Nerds Who Kill

by Zubro, Mark Richard

  “He was the fan guest of honor at this convention, wasn’t he? I saw that in the program. I didn’t know him.”

  Turner asked, “You know anything about red ostrich feathers connected with Ms. Devers?”

  “I saw her with them. She carried the damn things everywhere. She insisted they be in the movies of her books as well. I suppose she may have slept with them or taken a shit with them. I always thought it was one of the silliest affectations. She could have burned all the red feathers on the planet and still sold a ton of books. It was dumb.”

  “Where were you between ten and eleven today?” Fenwick asked.

  “I was addressing a seminar on the director’s vision for popular heroes.”

  “What’s the director’s vision for popular heroes?” Fenwick asked.

  “Sex sells.”

  Perhaps a bit of a narrow vision, Turner thought. Cavali left.

  14

  Sanchez entered again.

  Fenwick said, “I hope you’re showing up here with some kind of solution.”

  “Nope,” Sanchez said. “We’ve got more problems.”

  They followed him down the corridor to the stairs. It was easier than trying to summon an elevator. Since the elevators were on lockdown, they would have needed a special key to summon one of them. Fortunately for Fenwick’s bulk, they were walking downstairs. At each landing was a cop. They weren’t going to be able to keep up this kind of intensive presence for long. Other crimes were still being committed in the city. Turner knew they’d have the help longer than usual because of the injury to the officer, but the extra help was a finite thing.

  They walked down to the seventeenth floor. Sanchez said, “One of the hotel guests used this excuse to get to his room. He said his kid needed his inhaler.” He led them to the bathroom. The shower stall was covered in blood.

  “I think this is real blood again,” Turner said.

  Fenwick said, “We better get the Crime Lab personnel in here quick. We’ve got a Hollywood crowd here. Maybe they could fake this stuff pretty convincingly. Hell, some of these people dedicate their lives to making fake things look real.”

  Turner said, “We could try and find some Hollywood type to do that trick of sticking their finger in the questionable substance and then tasting it.” No cop Turner knew, including the dumbest rookie, ever put an unknown substance from a crime scene in his mouth. Turner had seen an awful lot of real blood in an awful lot of contexts. This looked real to him.

  “Whose room was this?” Turner asked.

  “They’ve got the guy next door.” He glanced at his notebook. “Guy named Donald Diekman and his family were staying in the room. He says he doesn’t know a thing.”

  Turner and Fenwick strode next door. Diekman wore chain mail that reached to his knees, brown leather pants underneath, and a pointy peasant’s helmet. He was a beefy guy.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “Why is there blood in our room? There’s all kind of crazy rumors going on downstairs. Did someone get in our room? Is someone trying to kill us? Did somebody die in our room? All our clothes and things are in there. Are we going to be able to get in and get them?”

  “What time did you leave your room?” Fenwick asked.

  “A little after one. We’ve been gone all day. Mostly we were playing wizards’ chess in one of the ballrooms. My wife and kids love the game.”

  “Did people have broadswords?”

  “Yeah. Bunch of different people. One of the first rumors I heard was that someone stole a sword and chopped somebody’s hand off. Now supposedly there’s a serial killer running around with a broadsword. I’ve heard about sixteen different rumors. Why don’t they just announce what is going on? Nobody can get into their rooms. People are starting to get pretty angry.”

  Fenwick asked, “You ever have run-ins with the Chicago cops?”

  “I got a ticket on Lake Shore Drive once. Does that count? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Did you deserve the ticket?” Fenwick asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Did you notice anyone hanging around your room?”

  “No. Our room was fine when I left. I showered this morning. Neither my wife nor I have been up here. The kids don’t even have keys so they couldn’t have gotten in.”

  “Have you had a chance to examine your belongings?” Turner asked.

  “I glanced. Everything looks like it’s where we left it.”

  “Did you know Dennis Foublin?” Turner asked.

  “Yes. He was a good friend.” Diekman looked from one detective to the other. “What’s happened?”

  Turner told him the news. Diekman sat down on the bed with a thump. He put his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. “This can’t be true.”

  “I’m sorry. It is.”

  “What happened? Wait. Someone confiscated our swords. He was killed with a sword. My god, that’s barbaric. Poor Dennis. He was such a good guy.”

  “He gave a lot of positive reviews,” Fenwick said.

  “His reviews were always thoughtful and fair-minded. I helped him maintain his web site. I even wrote some reviews for the comic book section. He was second only to me in the SF world in knowledge about comics, although he knew way more than I did about science fiction and fantasy novels.”

  “Anybody ever get angry about his reviews?” Fenwick asked.

  “Oh, people always get angry. Sometimes it was funny. Dennis would mention something in his review and a writer in his or her next book would try and dig back at Dennis.”

  “Nobody had fights about this?” Fenwick asked.

  “It was all very proper, English-department professorial. Nobody in a college gets homicidal.”

  Fenwick said, “I heard departments in colleges can be breeding grounds for double-dealing, hostility, and homicide.”

  “That’s not what he was like.” Diekman began to cry. “He was such a good guy.”

  When Diekman was calmer, Turner asked, “Where’d you guys meet?”

  “We were working in the same coffee shop at the University of Minnesota.”

  “He ever have fights with anybody?” Turner asked.

  “Nobody I know of.”

  Turner said, “We heard a rumor that he might have had something sinister in his background.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What do you know about his connection with Muriam Devers?” Fenwick asked.

  “Muriam is mostly harmless. As far as I know, they got along.”

  “She used red feathers as part of her schtick,” Fenwick commented.

  “Yeah. I only knew her slightly, but every time I saw her on the television talk shows, she had that stupid feather.”

  “Did you know the members of her writing group?” Turner asked.

  “I heard they thought of themselves as some kind of an SF mafia.”

  “How so?” Turner asked.

  “Well, they kind of presumed to power. Like, they knew somebody rich, so they should be listened to and catered to for no apparent merit of their own.”

  “And were they catered to?” Turner asked.

  “In their imagination, they certainly were. I suppose there are always those who think by sucking up, they’ll get ahead. I suppose some people were nice to them because they were close to Muriam. Maybe a few thought they were genuinely good people. I thought they were mostly harmless.”

  “But you didn’t know them personally?”

  “If I ever met them connected with Muriam, I certainly don’t remember them. You meet an awful lot of people at conventions. Who remembers them all?”

  He knew nothing else helpful. He left.

  Turner said, “The killer planned this extremely carefully. This is not random. This is made to keep us looking, to keep us confused. Are these people all connected in some way?”

  “I don’t believe all the people we’ve talked to are killers,” Fenwick said. “Unless there’s some vast conspiracy going on.
We’ve got no proof any of these folks conspired together. Some of them knew one another, but not all of them knew everybody.”

  “My worry is that we’re going to find more corpses as people are allowed into their rooms.”

  Fenwick said, “There aren’t going to be any new corpses up here. Everyone at the convention is downstairs.”

  “Unless they’ve been napping in their rooms or reading in their rooms or sitting and brooding in their rooms.”

  Fenwick said, “People come to conventions to sit and do nothing?”

  “Plus we could have old corpses,” Turner said. “That’s what I’m worried about. With perfect planning or incredible luck, he could have left a heap of dead bodies.”

  “Dead bodies in a heap?” Fenwick said. “Not a pretty thought.”

  “The killer would have had lots of opportunities to find victims. He could have been at work for hours before the first body was found. He could have been skipping down the corridors flinging bloody clues in every nearby receptacle.”

  Fenwick said, “I want to see a killer skipping. I want to testify to that fact in court.”

  Turner asked, “Was he tossing his signature blood or feathers before he even committed the first murder? I can’t imagine a purpose for leaving the bloody clothing around unless the killer was trying to screw with the investigation.”

  “He could have all kinds of different reasons,” Fenwick said.

  “He could be changing disguises even as we speak,” Turner said. “We’ve got to get the timing down on this. At the least I’d say this certainly looks like a very angry killer.”

  Fenwick said, “He wouldn’t be able to swing a broadsword around anymore. Anybody sees someone with one of those, it’d be confiscated.”

  Turner said, “The killer doesn’t have to stick with doing people in with a broadsword.”

  “Awfully clumsy way to kill someone,” Fenwick said.

  “If he did all this planting of clues before the killing, then it’s obvious that it was all well thought out. Was the killer taking a chance by doing this running around while the convention was in full swing? How would he know all these people were not in their rooms? He could find the ones who were giving talks or on panels but not the majority of people.”

  “Maybe he didn’t,” Fenwick said. “Maybe he knocked on a few doors or called the rooms ahead of time. If he was staying at the hotel, he’d have access to a phone in his room. He could call randomly from there.”

  “We still don’t know how the killer got into all these rooms.”

  “Unless the people knew the killer and let him in.”

  For now they had lots of questions and not a lot of answers. They called for the next person to be interrogated.

  15

  Agnes Demint, Devers’ agent, was next to be interviewed. She was dressed in an elegant pantsuit of pink velvet. Turner guessed she was in her forties. Her makeup looked like it had been applied with a trowel. From the amount of blush, it looked as if she might have simply plunged her face into a vat of the stuff. She shook their hands.

  “This is awful,” she murmured. She had a low, throaty voice.

  Turner said, “We appreciate everyone’s willingness to talk to us at such an awful time.”

  “I’ll do anything I can to help find out who did this.”

  “We’ve heard different accounts of how Muriam got along with people.”

  “Fans loved her. She loved them. She wasn’t faking it. She genuinely loved being with them. She always had patience with them.”

  Fenwick said, “We heard it was a different story with some of the people she worked with.”

  “I suppose there are always malcontents. Most of the people she worked with loved her. I did. She was a dream.”

  “How did you become her agent?” Fenwick asked.

  “I worked with her at one of the larger agencies for about ten years. Then one day she came to me with an offer. I could probably have made a living on just her account, but I’m not stupid. You can’t let your whole career rest on keeping one account. This business is too changeable for that. But I took her on as my first client. Many people followed in her wake. I’m eternally grateful to her.”

  “Who was her agent before?” Fenwick asked.

  “Devers started with our agency.”

  “Why’d she want to leave?” Fenwick asked. “And why’d she pick you?”

  “I’m not sure about the leaving part,” Demint said. “She said she picked me because I was one of the few people who made comments about her books that made sense.”

  “She needed praise?” Fenwick asked.

  “I praised and I panned as the situation warranted. She liked having someone be honest with her about her work.”

  Fenwick asked, “What exactly was your role in her career?”

  “Agents do any number of things. I read her manuscripts or movie scripts. Sometimes I sent them back with suggestions. Not that often in the beginning, even more rarely in the last few years.”

  “Did she make changes willingly?” Fenwick asked.

  “I rarely asked for an out-and-out change. Mostly I made suggestions. She could follow them or not. I wasn’t her editor.”

  “What else did you do?” Fenwick asked.

  “Mostly I negotiated. The negotiations for Muriam were fairly simple. Muriam never got involved. She had everyone talk to me. That’s what I’m here for. People could be angry with me, not her. When there was bidding in Hollywood for her books, I’d get all the bids. I opened them. I informed all the others of the highest bid. It was like a high-class auction, very civilized. They were offering tons of money. Movie deals. Those kinds of things.”

  “How much money are we talking about?” Turner asked.

  “Millions.”

  “Enough to kill for,” Turner said.

  Demint said, “Muriam would never hurt anyone.”

  “Wasn’t the agency hurt when she left them?” Fenwick asked.

  “It is still a huge agency. They have tons of successful clients.”

  “What was the advantage of having you, on your own?” Fenwick asked.

  “I believe she felt more in control. That it was more of a personal touch with just me.”

  Fenwick said, “If I had a client doing million-dollar deals and I was an agency, I’d give her all kinds of control.”

  Demint said, “She wanted me.”

  “And nobody got angry at the negotiations?” Fenwick asked. “She didn’t try double-dealing beyond anyone’s back?”

  “Really! Muriam was not like that.”

  Fenwick said, “We heard she got the director on her first film fired.”

  “I don’t know about that. Nobody said anything to me. I know the directors changed. I heard it was the studio’s decision. Nobody ever told me anything different.”

  “Did she get along with her editors?”

  “She never said a bad word about them to me.”

  Fenwick said, “One or two of them seemed less than enthralled.”

  “She was good to me. I made a lot of money from her.”

  “Do you have any accounts that bring in more money?” Fenwick asked.

  “No. A few are beginning to come close, but you’ve got to remember, Muriam was unique. She was in the stratosphere compared to most writers. She was among the elite in terms of income. I believe she was closing in on Oprah last year.”

  Fenwick asked, “Did she have enemies of any kind? Anyone you can think of who might have a grudge?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Fenwick asked, “Can you tell us about Ms. Devers and those feathers?”

  “Why on Earth would you be interested in that?”

  “It might be important,” Fenwick replied.

  “Well, it was just this cute thing. Such a great idea. We were going to launch a red feather line of perfume next spring. Are you saying this is a clue? What is going on?”

  “We’re trying to find out,” Fenwick said.r />
  Turner asked, “Did you know the members of her writing group?”

  “Writing? Ha! Buffoons. I heard the rumors of why she hung around with them. I tried to ask her about it once. She just laughed and said she enjoyed having a writing group. I don’t know if she was using them for sex. I suppose a lot of people would have. She managed to pick some of the hottest young men.”

  “Did you have a sexual relationship with any of them?”

  “I think they’re cute. I prefer real men, not gym bunnies full of themselves. Muriam would promise to have her agent read their stuff. I’m her agent, and she never gave me any of their stuff.”

  “How do you know she promised them?”

  “One of them made the mistake of asking me if I’d got around to reading his manuscript. He told me that Muriam had promised to send it to me with her recommendation.”

  “Who was that?”

  “David Hutter.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I mentioned what he said to Muriam. He was out of the writing group pretty damn fast.”

  “Muriam lied to these people?”

  “I think some people took what she said and made more of it than there was to be made of it.”

  Fenwick said, “Hutter misunderstood Ms. Devers’ intentions?”

  “To put it mildly. Muriam had no need to make such promises. As far as I know, she never did. She never passed anything along to me.”

  “Could she have passed manuscripts along to other people without your knowledge?” Fenwick asked.

  “Certainly, but why would she?”

  Could be all kinds of reasons, Turner thought. “Is Mr. Hutter at the convention?” he asked.

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  Turner asked, “Did you know Dennis Foublin?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t. There are so many things to take care of on a much greater scale than one reviewer on the Internet. Those Internet people certainly think they have a lot of influence, but they certainly don’t. Muriam Devers didn’t make a penny less on a movie deal if some idiot on the Internet didn’t like her books.”

  “Did she have any problems with anyone at the convention?”

  “Well, there was the loon.”