Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

Sunday morning passed in frustration as the search for Erick Weir stalled.

The team learned that after the fire in Ohio the illusionist had remained in the burn unit of a local hospital for several weeks and then left on his own, without officially checking out. There was a record that he sold his house in downtown Las Vegas not long after that but no public record of buying another. In that cash-fat city though, Rhyme supposed, one could easily buy a small place in the desert with a stack of greenbacks, no questions asked, no public filings involved.

The team managed to find Weir's late wife's mother. But Mrs. Cosgrove knew nothing of Weir's whereabouts. He'd never contacted them after the disaster to send his condolences about their daughter's death. She reported, though, that she wasn't surprised. Weir was a selfish, cruel man, she explained, who'd become obsessed with her young daughter and virtually hypnotized her into marrying him. None of the other Cosgrove relatives had had any contact with Weir.

Cooper compiled the remaining information from the computer searches on Weir but there wasn't much. No VICAP or NCIC reports. There were no other details on the man, and the officers tracking down Weir's family found only that both parents were deceased, that he was an only child and that no next of kin could be located.

Late in the morning Weir's other assistant, Art Loesser, returned their call from Las Vegas. The man wasn't surprised to learn that his former boss was wanted in connection with a crime and echoed what they'd learned already: that Weir was one of the world's greatest illusionists but that he took the profession far too seriously and was known for his dangerous illusions and hot temper. Loesser still had nightmares about being his apprentice.

I said "hurts." I meant to say "haunts." He still haunts me.

"All young assistants're influenced by their mentors," Loesser told the team via speakerphone. "But my therapist said that in Weir's case we were mesmerized by him."

So both of them are in therapy.

"He said being with Weir created a Stockholm syndrome relationship. You know what that is?"

Rhyme said he was familiar with the condition – where hostages form close bonds with, and even feel affection and love for, their kidnappers.

"When did you last see him?" Sachs asked. The assessment exercise over, she was in soft clothes today – jeans and a forest-green knit blouse.

"In the hospital, the burn unit. That was about three years ago. I'd go visit him regularly at first but all he'd talk about was getting even with anybody who'd ever hurt him or who didn't approve of his kind of magic. Then he disappeared and I never saw him after that."

But then, the former protégé explained, Weir had called out of the blue about two months ago. Around the same time , Rhyme reflected, he'd called his other assistant. Loesser's wife had taken the call. "He didn't leave a number and said he'd call back but he never did. Thank God. I'll tell you, I don't know that I could've handled it."

"Do you know where he was when he called?"

"No. I asked Kathy – I was afraid he was back in town – but she said he didn't say and the call came up 'out-of-area' on caller-ID."

"He didn't tell your wife what he might be calling about? Any clue where he might be?"

"She said he sounded odd, agitated. He was whispering, hard to understand. I remember that from after the fire. His lungs'd been damaged. Made him even scarier."

Tell me about it , Rhyme thought.

"He asked if we'd heard anything about Edward Kadesky – he was the producer of the Hasbro show when the fire happened. That was it."

Loesser couldn't provide any other helpful information and they hung up.

Thom let two policewomen into the lab. Sachs nodded a greeting and introduced them to Rhyme. Diane Franciscovich and Nancy Ausonio.

They were, he recalled, the respondings at the first murder and had been given the assignment of tracking down the antique handcuffs.

Franciscovich said, "We talked to all the dealers the director of the museum recommended." Beneath their crisp uniforms both the tall brunette and the shorter blonde looked exhausted. They'd taken their assignment seriously, it seemed, and probably hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

"The handcuffs are Darbys, like you thought," Ausonio said. "They're pretty rare – and expensive. But we've got a list of twelve people who -"

"Oh, my God, look." Franciscovich was pointing to the evidence chart, where Thom had written:

• Perp's identity: Erick A. Weir.

Ausonio flipped through the sheets she held. "Erick Weir placed a mail order for a pair of the cuffs from Ridgeway Antique Weapons in Seattle last month."

"Address?" Rhyme asked excitedly.

"Post office box in Denver. We checked. But the lease lapsed. There're no records of a permanent address."

"And no record that Weir ever lived in Denver."

"Method of payment?" Sachs asked.

"Cash," was the simultaneous response from Ausonio and Rhyme, who added, "He's not going to make stupid mistakes. Nope. That trail's dead. But at least we've got a confirmation that this's our boy."

Rhyme thanked the officers and Sachs walked them to the door.

Another call came in on Rhyme's phone. The area code on the caller ID looked familiar but Rhyme couldn't place it. "Command, answer phone… Hello?"

"Yessir. This's Lieutenant Lansing, State Police. I'm trying to reach Detective Roland Bell. I was given this number as his temporary command post."

"Hey, Harv," Bell called, walking closer to the speaker phone. "I'm here." He explained to Rhyme, "Our liaison on the Constable case up in Canton Falls."

Lansing continued, "We got the evidence you sent up here this morning. Our forensic boys're going through it. We had a couple of detectives go and talk to Swensen's wife – that minister you folks took down last night. She didn't say anything helpful and my boys didn't find anything in the trailer to connect him to Constable or anybody else in the Patriot Assembly."

"Nothin'?" Bell sighed. "Too bad. I figured him to be poke-easy careless."

"Maybe the Patriot boys got there first and scoured the place clean."

"That's more'n half likely. Man, I'm feeling we're due a little luck here. Okay, keep at it, Harv. Thanks."

"We'll let you know, we come up with anything else, Roland."

They hung up.

"This Constable case's full-up tough as this one." Nodding at the whiteboards.

Another knock on the front door.

Armed with a large coffee cup Kara walked into the room, looking more tired and haggard than the policewomen.

Sellitto was delivering a monologue about new techniques for weight loss when his Jenny Craig lecture was interrupted by yet another phone call.

" Lincoln?" the voice crackled through the speakerphone. "Bedding here. We think we've narrowed the key down to three hotels. Reason it took so long – "

The voice of his partner, Saul, interrupted. "Turns out that a lot of monthly and long-term hotels use card keys too."

"Not to mention hourly-rate places. But that's a whole 'nother story."

"We had to check them all out. Anyway, that's what we found. It's probably I say, probably , either the Chelsea Lodge, the Beckman or the… what is it?"

"Or the Lanham Arms," his partner supplied.

"Right. They're the only ones using this color Model 42. We're at the Beckman now. Thirty-four and Fifth. We're about to start trying it out."

"What do you mean trying it out?" Rhyme called.

"How d'I put this?" Bedding or Saul wondered. "The keys work one way but not the other."

"How's that?" Rhyme asked.