Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery (23 page)

“There aren’t enough of us around to take anyone on. It was just something we noticed. I wouldn’t have known Foublin to talk to. I know of him. Some of us were suspicious about reviews that appeared on the bigger web sites. The gay authors thought that sometimes homophobic creeps would write nasty reviews just to bring down the average the site gave you.”

“Would Foublin do this?” Turner asked.

“I have no proof, only suspicions.”

Turner said, “We were told some people claimed he had trouble getting his facts precisely right.”

“It was a constant problem. One writer had a particular kind of poison figure prominently in his book as well as right in the title. Foublin screwed it up and said the dénouement hinged on someone being strangled. How can a conscientious reviewer screw up so completely?”

“Oona Murkle said his getting facts wrong was an accusation from a faction that was disgruntled and that it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Poor Oona. She really is a nice person. She bit off way more than she could chew when she began organizing the drive to get the convention to Chicago. She’s a very well-meaning, very sweet fan, a nice old lady. She’s been around since dirt. She’s familiar with everybody and such a help, but I’m not sure she has any real friends in the SF world. She’s kind of sad. She’s the one who doesn’t get things right.”

“How’s that?” Fenwick asked.

“Oona is a dear. She had sense to turn over this operation to a committee a year ago. She’d been trying to do it all herself. It takes an army of volunteers to make a convention this big work. Here’s one example. She had the notion that it was necessary to hide all the panel assignments from the people on the panels. How absurd. People want to know what they’re doing. Some, although a very few, want to actually prepare for their panels.”

“Don’t they always prepare something?” Turner asked.

Kittleman looked amused. “Far too many of the panelists think because they’ve made a movie deal, had a book published, or had their name in the paper, that makes them an expert on whatever panel they are on. Whether or not they even know anything about the panel topic.”

Fenwick said, “They don’t match expertise to the panel you’re on?”

“Usually. Not always. You might be on panel about dogs in SF and your books might have had one dog in one obscure chapter. She was lucky she got Devers and that movie premiere early on. Oona is a dear, but I’m afraid she’s also a dope.”

“How so?”

“She’s an awful writer. She’s been trying to get published for years. She writes these one-thousand-page epics. Word is, the dialogue is endless, the plots convoluted, the characters wooden. She keeps sending them out, bless her heart.”

“How do you know about her writing?” Fenwick asked.

“She tried to publish it on the Internet. There’s a scam. It’s so feeble and pathetic. All those wannabes putting out these thousands of pages that no one is ever going to want to read.”

“No one ever called Foublin on his imprecision?” Fenwick asked.

“A few people tried to, but most of the people would rush to defend him.”

“Is this infighting really serious?” Fenwick asked.

“In an incestuous, college-English-department kind of way, yeah. People can get worked up about little stuff.”

“But enough for murder?” Fenwick asked.

“Obviously somebody was upset enough about something,” Kittleman replied.

“Were the fights about who was in charge serious?” Fenwick asked.

“To those involved, yes.”

“We got a lot of sweetness and light about Devers,” Fenwick said.

“That’s Oona and her crowd. They are always cheerful. They worked hard setting up this convention. I’ll give them that. They busted their butts to make this thing the biggest and best.”

“Who was Foublin an old-fashioned nasty professor to?” Fenwick asked.

“He had a way of condescending, as if you weren’t quite clean enough. His reviews never got nasty, but if you paid attention long enough, you could tell which ones he didn’t like.”

“How so?” Turner asked.

“If he didn’t like your book, all he would do is summarize the plot and not mention one thing remotely approaching an opinion.”

“Isn’t that good?” Fenwick asked. “At least you get mentioned.”

“But he never mentioned any gay writer.”

“What about these Hollywood people?” Turner asked. “Samuel Chadwick, Arnold Rackwill, Lorenzo Cavali, and Louis Eitel.”

Kittleman waved a dismissive hand. “Who really cares about that Hollywood crowd?”

“You got turned down,” Fenwick said.

“Yes.”

“That bother you?”

“Yes. I’d be happy to take Hollywood money. Anybody would. Anybody who says they wouldn’t is lying.”

“Did Foublin and Devers have trouble with Hollywood money?” Fenwick asked.

“Foublin never got offered any, that I know of. Devers made a pile.”

“Can you tell us anything about the Hollywood crowd?”

“From what I’ve heard, Rackwill is a shit. I know for sure he’s at the end of his time with Chadwick.”

“How’s that?” Fenwick asked.

“They met five years ago. Chadwick is notorious for dumping his paid pretty boys after five years. Rackwill’s at his limit. Rackwill is such a jerk, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“Including murder?” Fenwick asked.

Kittleman sat up straighter. “I’m not ready to make that kind of accusation.”

“Does Rackwill know his time is probably almost up?”

Kittleman said, “Everybody else does. Why wouldn’t he? One rumor said Rackwill was screwing at least one of the guys in Devers’ writing group. Hell, I was having sex with one of them. I’d have done it with as many of them as I could and just about anybody else if I thought it might get me a deal.”

“Isn’t that kind of crass?” Turner asked.

“I’d say everybody does it, but they don’t. I justify it with my ambition. Sleeping with Hutter didn’t hurt anybody. It might have gotten me a deal. It didn’t harm the man I was sleeping with.”

“Who did Rackwill sleep with?”

“Hutter.”

“That cause you problems?” Turner asked.

“If I’d been in a relationship with him, yeah, it would have. But I wasn’t. Hutter left the group a month or so after we had sex.”

“Did one cause the other?”

“Not that I ever heard of. All gay people are supposed to be in love with Rackwill and Chadwick because they kissed at one of those lesser award shows. You know, on stage after Chadwick won some second-tier award. Now, if you want real emotion, Chadwick and Cavali hate each other. Rackwill is a shit.”

“How is Rackwill a shit?”

“If there’s double-dealing, Rackwill will be dealing the doubles. He’s trouble.”

“Why do Chadwick and Cavali hate each other?” Turner asked.

“Business rivals. Who can get a getter deal, a bigger star, all that ego-stabbing which is lifeblood to Hollywood insiders.”

“What about Melissa Bentworth and Sandra Berenking, her editor and publicist at Galactic Books?”

“The once and current editor,” Kittleman said. “I know Melissa from her helping run this convention. She did everything she could for me when my books came out. Melissa is a hard-working woman. It is not easy running a small press. It is even harder to make a profit with one. She has done so. I heard Devers was pissed about that.”

“Why?”

“Muriam was a grudge collector, so I’ve been told. She carried lots of grudges against anyone who ever said something negative about her books.”

“Aren’t editors supposed to make criticisms?” Fenwick asked.

“You know that. I know that. Muriam was a hard case.”

“What about her current editor?” Turner asked.

“Brianna Perkins is a toady. I heard she might be on her way out. If Muriam was in her corner, then Muriam was her ticket to staying. If Muriam was against her, then Brianna could kiss her job good-bye.”

“Authors have that kind of clout?” Fenwick asked.

“If you’re making millions for the company, you can have a lot of say in anything.”

Turner said, “Who helped you get published?”

“I busted my own butt.”

Fenwick said, “Who was upset by Devers throwing her weight around?”

“It was so subtle on Muriam’s part or on the part of her agent. That agent is evil incarnate. Maude Protherow would say anything to protect Muriam.”

“How’s that?” Fenwick asked.

“They’d make deals all right. With networks and shows. Muriam even got to be one of those interviewed before the Academy Awards. Muriam would be real sneaky. She’d let it be known, often through her writing group mafia, that if a show wanted her, then they better not have someone else. If necessary she’d go over, under, around, or through anybody including her publicist to get something that she thought was beneficial to herself.”

“Nobody tried to put a stop to this?” Fenwick asked.

“At least one person did,” Kittleman said, “otherwise she wouldn’t be dead. Muriam hated competition.”

Fenwick asked, “Is there someone among authors who does like it?”

“Libertarians think it’s the great panacea for our times.”

“Good thing somebody’s got a handle on the panacea,” Fenwick said. “I’ve been putting up with it not being here for a long time.”

Turner said, “One of our sources told us there was some kind of hidden secret in Dennis Foublin’s life. That it was mentioned on the Internet, but not explained.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

Fenwick said, “Mr. Kittleman, where were you this morning?”

“I was leading a seminar on how to write the fantasy epic. We were reading passages of wannabes’ work out loud to each other. It was fun actually. We worked on the prose, refining, giving details. I didn’t kill anybody. Perhaps in my next book I could write a mystery and do in all the people I don’t like.”

“Lot of those?” Fenwick asked.

“I’ve got a list,” Kittleman said. He left.

The detectives began entering all their data on their charts.

A beat cop entered the suite. “You guys better come quick.”

23

Sanchez led them to the top floor of the hotel, the most renowned feature of which was the rotating restaurant Chicago At Night. Turner had never been. It was supposed to be extremely exclusive. His sons preferred burgers and fries. He and Ben went out once a year for a special meal at the small Italian restaurant on the far north side of the city where they’d first expressed their love for each other. Chicago At Night was out of their league. As they passed through the crowded dining room, Turner caught a glimpse of the skyscrapers of the Loop in the distance.

Sanchez led them to a complex of service rooms in the center of the building. Gray cement block walls encased a pair of service elevators, the tops of emergency stairwells, pipes two feet in diameter, and entrances to the roof.

“Is the only entrance through the restaurant?” Turner asked.

“That and the service elevators.”

Macer was at the bottom of a set of stairs. At the door to the outside he showed them an open, but intact, lock.

“Someone had a key?” Fenwick said.

Turner leaned down closely. “Not hard to break these. Screwdriver and a hammer and a fairly hard blow is all you need. He could have used a key or a few simple tools, or the hilt of a broadsword.”

Fenwick asked, “This is all the security you had between here and outside?”

“We don’t expect an attack from the roof. There’s no room for a helicopter landing pad. If somebody is sophisticated and desperate enough to climb to the top of the building and then break back in, more power to them. Climbing these buildings is a stunt tried by very few. Their presence climbing would be noted very early on.”

Macer led them outside. The roof was a half-block rectangle. There was a cooling and heating tower in about the middle. The rain had stopped. Water was gathered in gloomy pools at random intervals. Security lights cast feeble light on a fiberglass rooftop sculpture garden. The evenly spaced, clear plastic, multi-hued, twisted geometrical shapes reflected the meager light. Shadows gathered in pools at their bases. Their flashlights seemed to push at the darkness rather than give sufficient illumination. Sounds from far below drifted up. Turner heard a distant siren. If you lived in Chicago, half the time, if you listened carefully you could hear a distant siren. The body was in the darkest shadow of the cooling tower. The blood from the corpse matched the red reflected in the puddles of water dimly lit by the inadequate emergency lights.

The skull of a thin young man had been cloven nearly in two. The body was sprawled amid the folds of a vast black cape. No weapon was immediately visible. The nearly naked corpse was on its stomach. Bits of a leather harness clung to the corpse. Shreds of a brown Speedo flapped in the light breeze. What he could make out in the poor light caused Turner to gasp involuntarily. He rushed forward the last few steps. From closer up, he could make out the face. It was not Brian. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was more of a Roman legionnaire’s outfit. Turner stepped on shards of broken spectacles. He crouched down. It was a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses, the left eye of which had been shattered. Very possibly stepped on by the owner or his killer.

Turner said, “It’s Melvin Slate.”

“Another fucking feather,” Fenwick muttered.

Turner spotted the offending plumage three feet past the head. Bits of a broken ostrich feather fluttered in the breeze. “No sword,” he commented. On the thumb of the left hand there was no thumb ring. He pointed his flashlight beam. He leaned over until he could see the other thumb. He said, “The other ring is still there.”

“Our killer was planting feathers and removing rings?”

Turner said, “When you’re a killer using a broadsword, I guess you’re entitled to as many eccentricities as you want.”

In a short period of time Macer and the Crime Lab people had the scene around the body illuminated, and the detectives, the ME, and tech staffs were bathed in bright white lights.

Turner and Fenwick inspected the area. Before taking each step they examined the ground carefully. They covered the area between the stairs and the body.