet female impersonator?”

  “I’ve seen enough to know what I’m talking about, luv, but a tranny? Good God, no.” Larissa opened a drawer of the dressing table and took out a clear plastic box containing thick black eyelashes.

  “A newspaper column said you once called Maxwell a misogynist,” Pizzarelli said. “You think he hated women?”

  Larissa’s kohled eyes narrowed. She assembled tweezers and glue next to the eyelashes and made a show of studying them as if she were alone in the room.

  Cheri sat down on a chair next to the dressing table. In the warmth of the dressing room, she could smell the familiar scent Larissa had always worn, Je Reviens. They’d been so young, many of the girls—and boys—experimenting with just about everything life had to offer.

  Once again she thanked the stars she’d survived to have a different, more meaningful, career. She changed her mind about not pursuing what Larissa had made it clear she didn’t want to discuss.

  “I know you’re bitter,” she said gently. “Maxwell didn’t want the daughter, did he?” She knew she’d struck the chord when she saw Larissa’s neck splotch red to the color of her rouge.

  “Do we have to talk about this, Cher? What’s it got to do with anything?” She picked up the glue and one of the eyelashes and her fingers trembled.

  “I thought it would be a good idea to clear up rumors, you know?”

  Larissa straightened in her chair, causing her breasts to rise, and blurted, “I aborted it because no girl should grow up with a father like Maxwell. There, luv. Satisfied?”

  “You aborted your baby because Maxwell told you if you had it, he’d leave you,” Cheri said.

  “He left me anyway.” Larissa turned back to her dressing table. “I need to finish getting ready for the show. You need to leave now.”

  “A couple more questions about last night,” Pizzarelli said. “You were in the crowd at the Dunes Park⎯“

  “Not in the crowd. In the VIP stand.”

  “VIP stand. Right. You were with Peter. Can anyone else verify that?”

  “Surely we aren’t suspects,” Larissa said, her tone cold. “If we need alibis, ask everybody else in the VIP stand. I star in this show. Peter has his own TV show. We’re not exactly unknown in this town.”

  Cheri stopped herself from retorting that Peter wore a costume on his children’s show which made him pretty unidentifiable to the average audience. “How did Peter feel about his father?” she asked.

  “It’s...right difficult for someone as talented as Peter to live in his father’s shadow.”

  “Do you know why he and Carter Cunningham are estranged?”

  Larissa shook her head and said, “Peter doesn’t confide in me.”

  She wanted to crack Larissa’s chill demeanor, and wondered how much of that desire was personal and how much was professional. “I understand that besides hosting the children’s TV show, he does educational magic under the name Peter Jones in a school program.”

  “He’s right talented,” Larissa repeated. “He could’ve been as big a star as his father, if Maxwell hadn’t turned his back on him.”

  “Is that why he retreated from the world of magicians into the world of children?” Cheri asked. “Or was it that Maxwell couldn’t handle the fact that he had a gay son?” Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Pizzarelli start. His nephews loved that show, and right now he was probably wondering if kids could tell before they were grown up if someone was gay.

  From its perch on a nearby stand Larissa picked up one of the sequined headdresses. “Luvs, I really need to prepare myself mentally for my show. Can we talk about this another time?”

  Cheri rose from the chair. “By the way, do you know there’s a DVD of Maxwell doing a magic ritual?”

  “There are lots of DVDs of Maxwell doing magic.”

  “This is not a commercial DVD⎯this one’s said to be particularly incriminating. Something he wouldn’t want the press to get hold of.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know anything about that. And neither Peter nor I had anything to do with his death. Now please leave.”

  Cheri put a business card on the dressing room table next to Larissa’s pot of cold cream. “Call me if you think of anything else we ought to know.”

  “Thanks for your time,” Pizzarelli said.

  Larissa didn’t move to touch the card.

  He opened the door and Cheri followed him out. She purposely let the metal door of the dressing room clang shut behind her.

  Seeing Larissa had brought back a lot of memories she didn’t want to think about, but not all of them were bad. Some of them had been so much fun they were frightening to think about today. Sixteen years ago she’d been fearless, a young Vegas college girl and part-time dancer without a care in the world.

  Today she was a different person, a university graduate, a single mom raising a teen-ager, a professional police detective who’d seen her share of the dark side of humanity.

  She dismissed her most significant memory with the thought that it was likely everybody in Vegas had a secret here or there.

  In the hallway outside the dressing room, Pizzarelli said, “Those eyelashes—like black caterpillars on the table. That’s one cool lady.”

  Cheri walked in the direction of the casino. “She’s a professional.”

  “A professional magician with the knowledge to fiddle with handcuffs, hating an ex-husband with a fifty million dollar death benefit. I’d say she qualifies as a suspect.”

  “I wouldn’t rule out Peter, either,” she said. “Even though his trust fund money continues, he might hate his father—for what he did to his mother, for example.”

  “Enough to kill him?”

  “He didn’t sound exactly fond of his father, and he’d know how to switch the handcuffs, too.”

  They walked back through the noise of the casino and out to the parking garage. She was glad Pizza didn’t try to continue their conversation over the noise.

  The interview with Larissa had not disturbed her as much as she’d anticipated. The surprising thing was how much it had saddened her.

  So sad that Larissa’s great love had come to this. She remembered Maxwell’s courtship of the young dancer, how all the girls had thought it was so romantic. Then they had had the perfect child, a handsome son with talent of his own. Their daughter would have been beautiful.

  If they’d stayed together they might have become the First Family of Magic. Larissa had a passion and flamboyance that had led her to stardom in her own right.

  But the interview had done nothing to erase Cheri’s worry for her old friend.

  Could Larissa’s obsession for Maxwell have morphed into hatred passionate enough to kill?

  CHAPTER 20

  Tuesday, August 9, 9:45 p.m.

  After Cheri finished her Tuesday day report she drove the Explorer home to the three-bedroom house she’d just purchased in the suburb of Green Valley, envisioning a shower and a cup of chai tea. As she pulled into the driveway and pressed the garage door clicker, she noted lights on in the kitchen, dining room and living room. Tom was still up, or perhaps Bonni was getting ready for a date. Wednesday and Thursday “mornings” were her days off.

  “Hey,” Tom said when she entered the dining room. His face registered gleeful animation.

  Whatever happened to the “hi mom” part of the greeting? Cheri wondered. Times like this reminded her that her child was sixteen years old—a young man, really. She intended to give him a hug, but he bounced out of re
ach. Scissors, white rope, candles, glue, a bowl of flour paste, a torn up white sheet, and a jar of black paint littered the dining room table.

  “Watch this!” In his hand he held something that resembled a small ghost-figure, a draped white sheet painted with three big black dots that reminded her of Munch’s painting, “The Scream.”

  “He’s under my command. He’ll float where I tell him.”

  Bonni appeared, wearing a long cotton tee-shirt over her well-formed body and scrub-drying her wet blond curls with a towel. “He’s been practicing magic stuff all evening,” she said, her grin at Tom showing perfect teeth. “He’s getting good, I think. It’ll be fun to have a real magician nephew.”

  Cheri scowled at her. The last thing she wanted was encouragement for Tom’s new hobby. When her sister had come down from Seattle after three bad marriages to “start a new life”, she had welcomed her presence. Now she questioned if she’d made the right decision.

  “You have another date tonight?”

  Bonni laughed. “Naw, a girl’s gotta wash her hair sometime. Tom, you’ve got a new audience. Make him float.”

  Dramatically Tom drew his fingers away from each side of the ghost’s head, leaving it floating in mid-air. He told his ghost to rise toward the potted plant at the top of a baker’s rack in the corner of the room, and when it rose instead to the left, toward the doorway, he caught it and drew it back. “Naughty, naughty ghost.” His thin, dark brows met in a mock frown.

  “Cute.” Concerned to hear that he’d spent the whole evening playing magician, Cheri asked, “You have any homework I should know about?”

  “Ghost is kind of generic, though. I’m thinking of redesigning him into a ghoul.”

  “Homework?” she repeated.

  Tom threw the ghost onto the table. “No. Wait till I tell you who I met today.”

  “I’m going to make tea and a snack,” she said. “Tell me in the kitchen.”

  Both Bonni and Tom followed her. Tom continued, “I found this cool magic shop on the Internet, and it’s right here in Vegas. The Rabbit & The Hat. So I went there after school to check it out, and I met the owner. You’ll never guess—it’s Robert the Great. We got to talking and he said he’d help me learn some real illusions.”

  Cheri’s heart froze. She couldn’t tell her son that the great old magician was a suspect in a murder case.

  “You ought to work topless, Tom,” Bonni said, pulling the chai tea out of the cupboard. “Like a Chippendale guy. There aren’t any male magicians doing that. You’d be a hit.”

  Teapot in hand, Cheri mumbled, “Don’t encourage him.”

  “Mom, isn’t that great? I was looking at all these pictures he had on the walls. He knows everybody. He was Maxwell’s mentor. Maybe he’ll agree to mentor me.”

  When she could find her voice, Cheri said, “He was probably just being nice. He’s a busy man, a business owner and all. MAGIQUE DU MONDE opens Saturday night, and he’s got to get ready—he’s the special guest emcee.”

  “Wow, yeah. I’d sure like to see that.” Tom pointed to a stack of newspaper sections draped over the edge of the kitchen counter. “There’s a big story today in the Post about Maxwell’s death.”

  Bonni reached for the top section. “I’ll read it to you.” The entire front page of the Las Vegas Post was devoted to a story about the world’s most famous magician, Maxwell Beacham-Jones, “his tragic death while performing the roller coaster escape at the Dunes Park Resort & Casino.”

  The article described Maxwell’s career in glowing accolades. Famous entertainers said how talented he was and what an irreplaceable loss his death was to the entire magic community, and Bonni mimicked their different voices. “They call him, ‘The Grand Master of Las Vegas’,” she said.

  Cheri opened the refrigerator to look for leftover chicken and veggies, and the chill from inside the refrigerator slammed against her face. Grand Master of Las Vegas, indeed.

  “No mention of Regine?” Tom asked. “I like Regine.”

  “Patience, kiddo. I’m getting there.” Bonni followed the lines on the page with one long fingernail while she read to the end of the article, then raised her eyes. “You’re right. No pearls of comment from Regine.”

  “How do you know about Regine?” Cheri asked, willing herself to not be afraid of the answer.

  “Internet. You making something to eat?” Tom stared at a book spread out in front of him on the breakfast bar, Elemental Magic Effects to Impress and Amaze Your Friends.

  “Put that up,” she said. “Yes, we’re going to eat there.”

  She spread pieces of cold chicken on a plate. What could she do about this new interest in magic? She hated the idea of a career in magic for him—nothing to do with show business, please.

  But then, she reminded herself, he’s only sixteen. He could change his mind again dozens of times.

  To a bowl of cold, blanched vegetables she added olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Maybe this magic thing would be a passing hobby—she could hope. She ground pepper vigorously over the bowl. And she would do whatever it took to keep him away from Robert Digbee.

  Bonni threw her wet towel on the back of a chair and sat on the bar stool next to Tom. She nudged his wrist next to the open page of the book. “As in, make the book disappear,” she whispered.

  Tom closed the cover with an agitated sigh, and Cheri set the plate of chicken and bowl of vegetable salad in front of them.

  With two long fingernails Bonni delicately picked a carrot chunk from the bowl. “Want to hear about my glorious afternoon at the Sultana Spa?”

  Just when Cheri thought the subject would change, Tom said, “Maybe Robert the Great can introduce me to Regine. He must know her. He knows everybody in the business.”

  She picked up a fork and forced her breath to calm. It was Bonni who voiced the question pounding in her head. “Why do you want to meet Regine?”

  He grinned. “I’d like to learn to work with doves. And, she’s sexy.”

  Cheri started. He thought Regine was sexy? Where was this going? Regine—another suspect in the murder of Maxwell Beacham-Jones, but she couldn’t tell him that.

  “The Sultana Spa?” she said. “I’ve never been there. Nice, huh?”

  * * *

  Cheri wiped down the counter while Bonni loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. Tom had gone to bed, taking his magic book with him. Glaring at a stain on the formica that could have been grape juice or wine, she said, “Hope he doesn’t stay up late reading and sleep through his morning classes again.”

  Bonni pursed her lips. “That’s not what’s bothering you.”

  The sponge seemed to stop of its own accord. “What?”

  “You know what. This magic stuff. Close to home, isn’t it?”

  She lowered herself to a stool and gave her sister an icy stare. “We’re not going there. Not now.”

  “So, when?”

  “When I’m ready.”

  “He’s sixteen. You’ve got to tell him sometime.”

  When Cheri thought about the night Tom was conceived, she felt engulfed by warring storm clouds of regret and gratitude. “No, I don’t. I don’t have to tell him at all if I don’t want to.”

  “Cheri, that’s not fair. He deserves to know.”

  The sponge had become a tight ball in her fist. “I’m sorry I ever told you, Bon.” She stood up and flung it at the sink. “That was my second mistake.”

  Bonni ducked, picked up her towel, and headed for the door. “Magicians have ways of finding things out. You better be sure you’re ready.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Tuesday, August 9, 11:15 p.m.

  Darkness obscured the Industrial Road business center around Robert Digbee’s magic shop, The Rabbit & The Hat. His neighbors—the transmission shop, the upholstery shop, the yoga studio—had long since locked their doors and gone home to have dinner with their families. Only the purple neon logo of the magic shop blazed.

  Digbee often stayed l
ate, for his second love after performing was the business of magic. He loved everything about the world of magic; in addition to designing new and bizarre illusions, he collected antique posters, playing cards, costumes and tricks. These were not for sale.

  The old magician took pride in the knowledge that The Rabbit & The Hat was known to magicians all over the world. He had carefully designed his business to specialize in rare books, old manuscripts, and collectible memorabilia related to magic and magical apparatus. The result was that he had developed quite a following, especially in London and Berlin, among both professionally established and wanna-be magicians. The effects he sold were classic and well-constructed; never had one been returned.

  The wall clock—he loved its gargoyle design—showed not yet midnight as he circled his work table, rubbing his chin in thought. The dark hours, when the rest of the world slept, were his favorite time. He thought best at night. He could enjoy long hours with the only interruption an occasional trip to the bathroom. He could even avoid that if he drank no liquids after about 8 p.m.

  He contemplated the long table, where his drawings for the Bullet Catch lay spread. For months he’d worked to incorporate his ideas for a new, safer presentation of the infamous Bullet Catch, and tonight he expected to complete the design. The effect, dating from the 1600s, had over the centuries caused the death or crippling of many magicians. It fascinated him because it was undoubtedly the most dangerous effect in magic; the performer “caught” in his teeth a marked bullet, fired directly at him from a real rifle. It had proven so dangerous that even the famous Houdini had always refused to perform it.

  Digbee had wanted the Bullet Catch to be Maxwell’s next television spectacular. That wouldn’t happen now, and he could perform it himself at the opening of MAGIQUE DU MONDE. Resentment churned in his stomach that as the star emcee he’d been second choice to Maxwell, but you had to do what you had to do to show them.