B-Movie Attack by Alan Spencer Page B

this investigation by the book since he felt like he was near the closing of the case. Ted Fuller was connected with the crimes at Iowa University and the stolen reels belonging to Dennis Brauman. Whatever else Ted had planned to commit to hype his films, Vickers couldn’t give him the time to perpetrate it. Officer Baker was driving him to Judge Howard Bullard’s house to argue for a search warrant.  
    Officer Baker was full of questions about Ted Fuller. “Is that director into smut or something?”
    The detective had phoned a friend from Iowa who researched Dennis Brauman and his affiliation with the Private Film Coalition of Public Morals. “No, Ted’s a schlock horror movie director. Low budget shit. The stuff you’d see at the drive-in back in the day.”
    “But that guy mentioned some of the reels were porno.”
    “Yes, some of it. Not all of it, though. Dennis Brauman was a genius in some ways. He was a lawyer back in the late seventies and early eighties. He was also a self-righteous Christian. He had a son who committed suicide when he was in his early teens. Dennis believed the poor kid was influenced by a horror movie to slit his wrists. The film was about a man who could make himself bleed to the point it could fill up rooms, and the man still wouldn’t die. It was really depression that drove the kid to cut himself, a chemical imbalance, but Dennis denied the truth.  
    “But the twist happens after Dennis’s daughter marries Ted Fuller. Her overbearing father somehow convinces his daughter to divorce Fuller once he finds out about the kinds of questionable movies the guy makes.   So after the marriage is finished, Fuller goes on to make a string of cheap horror films. I know Dennis later shuts down Fuller's movie distributor, VendCo, by accusing them of tax evasion. Then Dennis hires some thugs to steal VendCo’s films, and they’re lost for decades, until now, that is. Nobody cared to take legal action because the person who owned the rights was in jail, and the guy who owned the company was flat-out broke. And now, Ted’s discovered Dennis’s movie stash. He has his movies back. One of them is Morgue Vampire Tramps Find Temptation at the Funeral Home .”
    “These titles.” Baker laughed under his breath. “Where do they come up with this shit?”
    “People like sex and death,” Vickers speculated. “It’s a horror movie’s bread and butter. Professor Maxwell from Iowa University was the man who unearthed Ted Fuller’s film. They played it at Denton Hall, and you know the rest. Real-life flying vampires slaughter a group of people. And it happened here too.”
    Baker asked, "Did you hear about the suicide bomber?”
    “Suicide bomber?”
    “It was two blocks from Heart of Chicago Medical Center. A man just up and blew himself up. They still haven’t identified the person. Seven people died. I have a friend in forensics. He said the wounds weren’t from an explosive device.”
    “Then what killed them?”
    “The guy said they were from bones, like the man’s body turned into a weapon or something.”
    “Surely it’s happened before. A person blows themselves up and a few bones might land in a nearby bystander, right?"
    “He said it wasn’t like that. There was no evidence of an actual bomb being used.”
    “You’re saying the man just blew up on his own.”
    “That’s what Wesley said.”
    “They hire anybody to work crime scenes nowadays in Chicago, don't they?”
    They arrived at Judge Bullard’s two-story colonial house. The front porch light was on, and the man stood on his porch wrapped in a black overcoat. He smoked a pipe. Judge Bullard wasn’t pleased. Vickers hurried out of the car and told Baker to stay behind. Baker didn’t argue.  
    Bullard greeted Vickers. He was near three hundred pounds, a face taken over by a full black beard—clearly dyed since his eyebrows were gray and so was his receding hair. The bags around the man’s eyes and the stamped-in