The Magician Murders

by Josh Lanyon

  “Was Santos’ death officially ruled a suicide?”

  “Yes. That’s the story. Nobody who knew him believes it. But the cops didn’t know him. The coroner didn’t know him. They’ll believe anything. Up to and including that Santos would decide to poison himself in the middle of rehearsing his act for the opening of a new magic club. I mean, that’s ridiculous. On every level. To start with, if he was going to kill himself, he’d do it in the privacy of his own home.”

  Not necessarily. Daryl Easton had hanged himself at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles. Or no—come to think of it, Easton’s death had ultimately been ruled accidental. In the 1940s Theodore Annemann had gassed himself at home. Larry Grey had shot himself in the 1950s outside his house. Maybe the real point was magicians committing suicide was a quite a rarity.

  Dreyfus said, “If your friend’s death has been ruled a suicide, there’s not a lot we can do. The only reason we were brought into the Khan case is his body was found on public land—and we were already assisting Cheyenne PD with the missing art collection.”

  “You investigate serial killings, don’t you?”

  “Whoa,” Jason said. “No.”

  “He’s with the Art Crime Team,” Dreyfus explained as though in apology.

  Jason said, “Not unless we’ve got a very good reason—like we’re brought in by local law enforcement. And even then, we mostly just advise and support as requested. We don’t—can’t—reopen cases based on—”

  “You don’t have to reopen. You could look into Khan’s death in the larger context. That’s what I’m saying.” He turned away. “Fine. Ignore a suspicious death. Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  They watched him climb into a midnight-blue Volkswagen Beetle. The door of the Beetle was adorned with a painted magic wand. Splashes of pink, white, and blue flashed from the wand’s tip. Stars and sparkles decorated the hood and trunk of the car.

  They watched the Beetle trundle down the alley and disappear around the corner.

  Dreyfus met Jason’s eyes. “What do you think?”

  “I think we go talk to Cheyenne PD.”

  * * * * *

  “Come on, seriously,” Dreyfus was saying as they walked through the entrance of Cheyenne Police Department.

  Jason sighed. “Lighting, thread, mirrors. It’s actually a series of tricks strung together.”

  “Hm.”

  He glanced at her. “See? Now the trick is spoiled.”

  “It’s not spoiled because I don’t believe in magic. I hate magic. The biggest bores at parties are the guys who want to show you magic tricks. Oh, and the guys who think they do great impersonations.”

  “You hate magic because you’ve only been exposed to bad magic. A great magic show is…magical.”

  “Oh brother.” They had reached the front desk. Dreyfus requested Detective Ward. A minute later they were shown into Ward’s office, where they were offered bad coffee and good information.

  “You know, it’s funny,” Ward said. She was a petite blonde with a short wispy haircut and wide gray eyes. “I was thinking about that case when I was brushing my teeth this morning.” She smiled, offering a glimpse of her perfectly straight, white teeth. “Had the victim been anyone other than Mateo Santos, we’d have labeled it a suspicious death. But there was virtually no motive for getting Mateo out of the way, you’d have trouble finding a more beloved figure in this town.”

  “Nobody is universally loved,” Jason said. Gee, he was starting to sound like Sam.

  Sam.

  He felt a pang, like someone twisting a knife in his guts. Tonight, he would talk to Sam, and he was not looking forward to it. Dreaded it, in fact.

  “Ordinarily, I’d agree with you,” Ward said. “But Mateo was held in such esteem, such affection by so many people. Within the magic community and without. He was just a genuinely good person. I don’t know how else to describe it. I never heard him say a harsh or ugly word about anyone. He not only taught magic to disadvantaged children and at-risk teens for free, he shared all his knowledge with his peers—his competitors. If you know anything about the magic community, you know how rare that is, but I think he really cared about this next generation of magicians, sincerely wanted them to be great. Certainly, within the magic community, he was regarded as an icon.”

  Law enforcement jaded you. That was a fact. You didn’t often hear cops extolling the virtues of other humans, so Jason gave weight to Ward’s assessment.

  “What is it about his death that, in other circumstances, would have raised flags for you?” he asked.

  “For starters, drinking poison backstage in an empty nightclub. It’s a weird way for anyone to kill himself; it’s especially weird for someone like Mateo. It was so dramatic, so theatrical. That really wasn’t his style. Not in his professional life and not in his personal life.”

  “But he was a performer,” Jason observed. “And magic shows are, by definition, dramatic and theatrical.”

  “Yes. Exactly. While on one hand suicide seemed out of character, it was not completely out of character.”

  “The suicide took place at Top Hat White Rabbit?”

  “Yes. He was supposed to be rehearsing his act for this Friday when the club officially opens.”

  “How did he do it?” Dreyfus asked.

  “He mixed the sedative Carfentanil into a glass of Licor 43. Carfentanil is a very powerful animal tranquilizer, and Mateo was in his late seventies, so death was pretty much instantaneous. Once he ingested it, there would have been no way to save him.”

  Dreyfus said to Jason, “We just received a bulletin on the rising epidemic of Carfentanil overdoses. It’s increasingly being used to cut heroin, but it’s almost always deadly.”

  Nice way to reduce your customer base. But drug dealers were not geniuses.

  “And almost undetectable,” Ward said. “Except, by some stroke of luck, the first officer on the scene had just completed training on the safe handling of it. He saw a few specks of powder on the table and leaped to the conclusion of Carfentanil—and he was right.”

  “Why would someone bother rehearsing if they were just going to kill themselves?” Jason asked.

  “Rehearsing wouldn’t be a bother to Mateo. In fact, it would probably be a pleasure, a comfort. Maybe a way of saying farewell.”

  Maybe.

  “Where would Santos get something like Carfentanil?”

  “We know where he got it. There’s no mystery there. He got it from his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. She runs the China Creek animal preserve. She’s got an elephant out there and a couple of tigers, so she’s licensed to keep the drug on hand.”

  “That’s Elle Diamond?” Talk about a small world. But then magic was a small world.

  “Correct. As far as we could ascertain, Diamond took reasonable precautions, but Mateo had access to her files, her keys, her everything. She was able to confirm that a couple of grains—which is more than enough—of the drug were missing. Enough to kill but not enough to notice unless she was looking for it.”

  “Was Santos rehearsing on his own?” Jason asked.

  “Yes. According to Arturo Sanchez, the bartender, he was alone in the back. He did not have visitors. The only fingerprints on the bottle or glass were Mateo’s.”

  “And what would be his motive in taking his life?”

  She shook her head. “That’s the part that sticks in my craw. He had some health problems. Nothing immediately life threatening, but at his age, decline is inevitable. I wouldn’t have thought that in itself would be enough to drive him to take his life. But following the health scare, he broke off the relationship with Diamond. According to her, he had decided she was wasting herself on an old man. He wanted her to find someone younger and more…” Ward turned her hands over in a silent voilà.

  Jason suggested, “Virile?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did Diamond believe Santos killed himself?”

  “I don’t think anyone wants to believe
it, but it couldn’t be an accident. He could not have accidentally procured Carfentanil.”

  “Who gains by his death?” Dreyfus asked.

  “No one. He had no family. He did not own property, he had no money, no worldly possessions to speak of. He shared his magic tricks with anyone who asked. He did not leave a will. If there was a motive, it’s not apparent.”

  “People are sometimes killed for no apparent reason,” Jason pointed out.

  “Not often. Not in my experience.”

  Not in Jason’s experience either. Spending time with the BAU had widened his perspective—most murderers had their reasons, even if their reasons did not make sense to anyone else.

  Ward said, “There’s nothing I can put my finger on, but it just doesn’t feel right. Which is why, although the case is officially closed, it…haunts me.”

  JDLR. That had been the notation on the police report after the Khan burglary. Just Doesn’t Look Right. There seemed to be a lot of that going around the Magic City of the Plains these days.

  The three of them were silent for a moment.

  “Was there anything out of the ordinary about that crime scene?” Jason asked finally.

  Ward shook her head. “Nothing—beyond the fact that there was a crime scene.”

  “What kind of magic was he rehearsing?”

  “Cardistry.”

  Dreyfus looked up from her phone. “Was there an extra card at the scene? Like a tarot card maybe?”

  Ward stared at her. “It’s weird you mention it. Yes. There was a tarot card. It was in Mateo’s pocket.”

  “What was the card?” Jason asked.

  “The Magician.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  At three, Sam phoned to say his flight had been delayed and he would not be arriving until around eleven that evening. For the first time ever, Jason was relieved to hear Sam would be late, relieved that he would have more time to put off the inevitable confrontation.

  Dreyfus had been frankly disappointed when Jason had instructed Detective Ward to contact Routt Sheriff’s Office to tell them about the tarot card found at the Santos suicide, and then he’d shepherded Dreyfus out. He tried not to notice, but she was still brooding about it when they finally stopped for a very late lunch.

  “It’s not our case,” he reminded her over tacos at Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant.

  “We’re the ones who made the connection of the tarot cards.”

  “Yes. But in fairness, that’s because there are two different law-enforcement agencies in two different jurisdictions, handling what appeared to be two different crimes.”

  “Which turned out to be connected.”

  “Maybe.”

  She gave him a chiding look. “West, do you really believe the Santos supposed suicide and the Khan murder aren’t connected?”

  No. He did not believe that. Not for one minute. He said, “I’m reserving judgment,” and reached for a tortilla chip.

  She scowled. “No, you’re not. You just don’t want to get involved.”

  Not true. Well, partly true. He needed to keep a low profile, for sure. He had already stretched way, way beyond the boundaries of merely consulting on this case. He was actively pursuing the theft of the Khan collection with Dreyfus, and Sam would not be happy to hear it.

  But then Sam would probably not be happy to hear anything Jason had to say that evening. He dipped another tortilla chip in salsa and morosely crunched away.

  “You got me thinking,” Dreyfus said. “I googled the meaning of The Hanged Man when the card is reversed.” She held up her phone and read softly, “‘In a reading, The Hanged Man reversed serves as a warning. Opportunities have been lost or wasted. The inability to change will lead to downfall. Egotism and selfishness will lead the seeker in a dangerous direction.’”

  “We have no idea which way the card was intended to be read.” She opened her mouth to argue, and Jason added, “Also, that’s a very generic reading. You could probably apply that warning to anyone.”

  “It sure sounds like Michael Khan to me. Okay, well, listen to the reading for The Magician.” Dreyfus scrolled with her thumb. She quoted, “‘With the power of the elements and all suits at his disposal, The Magician takes the potential innate in The Fool and manifests it into being with the power of desire. The Magician provides the bridge between heaven and earth, for he understands the meaning behind the words ‘as above so below.’ Create the inner world and the outer world will follow.’”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  Dreyfus smiled. “I bet Sam Kennedy does.”

  Come to think of it, he could really use a margarita right about now. Jason said, “I bet Sam Kennedy would have a word or two about us sitting here reading tarot-card interpretations when we’re supposed to be tracking down a missing art collection.”

  Dreyfus made a pouty face and dropped her phone in her purse. “Fine. No guts, no glory.”

  He grinned at her. After a moment, she reluctantly grinned back.

  While Jason was working, it was easy—well, possible—to push aside all—okay, most—thoughts of Sam and the confrontation—no, conversation—they would have to have that evening.

  Having had time to reflect, he could see that his own reaction to the discovery of what Sam was really working on had been emotional and perhaps extreme. He realized that Sam was correct, and that his own recent brush with violence was bothering him more than he wanted to admit. His desire to put the attack behind him and move on, to get “back to normal,” was typical of people dealing with trauma, typical of people trying to avoid dealing head-on with fear and loss. The loss of his sense of safety, his certainty that he could take care of himself in any situation. The fear that he might be attacked again.

  He knew that Sam’s history, and particularly Ethan’s tragic fate, had to color Sam’s reactions in circumstances like these. How could it be otherwise? Jason had only to remember the ferocious scrawls on that whiteboard to understand that in his own taciturn and imperious way, Sam was freaked out too. Losing one boyfriend to murder was bad. Having a second imperiled boyfriend probably felt like he was being careless—or cursed.

  Jason also knew Sam was unused to being questioned, second-guessed, or having to account for his decisions to anyone, let alone someone he clearly regarded as the junior partner in a relationship.

  Theirs was not a relationship of equals; that was painfully obvious—and kind of a deal breaker. More than anything, he wanted to believe that they would talk everything through like reasonable, rational adults and reach some sort of agreement on boundaries and autonomy, but the conversation the other night hadn’t gone well. He had no reason to think tonight’s would go better.

  Jason thought through half a dozen different scenarios and even tried rehearsing a couple of openings on the theme of honesty and openness in a healthy relationship. Even so, he couldn’t envision any outcome that did not end with him and Sam acknowledging they did not have a future together.

  It tore him up. He loved Sam. He had believed they were really, truly working things out, and then this goddamned stint in hell had begun. Which, again for the record, was not Sam’s fault.

  But regardless of whether it was fault or fate, the end result was Jason’s belief that he did not really know Sam. At all. And that Sam didn’t really know or understand him.

  Which Sam, he was quite sure, would dismiss as proof of Jason being overly imaginative, overly dramatic, and getting bored with the script. Or something. Something that Sam need not take seriously, let alone act on.

  Or worse, that Sam would see Jason’s demands as an indication that Jason needed to go the way all Sam’s liaisons—at least post Ethan—went. Namely, Sam would erase Jason from his iPhone’s starred contacts, as well as from his emotional memory bank, and move on.

  It was probably inevitable anyway. If not tonight, eventually.

  In between these depressing thoughts, Jason’s natural optimism would flicker into brief life.
He was not by nature insecure. He believed in fighting for what was important to him. And, embarrassing as it was, he did believe in the power of love.

  But from the first, something about his relationship with Sam had knocked him off-balance. He just couldn’t seem to keep his footing. And every time the path seemed to smooth out, they were hit with an asteroid or something else from out of left field. Maybe it was just a matter of right guy, wrong time. Was there really such a thing?

  Probably not. If it was the wrong time, it was the wrong guy.

  A relationship with Sam Kennedy was always going to be challenging.

  And, in fairness, a relationship with Jason probably wasn’t a cakewalk either. Jason was just as obsessed with work and career, just as busy, just as used to having things his way, just as unused at having to accommodate and compromise.

  At seven Dreyfus phoned.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “We got the security footage from the neighbors who live across the street from the Khan house.”

  “I believe it,” Jason said.

  “Not that,” Dreyfus said exasperatedly. “Wait till you see the footage. I’m emailing it to you now.”

  Jason clicked in to his email. “You want me to call you back?”

  “No, I’ll wait.”

  They waited for the email to arrive. “You want to give me a hint?” Jason asked.

  “No.”

  His email pinged. “Got it.” Jason clicked on the email, downloaded the attached file, and studied it.

  “Well?” Dreyfus demanded. “What are we looking at?”

  Jason was silent, watching the indistinct, faraway figures running back and forth through the shadows.

  “Burglary. Grand theft. Grand larceny. Impersonating a wizard without a license.”

  Dreyfus said tartly, “Are you sure they don’t have a license? It looks like Halloween out there.”

  Yes, it did. All those top hats and capes and cloaks and masks. It did look like Halloween. There was a lot of trick and self-treating for sure. A lot of coming and a whole lot of going. Michael Khan’s entire collection had gone, in fact. But this was April, not October, and that was not a gang of larcenous trick-or-treaters. It was a gang of magicians—or whatever a group of magicians was called. An illusion of magicians?