Dead Egotistical Morons
Page 24
Lawyers pushed. Suspects left. Paperwork ensued. They picked up on the cops’ hesitancy to charge Dexter. He was released but told not to leave town.
Around six Mrs. Talucci called. “I’ve got that Pappas boy here. You should stop by.”
Turner hurried home. It was almost time for breakfast. The temperature was nearly twenty below. In the cold and the wind each breath seared as he pulled it in.
Pappas sat in Mrs. Talucci’s living room. Mrs. Talucci’s grandniece, the prettiest and smartest one, Donna Marie, sat next to Pappas. When Turner and Fenwick arrived, Mrs. Talucci ushered her grandniece out of the room.
Pappas said, “I talked to Dexter. He said something funny that I thought you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“Jordan Pastern and Roger and Dexter used to have three-way sex scenes.”
“Did you have sex with Jordan?”
“No. He never asked. He never tried. I don’t know if I would have or not. I suppose I would have. I don’t know. Mostly I had women. Sex came so easy, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“So why tell me about this?”
“It seemed to upset Dexter. I guess what he wanted most was a stable quiet relationship. We were a long way from home for a very long time for a lot of years. It can be very comforting to have people physically close to you that you know.”
“Did you need that?”
“I had lots of girls. I’m telling you this because I think Dexter was going to kill himself because of Jordan.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t, either. You should go talk to Dexter.”
Turner had had just about enough of Dexter and all the members of the band.
They headed back to the Hotel Chicago. Outside Dexter’s room, they found a Chicago cop. “Everything quiet?” Turner asked.
The cop nodded. “There was some therapist in there with Clendenen. The head of security and some other band people are in there, too.”
Turner and Fenwick entered the suite. Hinkmeyer sat at a desk in the first room with a sheaf of phone messages in front of her. She had a hotel phone in one hand and a cell phone in the other. She gave him a brief wave.
Turner said, “Where’s Dexter?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”
Ralph Eudace entered. “What’s going on?”
“Where’s Dexter?” Turner asked.
“I told him to stay here.”
“He’s supposed to be under guard,” Turner said.
“Pastern said he would be safe. Pastern said he would be with him.”
“He was with Pastern?” Turner asked. “Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did Clendenen say he felt safest?” Fenwick asked.
“The tour bus,” Turner said. “He said it was a heaven.” They detailed other cops to hunt through the hotel rooms. The bus was parked underground. The lights were off. Hinkmeyer gave them the key. Turner and Fenwick entered quietly. Everything was silent as they stood next to the steering wheel. They found made-up beds and scattered clothes and suitcases in both front rooms. Behind the third door, they heard voices. Turner thought he heard Dexter shout, “Stop!” and another voice, “Take it, you cock-sucking little faggot.”
Turner pounded on the door and announced himself as the police. Still nothing.
Hinkmeyer joined him. She said, “I heard the noise.”
“You got the key to get in here?”
She produced a card. “I’m in charge of accommodations. What’s going on?”
Turner inserted the card, turned the handle, and pulled the door open. Clendenen was on his back. Naked. Pastern, his pants around his knees, his shirttail covering his butt, his back to Turner, was thrusting his hips toward Clendenen’s ass. Both of Pastern’s hands held onto a gun which he had jammed into Clendenen’s mouth. The young man was gagging and squealing. There was blood around his mouth. Pastern’s head was thrown back, his eyes shut, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His dick was deep up Clendenen’s asshole.
Turner pulled out his gun. Pastern gave several more thrusts, gasped deeply, then held still. Clendenen whimpered. Pastern pulled his condomless cock out of Clendenen’s butt. Turner grabbed the gun.
Pastern opened his eyes. “What the fuck?”
“My question exactly,” Turner said.
Clendenen rushed to Turner and held on as if his life depended on it.
“He was going to kill me.” Dexter fainted. Turner picked him up and put him on one of the recliners near the entrance and covered him with a blanket with the band’s bright cheery logo emblazoned on the front.
24
The detectives had Pastern handcuffed to the steering wheel of the bus while they talked.
Turner said, “You were in a band in college that was not picked up by Mr. Zawicki.”
“We were told we weren’t very good,” Pastern said. “The problem was none of us would put out. Except that traitor Eudace.”
“You were asked?”
“Not explicitly, but I figured it out.”
“How’d you get so many twenty-two revolvers?”
“I’m a security guard. I can get as many guns as I want. They aren’t illegal. I can bring as many guns into anyplace I want.”
“Why’d you kill them?” Turner asked Pastern.
“Zawicki and the band are morons. I should have had that life, but I was getting pleasure from them. Every time I had my dick up their tight little butts, I thought about them being out onstage, with all those little girls and faggot boys wishing they had what I got. I only got Dexter and Stendar, but that was enough.”
“Why kill Jason Devane?”
“Devane seemed to be catching on. They aren’t all as dumb as everyone thinks they are. That afternoon he said he just had to get out. I offered to go with him to keep him safe. I made sure nobody got told we were going. We walked to a coffee shop. He kept a hat down over his eyes. As he talked, I realized he was figuring out about all the sex. He’d had suspicions. He was going to die anyway so I decided then would be as good a time as any. I fucked him first. Before that he’d only been fucked by Zawicki. I found a nice quiet place to screw him at Navy Pier. He squealed a little with my dick up his butt. I shot him, shoved him into the lake, and came back. I should have been one of them. I should have had their career. Zawicki fucked me and now Zawicki is fucked.”
“Not as fucked as you are,” Fenwick said.
“Why wait until Chicago?” Turner asked.
“This was the height of their popularity. I’d been planning the killings for a while. Zawicki was going to fire me. They lied when they said they told me. I, however, had found out accidentally. Zawicki keeps far too many notes on everything. I had to act now.”
“Why kill Blundlefitz?”
“He’d found the diary. He figured the unknown person who kept being mentioned had to be me. No one else had the access. He guessed, and he was right. I didn’t need him as another enemy. He asked to meet me. I went with everyone to the stadium. He showed up. I told him we’d talk at center stage. That part wasn’t going to be taken down. I knew center stage didn’t have security cameras. The fool figured he was invulnerable.”
“You didn’t fuck him?” Fenwick asked.
“God, no.”
“Why the sabotage?”
“Diversions. There was enough to cause all kinds of suspicion or take up a lot of the cops’ time. None of it was enough to kill anybody. If I got lucky with one of the shots in the auditorium, then it was all for the best. I killed Blundlefitz before you dragged us all down here for that dog-and-pony show with all the likely suspects.”
“Somebody could have walked in.”
“Then I’d have waited, but it worked and getting him at center stage was a stroke of luck.”
“How’d Blundlefitz get Dexter’s diary?”
“Mostly Dexter kept it with him. He was so zonked out on drugs, Blundlefitz probably took it while he
was in the hospital. He had all-access all the time. I tossed the gun that I used on Blundlefitz into Dexter’s backpack after we left here when you had all the suspects together. I knew I could put suspicion on him.”
Turner asked, “Why’d you screw them?”
Pastern gave a short laugh that sounded more like a bark. “Roger Stendar was straight, but after a concert he loved getting fucked. I obliged. He’d just put himself out in front of huge crowds. I guess he need affirmation. I was in a band. I understand the rush and then the letdown when it’s over. He needed touch.”
“If he was straight, why not get a woman? A lot of them were throwing themselves at him.”
“Maybe he was gayer than he thought.”
“How’d you get rid of the gun?”
“No one was going to walk in, so I walked out through the sauna, tossed it, and hurried back the same way. Then stationed myself at the entrance to the reception.”
25
Paul stopped at Mrs. Talucci’s later that night. Ivan Pappas sat at the table in Mrs. Talucci’s house. He was next to her grandniece, Donna Marie. He was very nicely dressed in a suit and tie. Mrs. Talucci presided at the head of the table. It was Donna Marie’s birthday. Paul, Ben, and their sons were present, as were numerous relations of Mrs. Talucci. A fuss was not being made over Ivan Pappas. He had very properly asked if he could pay court on Donna Marie who had giggled and said yes.
Much later, Paul crawled into bed next to Ben. He could hear faint music from Brian’s radio. He knew when the timer clicked off that his son was asleep. The boy always clicked it for ten more minutes if he was awake.
Ben murmured, “At dinner Jeff announced he wanted to be part of a rock band.”
“As an adult?”
“I believe he was on the Internet with his friends trying to form a group within the next five minutes or so.”
“What instrument is he going to play?”
“I don’t think they got that far in the details. It’s being in a band that seems to be the operative thing.”
“I may swear off music for the rest of my life,” Paul said.
Ben pulled him close. “As long as you don’t swear off other things.”
By Mark Richard Zubro
The Tom and Scott Mysteries
A Simple Suburban Murder
Why Isn’t Becky Twitchell Dead?
The Only Good Priest
The Principal Cause of Death
An Echo of Death
Rust on the Razor
Are You Nuts?
One Dead Drag Queen
Here Comes the Corpse
The Paul Turner Mysteries
Sorry Now?
Political Poison
Another Dead Teenager
The Truth Can Get You Killed
Drop Dead
Sex and Murder.com
Dead Egotistical Morons
Acknowledgments
For their kind help and assistance,
thanks to Jeanne Dams, Barbara D’Amato,
Rick Paul, Kathy Pakeiser-Reed, and Jack Howard.
DEAD EGOTISTICAL MORONS. Copyright © 2003 by Mark Richard Zubro. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zubro, Mark Richard.
Dead egotistical morons / Mark Richard Zubro.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-0287-2
1. Turner, Paul (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—Illinois—Chicago—Fiction. 3. Gay police officers—Fiction. 4. Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. 5. Bands (Music)—Fiction. 6. Gay men—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3576.U225D43 2003
813'.54—dc21
2003043123