One of the reasons stage magic can look truly impossible, like something supernatural is responsible, is because the magician has practiced for hundreds of hours and has taken every detail into consideration. The use of misdirection is central to any illusion, be it a magic trick like the ones Tempest performed—or a murder made to look impossible. But misdirection only works when it’s set up perfectly. One mistake and the house of cards tumbles down. Tempest needed to find just one loose card. That would be enough to send the house tumbling down to reveal what was behind the trick.
The problem was that unlike Tempest’s exhaustive knowledge of her own illusions, where she knew every last detail down to the centimeter and second, she was missing too many pieces of the crimes going on around her to see the trick. Too many gaps in her knowledge.
She looked to the silver charm bracelet she’d worn every day for the last five years. The top hat, Janus-faced jester, lightning bolt, fiddle, selkie, book, handcuffs, and key. Each was a symbol related to her and her mom’s shared love of magic.
The top-hat charm was a reminder that the history and foundations of magic were important to learn before rushing forward. If you sped too quickly to get to the spectacular ending, you’d skip the necessary steps to get the end result you wanted. In a magic performance, that would mean revealing what was up your sleeve. In this real-life trick she needed to unravel, that would mean too much guesswork derailing her from finding the true solution.
Before jumping to conclusions about Detective Rinehart and before looking through Lavinia’s Lair for clues about Sylvie’s disappearance, Tempest knew she needed to learn more about what exactly had happened that morning.
Sylvie’s apartment building was a run-down ’60s-style building dominated by slabs of drab concrete and looked rather like a motel you’d find on a lonely stretch of highway. The front doors of all the units in the U-shaped two-story building were accessible from the outside. The second-floor walkway was covered by a flat roof that extended to shield each doorway from rain. It hadn’t been an especially rainy winter, yet the rain gutter was dirty and bent.
Sylvie’s apartment was on the far end of the second floor, directly above the building’s laundry room, so there was only one option for a next-door neighbor who would have heard her alarm clock and called the building manager. Tempest knocked on the door of Sylvie’s neighbor and introduced herself as a concerned member of Sylvie’s book club who wanted to help.
“What was your name, hon?” the sprightly woman asked from the doorway. She held a tumbler of iced tea and an unlit cigarette in one hand and rested the other against the door frame. Her gray hair was tied in a bright pink scarf and she wore a matching pink sweatshirt over silver leggings.
“Tempest.”
“Tempest what?”
“What?”
“Your surname, hon.”
“Raj. I’m Tempest Raj.”
The woman pursed her lips as she stretched her skinny neck to look up at Tempest. “Middle initial?”
Middle initial? Was this a scam to steal her identity? “Um…”
The woman laughed, then knelt and scratched the head of a corgi that had snuck up between her legs. “I’m not trying to steal your Social Security number or anything. But I suspect you’re lying about the book club. Sylvie told me how it was perfect that each of the members had a name that made up the word ‘KEYS.’ A silly membership criteria, if you ask me! But there it is. You’re not one of them.” She rumpled the corgi’s ears as a larger dog approached them. Compared to the playful corgi, the collie stood rigidly, looking down his nose at the smaller dog.
“No,” Tempest admitted. “I’m not a member.”
“Why do you care about figuring out what happened to Sylvie?”
“I love my grandfather dearly. He’s one of the most generous and loving men you’ll ever meet.”
“That’s nice, hon. But what does that have to do with—”
“He was at an event with Sylvie where a man was murdered last week, and now he’s a suspect.” She didn’t think it would help to add that he’d been arrested.
“Terrible all ’round.” The woman shook her head. “Sylvie was so shaken when she got back.”
“The police are focusing on my grandfather, even though I know he’s innocent. He didn’t hurt Sylvie, either.”
Sylvie’s neighbor gave her corgi one more playful pat before standing. “Let’s chat in the courtyard. These two are getting along fine. Be back soon, fellas.” She left her iced tea, but tucked the unlit cigarette behind her ear, picked up her phone, and spun a gargantuan set of keys around her diminutive index finger before shutting the apartment door behind them.
“The collie is Sylvie’s dog?”
“Lord Peter misses her already. He’s quite devoted. I’m Laura, by the way. This way.” She led them to a wooden bench in the central courtyard, next to a stone fountain devoid of water.
Tempest let her host pick if she wanted the sunny or shady side of the bench. Laura chose the sunny side. She played with the cigarette but didn’t light it. On closer inspection, the cigarette was rumpled, as if it had been handled hundreds of times, and had a large crease in one spot where it might have rested between two restless fingers. If Tempest had thought a Sherlockian deduction would have put Laura at ease, she would have made an offhand remark about how it was commendable that she’d quit smoking. But sharing observations about personal habits that people hadn’t freely shared rarely ended well.
“You think you can figure out what happened to Sylvie better than the police?”
“I have to try.”
“Sylvie loves that dog. That’s how I knew something was wrong. Maybe she’d leave early and forget to turn off an alarm clock. But leave Peter? Never. Not even if there’d been an emergency. No, I knew something was wrong.”
“You two have known each other a long time?”
“We’re friendly, but not friends, you know? More like dog-mom friends. I know she loves vinyl records because she gets LPs mailed to her, she’s a big reader—though she gets books at the library—and she adores her dog. Her dog is even named after a character in some book. When I first met her, I thought the ‘Lord’ bit of Lord Peter’s name was because Peter’s such a regal dog. Turns out it’s the name of a fancy British fella in one of Sylvie’s favorite books. She’s lived here with Peter since I moved in nearly a decade ago.”
“She’s been here that long?”
“I know she doesn’t look like someone who’d live here. She used to be well-off, as I understand it. An advertising exec. Her job moved to New York. She didn’t. I pressed her on that once. Since she seems so New York, you know? I always imagined her looking in her element stepping out of a taxi in New York or London—not that I’ve ever been to London. But from the movies.”
“What did she say?”
“She stayed for a man.” Laura tucked the rumpled cigarette behind her ear and shook her head. “Nothing good ever comes from giving up your dreams for a man. I have personal experience on that one. Sylvie’s man wasn’t quite Lord Peter something-or-other, she said, but as close to him as you can get in the real world.”
“What happened?”
“He died. He was ill for a long time, I take it. It was hard on her. She never put her career first. Before you know it, you’re past middle age and invisible. It happens before you realize it. Don’t let life pass you by, Tempest.”
Tempest felt herself smiling. Her life was a mess, but she was certainly living it fully. And protecting her family as best she could.
“I’m working on it,” she said, “Starting with helping make sure my grandfather isn’t held responsible for a crime he didn’t commit. You didn’t hear anything else odd this morning, did you? I know about the door slamming, the alarm going off, and Peter barking.”
“What do you do for a living, Tempest?”
Tempest couldn’t tell if Sylvie’s neighbor was being friendly or evasive. “I’m working for my dad’s home-renovation company.”
“You look like a nice young woman. I know you’re worried about your grandfather, but honey, the police are better equipped to find out what she was up to.”
What she was up to? “Why did you say it like that?”
“Like what?” she blinked at Tempest.
“Sylvie was up to something?”
“Of course, hon. She’s in that silly book club where they only read mystery novels. I’m more of a romance reader myself.”
“What does the book club have to do with anything?”
“Sylvie was lonely. She lived through her books. Especially ones about a gentleman who sticks his nose into other people’s problems to solve mysteries.”
“You think Sylvie was doing the same thing?”
“Oh, I know she was. She saw something that night of the murder. I don’t know what it was. We aren’t that close, you know. But the last time we ran into each other and walked to the dog park together, I got the feeling she was close to putting the pieces together. Along with someone else in that book club of hers.”
“You told this to the police this morning?”
“Of course, hon. But I didn’t know anything specific, so I don’t know how seriously they took what I told them. Like I said, when you get to be my age, you’re pretty much invisible.”
Had Sylvie gotten too close to the killer’s identity? What had she discovered?