“Some of the people in the music industry are very provincial. Unless you’ve played Carnegie Hall, so to speak, you aren’t worthy of their notice. And whatever you do, don’t ever dare try to criticize Blundlefitz, or any other critic for that matter. Most of us critics have egos as big as those of band members. If you try to criticize us, then we beat the drums of you’re-a-petty-musician-who-doesn’t-understand-the-freedom-of-the-press. As if there isn’t a difference between good criticism and bad criticism. One time I heard Blundlefitz explain the reason he gave so many negative reviews. He said, and I quote, ‘People are so busy, I have to be negative.’”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Fenwick said.
“Of course not. A concert or a CD review should be based on the merit of the work involved, not how busy the people are who might go to the concert or listen to the music. He was born vicious. He doesn’t use words just to communicate. Like William F. Buckley, Jr., he uses them as a bludgeon to intimidate and overwhelm, especially when his logic is lacking. He could take apart a group’s performance in fewer words and nastier ones than almost anybody I know. He hated all the boy bands. Hated.”
“Maybe he couldn’t sing and dance,” Fenwick suggested.
“He hasn’t exercised since the Carter administration. A lot of people in this town would love to see him taken down a peg. I saw bits of that performance he and Zawicki put on at the press conference before I came to work. He will run with whomever is likely to give him the biggest story. Attacking you is big now. He can be nasty and underhanded. I’d watch myself.”
“I think we might be able to do a little in the peg-taking-down business,” Turner said. He told them about the stolen underwear.
Ian laughed. Mickey looked thoughtful.
Ian said, “You know something that millions of teenage girls and gay boys have been dying to know.”
“What’s that?” Fenwick asked.
“Whether they wear boxers or briefs,” Ian said. “You could sell your story to every teen magazine on the planet. If you put them up for auction on the Internet, I bet you could retire on the profits.”
“Not today,” Fenwick said.
“He’s got nasty lawyers adding pressure,” Turner said.
“The lawyers are going to be like King Canute trying to keep back the tide,” Pendyce said. “Once this gets out, he’s toast. Stealing a dead kid’s underwear? That goes beyond those photographers who sneak in to celebrity funerals to try and take pictures of the corpse. Sick, but if it’s a celebrity, the tabloids pay a fortune for it.”
“We need to make sure no one knows this is coming from us,” Turner said.
“That’s not a problem,” Pendyce said. “I can get this story out. The music world is not a very big one. Everyone knows everyone else. This is almost too good.”
“Thanks,” Turner said, “We appreciate the help.”
“Ian’s a friend. When this can be public, do I get a scoop?”
“Of course,” Turner said.
“Excellent.”
“What can you tell us about Sherri Haupmin?”
“A no-talent, wanna-be hack. She seemed to have Roger Stendar tied around her twat.”
“How do you know these inside gossip things?” Fenwick asked.
“There are often gay crew members. I know one on this tour with Boys4u. I make it a point to seek them out. I’m kind of known in my own small way. The one on the current tour is a good friend.” He sipped from a bottle of imported water.
“Can we talk to him?” Turner asked.
“I’ll give him a call and make sure he’s comfortable with that.”
Neither detective interjected that they didn’t care if the guy was comfortable or not with them talking to him. They were getting help and it was no time to be surly.
Ian said, “You’ll help them with Blundlefitz?”
“Absolutely. I’d be delighted.”
“Can you really do something?” Fenwick asked.
“It’s not more than a call or two away.”
“You can never reveal your sources,” Turner said.
“I never would anyway.” Pendyce leaned over to Fenwick, “Why is that guy at the bar constantly staring at you?”
The detective looked. “He is smitten.”
“No accounting for taste,” Turner said.
“Hey,” Fenwick said. “Just because I’m fat and straight, doesn’t mean I’m not hot looking. Look at all the women who are married to fat, straight men.”
“You are in the majority,” Ian observed.
Turner said, “If we could take our mind off Fenwick’s latest conquest. What was the deal with Haupmin? Was she trying to break up the band?” Turner asked.
Pendyce said, “I heard Roger was screwing her. I was told they did it up on that high platform after the second concert here. One of the guys in the crew tried to take pictures, but he almost fell from one of the rafters in the ceiling. Haupmin showed up with Roger about a year ago. She sings her little heart out. She’s awful. I felt so bad for her I almost didn’t include her in the article I wrote for the paper. Then I decided people were so busy, I’d better mention it.” He shook his head. “I don’t get Blundlefitz’s logic.” He shook his head again. “You want gossip? She was the classic leech, a gold digger of the first order. A nobody who got her claws into someone famous and wouldn’t let go. She figured she got the prize. She was screwing the guy millions of teenage girls had the hots for. That’s got to be a hell of a rush. She went about exploiting that relationship for her own gain. She got the recording contract from the band’s production company because Roger insisted on it. She wanted him for herself. She always put it that she was acting in his best interests, as if he were too dumb to know what those were.”
“Was he too dumb?” Turner asked.
“Not from what I could tell. He seemed like a reasonably intelligent young man when I interviewed him. He was certainly pleasant enough to any interviewer. He had a positive reputation. Haupmin wanted him to do fewer interviews with the press. If there was a decision to be made, she campaigned for the dumb choice.”
“Was he cheating on her?” Turner asked.
“I don’t know if he was monogamous. He could get almost any woman he wanted. These guys weren’t just tempted. They were given the whole candy store and invited to dive in.”
Turner asked, “Can we trust what she says about dissension among the band, and Stendar planning to leave?”
“My opinion? Maybe. Sorry I don’t have a better answer. I know some gossip. I don’t know all.”
“What about Jonathan Zawicki?” Turner asked. “What’s his story?”
“A very tough, smart businessman. He’s made decisions for that company that have caused record profits for seven straight years. And he’s ruthless. If you don’t make the bottom line, you don’t stay hired. He’s dumped more than one popular old act from his label because they were no longer the draw they once were.”
“We’ve got information about his requirements for a guy being in one of his bands,” Turner explained.
Pendyce said, “Everybody thinks all the guys in boy bands are gay. The poor guys parade around with a host of gorgeous women. Even if you released a video of each one of them screwing a woman, I’m not sure it would make a difference. They sing. They dance. They’re thin. They’re cute. They’re clean. They have a sense of fashion, even if that sense comes from being able to hire expensive fashion designers. One, some, or all of those could be considered acting gender inappropriately. You don’t have to be as blatant as a drag queen for someone to think you’re gay.”
Turner asked, “How did they feel about what the public thought about them?”
“As for their public image, they had teams of people pumping out reams of positive press. They didn’t have to worry about that. Privately, I’m not sure. You walk into an exclusive restaurant where you don’t want to be bothered and you hear somebody yell out, ‘you’re gay,’ that can’t be a good f
eeling. With as much money as they make, I’m not sure how much they cared. I know if I made that much money, I wouldn’t care if they accused me of much of anything.”
“Why don’t the groups he’s dumped sue him?”
“He’s smart. He’s dumped old groups from before he took over the label. He knows how to manipulate people and contracts. And he’s careful.”
“He’s taking an awful big risk,” Turner said.
“Worked so far,” Pendyce said.
Turner asked, “Anybody else you can think of who might be able to give us inside information on these guys?”
“You might want to talk to Jeremiah Boissec. He’s got a small record company in Chicago. He used to work for Riveting Records. He can tell you more about Zawicki.”
“Thanks,” Turner said.
A shadow loomed over their group. It was the young man who’d been staring at Fenwick. He put a hand on the detective’s brawny shoulder and in a baritone voice mixed with a Southern twang, he said, “Can I buy you a drink?”
“I’m old enough to be your dad.”
“I know.”
“I’m not gay, but these guys are. Why don’t you ask one of them?”
“You don’t have to be gay,” the young man said. “You just have to hold still.”
Fenwick said, “I’m flattered, but the answer is no. And if you don’t go away, I will take out my cop identification and make your night unnecessarily unpleasant.”
The kid looked crestfallen. He turned and walked out of the bar.
“Score one for you,” Ian said.
“I lost count years ago,” Fenwick said.
“Where would one of these musicians go if they wanted to disappear?” Turner asked.
“One of them is missing?” Ian asked.
Turner nodded. “Jason Devane.”
“A nice guy,” Pendyce said. “I spent some time with him after I did that interview with Stendar I mentioned earlier. He was down-to-earth, reasonable, and gave me sensible answers. Some of them give dumb answers because they’re dumb. Galyak gave stupid answers because he thought it was funny, or maybe he thought he was putting one over on the press or the fans. Devane didn’t do any of that. He had a good head on his shoulders. Of course, that was when they were desperate for media attention. They’d give interviews to anybody who would stand still for five seconds. Where would he go? I don’t know. The big question is why? Staying behind security is important for these guys. They could literally get trampled. You can disguise yourself. Once you escape from the hotel, it’s not so bad, but you’ve still got to be careful. If you’re recognized, look out.”
“We don’t think he left town,” Turner said.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Ian asked.
“I’m not optimistic,” Turner said.
“If he had a friend in town,” Pendyce said, “he would try to go there. I don’t remember any of them having relatives in Chicago. Although there’s always a cousin or two emerging from the woodwork the more famous these bands get.”
Turner said, “Nobody from the company mentioned friends or relatives.”
Ian said, “I watched that press conference down at the office. They blistered you guys. Did they know at the time that Devane was missing?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of crap is that?” Ian asked.
“The nasty, vicious, unpleasant kind,” Fenwick said.
They asked about Hinkmeyer, Pastern, and Eudace.
Pendyce said, “Ethel is a hard-working woman who would do anything to help anybody out. A genuinely kind person who has a lot of ambition but won’t go anywhere in the industry until she toughens up. I don’t know if she can. Pastern is a mix. The guys like him. The bosses don’t. I can believe they were planning to fire him. He could be rough if things weren’t going his way, especially if he thought the guys were in jeopardy. I think he pictured himself as a super-hero. Eudace has the reputation as the grasping, evil, Hollywood agent, although in the few dealings I had with him, he was actually very nice. I’m not sure which is true about him.”
They talked strategy with Pendyce about Blundlefitz then Pendyce went home after promising to set up the contact with the gay crew member. After he left, Turner, Fenwick, and Ian discussed plans for handling Zawicki.
14
The call came over the police radio as they turned east on Belmont. The dispatcher said, “You need to get to Lake Shore Drive opposite Buckingham Fountain. We’ve got a body in the lake, and I was told you were the ones to notify.”
Turner acknowledged the call and switched off. He said, “Gotta be connected to the Stendar killing. They probably don’t want to put that over the radio. Too many reporters listen to scanners.”
Fenwick said, “I don’t like Jason Devane’s chances for ever singing or dancing again.”
Fenwick put the blue mars light on the roof of the car. It made no difference in the speed with which they traveled, but this way the cars and pedestrians had a fighting chance of getting out of the way.
As Turner shivered in the car’s almost warmth, he realized that in fact in all these years, Fenwick had not actually hit anyone. That his madcap driving was well orchestrated. Perhaps a macho image thing. Turner decided to keep this insight to himself.
As they crossed the Chicago River on their way south, Turner said, “Maybe the killer just wanted to wreck the band.”
“What for?” Fenwick asked.
“There are people who just like to wreck something good somebody else has going, although we’ve got plenty of people with lots of motives.”
They drove up onto the wide sidewalk on the west side of Lake Shore Drive. Buckingham Fountain sat in splendid isolation. No water spewed from it. The fountain operated only in the summer. They hustled across the Drive to where three blue-and-white squad cars had their spotlights and headlights trained on the edge of the lake. Two fire engines rested along the periphery. The crime-scene van pulled up as they neared the other vehicles. A couple of techs were setting up some outdoor lights. An ambulance rested feet from the water’s edge. The wind gusted off the lake adding even more chill to the below-zero misery. Fenwick stubbornly refused to wear a hat no matter what the weather. Turner had donned his heaviest sweater and warmest synthetic-fiber winter coat as well as a thick scarf and a knit hat. He wasn’t warm, but his clothing kept out the worst of the cold, especially the wind.
There was a rim of about ten feet of ice around this part of the harbor. Some years the shore near the lake froze in winter, some years it didn’t. Depended on the weather and the direction of the wind. Mists of condensation rose from the ice-free portions of the lake. A body was floating in the water at the edge of the ice.
Mike Sanchez, a beat cop they knew and respected, found them. “What’s up?” Turner asked.
“Thought the body might have something to do with your case.”
“Don’t recognize him from here,” Fenwick said.
Sanchez pointed, “See that gold shiny thread on his jacket? You can see it every time the body bobs slightly this way. Guy who found him says that’s a Boys4u logo. Kind of like their trademark.”
Turner and Fenwick looked. Both recognized the miniature version of the immense banner they had seen hanging in the All-Chicago Sports Arena.
They watched the firemen preparing for the rescue, although Turner thought that was too strong a word. Anybody in the lake with the water this cold would either be jumping madly and trying to get out, or he was dead. The firemen put a lifeline around one of their own. They inflated a little blow-up boat. A rescue worker carefully walked a step out onto the ice. He bobbed on it gently.
“It’s not gonna hold,” he said. They all heard a crack. He shoved the little boat farther toward the water and got in from the landward side. Another little boat was inflated and passed to him. He placed this one beyond the other and stepped from the one to the next. The ice cracked. A five-foot-wide swath of water appeared. The boat began to float among chucks a
nd bits of ice. He reached the body. With a gloved hand he dragged it to the boat. He tied a rope around it. Some of the others grabbed the line to the boat, others the one to the fireman, and two more grabbed the one to the body. Coordinating their efforts they pulled boat, man, and body to the shore.
The corpse’s clothes were wet but not frozen. In the stiff wind and bitter cold a crust of ice could be seen forming on the edges of the pants and jacket even in these few moments it had been out of the water. Still, the paramedics obeyed procedure and attempted CPR. They took out an AMBU bag, which looked like a big syringe with a facepiece and a valve over it. After adjusting the AMBU bag, they pumped it a few times. They got absolutely no response from the corpse. One of the paramedics pounded on the lifeless chest for a minute.
Now that the corpse was on the shore, Turner and Fenwick could see that it was definitely Jason Devane. He wore a hat, gloves, and warm outer clothes. Turner knew that once he was in the water, the heavy winter clothes were more likely to pull him down than they were to keep him warm. If he’d even been alive when he went in. Turner knew the frigid water could kill in minutes. Devane had a Game Boy clutched in his left hand.
Fenwick said to Sanchez, “Better set up a huge perimeter. Don’t let anybody onto this side of the Drive between Balbo and Monroe. Especially make sure nobody from the press gets through.”
“I’m not sure we’ve got enough tape to cover that much space,” Sanchez said.
“There’s more in the trunk of our car.”
Sanchez hurried away.
“Frozen,” the ME said.
“A bandsicle,” one of the evidence techs said.
“A boysicle,” Fenwick said.
Turner growled. “This is going to stop or there’s going to be a copsicle around here.”
While the ME and crime-scene crews worked, Turner and Fenwick took their flashlights and examined the shoreline. Turner went as far as the fences of the Adler Planetarium to the south. Fenwick got as close to Navy Pier as he could along the shore. Neither one saw any evidence of a body being dragged along the ground to the lake and no evidence of broken ice, which they would hope to see if someone had tried to toss or roll the body into the lake. The ground was so firm it would be unlikely to show anything less than a major disruption. A late January thaw had melted the early winter snows. Since then it had been dry and very cold. Where the body had floated from would be difficult to determine. The wind direction would be the most telling thing in the harbor. The direction the boy had taken could also have been influenced by the wakes of the larger pleasure boats that still cruised from Navy Pier during the winter. Since the wind was from the northeast it would be toward the pier that they would need to concentrate asking questions.
Dead Egotistical Morons Page 13