The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

"That your point was to hit the circus?" Rhyme glanced at Sachs.

She said, "There wasn't a lot of evidence but it suggested--"

" 'Suggested,' Sachs? I'd say it screamed."

"Suggested," she continued, unfazed by his interjection, "what you were really going to do. In the closet--the one in the basement of the Criminal Courts building--we found the bag with your change of clothes in it, the fake wound."

"You found the bag?"

She continued, "There was some dried red paint on the shoes and your suit. And carpet fibers."

"I thought the paint was fake blood." Rhyme shook his head, angry with himself. "It was logical to make that assumption but I should've considered other sources. It turned out that the FBI's paint database identified it as Jenkin Manufacturing automotive paint. The shade is an orange-red that's used exclusively for emergency vehicles. That particular formula is sold in small cans--for touch-ups. The fibers were automotive too--they were from heavy-duty commercial carpet installed in GMC ambulances up until eight years ago."

Sachs: "So Lincoln deduced that you'd bought or stolen an old ambulance recently and fixed it up. It might've been for an escape or for another attempt on Charles Grady's life. But then he remembered the bits of brass--what if they actually were from a timer, like we'd thought originally? And since you'd used gas on the handkerchief in Lincoln's apartment, well, that meant that, possibly, you were going to hide a gas bomb in a fake ambulance."

Rhyme offered, "Then I simply used logic--"

"He played a hunch is what he's sayin'," Bell chided.

"Hunches," Rhyme snapped, "are nonsense. Logic isn't. Logic is the backbone of science, and criminalistics is pure science."

Sellitto rolled his eyes at Bell.

But insubordination in the ranks wasn't going to dampen Rhyme's enthusiasm. "Logic, I was saying. Kara had told us about pointing your audience's attention toward where you don't want them to look."

The best illusionists'll rig the trick so well that they'll point directly at their method, directly at what they're really going to do. But you won't believe them. You'll look in the opposite direction. When that happens, you've had it. You've lost and they've won.

"That's what you did. And I have to say it was a brilliant idea. Not a compliment I give very often, is it, Sachs? . . . You wanted revenge against Kadesky for the fire that ruined your life. And so you created a routine that'd let you do it and get away afterward--just like you'd create an illusion for the stage, with layers of misdirections." Rhyme squinted in consideration. He said, "The first misdirection: You 'forced'--Kara told us that's the word illusionists use, right?"

The killer said nothing.

"I'm sure that's what she said. First, you forced the thought on us that you were going to destroy the circus for revenge. But I didn't believe it--too obvious. And our suspicion led to misdirection two: You planted the newspaper article about Grady, the restaurant receipt, the press pass and the hotel key to make us conclude you were going to kill him. . . . Oh, the jogging jacket by the Hudson River? You were going to leave that at the scene intentionally, weren't you? That was planted evidence you wanted us to find."

The Conjurer nodded. "I was, yes. But it worked out better because your officers surprised me and it looked more natural for me to leave the jacket when I escaped."

"Now, at that point," the criminalist continued, "we think you're a hired assassin, using illusion to get close to Charles Grady and kill him. . . . We've figured you out. There go our suspicions. . . . To an extent."

The Conjurer managed a faint smile. " 'An extent,' " he wheezed. "See, when you use misdirection to trick people--smart people--they continue to be suspicious."

"So you hit us with misdirection number three. To keep us focused away from the circus you made us think that you got arrested intentionally to get inside the detention center not to kill Grady but to break Constable out of jail. By then we'd forgotten completely about the circus and Kadesky. But in fact you didn't care a bit about either Constable or Grady."

"They were props, misdirections to fool you," he admitted.

"The Patriot Assembly, they're not going to be too happy about that," Sellitto muttered.

A nod at the shackles. "I'd say that's the least of my worries, wouldn't you?"

Knowing what he did about Constable and the others in the Assembly, Rhyme wasn't too sure.

Bell nodded at the Conjurer and asked Rhyme, "But why'd he go to the trouble to set up Constable and plan the fake escape?"

Sellitto answered, "Obviously--to, you know, misdirect us away from the circus so he'd have an

easier time getting the bomb there."

"Actually, no, Lon," Rhyme said slowly. "There was another reason."

At these words, or perhaps at the cryptic tone in Rhyme's voice, the killer turned toward the criminalist, who could see caution in his eyes--real caution, if not fear--for the first time that night.