I finished reading the text message and looked up at Brixton. His eyes were wide and he was trying to raise a pointed eyebrow, but both were raised. In the half-lit theater, the effect made him look like a demented clown.
I gave my head a subtle shake. Brixton was jumping to unfounded conclusions in thinking the magicians were lying to us. People who weren’t conducting their own investigation wouldn’t necessarily read up on the history of a murder victim. An equally rational—or, it could be argued, more rational—approach would be to let the police handle things.
“You asked how I know my father is innocent,” Peter said. He continued to juggle, but his eyes were locked on Brixton’s. “You read that book, so you know the thief is supposed to have pulled off countless heists throughout the 1960s. But they never identified the culprit until this last heist. There’s no evidence it was my father. Only the fact that he was killed by the police that day.”
“But the media—” Brixton began.
“I lived with him,” Peter snapped. The juggled oranges swooped higher into the air, nearly reaching to the catwalk. “Don’t you think I would have noticed? He was a woodworker who made children’s toys. We didn’t have much money. My father’s family once had money, generations before I was born, but that’s not how we lived. He was a simple man who made an honest living. He didn’t deserve this.”
“Franklin Thorne was accused of killing the guard, Arnold Burke, in cold blood,” Penelope said. “But really, Franklin was a hero. It was Burke who was the thief.”
“How did everyone get it wrong?” Brixton asked.
“Franklin Thorne and Arnold Burke looked similar,” she said. “Nothing like how much Peter resembles his father. But both men had mustaches, brown hair, and were close to fifty years old. Witnesses mixed them up.”
“Eyewitness accounts are always unreliable,” Peter said. “It’s the same principle that makes magic shows successful. People see what they want to see—and what they’re led to seeing. Nobody wanted to believe a trusted guard who’d once been a policeman was actually a master thief, so they didn’t see it. But the truth is that my father was the guard’s hostage, not the other way around.”
It was an all-too-common story. I’d seen it play out across the world through the centuries. In many ways the world progressed toward more just societies, but this wasn’t one of those areas. But it’s a noble failing. Nobody wants to believe that a dependable member of society would betray their trust. That’s why our minds fill in the blanks with unreliable, yet well-meaning, eyewitness accounts.
“The story the police tell,” Penelope added, “is that Franklin held up the train car, and when confronted by the guard, Franklin took him hostage. But really, the guard was the thief. That’s how he’d gotten away with so many robberies. When Franklin stepped up to stop the corrupt Burke, he was himself taken hostage.”
“They escaped,” Peter said, “but the police caught up with them later that day. That’s when the shoot-out took place. Both men were killed, and my father was blamed for the whole thing, instead of being hailed as the hero he was for trying to stop the jewel heist.”
“But you are here because of the sapphire necklace that was found,” I said.
“In a sense,” Peter said. “But not for the money. I’m hoping there will be evidence that shows it was found in Arnold Burke’s hiding spot. That will prove Burke was the thief all along.”
“We were performing in Reno when we heard about the discovery of the sapphire necklace,” Penelope said. “We were booked through the end of last month, but we made plans to perform a run of shows here as soon as we could.”
“You look skeptical,” Peter said. For a change, the sarcastic edge from his voice was gone, replaced with a flat, resigned tone. “It’s a look I know well. But let me ask you this: The jewels are identifiable. Utterly unique. How could I profit from selling them? I’d only get the reward money, which isn’t much. Those treasure hunters were in for the fun of it. Maybe some of them came for the trivial reward. But nobody besides the Lake family cares as much as I do. Nobody.”
“What’ve you found out so far?” Brixton asked. “You going to be able to clear your dad’s name?”
Penelope took Peter’s hand in hers. The three oranges he’d been juggling fell to the floor at my feet. She sighed. “Our first lead was a bust. We thought the guard’s old house must have been in the area affected by the winter flooding. On a map it looked like it was. But the flooding didn’t affect that area much. I was wrong. We’ve also tried to talk to Julian Lake, but he’s quite elderly and a notorious recluse, so he wouldn’t see us.”
“We got so busy with the stage show that we haven’t had time to think of next steps,” Peter said. “But nobody is more motivated to find the truth. I’ll get there.”
I was filled with a combination of relief and disappointment. There wasn’t a dangerous alchemist in town, so no one was going to expose my secret. But at the same time, I could no longer hope there was a backward alchemist I could turn to for help with Dorian’s book.
If it hadn’t been for Dorian becoming entangled, at that moment I could have walked away from Peter and Penelope Silverman. I didn’t know how serious a suspect I was, but I did know that Dorian was now central to the investigation. The magicians’ motive had gone up in smoke, and Dorian’s stone toe in Wallace Mason’s hand was confusing the line of inquiry. With the focus on Dorian obscuring the facts, I had little faith the investigation would be resolved quickly. I feared for my friend, trapped in both stone and police custody.