Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery (22 page)

Fenwick said, “We were told she clawed her way to the top leaving careers and people’s lives scattered in her wake.”

Keefer said, “Nonsense. Any business has people on their way up and down all the time. People have to work hard to prove themselves. Muriam worked very hard. She was always cheerful and helpful.”

“She ever try to get you to fire anyone?” Fenwick asked.

“Never.”

“What about her having her publicist fired?”

“I have nothing to do with such low-level staffers. We’ve had hundreds of those people over the years. Most are sincere enough, but they move on quickly. People don’t believe in company loyalty anymore.”

Fenwick said, “Can you say Enron?”

Keefer drew himself up a little straighter. He said, “My meetings with Muriam were always pleasant and friendly.”

“Even contract negotiations?” Fenwick asked.

“We had lawyers take care of that. I know of no one who would have reason to harm Muriam. I didn’t know Dennis Foublin. I don’t have much time for the Internet.”

He left.

Fenwick said, “The boss is pure.”

Turner said, “Of course, she was nice to him. He was signing the paychecks. He’s useless.”

Sanchez entered with Peter Damien.

21

Peter Damien was gorgeous. He had a handsome face, a trim figure, a muscular build, and brown brush-cut hair. Turner thought he might have been in his early twenties. He had on tight, well-worn jeans, a white short-sleeve dress shirt, and running shoes. Turner noted his hands trembled slightly. Too much caffeine, or nerves, or a simple twitch, or a murderer’s guilt? They sat.

“What’s going on?” Damien asked.

Fenwick said, “We understand Ms. Devers had private little parties where she used to dress up to entertain one, some, or all of the members of her writing group.”

A whisper, “Jesus, she was old enough to be my grandmother.”

“Did she put on shows for you?” Fenwick asked.

Barely audible, “She hadn’t.”

“Was she going to?” Fenwick asked.

“Yeah.”

“When?” Fenwick asked.

They had to lean close to hear his response. “Today. This morning. Do I need a lawyer?”

“Did you kill her?” Fenwick asked.

A little more vigorous. “No.”

“Where were you this morning?” Fenwick asked.

“I went to breakfast. I hovered around her for a while at her signing. She was scheduled for several different ones at different times. I was supposed to wait about an hour and then come to her room.”

Fenwick prompted, “What time was this?”

“About ten.”

“Did you go?”

“No. I was late. I was talking to an editor from Galactic Books. He was thinking of offering me a deal.”

“Which editor?”

“It was a secret deal.”

“It wasn’t a book deal,” Turner guessed.

“Maybe some other things might have come about because of the deal.”

Turner said, “You offered sex, money, or what to get published?”

Back to a mutter, “Sex.”

This actually made sense to Turner. Peter Damien was an extremely attractive young man.

“How late were you?” Turner asked.

“By the time I was done,” he turned red with embarrassment, “making the deal, I was nearly an hour late.”

“Ms. Devers wouldn’t be angry with that?”

“I hoped not. It was the first time I was invited. It felt really weird.”

“How did you know what the invitation meant?” Turner asked.

“Dave Hutter told me. He buttonholed me this morning and made some sarcastic cracks. I was in the writing group to improve my writing. I think it had improved.”

Fenwick said, “But you weren’t adverse to helping your career along with a little nookie on the side.”

“No.”

“Did you try to go up to her room?”

“By that time the floor was closed off.”

“When did you meet her?”

“Only a few months ago at a convention in Omaha. She pinched my butt. She laughed. I’d never been across the Mississippi River in my life so I thought I’d go. She found out I was from New York, and I got the invitation. I didn’t realize when I started that there were odd requirements like watching her dress up. When I got home, I was going to quit the group.”

“Watching a dress-up show to improve your career is out, but screwing an editor is okay.”

“Muriam was nearly four times my age.”

“Which editor?” Fenwick asked.

“Alvin Tilly. He’s their newest one.”

“How well did you know the other members of the writing group?”

“We’d met six times since I joined the group. We weren’t real chummy. We weren’t enemies. We were there to work with Muriam.”

Fenwick said, “Perhaps we have different definitions of work.”

“I know I’m a hypocrite. I wanted to be published. It’s been my dream. I had some chances based on my relationship with Muriam. I got to know this editor in the last day or so. I saw my chance. I took it.”

“Did you know Dennis Foublin?”

“I visited his web site once in a while. I agreed more than I disagreed with his reviews. I met him last night, and we talked for a few minutes. He was perfectly nice.”

They got his room number, and added it and his whereabouts and time frame to the charts.

When he was gone, Fenwick said, “This is kind of a randy bunch.”

“My guess is there are as many honorable people in the writing profession as any other. I bet pretty young men like Peter Damien who have the same scruples and who are willing to take advantage of the same kind of offers exist in any profession.”

Fenwick said, “At least we’ve got an explanation for the Xena stuff. I don’t get it.”

“I think it’s sad,” Turner said. “She must have been a lonely old woman.”

Fenwick said, “I bet she was a horny rich old babe who was having the time of her life.”

“Or that,” Turner said.

They found Alvin Tilly. He confirmed Damien’s story.

22

Sanchez entered with Ian Hume and a portly gentleman in a white beard. He wore a formal dark blue suit, white shirt, and dark blue tie with a hint of a beige stripe in it. The gentleman was Archie Kittleman. Introductions occurred. They all sat.

Kittleman said, “Ian, I don’t like this. I’ve never been involved with the police. I don’t know anything about murder.”

Ian said, “Relax, Archie. These guys are my friends. I think you might be able to help them.”

“I don’t see how.”

Turner said, “We’ve had people connected to Muriam Devers and Dennis Foublin to talk to. We need somebody not connected to all of them to give us a realistic perspective.”

“I can try. I’ve been to Foublin’s web site, but I’ve never met him. I was introduced to Devers once about ten years ago. She said hello, I said hello. That was the extent of our conversation. I’m sure she wouldn’t remember me.”

Turner said, “You only met her once, but what do you know about Muriam Devers—rumors, gossip, stray facts? We’re looking for anything.”

“Among the gay people in the SF world it was assumed that her writing group guys were all gay.”

“Were they?” Turner asked.

“I know at least one of them was.”

“How did you learn that?” Turner asked.

Kittleman looked from Ian to Turner to Fenwick. “Ahem.”

Ian said, “It’s perfectly safe.”

Turner said, “We need information. I have no desire to bring trouble to you.”

“The young man, David Hutter, seemed interested in furthering his career. At one time he seemed to think that I might be of some use to him. I thought he might be of some use to me in furthering my interest in studly young men. I’d just had the first volume of my trilogy published. His interest lasted about as long as he thought I could help his career. To be honest, my interest in him didn’t last much beyond my first orgasm with him. He wasn’t very good in bed.”

“How well did you get to know Hutter?” Turner asked.

“Well enough to know he was a money-grubbing shit. He wanted cab fare after we were done that first night. It was embarrassing.”

Fenwick said, “We found Ms. Dever in a Xena, Warrior Princess outfit. We were told she put on private shows for people whose butts she pinched. Would she do this for a group of gay guys? Wouldn’t she want straight guys?”

“I don’t know,” Kittleman said. “I don’t know anything about Xena or any other kinds of outfits. It sounds odd to me. Wasn’t she a bit old for that?”

Turner said, “I’m not sure our imaginations or fantasies have an age limit.”

Kittleman asked, “How does her writing group being made up of gay men help in solving the murder?”

“We don’t know,” Turner said. “Right now I need information. I don’t know these people or this world.”

“It’s closed world,” Kittleman said. “In many ways it’s like a small town. The million-selling authors are like the rich people who live up the hill who you don’t see much, but everybody gossips about. It’s also true that everybody knows everybody else’s business. And if they don’t know everybody else’s business, they want to know about it, or they make stuff up about it, or they pass along rumors with lots of embellishment.”

“Seems pretty normal to me,” Fenwick said.

“Exactly,” Kittleman replied. “Although it can approach the incestuous.”

“How so?” Turner asked.

“A lot of times these writers only see each other at conventions. Your basic writer is working by him or herself. They might call or e-mail each other, but actual face-to-face get-togethers are rare. How many SF writers live in Chicago? Only a few. There aren’t that many SF books published every year. So when these authors show up at a convention, they gossip and talk and reminisce about other conventions where they gossiped, talked, and reminisced.”

“What fights do they have?” Fenwick asked.

“There were endemic fights. At the conventions themselves there’s all kinds of silly nonsense. Mildly famous mid-list authors expect to be lionized. First-time authors with one-hit wonders expect their paths to be strewn with rushes. They aren’t all like that, but you get a lot of ego. Like the panels at these conventions. Some people want to pick the panel they will be on and pick the people they will be on with. Then there are those who are not famous enough who want to be assigned to prime panels with even more famous authors to assure themselves of some kind of audience. Then there are the assholes who call at the last minute and beg to be on prize panels.”

“There are prize panels?” Fenwick asked. “Who honestly cares?”

“Some of these people care very much. You’d have to ask them why they care so much. There are myriad SF and fantasy organizations. At any one time half of them are fighting over whether their mission should be to serve established writers or whether they should have outreach to people who are trying to break into the profession, or should they serve only fans. Should they concentrate on agents and editors or some other stratum of the hangers-on? You get that in a lot of the genre groups.”

“Why fight about that?” Fenwick asked.

“The fight isn’t necessarily about the exact subject. Often it’s about who has power and influence. Sometimes it’s old guard versus new. Or sometimes a rich, new author wants to throw his or her weight around. Or a first-time author who thinks his ten-thousand-dollar advance entitles him to honor and glory beyond imagining. Or sometimes it’s someone who thinks he or she is a tenured university professor who can straighten out all the peons.”

“Did Devers or Foublin fit those descriptions?”

“Foublin always leaned toward the snotty-professor end of the spectrum. His bestseller list was a joke.”

“Did people really take it seriously?” Fenwick asked.

“Well, not like it was
Publishers Weekly or the New York Times
, but he was listened to by some dolts.”

“What was wrong with the list?” Fenwick asked.

“You had to be paying close attention to what he listed to figure out what was wrong. I didn’t notice until somebody pointed it out to me. It was most often in what he didn’t write. Like, if he put that your book was a sure-fire bestseller, then, sure fire, it was on his list. It might not make anybody else’s list, but it was on his. He claimed to be in contact with more stores than anyone else. I think he just made his list up.”

“Did people get mad about that?” Turner asked. “Anybody try to point it out to him, get even?”

“He had clout. You didn’t mess with clout. The vast majority of people thought he was this saintly guy. Everybody always claims writers are grousing about being mistreated. When you actually are mistreated, then it’s very much the boy who bitched problem. If you’re always a victim then when you really are a victim, nobody can tell the difference. There were no confrontations where people threw drinks, if that’s what you mean. In this world you followed the rules or you went nowhere. It took me ten years to get the first volume of my space opera published.”

“Because it had gay characters?” Ian asked.

“It’s a hard world to break into, period. It probably didn’t help that the characters were gay. Although Foublin was a homophobic son of a bitch.”

“He was?” Ian asked. “You have proof?” His pencil came out.

“I didn’t think this was a newspaper interview,” Kittleman said.

“It’s not,” Turner said. Ian subsided.

Kittleman said, “The proof was in what he left out. I went back through the logs of his web magazine. No book with gay characters, not a one, ever got reviewed. No openly gay authors ever got reviewed. My first book came out ten years ago. The second volume five years ago. The silence in general was deafening, but many small magazines and web sites at least mentioned my work. There were more SF and fantasy bookstores back then. Most of the owners were incredibly kind. Foublin wasn’t cruel. He was silent, which can be the most damning thing of all.”

Fenwick said, “He was one guy with a web site.”

“Who I resented for his homophobia. Look back through all his work. There aren’t a lot of gay characters in science fiction and fantasy. If you read Foublin, you wouldn’t know there were any.”

“Were there angry gay authors who wanted to take him on?”