Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery (14 page)

One of the uniformed cops said, “We should pull the sword out.”

“Stop,” Turner ordered. He knew better than to let amateurs deal with a wound of this magnitude. One of the cops was pressing a hotel towel hard against the wound to put pressure on it to try to stop the bleeding. The towel was quickly turning red with blood. When the cop lifted it off the wound for a moment, Turner saw the tip of the sword poking out of the cloth on the back side of the injured cop’s leg. The wound was clear through. They all saw it. One of the beat cops, another youngster, began to get hysterical. “We’ve got to do something. We can’t let him bleed to death. Why won’t you do anything? Somebody’s got to help.”

Fenwick put his bulk in front of this kid. He pitched his voice low and menacing. “Shut the fuck up. Your screaming isn’t going to stop the flow of blood.” He pulled aside another young cop whose pale face was tending to green. “Go puke somewhere else.”

Moments later paramedics rushed through the door. Turner got the uniformed officers away from their colleague. Turner said, “I want this place sealed off. Get cops on every landing in every stairwell. I want cops on every floor. Don’t forget the maintenance stairs. Be sure there is a cop in every elevator car. Go.”

Turner heard one of the paramedics say, “We’re going to have to move him with that damn thing in there. Let’s get the bleeding stopped and get him the hell out of here.”

They worked quickly and efficiently. First they cut off the pants leg so they could see exactly what they needed to do. Pulses of blood still seeped from around the points where the sword went through the thigh. At least the red was only oozing, not fountaining out.

Turner didn’t have a ghoulish desire to watch blood and gore, but he was long since used to seeing ghastly wounds and searing agony.

Out of the victim’s hearing, Turner asked a paramedic monitoring a machine, “Is he going to make it?”

“I hope so,” was the reply. Another paramedic continued to apply pressure to the leg while a third began speaking into a phone to a hospital. A fourth was setting up an IV.

They applied gauze-pad bandages around the wound. They hooked him up to oxygen. A C-collar was positioned around his neck. Without jostling the sword, they raised his legs and placed a blanket under them. Turner knew they were trying to stop him from going into shock. At moments when he was conscious, Rivachec would moan.

“Can we possibly talk to him?” Turner said. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t vital. We’ve got two other dead bodies here.”

A paramedic kept working as he spoke, “You can ask him anything you like. We aren’t going to stop working for you. We’re going to move him as soon as we can.” He spoke to one of his colleagues. “We’ve got to get him out of here as quickly as possible. He’s lost too much blood.”

Turner would never harass a wounded person like this if he didn’t have a killer on the loose. He leaned close to the cop’s face. He didn’t think the kid shaved more than twice a week. The cop clutched Turner’s hand. His eyes looked glazed. “Am I going to be all right?”

Turner said, “Yes. They’re doing everything. They’re going to move you soon.” Rivachec shut his eyes and gulped. His leg moved. He screamed. His grip on Turner’s hand was enough to crunch bones. Turner held on. Moments later Rivachec opened his eyes. He was breathing heavily. He fixed his gaze on Turner.

Out of one corner of his eye, Turner saw that the bleeding was much less. They had begun to wrap the sword so it wouldn’t do more damage while the young cop was being transported. Turner saw a gurney just beyond the open stairwell door. “What happened?” Turner asked.

Rivachec spoke between gasps. “I didn’t see him. The door swung open. It caught me in the back of the head. I fell forwards. I saw this figure all covered, gloves, a hood, all black. I tried to pull myself up. He started to swing the sword. I tripped, twisted my ankle, and fell. He swung and stuck me. I screamed. I heard the door slam. He didn’t take the stairs. I tried to pull the sword out. I must have fainted. I woke up screaming.”

“We’re going to move him,” a paramedic said. They lifted the stretcher. Under the cop was a broken red ostrich feather.

Turner held Rivachec’s hand all the way down to the ambulance. Fenwick followed.

The street in front of the hotel was mobbed with cop cars. The earlier rain had turned to a fine mist blown by a high wind. Turner sat in the ambulance for a few moments as the paramedics made preparations for leaving. He murmured softly to the wounded youngster, “You’re going to be fine.”

“I’m getting sleepy,” Rivachec said.

Turner got out of the way so the paramedics could secure the gurney and the sword. As the ambulance pulled away, Fenwick said, “I hope the kid is going to be all right.”

The thought, never far from a cop’s mind, was that the wounded colleague could have been him. The possibility of violence and danger was part of the job, the remembrance of which came glaringly back at moments of major stress such as this.

Fenwick said, “Let’s get the fucker who’s doing this.”

Turner said, “I’m thinking of Melvin. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to believe that someone in a cult would see it as a badge of honor to kill a cop.”

Fenwick said, “We’ve got no proof he’s in a cult. We’ve got no description from Rivachec.”

Turner nodded. He and Fenwick returned to the hotel. They ignored shouts from reporters who were crowded near the entrance.

The beat cops had used the parking garage ticket stub to find Foublin’s car. Turner and Fenwick checked it out. They found a broken red ostrich feather on the front seat.

“What the fuck?” Fenwick said.

“Exactly my sentiments.”

“The killer knew we’d check the car. The killer planted this shit. We are being fucked with royally.”

“These aren’t crimes of passion,” Turner said. “This is well planned. Did the killer commit one or two murders and rush out to Foublin’s car to plant another message? Why all the feathers? One in the room and one in the car? Why stab Rivachec? What threat was he? He didn’t say he saw anything.” Neither of them had these answers yet.

They’d asked Macer to examine the registration records for anyone who might have checked out since eleven. It would be a list of names to go over. They had no idea what would lead to the killer and they were desperate to solve the case. They stopped in Macer’s office. “Any luck?” Fenwick asked.

“No one who was registered at the convention and at the hotel has checked out of the hotel. We’ve got one hundred and two people who left as a matter of course this afternoon. We’ve got a wrestling team from the University of Iowa. That was forty people.”

Fenwick said, “All those wrestlers who go bonkers over red feathers have got to be watched. I knew they’d start causing trouble.”

Macer gave them copies of the lists.

The detectives stopped in a private room where Mrs. Foublin was sitting with several friends. Turner asked, “When was the last time you were out at your car?”

“Thursday when we got here, why?”

“You or your husband didn’t go out for any reason?”

“We had no place to go in Chicago but here. What’s wrong with the car?”

Turner said, “We’ve found broken red ostrich feathers at the crime scenes. There was also one in your car.”

Mrs. Foublin looked frightened. “Dennis went to the car once, yesterday morning to get some books. That’s the only time I know of. This is unbelievable.”

Turner said, “We understand he wrote a number of stories about failing marriages.”

“Yes,” she said. “It became an in-joke. He’d make up creatures around the galaxy and try to give them unique marital problems often caused by their odd physiology. Our marriage was fine. So many people have asked me about it over the years. Why is it important now?”

“We try to cover everything,” Turner said.

Fenwick said, “One person we interviewed said there had been hints on the Internet about your husband’s past.”

“His past?”

“Could someone be angry at something that happened years ago?” Turner asked.

“I can’t imagine. He grew up in a boring suburb. Went to a state university. As far as I know, he never quarreled with anyone. Certainly I know nothing about some past problem that would cause murder.”

As they returned to the lobby, Fenwick said, “I don’t get a sense of marital problems, although I’m not sure why someone would write an intergalactic busted-marriage manual.”

“Wasn’t a manual,” Turner said, “just stories. Maybe our Melvin was adding a whole lot of his own spin to what he was living through. Mrs. Foublin wouldn’t be the first clueless spouse.”

Fenwick said, “We need to post guards at the entrance to the parking garage. They need to report anything suspicious. If someone’s going to try to get an incriminating sword out of here, it would be simplest to put it in their car. It’s a little tough to conceal one of those broadswords.”

On the far side of the lobby, Turner spotted Ian leaning casually against a pillar. He caught his friend’s eye. They met at the police cordon while Fenwick went upstairs. “He’s with me,” Turner told the uniformed officer on duty. The two of them stepped to one side.

“Hear you’ve got blood all over the hotel,” Ian said.

“Yeah.”

“Sort of like the last Mr. Leather convention.”

“You don’t get this much blood at the leather convention,” Turner replied.

“How would you know?” Ian asked.

Turner said, “Sources.”

Turner wanted to know more about these people. He said, “You’ve talked to the different gay groups?”

Ian riffled through his note pad and tapped his laptop computer. “I’ve got reams of stuff.”

“Anybody you’d trust? Anybody who can give me inside information?”

“The gay fantasy writer seemed pretty well grounded.” Turner trusted Ian’s instincts.

“Can you get him to talk to me?”

“Sure. What can you tell me about what’s going on?”

“Nothing useful for a story. No gay angle to the killings or solution.”

“How many killings?”

Turner said, “If I tell you the details, I know you’ll keep your mouth shut, but there isn’t time now to fill you in completely. I could use some help.”

Ian nodded and said, “I’ll look for him.” Turner made sure Sanchez knew Ian so the reporter would have access. Then he returned to the scene of the attack on the young cop. “Poor kid,” Fenwick said.

Turner said, “I want to know how the hell the feather got under him. The killer is walking around with a ready supply? How can he not be obvious?”

A crime scene tech said, “We’ve got a million prints. Who knows if any of them have anything to do with the crime? We’re working on it.”

The detectives stopped in at the banquet. The room was crammed with people. A vast chatter of buzz filled the room. Turner spotted Oona Murkle at the head table and walked over to her. She was staring vacantly into space. She didn’t notice him until he was directly in front of her.

“Detective?” she said. “We decided to go ahead with the banquet. What else could we do? This was going to be the perfect convention. The most perfect ever.” She dabbed at her tears.

“Can you or someone show me the virtual reality room?” he asked.

“I can get one of the help.” She beckoned over an elderly man with a red armband that said STAFF in yellow letters.

While they waited for him, Oona asked, “Is there a clue?”

“Just checking things out.”

They followed their guide down a corridor crowded with people to a set of meeting rooms. He left them at the door. These rooms had collapsible walls so the contours could be changed. About three had been combined for the virtual reality games. The room had soft golden glows emanating from all four corners. There were at least ten stations in the middle of the room where games could be played. The two short sides of the rectangular room were covered with heavy black drapes from floor to ceiling. When they looked behind the one on the north side of the room, there was a metal table and a folding chair. Turner shut off the image of Brian being intimately involved in this setting. The area was almost completely dark. Not the most romantic place for trysting but randy teenagers—or even desperate adults—would find it adequate.

Fenwick said, “Your kid came to the convention to meet girls?”

Turner said, “And was successful to the point of obliviousness. Sometimes he’s not as self-aware as I’d like.”

Fenwick said, “Probably as good a definition of a teenager as I’ve heard.”

“Someone could easily have taken the sword and gotten out of here. There’s enough odd costumes around. What’s one more guy with a broadsword? The thief wouldn’t look suspicious.”

“Not hard to conceal it either,” Fenwick said. “Wear a cape. Wrap the material around the weapon. It’s concealed.”

“Yeah.” They returned to the hotel’s main entrance. Turner eyed the sea of blue-clad cops and noted the presence of numerous plainclothes detectives. He said, “It’s a shame it takes one of us getting hurt to get this kind of attention.”

Fenwick said, “They’ll spend a ton on this now. Rivachec is lucky he’s not dead. They should have listened to us the first time and posted people where we needed them.”

Turner said, “It’s not the time to be pissed at the brass. We’ve got to find a killer.” But there was a small part of his mind that was relieved. Brian couldn’t possibly have attacked Rivachec. His son was in a room with three other people, and there had been a cop posted outside in the corridor.

Turner and Fenwick took the elevator back up to the suite they’d been using to conduct interrogations. Turner said, “The killer could still be in the hotel. He or she could change into any disguise. The killer could be disguised as a cop.”

Fenwick asked, “Where’s he storing his bloody clothes? Why doesn’t somebody see him?”

“If he’s changing quickly, he’s got to be staying in the hotel. You’d think somebody would notice a person walking around in clothes that were all covered with blood. Although we’ve seen people ignore an awful lot of odd things. Or he’s able to conceal things quickly.”

“Is he planning all these?” Fenwick asked.

“It’s hard to tell. Devers or Foublin might have seen something happen to the other one. Or the killings might have been random. Maybe the killer came across one of them as he was dashing away from the other murder.”