Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery by Mark Richard Zubro

loved that book. I didn’t. She’s rich. I’m still scrambling. Maybe I was wrong. Her books for kids were even worse than her adult books. They were just drivel. The plot development constantly turned on everyone keeping the same silly secrets. There was no reason for the characters to keep the secrets she had them keeping.”
    “But they sold,” Fenwick said.
    Kagan agreed, “They sold tons.”
    “Where were you around ten today?” Turner asked.
    “I was having coffee with an agent who was interested in a movie script I was working on. We were discussing options for over an hour and a half, from ten to eleven thirty.”
    “Did you know Dennis Foublin?” Turner asked.
    “I visited his web site frequently. I thought he liked stuff a little too often. I disagreed with him on some reviews, agreed on others. I never met him.”
    Turner asked, “You hear any gossip about them possibly having an affair?”
    “I can’t imagine Muriam having an affair with anyone. Although as part of that overly sunny persona she was always giggling at handsome young men. Some might call it flirting, but I watched her. Her flirting never led to anything. She reminded me most of the character Mae West played in the movie Myra Breckenridge . She did a whole lot of showy posing and flirting. The Mae West character is never shown following up the invitations. Devers certainly never followed up on hers. If some guy tried to accept her apparent invitation, she shut them down real fast. She’d go so far as to pinch their butts and do this stupid simpering number. But I never saw or heard of her actually inviting someone to her room or of her giving someone her room key.”
    “You watched her that closely?” Turner asked.
    “After she ruined one possible career for me, how could I not notice her? If you hung around enough of these conventions, she was impossible to miss.”
    “Nobody thought what she did was sexual harassment?” Fenwick asked.
    “Who would give a rat’s ass?” Kagan said. “She was in her seventies. Sometimes the butt pinching escalated to a lingering pat or, on occasion, a solid grab. If it was a forty-year-old boss with a twenty-year-old intern there’d be lawsuits flying faster than you can say hostile environment. Maybe it’s part of the hypocrisy of society. She could approach the edge with younger men, hell, even go over it. I certainly never heard a rumor about harassment or lawsuits. Supposedly a previously pinched butt was an entree to her writing group. I have no idea if that was true. I live in Boise, Idaho, and wouldn’t have been able to make any such meeting. Although I wouldn’t have gone even then.”
    “Why not?”
    “Writing groups? Pah! I don’t have time for writing groups. They’re for cowards, or people who need help with their writing. I don’t need help from some snarky wannabe. You work by yourself. Not with a committee. Writing groups are utter nonsense.”
    “You mean, you were never invited to join one,” Fenwick said.
    “Boise doesn’t have a lot of SF writers.”
    Turner asked, “Did Ms. Devers have fights with anyone that you know of?”
    “She was involved for a long time in several science fiction organizations. I heard she could get pretty steamed up over some awfully small issues.”
    “Like what?” Turner asked.
    “Some fairly typical stuff. Who should be in charge? Should the organization be centered in New York, Los Angeles, or somewhere more central in the country? Should they be a group dedicated to professionals already writing or should they be trying to help new authors get established?” He shook his head. “It got kind of silly, but Muriam hated any kind of change. In public Devers tried to position herself above the fight, but she was desperately working against the newbies in sneaky, underhanded ways.”
    “What would those be?” Fenwick asked.
    “Working against candidates who might be more representative of an organization’s membership. Trying