Kyle’s eyes were fastened on his father. “You already know who it is, don’t you?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

Madeleine spoke up excitedly. “The thing I keep hearing you talk about, the ‘oddity’ that bothers you the most, is the involvement of Peter Pan—who supposedly only accepted really difficult contracts. So there are just two questions. First, ‘Who at the Mary Spalter funeral would be the most difficult to kill?’ And second, ‘Did Carl pass in front of that person as he was heading for the podium?’ ”

Hardwick’s interjected response sounded certain, despite his speech being somewhat blurred. “Answer to the first is Jonah. Answer to the second is yes.”

Gurney had come to the same conclusion nearly four hours earlier on the concourse by the Ferris wheel, but it was reassuring to see another mind arrive at the same place. With Jonah as the intended victim, all the twisted pieces of the case straightened out. Jonah was somewhere between difficult and impossible to locate physically, which made him the perfect challenge for Panikos. In fact, his mother’s funeral may well have been the only event that was capable of guaranteeing his presence in a predictable place at a predictable time, which is why Panikos killed her. Jonah’s seated position at graveside solved the line-of-sight problem from the Axton Avenue apartment. Carl couldn’t have been hit as he stepped past Alyssa, but he could easily have been hit by a bullet intended for Jonah as he stumbled to the ground in front of him. That scenario also explained the inconsistency that had troubled Gurney from the outset: How did Carl manage to travel ten or twelve feet after a bullet had destroyed the motor center of his brain? The simple answer was that he didn’t. And finally, the absurd outcome—in which “the Magician” shot the wrong man, making a potential laughingstock of himself in the very circles where his reputation mattered—explained his subsequent deadly efforts to keep that ruinous fact a secret.

The next question followed naturally.

Kyle asked it, uneasily. “If Jonah was the real target, who hired Panikos to kill him?”

From a simple cui bono perspective, it seemed to Gurney that the answer was obvious. Only one person would have benefited significantly from Jonah’s death, and he would have benefited very significantly indeed.

The expressions on their faces showed that the answer was equally obvious to everyone in the room.

“Slimy piece of shit,” muttered Hardwick.

“Oh, God.” Madeleine looked as if her view of human nature had absorbed a body blow.

They all stared at one another, as if wondering if there could be an alternative explanation.

But it seemed that there was no escaping the loathsome truth.