Magicide (8 page)

Pizzarelli grinned at her across the top of the car. “An Italian, of course. So, after we stop in the office, let’s go see what the ex-wife has to say.”

“And see if we can find out what those two are hiding about that DVD.”

CHAPTER 17

Tuesday, August 9, 3:50 p.m.

Edmund Meiner smiled with satisfaction as he put down the phone. He’d placed a heavier-than-usual bet on a pretty filly in the next race at Del Mar. How nice to not have to lower his voice, to not have to plan his call when Maxwell was not at home. If at any time during the day he suddenly felt like placing a bet, he could just pick up the phone and do it.

With snoopy, controlling Maxwell no longer there, his bookie no longer had to hang up if she called the private line and didn’t reach Edmund himself.

During the past twelve years that Meiner had shared the huge, old Twin Lakes mansion with Maxwell, he’d had to stay constantly vigilant—plan with care his every move—to keep his addiction to the ponies a secret from the master. Maxwell had detested weakness of any kind, and saw gambling as the biggest weakness of all.

When he thought about how Maxwell had no compassion for anybody else’s predilections, bitter bile of resentment roiled in his stomach.

He glanced around his office, a study with a private entrance off the kitchen, and reminded himself that he didn’t have to hide anything anymore. He was free from a living hell he knew he himself had willingly created, a hell from which he had never been able to bring himself to escape. He walked out of the office, leaving the door open.

At the bar in the living room he selected a crystal highball glass, filled it with ice, and poured himself a scotch. He was setting the Johnny Walker bottle back on the counter when he thought, what the Hell. He poured another two fingers into the glass. It’s so quiet in the house without Maxwell, he thought.

“Mr. Meiner, I’ll be going home now.” A short, middle-aged woman of ample proportions stood in the archway between the living room and dining room. She wore a well-tailored purple suit and fingered reading glasses dangling from a beaded chain around her neck. “And glad this day’s over.”

He felt the alcohol glowing warm in his belly and smiled at the secretary. “More calls from reporters?”

“They’re persistent devils.” She sighed, her bosom heaving. “But I managed to finish the details for the funeral.”

“Schwartzy, what would I do without you?” He took a hefty swallow of the scotch.

Her tired eyes narrowed and her smile teased. “Don’t kid me. You’d probably hire somebody younger with a stunning figure and manage just fine. See you tomorrow.”

He watched Trudy Schwartz leave. He breathed in the comforting fumes from the alcohol in his glass. Thank God she was there to shield him from media pests and unpleasant questions and requests. Somebody always wanted something. He hated to answer ringing telephones; when negotiation became involved, being the callee put you in the minor position.

He contemplated the last melting ice cube in his glass, returned to the bar and poured another healthy shot of scotch, this time adding a little bottled water. Johnny Walker, his drug of choice. The perfect stimulation a man needed to run the race. And what a grand finish it was going to be.

He carried the drink back to his office. From the desk he picked up the prospectus for his newest investment, the one that would change his life. Since he’d invested in the IPO four days ago, he’d read the prospectus so often he’d nearly memorized it, and it comforted him to read it again. If everything went as planned, he stood to pocket a fortune.

And it had damn well better go as planned.

He had nothing else to count on to secure his future financially. He was under no illusion about the estate of Maxwell Beacham-Jones. He’d searched every nook and corner of the mansion for paper indication of Maxwell’s estate intentions.

And what he
hadn’t
found confirmed his secret suspicion. There’d be no financial compensation for Edmund Meiner. No generous severance bonus. No compensation for years of loyal service. Maxwell had left no will. Everything will go to that wuusy son, Peter, he thought.

Damn Maxwell. How dare he muck things up like this. He, Edmund Meiner, in his definitive role as personal coordinator, had had no choice but to take matters into his own hands. He’d been loyal to the master, had done whatever the master had asked, had sold himself to the devil. Damn it, he didn’t deserve this… uncertainty.

The demanding ring of the telephone interrupted his angry thoughts. He waited for Schwartzy to answer it, and then remembered she’d left for the day.
So, let it ring.
On the ninth ring he realized with new irritation that Schwartzy had forgotten to set it to the answering machine and the caller wasn’t giving up.

“Hello!” he barked into the phone.

“No more ‘Beacham-Jones residence?’” the caller asked, the voice carrying an evil smile.

The crystal highball glass slipped from his hand. Scotch and water sprayed across the desk, damaging memos, letters, contracts and the prospectus. Ice cubes of shock froze his body. This can’t be real, he thought. This can’t be happening.

CHAPTER 18

Tuesday, August 9, 4:55 p.m.

At the station for the end-of-shift briefing, Cheri was relieved to discover the air conditioning fixed and the building interior cooling down. Pizzarelli followed her into the break room for coffee. She knew she shouldn’t ingest caffeine this late in the day, but someone had just made a fresh pot and she couldn’t resist the smell.

Styrofoam cup in hand, she went to her desk and thumbed through her in-box.

At his desk next to her Pizzarelli removed a recycled brown paper sack from a lower drawer and emptied the contents on the center of the desk. He eyed the vegetarian lunch, now wilted from the heat, that he hadn’t had time to eat and threw everything away except the chocolate chip cookies.

She left him munching on the cookies and left the room to find a private place where she could call Tom.

Thoughts of Maxwell tilted the balance of everything in her head. Godawful, what had happened—at the height of his career.

She didn’t think he could have become much more famous if he’d lived. Sure, she’d heard rumors that he wasn’t everybody’s favorite magician, yet for every dark story about how he screwed somebody there were at least three stories marking his brilliance as an illusionist
extraordinaire
.

The media blitz for the roller coaster escape had been enormous—all people talked about for weeks. Now all people talked about was his spectacular death. Especially since the media got wind of the fact that it wasn’t an accident, that he had been murdered.

She entered the ladies restroom and was relieved to find it empty. She’d wash her hands and call Tom from here. She turned the water on and stood there, looking at herself in the mirror.

How had those TV twinkies found out so fast that it wasn’t an accident? She wondered. She knew Ottomeyer wouldn’t talk. But maybe someone else in the coroner’s office, some low-paid underling looking for a minute of importance. Maybe Maxwell’s personal coordinator, Edmund Meiner, or the technical advisor, Robert Digbee.

Well, it wasn’t important now.
The press knew, and the press would have their proverbial field day. They would milk it to a new death.

The running water tugged at her attention. She washed and dried her hands, thinking about the suspects. All of them were magicians. All of them would know how to switch jump cuffs. It was too soon to tell if all of them had motive. If they did, then it would be a matter of who had the biggest motive. Following the money—a basic principle in any investigation—usually led to a family member.

She shoved her hand in her pocket, removed her cell phone and stared at it. She saw Larissa’s face. Stunning, sensitive, love-is-blind Larissa Beacham-Jones. After this briefing she would go with Pizza to visit Larissa in her dressing room at the Sultana. She didn’t look forward to it. But she was a professional and she was older now, more experienced. But God, she hoped the perp wasn’t Larissa.

She punched the numbers for Tom’s cell and waited while it rang and rang and rang. Classes were over and he should be answering. She tried to imagine places where he might be where he wouldn’t be able to answer. Damn it, they had an agreement. Unless Tom was in class, he would always answer his cell. She’d pressed for the agreement because it signified the only way she could feel like a halfway decent mother, trying to be there for her son.

The rings kicked into voice mail. “Hi, you’ve reached the Great Tomano—not
tomato
, Tomano.” Tom’s familiar laugh. “Leave a message and you will be returned.”

In a concerned voice she said she wanted to be sure he was alright after what happened last night, she was sorry for keeping him up so late that he got little sleep, and she’d be home late.

She snapped the phone shut, and let the door slam as she left the ladies room. She walked down the hall and into the briefing room. Washington, Pizza, Soldana and the investigative specialist were already there. The fourth detective in their team was out with a summer flu. Pizzarelli reported their interviews on the Maxwell case. Soldana, eyes bright, had big news.

“Got a positive on Jimmy Doe. Parents I.D.’d the body. Scott Liebold. Fifteen. Disappeared from the Action Video Arcade on July 12. Parents came in today to file a missing child report.”

Antagonism roiled in Cheri’s stomach. “Disappeared on July 12 and this is the 8
th
of August? It took the parents almost a month to figure out their kid was missing?”

“He’d run away before, so the parents thought this was another defiant episode.” Athenia’s expression echoed Cheri’s irritation. “You’d think people would keep better track of their kids.”

Cheri winced at the words. The cell phone and answering agreement with Tom seemed woefully inadequate.

The strong muscles in Washington’s jaw tightened. “The Action Video Arcade. I hate that place. Whatever happened to playing touch football in the park?”

“The arcade’s a handy place to snatch a teen, for sure,” Pizzarelli said.

Washington rubbed his neck. “Check ViCAP. See if the teen boy, nudity and chest wound match somebody’s m.o.”

Soldana dutifully made a note. The FBI’s Violent Crime Apprehension Program monitored the movements that made up the
modus operandi
of violent felons and serial killers so that any of their activities in different jurisdictions around the country could be linked.

Cheri wondered if the Liebold parents had other children. Would they be more responsible with them now that they’d lost a child? It could go either way.

“There’s another problem,” Washington continued. The others regarded him expectantly. How much worse could this get? “Governor Simms. Wants to know what we’ve got on the Maxwell murder. National media’s called his office, wanting a statement. You know how much he hates bad publicity for Las Vegas, especially with the ad budget they spend. I don’t have to tell you how much I hate to tell him we haven’t got anything.”

“Anything on the hamburger?” Cheri asked.

“I had a talk with George. He says there could have been something in the hamburger that wasn’t meant to be eaten, like detergent, rat poison, copper sulphate,” Washington said. “The body usually expels those things fast. Could have been something simple like syrup of ipecac, an old emetic that induces vomiting. Or maybe a kind of mushroom—mushroom poisoning causes, among other symptoms, early vomiting. Mushrooms that cause early vomiting, incidentally, are less dangerous than those that cause vomiting after several hours. Of course, there are also emetic toxins in some foods, like cereulide, the heat-stable emetic toxin produced by
Bacillus
cereus.
Or something as simple as salt water and mustard together….”

“Wow. You took a lot of notes,” Pizzarelli said.

Washington glowered. “I need answers for the governor, people.”

“We’re on it, Lieutenant,” Pizzarelli said.

Since when did he become so positive? Cheri wondered. She hoped the kid’s murder wasn’t indicative of a more expansive crime spree. Maxwell’s murder had already put Las Vegas in notorious nationwide headlines. The governor was right—not the kind of publicity the State, the Chamber of Commerce and Convention Authority had in mind. The last thing they needed in the ad mix was a serial killer.

CHAPTER 19

Tuesday, August 9, 6:40 p.m
.

At dusk the lights of marquees and advertisements bloomed brighter and more intense as day faded. From the passenger side of the Explorer Cheri watched the hotels, bars, gift shops and restaurants of the famous Las Vegas Strip pass by. She never tired of the sight.

The Sultana Hotel and Casino came into view. Built in the 1950s, its façade reflected somebody’s imagination of an ancient Moorish seraglio, all fake balconies and turrets and pointy onion domes.

The cocktail waitresses, like her sister, wore Arabian night costumes with tight bolero tops, bare midriffs, filmy harem pants and gauzy drapes around their heads. Bonni hated wearing the stuff, complaining that the bolero top pushed her breasts up under her chin.

The interior design of the casino, which was way overdue for a design upgrade, made Cheri think of Aladdin on ecstasy. The only new part of the Sultana was the recently-completed marquee, its digital screen implying the casino itself was a modern must-see. Flashing across the screen was the commercial for the Sultana’s all-girl magic review,
Les Magicienns, starring LARISSA
.

They left the Explorer in self-parking and descended in the garage elevator to the casino. At the entrance to the showroom Cheri flashed her police badge and the maitre’d called a security guard. She and Pizzarelli followed their escort backstage and down a narrow hallway to Larissa’s dressing room. No star on the door, Cheri noted. Just
LARISSA
in flowing script letters. The security guard didn’t bother to knock. He opened the door and said, “Here.”

Larissa sat at her dressing table, half-naked, bathed in the harsh glow of round light bulbs, applying her stage make-up. Pizzarelli followed Cheri into the room, and Larissa caught their images in the dressing table mirror.

“As I live and breathe, Cheri Raymer. What a surprise,” she said, smudging kohl shadow at the edges of her eyelids. She didn’t rise. “Who’s your friend, luv?”

“My partner, detective Carme Pizzarelli. We’d like to ask you some questions about Maxwell.”

“Of course you would. God, it’s been years, Cheri, and here you are all grown up to be a police detective person.”

Larissa’s tone was pleasant, but Cheri sensed underlying tension. Up close and in person Larissa was clearly older than the publicity stills used in the advertising for
Les Magiciennes
. That was to be expected. Mentally counting, she figured Larissa was forty-three now. Won’t be able to bare the bod much longer, she thought. No doubt some younger girl in the show already had her kohled eye on Larissa’s starring role. 

“How’s your son?” Larissa never took her eyes off her face in the mirror. “Growing up to be as handsome as his father?”

In spite of the heat from the lights around the mirror, Cheri’s blood chilled, but she wouldn’t let herself be distracted. She forced herself to focus on the police business at hand. “About Maxwell’s murder…”

“What can I tell you, luv, that you probably already know?”

Pizzarelli’s eyes were taking in the dressing room with interest. The make-up, heavy decorated headdresses, over-sized jewelry, quirky costumes, and rhinestone-studded gee strings always fascinated people who weren’t in the business. His gaze roamed everywhere except at Larissa’s bare breasts, still breathtakingly beautiful. “For starters,” he said, “where were you last night?”

Larissa put down her eyeliner brush, straightened her shoulders and turned to face them. Was it all that make-up that gave her face that frozen, unreadable expression? “Such a terrible accident,” she murmured.

“Murder,” Cheri corrected. “Maxwell’s death was not an accident. At the last minute, one of his ankle manacles was switched.”

Larissa’s thin eyebrows rose slightly. “What a challenge for him.”

Behind the perfect make-up, her face appeared worn, the tiny age lines exaggerated
.
I could be her, Cheri thought, if I hadn’t changed careers. A sharp wave of sadness surprised her. She took a deep breath and continued, “It was your dark night. Were you at the hotel for the event?”

Larissa’s mouth formed her artificial show smile. “VIP seats.”

“How was your relationship with your ex-husband?” Pizzarelli asked.

Maxwell’s ex-wife spoke in such a level tone that Cheri wondered just how much medication she might be on. “After the divorce, I was angry, naturally. But that was eight years ago. I got over it. I have my own career, as you can see. We were at truce. The lawyers made him continue to put money into a trust fund for his son. It was rare that we spoke.”

Pizzarelli finally allowed his eyes to rest on Larissa’s breasts. He took a pen out of his pocket, but no notebook. “What happens to the funding now that Maxwell’s dead?”

“It’s in a will. Peter’s set for life.”

“Did Maxwell have a life insurance policy?”

Larissa’s perfectly-lined lips formed a pout. “People who work in dangerous occupations or perform death-defying feats, like Maxwell, have to pay through the nose to get life insurance, but he had it when we were married.”

“How much?” Pizzarelli asked, fidgeting with the pen. As if he’d just remembered he needed something to write on, he pulled his notebook from his jacket pocket. Cheri noted that something made him nervous. Was it the heat in the dressing room or the sigh of Larissa’s breasts?

“How much did he pay? Or how much did he have?” Larissa asked in an innocent tone.

Pizzarelli’s tone was short. “How much did he have?”

Larissa shrugged. “Fifty million.”

Even with the motivation of such big bucks, Cheri couldn’t see Larissa as a killer, but if there was one thing she’d learned since joining Metro, it was that people could do some crazy things with the right motivation.

“Did Maxwell come to your house to visit Peter?”

Larissa’s scowl turned her make-up clown ugly. “He was not allowed to set foot in my house, and he right knew it.”

Pizzarelli raised an eyebrow. “Because?”

“I’ve forgiven him, but I’ve never forgotten what he did to me. And don’t ask because it’s not open for discussion.”

Cheri knew the answer, but didn’t want to antagonize Larissa. She’d fill her partner in later. “Do you know Regine?” she asked.

Larissa’s scowl barely lessened. “That woman’s a bit potty, if you ask me. Just because she did one performance at The Mikado Theatre and made the cover of
Pentagram
, she thinks she’s right ready for Vegas.” Her voice took on a sarcastic tone. “A
dove
act. Acceptable with the blocking and distraction, but her patter’s as blarmy as all that red hair. Okay for a lounge in the afternoon, but definitely not ready for the big room.”

“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 Par
k⎯
“

“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 DV
D⎯
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.