Nerds Who Kill: A Paul Turner Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t get sliced. She could have screamed before she was skewered, when the stab started, or for a few seconds during. Blood rushing into her throat would have choked her too fast for it to last very long.”
    Turner asked, “Did you see any evidence that the killer tried to silence her?”
    “We’ll do some checking,” the ME said. “Nothing visible to the eye says that the killer did anything like that.”
    Turner said, “How did the killer know someone wouldn’t be just outside the room and hear what was going on? Maybe she was yelling for help. The killer seemed to be taking an awful lot of chances. Either he surprised her or he was lucky.”
    Fenwick said, “How strong does somebody have to be to ram a sword through an entire human body? Can’t be easy.”
    “Ever tried to skewer somebody?” the ME asked.
    “Not lately,” Fenwick said.
    “Not easy, even with the sharpest of swords,” the assistant ME said. She held up two pieces of paper and said, “The edge of the sword split this easily. It was very sharp. The sword would need a powerful thrust behind it to skewer her like it did. Just less powerful because it was so sharp.”
    “Somebody reasonably strong,” Fenwick said. Head nods.
    A younger member of the ME’s staff said, “Maybe the sword could have been hurled from across the room.”
    The ME glared at the speaker. She said, “Doesn’t seem likely.”
    “You ever try to pick one of those things up?” Turner said. Head shakes. “They are heavy and unwieldy. You’d have to be incredibly strong to toss it even the slightest distance.”
    Fenwick pointed out, “People throw javelins.”
    “The balance would be all wrong for tossing it any kind of distance,” Turner said. “Say the blade is as sharp as possible to penetrate someone. Could the killer grab it by the middle of the blade and throw it? He’d have to risk cutting himself pretty severely. If he threw it while holding it by the hilt, he’d have to aim directly upward and hope it came down on a probably supine and hopefully unmoving body with enough violence to penetrate all the way to the back.”
    “Maybe he wore gloves?” the assistant ME said.
    “Nobody threw the damn thing,” the ME said.
    Fenwick said, “Get a grip.”
    The ME said, “There are never enough broadswords around when you really need them.”
    Fenwick said, “If the killer didn’t have a change of clothes, he should be easy to spot. The guy’s gotta be drenched in blood.”
    Turner said, “So we have a bloody somebody, a naked somebody, or someone who planned ahead. Somebody who’s got a gym bag or a plastic bag that won’t let moisture out. If it happened a while ago, the killer could be out of his bloody clothes and be right next door or on his way to the airport for a flight to Bombay.”
    They thanked the ME. She promised to get them fingerprint information in a timely fashion. Turner knew the prints would only start to do good when they began lining up suspects. They needed to begin their interviews.
    Sanchez reported finding all of Turner’s party except Brian. They were all at various parts of the convention. All were fine and having a good time. So far the demise of the night’s keynote speaker had not been broadcast.
    Macer, the head of security, gave them a computer key card to get into the suite the hotel was making available for them to use for questioning.
    “Pretty fancy,” Fenwick said when they entered. Turner noted that the decor was similar to Devers’ suite: hotel art, gray carpet, and brass lamps. Turner didn’t think it was fancy or un-fancy. He was used to taking camping trips with his family. They’d spent a week in northern Ontario last summer. Mostly it was tents, and sleeping bags, and hard ground, and bugs. When they stayed in motels along the way, they were the kind that lined interstates. Turner said, “Don’t you know how to tell if a hotel is pricey or not?”
    “It costs a lot?”
    “Without knowing the