Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery (8 page)

Turner prompted, “And you felt differently.”

“I’d heard things about her. I’m a writer, too. I knew Melissa Bentworth. She was Muriam’s first editor at Galactic Books. Melissa and I knew each other in college. We’ve stayed friends. She’s a good editor, smart, hard working. Always has solid comments to make about a writer’s books. Muriam Devers got her fired.”

“How’d she do that?”

“She lied. She made things up. She went to Melissa’s bosses behind her back.”

“Why?” Turner asked.

“I’ve never gotten the whole story. Melissa was never able to find out. Everything worked out for the best because Melissa founded her own small press. She’s had some remarkable successes, but it took her years of hard work. I’m one of her authors.”

“You’ve had books published?” Fenwick asked.

“My sixth came out last month. Melissa has been most kind to me over the years.”

“Did Ms. Devers have any other enemies?” Turner asked.

“You hunt around the fringes of the science fiction community, you are going to find people who hated her. They might be hard to find, but they’re there. She had a lot of power and clout. Nobody talked against that sweetness-and-light image, not publicly. You risked getting black-balled in this community.”

“And she got away with this?” Turner asked.

“You could never accuse her of anything specific. People rushed to her defense if you made the slightest negative comment. It was amazing how she got on all the talk shows when one of her books came out. Dare to mention just that one fact and people began clamoring and protesting, accusing you of jealousy and not being a good sport. As if Muriam ever was some kind of good sport. Maybe she was on those shows because she’s famous. Maybe the shows made her famous. Who else are they going to put on those shows? Some schlub who’s spent twenty years slaving away at some three-volume unpublishable fantasy drivel? No. Still, it was all Muriam, all the time.”

“What about the non-public part?” Turner asked.

“She had kind of an assumed clout in the community. Kind of a Wizard-of-Oz effect. She had all this power because people assumed she had all this power. People deferred to her. It didn’t hurt that she was rich. Money counts. A lot of people think of writers as these saintly dweebs pouring out their hearts for their art. Hah! Trust me, they’re camped out at their mailboxes desperate for those royalty checks.”

“That sounds more gossipy and backbiting,” Fenwick said. “That doesn’t sound like a motive for murder. Sounds kind of average for almost any profession.”

Mrs. Foublin said, “You let anything fester over time and watch the explosion you get. One reviewer dared to write a negative review of one of her books. He never got invited on another talk show. His editor dropped his reviews. It took the reviewer awhile to put cause and effect together.”

“Who was this?” Turner asked.

“Matthew Kagan, a very nice young man.”

“Is he at the convention?”

“I saw his name on the list of attendees, but I haven’t seen him.”

“Were there other conflicts?” Turner asked.

“Those people in that writing group of hers. They were slime incarnate. She used them like gang hitmen. It was disgraceful.”

“How were they like gang hitmen?” Turner asked.

“If she wasn’t able to do her dirty work, she’d get them to do it for her. She was vile and unprincipled with loyal followers who would cut their hearts out for her.”

“How did they do that?”

“If she wasn’t at a convention, they would be. They’d be great at innuendo. Nothing you could ever track down or prove.”

“Did any of them try to do something to your husband?”

“He never thought so.”

“But you did.”

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

“My husband’s web site would be sabotaged. He always said it was probably teenagers. Ha! Why would they care? Or there’d be whispering campaigns. At some of the smaller conventions they vote to give out their own awards. Nobody is supposed to campaign for the awards. It’s just not done, but somehow my husband never got an award for criticism or for his short stories. Authors Muriam was angry at never won. Either she’d win, again and again, or buddies of hers would.”

“Maybe your husband’s critiques or stories weren’t any good,” Fenwick suggested.

“They were excellent. Why Devers hated my husband, I don’t know.”

“But your husband didn’t think she hated him,” Turner said.

“No.”

“Did he ever say anything bad about her?”

“Not really, but that’s the way this world works a lot of the time. Everybody used the coin of hypocrisy. Certainly Muriam did. The truth and that woman were not friends.”

Turner said, “Your feelings about her seem to run pretty deep.”

Anna Foublin sighed. “There was jealousy, too. I’ll admit it. It burned me up to see her on all those talk shows. Every single one of them. Every single time one of her books came out. Those producers on those shows have no imagination. Maybe I’m just a lesser-known hack grousing about the ways of the world, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt this way. She’d whine about her wrist needing a splint after a book signing. As if her poor wrist would just give out, poor thing, because she autographed so many books. While the rest of us sat with one fan who would drone on and on, she’d have these huge lines the rest of us could kill for … oh dear.” She put her hand over her mouth.

“Do you know anybody else who felt jealousy?” Turner asked.

“No. I just assumed it existed.”

Fenwick said, “You could have not watched the shows.”

“I couldn’t resist. It was like watching evil blossom right in front of your eyes. Like a poisonous flower all pretty and smiling and deadly and awful.”

Turner said, “We found a broken red ostrich feather next to your husband’s body. Do you attach any significance to that?”

“No. I know Devers paraded around with one at every public moment. She even insisted on having a bouquet of them behind her at every public appearance. A lot of birds died for that woman’s sins.”

Turner persisted. “But your husband had no association with the feathers.”

“Certainly not. It was an absurd affectation on that woman’s part.”

“Did your husband have any fights with anyone?” Fenwick asked.

“No, no one. He was a good man.”

“With you?” Fenwick asked.

She gave him a startled look.

Fenwick said, “We have to cover all the bases.”

“I suppose you have to ask the family,” she said. “What an awful thing to ask.”

The detectives waited.

“We loved each other. We’d have been married twenty-five years next August. He was a good man. He had quirks. We all have quirks.”

“Do you have children?”

“One. A son in the Peace Corps in South Africa. God, I’m going to have to call him. What am I going to say? This is too awful. This is too unbelievable.” She wiped at her nose.

“Do you know other people who didn’t like Ms. Devers?” Turner asked.

“I can give you a list of people I know. I don’t think any of them is a killer. I’d hate for them to think that I pointed a finger at them.”

“Someone did this to your husband. It’s most likely it was someone at the convention. We know your husband got along with Ms. Devers. We need to know who didn’t get along with her. We assume the deaths are connected.”

“Well, I can give you a few names.”

When she was done, Turner asked, “Why was Mr. Foublin in the room at this time?”

“He had to make a presentation at tonight’s banquet. He was in the room making some last-minute changes to his talk.”

“How long was he gone for?”

“An hour or two. He always waited until the last minute to prepare any remarks. It was just his way.”

“Where were you?” Fenwick asked.

“I was sitting in the hotel lounge with some friends waiting for him.”

“The whole time?” Fenwick asked.

“Yes.”

“What time did you last see him?”

“About ten. He was going to stop in the dealers’ room and then come up here. My friends and I ate a leisurely breakfast then passed the time on the comfy chairs in the lobby. I love watching the people.”

She had an alibi.

“Did either of you have a broadsword as part of your costume?” Turner asked.

“No. Dennis wasn’t into violence. He didn’t like it that people brought weapons to these conventions. He thought they were dangerous. Some people tried to lead a campaign against them, but Dennis was against an outright ban. That kind of thing gets pretty absurd.”

“How so?” Fenwick asked.

“Well, do you ban ray guns and laser pistols? They’re all fake. He was against both the weapons and the ban. It was all silly and a little absurd, but Dennis loved that kind of thing, taking fun things and playing with them. Testing the limits of the absurd.” She dabbed at her eyes.

“Did you see anyone who looked suspicious hanging around?”

“No. No one who looked like a murderer. It never even crossed my mind. Something like that doesn’t, usually, does it? This is so inexplicable.” She began to cry softly.

“Can we have someone sit with you?” Turner asked. “We could call someone.”

“I’ll talk to Oona.”

Turner found Sanchez in the corridor and gave him the list of names. Turner pointed to Matthew Kagan’s. “See if you can find him first.” He brought Oona back into the room with him. He and Fenwick watched the two women leave together.

After they left, Fenwick said, “I love someone who hated the victim. It is one of my favorite things.”

Turner said, “Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, dead victims bleeding, witnesses blabbing, those are a few of your favorite things.”

“You are not to begin singing Broadway show tunes.”

“You write poetry.”

“Yeah, but you can’t sing.”

“Hey, I always say every syllable of your poetry is perfection.”

“Yeah, but you never say anything about the poems themselves.”

“Every single one of your syllables is flawless. It’s just some are more flawless than others.”

“Something can’t be more flawless.”

“Precisely. And I wasn’t singing, I was misquoting. Besides, being able to sing Broadway show tunes is part of the gay gene.”

“I thought there wasn’t a gay gene.”

“There isn’t, but it’s a handy cliché at a moment like this.”

Fenwick said, “Mrs. Foublin didn’t look like she had the heft to be plunging swords into people.”

Turner tapped his notebook. “But we now have people who didn’t like Devers. A lot more than we had earlier.”

They returned to the room Foublin had been killed in. At the door, Turner said, “They each knew the killer, so they let them in, or somebody knew how to break into the modern hotel room.”

“Could they have been having an affair?” Fenwick asked.

“Devers and Foublin?” Turner said. “We’ll have to find out. Foublin didn’t look studly and young to me, but you never know.”

Fenwick said, “His wife wasn’t bad looking. Why go after someone nearly twice your age?”

Turner said, “I assume there is some connection between these two murders, and between these two victims, that caused the killer to want to murder them, and I’m ready to eliminate all consideration of suicide on the part of anybody. And I don’t buy the notion of murder down here, and then Devers going up to her room and committing suicide.”

Fenwick said, “I agree.”

“No puns, no humor, no corpse cracks?”

“When you’re right, you’re right.”

6

Sanchez entered with a thin, pale young man. He wore khaki pants, a blue shirt, and a navy blue blazer. Sanchez introduced him as Matthew Kagan.

Kagan said, “There’s all kinds of rumors downstairs. People keep disappearing and not coming back. I don’t think it’s some big, clever, secret event that needs lots of planning and personnel. And nobody has an explanation for all the cops being here. They don’t need this many cops to have a balloon drop.” He had a tenor voice.

Turner said, “Muriam Devers and Dennis Foublin are dead.”

Kagan gaped for a moment. He said, “The rumors are true.”

“How well did you know them?” Turner asked.

“Devers got me fired from a reviewing job. I was starting to syndicate my science fiction reviews around the country. I didn’t put it together that she was responsible until long after. The firing didn’t happen the day after my negative review about her appeared. Devers was a sneaky bitch. She planned it so I’d never figure it out. She was big on secrets.”

“How did you find out it was her?” Turner asked.

“I was having coffee with her first editor at Galactic Books, Melissa Bentworth. She told me what had happened to her. I began to put two and two together. I had a friend of mine who still worked at the syndicate ask my former editor. The friend got the story. It was Devers.”

“She was that concerned about one review?” Fenwick asked.

“She was concerned about everything connected with her career down to the smallest detail. She had that sweetness-and-light persona perfected. Everybody loved her except those of us that hated her.”

“What didn’t you like about her book?” Fenwick asked.

“The plot and the characters.”

“Doesn’t leave much,” Fenwick said.

“She was great at settings. I don’t know why people loved that book. I didn’t. She’s rich. I’m still scrambling. Maybe I was wrong. Her books for kids were even worse than her adult books. They were just drivel. The plot development constantly turned on everyone keeping the same silly secrets. There was no reason for the characters to keep the secrets she had them keeping.”

“But they sold,” Fenwick said.

Kagan agreed, “They sold tons.”

“Where were you around ten today?” Turner asked.

“I was having coffee with an agent who was interested in a movie script I was working on. We were discussing options for over an hour and a half, from ten to eleven thirty.”

“Did you know Dennis Foublin?” Turner asked.

“I visited his web site frequently. I thought he liked stuff a little too often. I disagreed with him on some reviews, agreed on others. I never met him.”