Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery (10 page)

“What else did you find out about Ms. Devers and Mr. Foublin?” Turner asked.

Slate drew his feet up onto the couch. He wrapped his arms around his long skinny legs and drew them close so his knees were inches away from his chin. “A lot of it was gossipy stuff. I bet most of it wasn’t even true.”

“What was it?” Turner asked.

Slate licked his lips, adjusted his glasses, and tugged at his pant legs. He said, “Ms. Devers had this reputation for being nice to everybody. But boy, she was mean. She wouldn’t give me the time of day. Lots of people on the net said she was rotten.”

Fenwick said, “A lot of people we talked to say they really liked her, and that she was extraordinarily kind.”

“Do you really believe that’s true about anybody?” Slate asked. “I bet there are some people who don’t like you. Can I have my backpack?”

“No,” Fenwick said.

“What did they say about Ms. Devers?” Turner asked.

“All kinds of stuff. How she tried to trample on all kinds of people on her way to the top of the bestseller lists. How she wrecked other writers’ careers. How she got editors fired. She ruined some people’s careers in Hollywood, too. All the fights she caused within organizations.”

“Did you believe all that stuff?” Fenwick asked.

“You asked me what it said. The Internet says lots of stuff. People believe what they want to believe.”

“Do you remember any names of people who didn’t like her?”

“We all use screen names. Nobody uses real names. You don’t have real names in chat rooms.”

“What did they say about Mr. Foublin?”

“Not so much. He wasn’t very famous. His web site was great. He wrote lots of stories. Most of them were about husbands and wives who had lots of marriage troubles. He’d post the stories on his site.”

“Was his marriage in trouble?” Fenwick asked.

“I don’t know. He just wrote lots of stories like that. Once in a while somebody on the net would make hints about his past.”

“About what?” Turner asked.

“Nobody ever said. As if there was something shady that nobody could prove. I don’t know what. I tried to find out.”

Turner wondered if he really didn’t know. He didn’t picture someone confiding in Melvin, but over the Internet who knew what strangers might reveal to each other? Or totally fabricate?

“Why didn’t you wear a costume to the convention?” Turner asked.

“I can’t afford any of that cool-looking stuff. Lots of times I just watch. It’s pretty fun just looking at the people.”

“Do you have a room here at the hotel?”

“No. I commute from home. It isn’t as much fun when you don’t stay at the convention hotel, but it’s okay.”

“Do you know anything about a red ostrich feather?” Turner asked.

“Sure. It was Ms. Devers’ publicity signature, a gimmick. She made sure the artist somehow worked it onto all the covers of all of her books in the Althea Morris series.”

Turner asked, “Do you know the significance of the feather in the book?”

“Is this like, I’m helping the cops?”

Fenwick said, “This is like, tell us what you know before we get pissed off.”

Slate glanced at Fenwick for barely a second. He wrapped his arms tighter around his legs and pulled them closer to his chest. His chin now rested on his knees.

Turner loved working with Fenwick. He enjoyed their partnership and, truth be told, their repartee and Fenwick’s humor, but once in a while, he wished his partner were a little less abrupt with those who were a little more vulnerable. They were getting information. Why be a hardass? Then again, Fenwick made it easy to play good cop/bad cop. It just wasn’t always necessary to go directly to that role-playing method of getting information.

Turner said, “I don’t know her books. It would help if you could explain.”

Melvin didn’t look in Fenwick’s direction. He said, “Althea Morris is one of the perfect archetypes of the new strong woman character in science fiction. She didn’t need a man to rescue or complete her. Althea was popular with a lot of women but especially young girls because they identified with her. In the books, when Althea was born, her father placed a feather from a Ramble bird on her bed. It was a talisman and a symbol. It most closely resembles an ostrich feather on Earth. When Althea led the revolution at the climax of the book, her warriors all wore a red plume. The feathers meant truth and purity and good. Her fan club sells red plumes as a fundraiser. Why are they important now?”

Fenwick said, “We’re not sure if they are, but they’ve come up in the investigation. Before you go, we need to look in your backpack. We won’t take anything. A lot of people are probably going to have to get their room or their belongings inspected.”

Turner imagined the backpack filled with cheap pornography, tomes on building bombs, and at least one unregistered firearm. He doubted Slate was capable of organizing himself well enough to commit a crime. He wasn’t about to take any chances either. Slate looked pretty odd, as did a number of people he’d seen in the halls, but Slate didn’t sound terribly nutty. Probably shy and not good with people. Then again, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find a supply of red feathers.

“Can I hand the stuff to you?” Slate asked.

“No,” Fenwick said.

“Isn’t that unconstitutional?” Slate asked.

“We’re going through everything,” Fenwick said.

“One of the rumors is that Ms. Devers was killed with a broadsword. You don’t think I could keep a broadsword in there, do you?”

“We’ll be going through everything,” Fenwick said.

“Should I call a lawyer?” Slate asked.

“Do you think you need one?” Fenwick asked.

“I don’t know.”

Turner said, “You’re not under arrest.”

“Then I want my backpack, and I want to go.”

Fenwick forwent the inspection. They had no hard evidence implicating Slate. Fenwick leaned forward and held the backpack out to Slate. With his best low, grumbly snarl, he said, “Don’t leave the convention.” Slate reached a hand toward Fenwick as if he were putting it into the mouth of a cranky crocodile. He grabbed his possession and scuttled out the door.

Turner figured that if looking weird became their criterion for making arrests, they’d have to put handcuffs on more people than all the jails on the planet combined could hold.

When he was gone, Fenwick said, “I noticed the rings too. Do you really think a cult wouldn’t have him?”

“The man is a walking picture of ‘reject me.’ I don’t want to eliminate the possibility, no matter how remote, but I’m not ready to move the idea anywhere near the realm of probability.”

Fenwick said, “You’ve read about the cults that require people to commit murder to get in. Maybe Melvin has a conscience and couldn’t do it. Wasn’t Carruthers trying to link all of his cases to cults there for a while?”

They both sighed. Randy Carruthers was the Melvin Slate of their detective squad. For months Carruthers had dinned into their heads useless facts and theories about cults. Not an iota of the information had helped any of the detectives solve a single one of their cases.

Turner said, “Isn’t there something about if you don’t cover your tracks for your murder, they try and kill you?”

“You would know. I tune Carruthers out.”

Turner’s innate courtesy often kept him listening far longer than any of the other members of the squad to Carruthers’ claptrap. Turner said, “Is either of us suggesting Muriam Devers was in a cult?”

“Evil grandmothers on the loose? I’m not ready to go that far yet. That theory leaves out Foublin. Nothing about either one of them suggested cult to me.” Fenwick added. “Sorry I shot my mouth off when you were asking him about the Althea character. I know it didn’t help.”

“He kept talking.”

“Yeah.”

Turner said, “Neither of us is perfect, yet.”

“Let’s not spread that around,” Fenwick replied.

Turner said, “What about his suggestion that there was something sinister in Foublin’s past?”

“Slate could suggest Foublin could flap his arms and fly to the moon. Doesn’t make it so. Sigh. We’ll have to ask. He was such a loser.”

“I feel sorry for him,” Turner said.

“Why?”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t have a friend. Can you imagine him having a date? His mom probably drives him nuts.”

“Maybe she’s a sweet lady, and he’s got lots of friends. He just likes to look like an awful loser when he’s at huge conventions. It’s his costume or cover.”

“I’m afraid I’m right.”

“You probably are,” Fenwick said. “I wish we could have inspected that backpack. Who knows, maybe he had one of those folding broadswords in it. You know, like the magicians use.”

“I must have missed those in magic class. No, I don’t want an explanation of how they work.”

“Humor management classes and magic classes? Is this like a graduate degree?”

“Ph.D.”

“Oh.”

7

The next person on their list was Melissa Bentworth, the chairperson of the committee in charge of the convention. She was a tall woman in a light brown and green flowing gown that billowed as she walked. A spray of lilies was entwined with oak leaves in a garland around her head. Turner thought it looked like some kind of galactic Mother Earth Spirit costume.

She said, “Oona told the committee what happened. She looks like she’s under a terrible strain. Her health hasn’t been the best these past few years. Now the most ghastly rumors are running through the convention. What is going on?”

Turner confirmed the information about Devers and Foublin.

Bentworth threw back her head and gave a whoop of delight. “We said we wanted this to be the most memorable SF convention ever. I guess it’s going to be, whether we like it or not.”

Turner had seen a wide range of emotions when people dealt with someone’s demise. This wasn’t the oddest reaction he’d ever seen, but it was kind of up there on the “different” scale.

“Did you know Ms. Devers and Mr. Foublin?” Turner asked.

“Muriam and I knew each other quite well. Too well. I was up in her suite for that dessert party with the group last night. It was a happy get-together. Mr. Foublin I knew as a fan. We always have a fan guest of honor at these conventions. Usually it’s some old poop who’s hung around for years. His only real competition came from an elderly gentleman from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who was actually very close to being picked. Then he went and had a heart attack and died the day before we voted. That ended any possible controversy.”

“Did either of them have fights at the convention or prior to this with any of the attendees?” Fenwick asked.

“Fighting was not Muriam Devers’ public persona.”

“What was her private persona?” Fenwick asked.

Bentworth sighed. “Do you know how she got her start?”

The detectives shook their heads.

“It was at Galactic Books. She’s still with them. They are the biggest fantasy and science fiction publisher in the world. I was her first editor there. I read her first manuscript. I was the one who saw potential in it. I was the one who believed in her. I was the one who helped her out. I was the one who offered her her first contract. I got repaid all right. I was the one she stabbed in the back. She got me fired. I was the first one whose job she trampled over on her way to the top. She didn’t have a grateful bone in her body. She always had an eye out for herself. She was very, very good at watching out for herself. She never took her eye off of whatever was good for her.”

“How did she get you fired?” Turner asked.

“That was sneaky. Her first book hit the top of the bestseller list. She and it were hot properties. I found out later that she felt I was holding her back, that I had been too heavy on the criticism for her first book. She’s the kind of writer who thinks every sentence she writes is deathless prose and needs no revision. When she turned in her second manuscript, she didn’t want me working on it. She couldn’t change companies. She was under contract. We weren’t going to let her out of it. She ran to each of the higher-ups in the company in turn. When she got to the CEO, he looked at the bottom line and at me. I was easy to sacrifice.”

“Is that CEO at the convention?”

“His name is on the list of attendees. I haven’t seen him.”

Turner said, “Don’t editors always make comments on writers’ manuscripts?”

“Some more than others. Some writers need it more than others. Muriam needed it more than many others. Has either of you read her latest books?”

The detectives shook their heads no.

“She could have used a team of editors on those last couple, but from that first overnight success, she was too rich to be messed with. She just didn’t want anyone suggesting changes in her precious prose. Some writers improve over time. She started out raw, but with tremendous potential. She’s working her way to mediocre.”

Fenwick said, “A number of the people we’ve talked to so far have said she was gentle and saintly.”

“Ha! I’m not the only one she trampled on her way to the top. There are other editors, and agents, and authors. There are directors, and actors, and producers. They’ve made over half of her books into movies. You’d think she’d be happy with that kind of success. Everything she wrote turned to gold. Her first unedited stuff was mostly promise. Her later stuff was mostly crap. I guess that’s what Hollywood likes the most.”

“We heard there was mention of this dual persona on the Internet,” Turner said. “How’d she have this saintly reputation if she was such an awful person?”

“She could pay for more PR than anybody. At conventions she was saintly with her fans. They loved her. She got on the best interview shows. Did you ever see her on
Larry King Live
? Or any of the talk shows? She was a marvel. She’d talk in this soft, gentle voice. She’d dish out compliments. She was so self-effacing and humble, it made you want to puke.”

“You still watched her after you were no longer her editor?” Turner said.

“And I read her books. You have to keep up with the competition in this business. I opened my own small press. It is not easy keeping it going.”