Free Sex and Murder.com: A Paul Turner Mystery by Mark Richard Zubro

secrets. Before leaving, they called Werberg and set up an appointment with him so that the three police officers and he could meet at nine in the morning and go over all the computer materials.

7
     
    Sometimes I get lucky and there’s a murder or an attack that I’ve had nothing to do with. They get all confused because they think that’s part of what I’m up to. Those are some of the fun times, and I don’t have to do a thing to make it happen.
     
    Turner and Fenwick drove back to Area Ten headquarters. Fenwick handled their unmarked car with his usual maniacal glee. The pedestrians of the near north side survived the experience—some of the less attentive, just barely. They pulled into the Area Ten parking lot and headed to their desks on the third floor.
    The building housing Area Ten was south of the River City complex on Wells Street on the southwest rim of Chicago’s Loop. Many years ago, the department purchased a four-story warehouse scheduled for demolition and designated it as the new Area Ten headquarters. Turner was convinced that soon the grandchildren of some of the original rehabbers would be working on the site. Over many years in fits and starts the building had changed from an empty hulking wreck to a people-filled hulking wreck. For years, construction debris had accumulated in nooks and crannies throughout the building.
    In the past few months someone had gotten the insane idea that mid-winter was a good time to replace all the windows in a four story building. No question, the windows needed replacing. The cops who inhabited the place used vast quantities of torn and tattered T-shirts, bits of old rags, and duct tape to block the cold wind that whipped in through the multitude of cracks and crevices. The rehabbers had gotten three-quarters done with the window project and then simply stopped showing up.
    Adding to his usual high level of annoyance, the window nearest Fenwick had been accidentally broken by a youthful workman. The wind constantly snapped at the plastic covering they’d used to block it up and the cold oozed relentlessly through the ersatz opening. Numerous promises had been made that the workers would return by the following Monday. No one believed this the first time they were told it. Four weeks later, with no construction workers evident on the horizon, it was long past the point of a running joke. Supposedly the city was thinking of filing suit against the rehabbers. Turner figured the turn of the next millennium would come before the legal system would be of any help. Fenwick disagreed. He thought they should arrest the whole crew. He figured that would shake them up enough to get the work done. Turner wasn’t so sure.
    Area Ten ran from Fullerton Avenue on the north to Lake Michigan on the east, south to Fifty-ninth Street, and west to Halsted. It included the wealth of downtown Chicago and North Michigan Avenue, some of the nastiest slums in the city, and numerous upscale developments. It incorporated four police Districts. The cops in the Areas in Chicago handied homicides and any major non-lethal violent crimes. The police Districts mostly took care of neighborhood patrols and initial responses to incidents.
    When they arrived at their desks, Turner found a box wrapped in a pink ribbon on top of a pile of papers. A label said Nutty Chocolates, Fenwick’s favorite purveyor of confections. “You lose this?” Turner asked.
    “It’s got your name on it.”
    “Who put it here?”
    “Maybe you have a secret admirer.”
    “I hope not.”
    Turner called down to the front desk. Dan Bokin, the cop on duty, said the package had come in the mail.
    Stunningly enough, the Chicago Police Department had no security measures or policies in place to deal with packages sent to the District and Area stations.
    Fenwick said, “You want to call Bomb and Arson?”
    Turner examined it carefully. The package was barely larger than a matchbox. It would be hard to conceive that it could