“Me? No, I haven’t any idea.”
“No one comes to mind?”
“No,” Moser said, but Robin was certain that he was lying.
“Mr. Moser, if someone is responsible for three murders and the attempt on Miss Barrister, this person is very, very dangerous. If you know anything, you have to tell the police.”
“Yes, certainly. If I think of someone, I’ll tell the police,” Moser said, “but I don’t know anything that can help your client.”
“I think you do, Mr. Moser, and I think you know why the killer waited so long to exact her revenge. I’ve also come up with the reason you went to Chesterfield’s show.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sophie Randall had a daughter named Jane. What happened to her daughter after Gary killed himself?”
Beads of sweat appeared on Moser’s brow. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Was Jane put into foster care, did someone adopt her, did she go to live with a relative?”
“I don’t know what happened to Jane.”
“You and Sophie were close. You must have felt overwhelming guilt for giving her the chocolates, and you must have felt horrible when Gary killed himself.”
Moser looked away.
“I saw a picture of Sophie Randall, and I saw a woman at Chesterfield’s performance who bears a strong resemblance to her. Did you see a picture of Chesterfield’s assistants in the ads advertising the Chamber of Death? Did you go to Robert Chesterfield’s magic show to find out if one of those assistants was Jane Randall?”
Moser stiffened. He shook his head. “This is nonsense. I don’t know what happened to Jane Randall.”
“She’s a killer, Mr. Moser. I know you feel responsible for giving the chocolates to Sophie, but that doesn’t justify shielding a murderer.”
Moser’s head dropped into his hands. “Chesterfield deserved to die.”
“Did Judge Beathard and Morris Quinlan also deserve to die? And what about Regina Barrister? Who is Jane Randall, Mr. Moser?”
Robin called Carrie Anders as soon as she left the Westmont. “I know who killed Robert Chesterfield,” she said. “She may also have murdered Morris Quinlan, Henry Beathard—the judge who heard Chesterfield’s case back in the nineties—and I’m sure she sent the poisoned chocolates to Regina. I’m headed to you. I’ll explain everything when I get there.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“Magic illusions rely on misdirection, and Robert Chesterfield’s murder was part of a magnificent illusion,” Robin told Dillon and Anders when they were seated in a small conference room in the Homicide Bureau. “Who was the first person everyone believed was the murderer?” Robin asked.
“Nancy Porter, the assistant who appeared to push Chesterfield into the sarcophagus,” Dillon said.
“Why didn’t you arrest her, Roger?”
“We found out that the killer hid her inhaler so he could get her alone. Then he rendered her unconscious and stole her robe so he could conceal himself and kill Chesterfield.”
“When you are in the audience, the magician’s escape from the sarcophagus in the Chamber of Death seems impossible,” Robin said. “If you see the trick from a different angle, the magic can lose its luster. You learn that the magician doesn’t dematerialize. He simply rolls out of the sarcophagus when his assistant blocks the audience’s view. Then he crawls into the dolly and gets pushed offstage.
“What if we look at Chesterfield’s murder from a differentangle,” Robin said. “Sophie Randall was murdered with a box of poisoned chocolates twenty-plus years ago. She had a daughter, Jane. Jane was five when her mother died. Shortly after Sophie Randall was murdered, her father committed suicide. Jane would be in her twenties now.
“When Robert Chesterfield disappeared three years ago, the newspapers dredged up all the details of Sophie Randall’s murder. That may have been when Jane Randall learned that Chesterfield escaped punishment for killing her mother and also learned the identity of the people who helped him beat the case.
“Right before rehearsals for the Chamber of Death were going to start, Renee Chambers called her agent. She told Olmstead that her mother was very ill and she had to leave Oregon to be with her. She also recommended Nancy Porter as her replacement.
“Jeff checked. Renee Chambers’s mother is in perfect health. I think Jane Randall changed her name to Nancy Porter. I think she got Renee Chambers to lie to Marvin Olmstead about her mother so Nancy could replace her in Chesterfield’s show. At that late date, Chesterfield would have had to hire Porter because the show was scheduled to begin in a week.”
“If I’m right, Jane stabbed Chesterfield. Then she pushed the dolly offstage, dumped her robe near the loading dock exit to make it look like the killer escaped through it, and returned to her dressing room, where she used a cloth with ether to knock herself out, knowing that everyone would assume she was also a victim.”