Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery (24 page)

“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 on 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 to 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.”

In the bathroom they found more bloody clothes. Turner said, “I bet the blood on all of these matches Devers’ or Foublin’s or Rivachec’s or maybe even Slate’s. We’ve got bloody clothes all over the place. Did whoever kill Slate stash them there? If the killer had time to get back down here after he murdered Slate. Where were the guards for this floor?”

Fenwick said, “His room is the first one in from the service elevator. You wait for the guard to turn his back for a second, then you rush in here. In and out in a couple seconds. We should have had guards in all the elevators from the beginning.”

“If we’re stopping people down below, why would we need to have them?”

Fenwick said, “I suppose. Did he kill all of them? He attacked a cop? He was that organized? Maybe whoever killed Slate was that organized.”

“I’m not sure I’m worried about organizational abilities, yet,” Turner said. “I’m more worried that the real killer planted all this stuff.”

“Maybe Slate was just a dumb, nerdy loser,” Fenwick said.

“Yes,” Turner said, “but he’s also a dead, dumb, nerdy loser. Maybe he was pretty smart or thought he was. Half the criminals in the town think they’re geniuses. Maybe he outsmarted himself. You heard the ME. Slate fought. He didn’t commit suicide. Remember, there was no sword near the body.”

“Maybe he just flung it over the side or it was one of the three we found.”

Turner said, “Right, the killer totes around stacks of bloody clothes hither and yon, but says, ‘You know, I need to tidy up this sword a bit.’ He leaves it with his other stack or, I don’t know, maybe he flings the damn sword off the roof.”

“Doesn’t sound logical,” Fenwick admitted.

Turner said, “And if it was flung over the roof, we have more problems. I don’t know a lot of people who, when they see a broadsword crash down beside them just say, ‘Oh, look Hazel, it’s a broadsword that just fell out of the sky and almost killed one of us—let’s ignore it and go about our business.”’

Fenwick said, “There’s a lot of top of building around up there where it could be lying in the dark. It could have been thrown off and be on a ledge.”

“And how likely do we think that is?” Turner asked.

“Not very,” Fenwick admitted.

“Although we’ll have to look,” Turner said.

Fenwick said, “Or maybe as he was twitching around before his body shut down, he flung the thing over the edge to throw us off the correct scent.”

“There’s a gag waiting to cash in on far-fetched Fenwick flights of fancy, but I can’t quite pull it off.”

“Okay,” Fenwick said, “I’m not trying to come up with impossible scenarios. I’m just saying there’s objections. We always discuss objections.”

Turner said, “Sorry, I’m getting snarky because of my kid. I was scared for a few seconds up there.”

“Yeah, Slate looked like a scrawny nerd when we interviewed him. Sorry. A few bits of leather and him being thin and it being in deep shadow.”