Sex and Murder.com: A Paul Turner Mystery (30 page)

The house was startlingly silent, the weekday morning blessedly peaceful. The January thaw had eliminated all but the most tenacious mounds of gray-crusted snow. Just after twelve, he made himself a plate of left-over meatballs, sausage, and mozzarella. He nuked it hot then ate in the living room, a luxury he usually forwent so his sons would not demand the same privilege. After finishing half the meal, he sat down in front of the computer screen.

Turner had brought home all the research that had been connected with the killings of the detectives around the country. He inserted the disk with the spreadsheets into the super drive. The disk icon appeared, and he clicked on it. Then he opened the file with all the amassed data on the cop killings cross-referenced. He was desperate to find the one connection that would pull those cases together.

Turner read the information line by line on all the killings. The arrest and conviction records of the cops who’d been murdered was the most tedious of all the data to wade through. He began organizing all the arrests in a spreadsheet. He’d watched Micetic work with them over the past few days, and thought he had the hang of it. He’d been getting better at them. He took each convict and entered him by crime and time served. He also cross-checked each with Dwayne Smythe, Lenzati, Werberg, and Homan. He was aware that Porter Davis had said they had nothing to do with the cop killings, but Turner was determined to be thorough.

No one Lenzati, Werberg, or Homan knew was currently incarcerated. A former employee of Lenzati and Werberg had gone to jail in Chicago. He had died several years ago after having been raped repeatedly while locked up.

By the time he’d gone through the third cop’s arrests records, he began to get an idea. Each of the detectives had a person who they had helped to convict die while in prison. Turner checked all the others. They had all had someone die in the past five years in prison.

Turner grabbed the phone. There was no answer at Buck’s. He called Micetic. No one knew where he was. To the person who answered in the computer room at police headquarters, he said, “I want the records on the following criminal cases in the following cities. These people all died in prison. I want the names of all the people they know, all their friends, relatives—anybody connected with them or their cases, no matter how remote. I want descriptions, current whereabouts, everything.”

Within half an hour he had his first few answers. The third one was the charm. A man who had been convicted of computer hacking in Boston had been raped and brutally beaten in prison. He’d almost died. He had been released early, but his whereabouts were unknown. Turner read the physical description.

The doorbell rang. Andy Wycliff was on the front step. Turner didn’t realize he’d been working so long at the computer. The cop car providing his protection was parked at the hydrant halfway down the block. He gave them a brief wave. Paul said, “I didn’t think school was out yet.”

“It’s not. Can I wait for Brian here?”

Turner let him in. The boy slumped onto the couch and Turner returned to the computer screen. A second or two of looking at the latest data he’d pulled up, and he turned back to the teenager. He asked, “Andy, where are you from?”

Wycliff stood up and pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket.

Turner said, “I thought you just used a knife.”

“I usually get the drop on someone or wait for the best opportunity. Here’s the knife.” He pulled a jagged-edged steel behemoth out of his coat pocket. Wycliff said, “I want to make this quick. You get to know why you are going to die, and then you die.”

“None of the other cops fought back?”

“I didn’t give them a chance. I researched the best places to stab on a person’s body. The Internet is a marvel. But even better, in prison I learned how to fight with a knife. The very large Hispanic man who forced me to service him was a marvelous teacher. He taught me how to get revenge, exercise right, and kill someone with one quick thrust to exactly the right spot, or how to make someone suffer for at least a little while with a jab or two into vulnerable and valuable organs.”

Turner said, “You’re getting even with cops who put computer people in jail.”

“You’re close. It didn’t have to be a computer person. No, these cops died if someone they put in prison was killed—especially a teenager, an innocent teenager, like me. I had to do a lot of research. I almost died in prison. I didn’t do anything that serious, but they threw the book at me. I cracked into a few computer systems. Big deal. For that I almost got killed. Until I submitted to my protector, I was raped every night, sometimes by more than one guy. The innocent were made to pay in prison, so I figured the cops could pay when I got out. The murders of Lenzati, Werberg, and Homan were kind of a bonus. With that kind of carnage added to the mix, I found it easier to scare people.”

“I don’t know of anybody I arrested who died in prison.”

“There you are very wrong. There are actually seven cops in the city of Chicago who have had young people die in prison. You were one of them. I watched each of you for a while. You were picked because I got to know you first. The only true connections in my vengeance spree were having an innocent person dead in prison, the cops had to have kids, and pissing on them after I killed them. I kind of played around with the other connections. I knew they’d try and make profiles. I enjoyed the
Tribune
article. The reporter made so many connections I never even thought of.” He paused and used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

“After I decided it would be you, I made my plans. Since it’s easy for me to look like a teenager, I thought I’d try enrolling in your kid’s school. Then I began hanging around the house. That got a little risky at times, but I enjoyed it. That was a heart-stopping few seconds the other night when the cops approached the van.”

At least the guy could be scared. “You sent all the computer messages.”

“Yes, and made the call from the station. Getting into the computers at Werberg and Lenzati’s secret lab to send you a message from the machines there took a lot of doing. It’s what took me so long to get around to killing you. I wish I had time to inspect what they did. Those guys were geniuses.”

“Why the chocolate?”

“To make you uneasy, to make you scared. To make you suffer.”

“I think I was more annoyed than scared.” He wasn’t about to tell the kid that at the moment he was plenty scared. Paul continued, “You didn’t get the drop on me. I’m aware of you.”

“I’m a better fighter. You might be a tough cop, but you’ve never been in prison. I kind of liked the transformation from neurotic computer dweeb, to buff, killing machine computer dweeb.” He moved a step closer.

Paul saw that Wycliff was trembling. Both gun and knife wobbled almost uncontrollably.

Wycliff continued, “I’ve never talked to one of my victims. I’ve never gotten this close. This is perfect. More than perfect. I know who you are. I’ve spied on you. I’ve threatened you. I’ve seen you react. I know you’re scared, and you’re going to die.”

“You’re the one who’s trembling,” Paul pointed out.

For a second, Wycliff looked at his quivering hands. Paul’s son Brian walked in the door. Wycliff swung toward him, knife flashing. Paul surged forward. Brian fell to his knees. In two steps Paul was on Wycliff. Paul saw blood blossom on Brian’s left wrist. With one hand he grabbed Wycliff’s hair, yanked and twisted simultaneously, immediately bringing the kid to his knees. He took his palm and rammed it into the kid’s nose. Wycliff dropped knife and gun. Paul slammed Wycliff’s head against the wall. The young man dropped to the floor, gurgled unintelligibly for several seconds, then fell unconscious.

Kicking the gun and knife out of the way, Paul knelt over his son. Father and son looked at the cut on the outside of the wrist. “You all right?” Paul asked.

“It’s not too bad,” Brian said. He tried squeezing the deep, two-inch-long gash shut with his other hand. Blood continued to ooze. “What the hell is going on?”

“We caught a killer.”

Turner called paramedics and backup cops. In minutes the street was flooded with rotating lights and official cars. Mrs. Talucci showed up in five minutes. Fenwick arrived half an hour later. Paul insisted that Brian get stitches. The visit to their family doctor’s clinic office was mercifully short.

That night Brian, his wrist bandaged, sat with Jeff, Ben, and Paul around the kitchen table. Mrs. Talucci had brought over homemade raviolis for their dinner. She had insisted on not staying.

“I wish I’d have been here,” Jeff said. “I’d have knocked him over with my wheelchair.”

Paul told him, “I don’t think this is about being tough and macho. We had a narrow escape today. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m a little shook and a little tired.” After dinner there was a requisite amount of homework and a little television watching. Paul helped Jeff with some math. Ben and Paul worked for a while in the basement on the water heater, which was malfunctioning. Paul knew they would need a new one soon.

Brian had been unusually quiet all night. After everyone else had gone to bed, Paul found Brian sitting in the darkened living room. He sat down next to his son. He said, “You don’t have to go to school tomorrow, but you should try and get some sleep.”

Brian said, “I brought a killer into the house.”

Paul said, “I talked to the detectives dealing with the case while you were being stitched up. Andy Wycliff used the fact that he looked so young to help in his disguise. He was actually twenty-two. He’d planned well. He went to your school to establish an identity, a place in the city. When he called his parents for things, it was all play acting. He had his own apartment. To get into the school, he faked his records, which wasn’t hard for him to do. The detectives found out he lived on computer work he did freelance.”

“I feel stupid,” Brian said. “I should have known.”

“How could you have known?”

“Shouldn’t I be able to sense these things?”

“I wasn’t able to, and I’m supposed to be trained to do this kind of thing. I know it’s a popular pastime to beat up on ourselves for not being able to predict the future, but you know we can’t. As for insights into people, I’ve known a lot of people for a long time. They always surprise me.”

“But usually, they don’t surprise you with death.”

“Some surprise you with love. You can’t ever be sure what you’re going to get. Go easy on yourself.”

Paul put his hand on his son’s shoulder. He saw a trickle of tears down the boy’s right cheek. “We’re going to be okay,” Paul said.

“I know.” His son wiped the tear with the back of his hand.

“The danger’s over.”

“I was scared,” his son said.

“It’s done now,” Paul said. He wished he had a way to make his son’s fears disappear. He knew he didn’t. It was late. They both needed sleep. Paul followed his son upstairs. In front of his door Brian turned, and they hugged silently. “Thanks Dad,” he whispered.

In their room, Paul fell into Ben’s arms.

“You’re exhausted,” Ben said.

“Cop work is tough, but reassuring a teenage boy is tougher.” He told him what Brian had said.

After he finished, Ben said, “He loves you, I love you. We care.”

By Mark Richard Zubro

The Tom and Scott Mysteries

A Simple Suburban Murder
Why Isn’t Becky Twitchell Dead?
The Only Good Priest
The Principal Cause of Death
An Echo of Death
Rust on the Razor
Are you Nuts?
One Dead Drag Queen

The Paul Turner Mysteries

Sorry Now?
Political Poison
Another Dead Teenager
The Truth Can Get you Killed
Drop Dead
Sex and Murder.com

SEX AND MURDER.COM. Copyright © 2001 by Mark Richard Zubro. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

eISBN 9781429936491

First eBook Edition : May 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Zubro, Mark Richard.

Sex and Murder.com
: a Paul Turner mystery / Mark Richard Zubro.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-26683-9 (he)

ISBN 0-312-28719-4 (pbk)

EAN 978-0132-28719-1

1. Turner, Paul (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—Illinois—Chicago—Fiction. 3. Computer software industry—Fiction. 4. Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. 5. Gay police—Fiction. 6. Gay men-Fiction. I. Title: Sex and murder.com. II. Title.

PS3576.U225 S4 2001
813’.54-dc21

2001031629

First St. Martin’s Griffin Edition: July 2002