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

asked.
    “None who would be willing to kill. At least none that I know of. I can’t imagine it. This is a civilized business.”
    Fenwick said, “Capitalism can lead to greed and murder as well as fame and riches.”
    Turner asked, “Among the employees in your department, were there arguments, fights, even any minor disagreements that lingered?”
    “I don’t want to single anyone out. Not anyone who’s here. Eddie was the one big problem.”
    “How’d you get started here?” Turner asked.
    “I was particularly grateful to Craig and Brooks. My little computer start-up company did not make millions. My husband and I were working out of our home. We were going broke and Craig and Brooks bailed us out. They paid a lot more for our company than it was really worth and put me in charge of the creative division here. My husband does consulting work for this computer company and many others. We owe Craig and Brooks a great deal. They rescued a number of businesses. A lot of us didn’t have MBAs, didn’t have a sense of the possible or the practical. They did the same for Justin Franki, the head of the research and development department.”
    “Where were you early this morning?”
    “With my husband, having breakfast and getting ready for work, as we always do.”
     
    Justin Franki looked like he had just parked his surfboard on the nearest beach and come in off the waves. His blond hair was wet and slicked back. He wore khaki pants molded to his hips and a light brown T-shirt that clung to broad shoulder muscles and stretched taut across beer-can abs. He looked tan, healthy, and energetic. Turner realized most of the others they’d seen looked like they spent every minute of every day indoors. This guy had either just been vacationing somewhere much warmer than Chicago in winter, or he was the best customer a tanning salon ever had.
    Justin might have been over thirty, but if he was it was just barely. “Yeah,” he said in answer to their inquiries, “Craig and Brooks saved my ass. I was way in debt. I tried to take my company public. I did take it public. The stock soared. Then it plummeted. They don’t talk much about the tech stocks that drop out of sight.”
    “What happened?”
    “Most of these dot-com companies are a lot more promise than product. Eventually people are going to demand to see a profit. I never even got off the ground floor. The software I was developing had nothing but glitches, and I could never get it to work right. Everybody in the industry knew I was about to lose everything. Craig and Brooks offered to have me come work here, where I could continue to work on my product while doing other things for them. It got me out of a deep hole.” Franki paused. “These guys were great.”
    “What about this Eddie Homan guy?” Turner asked.
    “You always get malcontents. Security and crackers are a problem with almost every computer company. I never got big enough to have any problems. I wish I had been.”
    “Did you know Eddie personally?”
    “Sure. We worked in offices next to each other for a year or two.”
    “Was he angry enough to kill Mr. Lenzati?”
    “Eddie wasn’t the confrontational type. He fit the wimpy nerd stereotype pretty well. If he was angry, he’d just go back to his machine and try and think of elaborate schemes to get even with people.”
    “What were those?”
    “He never told me much. I don’t think he ever gave up hacking into other people’s stuff, but I think the time in prison made him so careful that he really couldn’t be effective.”
    “Do you know of anything specific Eddie might have been working on when he quit?”
    “No, either Craig or Brooks would be the ones to ask, maybe Warren Fortesque.”
    In response to their questions about his whereabouts that morning he said, “I went to the gym for an hour at five, like I do every weekday. I had breakfast at Healthy Mornings restaurant like I do every day. Frederico, my regular waiter, would