Abel Turner

[by Alice Duke]

Abel Turner is a detective of the New Haven Police Department. While not officially associated with Yale University, Turner is a member of Lethe House as Centurion, the official liaison between Lethe House and the Chief of Police. When local girl Tara Hutchins is found dead, Turner is forced to work with Lethe in order to solve her murder.

## Biography

### Pre-Series

At some point in his career as a detective of the NHPD, Turner was approached by Lethe and was offered the position of Centurion. Turner was reluctant due to his morals and dislike of elite magical secret societies of college students, but was eventually driven to take up the job due to the monetary compensation offered. He put the money toward a down payment for his mother's house. He tells his mother that he won the money from gambling.

### Ninth House

Detective Abel Turner is the lead detective on the case of Tara Hutchins' murder. When Alex Stern gets news of a murder near the outskirts of campus on a Thursday ritual night, she is obliged to talk to Turner about the case as he is Lethe's police contact. Before the night of Tara' murder, Turner only interacted with Alex once before, when she was accompanying Darlington. While nothing else is known about their first interaction, Alex immediately clocked that Turner disliked everything about Lethe and the Houses of the Veil. At the crime scene, she doesn’t get much information from Detective Turner. Because of the evidence pointing to drugs and an angry boyfriend, Turner initially dismisses the idea that Tara Hutchins' murder was society-related, but told Dean Elliot Sandow that he would update him.

In order to get access to Tara's body, Alex texted Turner the next day, demanding he pick up her call, knowing that when she called Turner in front of the morgue's receptionist, he wouldn't pick up—likely indignant Alex would demand his attention. However, as right as Alex was about to exit the morgue, Turner showed up, likely having listened to the receptionist' voicemail. When Alex tries to ask questions about the case, Turner lays out the evidence that implicates Lance and argues that she was potentially hampering with evidence. Alex instead asks for a single name of a buyer, arguing that she could still investigate illicit society activity without interfering with his case. Reluctantly, Turner tells her that Tripp Helmuth, a Skull and Bones member, was in Tara's contacts, but warns her off from talking to him before Turner gets his alibi.

Later on, Turner would get a series of texts from Alex. She had just interrogated Tripp Helmuth and was intent on finding out the address to Tara's apartment. He didn't deign to respond until finally decided to he pick up her call. Although at first calm and genial, Turner's attitude got shorter when he found out Alex was outside of the police station. Turner sat down on the bench next to her at the Union Train station and Alex feigned a desire to talk to Lance Gressang. Turner dismisses this and mentions that he saw the video of Alex acting bizarre on Elm Street. Alex was embarrassed he saw her getting attacked by the invisible gluma, but prodded Turner again, telling him to break the rules and— lying—claimed that she already investigated Tara's apartment. This caused Turner to shoot up to his feet, dropping the calm facade. He orders Alex to never go near Woodland St. and his case again. Alex meekly agreed and gave Turner the names Tripp Helmuth saw with Tara: Kate Masters and Colin Khatri. Satisfied, Turner bid Alex a sarcastic goodbye before heading back to work.

When Lance was attacking Alex in Tara's apartment, Turner intervened, pointing a gun at him and ordering him to put his hands on his head. Nothing would come of it though as Lance seemingly vanished into the mantel. Incredulous, Turner felt up the bricked up hearth and mantel, as if looking for a secret passage, only for Alex to interrupt him, asserting that the man was using portal magic. Turner, sensing Alex didn't know, informed her that the man was Lance Gressang, who Turner saw was in custody for the murder of Tara just an hour before. Turner made to call an ambulance, but Alex stopped him, protesting that the involvement of magic made going to the hospital impossible. Turner cursed but agreed, still grappling with the actual existence of magic.

At her prompting, Turner grabbed the basso belladonna drops from her pocket and put two drops into her eyes. Walking out of the building and past the uniformed officer, Turner grabbed his blue Dodge Charger and drove to Tilton Street, where he met with an energized, yet extremely pained Alex. While he drove her to Il Bastone, the house on Orange, he called Oculus, but got no answer. Turner tells her that Kate Masters claims she was at a Manuscript party until after 3 am the night of Tara's murder and that Colin Khatri skipped a Scroll & Key meeting to serve at Professor Belbam's salon. As Alex processed this, Turner made a call on the radio, reporting the damage to Tara's apartment, that someone was looking for drugs and that he chased them on foot only to lose them—giving a vague description of said perpetrator.

Alex gave Turner directions as he came up on the New Haven Green, directing him to park in the alley way. Turner helped Alex out the car and Il Bastone readily opened its doors to him as Centurion. As she assesses Alex' condition, Dawes asks Turner to get her as much goat's milk as he can from Elm City Market.

Leaving the pair to get up the stairs by themselves, Turner goes to get goat's milk and returns relatively quickly. As he enters Il Bastone's upper floors, Turner scans the room, observing the oddities of Il Bastone's armory. As Dawes pours the milk into the Crucible, Turner gingerly picks up Alex and places her into the vessel, heading Dawes' warning to not touch the milk by just letting Alex sink to the bottom of the golden bowl. Alex was submerged for a long time, leading to Turner and Dawes to yell Alex's name in effort to make her sit up and not drown. Turner simultaneously relaxed and became more befuddled as Alex emerged and the milky waters of the crucible slowly turned more clear and watery. Done with the situation, Turner announced he was leaving, hurriedly striding out the door.

Soon enough, Turner returned to Il Bastone with a laptop and police files on the Tara Hutchins' case. In the parlor, He and Dawes scanned footage of the inmate cells, spotting where Lance portaled and discovered that he portaled back into his cell. When Alex comes down the stairs, Turner prompts her to explain who she thinks is connected to Tara's murder.

After Dawes grabs the whiteboard, Alex grabs a blue marker and explains her investigation so far. Skull and Bones is linked through Tripp Helmuth's drug dealer-slash-hook-up relationship with Tara, which Turner reacts to with skepticism. Alex reminds Turner that Tripp saw Tara deal to Kate Masters of Manuscript. She hypothesizes that Tara and Lance were growing Merity for Manuscript and then also dealt that Merity to Blake Keely. After describing how Merity works to Turner, Alex then explains that along with dealing to Colin Khatri, Tara also had words from *Idylls of the King* tattooed on her arm, and that text is all over Scroll and Key's tomb.

Dawes peers over the autopsy photos to see the tattoo, but notices that among Tara's jewelry in her bedroom is a small golden dish. Dawes confirms that the dish is a crucible. Turner expresses disbelief that Tara and Lance would be able to afford that on their own and Alex supposes that someone from the societies must've gave it to Tara. Houses of the Veil consider the sharing of magic with outsiders *Nefandum*, unforgivable and that said society would be stripped of their tomb and disbanded entirely. Alex and Turner agree that it's strong motive for Scroll and Key. When Pamela mentions Darlington's disappearance, Turner is in disbelief that one or more societies are involved in a murder and a kidnapping. Alex reminds them they couldn't rule out Manuscript's role or how the gluma, conventionally controlled Book and Snake, is involved.

Frustrated, Turner told them that there was no credible connection between the societies and Tara that he could present to the Chief of Police. Alex, who plans to investigate the greenhouses to see if anyone saw Tara working there, agrees and says its better if Turner's investigation doesn't make it back to Sandow. Alex tells them she wants to know why he tried so hard to stop the investigation. Dawes informs them that Sandow is perfectly compensated as a tenured professor. When Turner prods for financial problems, Dawes slowly says that Sandow has been in court for two years after a nasty divorce. Yet Dawes protests that the dean wouldn't endanger Lethe. Turner disregards this, knowing that he could have done it for the right price, just like Turner did when he took the job as Centurion.

The next day, Turner met with Alex at Ingalls Rink to talk about what she found at the Marsh Botanical Garden greenhouses. Alex told him about Sveta Myers and informed him of her desire to talk to Lance Gressang. Turner is reluctant, knowing that they can't talk to Gressang without his lawyer around. Alex convinces him that even if what they found out isn't admissible in court, they'd at least have answers. Turrner agrees to follow Alex's lead and they set to work ironing out her plan.

The day after, on Wednesday, Turner went to the courthouse to capture the visage of Lance's lawyer with the mirror compact. Lethe's compact would be able to fool the guards, and Dawes provided the Alex and Turner with tempests in a teapot to ensure the jail cameras don't cause them any trouble either. The pair watched as Dawes made the tea, using dried leaves from a tin with the St. Elmo's logo on it. When Alex and Dawes talk about St. Elmo's magic, Turner gets confused about the importance of nexuses, saying says that the pair is performing magic just fine without a nexus. Dawes and Alex refute this, stating this was much smaller magic than what St. Elmo's and the rest of the societies perform. Handing Alex the tempests in a teapot, Dawes explains that it would short out the cameras for around two hours.

Entering the conference room, Lance immediately protested to being interrogated without his lawyer, but turned sheepish when Turner mentioned his use of portal magic. Turner informs him that he knows Lance is innocent, at least on Tara's murder, and that the only way he and Alex could help him is if he talked. Alex asked Lance about when he and Tara started working with Sveta Myers. When Alex asks how this connects to Blake Keely, Lance explained that Kate Masters had approached him and Tara to grow Merity. Keely then introduced them to Colin Khatri, who commissioned Tara to grow mushrooms and distill it into portal tabs. When Tara threatened to stop producing the tabs, Colin brought Lance and Tara to the Scroll & Key tomb, and bolstered by Tara's portal tabs, were able to successfully portal throughout the world. Turner asks Lance why didn't he use the portal tab to escape out of the country. Lance told them that one couldn't portal big distances from anywhere but Scroll and Key's nexus.

As Alex and Turner drove back to campus in Turner's Dodge, they contemplated the motives of each society. Alex says that any member of Manuscript would've been able to glamour themselves to look like Lance. Turner states that Colin or any Scroll and Key member might have felt pushed to kill Tara, especially if they cracked Tara' formula to make portal tabs. Turner drops off Alex in front of the Vanderbilt Hall dorms.

Later that night, Turner received a call from Alex. Hearing the commotion, he would go to Il Bastone and would at some point call emergency services to arrest Blake Keely and take Alex, Pamela, and Sandow to New Haven Hospital. By the time he joined the rest of Lethe at the hospital, he and the rest of the NHPD searched Keely's phone records and spoke to character witnesses. After he wheeled Sandow into Pamela's hospital room, he informed the gathered group of Lethe members that the murder charge against Lance Gressang will be dropped and brought up against Blake Keely. The police had found a voicemail from Tara where she threatened to go to the police about his activities with Merity. Alex argues that Keely didn't kill Tara, which she knew from her Starpower-induced interrogation. Sandow explains it away, saying that Blake might've believed his own innocence or had been made to forget by whoever sent the hellbeast after Darlington and the gluma after Alex. He reassures Alex that there'll be an investigation to see who is behind everything, as well as into the societies themselves. Turner makes his exit here, with a parting word for Alex.

Three weeks later, Turner was working another case when he receives a text message from Alex informing him that they were wrong about their investigation and to meet him at the university president's house. When he sent a message back to Alex, telling her that he'll call her when he's done and to not do anything stupid, Alex was already confronting Sandow in the president's office. By the time Turner arrived at the president's house, Alex was gone with only the dead body of Sandow to find. When Alex later agreed to meet him at Il Bastone, Turner demanded to know what really happened at the president's party. However, Alex stuck to Lethe's official story, claiming Sandow died of a heart attack, but was truthful when she said she didn't kill him. They haven't had a conversation since, even when Turner attended Sandow's funeral at Grove Street Cemetery.

## Personal Attributes

### Personality

Abel Turner is smart, ambitious, and according to Alex, "one of the good guys." With the most limited knowledge and experience with magic of all the main characters, Turner is grounded in the real-world and thus often is exasperated by magic affecting his life. Equipped with a strong sense of right and wrong, Turner is skilled at being a detective and his job as Centurion, willing to work to bring perpetrators to justice and protect normal individuals from those a part of the Ancient Eight. Aware of his status as a black man of lower income in New Haven, Turner is image-conscious and is used to containing himself in front of privileged individuals, often portraying himself to be more genial, polite, and accommodating than he actually is. Indeed, despite this facade of geniality, Turner displays an angry disregard towards privileged individuals and at having to cater to them, especially the Houses of the Veil. As a result, he can often be harsh and sarcastic.

### Physical Description

> “*Even so, the man could dress. He wore a simple, staid charcoal suit, but the lines were sharp, and Alex saw the careful touches—the pocket square, the thin lavender stripe on the tie. [...] Turner wasn’t afraid to look like he tried."* - Alex Stern, *Ninth House*, Chapter 14
>
>

Abel Turner is a tall, with dark skin, often sharply dressed in professional and expensive attire. He's only a few years older than thirty. He takes thoughtful care into his appearance and is not afraid to look like he tried. His tendency toward the finer things in life is displayed through his love of suits.

## Powers & Abilities

*“From the time he was a kid, Turner had an ear for trouble coming. He could spot an undercover without even trying, always knew when a black-and-white was about to round a corner." “He knew when someone was sick, like he could smell it on them. He knew when someone was lying even if he wasn’t sure how he knew. He’d just get that prickle at the back of his skull that told him to pay attention. He learned to listen to that feeling, and that if he kept smiling, kept the dark part of his heart hidden, people really liked talking to him. He could get his mom or his brother or his friends “or even his teachers to tell him a little more than they’d set out to tell.”*

“ chalked up his way with witnesses and informants to his looks.” “the pull he’d done as a favor to a friend just out of the joint, was the same charm that got Turner’s fellow officers yapping about their lives and their troubles over shots at Geronimo.”

## Relationships

### Alex Stern

While aware that she was different from the other privileged Yale and Ancient Eight students, Turner was ready to dismiss Alex entirely as an upstart Lethe lackey, often being falsely genial to her. This distaste shifts as he works with Alex to solve Tara Hutchins' murder. Turner has an understanding of Alex's tendency to be defensive to protect herself.

## Quotes

* "This was the real Turner: young, ambitious, forced to dance to make his way in the world and sick of it." (Chapter 14).
* "Turner smoothed his lapels, his cuffs, ran his hands over the clean sides of his head. She watched him put himself back together, and when he smiled and winked it was as if the angry, hungry Turner had never been there." (Chapter 14).
* “I like money as a motive. Nice and clean. None of this hocus-pocus bullshit.”
* “Do you know what my mother said? She told me there’s no doorway the devil doesn’t know. He’s always waiting to stick his foot in. I never really believed her until tonight." (Ninth House Chapter 22)

## References

1. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 14 (Winter)
2. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 17 (Winter)
3. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 21 (Winter)
4. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 22 (Winter)