The Twelfth Card

“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 sheetrolled 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