“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.
“There’s blood all over the place up here,” Fenwick said. He and Turner were halfway around the roof. Away from the brightness around the body, they used their flashlights. Turner looked back. He could see the body and about half the rooftop. They had keys to everything on the roof that needed a key. The wind up here came in sporadic puffs. A four-foot brick wall topped by four feet of thick Plexiglas around the perimeter kept out the worst of the Chicago winds. Turner understood that in summer diners could eat in the lee of the walls. The second storage space they examined had stacks of chairs, presumably for the restaurant. Fenwick flipped on the light switch. A bare bulb illumined rows of chairs. Under the first few were three more broadswords and a stack of red feathers and a heap of bloody clothes.
Fenwick said, “This case is really starting to have an edge to it.”
“Watch it, there’s enough swords here to damage even you.”
“Here’s the answer to some questions,” Fenwick said.
“And brings up some more,” Turner said. “Is one of these the sword that killed Slate or Foublin?” He leaned close and shone his flashlight on the three of them. They looked pristinely clean. The rest of the room had a thin film of undisturbed dust o
n every surface. He said, “The killer is a neatnik or none of these have been used.”
Fenwick said, “Somebody’s going to ask why we didn’t look on the roof earlier.”
“Nobody thought to look on the roof. Who knew there would be a place up here to hide clues?”
“Is this the killer’s stash?” Fenwick asked. “His only stash? Or an elaborate set-up?”
“The killer had to have a stash someplace,” Turner said. “Yeah, okay, we’ve got hundreds of rooms this crap could be in, but the roof is a reasonably logical but very out-of-the-way place.” They returned to the corpse scene and mentioned the materials in the storage room so the tech team would know to check it.
“Does this mean there will definitely be no more killings?” Fenwick asked. “And most importantly, why is Melvin Slate dead? He’d be a much better candidate for the killer, if he wasn’t a corpse.”
“A killer corpse,” Turner said. “Now there’s a concept waiting to happen or the title of a cheap slasher movie.”
Fenwick said, “Slate could have worn that cape to conceal swords and bloody clothes and all kinds of shit.”
Turner said, “A logical conclusion is that he was in it with someone and they had a falling out. Maybe he was double-crossed by his accomplice. We’ve got to find out if we can trace this guy’s movements from when he left us to here.”
“How’d he get up here?” Fenwick said. “Didn’t somebody notice? He breaks a lock. Nobody hears anything?”
Turner climbed the ladder to the top of the cooling tower. The wind was cruel at this height. The front had passed, the rain had stopped, and the wind was in off the lake. He was well beyond the protection of the eight-foot barrier. The view was spectacular. Turner was not afraid of heights, but he had a quick flash of vertigo on the last few steps. He’d never been so open and exposed so high up. Here the wind was untrammeled by the eight-foot barrier. He felt himself buffeted by the gusts. He gripped the rungs tighter. As he neared the top, for an instant he flashed on a killer taking a swipe at his head as it appeared over the edge of the tower. He crammed his flashlight in his belt, steadied himself, then climbed the last few rungs. He peered carefully over the edge onto the top of the tower. No humans. No sword. He saw a black backpack about two feet away. One end flapped in the wind. He wrapped one arm around the ladder and reached for the backpack. He pulled it close, fumbled with it carefully, secured it over his shoulder and climbed back down.
He and Fenwick examined the prize at the foot of the ladder. Inside they found size twenty-eight waist jeans with a belt that dangled a foot beyond the last loop, black high-top tennis shoes, and a ragged and torn T-shirt.
“Slate’s,” Turner said.
Fenwick said, “He told us he didn’t do costumes.”
“He lied,” Turner said. “He might have said a lot of stuff, but he isn’t going to anymore.”
They also found a plastic hotel room key.
Fenwick said, “He claimed he wasn’t staying at the hotel.”
“He lied,” Turner said.
“I got that part,” Fenwick said.
Wrapped in a grease-stained cloth at the bottom was an electronic device. Turner held it in his plastic covered hand. “A Palm Pilot?”
“Computers are getting too damn small.”
Turner unwrapped a set of wires leading from the computer to a plastic card the size of the modern room key.
Turner said, “He was the one who could get into the rooms. He was in on the killings. There were two of them.”
“Unless he had one of these and was a petty thief as well as a nerd.”
“Neither of us believes in coincidences. This is why he didn’t want us to look in his backpack. He had the damn thing with him.”
Fenwick said, “He probably had it with him, yeah. Or he was really clever. Or he and his coconspirator traded them off.”
“Or the coconspirator has one of his own.”
Macer checked the hotel computer and called back up to them with Slate’s room number.
After the ME’s team finished their investigation, they joined Turner and Fenwick near a sculpture that was a deep blue, six-foot Lucite isosceles triangle whose top point had been twisted into a golden swirl.
The ME said, “Your victim up here fought. A lot.”
“Is all the blood his?”
“Can’t tell yet. He’s got cuts on his arms. He’s got blood and bits of stuff under his fingernails. Could be he clawed at the roof in his death agony. Could be he got in a few licks on his killer.” He showed them the diagram he’d drawn. Turner and Fenwick took out their preliminary sketches. Photographs were always taken of the scenes, but the detectives always made their own diagrams. “He got bashed in the head about halfway between the cooling tower and the entrance. That’s where the blood starts. He did not die right away. The brain is a funny thing. He was bleeding and dying, but he was fighting or at least thrashing and stumbling. They went around the roof.”
“He was chasing somebody?” Fenwick asked.
“More staggering and fighting, probably gouging and scratching. He could have been dodging out of the way. He could have been verging on unconscious. It’s hard to tell.”
Fenwick said, “We found a heap of swords, and we’ve got the accounted-for ones downstairs. We still don’t know if one, some, or all of the ones in the heap killed one some or all of our victims.”
“Can’t tell you about any of that yet,” the ME said.
“How long has this guy been dead?” Turner asked.
“Less than half an hour. The blood hasn’t even begun to dry. Whoever found him probably did so pretty soon after the death.”
“Any violence done to the thumb?” Turner asked. “He had rings on both thumbs when we saw him earlier.”
The ME had one of his assistants bring over one of the bright lights. He examined the appendage. “I don’t see any signs of violence. I’ll examine it more closely at the morgue.”
Sanchez brought over Purdy Smeedum who spoke with an eastern European accent. “I come to smoke. I see blood. I run downstairs. That’s all I know.”
“People smoke up here?” Fenwick said.
“All time. Not illegal. Outdoor café open only in summer.”
“Who does and how often?”
“Oh. Not too much. On my shift, just me. One break every two hours. Union rules. I come when my shift begins. I come up again a little while ago. I see lock. I see body.”
“You have a key?” Fenwick asked.
“Yes. Sometimes I come up here to do work. No problems before this here at work. No problems now? Okay?”
“Macer is your problem with work rule violations,” Fenwick said. “We’ve got corpses to deal with. Did you know Muriam Devers?”
“No. Who she?” He looked in the direction of the corpse. “That not a lady.”
“She died earlier,” Turner explained. “You know anybody at this convention?”
“No. Lots of conventions. I sweep floors, mop, carry things. I work hard.”
They asked about Foublin and Slate. His lack of knowledge seemed genuine.
On the way down to Melvin’s room, Fenwick said, “I’ll bite. Why is the ring missing?”
“Don’t know,” Turner said.
“No repartee? No comments?”
“Today it’s just frustration.”
A NO MAID SERVICE sign hung on the door. Turner and Fenwick used the key to enter Melvin’s room. Inside, black fishing net was draped from every wall. A bloody sword transfixing an anvil dominated the center of the room. Whips, chains, and leather harnesses lay strewn in heaps around the floor.
Fenwick flicked the anvil with his glove-clad finger. “Is this real?”
“I hope not.”
“How did he get this crap in here?” Fenwick asked.
“Persistence,” Turner said. Fenwick glared. Turner said, “It’s a big convention center. They’ve got people toting boxes in all the time. It must have taken him hours t
o get all this crap up here. He didn’t bring it in one load. It might take someone awhile to get all this shit up here, but it could be done, especially if he had help.”
Fenwick tapped a plastic bag on the nightstand. “Looks like fake blood.”
“We’ve had plenty enough of the real stuff.”
Fenwick asked, “Is this the horror movie suite?”
Turner said, “No, the set for a medieval torture movie.”
“They make movies about medieval torture?”
“Not that I’ll admit to watching. We’ve got a lot of movie people here, maybe they helped him.”
Next to the anvil in the middle of the floor was a vase filled with red ostrich feathers.
Fenwick said, “An obsessed ostrich feather freak?”
“Or somebody planted them here. They wanted our convention loser to be implicated.”
“Hard not to be implicated with all this shit in here.”
“Guilt by medieval weirdness?”
“Works for me,” Fenwick said.
On the desk were two laptop computers plugged into the wall. The one on the left was dense with single spaced prose. Turner examined the words. They told of a tumescent plant on the planet Zarth. He scrolled up and down for a few moments. The other computer seemed to be filled with electronic games. Turner examined the desktop and the documents folder. Nothing leapt out at him. He said, “We’ll have to get these to the tech guys. Nothing looks suspicious right up front.”
“Wouldn’t be a mystery if it did,” Fenwick replied.
They opened three large suitcases. They were filled with costumes. Some Turner didn’t recognize. He assumed they were for characters in books or movies he’d never seen or read. Some were obvious, a Chicago cop’s leather jacket, a fireman’s heavy coat, a starship captain’s spandex shirt.
Turner held up a number of items. “With a little imagination, he could have been about anyone.”
Fenwick asked, “Did he plan the costumes because he needed them for the murder, or was this his run-of-the-mill convention attire?”
Turner shrugged. “I dunno.”
Near the bottom they found a black cape with an enormous black hood and a set of gloves. The front of the cape and the gloves were splotched with dark stains. “Blood,” Turner said. “He wore these when he attacked Rivachec. Maybe some of the others as well.”
Nerds Who Kill Page 19