Fenwick said, “You’re the one who wants to look at a dead body for no discernible reason, unless you’ve got a corpse fetish.”
They glared at each other.
“Who’s his partner?” Turner asked.
“You really don’t know?”
Turner said, “If I know the answer to a question, I promise not to ask it.”
“Brooks Werberg.”
“You know these guys personally?” Turner asked.
“Yes, I’ve met them on numerous occasions.”
“Have you ever been invited to their homes for dinner?” Turner asked.
“I’ve attended many events.”
Fenwick asked, “You’ve never gone over to watch a football game, just the two or three of you, or had them over for dinner at your house?”
“Well, no.”
Turner asked, “Do you have any names of people he was close to?”
“No.”
Turner asked, “How did Werberg and Lenzati get along?”
“Great. They’ve been best friends since they were kids. They lived together in college.”
“Where can we find Werberg?” Turner asked.
“I can give you his business and home addresses and phone numbers, but I don’t know where he is.”
“Has he been told about his friend’s death?”
“I’m not sure. Someone else was trying to contact him.”
Turner said, “We were told the superintendent himself called in the report. Who called him? Or was the mayor’s office called first? We need the sequence of the calls and who made them. The name of the original caller is the most important.”
“I don’t know who called.”
“Who would know?” Turner asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“We’re going to know that for sure before we’re done,” Fenwick said.
“Is that a threat?”
“I hope you take it as one,” Fenwick said.
“I don’t know who called.”
“We’ll have to ask the mayor,” Fenwick said.
“He can’t be involved in a murder investigation,” Girote insisted.
Fenwick asked, “Why? Doesn’t he have a get-out-of-jail-free card?”
“You can’t run around asking him questions. You can’t come to the fifth floor of city hall and accost the mayor.”
“Bull pizzle,” Fenwick stated.
“Fine,” Turner said. “All you have to do is show up with the information on who called the mayor, and we don’t bother him.”
Girote looked shocked. “Are you trying to bully me?”
Turner said, “You can call it a threat, bullying, blackmail, or making a deal, the life blood of politics anywhere. We need that name. We may need more information than that. You are going to provide it for us.” Turner doubted if the mayor had committed murder, but he also knew he and Fenwick would follow any clues no matter where or to whom they led. If they pointed to the mayor, the problems for the case and their careers would be more than monumental.
Girote said, “I’ll have to talk to some people, including your bosses.”
“I smell a deal,” Fenwick said. “Either that or we’re going to be tattled on.”
“Again?” Turner asked, then said, “Tell us more about Werberg.”
“The two of them are the toast of the town. They go to all the openings. They give a lot of money to a lot of politicians. They could buy and sell the state legislature several times over.”
Fenwick said, “I hear bribing all the legislators and the Chicago City Council wouldn’t take much. Aren’t half of the former aldermen in prison for over-feeding at the public trough?”
“Not that many,” Girote said.
“Close enough,” Fenwick said.
Turner said, “Lenzati and Werberg had significant political connections. I got that part. Were they smooth operators? Did they know the ropes? Did people like them?”
“They were a trifle naive early in their careers.”
“How so?” Turner asked.
“There’s a correct way to approach a legislator.”
“Bribery etiquette,” Fenwick said, “an area Miss Manners has yet to delve into. Perhaps the selection and use of the proper fork to skewer your opponent could become an art form.”
Girote said, “They learned quickly. That they were rich helped, but people genuinely liked them. In the beginning they were the usual computer nerds, mole-eyed dweebs hunched over machines and screens. But these guys were able to change. They had decent hygiene. They would listen to advice. They learned to socialize. Their businesses were well run. The employees were well taken care of with some of the highest salaries and best benefits in the computer industry. They were extremely popular. Everyone liked them.”
“Everybody but one,” Fenwick said.
Turner asked, “Where were you this morning, Mr. Girote?
“Is that another threat or a very sick joke?”
“It’s an easy question,” Turner responded.
“I was in the press office at City Hall by five. I’ll fax you my schedule and a list of eyewitnesses.”
“Fine,” Turner said.
“Can I see the body now?” Girote asked.
“No,” Fenwick said.
Girote pointed at Turner. “You said I could.”
“He said we’d try to accommodate you somehow,” Fenwick said. “We’re not about to define ‘somehow’ as letting you screw up a crime scene.”
Girote glared at them. “That’s a politician’s way of weaseling out.”
“Then you should be used to it,” Turner said.
Girote huffed and puffed, but it was obvious that the detectives were not going to give in. “I’m going to report this to your superiors,” was Girote’s parting shout as he swept out the door.
Fenwick called after him, “Parting shots are for cowards.”
Yerson stepped forward. The department director of news affairs, he had held back during this discussion. “Do you think you handled him correctly?” he asked.
“You want second guessing, try a Republican who hates Bill Clinton,” Fenwick said. “We’re not wasting our time with you. We’ve got real police work to do. Go away.” He turned his back.
Yerson, who had been chosen more for his telegenic looks than any reportorial skills or press credentials Turner was aware of, said quietly, “Are you really sure this is a good way to deal with the mayor’s and department’s public relations offices?”
Fenwick didn’t skip a beat as he said, “Yes.”
Turner asked, “Do you know anything about Lenzati and Werberg?”
“I was told to come over here. I was working in an office full of people since very early this morning.”
“I didn’t suspect you,” Turner said.
“I don’t know anything more than Girote told you. In fact a great deal less.”
3
At crime scenes I like to watch from the assembled onlookers. The detectives always look so official in sport coats, or sometimes even suits. The techs usually look like they just got done mopping somebody’s floor I’d like to get close to all these cops. I’d like to be able to tell if they wear expensive cologne or cheap deodorant. I want to know them. I want to know them while they don’t know me and don’t know that I’m watching or that I’m learning about them. I like being silent and unseen. If I were invisible, it would be perfect.
The evidence technicians and ME people entered the kitchen. “You guys can go in now,” the ME announced.
“He still dead?” Fenwick asked.
The assistant ME said, “He was when we left him.”
“Any way to tell what happened?” Fenwick asked.
An assistant ME said, “Yeah, he got stabbed a lot of times.”
“I was looking for something a little more specific,” Fenwick said.
The ME said, “This is not a contest for who can say the most cryptic one liners. As far as I can tell at the moment, about half
of the stab wounds were inflicted after he was dead. The obvious is true. He was stabbed to death. It probably started in the bathroom, continued across the hall and into the bedroom. I can let you know more later this afternoon, although tomorrow morning you’d get more details and possibly more helpful information. I’m not sure when he died. Certainly within the last couple hours.”
“What was the liquid around his thighs?” Turner asked.
“We’ll know more in the morning. He probably pissed himself as he died,” the ME said. He left.
Examining the corpse, the room it was in, the bathroom, and the hall took less than an hour. Flecks of blood stained bits of the walls and floor in the bathroom and hallway. By far the vast majority of the bleeding had been done in the bedroom. They noted the placement of every object in all three areas. The photographers might catch details, but the detectives were trained to rely on their notes and sketches. After the body was removed, they gravitated to the area of the hall beyond the blood stains.
Fenwick closed his blue notebook. “I don’t see evidence of a struggle,” he said.
“Me neither. Our guy is nearly naked. It’s early. Did he have a guest for the night, and he never got dressed? Or maybe he always walked around his house and answered the door in his underwear?”
“The techs took the bedsheets. We’ll get DNA results on everything they find.”
They’d examined the entire downstairs of the sprawling mansion. There was no evidence of any crime throughout the rest of the antique-encrusted ground floor.
“Struggle,” Turner said. “There has to have been some kind of struggle.” He looked in the hall. He pointed. “We’ve got what looks like a handprint on the wall. So he propped himself up at least once as he was going this way? Was he running? Why was he heading for the bedroom? Why not the front door? Was the killer taunting him? Waiting for him to bleed some more before striking again? Or maybe it’s the killer’s handprint?”
Fenwick said, “Or the killer cleaned up all the disarranged furniture because he thought it would be a dead give away.” Fenwick groaned at his own humor.
“An anal-retentive killer is your friend,” Turner commented.
Fenwick said, “He or she figured if he cleaned well, everybody would ignore a dead body and gobs of blood all over. Have to be a very dumb killer.”
“We’ve run into our share of those. This strikes me as a guest bedroom. There aren’t many clothes in the closet, and just a lot of sweaters in the dresser drawers. In fact, no personal items down here at all. I bet he didn’t sleep down here.”
Fenwick said, “We’ll get the techs to take the sheets from upstairs as well.”
In the entryway, Turner summed up. “We know he was rich. We are fairly sure he was straight. He probably let the killer in, which means he probably knew him or her.”
“There could have been more than one,” Fenwick said.
“I like it,” Turner said. “It would account for the lack of struggle. One or more of them holds the guy and the other stabs him. Maybe they enjoyed his suffering. Stab him a few times, let him run, and stab him a few more. We’ve got to get the tech reports. We’ve got no proof of more than one person, from what I can tell. I didn’t see any signs of restraint on the body.”
Fenwick said, “I’m fascinated with the concept of the killer tootling on out of here covered in blood. We’ve got nobody outside shouting he or she saw anything.”
“Had to have had a car handy. Or they changed into clothes here, which the killer either brought with him, or borrowed from Lenzati.”
“Where’s the murder weapon?” Fenwick asked. “Why the hell can’t the criminals of the world learn to leave the murder weapon where we can find it easily?”
“It’ll put out a memo reminding them of your needs,” Turner said. “So, he comes home with the killer or lets the killer in. That doesn’t tell us much.”
“I don’t see any evidence of forced entry,” Fenwick added. “I agree. He knew his killer and let him or her in. Why does the confrontation start in the bathroom? He didn’t like the way he shaved? The killer got pissed when he pissed?”
Turner said, “We’re not going to go there.”
“Did the killer bring the knife with him or her?” Fenwick asked.
Turner said, “We found nothing broken or disturbed. Did he just stand there and let himself be stabbed? I find that hard to believe. Did the killer get stabbed? Is any of this blood the killer’s?”
“I think we ask the very best questions,” Fenwick said.
“Self-referential analysis is all the rage,” Turner said.
“And I’m good at it,” Fenwick said.
“Is there anything you’re not good at?” Turner asked.
Fenwick thought a moment, then said, “I shall pass over the inherently hostile nature of that question and proceed to the simple answer. No.”
“I was afraid of that,” Turner said. “Stupid question.”
“I’m not the only one who’s a little surly today.”
Turner was irritated because he’d agreed to go to a cop poetry reading that evening. He’d tried to put the obligation out of his mind. After being out all day dealing with criminals, he’d rather stay home in the evenings with his family. He was not about to tell Fenwick where he was going or why. If Fenwick knew Turner was going to a cop poetry reading, Fenwick would tease him mercilessly.
Turner said, “Surly to bed, surly to rise.”
“This is getting out of hand,” Fenwick said.
Turner said, “We’ve got a lot of questions, and I doubt that the ME is going to be able to answer as many as we need.”
“As many as they always do,” Fenwick said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a craving for suspects and witnesses.”
“Is that craving as in vampire-/cannibal-lets-have-them-for-dinner, or craving as in you’re addicted to police work and you need a fix, or craving as in need for more cheap humor?”
Fenwick said, “You’ll notice that in that article about dead detectives east of us, not a one of the murdered cops had the funniest-cop-comedian in their city as part of their profile. I’m sure I’m safe.”
“Not if the killer hears any of your jokes. Although, maybe if all the criminals knew part of their sentence was listening to continuous tapes of your collected jokes, they’d stop committing crimes. Maybe even sue for mercy or beg for the death penalty.”
“Cruel but all possibly true. All I know is, it’s getting tougher and tougher to do grim-cop-humor in this town. I think I’m going to join a twelve-step program.”
“You’ve made that threat before and you never do. For now let’s go over the rest of the house.”
In an electronics room they found three computers, one printer, and rows of disks and shelves filled with technical manuals. Papers covered three large tables against one wall. In this room there wasn’t an antique in sight. The decor ran to stainless steel stem lamps, stark white walls, and an absence of that which would make it warm or personal.
There was a bank of smaller monitors tucked in one corner. “This must be the security system,” Fenwick said.
All the monitors were dark. A small shelf contained tapes. “These must be the monitor’s records,” Turner said. “We’ll have to check them out.”
“Want to bet the ones from last night are missing?” Fenwick asked.
“No,” Turner said. “Although, if he knew the killer, and let him in voluntarily, all the security in the world wouldn’t have helped much.”
After they’d hunted through a drawer jammed with bills, checkbooks, and personal correspondence, Turner said, “I don’t see an address book.” Nothing they found revealed anything significant. Turner discovered a pile of postcards without messages or stamps. They were from cities throughout the world.
“He didn’t bank electronically?” Turner asked.
“You’d think a computer guy would,” Fenwick said.
“A guy this wealthy must employ a
team of accountants. We need to talk to them. We’ll have to get some of the department computer people in here and go over everything carefully.” Turner gazed at all the papers. “Not something I’m looking forward to quite yet.”
“You and me both,” Fenwick said. They decided to leave the papers for that afternoon when the computer expert could be present. He would be able to tell them what was safe to touch, or what could be secret diagrams to technological marvels that could rule the world, or what could possibly be a clue in a murder investigation.
In a walk-in closet off the electronics room they found an entire wall that held a library of DVD recordings, thousands of alphabetized movie tapes, and thousands of CDs. Numerous shelves were filled with pornographic videos.
As he examined the outer coverings of these last, Turner said, “My guess is, he was straight.” Fenwick checked several of the box covers. Many featured naked women wearing spike heels and enough makeup to fill yards of counter space in the cosmetics section of a major department store. Most were sprawled in fantastic contortions displaying as much flesh as possible.
“Are these poses supposed to be enticing?” Turner asked, holding up one with a woman leaning backward while straddling the largest watermelon Turner had ever seen. She wore only a pair of red spike heels and the requisite gobs of makeup.
Fenwick examined the proffered box for a moment and then said, “To the fourteen-year-old boy inside of every adult, straight male, they are.”
“No real woman has breasts that big,” Turner asked, “do they?”
“I haven’t made a study, although I’d be willing to volunteer to do the research if my wife were on a trip to Mars and wouldn’t be back for ten years, and that radar she has for knowing what I’m up to was turned off.”
“Is there any significance to the fact that he had all these tapes?” Turner asked.
“He whacked off a lot?”
“Maybe he was into making them. I haven’t seen any apparatus for that yet. These sure look like regular commercial tapes. You don’t make highly glossy boxes for your own self-filmed collection, do you?”
“I never have,” Fenwick said.
Turner said, “I like the newspaper articles where, when a criminal is arrested, they include the porn tapes in a list of things found. As if by their very presence, they revealed something sinister about the owner.”
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