Misgivings

by Donn Cortez

  Walderson sighed. “Okay, then I guess you should talk to Chuck. He’s the on-site head of security. He’ll give you a list, and you can discuss whatever problems might come up with him. Okay?”

  “That sounds fine,” Wolfe said.

  Walderson pulled out his cell phone and made a call. A minute later, a squat, powerfully built man with a bushy orange mustache opened the door. He wore a dark blue jacket with CELEBRUS SECURITY emblazoned on the breast.

  “How do,” the man said, nodding. “I’m Chuck Keppler.”

  Walderson introduced Wolfe and Tripp. “Give these guys full access, okay?” Walderson said. “You run into any serious problems, let me know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

  Keppler was an ex-cop himself—not unusual in the security business. He’d worked for both the Atlanta and Miami police departments before deciding to go the private route and now made his living arranging security for everyone from supermodels to CEOs. He had no problem with discussing his current job with Wolfe and Tripp, and supplied them with a complete list of personnel associated with the show.

  Keppler took them to another, much smaller hotel room down the hall, and they sat down on the balcony, at a patio table beneath an umbrella.

  “So, your trail leads here, huh?” Keppler popped open a can of soda with one thumb and poured it into a glass full of ice. “Yeah, that’s what it’s like, sometimes. What’s your gut say?”

  “At the moment,” Tripp said, “my gut’s telling me I’m in the wrong business.”

  Keppler grinned. “Oh, it ain’t all skittles and beer. The money’s good, but I’m really just a glorified babysitter. Aside from the occasional nut job with a grudge, it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry.”

  “Yeah?” Wolfe said. “You get many of those?”

  “Not on this gig. See, the whole idea behind Sudden Success is to take a regular citizen and let them experience what it’s like to be rich. Not exactly original, but it seems to be a formula that works. Thing is, the focus of the show is—by definition—a nobody. So the whole celebrity-stalker thing doesn’t usually come into play.”

  “Usually,” Tripp said. “But this party is gonna feature a whole mess of ’em, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. So security there is going to be tight. I’ve got twenty guys working the room, I’ve done background checks on every person working the event, and there’s cameras everywhere. Sorry, but it sounds to me like your guy was just a would-be actor trying to crash a party and make some connections.”

  “Maybe so,” Tripp said, “but somebody went to a lot of trouble to kill him, just the same.”

  “I’d like to talk to the woman—Anitra?—that’s the subject of the show,” Wolfe said. “I met her briefly, but the director cut in before I had the chance to ask her any questions.”

  “Well, they keep her pretty busy,” Keppler said. “Gourmet meals, dates with celebrities, Hollywood premieres . . . basically, they try to keep her in a permanent state of overload. I heard the director say once, ‘Stars in her eyes mean eyes on our star.’ It’s the American dream, right? Get everything you ever wanted handed to you on a silver platter.”

  “For a while,” Tripp said. “Wouldn’t want to be in her shoes when the show ends. Seems awful cruel to give someone that much and then take it away again.”

  Keppler shrugged his massive shoulders. “Is it? Personally, I’d rather have a taste of the good life than go hungry—after all, who knows what might happen? Maybe one of those movie stars will fall in love with her, or one of the millionaires she meets at a cocktail party will offer her a job. That’s part of the American dream, too, right—endless possibility?”

  “Right now, I could do with a few less possibilities,” Wolfe said. “Can you get me some time to talk with her?’

  “I think I can swing something. They give her a little downtime every day to spend with her daughter—she’s a single mom. You might be able to get a few questions in then.”

  Wolfe looked out over the steady crawl of traffic down on Ocean Drive, the strip of white beach just beyond it scrawled with the dots of shade umbrellas and dashes of towels, the steely blue glint of the Atlantic reaching to the horizon. It’s a long way down, he thought. A very long way . . .

  On the theory that fresh eyes might see something new, Horatio had Delko examine the convenience-store assault evidence, while he scrutinized the kidnapping case data.

  Horatio spent a lot of time going over the photos from the kidnap site. Something about the blood-spatter pattern bothered him . . . and abruptly he realized what it was.

  “Eric, take a look at this,” Horatio said, profer-ring a photo.

  Delko took it, studied it. “The blood spatter on the wall. You see something I don’t?”

  “It’s what I don’t see that’s bothering me. We hypothesized that the attacker slashed at Pathan’s throat while he was standing here. Pathan spun, splashing blood along this arc—but his attacker had to have been standing in this spot here. And what do we see on the wall behind that spot?”

  “More spatter,” Delko said. “Where we should see ghosting from the attacker’s body blocking the spray of blood.”

  “Correct. Which means our attacker was a ghost himself.”

  “You’re saying he never existed? That Pathan slashed his own throat?”

  “Pathan’s a professional illusionist, Eric. If he could fake fingerprints so perfectly we can’t tell the difference, he could fake this.”

  “I’m with you, H—but how do we prove it?”

  “We follow in his footsteps, Eric. We may no longer have access to Pathan’s workshop, but we have plenty of photos. We can duplicate his tools and supplies . . . and then make our own magic.”

  “A reconstruction?” Delko asked. “If we can show how Pathan fooled us, maybe we can push the Bureau into taking a closer look at the actual evidence?”

  “And a closer look at Pathan himself . . .”

  Looking at Anitra Farnsworth, Wolfe thought, you’d never guess she was a waitress at a Denny’s in Sparrow Falls, Michigan. She had exchanged the blue cocktail dress for something even more elegant in black, which was apparently a Vera Wang original worth what Wolfe made in a year. Her hair was up now, exposing a long and elegant neck that a matronly assistant was draping a necklace of pearls around. The director, Walderson, was studying her critically.

  “What do you think?” the assistant said, a proud smile on her face.

  “I don’t know,” Walderson said. “I think we should stick with the other one—that green set off her eyes beautifully.”

  Anitra rotated slowly, her hands out at her sides. “Oh my gosh. This makes me feel like—a princess. Or a movie star. Or maybe a movie star playing a princess.”

  Walderson chuckled. “Well, that’s exactly what you look like, sweetheart.”

  At that moment the door opened and a blond girl of six or seven, dressed in denim overalls, walked in. She looked around self-consciously, clearly a little spooked at all the activity, and then she saw Anitra.

  “Mommy! You look beautiful.” She pronounced the word carefully.

  Anitra beamed at her daughter. “Don’t I, sweetie? Mommy’s all dressed up for the party tomorrow night.”

  “Can I go, Mommy?”

  “Maybe for a little while. But I think it’s going to be a little past your bedtime. Are we done for now, Jeff?”

  “Sure.” Walderson motioned to the assistant, and she stepped forward and unclasped the necklace from around Anitra’s neck. She took it over to a black velvet case on a table and placed it inside, then handed the case to Chuck Keppler. Keppler immediately spoke a few words into the throat mike of his headset, and two men in identical security blazers stepped into the room. Keppler left, flanked by both men.

  “Okay, Coral,” Anitra said. “Mommy’s all done for now. Did you eat lunch?”

  “Yessss . . .”

  Wolfe picked that moment to take a step forward. “
Uh, excuse me, Ms. Farnsworth. I was wondering if I could talk to you for just a moment.”

  “Are you a reporter? Because I’m only supposed to talk to reporters that have been okayed by Jeff, it’s some kind of confidentiality thing—”

  “No, I’m a crime-scene investigator with the Miami Police Department. We’re following up a few leads that may have a connection with tomorrow night’s party.”

  She sighed. “Well, I knew it couldn’t last forever. . . . Last week I went heli-skiing with a boy band and then had lunch with the eleventh-richest man in the country, but I guess my luck has run out. Take me away.” She held out her hands as if proferring them for handcuffs.

  “No!” Coral proclaimed loudly. She ran in front of her mother and glared up at Wolfe defiantly. “You’re not taking my mommy away!”

  Wolfe took a startled step back, then laughed. He knelt down in front of the child. “It’s okay. I’m not here to take your mom away—she’s just making a joke. We’re just going to talk, all right?”

  Coral looked up at her mother for confirmation.

  “It’s okay, Coral,” Anitra said, grinning. “I was only kidding. Go play in the bedroom for a little bit, okay?”

  “Welllll . . . okay.” The girl marched off to the next room, throwing a suspicious look over her shoulder that made it hard for Wolfe to keep a straight face.

  “So—what’s this all about?” Anitra asked.

  “It’s kind of hard to explain,” Wolfe admitted. “My first question is, did the producers give you any comped passes to tomorrow’s party? For family or anything?”

  “No. They’re very strict about who I interact with on camera. They don’t want me to get too comfortable, I guess. Me hanging out with old friends or relatives doesn’t make for great TV.”

  “How are you finding the whole experience?” The question wasn’t really relevant to the investigation, but Wolfe was curious.

  “Honestly? Exhausting. It’s like—well, like Christmas every day, and New Year’s every night. After a while, you feel like there’s this big, frozen grin on your face all the time. It’s getting so all I want to do is sit down with some fast-food takeout and read a newspaper—something with a big, nasty headline about a disaster somewhere. Isn’t that awful?”

  “Well, too much of anything isn’t good. How’s your daughter holding up?”

  “She’s a trouper, but it’s hard on her, too—not to mention the bedding. I can only guess what she’ll think about all this when she gets older.”

  “One final question, then I’ll stop cutting into your mom time. Does the name Kingsley Patrick mean anything to you?”

  “Who?”

  Wolfe repeated it. She frowned, then shook her head. “No. Sorry, I thought it rang a bell for a second, but I’m drawing a blank.”

  Wolfe pulled out his card and gave it to her. “Well, if anything comes to mind, please give me a call, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay,” Delko said. “Most of the stuff in Pathan’s— sorry, the Brilliant Batin’s—workshop was pretty easy to duplicate. He had a bunch of standard magic props, plus supplies like tubing, balsawood, monofilament line, and a range of glues and paints. The tools weren’t that esoteric, either—power drill, jigsaw, a few vises, and assorted other woodworking equipment. He also had some jeweler’s tools—for really fine precision work, I guess.”

  Horatio nodded, hands on his hips. “I see you’ve assembled something, as well.”

  “Yeah, I call this the Frankenstein pump.” Delko held up a small device with a nozzle projecting from one end and a short length of surgical tubing hanging down. “The average human heart beats seventy-five times a minute, which is enough to circulate the five or six liters of blood in most people’s bodies. Mechanically speaking, it generates around one and a third watts of power, but it needs thirteen watts of energy to keep it going; its efficiency is only around ten percent.

  “That’s under normal conditions. Under stress, the heart can deliver up to five times as much blood—peak blood pressure is around a sixth of an atmosphere. I figure Pathan’s trying to duplicate a highly stressful situation, so I took that into account.

  “The electrical stimulus that makes the heart contract is produced by a group of cells in the right atrium called the sinus node. I used a standard nine-volt battery.”

  Delko inserted the dangling tube into a beaker filled with red fluid. “The pump I’m using is from a kit called the Mystical Fountain. It’s supposed to let liquid flow from unlikely sources—midair, a volunteer’s ear, that sort of thing—but it didn’t take much work to adapt it. Pathan didn’t actually have one in his workshop, but they do carry them at the magic shop we know Pathan frequents.”

  “And if he did use one, he would have disposed of it afterward,” Horatio said. “So how does it work?”

  “Pretty simple.” Delko had movable wall dividers covered in white paper placed to simulate the dimensions of Pathan’s living room; he picked up the pump and flask and walked over to an X taped on the floor.

  “This is where Pathan was supposedly standing.” Delko brought the device up to chin level, closed a switch on the pump, then turned in a steady circle as crimson liquid jetted out of the nozzle, arcing through the air to land with a splash on the white surface of the paper walls.

  Horatio held up a photo of the crime scene at Pathan’s apartment and compared it to what Delko had just done. “Eric, I believe we have a match. But one thing still troubles me . . .”

  “The amount of blood? Yeah, there was a lot. Using the Frankenstein pump, I’ve figured out there has to be about a liter of Pathan’s blood on the walls.”

  “One liter of his own blood.” Horatio rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hypovolemic shock occurs when the victim loses between ten and twenty percent of blood volume—which is roughly from half a pint to just over one.”

  “But there are ways around that,” Delko said. “EMTs give oxygen to people suffering from blood loss, to hyperoxygenate their blood and temporarily make up for the loss of volume.”

  “True. And while we didn’t find any anticoagulents in the blood on the walls, he could still have stored his own blood beforehand, to replace whatever he withdrew for the staging. A quick transfusion plus a few hits of pure oxygen would put him right back on his feet.”

  “So we know how he did it,” Delko said. “But we still can’t prove it. We didn’t find oxygen, blood-transfusion supplies, or a pump at the crime scene.”

  “That’s because the Brilliant Batin is too clever to leave any of those things behind. But knowing they exist is the first step toward finding them.”

  “So, the black sheep of the family decides to pull the wool over his father’s eyes—that part I get,” Delko said. “But why ask for you as the go-between, then give you the runaround? If he wants money, why not just ask for it?”

  “That part I’m not sure about. It can’t be just ego; Pathan’s already convinced he’s beaten me once. This almost has the feeling of a personal vendetta—but I’m not sure why he’s singled me out. It makes more sense for this kind of anger to be directed at his father.”

  “Sure,” Delko said, nodding. “It’s not enough that he’s rejected his father’s beliefs—he has to prove he’s right and his father’s wrong. Which, when it comes to religion, is pretty well impossible.”

  “Yes, it is,” Horatio said. “So he’ll settle for emotional punishment and monetary compensation. The longer this drags on, the worse it is for Khasib . . . and Abdus can make it last as long as he wants to. He’s the one in control.”

  “But if Abdus is behind all this, then he’s the one who tried to kill you. Why? Killing a police officer in the middle of a federal investigation is insane.”

  “I disagree. Whatever Abdus Sattar Pathan is, Eric, I don’t think he’s irrational. A lot of careful thought and planning has gone into this . . . and it all started in that convenience store.”

  “Yeah. That doesn’t make sense, e
ither. Why would Abdus suddenly go off on revealing pictures of a woman he doesn’t know? Unless . . .”

  “Unless it was a setup from the beginning,” Horatio said. “Specifically designed to draw me in.”

  “You think Pathan has some connection to one of your old cases?”

  “If so, I don’t know which one. But maybe it’s time I did a little reviewing . . .”

  Every cop made enemies. The better you were at the job, the more enemies you made . . . and Horatio was extremely good at what he did.

  This wasn’t the first time someone had come after him. He’d been targeted by a bloodthirsty gang called the Mala Noche, by a corrupt judge, by serial killers—even by his own mentor on the bomb squad.

  But few of those people were still around. Some were dead, some in prison, and he couldn’t find a connection to Abdus Sattar Pathan for any of them. Besides, none of them felt right; Horatio’s gut instincts were telling him there was more going on here than what he was seeing.

  Which is the one element that does make sense. Pathan makes his living creating illusions, and that’s just what he’s done here: created the illusion that he’s been kidnapped. The why should be obvious: he wants something. But whatever that is, so far he hasn’t asked for it.

  Horatio believed that forensic concepts could be applied to all aspects of life. There was a thing he thought of as mental DNA, the distinctive pattern of thought that underlay each individual’s behavior; the stronger a person felt about something, the more evident the behavior became. It was there in the photos of a serial killer’s victims; it was there in a bomber’s choice of detonator. Profilers referred to it as a signature, but Horatio knew it was more than just an identifying attribute—it was a clue to the criminal’s approach, their worldview, an entire pattern of thinking.

  And what was the defining characteristic of the Brilliant Batin, the underlying metaphor by which he lived his life, that informed, no matter how subtly, his every word and deed?

  The obvious answer was magic. But Horatio had been in the man’s house, and it was no shrine to legerdemain; his workshop had been the only indication of his craft.