Sex and Murder.com: A Paul Turner Mystery (9 page)

“You gossip central around here now?” Fenwick asked.

“I know what I know,” Carruthers said.

“You’ve spread plenty of rumors in the past that turned out to be bullshit,” Fenwick said. “Even more often you have what you claim to be facts that turn out to be crap later on.”

“I do not.”

“Yeah, you do. You’re stupid. What about the time you claimed for sure there was going to be a change in the pension law for cops? There was no change. There was never any plan for a change. Did you just make it up, or did you take a stupid pill that day?”

Carruthers’ face screwed up as if he was being given a wedgie with a cast-iron pair of briefs that was already two sizes too small.

Turner asked, “Who’s the source for the rumor?”

“I got it from my clout down at City Hall. It’s all over my area of the city.”

Generally, Turner felt at one with cops who were in trouble. Dealing with the public in mostly negative situations was not designed to be a warm and fuzzy experience. Nor was handling criminal perpetrators geared to make you a believer in the milk of human kindness, which, as Fenwick often put it, got curdled pretty quick in their line of work. Or as Turner remembered Fenwick’s comments—which included an image he wished was more forgettable—“Curdled more quickly than a carton of milk left between the thighs of a dead whore lying on an asphalt parking lot on a hot July afternoon.”

Turner didn’t like incompetent fools screwing up police work. Cops had a tough enough image problem without the assholes on the force being showcased on the evening news. He doubted if Devonshire and Smythe would ever be back in Area Ten. The immediate impact on him was that the squad was shorthanded. This had meant more overtime recently. Supposedly two replacement detectives were showing up soon, which in police parlance could be in five minutes, five days, five weeks, five months, or five years.

“We’re planning a defense fund benefit for the two of them,” Carruthers said. “You guys going to come?” Turner thought it was more than typical for Carruthers to be the one rallying around those who were proving to be even more incompetent than he.

“When is it?” Fenwick asked.

“A week from tomorrow.”

“We’re taking our kids to a Bulls game that day.” Turner and Fenwick had gotten tickets to a game for a family outing. Without a championship in sight, it had been easy to garner reasonably decent seats, but at a still-atrocious price.

“You should try and stop by,” Carruthers said.

“Won’t be able to,” Fenwick said. He picked up some paperwork and returned to pointedly ignoring Carruthers. Turner did the same. Their disinterest finally sank in. Carruthers then did what he did so well: he drifted away to find someone else to talk to.

“You’re not going to the benefit?” Turner asked.

Fenwick glanced around. As blusteringly assertive and self-confident as he was, he still didn’t want to risk the rumor getting around that he or Turner weren’t one hundred percent behind one of their own. He said, “Incompetent assholes of the universe unite. I won’t be party to bullshit.”

“Got that right,” Turner said.

Commander Drew Molton strode into the room. Arriving at their workstation, he perched his butt on the corner of Fenwick’s desk. No one else in the entire squad dared be so forward. Fenwick might squirm each second his commander took the liberty, but even Fenwick didn’t have the nerve to tell his boss to get his butt off his desk.

Fenwick said, “We’ve got a hot rumor from a source I would never reveal—Carruthers—to the effect that Devonshire and Smythe are going to be fired. You know anything about it?”

“I know the investigation is on-going. I heard the board isn’t scheduled to release their decision for weeks yet. The kid they shot has recovered almost as much mobility as he had before the shooting. Whether or not he fully recovers, they’re in huge trouble. I think their case has nothing to do with the rest of us, except as an object lesson to people like Carruthers who wouldn’t catch on if great flaming dragons came down from heaven and told him how to do his job better.”

“The great flaming dragons thing is way overrated,” Turner said. “Just last week they were wrong about several things.”

Fenwick said, “They never told me they visited you. You never told me they visited you.”

Turner said, “Maybe you’re losing your touch.”

Molton said, “I hate to interrupt great flaming fantasies and delicious rumors of impending doom for cops in this city, but we’ve actually got real work to do. The killers in the city have not paused to appreciate the humor, the dragons, or the intricacies of police bureaucracy.”

“Good for them,” Fenwick said.

Turner mentioned the chocolate and the message on his computer screen.

“Get them checked out,” Molton said. “How’s the Lenzati case going?” he asked.

“A few computer leads,” Turner said. He filled the commander in.

“Not much,” Molton said when Turner finished.

Turner handed him the coded gibberish.

“What’s this?” Molton asked.

Fenwick said, “Secret plans to conquer the world? A long hidden map showing the way to the lost treasure of the Incas?”

Turner said, “It’s a little late for feeble attempts at humor.”

“Feeble!?” Fenwick exclaimed.

“Feeble,” Molton declared. “Get on with it,” he said, and walked away.

In the middle of their paperwork, Micetic showed up.

“Did you find out anything yet on Lenzati’s computer?”

“No. I was taking a break and decided to stop over to check on your computer message problem.”

Micetic sat at Turner’s desk for several minutes and typed at the keys. “You leave this thing logged on?” Micetic asked.

“Usually.”

“Don’t from now on. Somebody got into your machine. I think I got rid of all the bugs. You need to turn the machine off when you aren’t using it.” He left.

On their way out Fenwick marched up to the front desk. Turner followed. Dan Leary, the cop on duty, gave them a wary look. Leary had been a cop for thirty-five years, and had a gut that bespoke of more donuts than you could shake a cliché at.

Fenwick said, “I’d like to get in on the pool.”

“What pool?” Leary asked.

“The one about which of the detectives is going to be the next target of the serial killer.”

Leary looked confused. “I haven’t heard about any pool. Don’t you do all of them?”

“You can tell me,” Fenwick said. “I’m not offended.”

A couple of the other beat cops on duty joined the discussion. One said, “Nobody would organize that kind of pool. It’s sick.”

Turner said, “Carruthers told us there was one.”

“Maybe he made it up,” Leary said.

“Why?” Turner asked.

Leary said, “I don’t want to intrude on detective business, but maybe he thought it was funny, or maybe he was trying to get back at you. There is no pool.”

“Oh,” Fenwick said.

Once out the door Fenwick asked, “You really think there isn’t a pool?”

“Would they lie to the two most perceptive and well-loved detectives on the force?” Turner asked.

Fenwick said, “We could find out whoever that is and ask them to come over and talk to the desk detail.”

Turner responded, “I think the idea that Carruthers pulled the wool over your eyes would bother you more than if they really did have a pool on which of us might die.”

“I’ll have to find a corpse and have it piss in Carruthers’ underwear.”

“The guy’s working up some nerve, which isn’t necessarily all bad.”

“I don’t want him working up nerve near me,” Fenwick said.

“I don’t want him working near me, period,” Turner answered.

8

Cop hangouts are the best. It’s easy to find them if you’re methodical. Just be around when the last shift of an evening goes off duty. You might follow a few home to their faithful spouses, but eventually you’ll follow one to a cop hangout. You’ve got to be careful about going into them. There’s nothing like cops for being suspicious. You pick times when you know the hangout will be crowded. You sit near a group, but not too close. You never, ever look at any of the potential victims directly. There’s a lot of rough camaraderie. I love listening to them, knowing one of them is going to die.

Paul Turner opened his front door a little after eight-thirty. On the couch in the living room sat a scrawny teenager dressed in baggy black pants, a baggy gray sweatshirt, and torn black sneakers. His gelled-back hair was dyed maroon on top and cut razor-short on the sides. His beard stubble was almost longer than the hair between his ears and the mass on the top. He was watching a college basketball game on ESPN, and barely glanced up as Paul nodded in his direction.

His youngest son, Jeff, called a brief hello. He was curled in his wheelchair next to the front window. He was rereading
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
for the third time. Like hordes of other kids, Jeff had abandoned his computer for the Potter books. Paul was glad the boy now spent fewer hours immersed in playing games in which the goal was to defeat vast hordes of evildoers as quickly as possible. Paul had picked up the first book in the series one night when he was sitting up with Jeff when the boy was sick. He’d become as enthralled as his son. It wasn’t something he was about to tell Fenwick, but he was eager to get the time to read the next book in the series.

Paul found Ben at the kitchen table reading a new issue of
Bludgeoning Computers
. It was an underground satire magazine designed for those frustrated from failed attempts to use their computers—the fastest-growing segment of the population.

They kissed and hugged hello. Paul enjoyed his lover’s aftershave and thought of how good it would be to go immediately to bed next to that warmth and good feeling. He was tired and wanted nothing more than to be entangled in those masculine arms.

“I called earlier,” Paul said.

“We went out for steak. Brian is now on a high protein diet.”

“Which sports star claimed that was the be-all and end-all?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“I suppose not.” Paul said, “Thanks for the chocolate.”

“What chocolate?”

“I found a package addressed to me on my desk. It didn’t have a return address on it. I assumed it was from you, or at least I had hoped it was.”

“You opened a package without a return address or name on it?”

“It was a tiny thing, barely big enough for a small piece of buttercream chocolate. I didn’t open it. I sent it to the lab for analysis.”

“Be careful.”

“I’m always careful. It wasn’t from you?”

“If I wanted to give you chocolate as a surprise, I wouldn’t be shy about admitting it afterwards.”

Paul shrugged then asked, “Why is there a surly, uncommunicative teenager, not my own, sitting on my living room couch?”

“Kid’s name is Andy Wycliff. He’s got a heavier beard than half the daddies in a leather bar. He’s another one of Brian’s school projects.”

“The kid is a ‘project’? Would that be science, social studies, literature, calculus, or what?”

“Or what. Brian’s in that peer helper group. You know, they help out kids in crisis or who transfer to the high school after the beginning of the year. Brian says this kid has all kinds of problems adjusting, so he came to their group for help. Brian offered to take him to the poetry reading tonight. He has that literary assignment.”

“Nuts,” Turner said. “I thought about the reading earlier today, but then I forgot all about it, and I promised I’d go.”

Brian’s assignment was not the reason Paul felt compelled to attend the poetry reading. Several weeks ago Paul had run into an old friend, Trevor Endamire, from his police academy days, who had tried to convince him to come to the gay police officers’ meetings. Trevor and Paul had grown up in the same neighborhood. Paul had begged off because he wasn’t much of a joiner. The guy had then explained about the poetry reading. It was not a gay group, but a bunch of cops who met once a month in the basement of a shop which sold a mixture of new age, cabalistic, and holistic health food items. The meeting place was half a block from the Eighteenth District police station on Chicago Avenue on the near north side.

Reluctantly, Turner had agreed to go. He’d known Trevor for years. They weren’t close friends, but he wanted to be supportive. Although being supportive after a hectic day like this was a bit more of an obligation than he liked feeling.

His older son Brian was going. For his literature class this semester he had to attend at least three cultural events, not to include rock concerts of any kind. If it was going to be music, it had to be a symphony. Getting Brian to a symphony orchestra was like trying to convince anyone that just one more injection from a ten-inch needle would be great fun. Most of his buddies were going to plays. Brian had missed one event with them because of a basketball game, so he had to do something else. Since Brian was going, Jeff, the younger son, wanted to go. Mrs. Talucci, their next door neighbor, had heard that Trevor was performing. As the son of someone from the neighborhood, he earned the sobriquet of “one of us” and therefore worthy of her support. When Paul’s reporter friend, Ian Hume, had expressed an interest in attending, the event had begun to take on the proportions of a minor literary stampede.

“Is there any way I can get out of this?” Paul asked.

“Yes. You could have moved to the Yukon yesterday.”

“I missed my flight.”

“You could call Mrs. Talucci and tell her she’ll have to find another ride. You could call Ian, and explain you’re not interested in seeing him tonight. I’d be happy to do that part for you.” The relationship between his friend and his lover was cool at best. “You could explain to Trevor why you deserted him. You could write a note to your son’s literature teacher explaining your shortcomings as a literary parent. You could apologize profusely to your dedicated and loyal lover who agreed to participate in this mad behavior.”

“Not a lot of choice to any of that. Double nuts. It’s not like Trevor and I were lovers when we were kids.”