A Carnival of Killing

by Glenn Ickler

  “I might think of something I need to talk to you about,” I said, with admirable self-control.

  “I hope you do,” she said. She winked, offered her hand for shaking and said, “Until later,” as she turned away. Again, every male eye in the newsroom tracked her departure all the way to the elevator.

  I took a deep breath and sat down. I sniffed my hand, which bore the scent of Kitty’s perfume. There was something familiar about the smell, and I tried to recall whether someone I’d dated in the past had worn this scent. No one came to mind, and I turned to my computer and the task at hand.

  In the sidebar, I wrote that St. Paul police were looking for an unnamed person of interest, who had disappeared on the day of the autopsy report. I saw this as a prelude to the next chapter in the story of Klondike Kate, in which I hoped to tell the readers whether the killer (1) had attended the funeral, (2) was the missing person of interest or (3) was someone not involved in any way with the Winter Carnival. I didn’t put much stock in the third option.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hail, Vulcan!

  Friday began routinely. When I awoke, my arms felt better because Martha and I had decided to postpone attempting Number 62 on the list until my triceps recovered from the stress of Number 61. When I went outside, I performed the car starting and scraping drill without even checking the thermometer beside the back door. On the way downtown, the radio newscaster informed me that it was “only” seventeen below.

  I’d barely reached my desk when I got a call from Brownie. He said that Connie St. Claire and her children had been located at her parents’ farm in Cannon Falls, about thirty miles south of Newport, but that there was no trace of Edward. I was putting together a story about the ongoing search, without naming the wife and kids, when I got a call from Karl Langford, our Capitol reporter.

  “I just e-mailed you a copy of the story I sent to the desk,” Karl said. “You gotta read it. Talk about an opportunistic asshole, this guy takes the prize.”

  “Which guy?” I asked.

  “Sean Fitzpatrick.”

  “The gun nut pushing the bill for packing concealed weapons?”

  “That’s the one,” Karl said. “Read the story and prepare to puke. It’s slugged ‘Arming Kate.’”

  I called up the story and read it on my monitor. Fitzpatrick had held a press conference to proclaim that if the murdered Klondike Kate had been carrying a hidden pistol strapped to her thigh, she could have saved herself from her killer.

  “When that (expletive deleted) began to strangle her, that girl could have reached under her skirt, pulled out that pistol and plugged him,” Fitzpatrick had said. “That girl’s unnecessary death is a perfect example of why we need this legislation.”

  The thought of “that girl’s” family reading this piece of crap did make me queasy. This was one time I hoped nobody in that household would be reading either the online or the printed edition of our newspaper. If they learned of Fitzpatrick’s blather, let it be on television rather than in the Daily Dispatch.

  “What a sick son of a bitch,” said a voice behind me. “Does he really think shooting off his mouth like that is going to win him more votes?” I turned and saw that Al had been reading over my shoulder.

  “I hope he’s shot himself in the foot,” I said.

  I’d barely finished my story when I had to update it. Brownie called again with the news that our person of interest had used his credit card at an Ohio motel just off Interstate 90 Tuesday night and again at a motel on the New York Thruway, which was also I-90, on Wednesday night.

  “Nothing last night?” I asked.

  “No,” Brownie said. “He may have reached his destination, wherever that is. We’re questioning his wife about family or friends in New York and the New England states. Have a good day.”

  I began to think about how the cops would handle the announcement if the person of interest was picked up before the end of the Winter Carnival. Would he be identified officially as a member of last year’s Vulcan Krewe? Or would it be up to me to decide whether or not to reveal that information? If I did, Brownie might get mad and go into a protective shell. If I didn’t, some other reporter, Trish Valentine perhaps, might dig it out and leave me with a face full of egg, scrambling away from an angry city editor.

  “Please don’t catch the bastard until Sunday morning,” I said as I started to write my update.

  Saturday was my day off and Martha and I slept in until after 10:00 a.m. There was nothing on our schedule until the evening’s Torchlight Parade and the ensuing Vulcan Victory Dance. We planned to attend both events, along with Al and Carol, as carnival observers, not as members of the working press. However, we also planned to keep our eyes, ears, and camera lenses open in case a clue to the killing flitted by.

  Number 62 on Swami Sumi’s list had left me feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and eager to excel, but the woman’s role had an unusual twist, and Martha’s back was sore. “Next book we get will be written by a woman,” she said as she sat up beside me. “I need a long, hot shower.”

  “Hey, I’ve borne the brunt of most of the off-the-wall contortions,” I said. “Don’t go implying that Swami Sumi is sexist.”

  “Well, his wife must be a hell of a lot more supple than I am.” She rose slowly. As I watched her walk naked to the bathroom I noticed she didn’t put the usual swing into the ass I love to stare at.

  “Probably a lot younger, too,” I said. Seconds later, a cold, wet washrag sailed out of the bathroom and landed on my bare belly.

  The hot shower helped, and by mid-afternoon Martha’s back was free of pain. We picked up Al and Carol at 4:00 p.m. and drove downtown for a pre-parade dinner at O’Halloran’s, which was packed with people peeling off layers of heavy outdoor clothing, which they would reapply to their bodies when it came time to leave. The temperature outside was twelve below and falling. The forecast was for an overnight low of twenty-four below. The mercury’s brief trip up to zero on Wednesday had only been a teaser.

  “Better go easy on the liquids,” Al said as we sat down for dinner. “If you drink too much, the cold air will have you running for a bathroom every fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay, I’ll settle for a glass of dry wine,” Carol said. She’s been living with Al too long.

  After a pleasant dinner, we bundled up our bodies in our warmest bundling materials and returned to the frozen realm of King Boreas to stake out a spot for watching the Torchlight Parade. The parade was to form at the eastern end of the downtown area and start moving toward us at 6:00 p.m. It would proceed west on Fifth Street for five blocks, from Sibley Street to Wabasha Street, where it would turn left and go south for one block before doubling back east on Fourth Street and dispersing.

  The climactic conflict, pitting our buddies in the red Luverne against King Boreas and his blue-and-white-robed troops, was to be fought on a ten-foot-high pile of ice blocks in Rice Park, two short blocks west of Fourth Street. Although the women would be oohing and aahing over the parade, the struggle between the forces of frigidity and the warriors of warmth was the main attraction for Al and me, so we set up camp on the corner of Fourth and Wabasha, as close to the future battleground as we could get.

  There was a parking ramp with a small heated lobby nearby, and we took turns, with two of us warming our noses and toeses in there, while the other two defended our claim to a narrow strip of sidewalk. Competitors for our spot grew in both number and belligerence as the time of the parade’s arrival neared, and we were forced to abandon our shelter shuttle system so that all four of us could stand fast against the jabbing elbows and jostling hips of the would be usurpers of our space. Actually, the pushing and shoving had the beneficial effect of increasing our pulse rates, therefore raising our body temperatures.

  “Why are so many people out here on a miserable cold night like this?” Martha asked. “Have they lost their minds?”

  “They must have,” Carol said. “Nobody sane stands outside wh
en it’s twenty below.”

  “You do realize that you’re standing outside, and it’s almost twenty below?” Al said.

  “That’s different,” Carol said. “Martha and I are here to make sure you guys don’t freeze your … well, whatever.”

  “Are you actually going to keep my whatevers warm?” Al asked.

  “Not until later,” Carol said. “If you’ve still got them.”

  I looked at Martha. “No comment,” she said before I could describe the deleterious effect of subfreezing temperatures on brass monkeys.

  Our conversation was saved from further deterioration by the arrival of the first unit of the Torchlight Parade. For almost an hour we watched the marching units, floats, and novelty groups do their thing while we stamped our feet, slapped our mitten-clad palms together and pressed those mittens against our cheeks to fend off facial frostbite.

  King Boreas and his court rode on gaudy, lighted floats, waving regally to the peasants on the sidewalks. The Vulcans whooped it up in the Royal Chariot, with Vulcanus Rex firing off a couple of pistol shots every now and then. White-gloved baton twirlers twirled and occasionally let their silvery wands drop from unfeeling fingers. The blanket-toss girl seemed to be having the most fun as she soared high in the air, propelled by a group of muscular firefighters who provided her with a soft, safe landing after flipping her high above their heads.

  I felt sorry for the marching bands, whose performances were limited to drum rolls because it was too cold to toot a trumpet or put any other musical instrument with a metal mouthpiece against moist lips. Amazingly, the number of smiles equaled the number of red noses among the parade participants as well as the spectators.

  “Can anybody still move?” I asked as the last parade unit passed.

  “Barely,” said Al.

  “This is no kind of night to be walking around barely,” I said. “Put your clothes back on.”

  “I was going to outstrip you on the way to the battleground,” Al said.

  “Good idea,” said Martha. “Let’s run all the way to Rice Park.”

  “You run and get us a spot,” I said. “I’ll be lucky if my legs will move fast enough to walk.”

  “Come on,” Carol said. “Last one there’s a rotten snowball.” She and Martha took off at a trot while Al and I followed twenty yards behind, dragging our nearly sensationless feet.

  “Whose dumb idea was this?” Al asked.

  “Which idea? The carnival or us watching it?” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re both dumb.”

  Wondering how the women could be so damn energetic after standing in the cold for an hour, I clumped to a halt between Martha and Carol. They’d fought their way to within ten feet of the slick, frozen platform where the battle would be staged, giving Al a fine vantage point to use his camera.

  Right on schedule, Boreas and his troupe ascended the stage, which glittered under a halo of colored lights. Soon we heard shouts and gunshots, and the Vulcan Krewe came roaring onto the scene. The Royal Chariot rattled to a halt and the red-clad horde poured forth, shouting, “Hail, Vulcan!”

  The battle was blessedly brief. Shots rang out, the attackers swarmed onto Boreas’s icy stronghold, the King of the Snows was deposed and Vulcanus Rex stood unmasked atop the highest ice block with his arms thrust skyward in triumph.

  Shouts of, “Hail, Vulcan!” continued to echo through the park and the crowd began to thin as people started toward the shelter of their cars, apartments, or favorite bars. Our quartet made straight for the Crowne Plaza, where the Vulcan Victory Dance would soon get under way. Behind us, fireworks exploded above the towering Landmark Center in a carnival-ending shower of light and sound.

  “Want to watch?” asked Martha, pausing and pointing toward a burst of color in the sky.

  “Fireworks are for the Fourth of July,” I said. “It’s too damn cold to watch.”

  “My thought, exactly,” said Al. “I’ll wait for the replay on Harriet Island next summer.”

  “What a couple of sissies,” said Carol, whose forebears were Norwegian. But she kept walking, and we joined the crowd squeezing through the hotel door into the blessed warmth of the lobby.

  “The dance will be anti-climax after the battle between Boreas and Vulcan,” Al said. “You might have to poke me to keep me awake. I bet I can fall asleep waltzing after being out in the cold all that time.”

  Little did any of us imagine what the wake-up call would be.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Screeching Halt

  Not being much of a dancer, I spent a major portion of the evening acting like a reporter—watching people and talking to some of the Winter Carnival folks I’d met. Martha would drag me onto the floor for a dance, and I’d escape for the next two or three. Al would take off shooting pictures of the action when he could get away from Carol for a few minutes.

  “Does your husband ever stop taking pictures?” Martha asked Carol during one of Al’s photo runs.

  “No, he just keeps going,” Carol said. “Like that bunny in the flashlight battery commercials.”

  Numerous men wearing Vulcan costumes, some unmasked and some still wearing the helmets and big dark goggles, were scattered through the crowd. In their red running suits, they stood out like a flock of cardinals in a grove of leafless trees. Dozens of costumed Boreas supporters, and a half-dozen women in Klondike Kate attire also circulated through the revelers. Among the latter who visited our table were Esperanza de LaTrille and Toni Erickson.

  “Quite a party,” I said after introducing them to Martha and Carol. “I’ve never come to one of these before.”

  “What made you come to this one?” Toni asked. “Are you writing about it?”

  “Actually, I’m off duty,” I said. “But riding with the Vulcans and writing about Lee-Ann triggered my curiosity.”

  “Do you think the bastard who killed Lee-Ann is here?” Esperanza asked.

  “Not really,” I said. “I think the killer has left Minnesota.”

  Esperanza’s dark eyes opened wide. “You know who it is?” she asked.

  “The police are searching for a suspect who disappeared after the autopsy report came out.”

  “Who are they hunting for? Who?” Toni asked.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Is it somebody from the carnival?” Esperanza asked.

  “Sorry,” I said. “That’s all I can tell you for now or my police source will stop talking to me.”

  “We’ll never tell anybody,” Toni said.

  “Oh, sure you won’t,” I said. “And the sun will never rise in the east and the snow will never melt.”

  “I’ll bet I know who it is,” Toni said. “Come on with me, Esperanza. I’ll whisper it in your ear.”

  They hurried away and our partners hauled Al and me onto the dance floor. When we returned to the table, a masked Vulcan was sitting in the chair I’d been using. He rose, offered me the chair and said, “Hail, Vulcan!” I recognized the voice.

  “Hello, Ted,” I said. “All dressed up in that suit again.”

  “Special occasion,” Carlson said. “Then it goes back into the closet until next year’s carnival.”

  “There seem to be a lot of those suits around tonight,” Al said. He slipped his camera out of the case and took a quick shot of Carlson, who tried too late to cover his face with his hands. “Don’t be shy,” Al said, and the camera flashed again.

  “I really don’t need that,” Carlson said. “Anyhow, I saw you folks sitting here talking to a couple of Klondike Kates and thought I’d come by and say hello. Do you boys have anything new on the murder?” Oh, goody, we were boys again.

  “Nothing the police are talking about,” I said. This twerp had no need to know that they were pursuing one of his own until he read it in the paper.

  “Didn’t that one Kate say she thought she knew who the killer is?” Martha asked.

  “She did?” Carlson said.

  “She was jus
t blowing smoke,” I said. “I think everybody has a favorite suspect.”

  “Who’s yours?” Carlson asked.

  “Sorry, but I’m paid to report facts, not rumors or opinions,” I said.

  “But you must have a guess.” This guy was becoming a pain in the ass.

  “It’s you,” I said with a big, wide smile. “You dressed up in that outfit and went mad under the full moon last Thursday night.”

  Carlson took a quick step back. “That’s not funny,” he said. “You’ve got a really sick sense of humor.” He spun and walked away at double time.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Martha said.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, he was getting on my nerves,” I said. “I thought that would shut him up, but I didn’t think it would send him off in a huff.”

  The next person to visit our table was even more obnoxious. It was Sean Fitzpatrick, the gun-toting leader of LEGO, dressed in a tuxedo with tails. “Hey, guys, how’re they hangin’?” he said as he approached.

  “What do you say, Tex?” Al said. “I see you’re all dressed up fit to kill. I just hope you don’t.”

  “Who might these lovely ladies be?” Fitzpatrick asked.

  “This lovely blonde is my wife, Carol, and this gorgeous lady is Mitch’s friend, Martha,” Al said.

  Fitzpatrick bowed as low as a man with a bulging beer belly could bow while wrapped in a too-tight cummerbund. “Pleased to meet you, ladies,” he said. “And I ain’t plannin’ on killin’ nobody, Al. We had enough of that last week, and like I said to your Capitol reporter, that could’ve been avoided if—”

  I cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it. We’re here to dance and laugh and have a good time, not talk about hiding guns in your underwear.”

  “Oh, Christ, nobody said nothin’ about carryin’ a gun in your underwear,” Fitzpatrick said. “But, okay, we won’t talk guns at all.”

  And we didn’t. We talked briefly about the music, how much fun people were having and how noisy it was in the room. When Fitzpatrick asked if there was anything new on the murder, I said there wasn’t and he left, after bowing again to the ladies.