Sex and Murder.com: A Paul Turner Mystery (8 page)

For the next half hour, Fenwick’s impatience grew. Finally, he threw down his pen and said, “Let’s leave this until the morning. It’s nearly five. We can get back to the station, suck up to as many superiors as we need to, and go home.”

Micetic promised to keep trying to uncover any secrets. Before leaving, they called Werberg and set up an appointment with him so that the three police officers and he could meet at nine in the morning and go over all the computer materials.

7

Sometimes I get lucky and there’s a murder or an attack that I’ve had nothing to do with. They get all confused because they think that’s part of what I’m up to. Those are some of the fun times, and I don’t have to do a thing to make it happen.

Turner and Fenwick drove back to Area Ten headquarters. Fenwick handled their unmarked car with his usual maniacal glee. The pedestrians of the near north side survived the experience—some of the less attentive, just barely. They pulled into the Area Ten parking lot and headed to their desks on the third floor.

The building housing Area Ten was south of the River City complex on Wells Street on the southwest rim of Chicago’s Loop. Many years ago, the department purchased a four-story warehouse scheduled for demolition and designated it as the new Area Ten headquarters. Turner was convinced that soon the grandchildren of some of the original rehabbers would be working on the site. Over many years in fits and starts the building had changed from an empty hulking wreck to a people-filled hulking wreck. For years, construction debris had accumulated in nooks and crannies throughout the building.

In the past few months someone had gotten the insane idea that mid-winter was a good time to replace all the windows in a four story building. No question, the windows needed replacing. The cops who inhabited the place used vast quantities of torn and tattered T-shirts, bits of old rags, and duct tape to block the cold wind that whipped in through the multitude of cracks and crevices. The rehabbers had gotten three-quarters done with the window project and then simply stopped showing up.

Adding to his usual high level of annoyance, the window nearest Fenwick had been accidentally broken by a youthful workman. The wind constantly snapped at the plastic covering they’d used to block it up and the cold oozed relentlessly through the ersatz opening. Numerous promises had been made that the workers would return by the following Monday. No one believed this the first time they were told it. Four weeks later, with no construction workers evident on the horizon, it was long past the point of a running joke. Supposedly the city was thinking of filing suit against the rehabbers. Turner figured the turn of the next millennium would come before the legal system would be of any help. Fenwick disagreed. He thought they should arrest the whole crew. He figured that would shake them up enough to get the work done. Turner wasn’t so sure.

Area Ten ran from Fullerton Avenue on the north to Lake Michigan on the east, south to Fifty-ninth Street, and west to Halsted. It included the wealth of downtown Chicago and North Michigan Avenue, some of the nastiest slums in the city, and numerous upscale developments. It incorporated four police Districts. The cops in the Areas in Chicago handied homicides and any major non-lethal violent crimes. The police Districts mostly took care of neighborhood patrols and initial responses to incidents.

When they arrived at their desks, Turner found a box wrapped in a pink ribbon on top of a pile of papers. A label said Nutty Chocolates, Fenwick’s favorite purveyor of confections. “You lose this?” Turner asked.

“It’s got your name on it.”

“Who put it here?”

“Maybe you have a secret admirer.”

“I hope not.”

Turner called down to the front desk. Dan Bokin, the cop on duty, said the package had come in the mail.

Stunningly enough, the Chicago Police Department had no security measures or policies in place to deal with packages sent to the District and Area stations.

Fenwick said, “You want to call Bomb and Arson?”

Turner examined it carefully. The package was barely larger than a matchbox. It would be hard to conceive that it could be an explosive. The printing of his name and the address of the station was tiny and precise.

“Maybe it’s from Ben,” Turner said.

“He would send you something like that here without putting his name on it?”

“I’d prefer to think it was him. I’m sending it to be analyzed.” Even if it simply contained a piece of chocolate, he was not about to eat a piece of food that mysteriously appeared on his desk.

While Turner was on the phone, Fenwick made several calls to get pictures of Lenzati and Werberg that he and Turner could use as they interrogated those connected with the dead man.

Turner flipped on the computer on his desk. He actually seldom used it. Mostly he left it in the sleep mode. A message on the screen said HOW MANY INNOCENT PEOPLE HAVE YOU KILLED TODAY?

“What the hell?” he muttered.

“What’s up?” Fenwick asked.

Turner moved the screen so Fenwick could read the message.

“What the hell?” Fenwick said.

“Exactly my words,” Turner said. He could find no one who would admit to being at his desk or using his computer. Nor had anyone seen a stranger at his desk.

“Could someone have turned this on from another location?” Turner asked.

“We’ll have to get Micetic up here and ask him. Don’t erase the message.”

They called Micetic and asked him to stop by.

Fenwick and Turner methodically began working through mounds of paperwork. They would be in the next day on a Saturday, probably for more hours than either cared to admit.

As Fenwick finished writing in his Daily Major Incident Log, Randy Carruthers entered the squad room. Turner knew that Carruther’s partner, Harold Rodriguez, had taken to working by himself in an unused and unheated cubicle on the fourth floor. Rodriguez claimed the cold was better than putting up with his partner. No one doubted this. No one had told Carruthers of this secret location. With the warren of rooms throughout the old building, it was easy to get lost or stay out of sight.

Rodriguez had made a deal, which Turner understood involved large quantities of pastries from a nearby restaurant, with the clerk nearest to the stairs on the fourth floor. The clerk would signal Rodriguez of Carruther’s possible approach, and Rodriguez would quietly slip out. The porcine and unpopular young detective was forced to wait long intervals for his partner to appear. As he saw him less and less often, Carruthers became more and more frustrated and upset. Rodriguez was pleased with this, and turned a deaf ear to his partner’s requests to disclose his whereabouts.

The rest of the cops on the shift were getting annoyed by Rodriguez’s ploy. The less time Rodriguez had to put up with Carruthers, the more time the rest of them had to. Carruthers always seemed to need to find somebody to talk to, check a fact with, compare a sports anecdote with, tell a boring story about his personal life to—in short, to share. Normal conversational give and take, which others found so natural, Carruthers found forced. Turner thought this sad, but not sad enough to feel more than a trifle sorry for the guy, and not sorry enough to pay a lot of attention to him.

Carruthers marched up to Turner’s and Fenwick’s desks. “Have you guys heard the news?”

Turner did his best to show polite disinterest. Without looking up and while reaching for more forms to fill out, Fenwick said, “We saw the story. A bunch of cops dead around the country. A vast conspiracy to do in the best detectives in each city. Not a shred of concrete evidence to back up the reporter’s suspicions. It sounds like all in a day’s work for the newspapers in this town. You don’t need to worry, Carruthers. No one would confuse you with someone who was competent.”

“I’m talking about the pool downstairs among the beat cops.”

Turner and Fenwick actually looked up. If there was a sporting event, Fenwick was the one in the building who put together the pool. Almost everybody from the commander to the newest beat cop got in on them. Someone else doing a pool was unprecedented.

“What pool?” Turner asked.

“They tried to keep it a secret. Based on the detectives who work in this building, they’re taking odds on which of them is most likely to be murdered by this serial killer.”

“Isn’t that a little premature?” Turner said. “If not downright macabre.”

“Who’s the betting favorite?” Fenwick asked.

“You,” Carruthers said.

“I’m honored. This must mean they think I’m the best detective on the squad.”

“Turner has much worse odds. Only a few guys are taking bets on him.”

Turner said, “It could mean they don’t like you, Buck.”

“Kindly, little old me?” Fenwick asked. “I’m sweet. I’m friendly. I bring them chocolate for Christmas. I’m the best at making cute-corpse comments. What’s not to like?”

“It’s the jokes,” Turner said. “The serial killer is actually a saint who wants to eliminate hideous puns from the face of the earth. Can this be a completely bad thing?”

“No one appreciates a true
artiste
of humor.”

“Perhaps we haven’t met one,” Turner said.

Fenwick pronounced his most recent, favorite, oftrepeated malediction. “May the next corpse we meet piss in your fur-lined jockstrap.”

Carruthers said, “I don’t think it’s the humor. I think they don’t like you because you push too hard. You’re too mean to them. You ignore them. You make too many demands. You criticize them too much. You—”

Fenwick interrupted. “Is this their opinion or yours?”

Carruthers paused in his declamation. He licked his lips and glanced around the room. His insecurity in the face of Fenwick’s blatantly aggressive personality was palpable. Finally he said, “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard them say.”

“You mean they confide in you?” Fenwick asked.

“I’m the one who knew you were their odds-on favorite to be the one the killer picked as the next victim.”

Fenwick looked at Turner. His partner shrugged.

Carruthers said, “If you wanted, I think they’d let you guys get in on the pool.”

Fenwick said, “I wonder if I dare bet against myself.”

“Thanks for the news, Randy,” Turner said. “We’ll check it out when we get time.” The attempted dismissal didn’t work.

Carruthers leaned closer to their desks. He whispered, “There’s real news.” His voice had lost its usual timbre, that of a nose whistle being abused. “Rumor is the police board is going to fire Devonshire and Smythe.”

Ashley Devonshire and Dwayne Smythe were the newest detectives in Area Ten. They’d started as superior know-it-alls, moved on to spiteful envy as most of the others in the squad got more arrests and convictions, and finally graduated to murky scandal blending into abject horror. Late on a dank and foggy night, they had encountered what they had thought was an armed rapist. Both had fired their guns. It turned out they were confronting a twelve-year-old in a wheelchair. They claimed a gleam from the metal on the chair arm had looked like the barrel of a gun. As usual, an immediate investigation had taken place. Rumors of a cover-up persisted. Debate on cable television and talk-show radio continued as to responsibility and blame. Protests in the community, the newspapers, and on every newscast covering the Devonshire/Smythe shooting had been loud, insistent, and incessant.

There is always an immediate investigation whenever a Chicago police officer discharges a firearm. Immediate, as in before the officer goes home. Representatives of the superintendent’s office, the District, and Area officials, all converge to make a report within hours. Turner had heard of some commanders who insisted that the police look good on any report but he’d never run into the problem.

Devonshire and Smythe were disliked differently than Carruthers. The cops in Area Ten had worked with Carruthers for years. It was like the old Bob Hope line to Dorothy Lamour in one of the
On the Road
pictures, “I want you, I need you, I’m used to you.” Carruthers might be a fool, but he was a familiar fool.

Turner didn’t believe that Devonshire and Smythe would deliberately kill or harm a kid. He did believe that their misplaced aggressiveness and overzealous ambition had led to a lapse in judgment. Turner knew police work involved a lot of quick thinking. Those who were best at juggling the needs of the community, the law, and their own conscience were generally the best cops. At some point, most cops pushed the limits of their job.

Fenwick was an excellent example of the delicate balance policework often involved. He might be able to do a “bad cop” routine better than anyone else, but he never went over the line to abuse. His decisions were always considered. Devonshire and Smythe were foolishly ambitious and willing to push any situation for any advantage for themselves: either with coworkers, superiors, or their reputations on the streets. It had caught up with them in a dramatic, career threatening, and possibly criminal way. Turner thought maybe the two detectives should lose their jobs.

If the boy died, Turner knew the situation could turn from a nightmare to a disaster. His sympathy lay with the parents. Turner’s son Jeff was confined to a wheelchair, so he knew the problems of a disabled child first hand.

The newest rumor Turner and Fenwick had heard that morning, from a far more reliable source than Carruthers, had been that several of the arrests that Devonshire and Smythe had made in a high profile drug bust were under review. There was suspicion that they had doctored their paperwork on the case. Another rumor, from a less reliable source, claimed that all their arrest records were under review. Turner knew for sure that the lieutenant in charge of signing off on their cases was furious at them, and over the past few months had continuously sent back paperwork and even refused to approve several of the arrests. Devonshire and Smythe had made the monumentally stupid mistake of trying to bypass him in the chain of command. Besides the inherent impossibility of this leading to anything positive for them, it was an extremely poor choice of behavior in any bureaucracy, especially the Chicago Police Department.