A Killing Fair (15 page)

 

Chapter 21: Playing Hide-and-Seek

M
aybe I should have put a ban on e-mails into that restraining order,” Al said as we ate our sandwiches at noon.

“Willow still baring her limbs?” I asked.

“I got the crotch shot again this morning. Along with a message that said ‘this pussy could be yours, why won't you make it your pet?'”

“Tell her you have felines for nobody but your wife.”

“She knows that. Still she sends her personal cat scan.”

“I hope you deleted it.”

“Yes, I put the cat out.”

“Still no word that Willow got the restraining order?” I said.

“No, the tree still stands alone,” he said. “I just hope she's serious about staying away from our house. My kids don't need another anatomy lesson.”

“I'll bet Kevin would grin if Willow would bare it.”

“He found the last show way too entertaining. Since then he's been running to the door every time the bell rings.”

I'd heard enough about Willow, so I changed the subject to the Luciano murder case and filled Al in on my morning activities. I had given KGB the names of Louie Luciano and Francisco Garcia just before lunch. She hadn't even thanked me, which was not a huge surprise.

“Think KGB will question Louie and his buddy?” Al asked.

“She has to,” I said. “If nothing else, Chief Tubby will order it.”

“And then what will happen?”

“Unless Louie and Frankie can come up with an alibi, which would surprise me, they should be charged with murder. It looks to me like Louie supplied the strychnine and Frankie delivered it in the Fairchild suit.”

“You don't think Louie carried the death on a stick to Heritage Square?”

“He could never squeeze that belly into the Fairchild costume. Frankie is skinny, the same size as the kid who got bonked on the head. They make the perfect pair of perps.”

“Well, I hope the perfect perps get popped into prison by the cops,” Al said.

“That act by a copper would be a proper crime stopper,” I said. Al threw up his hands in surrender and left the cafeteria. I mentally patted myself on the back for my poetic triumph and went to my desk.

 

* * *

 

My first phone check at eight o'clock Saturday morning went to the Falcon Heights police, who had not released any information to the media since receiving the names of my two suspects. Neither KGB nor Chief Tubb was available. I left a message with the desk sergeant and turned to other tasks sent my way by Saturday City Editor Eddy Gambrell.

It was after 10:30 when I realized that the Falcon Heights police had not returned my call. I called them again and this time I was immediately transferred to Detective K.G. Barnes. “We are preparing a news release for all media,” she said. “You should have it in your e-mail in about fifteen minutes.”

“I'll be calling you as soon as I've read it,” I said.

“We'll be going off duty as soon as we've sent it,” said KGB.

“Then I'll call the chief.”

“She's already gone off duty. Have a nice weekend, Mr. Mitchell.”

I put down the phone in an ungentlemanly manner, causing Al, who was perched on the usual corner of my desk, to jump. “You seem less than happy,” he said.

“The bastards are sending out a press release and then running for cover before anyone can question them,” I said.

“I assume the bastards you're referring to are your tight-lipped friends at the Falcon Heights PD.”

“With friends like that no reporter needs enemies. I give them Vinnie's killers on a stick and they stick me with the same canned press release as everybody else, with no chance for questions.”

“There's no gratitude in this world anymore.”

“You're right. Reporting has become a thankless task.”

“And photography has become a game of hide-and-seek.”

“Willow's still stalking you?” I said.

“This morning she was waiting by the exit door of the parking ramp,” Al said. “I saw her when I drove in so I stayed upstairs and used the exit to the skyway.”

“You'd be in the pits without that skyway.”

“Keeps me on the straight and level,” Al said. “Straight away from Willow and a level above her head.”

The e-mail from Falcon Heights arrived a few minutes later. It said that the police department had followed a newly provided lead and had detained for interrogation two persons of interest in the Vincent Luciano murder case. The two men, both still unidentified, were being held in the Falcon Heights city jail pending further questioning. There would be nothing in addition released to the public until Monday morning. This bureaucratic drivel was attributed to Chief Victoria Tubb.

“Notice that she doesn't mention where she got the newly provided lead,” I said.

“Let's hope people remember that they read it here first,” Al said.

“I'll be sure to remind them,” I said. “At least Louie won't be coming in here to kick my ass any time soon.”

 

* * *

 

On Sundays I usually call my mother and my grandmother, two widows who live together on a farm near the southeastern Minnesota city of Harmony. I do this even though I always get a lecture about my church attendance, which is actually 100 percent nonattendance, from Grandmother Goodhue, better known to friends and family as Grandma Goodie.

This Sunday was no exception to the golden lecture rule. I called after Martha and I had hauled a carload of stuff to our new home, and Grandma Goodie's first question was, “Did you go to church this morning, Warnie baby?” She has called me Warnie baby since the moment my parents named me and she has nagged me about church every Sunday since I was old enough to shave.

“I had to skip church this morning, Grandma,” I said. “We needed the time to pack up some stuff for our move. October first is less than two weeks away, you know.”

“You have your priorities all muddled up, young man,” Grand­ma Goodie said. “You should be taking care of where your soul is going before worrying about moving your earthly belongings. For all you know, you could be facing the Lord's judgment in less than two weeks.”

“I'm counting on the odds being in favor of my soul staying with me longer than my earthly belongings can stay in this apartment.”

“You never really know when your soul will depart, Warnie baby. Think about that poor man who was poisoned with his own food at the State Fair.”

“I think about him every day,” I said. “I've finally figured out who gave him the poisoned food.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” she said. “Maybe we'll be able to come back to the fair next year then.” She and my mother had stayed away from the State Fair for the first time in almost forty years because they didn't want to be that close to the scene of a crime.

“I'm sure you can. You could have come this year. There was no danger.”

“We just didn't want to be anywhere near the place where that poor man died. It's scary just to talk about it. I felt really sorry for those square dancers on the stage that had to stand there and watch that man die in agony. I was a square dancer once myself, you know.”

“The square dancers vanished in a hurry,” I said. “There were only a few still watching by the time poor Vinnie stopped struggling.”

After giving me another scolding for avoiding church, Grandma Goodie called my mother to the phone. She, too, was happy to hear that the killers had been caught, making the fairgrounds safe for women in their sixties and eighties again.

I mentioned our moving date and said, “You'll have to come up in October and see our new place.”

“I suppose we could do that,” Mom said. “When are you two getting married then? Have you reserved a time for the church?”

“We haven't set a date for the wedding.”

“Isn't it about time you did that?”

“We've only been engaged for about six months.”

“Well, it took you six years to get that far,” she said. “Don't let it drag on for another six then. Your poor grandmother could be in a nursing home.”

“Yes, ma'am, we'll try to get our act together before Grandma falls apart,” I said.

“Don't be a smart aleck, young man.”

“I'm not. But remember, Martha was away doing her scholar­ship payback thing in Cape Verde for almost three of those six years.” Martha had agreed to work for the Cape Verde attorney general's office for three years in return for a law school scholarship in the United States.

“I suppose I'll have to give you credit for that,” Mom said.

“Anyway Martha and I aren't good at rushing into things. It was hard enough for us just to get engaged.”

“I know, dear. Not that I'm trying to rush you, but your grandmother and I aren't getting any younger.”

“Good point,” I said. “I'll mention that phenomenon to Martha.”

“Again the smart aleck.”

I made a note to ask Martha when she thought we might have a wedding. And if she thought it might be in a church.

 

* * *

 

Augie Augustine called in sick early Monday morning, so again I found myself in the tiny press office in the police station. This time when Don called, I was diplomatic enough to refrain from suggesting any possible cures for what ailed Augie.

The featured police blotter story of the day was about two women who had an argument that culminated in one woman grab­bing the other by the hair and slamming a door into her face. I tried to picture that as I wrote the story and had some difficulty putting the face and the door together. You just can't make this stuff up.

I was thinking about making a call to the Falcon Heights police when an e-mail from Chief Victoria Tubb arrived. The chief was informing all news media that the two persons of interest in the Vinnie Luciano murder case had been reclassified as suspects, had been arrested and were in custody. They would be brought into Ramsey County District Court at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. They were identified as Louis Luciano, age forty-eight, and Francisco Garcia, age twenty-eight, and their home addresses in St. Paul were given. The e-mail also said that both addresses had been searched on Saturday, but it didn't say what, if anything, had been found.

I called Don at the city desk and said I would do a story as soon as I talked to either the chief or Detective Barnes.

“You sure you got time?” Don said. “I could have Corinne Ramey make the call and write the story.”

“You've got to be kidding,” I said. “These are my suspects and my story. There's nothing even half as important going on here at the St. Paul PD.”

I got a busy signal when I called Falcon Heights police. Of course. Every newspaper, TV channel, and radio station in the Twin Cities would be calling about the chief's e-mail. I kept disconnecting and punching in the number over and over for several minutes before I finally scored. The desk sergeant sounded frazzled as he transferred me to Detective K.G. Barnes.

“Are you looking for a medal?” KGB asked when I identified myself.

“No medal, just recognition,” I said. “And the answers to a couple of questions.”

“We're really not answering questions.”

This didn't stop me from asking. “What did you find when you searched the suspects' houses?”

“We're not releasing that information at this time.”

“Did you find strychnine at Louie's house?”

“We're not releasing that information at this time.”

“Do you think Frankie . . . Francisco . . . wore the Fairchild suit and delivered the lethal stick full of poison?”

“We're not releasing those details at this time.”

“Are you releasing any information beyond the chief's skimpy little e-mail?”

“Not at this time,” said KGB. “Have a nice day, Mr. Mitchell.”

“Bitch!” I yelled as I banged down the silent phone.

A passing police officer stopped and stuck his head in the open door. “Your girlfriend driving you nuts?” he asked.

“This woman will never be anybody's girlfriend,” I said.

“One of those bitches that swing both ways?”

“No, just one of those bitches who make life miserable for people who have to work with them.”

“I hear you,” he said and walked away.

I wrote the story, touched it up with some background material about the changing of Vinnie's will and included the tidbit that Louie Luciano's former neighbors had accused him of poisoning their dog. “Bet you didn't know that, KGB,” I said as I pressed the key that sent the story to Don. Wasn't I just the smartest crime solver in the world?

 

* * *

 

The courtroom was jammed with reporters, photographers, and curious citizens by 8:15 Tuesday morning. I noticed the Luciano family was split into two groups, with one clustered around Vinnie's widow and the other surrounding Louie's wife. The two camps didn't seem to be communicating with each other.

Every seat was filled so I wormed my way through the TV cameramen until I was standing behind Trish Valentine in the aisle on the left side of the room. Being behind Trish was advan­tageous because she was always closest to the action and she was short enough for me to see over her head.

“Glad you could make it, Trish,” I said.

“Trish Valentine, reporting live,” she said. “Always first where there's breaking news.”

“You're as regular as an old man on a diet of prunes,” I said.

“And you're as disgusting as an old dog sniffing on a hydrant,” Trish said.

Our exchange of compliments was interrupted by the bailiff's call for all to rise and the appearance of the Honorable Anthony T. Thomas. After everyone who had a seat was seated, Louie Luciano and Francisco Garcia were brought in and placed front and center by a quartet of uniformed policemen. Both men wore orange jumpsuits, handcuffs, and ankle shackles. Doug Riley, the Bulldog, rose from a front row bench and announced that he was appearing for both of the accused.