Sex and Murder.com

by Zubro, Mark Richard

  “How was he pure evil?” Turner asked.

  “He didn’t hurt little puppies or anything. He just wasn’t right. You just knew something was awfully odd about him. I didn’t like him.”

  “How much did you know about this game?”

  “My brother and I weren’t very close growing up, but after he went away to college he started to open up. I was the first one he told he was gay, even before he told that slime bucket Lenzati. I loved him and our bond grew over time. As for that stupid game, I’m not sure what it was all about. He bragged to me about it in this kind of obscure way, but he never gave me details. I knew it was about sex, I knew it was about money, and I knew it sounded dangerous and stupid. I warned him and warned him. Paying strangers for sex was a wide-open invitation to violence. One time I asked him if he was ever going to settle down. In his whole life he never actually dated anyone seriously. His longest relationship lasted less than three months, which was probably longer than any Craig Lenzati ever had.”

  Turner said, “Among the items we found on Mr. Lenzati’s computer was a coded list.” Turner showed her the printout Dylan Micetic had given them. Brenda Darium barely glanced at it. Turner said, “It’s in a code that our computer people have managed to break some of. Do you know what it is?”

  Darium said, “I told my brother over and over again it was stupid, stupid, stupid. He told me several times they had this encrypted method of keeping track.” She pointed at the paper. “That might be it. I don’t know.”

  “What were they doing exactly?” Turner asked.

  Darium said, “I think they were just so desperate, so lonely. I think that’s why Brooks confided in me and I think that’s why I listened. He had to have somebody real to talk to. I was appalled by what he hinted at, but I was willing to listen. I felt so sorry for my brother, hanging around with that creep Lenzati and not having any other friends.”

  Turner said, “The records we found go back twelve years.”

  “I suppose they might. I really don’t know when they actually started.” She sniffed a few times and wiped her nose.

  Turner held out the list to her. “There are a lot of names here. We’re going to have to interview all of them. Do you recognize any of them?”

  It took several minutes for her to scan the entire document. She shook her head and handed back the list. “I don’t recognize anyone. You aren’t going to try and ruin my brother’s reputation?”

  “We have no reason to leak this information to the press,” Turner said, “but if we can find it out, my guess is there are reporters who would be able to do so as well.”

  Darium said, “I warned him and I warned him. If this gets out, it will break Mother’s heart.”

  Turner said, “We were told Lenzati had late night parties. Do you know anything about them?”

  “No. He was such a jerk. He was creepy to be around. He leered at you in a very repressed, absolute nerd kind of way It took them both years of intense workouts to change their body shape. What they really needed was intense psychotherapy. They never could or would do anything to improve their social skills for attracting an intimate partner. When they got rich, they figured cash was the best aphrodisiac. Maybe they weren’t all that wrong.”

  “Did Lenzati ever make advances to you or your friends?” Fenwick asked.

  “Never. Back then, he might look at a woman for a few seconds, but then he’d run for his computer.”

  “We were told they were the toast of the town here in Chicago,” Fenwick said.

  “Money attracts friends, doesn’t it?” she said. “No, my brother and Craig Lenzati never had many real friends. Except each other. Even the rest of my family didn’t have much to do with Brooks. I was the one who maintained the connection between Brooks and our relatives. He didn’t care for them, and to be honest, they didn’t care much for him. They didn’t hate each other or anything. He just never gave them much time. When he made a lot of money, a few of them expected jobs and fabulous gifts and presents. Nobody but my mother got anything. That was fine with me. Mom has private nursing care at home. She has a live-in nurse and every possible part-time caregiver, all hired by my brother to satisfy her every whim. My mother has a lot of whims. He is very generous to her.”

  “We found all different sizes and kinds of men’s clothes in your brother’s bedroom,” Turner said. “Do you know what they were for?”

  “No. He’s been the same size for years. When he started working out, he lost one pants size, but he was never heavy.”

  They asked her to look at the names of people in Werberg’s address book. She was able to confirm only a handful of people who the police might be able to talk to about his private life. A few minutes after she left, the detectives finished inspecting the house. Micetic said he’d stay and go through as much as he could on the computers. They agreed to meet late the next morning.

  They did a canvass of the near neighbors. No one had seen anything. They got several beat cops to do the rest of the neighborhood.

  14

  I think sex is dirty I think public displays of affection are ghastly. Why people can’t leave each other alone is beyond me.

  As they drove back to headquarters, Turner gazed at the score sheet. “We need to talk to these folks. How the hell are we supposed to find them? While a plurality are probably from Chicago, we can’t be sure of that. For all we know, they were from all around the country and the world. We don’t even have full names for all of them. For many we have only first names.” He peered closely at the print out. “We’ve got to get those third and sixth columns translated.”

  Fenwick said, “Let’s stop at the paper and see if Morgensen’s got all his data ready for us.” They called and caught the reporter just as he was ready to leave. They met at the newspaper’s offices in a small conference room with a computer terminal.

  “Have you found any more connections?” Morgensen asked.

  “Nothing we’re even close to sure on,” Turner said. “We’d like to see all of yours.”

  “My editor said it was okay for me to show you this stuff because I got a lot of the initial information from newspaper stories and other public records. The rest was from interviews I did. Telling you who I got it from isn’t possible, but giving you the results is. Watch.” He tapped a few buttons on the computer and the screen filled with a spreadsheet with wide columns.

  “Someday I’m going to be able to do one of those,” Fenwick said.

  Morgensen made the comment that has driven computer students nearly mad for years: “It’s easy.” To his credit, contrary to his many vows in the past to shoot the next person who made such a crack, Fenwick restrained himself.

  Morgensen pointed at the screen. “Here’s all the victims, and everything I could find out about them personally, and then everything I could find out connected with their deaths. I cross-referenced each bit of data in as many ways as I could. I’ve got one page for each crime, with an index at the end.”

  They got their copies and left.

  Back at Area Ten another tiny parcel had arrived for Turner. This one had been sent by Federal Express. It had been posted at a drop box in the middle of the Loop.

  “What is this shit?” he demanded. A small crowd of detectives gathered around his desk. He flipped the box in the air and caught it.

  “Do you think you should do that?” Judy Wilson asked. “Maybe it’s somebody’s idea of a joke that’s gone sour, or maybe it’s really explosives.”

  “I’m not sure why it has to mean something sinister,” her partner Roosevelt said. The other detectives glared at him. He added quickly, “Although, it certainly opens itself up to that interpretation.”

  Turner held the box out to all of them and said, “Boo!”

  Wilson drew back slightly. “I expect that kind of flippant braggadocio from Fenwick, but not you.”

  “I’ve been taking lessons,” Turner said.

  “What about the cities where cops were killed?” Fe
nwick asked. “Is there any pattern of gifts there?”

  They tacked the spreadsheets from Morgensen to the corkboard that covered the entire north wall of the room. They used space opposite pictures of a partially dismembered corpse, a case that Roosevelt and Wilson had solved that morning.

  All of them pored over the documents, trying to find patterns that had not revealed themselves before. Nowhere was there mention of gifts to the cops who had been killed.

  After fifteen minutes Fenwick announced, “There’s nothing here.”

  When they were done looking, Turner called to get results of the analysis of the previous boxes. He hung up and announced, “None of them have had prints on them. This one won’t either.” Turner tossed the box up and down several times.

  Wilson said, “Maybe there’d be prints on that one. If there are, you’re destroying any that exist.”

  Turner took the box and flung it as hard as he could against the nearest wall. There was a small pop and a smoky foof.

  “This one was a bomb?” Wilson asked.

  They rushed to the remnants to find that it had been filled with white powder.

  Fenwick said, “At least the others had chocolate in them.”

  Commander Molton strode over to where they were all gazing at the box and its contents. When they finished explaining, he said, “The heat has been turned up on the Lenzati case. I’ve had my job threatened if we don’t get results. I’ve gotten complaints that Fenwick has been abusive to witnesses.”

  “They wanted more or less abuse?” Fenwick asked.

  Wilson said, “You always get those kinds of complaints, especially from anyone who’s heard any of his jokes.”

  “At least I didn’t shoot any crippled kids,” Fenwick said.

  “One of the complaints comes directly from the superintendent’s office, which means it is most likely coming directly from the mayor’s office.”

  “The mayor himself?”

  “I don’t know. Sturm delivered it in person. If I don’t make you toe the line, they will find someone who will.”

  “What did you tell him?” Wilson asked.

  “We traded bureaucratic barbs.”

  “Huh?” Roosevelt asked.

  “We obfuscated. We danced around the issue. We were exceedingly polite.”

  “And got nowhere,” Wilson said.

  “We got threatened,” Molton said. “I may be used to this kind of threatening bullshit, but the pressure is real. For all the brass’s bluster, as you know, your jobs aren’t really at risk. But this high profile crap gives a case a sense of urgency all out of proportion to real detective work.”

  “Is Girote involved in the murder?” Roosevelt asked.

  “Did Werberg say he specifically called Girote?” Molton asked.

  “No,” Fenwick said.

  “Pressure Girote if you have to,” Molton said. “Find out for sure what he knows. The son of a bitch has been a pain in the ass to me over this and other things in the past. He hasn’t told you everything. If he does know something about the murder, or more likely an attempted cover-up, I want to know about it.”

  Wilson said, “It’s their jobs you’re putting on the line if they pressure him.”

  “I’ll call,” Fenwick said. “It’s not a problem.”

  “Shall we gather at the computer for the checking of messages?” Turner asked. “I’d hate for any of you to miss out on this.”

  Turner flicked on his computer. He called up his e-mail. There was only one new posting. The name listed was “from one who hates you the most.” The message was a simple, “Ha!”

  “And that means?” Fenwick asked.

  Turner said, “It could be anything. Maybe it’s from the killer, crowing about Werberg’s murder.”

  They sent Turner’s box and its powder out for analysis. No one had offered to do the television and movie trick of putting a finger into the unknown substance and tasting it. Tough cops they might be, but none of them took stupid pills either.

  The phone rang on Turner’s desk. He picked up the receiver. The voice on the other end said, “I think you’re going to be next.” He heard a click and then a dial tone. Turner began punching in numbers.

  “What?” Fenwick asked.

  Turner told them what the caller said.

  Molton said, “Get onto the computer hookups at headquarters. Find out where that call came from.”

  “Already on it,” Turner said. The operator identified the call as coming from a phone inside the fast-food restaurant at the corner of Dearborn and Congress Parkway. They nearest beat car was dispatched immediately. Turner and Fenwick rushed over as well. When they got there, the restaurant was crowded. With the beat cops, they talked to all the employees and patrons. No one admitted to having seen anyone near the phone.

  Turner said, “I’ve got three separate types of communications with unknown origins. I’ve got the phone calls, the chocolate, and the e-mail. Are they all connected to each other? Are they all separate? Two out of three? Is it the serial killer? A random nut? A computer hacker who desperately needs a life?”

  “That last could apply to all of them,” Fenwick said.

  “I think this is serious,” Molton said when they got back upstairs.

  “Me too,” Turner said.

  Fenwick said, “My guess is that it’s our killer from Interstate Ninety.”

  “Or a copycat,” Turner said. “High profile cases bring out the loonies. Morgensen doesn’t report any prior warnings or messages or chocolate.”

  “Check with him on that,” Molton said, “and with the cops in the other jurisdictions. I think we need to begin working on the assumption that the call and the message represent real danger. I’m not sure about the boxes, but I don’t like it. The police protection I’ve ordered will be in place whenever you go home. I want to alert the department, get it mentioned at all roll calls.”

  Turner said, “After that article yesterday morning, every cop in the city is on high alert.”

  “Danger to a specific officer needs official attention. We can be organized. We can get out information in a coordinated fashion. If nothing else, we can find out if there have been other threats.”

  “This isn’t the first threat I’ve gotten over the years,” Turner said. “It won’t be the last.”

  “You want to move Ben and the kids out to my house?” Fenwick asked.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  Molton said, “You’ll have all the protection you need. I’m not losing any personnel to some nut.”

  Turner thanked him. Molton left.

  Turner called Morgensen’s pager number from the card he’d given them when they met. He asked about warnings or messages. Morgensen said, “Why, is somebody getting messages there?”

  Turner had to decide quickly whether to trust him or not. He said, “Cops get threats all the time. There’s been some here. We need to know if there’s a possible connection.”

  “I don’t have anything so far. I’ll check.”

  A few phone calls got them Girote’s home number. Fenwick called.

  Girote said, “You have some nerve calling me on a Saturday night at home.”

  “I’m working on a murder case,” Fenwick said. “I thought that’s what you wanted—results. I hear you’ve been making all kinds of calls trying to pressure us and our boss about this case. I don’t like you. I don’t like pressure. Maybe you’re trying to orchestrate a cover-up. Or maybe you’re the killer.”

  Girote hung up on him.

  Fenwick finished announcing the results of his call by saying, “It’s going to get ugly.”

  “It already is,” Turner said.

  Turner and Fenwick did paperwork for an hour. Finally, Turner said, “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday night. My family is waiting for me at home and I’m going. I don’t care how dead Werberg is.”

  Fenwick agreed. Molton had ordered the surveillance he’d promised for Turner. His protection, a blue and white Chicag
o cop car, followed him home and parked halfway down the block.

  15

  Domestic bliss! Ha! Domestic death is how I see it.

  At home Paul changed into jeans and a heavy sweatshirt and walked next door to Mrs. Talucci’s house. Ben, Jeff, Mrs. Talucci, and three of her great-grandnieces had recently been spending Saturday evenings taking turns reading chapters of the Harry Potter books out loud. They were halfway through Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Paul especially enjoyed reading them out loud. Jeff confided that he liked his dad’s deep, sonorous voice best.

  Paul hated being late. He sat down close to Ben and ate an Italian sausage sandwich provided by Mrs. Talucci as he listened to Lucinda Talucci finish reading chapter ten. Paul took a turn on the next chapter.

  Half an hour later they gathered in the kitchen for ice cream and fresh-baked scones.

  Mrs. Talucci said, “Paul, you look exhausted.”

  “I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Yesterday morning I didn’t know I’d have another one of these big cases.”

  “It seems all of them lately have been big,” Jeff said.

  Paul said, “I had plans this weekend. There’s things I need to do around the house. I wanted to spend time with the boys and Ben. I haven’t had time to talk to you, Rose. You haven’t told me about your latest trip.”

  She said, “We’ll inflict slides and videos on anyone who can’t run fast enough at some point, but not tonight.”

  “What’s going on with that computer guy case?” Jeff asked. “I read about him all the time in the computer magazines. It was on the news that Mr. Werberg is dead, too. The two cases are connected, right, Dad? The mayor’s press secretary was on the news before we left. He said they were.”

  Mrs. Talucci snorted. “Vinnie Girote is mortally stupid. I remember him growing up. He tried dating several of my daughters. If I was a putting-a-stop to it kind of person, I would have put a stop to it. I’m afraid I played a very mean trick.”