Magicide (17 page)

CHAPTER 43

Thursday, August 11, 7 p.m.

Carter’s hands vice-gripped the steering wheel of his Mustang. He felt like any minute he could explode. No trick—just explode from the weight of his burden and disappear into the universe, never to be seen again. Never to have dinner tonight with his parents. He’d always felt he could confide in them about anything and they’d reserve judgment until they had all the facts.

This time the situation was more serious than anything he’d shared before. How would he tell them, he wondered?

At Worthington Towers the valet took the car. Apparently Andrea sensed his mood because she didn’t speak as they rode in the elevator to the thirty-sixth floor.

Inside the penthouse condominium, his father greeted them and offered drinks. While his father busied himself at the bar, Carter went to the large living room picture window. The sun was almost ready to disappear behind the Charleston mountain range.

Where was the surge of confidence he usually felt when he gazed out at this incredible view of lights along the famous Las Vegas Strip? Tonight the dazzling display did nothing to distract his mind from his painful dilemma.

“Here’s your vodka tonic,” Andrea said.

He took it from her hand without a thank-you. She shrugged and went to offer Dawn help in her gourmet kitchen.

Sam said, “I’ve been reading in the
Post
about Maxwell’s funeral tomorrow. You going?”

“Yes.”

“Speculation is Peter will inherit the estate, including all his father’s tools of the magic trade.”

Carter sighed, turned his back to the window, and muttered, “I’m not sure he deserves it.”

“Hey, do I detect a bitter tone?” Sam rattled the ice in his glass.

“There’s just a lot going on the public isn’t aware of.”

“Of course. That’s the nature of show biz, isn’t it?”

His father’s constant confidence encouraged him. He had to say it now, while only the two of them were in the room. Easier that way. “I have the DVD.”

“What DVD?”

“The one of Maxwell and friends at the spring equinox that the police are looking for.”

Sam’s eyes registered disbelief. “Is that why Maxwell was murdered?”

“I don’t know. I just know a lot of people, including the press, would love to get their hands on the stuff that’s on that DVD. Peter’s been talking around that I was using it to blackmail Maxwel
l⎯
”

“Why would he say that?” Sam glared at his half-empty glass as if he saw Peter with the answer at its bottom.

Carter hesitated. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his father about Peter’s sexual advance. Irrelevant, anyway. “Don’t know. But it’s not true. I’d never blackmail anybody.”

“Of course not, son. Shame on Peter. He’ll get into trouble, spreading lies like that.”

“Peter didn’t want Larissa to find it in the house, so he gave it to me for safekeeping.”

Sam strode to the bar, picked up the bottle of Jack Daniels and refreshed his drink. He slammed the ice bucket on the bar, spilling ice on the marble counter. Both his hands and his voice shook. “So, what’s the big deal about this DVD?’

“Maxwell does this every year, to ‘renew and strengthen’ his magical powers.” He raised his eyes from his drink to his father’s face. “He really believed that stuff, about black magic and rituals and all. Everyone’s heard about it. I never took it seriously, but
he
did. This year something went wrong. There was a kid—a teen-ager, for God’s sake—probably some runaway they picked up….” Carter stopped himself from going further.

Sam took a heavy swallow of his bourbon. “Sounds like you have a decision to make.”

“It looks as damaging as everybody says. The whole magic community is talking about it.”

“What are you going to do, son?”

“Peter wants it back. It doesn’t really belong to me, but
I⎯
”

His mother’s voice interrupted. “Dinner’s served, all.”

Andrea came out of the kitchen carrying a big bowl of salad. “Your favorite, mixed greens with avocados and pine nuts,” she said to Carter. “You were talking about Peter?”

They took their places around the oval glass table. “It’s all right. Andrea knows about the DVD.”

“What DVD?” Dawn asked.

Sam’s eyes reflected a sober expression. “A video of Maxwell doing a magic ritual up on Sunrise Mountain.”

“So? He does that every year. His big grab for publicity.”

“Apparently this time something happened that may have involved a death?” Sam’s voice went up at the end of his sentence in a question directed to Carter..

“And that was what was filmed?” Dawn’s mouth remained open in shock.

Carter felt Andrea’s agitated movement in the chair next to him as she folded and unfolded her napkin, placing it just so in her lap.

Andrea murmured, “Peter didn’t want Larissa to see it. That’s why he gave it to Carter.”

“Oh my God,” Dawn exclaimed. Her hand, holding her wineglass, froze in mid-air. “Baby, you have to take it to the police.”

At the word
police
, Andrea turned her head sharply and stared at Carter.

“It’s not mine to just do with what I want,” he said.

Dawn was insistent. “It could be a clue to who murdered Maxwell and why. I don’t see that you have a choice here. Cheri Raymer would say you’re withholding evidence. You have a moral obligation to do the right thing.”

Carter attempted a grin. “Spoken like a true mother.”

“I’m only looking out for your well-being,” she said. “Pass the chicken, please. Sam? What do you think?”

His father picked up the platter of roast chicken he’d been carving and said, “Your mother’s right, son. That DVD needs to be in the hands of the police. They’ll handle it.”

“I don’t know...I gave Peter my word that I’d keep it safe,” Carter said. He glanced at Andrea, who averted her eyes as if she didn’t want any part of this decision.

“Look at it this way.” Sam gestured with the carving knife. “If it’s as ugly as you say, better with the police than in the hands of anyone else—like the media. You don’t really want to see it on the eleven o’clock news, do you?”

CHAPTER 44

Thursday, August 11, 10:50 p.m
.

On the ride back to his apartment, Carter wondered, should I take the video tape to the police right away tonight or wait til morning? Maybe morning would be better. And how do I explain to the police what I’m turning in? How I came to have it? What if they think I had something to do with the ceremony? Like, what if they think I held the camera? How could I prove I didn’t?

If Peter was already lying about him, saying he wanted to blackmail Maxwell, might not the police believe Peter? In every scenario Carter imagined, he did not come out looking good.

He didn’t voice any of these thoughts to Andrea, who sat with her hands in her lap and her head nodded, as if she’d been lulled to sleep by eating too much chicken and drinking too much wine and riding in a car.

Maybe I should just give the DVD back to Peter and let him deal with it, Carter thought. Maybe I should destroy the DVD and try to forget the whole thing.

Before dinner, he’d asked Andrea to stay over tonight and she’d agreed. Now he was too disturbed by the conversation with his parents. He needed time alone to prepare himself mentally for what he had to do. But by the time he pulled the Mustang convertible into the basement garage of his apartment building, he’d changed his mind. He’d say nothing to Andrea about a change of plans. In truth, he found her presence comforting.

He had met Andrea Vilari two and a half years earlier at a magic convention held at Las Vegas’ Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino. She had just gone to work for a friend of his as a magician’s assistant. He’d been immediately attracted and asked to be introduced. They fell into bed together and they’d been a couple ever since. She quit working for his friend, who wasn’t too pleased at the time but quickly replaced her. She was now officially Carter Cunningham’s assistant, appearing with him when he worked conventions and club dates, both in and out of town. He billed them as “Carter and Company,” Andrea being the “company.” She liked having “her own space” as she called it, and he had finally stopped asking her to move in with him.

As soon as they entered the apartment, Andrea headed for the bathroom.

Carter sat down on the side of the bed facing the closet and took off his shoes. He couldn’t stop thinking about Peter’s horrid videotape of Maxwell, and here he was staring into the very closet where he’d secreted it.

He rose, took off his jacket, opened the sliding mirrored door and reached for a hanger. He raised his eyes to the shelf above the clothes.

There, tucked between an old slide projector and his ski boots was the flat box with the DVD inside. He stood there, thinking. He had to make a decision. He had to turn it over to the police and suffer their interrogation, or he had to destroy it.

He hung up his jacket, turned away from the closet, and stopped. Later he wouldn’t have a clue what made him turn around and at that moment pull the box where he’d hidden the damaging DVD. It was as if one minute he was walking away from the closet and the next minute his senses reeled. A cold shadow of disaster overwhelmed him.

CHAPTER 45

Friday, August 12, 9:05 a.m.

Cheri made it a point to arrive at Maxwell’s funeral an hour early, but not because it would be crowded. By coming early, she and Pizzarelli could watch people arrive, move easily among them and eavesdrop on casual, hushed conversations.

Their early arrival also enabled them to get a parking place close to the entrance to the sand-colored, single-story funeral home. They were even lucky enough to get a spot near a tree where, in another hour, the Explorer would be shaded. This week summer temperatures had reached one hundred and the sun was brutal. No sign yet of the rain predicted for the weekend.

Wreaths of flowers on tripods with white bows and comforting words in gold letters filled the vestibule of Desert Rose Mortuary and Funeral Home. A wide silver banner on a massive arrangement of yellow mums read, “Remembering Maxwell, Grand Master of Magic.”

Pizzarelli sniffed. “Smells like a flower shop.”

“Looks like they moved in a flower shop,” Cheri said. She wondered how long the air conditioning could hold out in the vestibule, a long room decorated with tasteful lighting sconces and soft mauve carpeting that stretched the entire front of the building. With the doors repeatedly opening and more people entering, the temperature was sure to rise.

On one wall, someone had created an expansive memory board of pictures of Maxwell Beacham-Jones at various stages of his life and career. Cheri and Pizzarelli were drawn to stare in fascination as well as professional interest.

There was Maxwell as a five-year-old, cutting up for his mother’s camera. Several career pictures showed him with other celebrities—Cher, Penn & Teller, Elton John, Siegfried and Roy, George Carlin, Tina Turner. Cheri was surprised to find herself impressed with the magnitude of what Maxwell had accomplished—no matter how—in the world of entertainment. Her heart constricted as her mind flooded with memories. Unexpectedly pressure in her sinuses signaled tears ready to erupt.

She blinked several times and turned away from the pictures to find Pizzarelli staring past her at the beveled-glass double front doors. When she followed his gaze she saw Larissa and Peter enter.

Larissa wore black, even though she had been Maxwell’s ex for several years. Designer black—of course—Cheri noted. Larissa’s suit, perfectly cut, outlined her figure in classic taste. Delicate black lace swaddled her face, wrapped around her chin, gathered to the top of a small black hat, and waterfalled down her back.

“C’mon, Pizza, we should pay our respects.” Cheri walked toward Larissa and extended her hand.

The veil provided a dark gauze effect that made her unable to judge Larissa’s expression. “It’s good of you to come, luv,” Larissa whispered. Her voice was a drugged monotone. “This is m’ son, Peter.” She seemed to have forgotten that they’d already met.

“Hello.” Pizzarelli shook Peter’s hand. Peter had not bothered with black; he wore tan slacks and a burgundy silk shirt.

“Thank you for coming,” Peter said, and steered his mother in another direction.

“That was short.”

“Would you want to talk to detectives at a funeral? It’s all right. We’ll get back to him.”

More people arrived, jamming the flower-festooned lobby. They spotted Edmund Meiner and Robert Digbee and celebrities from both Las Vegas and Hollywood. Today, this was the place to be seen. Tomorrow all the names of the famous attendees would appear in celebrity print and Internet columns.

Sam and Dawn Cunningham entered, smiling and shaking hands with friends. Cheri would have said hello if she could have made her way through the throng to reach them.

The funeral home’s air conditioning strained at its peak, the air in the lobby sickly warm from the multitude of bodies and scents of flowers and pricey perfumes. People still outside found their entry blocked by a wall of bodies.

Cheri and Pizzarelli shoved their way to fresh air, where more contemporaries and fans of Maxwell milled about on the sidewalk and spilled off the curb into the street.

The Desert Rose Mortuary and Funeral Home was well-equipped for celebrity funerals. Loudspeakers along the tiled roofline allowed those who could not get into the building to hear the memorial service. Past a line of parked limousines—their drivers having retreated to shade at the side of the building—Cheri spotted television vans. All the major networks plus the Entertainment and Travel Channels were represented.

“There must be a thousand people here,” Pizzarelli said. “Incredible turn-out for the most hated magician in the business.”

“Not everybody was privileged to that information, and when there’s an opportunity to be seen, nobody cares,” she said. “Besides, Maxwell was good for Vegas. His shows always sold out. Did you ever see him in person?”

“Never had the pleasure.”

“You had to get tickets months in advance. He had a lot of fans.”

This was evidenced by the sniffles and wails and weeping when the service began. Many onlookers outside held single white roses. She thought she read somewhere that that was the symbol for Maxwell’s fan club. Maybe Tom had told her that.

Tom. She sneaked a peak at her watch. Right now he and Bon should be meeting with the school counselor. She’d given Bon a list of questions to ask, especially about homework. She also wanted to know what the school’s practice was for keeping track of students in the classroom. How was Tom able to get away with skipping classes without any reprimand? How could she help the situation?

She should have gone to the appointment herself, or changed it.
But she needed to be at Maxwell’s funeral. And Bon was his aunt. The school couldn’t think less of her as a mother, since she’d sent a close relative.

She forced herself not to think about how Bonni might have dressed for the appointment, about what impression her less-than-conservative clothing choices would make. She forced her attention back to her job, to the funeral service.

Robert Digbee, introduced as Robert the Great, gave the eulogy. Wayne Newton’s trio of back-up singers provided vocal harmonies and a former-jazz-singer-turned-Nevada-state-politician led the throng in hymns. Several men, including the mayor of Las Vegas, spoke in glowing terms about how they had known Maxwell Beacham-Jones.

“I heard somebody in the crowd refer to him as ‘bee jay’,” Cheri whispered.

“That’s for ‘blow-job’” Pizzarelli said.

She glowered at him. “How do you know that?”

He raised and lowered his round shoulders. “I dunno. Guess I read it somewhere in the tabs.”

“I don’t read tabloids.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Oh, here they go with the Broken Wand ceremony,” she whispered.

His eyes continued to scan the crowd. “What’s that?”

“They break a magic wand over the casket of the dead magician. It originated at Houdini’s funeral in 1926.”

“How d’you know that?”

The smile she gave him was pure Cheshire cat. “I’ve been reading Tom’s books about magic.”

The funeral service ended and they lingered to watch both celebrities and wanna-bes take advantage of the circumstances to mingle, shake hands, network, and smile sadly for the nearest cameras. Cheri watched everyone coming out of the building while Pizzarelli scanned the loitering sidewalk crowd.

“The usual subjects accounted for,” he said. “The ex-wife, the estranged son, the technical consultant, the personal coordinator, the ex-girl friend...man what a piece of work
she
is. Whatever happened to the days when women were women and men stayed men?”

“One person missing,” she said.

“Yup.”

“No sign of Dayan Franklyn.”