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

books came out. Dare to mention just that one fact and people began clamoring and protesting, accusing you of jealousy and not being a good sport. As if Muriam ever was some kind of good sport. Maybe she was on those shows because she’s famous. Maybe the shows made her famous. Who else are they going to put on those shows? Some schlub who’s spent twenty years slaving away at some three-volume unpublishable fantasy drivel? No. Still, it was all Muriam, all the time.”
    “What about the non-public part?” Turner asked.
    “She had kind of an assumed clout in the community. Kind of a Wizard-of-Oz effect. She had all this power because people assumed she had all this power. People deferred to her. It didn’t hurt that she was rich. Money counts. A lot of people think of writers as these saintly dweebs pouring out their hearts for their art. Hah! Trust me, they’re camped out at their mailboxes desperate for those royalty checks.”
    “That sounds more gossipy and backbiting,” Fenwick said. “That doesn’t sound like a motive for murder. Sounds kind of average for almost any profession.”
    Mrs. Foublin said, “You let anything fester over time and watch the explosion you get. One reviewer dared to write a negative review of one of her books. He never got invited on another talk show. His editor dropped his reviews. It took the reviewer awhile to put cause and effect together.”
    “Who was this?” Turner asked.
    “Matthew Kagan, a very nice young man.”
    “Is he at the convention?”
    “I saw his name on the list of attendees, but I haven’t seen him.”
    “Were there other conflicts?” Turner asked.
    “Those people in that writing group of hers. They were slime incarnate. She used them like gang hitmen. It was disgraceful.”
    “How were they like gang hitmen?” Turner asked.
    “If she wasn’t able to do her dirty work, she’d get them to do it for her. She was vile and unprincipled with loyal followers who would cut their hearts out for her.”
    “How did they do that?”
    “If she wasn’t at a convention, they would be. They’d be great at innuendo. Nothing you could ever track down or prove.”
    “Did any of them try to do something to your husband?”
    “He never thought so.”
    “But you did.”
    “Yes.”
    “Like what?”
    “My husband’s web site would be sabotaged. He always said it was probably teenagers. Ha! Why would they care? Or there’d be whispering campaigns. At some of the smaller conventions they vote to give out their own awards. Nobody is supposed to campaign for the awards. It’s just not done, but somehow my husband never got an award for criticism or for his short stories. Authors Muriam was angry at never won. Either she’d win, again and again, or buddies of hers would.”
    “Maybe your husband’s critiques or stories weren’t any good,” Fenwick suggested.
    “They were excellent. Why Devers hated my husband, I don’t know.”
    “But your husband didn’t think she hated him,” Turner said.
    “No.”
    “Did he ever say anything bad about her?”
    “Not really, but that’s the way this world works a lot of the time. Everybody used the coin of hypocrisy. Certainly Muriam did. The truth and that woman were not friends.”
    Turner said, “Your feelings about her seem to run pretty deep.”
    Anna Foublin sighed. “There was jealousy, too. I’ll admit it. It burned me up to see her on all those talk shows. Every single one of them. Every single time one of her books came out. Those producers on those shows have no imagination. Maybe I’m just a lesser-known hack grousing about the ways of the world, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt this way. She’d whine about her wrist needing a splint after a book signing. As if her poor wrist would just give out, poor thing, because she autographed so many books. While the rest of us sat with one fan who would drone on and on, she’d have these huge lines the rest of us could kill for … oh dear.”