Here Comes the Corpse

by Mark Richard Zubro

  His sister said, “Finding out what happened might be helpful to all of us. These killings must be connected to Donny in some way.”

  I hurried over to the condo. The night was cool. I had on only my T-shirt under my jacket. My shirt had gone with Donny into the emergency room.

  I looked for a space to park in one of the best spots left in that part of the city, on School Street or Aldyne about twenty feet in from Broadway on the north side of the street. Two spaces are not metered, and no signage forbids parking at any time or requires a sticker. It’s the perfect spot and seldom available. A Toyota’s fading brake lights told me I’d been fifteen seconds too late for the space. I drove around for the more traditional fifteen minutes hunting for a spot. I finally found one right in front of Unabridged Bookstore, where Scott and I had first met.

  I saw Miller on Buckingham just east of the condo. There was a crime scene van, lots of cop-looking officials hanging around, and a group of gawkers milling nearby. We stood apart from all these groups. Since Miller had found the body, a young uniformed cop hovered nearby.

  I told him about Donny. He said several sympathetic things.

  “What have you found out?” I asked.

  “The cops still can’t find the model releases. Ethan and company paid these people in cash. They didn’t bother to submit any ten-ninety forms to the IRS for the people they hired. They did, however, report their own income to the IRS. They were actually pretty scrupulous about that. Remember, all they got Al Capone on was income tax evasion. Even if you’re a crook, the government wants theirs.”

  “So there was no cadre of employees helping out?”

  “There may have been a few helpers here and there, but nobody has any names. Cormac, Ethan, and Josh were kind of it as far as anybody can tell. Burnes seems to have been more hanger-on than any kind of employee.”

  “You can do thousands of dollars’ worth of business with only three people?”

  “How many minimum-wage people do you think you have to hire to stuff boxes and put on mailing labels?” Miller answered his own question: “Not a lot. You figure one or two employees for a couple hours a day, the videos get sent. Before I left St. Louis, I found out about the condo from a loan officer I know at the bank that handled a lot of Ethan Gahain’s accounts.”

  “Are they supposed to give you that kind of information?”

  “No. One of the great truisms in a murder investigation is follow the money. I was trying to do that. I make it a habit to develop as many contacts as I can. I had one in the bank they used. Ethan Gahain was worth well over a million dollars. In his will it is divided equally among his children. The wives don’t get a penny. The kids don’t get a cent until they’re twenty-one. The business was doing very well—shipping hundreds of units a week in tapes alone. They were making more money on credit card receipts from the Web site. Customer costs were fairly typical on it. Three ninety-nine per minute. People would pay a fee to join the club and another charge for every minute they watched.”

  “How’d you get to see the will?” I asked.

  “I called wife number four and asked. She read it to me. It was a very simple thing really.”

  We could have done that.

  I said, “His kids aren’t old enough to think about killing him, are they? The oldest is only twelve or thirteen.”

  “The oldest is twelve. As we know, that’s certainly old enough to accomplish a lot of mayhem. In this case I think it’s unlikely that a kid is going to be able to do this much traveling and this much planning.”

  “Scott’s nephew did.”

  “But he’s fifteen, not twelve.”

  “It could happen.”

  Miller said, “Why would a twelve- or fifteen-year-old kill all those people? I think all these murders are connected. You don’t get this much random coincidence in the universe I live in.”

  “When we were in the condo, we didn’t find any clues.”

  “I walked in. He was dead. It looked like his head had been bashed against the wall. He wasn’t a very big guy. It wouldn’t have been hard to nail him.”

  “He was in good shape,” I said. “He wasn’t huge, but he was muscular. It has to be somebody pretty strong who’s killed Ethan and Josh Durst. Durst claimed there were two intruders in his house in St. Louis. Maybe there are two killers. You can’t just take someone’s head and bash it against something. Some of these people have to be fighting back.”

  “Donny got knifed, not bashed.”

  I said, “I still don’t get how he fits in.”

  “If everybody is looking for something, maybe Donny knows something about it. If he was actually at the scene of Ethan’s murder, maybe he took something. Maybe he knows something.”

  “The killer’s gotta be looking for the missing data: the pictures or the model releases.”

  Detectives Rohter and Hoge joined us.

  Rohter said, “We examined the condo just before we got the call on Donny Carpenter. Obviously, he wasn’t there at the time. You guys were right about not finding anything.”

  “At least I didn’t find this body,” I said.

  “You could have left it there,” Hoge said.

  “At this late date I would start leaving instead of finding the bodies?” Nobody else responded to the tone of light amusement I was going for in this crack.

  Rohter asked the obvious: “Why was Durst here? Why did he come to Chicago? How come he knew about the condo?”

  I said, “It was a staging place for homemade videos. He was part of the crew. Durst, Gahain, and Macintire were in on something illegal, or at least it was something lethal. You’ve got to assume the danger extends from the connection between them, or at least it makes a great deal of sense to assume so. The connection we know about is pornographic.”

  “How does Mr. Carpenter’s nephew fit in?” Miller asked.

  Rohter said, “The kid was at the first murder scene. I don’t believe in coincidences. Although the kid also might have gotten knifed by somebody who thought he was an asshole, which could be just about everybody he ever met.”

  I asked, “Who gains by having them dead? Blackmail gone bad has a nice ring to it.”

  None of us knew.

  “How’s your nephew?” Rohter asked.

  I told him the latest.

  “Did he get a chance to tell anybody what happened to him?” Hoge asked.

  I shook my head.

  Rohter said, “The medical examiner is reasonably certain that if Donny had called when he found Ethan Gahain, they might have been able to save him. If the kid lives, the state’s attorney will probably charge him. If he didn’t actually commit the murder.”

  The cops left.

  “Did Josh Durst have family in Chicago?” I asked.

  Miller said, “He’s from St. Louis. I talked to his mother, a brother, and some friends. They all claimed to know nothing of any of this.”

  I stopped at the hospital. There was no change in Donny’s condition. It was nearly dawn by the time Scott and I got home and into bed.

  29

  When we awoke, it was nearly noon. Scott called the hospital. Donny was still in intensive care.

  The answering service buzzed us. My sister was on the line, but they also had a message from Douglas Clangborn, the reporter from the Tribune. He had invited us to a meeting of another group of athletes. After I’d noted the address, I told the service operator to switch my sister onto the line. Caroline began immediately: “What have you done?”

  “I won’t know until you tell me what you’re upset about.”

  “The police were here to question Ernie. My husband did not kill his brother.”

  “Why did they come to question him?”

  “They wanted to know when and what we knew about that condo. They could have only found out about our being there through you. They wanted to know about Ernie’s movements last night and at the wedding. They said that bathroom in the hotel was wheelchair accessible, as if that m
ade someone a suspect.”

  “They have to check out all possibilities. He is the brother. It is traditional to check out the family thoroughly in these cases. I like Ernie. I think he’s a good guy.”

  “You had at least as much reason to dislike Ethan as Ernie did.”

  “I had an emotional peak experience of anger at Ethan. Ernie had a whole lifetime of being pissed off.”

  “He didn’t kill him. There was a death in St. Louis. He couldn’t have done that. He couldn’t have gone to St. Louis without me knowing about it.”

  “I believe you.” This wasn’t exactly a lie. What I meant was, I had absolutely no proof that Ernie killed anyone.

  Caroline said, “The police kept wanting to know where we got the photos. They wouldn’t believe that we simply found them in a briefcase. You gave them the photos. What did you do that for?”

  “They were evidence.”

  “They practically accused him of working with Ethan. How dare they? He’s my husband. I’m frightened. I’ve never been so worried. I don’t like being any part of this.”

  “Nobody likes being part of a murder. It isn’t something you run around auditioning for or seeking out.”

  “I want this to go away.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Call me immediately if you learn anything.”

  “I will.”

  “How is Scott’s nephew?”

  “It looks pretty bad.”

  “Tell Scott I care.”

  I promised I would and hung up. I told Scott what she’d said.

  Scott said, “I don’t think she has anything to worry about. Ernie didn’t strike me as the violent type.”

  “Me neither.”

  We called Clangborn. He said, “I’ve got some guys you can talk with.”

  We drove out to a sports bar on Madison Avenue in Forest Park just west of Harlem. We found a three-or-four-block stretch filled mostly with sports bars and beauty shops.

  We parked on the street and walked into Mr. Luckey’s. The bar was crammed with televisions showing sports events, some presumably live, others taped.

  Clangborn waved us over to a small knot of guys in a large booth near the back. Several empty pitchers of beer sat on the table. The waitress brought over three new ones as we sat down. She brought glasses for Scott and me. Scott paid. We did a round of meet the famous baseball player. No talk about the gay stuff.

  We met three more athletes with Robert Murphy in their midst. I was eager to confront him, but first I wanted to get information from the athletes. This was a much angrier bunch than was at the first place.

  One was Billy McConnel from St. Louis, whom Coach Weiser had mentioned as transferring to Lafayette when Ethan had switched universities. Without preliminary, McConnel said, “I wish I’d have murdered all three of them.”

  “Which videos were you in?” I asked.

  “I made one of their jack-off videos.”

  Jose Perez, another athlete said, “I did a couple with women. I never did anything with guys.”

  Scott asked, “You’re willing to admit that in front of a reporter and your buddies?”

  “Why not? The tape exists. I saw it on the Internet once. It’s not like I did something with another guy. I’m not gay.”

  Perez’s skin was the color of light chocolate. His thick hair was cut short and dyed blond, which accented his skin color. He said, “I played baseball for Carl Sandburg University. I knew I wasn’t going to be a pro. What was the difference? They paid me a thousand bucks. They didn’t tell me it was going to be on the Internet. I only have an old computer at home that isn’t much good for anything but word processing. I don’t surf porn sites. I have no reason to visit gay porn sites.”

  The third athlete, Emile Tanzi, had been caught beating off at a urinal. He had short, curly hair, a bushy mustache, and flawless olive skin. Emile said, “I thought the place was deserted. It was deserted. I got turned on by a girl in the stands while I was waiting to take a dive. She congratulated me after I won the competition. I went back to the locker room. You ever had a hard-on in a Speedo? It’s embarrassing. Nobody was in the locker room. I never dreamed there’d be a goddamn camera.”

  “Everybody’s angry,” McConnel said. “We came up to see what could be done. Barney Natlik is gathering everybody up here. Coach Fariniti is coming to town as well.”

  “How’d you guys wind up making videos?”

  McConnel said, “I needed money. It’s not a secret a lot of us do. Josh Durst was the one who told me he had a way for me to make extra money. I figured he was gay and he wanted to get me into prostitution. I wouldn’t do that kind of shit. I know gay guys who hang around sports events just to ogle the guys or who have a lot of money to pay the athletes.”

  “Was Ethan involved in any of that?” I asked.

  “I sure never heard he was,” McConnel said, “but how would we know for sure?”

  None of the others had heard of it.

  I turned to Perez. “How’d you get involved in making videos?”

  “Durst.”

  “He must have been the recruiter,” Scott said.

  “Yeah,” Perez said. “Plus I wanted to have sex. I got to make it with a pair of nineteen-year-old twins with huge tits. It was great.”

  Tanzi said, “They sort of blackmailed me. I was embarrassed at what they had on tape. When they asked me to do more, I figured I had no choice.”

  “Did they make threats?”

  “Did they need to? I was caught beating off in a public place.”

  “Did Coach Gahain ever attempt to have sex with any of you?” I asked.

  They all said no.

  The athletes left. We asked Clangborn if he would excuse us while we talked to Murphy. The reporter told us to keep in touch and reminded us of our promise to call him first. He left. I turned to the coach and said, “We talked with Marty Burnes.”

  Murphy glowered. “The police talked to me. I figured Burnes had to be the one to tell. I’ll fix that little weasel. He’s a liar.”

  I said, “We gave the cops your name, Burnes didn’t.”

  “Yeah, well, I gave the cops his name. I knew he was in the sports program. I knew he was close to Ethan. I figured he was the rat.”

  My dilemma about telling the police had now disappeared. I said, “Burnes claimed you hated Ethan Gahain. That you were rivals. You lied to us. Why did you come here today? To help these athletes smear Ethan with a reporter? I want to know what the hell was going on.”

  “Marty Burnes is a desperate wanna-be. Why would you trust him to tell you the truth any more than you would me? Do you know him better? Do you know where he was at the time of the murders?”

  I said, “Tell us about your connection to Ethan and to pornography.”

  “Yes, I’d caught him at it. Yes, I’d threatened to turn him in.”

  “And you were rivals at work?”

  “Yes. He tried to undercut me in the department. He denied it, but I knew what he was trying to do. We were rivals. I saw a way of getting rid of him. I didn’t care if he took porn pictures of the whole department, as long as he left. I was smarter than he was. I threatened to tell all. I had more power and influence than he did. He got the chance for the new job. I told him he had to leave.”

  “Why not go to the head of the department?”

  “Ranklin? Ha! He’s an administrator. He doesn’t have a brain in his head. Until this came out in the paper, he didn’t have a clue to what was going on. I found out. I had a way of getting rid of a rival. He was gone. What did I care who he had pictures of?”

  Scott asked, “Why not just turn him over to the police and ruin Ethan completely?”

  “I’m gay. I can’t risk people asking questions and getting nosy. My name would be associated with Ethan’s. Did you think that maybe Burnes had his own reasons for diverting suspicion from himself?”

  “Are you saying he and Ethan were enemies?”

  Murphy countered, “Bur
nes sure knows more about the porn operation than anyone still living, doesn’t he?”

  “You do,” I pointed out.

  Murphy said, “Fuck you both,” and stormed out.

  We left and drove to the police station. It was nearly six before we got a chance to talk to Rohter.

  He said, “Fariniti’s on his way in.”

  “Has he been arrested?”

  “We’re getting fingerprints. We want him for questioning. His lawyer is trying to cooperate.”

  “Can we talk to him?”

  “Not a chance.”

  All the other amateur sleuths got to talk to the suspect if they didn’t actually take part in the trapping. We must not be doing this right.

  Rohter said, “We found a video he was in. He lied to the St. Louis police, and he does not have an alibi for the times of the murders.”

  “He must have been in Chicago yesterday.”

  “When I said on his way here, I didn’t mean on his way from St. Louis. We found him in a motel at the airport. We got that information from the St. Louis cops, who’d checked into his whereabouts.”

  “It’s suspicious that he was here.”

  “More than a bit,” Rohter said.

  We stopped for a bite to eat then hurried to the hospital. Still no change. We took part in the wait and worry until midnight. We were still tired from staying up most of the night before. We went home.

  30

  The phone woke me out of a deep sleep. It was four in the morning. Fears hammered at my heart. Calls in the middle of the night are not the harbingers of good news. I picked up the receiver. The answering service said, “It’s Mrs. Carpenter for her son.”

  I handed Scott the phone. I whispered, “It’s your mom.”

  He listened for a few moments, then said, “We’ll be right there.” He handed me the phone and I hung it up. “It’s Donny. They don’t know if he’s going to make it through the night.”

  We dressed quickly and hurried to the hospital. Scott’s mom and dad, his sister, and his brother-in-law were in the intensive care unit waiting room.

  Mrs. Carpenter said, “Hiram and Cynthia are in with him. He hasn’t regained consciousness since the operation. He’s taken a turn for the worse.” She dabbed at her eyes. We kept vigil through the rest of the night. As dawn rose, Hiram and Cynthia entered the room. Their eyes were red-rimmed, cheeks pale and sunken, shoulders round and slumped.