Dead Egotistical Morons Read online

  Dedicated to the men and women of the executive board of Local 604. Thank you for your kindness and help. And a special thanks to Paula Miller. You made a difference.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Detectives Paul Turner and Buck Fenwick waded through the mob of reporters and the crush of shocked concertgoers outside the arena. The corridors leading to the murder scene were packed with police, stadium personnel, and hangers-on.

  The detectives arrived in the home locker room of the All-Chicago Sports Arena, newly built just west of McCormick Place. In here muted conversations barely stirred the stunned silence. Turner noted the plush carpet, gilded fixtures, soft lighting, leather couches, comfy chairs, and locker spaces as big as walk-in closets—no crashing metallic lockers here. Hanging from the ceiling and set flush against the wall were ten-foot-high flat video monitors with smaller ones scattered about—all gray and silent. They then moved into the shower area. This looked more like the repose of a millionaire’s spa than that of a hard-used stadium locker room. There were ten trapezoidal-shaped shower stalls around a central core. Luxury couches abutted the walls. Stacks and rows of fluffy towels filled a luxurious drying room in one corner. It reminded Turner of a warm-air hand drier gone amuck. There were three other entrances to the room. At the far side from the door they had entered, the detectives found a cluster of police personnel around the entrance to one of the stalls.

  Turner and Fenwick waited near the opening for the medical examiner and the crime scene techs to finish their jobs. David McWilliams, a beat cop they’d worked with before, glanced at his notes and recited the events as he knew them. His face was red, and he seemed flustered even though he had been here only half an hour.

  “We were on duty outside when the call came in. I got here and the place was nuts. Out in the locker-room area, they’d been having this huge party and there were at least twenty people crowded around the dead guy. I called for backup and then I tried to get everyone the hell away from the crime scene. Everybody was screaming and carrying on. All kinds of people were giving orders and trying to tell us what to do. We had to subdue one of the security guards. After the paramedics finished with the corpse, they had to give medical assistance to my partner. They think he might have a broken jaw. We’re waiting to charge the security guard with assault. He’s the one who found the corpse.”

  Turner asked, “Who is the dead guy?”

  “Roger Stendar.” McWilliams said the name like it should be recognized.

  Fenwick sighed. “I’m supposed to know who that is, aren’t I?”

  Several of the techs gave Fenwick quizzical looks. One of the youngest of them said, “Boys4u? The most popular rock band in the world? He’s their biggest star.”

  Fenwick snorted. “Not anymore. I thought all those guys were a bunch of no-talent, prepackaged, too rich, too young, egotistical morons.”

  Turner said, “This one is a dead egotistical moron.”

  “Does anybody really listen to that music?” Fenwick asked.

  Turner knew for a fact that Fenwick mostly listened to eighteenth-century and earlier classical music. Obscure Renaissance motets were his specialty. Turner also knew he was never to reveal this information.

  McWilliams said, “His band, Boys4u, sells one hell of a lot of CDs.”

  Fenwick said, “My daughters have posters of some boy-band persons in their rooms. Aren’t those groups all the same?”

  “So far the big difference I see,” Turner said, “is this guy is dead. Presumably all the others are alive.”

  “Of no great import to me,” Fenwick said.

  The corpse was naked. Turner guessed the dead guy was in his early to mid-twenties, maybe six feet tall and a hundred forty pounds. He lay on his back. Water and rivulets of blood lay near the head. Turner noticed a series of lightning tattoos on both of the boy’s arms and a sunburst around his navel. When the ME finished, Turner and Fenwick approached the body.

  The wall was pale turquoise marble and sparkling clean. The floor was white marble. The space was maybe five-feet-by-five. Turner and Fenwick squatted next to the body and gently turned it over. In the middle of the back of the head they saw a small black entry wound. No exit wound.

  “Small caliber,” Fenwick said.

  Turner nodded. There were no other signs of violence. “Was the shower still on when he was found?” Turner asked.

  “Yeah,” McWilliams said.

  Turner knew that because of the water and the crush of people who’d been in the room, they were unlikely to find anything helpful in the shower area.

  Turner said, “Execution-style murder. Why didn’t the killer just leave the gun in here?”

  Fenwick said, “We could call Executioners R Us and see if they have a special on boy-band killers.”

  “Executioners run specials?” the ME asked.

  “All businesses have slow and fast periods, don’t they?” Fenwick asked.

  Before they left, Frances Strikal, a representative of the stadium, took them on a tour of the locker area. She was in her late forties and dressed in a gray skirt, white blouse, and gray jacket. The shower room had four entrances. One from the swimming pool, one from the weight room, another from a whirlpool/sauna area, and one back into the locker area itself.

  Strikal said, “The band members were permitted full access to these areas. They used the weights and the pool every day.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yeah. Nobody else was allowed back here.” She leaned toward them to whisper as if a tabloid reporter were lurking two feet away. “It was kind of a kick. They skinny-dipped.”

  All the rooms had doors leading to a hallway and entrances leading from one to another. The detectives examined each room. The pool was Olympic-sized. The sauna included luxurious massage tables. The weight room contained five of each kind of the most modern machines. Beyond the pool was a medical facility with more than enough paraphernalia to stock a well-run emergency room. They also found a trainer’s room, plus arena and coaches’ offices. Strikal left after she showed them around.

  Fenwick said, “It’s a veritable warren back here, a maze. Maybe nobody is allowed in these private areas, but half the planet could have traipsed through here.”

  Turner said, “Anybody could have slipped out of the party, come around from any number of ways. Then again, there wouldn’t have to be any sneaking around if the last band members who left killed him.”

  “You could hide a football team and its cheerleaders in here,” Fenwick said. “We’ve got a lot of questions to ask of a lot of people.”

  Turner and Fenwick did their questioning in a lounge with navy blue walls, a light blue ceiling, white leather couches and chairs, and fixtures covered in gold leaf. Earlier they’d ordered beat cops to keep all the assembled partygoers from leaving and to keep the members of the band separated. Turner doubted if they’d be able to ascertain who left when. A geography of movements would be essential, but he doubted if they’d get anything clear enough from it to be helpf
ul.

  As Fenwick settled his bulk onto a deep, plush chair, he asked McWilliams, “How many people were at this party when he got shot?”

  “Nearly two hundred in the reception area,” McWilliams said. “The shower room was supposedly secure. No one was allowed back there except the guys in the band.”

  “But there are three other entrances,” Turner said.

  McWilliams said, “And nobody claims to have heard anything. When we got here, music was blaring from everywhere. You couldn’t have heard a gunshot if it had been fired next to your ear. Or if they did hear it, they aren’t saying.”

  Fenwick snorted. “Witnesses, pah! Give me good old-fashioned DNA every time.”

  After McWilliams left to get the first person to interview, Fenwick glanced around and said, “This place even smells new.”

  The athletic center had been opened in a grand ceremony by the mayor of Chicago the day before the concerts began. The group Boys4u had opened the venue with a weeklong series of performances. All seven concerts had sold out in less than fifteen minutes.

  A nearly six-foot-ten man walked into the room. McWilliams said, “This is Jordan Pastern, head of the band’s personal security.”

  Pastern had tears in his eyes. His khaki pants clung to massive hips, his belt cinched around a narrow waist, his black hair was slicked back and oily. A snowy-white T-shirt covered his broad shoulders and well-developed abs. He looked like a two-hundred-forty-pound linebacker in his prime. He might have been in his early thirties. The front of his pants and shirt were still wet. Turner assumed this must have been because he had cradled the dying singer. The security guard had a large bruise on the left side of his face and raw and abraded knuckles.

  “This is my fault,” he said, “all my fault. I protect these guys as if they were my own kids. How can he be dead? He just gave the concert of his life. All the kids did. They were great. He can’t be dead. He was a nice kid. They were all nice kids. Who would do such a thing?” Tears cascaded.

  Turner and Fenwick were not inclined to interrupt him. A talking witness was better than a silent witness. They also knew that many killers who knew their victims were eager to talk about the horrific thing they’d just done. The detectives would do nothing to inhibit the possibility of this guy turning from witness to suspect to killer. Eventually, the tears stopped. However, when the man went into his third round of self-recriminations, Turner said, “Mr. Pastern, we understand you found the body.”

  “I didn’t mean to hit the cop. I didn’t know who it was. He was in the way. We were trying to help Roger. I’m sorry. This is so screwed up.” He pointed to his face. “You guys hit hard.”

  They’d worry about the assaulting-a-police-officer problem later, if ever. That was minor compared to the dead body.

  “What happened tonight after the concert?” Turner asked.

  “We had this huge party in the dressing room. It was closing night of their current tour. It was a great tour. Tonight it was wilder than the locker room of a team that had just won the World Series. Lot of relief. Lot of good feelings. Everybody was here to celebrate. Executives from the record company. Hangers-on. The boys all take a shower after each show. They get real sweaty, and even the gel in their hair starts to melt. Roger always got done with his shower last.”

  “Why was that?”

  “After every performance he worked the crowd. He loved it. They all did, but he reveled in it. He let the fans touch him. We had to stick close to him to prevent him from getting mauled. Then he’d throw his shirt to the crowd. Whoever caught it got to meet him. It was kind of a tradition.”

  “So, he was the last one in from the arena?” Turner asked.

  “Well, yeah, but he always took the longest shower as well. Here it was a little different because they each had separate stalls. This place is piss-elegant. So he was taking forever. Everybody wanted him to party. We waited and waited.”

  “Who was allowed back here?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Was someone guarding the door?”

  “I didn’t notice anyone go in. I kept an eye on the entrance, but I had lots of distractions. I wasn’t worried. Everyone at the party had been cleared by my security people. Everyone knew better than to try and see these guys naked. These were all professionals, people who’d been around famous groups.”

  “What about the other entrances?”

  “No one was supposed to be back there.”

  “About how long would he have been in here alone?” Turner asked.

  “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. I came back to hurry him along. I found him.” Great tears flowed down his cheeks. “He was on his back. There was blood. I tried to revive him.” His fists clenched. He rubbed them against his eyes. He pulled out a damp hanky and blew his nose. When he was sufficiently composed, he said, “I screamed for help. Nobody came. I left him for a few seconds to get somebody. After that everything went pretty damn fast, too damn fast. It was so horrible. People from the party rushed in. All the rest of the security guys for the band, uniformed guards from the stadium, Chicago cops, everybody. Paramedics showed up pretty quick. There are always some on duty because there’s nearly forty thousand people in the arena. I didn’t mean to hit the cops. They were trying to drag me away from Roger, and I thought I could help.”

  “What made you think that?” Fenwick asked.

  “I don’t know. I figured maybe he just passed out. He couldn’t be dead.”

  “You didn’t see the entry wound?”

  “Not at first. A little of the water was pinkish red. As soon as I picked him up and held him in my arms, I saw the blood dripping. Then I looked.” He drew a deep breath. “I had to do something. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I couldn’t just let him lay there dying.”

  “Was he breathing at all?” Turner asked.

  He spoke very quietly. “No. No, I guess he wasn’t. Not at all.”

  Fenwick asked, “No one heard you yell for help?”

  “The party was wilder than usual. They were replaying the concert at top volume on all these video screens.”

  “Who’s in charge of who gets back here?” Turner asked.

  “I am. I’m going to be blamed and that’s bad. But I’ll never forgive myself for this. These boys were friends of mine. I took care of them. I loved them like brothers. If they needed something on the road, I would get it for them.”

  “Like what?” Fenwick asked.

  “Oh, anything.”

  “Drugs, women?” Fenwick asked.

  “I don’t pimp for nobody. I don’t do drugs.”

  Turner noted that the answer wasn’t as precise as a flat-out no.

  “We aren’t tabloid reporters,” Fenwick said. “Do they do drugs or don’t they?”

  “If they do, it isn’t a problem that I’m aware of. These guys are given anything they want by fans. I don’t know what all they’ve gotten. Security protects them from the fans. We don’t protect them from themselves.”

  “We’ll need a list of whoever was here,” Turner said.

  “We’ve got a list, even the heads of the company had to give us the names of anyone they wanted to bring back here. Sometimes the boys invite special guests, family, girlfriends, you know. They would have been cleared as well. The publicity people would have the most comprehensive list.”

  Fenwick said, “Whatever list you’ve got, we’ll take. Did you see a gun?”

  “No. But with the chaos of the party anyone would have had a chance to hide it or even leave with it.”

  “Did Stendar have any enemies?” Turner asked.

  “This is the most popular band in the world,” Pastern said.

  “Which doesn’t answer the question,” Fenwick said.

  “I suppose we all have enemies.”

  “Any crazed fans?” Fenwick asked.

  “There are always those, but that’s what security is for. It’s pretty tight around the concerts. It’s more of a problem when they go back to thei
r hometowns and try to live a normal life. They don’t have that anymore. We’ve got barriers between the boys and the crowd. There are guards at regular intervals stationed all around the stage.”

  “No problems in the group itself?” Fenwick asked.

  “No, the guys really get along. Everybody really cares. It’s like a family.”

  Fenwick said, “Statistically you’re more likely to be killed by a member of your family or at least someone you know than you are by a stranger.”

  “Oh,” Pastern said.

  “First, we’ll need to talk to all the members of the group and the people who were usually backstage,” Fenwick said. “Then we’ll do the hangers-on. Some of the beat cops will be conducting preliminary interviews.”

  Pastern left.

  2

  Jonathan Franklin Zawicki—and he introduced himself using all three names—was tall and slender with a hook nose, gray eyes, and jet black hair that looked dyed. Turner thought he might be in his middle forties. He wore a dark gray suit that looked expensive because it was. He held out his hand to the detectives. Everybody shook hands.

  “We understand you’re the head of the company,” Turner said.

  “I’ve been president of Riveting Records for ten years. I’ve developed numerous talents in that time. I signed this band to their first contract. Boys4u is the hottest group in the world today. Their latest album sold over three million copies in its first week of release, better than any other album in history.”

  “Tell us about Roger,” Turner said.

  “A very fine young man,” Zawicki said. “One of the quieter members of the band. Always worked hard. Always on time. Very serious about making music. Loved to sing and perform. As far as I know, he didn’t have an enemy in the world. The fans could be a little crazy, but no one expected this.”