Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery (2 page)

It took two hands to heft it. The thing was as heavy as it looked. “You sharpen this?” Paul asked.

“No, the place you rent it from says you’re not supposed to do anything with it.”

The hilt had a bright blue stone in the center and glittery stuff that sparkled and rubbed off on his hands. “What’s the glittery stuff?” Paul asked.

Brian said, “I think the technical term is ‘glittery stuff.’”

Paul gave it back to his son. “Be careful with the thing.”

Brian held out a metal clasp. “I have to have this attached so it can’t be drawn. Convention rules.”

Paul had asked Jeff if everyone would be in costume. Jeff had said, “Usually there’s just like this one big costume deal on Saturday night.” His son spoke as if he were an old hand at attending conventions as opposed to the reality, which was that he found these answers on the Internet. “There’s so many people attending this convention that they divided the costume competition into categories for Friday night, with the top winners in each category as finalists on Saturday night.”

“Who are you supposed to be?” Myra asked Paul.

Paul was in his navy blue sport jacket, beige pants, white shirt, and tie. Turner said, “A boring police detective.”

“Got that in one,” Myra said.

Paul said to Brian, “Who are you supposed to be, Tarzan?”

“No. The Beastmaster.” Brian was in excellent shape and the costume revealed far more muscles than Turner thought appropriate. It wasn’t an obscene costume, but it was trying to be.

“This costume is appropriate,” Brian said.

“It’s obscene,” Myra said.

Jeff came around the van from the front. He said, “Ben told him he had to wear something under the butt flap.”

“I knew that,” Brian said.

Jeff said, “You’re not going to make him change?”

Paul was not about to fight his sixteen year old over the costume. He knew he had to pick his battles, and this wasn’t one of them. Going to the convention in this get-up might fill Brian’s need to try to get himself attention. The boy wasn’t doing drugs, he didn’t come home drunk, and he hadn’t gotten a girl pregnant. He didn’t come home late or try to sneak in or out. His grades were excellent and, at least for now, he’d given up trying to get a tattoo and/or a motorcycle. A costume wasn’t worth a hassle.

Ben came in. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt. He and Paul kissed. Ben said, “You’ve seen Tarzan here?” He patted Brian on his leather shoulder strap.

“The Beastmaster,” Brian corrected.

Jeff said, “Could that be a master beaster?”

Brian glared at his younger brother. “If you’re implying …” Jeff said, “That you’re like everybody else.”

Brian said, “You know far too much and are much too young.”

“Am not.”

“Round one for tonight is over,” Paul said. “And all sexual innuendo stops right there, no matter how remote.”

Both boys huffed.

Ben said, “I think Fenwick might say, ‘Maybe he’s trying to work undercover.’”

Mrs. Talucci said, “Fenwick would come up with a much worse and more clear pun.”

“They can’t all be gems,” Paul said. He patted Brian on the shoulder. “I imagine you will probably be cold. If that doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me.” The weather for March had been seasonal, which meant a butt flap, harness, and Speedo were not a lot of protection. Paul suspected Brian would be too stubborn to admit he was cold. If the kid was willing to pay the price, Paul wasn’t going to bug him about it.

Ian Hume walked in. He was a reporter, a former cop, and had been Turner’s first lover. Ian was covering the convention for the local gay paper, the
Gay Tribune.

Ian said, “Nice butt flap.”

Brian said, “I wore it for you.”

Paul said, “No more comments about butt flaps.”

Ian wore his usual slouch fedora, khaki pants, blue shirt, and subdued tie. Myra looked him up and down, and said, “And you’re going disguised as Indiana Jones on dress-up day?”

“I’m going as a bored reporter who covers this kind of shit for a paper whose stringer who covers these things has the flu.”

“A perfect disguise then,” said Mrs. Talucci.

Ian said, “And I’m going to be there for all three days. The idiot stringer set up all these interviews ages ago. I’d rather have root-canal surgery.”

Myra said, “I shall begin weeping for your plight immediately.”

They used their van to tote all of the paraphernalia for Jeff’s costume. He would only actually don the cumbersome headpiece during the competition. When completely assembled it stretched nearly ten feet in every direction. According to Jeff, if it had been truly realistic, it would have extended past the ceiling.

A one-hundred-foot-tall inflatable Starship
Enterprise
floated outside the Greater Chicago Hotel and Convention Center. The entry hall of the hotel had a vast atrium in the middle, a one-thousand-seat restaurant to its left, and the hotel registration desk to the right. Copious large signs on easels pointed the way to the convention.

At the convention registration desk Turner saw a number of costumed individuals, but to his surprise most people were in ordinary attire.

Ben said, “I thought I’d see odder costumes and more of them.”

Jeff said, “Boy, you guys are so out of it. There’s like a hundred thousand people here. It’s the biggest SF convention ever. Only maybe a couple thousand will be in costume. Most everybody who’s going to be doing costumes will only have them on for the contest. Can I go to the game room first? I’m supposed to meet Bertram there as soon as I’m done registering.”

A crowd swept toward their small gathering.

“Who is it, Dad?” Jeff asked.

Through a gap in the milling throng, Paul saw a woman dressed in a passionate purple evening gown. She carried a two-foot-long red ostrich feather in her right hand.

Paul said, “A woman in an evening gown. She’s carrying this gigantic feather-plume thing.”

“A red one?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s Muriam Devers.” Paul had heard the name. She was one of the most renowned female science fiction writers, and she trailed only J. K. Rowling for sales. Devers and her entourage swept past.

Jeff pulled himself up as high as he could in his chair and craned his neck to look. When the milling mass had passed, Jeff said, “That was cool.”

Brian said, “I thought you didn’t like her.books.”

“No, I used to like her books, just not so much anymore. But she’s famous. I want to see all the famous people here at the convention.”

“What’s with the feather?” Ben asked.

Jeff said, “The red ostrich feather is in her first book as a big part of the main character’s costume. She started wearing them to all these conventions. Then it became a big deal, like her trademark. She’s always wearing one in her pictures on the book jackets.”

Bertram’s parents and Paul and Ben had worked out a system so that one set of parents would be present at the convention at all times. Paul and Ben would take Bertram, Jeff’s best buddy in fifth grade, home tonight and monitor activities on Sunday. Bertram’s parents had the day shift Saturday. Everyone would be present Saturday night.

Ian was planning to attend several panels at the convention on gay sensibility in the field. There were also several graphic novelists who were trying to start a gay group. Ian said, “I’m supposed to be interviewing some guy who just had the third volume of his great gay space-opera trilogy published.”

“How are you going to find him in this throng?” Paul asked.

“He’s supposed to be this heavyset guy in a white beard.”

Paul said, “Find somebody with a Santa complex and you’re all set.”

Ian said, “I set it up to meet him at the third pillar from the left at Pierre’s.”

“More intrigue than I care to know about,” Paul said.

Paul had to work the next day and would have preferred a quiet evening at home. He saw Brian with three people, one in a Spider-Man costume, the other two scantily clad nymphets. He understood now why the boy wanted to attend.

Paul walked around the convention. In the dealers’ room he saw people hawking posters and paraphernalia. It seemed to him that every second-rate television show that had anything to do with science fiction or fantasy had at least one booth trying to sell schlock souvenirs. There was another room with rows and rows of tables where people were demonstrating how to illustrate comic books to crowds clustered three or four deep. In another large hall, hundreds of people playing board games were gathered around octagonal tables. Paul was impressed with the level of seriousness and struck by the fact that the people all seemed to be intent and at ease at the same time.

Mrs. Talucci stomped over. She was using a cane. She claimed it wasn’t for getting around, it was for moving slow people out of her way. She still walked to the store every morning for her daily papers.

“Why did you come?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “Never been to one of these. Thought I’d check it out. I haven’t worn a costume since Halloween of nineteen forty-five and I don’t get enough silliness in my life. Thought I’d try a little of that, too.” She pointed at his outfit. “Wouldn’t hurt you to unbend a little.”

Ben said, “I tried to talk him into wearing leather chaps and a vest.”

Mrs. Talucci said, “Hot as that would undoubtedly be, this isn’t a leather bar or your bedroom. I think you’d look great as one of those X-Men.”

“You went to the movie?” Paul asked.

“I’ve got cable,” Mrs. Talucci said.

Paul said, “Ben’s not in costume.”

“I don’t do sci-fi drag,” Ben said.

They got home late. Jeff burbled happily for the entire trip. He discussed at length all the things he planned to do the next day He’d come in third place in his category of costuming—comic heroes. All those in first through fifth place in their categories would be finalists the next night at the banquet. Mrs. Talucci had come in first in the
Star Trek
subcategory. Brian had come in fifth in his. He said he figured several of the female judges and one of the male judges thought he was hot. He also said he’d gotten the phone numbers of several of the girls he’d met.

Jeff said, “Aren’t you dating Jane?”

Brian said, “We aren’t going steady, and how do you know about Jane?”

“It’s too late for wrangling,” Paul said.

“I saw a woman pinch Brian’s butt,” Jeff said.

“Is that something that affects you in any way?” Paul asked.

“No.”

“Then it’s not something you need to tell me. We don’t gossip.” Recently, Paul had needed to remind both sons about the tattling rule and had done some clamping down.

“My butt’s fine,” Brian said.

Paul said, “For which I’m sure all the females on the planet are grateful, but which I do not wish to discuss.”

Brian smiled but refrained from further comment. The sixteen year old knew when to back off.

2

For Paul Turner, working on Saturdays was a pain in the ass. However, when it was your turn in the rotation, you did it. Saturdays were about the same as any other day. Original crime was rare.

The problem with weekend work was time. On the weekend his family was more likely to be around to fix something with, have a quiet moment with, to talk to, to listen to. Before he left for work, he watched the costumed aggregation of his family and neighbor assemble in the family van for the drive to the convention center.

This Saturday at Area Ten headquarters, Turner and his detective partner, Buck Fenwick, slogged though tedious follow-ups on their active cases. Most detectives had about twenty of these that they were working on at one time. Each hot new murder took precedence, then there was all the follow-up work on past cases. First thing that morning they showed pictures of possible suspects to mostly reluctant and usually unreliable eyewitnesses. After that they listened to crime lab people explain possibilities and probabilities but not certainties. Then the detectives wrote reports on all their activities.

Just after eleven a call came in reporting a dead body on one of the top floors of the Greater Chicago Hotel and Convention Center. Turner and Fenwick were in line for the next case.

Turner felt a pang of anxiety about it possibly being one of his kids. Then he remembered that they weren’t staying at the hotel, and there was no word that the person who was dead had any connection to the convention. Still. The detectives hurried over.

Turner and Fenwick entered the massive complex, which was just west of the Kennedy Expressway past the Hubbard Street tunnel. While it couldn’t rival McCormick Place, few venues could; it was still one of the largest hotel/convention centers in the country.

The halls to the elevators were thronged with people, several in outlandish costumes. Turner saw
X-Men
and
Star Wars
characters. He spotted at least three Hulk imitators. None of them fit the size or shape he imagined the creator of the character had envisioned. He knew his sons were somewhere in the throng. All of the revelers he saw seemed content and happy.

Fenwick pointed at the crowd. “Nobody seems out of sorts.”

Turner said, “They must not know. I doubt if they’re the kind of people who hear awful news and decide to party. Most people aren’t.”

Fenwick said, “Maybe these are revels without a cause.”

Turner said, “You want the corpse count to double before we even get to the elevator?”

“You’re jealous because you didn’t think of it.”

“I’m picturing the story of ‘Fenwick and the Fatal Pun.’” Fenwick said, “It would sell millions.”

“Unfortunately, probably.”

Fenwick leaned closer. “Most of these costumes are pretty ugly.”

Turner scanned the crowd. “They look okay.”

“Look closer.” He pointed discreetly. “That guy is only going to win a contest if there’s a category for the largest gut in a Tarzan costume. The woman next to him should not be wearing a gauzy fairy piece of chiffon; better she be covered by a canvas tent.”

“You’re being prejudiced about the person, not the costume.”