Read Online Sex and Murder.com: A Paul Turner Mystery by Mark Richard Zubro - Free Book Online Page A

younger than his son Brian. He had brush-cut hair, which was slicked down and pulled forward. He kept a tuft of hair growing under his lower lip. He was as pale as someone just getting the flu. He wore baggy pants, a white T-shirt, and a leather jacket that looked several sizes too big for him.
    “You’re the computer guy?” Fenwick asked, his voice soaked with an ocean of doubt.
    The kid glared at him. Without speaking he held out his ID. “You want my driver’s license for proof of age of admittance?” Turner saw the guy’s name was Dylan Micetic, aged twenty-four. Micetic said, “What is it you guys want?”
    “We didn’t mean to give offense,” Turner said, “but you do look awfully young.”
    “Yeah, well, I’ve been that way all my life.”
    Turner said, “We need to inventory everything in here with someone who has knowledge of what we’re looking at. We also need to find any evidence of computer hackers and/or sabotage.”
    “You mean crackers. Don’t they train you guys in any of this stuff? The big thing here with the monitor on top is a computer.” He pointed and began naming objects. “That’s a printer, a chair, a desk—”
    Fenwick interrupted, “Listen, you snot-nosed twerp—”
    The kid held up a hand. “Abuse someone else on my time. I have knowledge you need. I’m paid to give it to you, but not to put up with you.” He pointed at Fenwick. “And I’ve heard all about you.”
    Fenwick grinned. “I hope you heard nothing but the worst.”
    Turner said, “I’m willing to call a truce. We’ll promise not to disparage you for your age if you’ll promise not to look down on us for our lack of computer sophistication.”
    Everybody nodded, although if it was possible to give a surly nod, Fenwick did so.
    Turner continued, “What we’re looking for is something that might give a hint as to who killed Lenzati. What we want to concentrate on is any kind of fraud or double dealing.”
    “You think he’d have that out in the open?” the kid asked.
    Turner said, “I’m not sure what he’d have, how he’d have it protected, or what its value might be. I suspect we’ll find nothing. I’m not an expert on this stuff. I’d settle for an anomaly that will lead to who killed him.”
    In fact, Turner had taken several computer classes and seminars through the department. All of the detectives had taken at least a word processing class. But he wasn’t about to claim vast knowledge, especially in the face of the department’s supposed expert.
    While Micetic worked, Turner and Fenwick checked with the neighbors who hadn’t been home on the first canvass. They also interviewed the members of the cleaning service. None of them knew anything that was helpful.
    Back in the electronics room, the work was tedious. The room had been photographed already. They had to take each piece of electronics equipment, software, and disk, note where they found it, what was next to it, what they did with it, and where they placed it when they were done. The trail of evidence had to be clear, and they couldn’t know at this point what might be important in their search.
    It was nearly four o’clock and they’d been searching for half an hour, when Fenwick said, “Screw it. We’ve got a million other things to do. We’re not going to find anything here. I’ve got to get home.”
    “Big case,” Turner said. “We’re not going to be able to leave it like this. At the least, we’ve got to get back, report, and write up what we’ve got.”
    “They’re all big cases,” Fenwick said. “They’re also all dead bodies. They aren’t going anywhere.”
    “We should stay a while longer,” Turner said.
    “I’ve got something,” Micetic said. “I think I found out what the main project was that they were working on in their business. The latest cutting edge technology is artificial intelligence. They’ve done a lot of work with it. No one is close to creating what I consider real intelligence.