Christopher nodded. “The performer or assistant is tied up, handcuffed, sometimes placed in a sack, and then locked inside a safe. The idea is for them to try to escape before a set time. Having a safe that can be demonstrated to be airtight ups the sense of peril. In some versions, they just escape, but it’s more common for them to leave it until the audience members are panicking, then open the safe to show that they’ve disappeared.”
So in both cases, the killer had chosen to copy classic magic tricks, but it wasn’t so much about the magic angle as about what that could tell them about the killer.
“What interests me is that he chose two different tricks to copy,” Paige said. “Serial killers can be incredibly specific about their methods sometimes. The method becomes like a ritual that has to be performed precisely. But this one has used two very different ones here. The magic trick side of this seems like the only unifying factor.”
“So do you think we’re actually looking for a magician?” Christopher asked.
“It seems likely,” Paige replied. “The magic has to be meaningful to the killer, otherwise why go to all of that trouble? Those are some pretty elaborate lengths he went to in order to do things this way rather than… I don’t know, sneaking up and stabbing someone.”
But he couldn’t do that, because that didn’t fit with whatever was going on inside his head. No, all of this meant something to the killer, something deeply personal. Something that meant so much that he couldn’t do things any other way. Finding out exactly what might be the key that allowed the two of them to unlock the whole case.
“Hopefully, that narrows down the suspect pool a little,” Christopher said. “Although, in Vegas, maybe not as much as we’d like. Stage magic is huge there. A Las Vegas show is seen as the pinnacle of a lot of magicians’ careers.”
“And now, here’s a serial killer putting on his own kind of performance there for the world to see,” Paige said. Could that be what this was? A way for someone to get the attention they felt they deserved? A way to grab the eyes of the world when they hadn’t been able to in a normal way?
“Do you think that’s what this is about?” Christopher asked.
“I think it’s possible,” Paige replied. “And I think there’s an element of control to all of this as well. A magic trick puts the magician in a position of power, where they control what the audience sees and does. They control their assistants, the circumstances, all of it. Maybe this is a way of someone expressing a wish to take control of events in their life in the most violent way possible.”
“So an out of control magician,” Christopher said.
Paige shrugged. “I still want to know more. When we get to Las Vegas, we need to take a closer look at the most recent crime scene.”