Chapter 67

Motive was there, but they couldn't prove he bought the cruise ticket. He also had an alibi for the night of the murder, since his hotel key card indicated he was in the room all night. They talked to Jacob's fiancé again, and she said she got the job with Carmine because Dean Holiday pointed her in that direction.

It was all a plan to get Jacob a leg up in the business. She still denied that she put the potassium chloride in Stone's IV, but even though she hadn't told Holiday about the safe room, he read her and figured it out.

They interrogated Jacob again, as well, and he realized that she had betrayed him. Bobby wasn't sure they knew they had helped kill Stone.

In the AV room, they watched the prerecorded loops of Miles Stone in the casket until they found footage where he was already dead. The time stamp on the film indicated that the footage when he wasn't breathing was recorded before the footage when he was still alive. Over a cup of coffee, the detectives talked about Dean Holiday, and how to extract his confession.

They found him rehearsing his act. Holiday was in a guillotine, and an assistant made it look as if he'd lopped off the man's head.

Bobby clapped as they walked closer to the stage. "That's- that was great," Goren said. "Really… Dean, go ahead. I'm sorry. You can do your bow thing."

The magician pulled the black hood off his head.

"I used to have one of these when I was a kid," Goren said, pointing to the guillotine. "I did really, honestly. Mine was 11 foot, but, you know, a little different than this. Mine was a double blade. This, this is a body switch, right?"

"Something like that, yes."

"This is really… cool, though. It really is!" Bobby walked over and grabbed another box on the stage. "I mean, it's all pretty simple, you know?" Alex followed him, enjoying Bobby's enthusiasm. "It's all just fake legs and trap doors, you know?"

"Please, don't touch them," Holiday said.

Bobby chuckled. "and it all just seems so obvious when you finally know what the secret is. It's just, like, right in front of your face the whole time."

"Yeah, it's uh… misdirection."

"Yeah, misdirection," Bobby agreed. He pointed over at Eames. "You know, we arrested Stone's killers." Holiday looked over in surprise. "Jacob Green and his fiancé. She's a burn unit nurse, Teresa." Goren continued walking across the stage, to go explore another piece of the magician's equipment.

"Really?"

Holiday's assistant stood by the box. "I know how this trick works," Bobby said.

"Did they confess?"

Alex replied, "No, but they poisoned him through his IV. Their prints were all over the safe room."

Bobby put his hands together and begged the woman to let him do the trick with her. "Please. One time." She got into the box.

"Oh," Holiday said with a smile. "That's how they did it. The buried alive gag, I mean. A safe room."

Alex spoke again. "Well, killing him was the easy part. He was a sitting duck."

"But the theatrics," Bobby added, "they were spectacular." Alex walked over to him and he turned to her, his hand on the handle of the box. "I know how to do this," he said. "I can… watch." He pulled the handle of the box, and it slid sideways, apparently removing the top half of the woman inside from the bottom half. He opened the top, revealing her severed torso. "You know, the thing we can't figure out is how Jacob pulled off the switch."

Alex saw the trick and gasped in surprise. Bobby laughed. "Isn't that great?! Look!" He looked at the assistant and lowered his voice. "Sorry," he said to her. Then he put her hands back inside and shut the box.

"Didn't you say his fiancé was involved?"

"Oh, she was onstage with Carmine when Stone's body must have been moved," Alex replied. Bobby returned the assistant to one piece. She stepped out of the box. He thanked her and she walked away. "And Jacob was at the grave site."

"So, all he needed was a stage hand to move the body from the safe room to Coney Island."

"But," Bobby said, "not just anyone. I mean, you can't give an outsider the ace to palm. I mean, it had to be another magician, someone as good as Stone." Holiday stared at Bobby, realizing they were still after him. "You know, for a while," Bobby grinned at him, "I thought it was you, you know, because you fit the profile, for whatever it's worth. I know, according to you, not much."

Holiday laughed and nodded.

"But…"

"Still, it's always flattering when people think you're smarter than you are."

"Or more vain," Alex piped in. "Didn't you used to have a network deal before they dropped you in favor of Stone? How many millions of people saw him on TV that night?" She asked Bobby.

"Fifteen," Goren answered. "The perfect opportunity to show millions of people that… Stone wasn't the real deal."

"Well, all due respect, he wasn't." Holiday looked back at the two detectives.

"Not like you, right?" Bobby continued. He smiled again. "I thought that you killed him because he eclipsed you."

Holiday scoffed. "That's a pathetic portrait," he said. Alex stood between the killer and her partner. This was the dangerous part of the interrogation, when they would keep working their way in, trying to get him to confess. The thing was, he might confess, or he might clam up, or he might get angry. And if he got angry, anything could happen. "And it's way too simple." Bobby looked down shyly. "I realized when I was watching Stone's webcam feed that for almost an hour his chest stopped moving."

"His fans were watching a dead man and didn't even know it," Eames said.

"And that the killer was brazen enough to kill Stone in front of millions of witnesses."

"It took real passion," Alex said. "That's when we knew it couldn't have been you," she told Holiday.

"You have some anger, don't you detective?" The man asked, furrowing his brow. "Is it the betrayal?" He probed.

Alex smiled at him, and Bobby's voice broke in. "Yeah, well, what about yours?" Goren asked, pointing at him. He walked around behind Alex and came closer to stand at her side. "You know, your betrayal of your art?" Bobby smiled, now, and put his hands on his hips. "We saw your show, and you know, you're phoning it in." He glanced at Alex, who smiled in agreement. "Ten years ago, you would have had the audacity, but now…no chance."

Dean Holiday took their insults and decided to turn it back on them again. "What about you, detective?" He asked Goren this time. "Lost a step or two over the years, or do you still think you can pull off the big solve when you need to?"

One glance, and she knew Bobby'd taken it personally. "Oh, but he solved this one," she interjected, drawing Bobby's gaze to her for a moment. "Jacob was the jealous unsung genius who pulled off the greatest trick of all time live while the nation was watching."

"I thought you said you still didn't know how he did it."

"No, we don't. But he'll probably end up pleading out," Goren said. He glanced over at Eames again. "Want to know the irony of the thing?" He asked the magician.

"If you insist."

"That Jacob engineered the whole trick just to show the world that Stone wasn't what they thought he was." He stared into Holiday's eyes.

"And since he won't confess," Alex spoke, "Stone's death is still a mystery."

"Right," said Bobby. "He'll probably end up being a bigger legend than, I don't know… like, Houdini."

"And Jacob, the only person who knows the secret, won't reveal it." Both detectives stared at Dean Holiday, who considered their words.

Holiday smiled, then sobered. "Jacob is not a genius, he's a geek. The tunnel, the safe room, they're all very workmanlike. But no vision."

"No, like Stone, I think, maybe transcends magic," said Bobby.

"Stone was an overpaid, overindulged little punk."

Bobby listened and smiled. "And he had nerve, you gotta give him that."

"Nerve? The only nerve that he had was to think it all began and ended with him." Holiday turned and stepped away from them angrily. "You know, there's a history to what we do. There is a code… that kind of disrespect…"

"And he needed to be taught a lesson," Bobby prompted.

"Yeah, yeah, he did."

"You had the perfect crime," Eames said. "Slip into Stone's safe house, inject the potassium chloride, slip out. You even had two perfect patsies to take the fall."

Bobby stepped up behind Holiday. "But you're too much of a showman for that."

Alex stepped forward, too. "You took Stone's body to Coney Island yourself, planted him on Carmine's stage."

Holiday stood with one hand in front of his mouth and his eyes closed, as if he was holding his breath. "C'mon, Dean," Bobby prodded. "What's the bigger crime? That you killed Miles Stone, or that no one will ever know? I mean, you need to take him down, there's only one way."

"You know, Stone is as much to blame as I am," the man said. He turned to face Goren. "If he hadn't starved himself, made it look so real…he might have had the strength to put up a fight." He paused and then smiled. "He made it easy for me."

With that, Bobby arrested Dean Holiday. He was careful to cuff him behind his back so he couldn't escape.

It still took three hours to polish off the case. They had to bring him in and get the formal confession, book him, meet with Jacob and Teresa and their lawyers to adjust their charges and entertain a plea bargain, and then finish the paperwork.

Bobby signed his report and tossed his pen on the desk with a clatter. He pressed his fingers into his eyes.

Alex took a phone call and spoke as she hung up the phone. "That was Farley. She offered to buy us drinks, but it looks like you're done for."

"N-no, I can go," he said, dropping his hands away.

Alex gave him a long look. He was tired. She could see the bags under his eyes. On the one hand, she knew he could tag along just fine, but on the other, Farley wasn't a close friend or anything. "You know what, Bobby? Come to think of it, I'm kinda wiped, myself. I'll call her back, take a rain check."

"D-don't cancel on account of me," he said.

"I'm not. I think I'd rather hang around the house tonight, anyway."

Bobby gathered up the finalized reports. "I'll go turn these in," he said, and stepped away.

After they parted for the evening, Goren's phone rang. It was Declan. The old man got him talking, and he told him Alex just solved the Miles Stone case.