A Killing Fair Read online

  “What about that guy you said you met at King Vinnie’s?” Al said. “The one who eats there five days a week. He probably knows the bartender’s full name, date of birth and place of residence.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “He said he always starts off with a beer and shoots the shit with the regulars at the bar. I could kiss you.”

  “Not here. Don already thinks we’re connected at the head.” This was true. Although I was four inches taller than Al, Don O’Rourke called us the Siamese twins, which I kept reminding him was politically incorrect, and said we were joined at the funny bone—our skulls.

  I looked up Charles Freeman, PPC, in the phone book, called the number and got his secretary. She informed me that Mr. Freeman was with a client and took a message. I was shutting down my computer, preparing to go home, when he finally called.

  “Of course I know the bartender’s name,” Freeman said. “It’s Ozzie.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “What’s his last name?”

  “Ooh, that’s a little tougher. I should know it. Ozzie . . . Ozzie . . . Ozzie . . . Bergman. That’s it. Ozzie Bergman. Now I remember. His real first name is Leonard but he goes by Ozzie because he hates that name. Lives on the West Side.”

  I thanked him and hung up without asking for Ozzie’s date of birth. I was afraid Freeman would know it.

  Another trip to the phone book. I found the bartender’s number under Bergman, L.O., and punched it in. After seven rings I got a message saying no one could come to the phone just now. I declined the invitation to leave a message. Talking to Ozzie would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Chapter 5: Bar Buddies

  I was greeted at home with a rib-crunching hug and a long, luscious kiss from Martha Todd.

  “You’re home early,” I said when I’d caught my breath. Martha, a lawyer, usually works a longer day at the firm of Linda L. Lansing, Attorney at Law. Linda L. Lansing, also known as Triple-L, was the city’s top defense lawyer and a longtime friend of mine.

  “I took the afternoon off to go apartment hunting,” Martha said.

  “Any luck?”

  “Lots of luck. All bad. You should see some of the dumps in our price range.”

  “Maybe we have to up the range.”

  “We can’t up it too much or we’ll be on the same diet as Sherlock Holmes.”

  “I have a raise coming in January. We can scrape up the extra rent until then.” Our problem was exacerbated by a deadline for clearing out of our apartment. We had given our landlord sixty days notice three weeks ago and we were required to be out by October first. Our available hunting and moving time was now down to five weeks.

  “My billable hours are increasing. I’ll look at some higher buck places next time I go out.” Martha was building her list of clientele as a newbie at Triple-L’s firm. She had changed jobs in May when her previous firm wanted her to open a new office for them in Fargo, North Dakota. Triple-L’s job offer, purposely timed to coincide with my marriage proposal, had persuaded Martha to stay in St. Paul.

  “What’s new on Vinnie’s murder?” Martha asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I got nowhere with the people I interviewed and the Falcon Heights investigator is stonewalling the media.”

  “Is that the one who calls herself KGB?”

  “The same. She’s as tight-lipped as her namesake.”

  “Maybe you can infiltrate the enemy camp,” Martha said.

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “Schmooze her a little bit. Make her think you’re on her side.”

  “You won’t get jealous if we become buddies?”

  “Not as long as you both keep your clothes on. Remember, I’ve decided to trust you forever and always.” She raised her left hand and flashed her engagement ring.

  “I’ll keep it strictly professional forever and always.” I decided to seal that promise with a kiss, one thing led to another and we ate a very late supper.

  * * *

  My first call Friday morning went to Ozzie Bergman. After some hemming and hawing, he agreed to meet me at the restaurant where he “needed to check on things.” I was to knock on the back door at ten o’clock, and he would let me in.

  “Make sure nobody sees you,” Ozzie said. “Don’t park out front.”

  “Who would be there to see me?” I asked.

  “I heard there were some TV reporters staking out the place for a few hours yesterday. I guess they were hoping to catch one of us going in.”

  I promised to be careful, hung up and went about some other chores, including a phone check with Detective K.G. Barnes.

  “We have nothing for the media at this time,” she said.

  “Look, I’m on this story for the duration, which means we’ll to be talking to each other every day until you catch the killer,” I said. “Can we maybe get together for lunch or something to get a little better acquainted?”

  “Why would we do that?”

  Time to try Martha’s strategy. “To build up some trust in each other. After all, we’re both on the same team.”

  “We’ve never thought of our self as being on the same team as the news media. It’s usually quite the opposite, so we don’t think getting better acquainted with you or anyone else in the media is a good idea. Have a nice day, Mister Mitchell.”

  “Bitch!” I said as I put down my phone. Apparently I said it pretty loud.

  “Someone of the female gender giving you a hard time, Mitch?” asked Corinne Ramey, the reporter sitting at the next desk. Many modern newspapers have tucked their reporters into cubicles, but our newsroom is still wide open because Don O’Rourke wanted it that way. Our old-fashioned city editor said he needed to be able to see which reporters were present and what they were doing.

  “Hard as a stone wall,” I said. “And, yes, it is a female. She happens to be in charge of the Vinnie Luciano investigation.”

  “So how’s that going?”

  “Thanks to Ms. Stonewall, nobody knows.”

  * * *

  True to his word, Ozzie Bergman opened the back door of King Vinnie’s Steakhouse at 10:02 when I knocked. He was what you’d expect in a steakhouse bartender: pushing sixty, balding with a ring of white hair at ear level and carrying a paunch that looked like he’d been sampling too much of the merchandise on tap.

  “You sure nobody saw you?” he asked.

  “There’s nobody to see me,” I said. “They must have given up.”

  “Probably off chasing the next fire engine. Those TV guys are worse than lawyers running after business.”

  I bit back a response to the slam on lawyers, recalling that before falling in love with Martha I’d reveled in telling lawyer jokes. “Have you worked here a long time?” I asked.

  “Since we opened twenty-five years ago,” Ozzie said. “Me and Vinnie was like cousins. Maybe brothers even.”

  “Vinnie and I,” I said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Nothing,” I said, wishing I’d swallowed the reflex grammar correction. “Being so close with Vinnie must make it even rougher than just losing a boss.”

  Ozzie nodded and looked away.

  “If you’ve been here every day since this place opened, you must have talked to just about every person who has ever come into the bar. Do you have any idea at all who might have wanted Vinnie dead?”

  Ozzie shook his head. “Not really. Vinnie treated all our customers like family and everybody liked him. Even most of our competitors were buddies with Vinnie.”

  “You say most of your competitors. Were some of them not such good buddies with Vinnie?”

  “There were a couple of jerks that envied our business. Hey, this ain’t goin’ in the paper is it?”

  “Oh, no. This is what we call ba
ckground. What you tell me won’t be printed but it might help me find the killer. Who were these jealous competitors?”

  “Well, there’s Oscar Peterson at the Northern Exposure for one. And Luigi Bunatori at the House of Italy for another. But that don’t mean they’d murder Vinnie.”

  I choked back my bad grammar reflex and said, “They’re involved with food. They’re the kind of people who’d think of poison.”

  “Oh, Christ, I can’t believe they’d do anything like that.”

  “It’s worth checking them out. Are there any customers you think might have had a grudge against Vinnie?”

  “I don’t know,” Ozzie said. “Maybe a couple. There’s one guy used to be a regular that’s never come back after Vinnie threw him out for starting a fight. And there’s that Teamster bum that got into it with one of the lawyers last week. Told Vinnie he’d be sorry. He’s a nasty son of a bitch.”

  “I’ve actually talked to him,” I said. “He claims he was just blowing off steam.”

  “He blew off a hell of a lot of it on his way out of here. I half expected him to come back with some goons and try to bust up the place.”

  That didn’t sound like the Fred McDonald I had interviewed but I made note of Ozzie’s remarks for future reference. “Do you know the name of the regular who never came back?” I asked.

  “Oh, shit, that’s a long time ago. Vinnie never forgot a name but I’m not that good at it.”

  “If you think of it later, give me a call,” I said and handed him my card. “That’s quite a record for a businessman—twenty-five years and only two competitors and two customers who didn’t like him.”

  “Then there’s his cousin Vito,” Ozzie said.

  This got my attention. “What about him?”

  “He flat out hated Vinnie because Vinnie fired him.”

  “From here?”

  “Yeah, from here. Where else? They started the business together as partners but Vito was drinking up the profits and insulting the customers so Vinnie said either shape up or ship out. He didn’t shape up, so Vinnie paid him off for his share of the business and shipped him out. Told him to stay the hell away.”

  “And has he stayed away?”

  “Pretty much. He comes back maybe once a year, usually drunk, and tells Vinnie he’s a rotten bastard.”

  Now here was a solid suspect. I wondered if KGB knew about him. “Have the Falcon Heights police talked to you?” I asked.

  “No,” Ozzie said. “I haven’t heard from them.”

  “You’ll probably be hearing from a detective named K.G. Barnes. She’s not the most pleasant cop you’ll ever meet.”

  “I’ll keep my guard up. Thanks for the warning.”

  “Thanks for your help. And remember to call me if you think of that former customer’s name or anything else that might help.”

  Ozzie escorted me to the back door and I heard the locking bolt slam into place behind me. I got into my car and drove out the alley and onto West Seventh Street. A Channel Five television truck was parked across the street from Vinnie’s front door.

  * * *

  A few minutes before lunch I received a call from Detective K.G. Barnes, informing me that the Falcon Heights medical examiner would hold a press conference in the police station at 1:00 p.m., perfect timing to allow TV breaking news to interrupt all the daytime viewers’ favorite soap operas.

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “And that lunch invitation is still open for tomorrow or any other day this week. I’ll even pick up the tab on my meager reporter’s salary.”

  “You can save your meager salary for lunch with somebody else,” KGB said as she hung up.

  “Bitch!” I said.

  “Not stonewalled again?” said Corinne Ramey.

  “Cold-shouldered this time,” I said.

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Stonewalled is professional; cold-shouldered is personal.”

  * * *

  One o’clock found Al and me joining a media mob so big that the Falcon Heights press conference had to be moved outside. This allowed Chief Victoria Tubb, Detective K.G. Barnes and Dr. Leo Longwell to stand on the top step in front of the door and gaze down upon us mere mortals on the lawn and sidewalk below.

  “Feel like you’re in church ready to be preached to?” I asked Trish Valentine, who was reporting live and interrupting Channel Four’s regular broadcast. She was up front as always, and I’d wormed my way through the crowd with judicious use of elbows and insincere apologies to stand behind her.

  “It’s like the king and his consorts gazing down on the rabble,” Trish said. “I wonder if they’ll deign to answer questions.”

  “They won’t if the chief is as hard-ass as Detective Barnes,” I said.

  Chief Tubb proved to be more helpful than KGB. She opened the session to questions after Dr. Longwell droned along for almost five minutes describing the dead man’s physical injuries before leaving us without an official cause of death. This, he said, would not be available until the toxicology lab results were in.

  As she often does, Trish Valentine asked the first question. “Can you speculate as to what type of poison was on the stick?” she asked.

  “I’d rather not get into that until we have the toxicology report,” Dr. Longwell said.

  I was next. “Dr. Longwell, at the scene, one of the investigators said the victim’s actions were consistent with the symptoms of strychnine poisoning. Do you agree with that observation?”

  “I’m not sure which actions you mean?” said the M.E.

  “The one I remember best was the arching of the back so that only the victim’s head and feet were touching the stage.”

  “That is consistent with strychnine. However, not having actually observed the victim’s struggles, I can neither agree nor disagree.”

  Several reporters groaned, including me. A couple of others asked the same question in roundabout ways, but the M.E. was a good dodger and nobody got an answer.

  Chief Tubb called a halt, and the troops scattered. “That M.E. is so good at ducking questions he could run for governor,” Al said as we walked to the car.

  “He certainly had his ducks in a row,” I said.

  “I hope you’re not suggesting the doctor is a quack.”

  “All I’m saying is that nothing ruffled his feathers.”

  * * *

  We were on Como Avenue, passing the fairgrounds, when Al said, “I wonder how that square dance caller who handed the stick to Vinnie feels about being that close to the poison pill.”

  “That’s a good question,” I said. “I should have gotten a reaction story from him.”

  “Is it too late?”

  “I wonder.” I took out my cell phone and punched in the State Fair public relations number. Lorrie Gardner answered.

  “Hey, Lorrie, this is Mitch,” I said. “Is that square dance caller who was there the other day still performing?”

  “Scott Hall?” she said. “Yes, his club is dancing every day at 10:30 and 2:00. They’ve moved from Heritage Square over to the Bandshell because Scott said he got the creeps being on the stage where Vinnie died.”

  “Can’t say I blame him. Think he’d do an interview about how it felt to be that close to a dying murder victim?”

  “I could run up and ask him; I think they’re still dancing up there. He’s usually very good about talking to the media. I wish I had more people—”

  “Okay,” I said, not wanting to hear an entire list of her wishes. “Just scoot up there and see if he’ll talk to us. We’ll swing in and park by the Admin building and meet you there.”

  “The little Admin parking lot is full and you can’t park on the grass,” Lorrie said.

  “We’ll find a spot. And the first thing
I’ll do when we get there is run over and get a Pronto Pup.”

  “Do you eat Pronto Pups all day long?” Lorrie said.

  “Pronto Pups are good any time of day. Can I bring you one?”

  “God, no! I’d be burping all night.”

  “Some people don’t appreciate fine dining,” I said.

  We turned north onto Snelling Avenue, drove into the fairgrounds through the Dan Patch Avenue gate and parked on the grass beside the Admin building. Al stayed by the car to intercept Lorrie while I went looking for a Pronto Pup.

  “Bring me one,” Al said. “It’s the only thing I can eat on a stick after Tuesday’s little demonstration.”

  When I returned with our mustard-slathered treats, I found Al and Lorrie in her office, where he was showing her some of the photos he had shot of Vinnie doing his dance of death. It was even hotter inside than outside. “Don’t you have air conditioning?” I said.

  “It doesn’t work in this weather,” Lorrie said. “That’s why the boss lets me dress for a day at the beach. And Scott says he’ll talk to you when your mouth is empty of Pronto Pup.”

  “Hot dog! Come on, Al, let’s go out into the fresh, cool, eighty-five-degree air,” I said.

  We found Scott Hall taking down his sound equipment at the rear of the stage. His dancers, dressed in matching red and white outfits, were beginning to straggle away. Al followed me onto the stage, and we introduced ourselves to the caller, who was decked out in a red Western-style shirt with white trimming, a white tie, white pants and black cowboy boots. The same white ten-gallon hat he’d worn when celebrating the origin of the Square Meal on a Stick completed the ensemble. Not a drop of sweat was visible on his face.

  “You guys were there for the, uh . . . you were there when Vinnie died, weren’t you?” Hall said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “We were right at the foot of the stage, almost as close to Vinnie as you were.”