CHAPTER FIVE
They drove over to the theater in a car that was waiting for them at the airport. It obviously wasn’t a rental, though, because Paige could see the lights and sirens hidden beneath the grill, and when she opened up the trunk, she found tactical gear waiting there for her and Christopher. It seemed like the local field office had left it ready for them.
As they drove through the city, Paige found her eyes drawn to the endless bright lights and spectacle of the place, every inch of Las Vegas seeming to scream for attention all at once. There were huge billboards advertising the latest shows, and recreations of landmarks of the world, from the Eiffel Tower to Egyptian pyramids. The bulk of casinos rose on either side, each seeming to compete to be larger and more extravagant than its neighbors. The sheer scale of it all was kind of overwhelming.
“The strip is a lot to take in,” Christopher said as he drove. He seemed to have guessed what Paige was thinking. Maybe it was just because it was impossible not to think that way in a place as over the top as this, or maybe because he was just paying that kind of attention to her.
“I’m just wondering if all of this fed into the way the killer is committing his crimes,” Paige said. “If everything around here is shouting for attention, maybe he feels as though he needs to do something elaborate to have any kind of impact on the city?”
“So you think this is about attention?” Christopher asked. He sounded as if he wasn’t sure that was enough.
Paige wasn’t sure what to think right then. “Possibly. I think that it has to be a part of it, but I don’t know if it’s the whole thing or not. This killer has to know that killing in such an extravagant way will get media attention, but is that the only point to this? There are a lot of ways of committing spectacular crimes. I feel as though the magic angle has to be more personal to him than that.”
They were sliding off the strip now, into streets filled with smaller theaters and casinos, ones that still tried to pull in crowds with the gaudiness of their facades, but didn’t quite manage the same brightness or extravagance. In comparison, these theaters looked almost cheap, the shows they advertised featuring second rate singers and comedians. Several advertised magic shows, so Paige started to realize just what a big deal magic was in Vegas. How many magicians were there here? Even if they could be certain that this was a magician, and not just one of the many people out there with an interest in magic, the pool of suspects would still be too large for that to be enough to find the killer.
The theater they wanted was easy enough to find, if only because the presence of the police around it stood out even against the busy background of the city, proclaiming what had happened to the world. There were squad cars parked in front of it, along with a van for CSI techs. Police tape cordoned off the space in front of the theater, making it clear that the musical it was currently showing wouldn’t be running today.
There was still a crowd, though, standing around and staring, as if this were just one more facet to the entertainment of the city. Quite a lot of them seemed to be reporters.
Paige and Christopher parked, then hurried up to that tape, keeping their heads down so that the reporters wouldn’t have a chance to ask too many questions. There was a faint thrill for Paige at being able to flash her badge there, letting the cop on duty know that she was an agent. It was more than offset by the worry that came from the fact that she was about to step into an active crime scene, into the space where a young woman had been murdered.
Paige had to remind herself that she had done that before. She could handle this. She had to handle this.
“The main stage is that way,” the officer said, pointing. “That’s where she was found.”
“Thanks,” Christopher said. “Who’s the detective assigned to the case on your side?”
“That would be Detective Renard,” the cop said. “Although he’s back at the precinct now. I can call him if you like.”
Paige saw Christopher shake his head, though. Quickly, like he was determined not to give the cop a chance to do it. “We’ll catch up with him later.”
Paige got the feeling that he wanted to do this part of things alone. She understood that the relationship between the FBI and local police could sometimes be complicated. Maybe Christopher wanted to keep this part as simple as possible, without the addition of a detective who might get in the way? Or maybe Christopher just wanted to get a good look at the crime scene before talking to the local cops.
Either way, he headed inside and Paige had to follow him into the depths of the theater, into a large auditorium that could easily have seated a couple of thousand people on rows of folding red velvet seats. Gilded stucco ornaments on the ceiling and faux marble pillars leant a baroque feel to the place, giving Paige the impression that it was trying to be more upmarket than it actually was, without quite succeeding. A CSI team moved around the stage in their white plastic evidence suits, using brushes and blacklights on the corners of the stage so that it looked like a silent performance of their job.
One man obviously wasn’t with the police. He was a large man in his fifties, who wore a shiny cheap suit that looked as though he’d worn it a few too many times. He had short-cropped hair, and his features looked as though he’d started off handsome before he’d been in a few fights somewhere along the line. It didn’t help that he also had dark rings under his eyes, as if worry or lack of sleep were starting to get to him.
Paige took a guess, based on a combination of the way he looked and the simple fact that he stood in the middle of it all, looking it over the way another man might have looked at contractors working in his house.
“Are you the manager here?” she asked, because it was the only reason she could think of that he might have behaved like that.
“Are you more cops?” he demanded. “How many more of you are there going to be before I can open my theater again?”
“We’re FBI,” Christopher said. “I’m Agent Marriott, this is Agent King. Now, are you the manager, sir?”
He repeated Paige’s question slightly more firmly.
“FBI now? Let me guess, you’re going to want to start everything from the top, and I’m going to be closed for another day.”
Paige could hear the frustration there, presumably at the effect all of this was having on his bottom line. Still, that seemed pretty callous when someone had just been murdered in his establishment. Maybe it was just his way of dealing with the shock of it all, trying to shut it out, the way her mother had when her father died.
“Don’t you care that someone was killed here?” Paige asked.
“Of course I care,” the man said. “I care that some sicko chose here to do something like that. I care that I walked in this morning and almost had a heart attack when I saw all this. I also care about the fact that if this goes on much longer, I’ll have to start canceling performances. Do you know how tight the margins are with a magic show that’s not on the strip? Do you know how many people lose their jobs if the run falls through?”
“The sooner you help us, the sooner we’ll be gone,” Christopher said.
Paige wondered if it would actually be that simple. The CSI team would presumably keep working on the scene until they were sure that there was no more evidence to be gathered. Certainly, they wouldn’t allow a whole audience to trample through the theater and contaminate the crime scene until then. That probably meant that the theater would be closed for days.