A Carnival of Killing (14 page)

“That fat bastard may have shot himself in the foot in more ways than one,” I said. “Legislators who aren’t in the gun lobby’s tank will have a hard time voting for the concealed weapons bill after they see this picture.”

“I can’t believe he took a concealed weapon into that dance,” Martha said.

“When it comes to Sean and guns, you can believe most anything, no matter how bizarre,” I said.

“Will this story be in the out-state edition? If it is, you’d better call your mother very early today.”

On Sundays I always called my widowed mother, who lived on a farm near a small town called Harmony in southeastern Minnesota. My grandmother, Sara Goodrich, better known as Grandma Goodie, lived with my mother, which dampened my enthusiasm for making these calls. Grandma Goodie was the pillar of the Methodist church and could not understand my reluctance to attend religious services of any kind. Any time she answered the phone, the major topic of conversation became the salvation of my soul.

“My story didn’t make the out-state deadline,” I said. “But it’ll be in her Monday paper, so I’ll call as soon as I think they’re home from church and let her know that I did not incur bodily harm.” This would be a prudent gesture, because in some of my past pursuits of knowledge and justice I had been shot, bludgeoned, stabbed and nearly drowned. I didn’t want her motherly imagination to run wild.

My first call of the day, after a breakfast of French toast and bacon, was to the private number of Detective Curtis Brown. As I’d wagered, Brownie was at his desk.

“Happy Sunday,” I said after the usual exchange of greetings.

“Don’t tell me that you’re working on Sunday,” Brownie said.

“Actually, I’m not, but I’m following up on last night’s little dustup in the Crowne Plaza. I have a tidbit that might be useful to you.”

“I’m all ears. Tidbit away.”

Actually, Brownie’s ears are overly-large and stuck out at almost a ninety-degree angle, which was one of the reasons that it was hard for Al to shoot him in a flattering pose. Suppressing a snicker, I said, “When your boys counted Vulcan noses after the action, there was one nose missing that we had seen in costume and talked to earlier.”

“Would you care to divulge the name behind this nose?”

“It’s Carlson. Ted Carlson. You may recall that he also admitted wearing his Vulcan duds the night Lee-Ann was murdered.”

“You’re positive he was at the dance earlier?”

“He made a big show of coming to our table to chat us up and check out our women,” I said. “He got pissed and walked away when I jokingly said that I thought he was the Klondike Kate killer.”

“You’ve always been a bundle of laughs,” Brownie said. “We’ve talked to Carlson before, but it’s worth looking at him again. Thanks for the tidbit.”

“Remember how grateful you are next time I call for an update.”

“You know what? I’m starting to have memory problems. Must be my advancing age. Have a good day, Mitch.”

“You, too,” I said, but the line was already dead.

I put down the phone and went back to perusing the Sunday paper. In the local news section I found Corinne’s Winter Carnival story surrounded by photos of the Torch Light Parade, the battle to dethrone Boreas and the Victory Dance. Sully hadn’t been shut out after all.

When the clock struck 1:00, I figured the churchgoers were home, and I made my duty call to Harmony. My mother answered, and after some small talk, I told her about the previous evening’s excitement.

“You didn’t get mixed up in a gunfight did you?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I was strictly an observer.”

“The nut with the gun didn’t shoot in your direction?”

“His one and only shot was in the direction of his own foot.”

“I wish you’d get a nice, quiet job in a safe place, like a bank or a lawyer’s office like Martha. Anyhow, your grandmother wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, God,” I said. And, as expected, God became the topic when Grandma Goodie got on the phone.

“Warnie baby, did you go to church this morning?” was Grandma Goodie’s opening line.

“It’s twenty below,” I said. “All the churches were frozen shut.”

“Cold weather never closes a church,” she said. “Only cold hearts shut out the church, and those hearts will find themselves in a very warm place when God calls them in the end.”

“My heart is warm, Grandma. Especially for you.”

“Oh, pooh! It’s your soul I’m worried about, Warnie baby. You should be concerned with where it’s going to spend eternity.”

“I’ll worry about that when eternity comes closer. I’m only forty years old.”

“A person is never too young to seek redemption, Warnie baby.”

I sighed, and managed to change the subject to prospects for the Minnesota Twins, who would be opening spring training in Florida in a couple of weeks. Next to God and family, the Twins were Grandma Goodie’s greatest love.

“The usual lecture?” Martha asked after I hung up.

“Of course,” I said. “God’s messenger on Earth never lets up on my lack of church attendance.”

“You could probably catch a late mass somewhere this afternoon.”

“I am not now and never have been a Catholic. And there’s not a Protestant church in town with a strong enough roof for me to risk going in.”

The rest of the day passed routinely until we turned on the local news at 6:00 p.m. Channel 4’s lead story was about the detention in upstate New York of a Minnesota man wanted by authorities for questioning in the Klondike Kate murder case. St. Paul Police identified the man as Edward St. Claire of Newport, and said they would seek extradition if necessary.

This sent me to the phone. “Tomorrow’s my day off,” I told the night editor who answered my call. “Please leave Don a note saying that I want to swap for some other day, and that I’ll be there in the morning.”

“First time I’ve ever heard you volunteer to work on your day off,” Martha said.

“I can’t sit home and let somebody else chase this one,” I said.

The Missing Man

When the alarm rang Monday morning, my legs were entangled in a top sheet that had come undone while Martha and I were winding our way into position Number 62 on Swami Sumi’s list. My pillow was on the floor and my head was snuggled between Martha’s breasts, which was a far better resting place than any manmade object.

“Are you really going out in the cold on a day you could stay buried in this nice warm bed after I’ve gone to work?” Martha asked.

“I really am,” I said. And I did, to the amazement of my fellow workers.

“What are you doing here?” asked John Boxwood. “Is the company threatening to lay off all non-essential reporters?”

“Some stories require the undivided attention and consummate skills of the ace of the staff,” I said. “The Klondike Kate killing cannot be left to just any general assignment drone.”

“Did you forget what day this is?” Al asked when he saw me at my desk.

“Quite the opposite,” I said. “I remembered that it’s my duty to follow the story of Klondike Kate through habitual holidays as well as hell and high water.”

Naturally, my first call was to Brownie. The line was busy on my first three tries, but he picked up on the fourth and told me to hold. There was a click and I was treated to almost five minutes of sound that apparently was meant to be musical. Again I amused myself with two paper clips while I waited, but I found it impossible to twist them into a simulation of position Number 62.

“You’re wondering about St. Claire, no doubt,” Brownie said when he came back.

“No doubt,” I said. “Where’d they find him?”

“Town in New York called Tonawanda. It’s near Buffalo and Niagara Falls, but I don’t think he was headed for a second honeymoon because he was all alone.”

“Did he say why he took off? If last night’s action is any indication, he didn’t kill Lee-Ann.”

“We don’t have a statement about his reason for leaving, and we can’t assume he’s not a suspect. Last night’s attacker might have been a copy cat.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“It’s kind of low on a scale of ten, but we can’t just write off St. Claire. We know he was involved with the victim, and he did, in fact, run.”

“How was he involved with Lee-Ann? Sexually?” I knew the answer, but I needed to hear Brownie say it.

“I can’t comment on that at this time,” Brownie said. “The chief may discuss that issue at a press briefing here at 10:00 a.m. Your desk should be getting a call about that.”

“On a scale of one to ten, it’s an eleven that I’ll be there. Is the district attorney in the process of extraditing St. Claire?”

“He’s waived it. We’re sending two officers out there to escort him home. We’re not saying what airline we’re using or what the arrival time will be because we don’t want a media circus at the airport.”

“We could stake it out,” I said.

“Be my guest,” Brownie said. “It could be another long stake.” He was gloating over a previous watch for a suspect at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Al and I spent the whole day checking airline arrivals while the cops were sneaking their man into St. Paul’s Holman Field on a small chartered plane.

“Okay, what else is new? Have you talked to last night’s attack victim?”

“The chief will discuss that issue at a press briefing here at 10:00 a.m.”

“Do you have any idea why Toni Erickson was attacked?”

“The chief will discuss that issue at a press briefing here at 10:00 a.m.”

“What about Ted Carlson?” I asked. “Have you questioned him about his whereabouts at the time of the attack last night?”

“The chief will not, I repeat, not discuss that issue at a press briefing here at 10:00 a.m. And I won’t discuss it this morning, either. Have a good day, Mitch.”

I didn’t bother with a reply because I knew he wouldn’t hear it.

I told Don I’d be going to the police station at 10:00, and he told me to take Al along. “Tell your twin to shoot somebody besides your buddy Brown with the landing-flap ears,” Don added.

I’d barely returned to my desk when the phone rang. When I answered, I heard, “It’s Morrie.”

I choked back a scream and said, with remarkable calm, “I thought you’d found a new helper at the number I gave you.” Damn it, the little pest was supposed to have transferred his troubles with the Russians and Robinson to John Robertson, Jr., at the Minneapolis paper.

“That man stopped the Russians’ radar but he hasn’t stopped Robinson,” Morrie said. “In fact, he told me that he knows Robinson personally and that Robinson is still out to get me. You’ve got to write about it so he’ll stop.”

“What’s Robinson look like? Have you got a picture we could run with my story if I write one?”

“Oh, I’ve never seen Robinson. I don’t know if anyone has.”

Why was I not surprised? “Your best bet is to stay in your apartment all day, with the shades down and the curtains closed. And don’t use your phone or he’ll be able to trace the call.”

“Oh, jeez, I never thought of that. Do you think I should hang up right now?”

“I do,” I said. And he did.

I put down the phone and cursed John Robertson, Jr., for sending Morrie back to me. Looking across the newsroom, I saw cartoonist Dave Jerome approaching double-time with a piece of paper in his hand and a grim expression on his face. “Look at this,” he said when he reached my side. “Tell me what this is.” He pointed to the drawing of a long-handled cane with its curved end wrapped around the neck of a fat character labeled Sean Fitzpatrick.

“That’s a hook, like they used to yank people off the stage in Vaudeville if their act was too long or too putrid,” I said.

“Thank you,” Dave said. “That makes ten out of eleven people in this building who have identified it correctly.”

“Is this a problem?”

“That … the new editor, Ron, is the odd man out. He looked at this cartoon and pointed to the hook and asked me what it was. When I told him, he said nobody under the age of eighty would have a clue about what it was. Like I said, I’ve shown it to ten other people, all of them well under eighty as far as I can tell, and they’ve all recognized it.”

“So you’re showing the sponsors of the concealed weapons bill yanking Sean Fitzpatrick offstage for his Saturday night fiasco, and Ron doesn’t understand it?”

“Exactly,” Dave said. “The man just does not understand cartoons.” Ronald C.R. Carter, who used both of his middle initials in his byline, had been sent to us by corporate two months earlier as our new editorial page editor. This was not the first time that Dave had come out fuming after showing Ron a cartoon.

“May your ten votes prevail when Ron hears the tally,” I said. “Now I have to go find out what the cops have found out from our erstwhile fugitive, Ed St. Claire. Great cartoon, by the way.”

Dave grunted and headed back to Ronald C.R. Carter’s office.

Chief Casey O’Malley’s 10:00 a.m. press briefing brought out the usual mass of reporters and photographers from every newspaper and TV station in the Twin Cities. Trish Valentine had arrived in time to grab a front-row spot, which I assumed would please the chief because she was wearing another snug sweater. Al and I wormed our way to the second row, behind two shorter people from the Minneapolis paper.

O’Malley was accompanied by Brownie, but the chief did all the talking. “First let me say that I won’t be taking any questions at the end of this briefing. Next let me say that the man who was apprehended in New York state, Mr. Edward St. Claire, a resident of Newport, is a person of interest because we have learned that he had a relationship with Ms. Lee-Ann Nordquist and he left Minnesota at a time concurrent with the coroner’s report on the cause of her death. However, to categorize him as a suspect would be premature at this time.

“Obviously Mr. St. Claire had nothing to do with last night’s attack on Ms. Toni Erickson in a restroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. We questioned Ms. Erickson about that incident this morning, and she believes the attempt on her life may have been inspired by the fact that she told several people in the crowd that she thought she knew who killed Ms. Nordquist.

“As you know, Ms. Erickson’s attacker was dressed in a Vulcan costume. This lends credence to her theory about the attacker’s motive because the murder victim, Ms. Nordquist, was last seen alive in the company of a man wearing a Vulcan costume.”