"Also in your jacket. From two Saturdays ago."
"But that weekend I was--" He stopped speaking abruptly.
"Out of town, you were going to say?" Sachs asked. "Yeah, we know. The check was from a restaurant in Bedford Junction."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"A trooper in Canton Falls investigating the Patriot Assembly group called on my phone, asking for Roland," Rhyme said. "I recognized the area code from the caller ID--it was the same as the number of the restaurant on the check."
Weir's eyes grew still and Rhyme continued, "Bedford Junction turns out to be the town next to Canton Falls, which's where Constable lives."
"Who's this Constable you keep talking about?" he asked quickly. But Rhyme could see telltale signs of recognition in his face.
Sellitto took over. "Was Barnes one of the people you had lunch with? Jeddy Barnes?"
"I don't know who you mean."
"You know the Patriot Assembly though?"
"Just what I've read about in the paper."
"We don't believe you," Sellitto said.
"Believe what you like," Weir snapped. Rhyme could see the fierce anger in the eyes, the anger that Dobyns had predicted. After a pause he asked, "How'd you find out my real name?"
No one answered but Weir's eyes settled on the latest additions about him on the evidence chart. His face grew dark as he gasped, "Somebody betrayed me, didn't they? They told you about the fire and Kadesky. Who was it?" A vicious smile as he glanced from Sachs to Kara and finally settled on Rhyme. "Was it John Keating? He told you that I called him, didn't he? Spineless shit. He never stood up to me. Art Loesser too, right? They're all fucking Judases. I'll remember them. I always remember the people who betray me." He had a coughing fit. When it ended Weir was looking across the room. "Kara. . . . Is that what he said your name is? And who are you?"
"I'm an illusionist," she said defiantly.
"One of us," Weir mocked, looking her up and down. "A girl illusionist. And you're, what? A consultant or something? Maybe after I'm released I'll come visit. Maybe I'll vanish you."
Sachs snapped, "Oh, you ain't getting released in this lifetime, Weir."
The Conjurer's gasping laugh was chilly. "Then how about when I escape? Walls are, after all, just an illusion."
"I don't think escape's much of an option either," Sellitto added.
Rhyme said, "Well, I answered your 'how,' Weir. Or whatever you're calling yourself. How 'bout if you answer my 'why'? We thought it was revenge against Kadesky. But then it turns out you're after Grady. What are you? Some kind of hit-man illusionist?"
"Revenge?" Weir asked, furious. "What the fuck good is revenge? Will it take the scars away and fix my lungs? Will it bring my wife back? . . . You don't fucking understand! The only thing in my life, the only thing that's ever meant anything to me is performing. Illusion, magic. My mentor groomed me for the profession all my life. The fire took that away from me. I don't have the strength to perform. My hand's deformed. My voice is ruined. Who'd come to see me? I can't do the one thing that God gave me talent for. If the only way I can perform is to break the law, then that's what I'll do."
Phantom of the Opera syndrome . . .
He glanced at Rhyme's body again. "How did you feel after your accident, thinking you'd never be a cop again?"
Rhyme was silent. But the killer's words hit home. How had he felt? The same anger that fueled Erick Weir, yes. And, true, after the accident the concepts of right and wrong vanished completely. Why not be a criminal? he'd thought in the madness of fury and depression. I can find evidence better than any human being on the face of the earth. That means I can also manipulate it. I could commit the perfect crime. . . .
In the end, of course, thanks to people like Terry Dobyns and other doctors and fellow cops and his own soul, those thoughts had faded. But, yes, he did know exactly what Weir was talking about. Though even at the bleakest and angriest moments he never considered taking another life--except, of course, his own.
"So you sold your talen
ts like a mercenary?"
Weir seemed to realize that he'd lost control for a moment and had said too much. He refused to say anything else.
Sachs's anger got the better of her and she stepped to the whiteboard and ripped down several pictures of the first two victims. Shoving them into Weir's face, she raged, "You killed these people just for diversion? That's all they meant to you."
Weir held her eye, blase. Then he looked around and laughed. "You really think you can keep me in prison? Do you know that, for a challenge, Harry Houdini was stripped naked and put in death row in Washington, D.C. He escaped from his cell so fast that he had time to open all the doors on the cellblock and switch the condemned prisoners to each other's cells--before the challenge panel got back from lunch."