She lived in Greenwich Village, but had been visiting her mother in a care facility uptown when Sachs had called, she explained. They spent a few moments catching up – Kara was putting together a one-woman show for the Performance Warehouse in Soho, and was dating an acrobat – then Rhyme said, “We need some expertise.”

“You bet,” the young woman said. “Whatever I can do.”

Sachs explained about the case. She frowned and whispered, “I’m sorry,” to Geneva when she heard about the attempted rape.

The student just shrugged.

“He had this with him,” Cooper said, holding up The Hanged Man tarot card from the rape pack.

“We thought you could tell us something about it.”

Kara had explained to Rhyme and Sachs that the world of magic was divided into two camps, those who were entertainers, who made no claim to having supernatural skills, and those who asserted they had occult powers. Kara had no patience for the latter – she was solely a performer – but because of her experience working in magic stores for rent and food money she knew something about fortune-telling.

She explained, “Okay, tarot’s an old method of divining that goes back to ancient Egypt. The tarot deck of cards’re divided into the minor arcana – they correspond to the fifty-two-card playing deck – and the major arcana, zero through twenty-one. They sort of represent a journey through life. The Hanged Man’s the twelfth card in the major arcana.” She shook her head. “But something doesn’t make sense.”

“What’s that?” Sellitto asked, subtly rubbing his skin.

“It’s not a bad card at all. Look at the picture.”

“He does look pretty peaceful,” Sachs said, “considering he’s hanging upside down.”

“The figure in the picture’s based on the Norse god Odin. He hung upside down for nine days on a search for inner knowledge. You get this card in a reading, it means you’re about to start a quest for spiritual enlightenment.” She nodded at a computer. “You mind?”

Cooper waved her to it. She typed a Google search and a few seconds later found a website. “How do I print this out?”

Sachs helped her, and a moment later a sheet rolled out of the laser printer. Cooper taped it up on the evidence board. “That’s the meaning,” she said.

The Hanged Man does not refer to someone being punished. Its appearance in a reading indicates spiritual searching leading to a decision, a transition, a change of direction. The card often foretells a surrendering to experience, ending a struggle, accepting what is. When this card appears in your reading you must listen to your inner self, even if that message seems to be contrary to logic.

Kara said, “It has nothing to do with violence or death. It’s about being spiritually suspended and waiting.” She shook her head. “It’s not the kind of thing a killer would leave – if he knew anything at all about tarot cards. If he’d wanted to leave something destructive, it would’ve been The Tower or one of the cards from the sword suit in the minor arcana. Those’re bad news.”

“So he picked it only because it looked scary,” Rhyme summarized. And because he planned to garrotte, or “hang,” Geneva.

“That’s what I’d guess.”

“That’s helpful,” Rhyme said.

Sachs too thanked her.

“I should get back. Have to rehearse.” Kara shook Geneva’s hand. “Hope things work out okay for you.”

“Thanks.”

Kara walked to the door. She stopped and looked at Geneva. “You like illusion and magic shows?”

“I don’t get out too much,” the girl said. “Pretty busy in school.”

“Well, I’m doing a show in three weeks. If you’re interested, all the details are on the ticket.”

“The…?”

“Ticket.”

“I don’t have a ticket.”

“Yes, you do,” Kara said. “It’s in your purse. Oh, and the flower with it? Consider it a good luck charm.”

She left, and they heard the door close.

“What’s she talking about?” Geneva asked, looking down at her purse, which was closed.

Sachs laughed. “Open it up.”

She unzipped the top and blinked in surprise. Sitting just inside was a ticket to one of Kara’s performances. Next to it was a pressed violet. “How did she do that?” Geneva whispered.

“We’ve never quite been able to catch her,” Rhyme said. “All we know is, she’s pretty damn good.”

“Man, I’ll say.” The student held up the dried purple flower.

The criminalist’s eyes slipped to the tarot card, as Cooper taped it to the evidence board, next to its meaning. “So, it seems like the sort of thing a killer would leave in an occult assault. But he didn’t have a clue what it was. He picked it for effect. So that means…” But his voice faded as he stared at the rest of the evidence chart. “Jesus.”

The others looked at him.

“What?” Cooper asked.

“We’ve got it all wrong.”

Taking a break from rubbing his face, Sellitto asked, “Whatta you mean?”

“Look at the prints on what was in the rape pack. He wiped his own off, right?”

“Yeah,” Cooper confirmed.

“But there are prints,” the criminalist offered. “And they’re probably the clerk’s, since they’re the same that’re on the receipt.”

“Right.” Sellitto shrugged. “So?”

“So he wiped his prints before he got to the cash register. While he was in the store.” Silence in the room. Irritated that nobody caught on, the criminalist continued, “Because he wanted the clerk’s prints on everything.”

Sachs understood. “He meant to leave the rape pack behind. So we’d find it.”

Pulaski was nodding. “Otherwise, he’d just have wiped everything after he got it home.”

“Ex-actly,” Rhyme said with a hint of triumph in his voice. “I think it was staged evidence. To make us think it was a rape, with some kind of occult overtones. Okay, okay… Let’s step back.” Rhyme was amused at Pulaski’s uneasy glance at Rhyme’s legs when the criminalist used the expression. “An attacker tracks down Geneva in a public museum. Not the typical setting for sexual assault. Then he hits her – well, the mannequin – hard enough to kill her, if not knock her out for hours. If that’s the case then what’s he need the box cutter and duct tape for? And he leaves a tarot card he thinks is scary but is really just about spiritual searching? No, it wasn’t an attempted rape at all.”

“What’s he up to then?” Sellitto asked.

“That’s what we damn well better find out.” Rhyme thought for a moment then asked, “And you said that Dr. Barry didn’t see anything?”

“That’s what he told me,” Sellitto replied.

“But the unsub still comes back and kills him.” Rhyme frowned. “And Mr. One-oh-nine broke up the microfiche reader. He’s a pro, but tantrums’re very un-pro. His vic’s getting away – he’s not going to waste time thumpin’ on things because he’s having a bad morning.” Rhyme asked the girl, “You said you were reading some old newspaper?”

“Magazine,” she corrected.

“On the microfiche reader?”

“Right.”

“Those?” Rhyme nodded at a large plastic evidence bag containing a box of microfiche trays that Sachs had brought back from the library. Two slots, carriages one and three, were empty.

Geneva looked at the box. She nodded. “Yeah. Those were the ones that had the article I was reading, the missing ones.”

“Did you get the one that was in the reader?”

Sachs replied, “There wasn’t one. He must’ve taken it with him.”

“And smashed the machine so we wouldn’t notice that the tray was gone. Oh, this is getting interesting. What was he up to? What the hell was his motive?”

Sellitto laughed. “I thought you didn’t care about motive. Only evidence.”

“You need to draw the distinction, Lon, between using motive to prove a case in court – which is speculation at best – and using motive to lead you to the evidence, which conclusively convicts a perp: A man kills his business partner with a gun that we trace to his garage loaded with bullets he bought per a receipt with his fingerprints on it. In that case who cares if he killed the partner because he thinks a talking dog told him to or because the guy was sleeping with his wife? The evidence makes the case.