17. Vanishing Act

Complete story — includes the ending

Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the case of a man found dead in strange circumstances following a magic act. The opening shows two very different acts of illusionism, one by Miles Stone (Jeremy Gender), a young escapologist and TV celebrity figure, and the other by The Great Carmine ( Christopher Lloyd ), an alcoholic has-been. While Stone is doing a stunt where he is buried for over 30 days, Carmine is performing a trick where a pretty woman hides in a box and appearances are she’s being skewered with swords. But the acts takes on a new twist when both stunts go awry after Stone appears to become ill in the underground casket, and when the casket is opened, he is not in there. Simultaneously, Carmine opens his own magic box to find Stone in there, with seven swords stuck in his body. During the investigation, Goren and Eames question Carmine, and find that his original assistant disappeared from the job for a vacation, and her replacement also seems to have vanished after Stone's body is found. Though the old man has not completely been eliminated as a suspect, he offered an alibi that leads them to realise other people could have been involved. The list of suspects include Dean Holiday ( James Frain ), a renowned illusionist who, along with Stone, was trained by the old magician, as well as Jacob Green ( Will Janowitz ), a highly skilled technician who was in charge of Stone’s act. It is clear that the small circle of suspects had their own motives for wanting this magician dead. After further testing shows that the victim had been given potassium chloride through his I.V. drip, mimicking a heart attack, the detectives focus their attention on the missing mystery woman, who could be the final puzzle piece to solving the case.