A Killing Fair

northstarpress.com

Also by Glenn Ickler

A Carnival of Killing

Murder on the St. Croix

Dedication

For Kathy, who loves the Minnesota State Fair

more than anybody else I know;

for Dick, who introduced me to Pronto Pups

at the Minnesota State Fair;

and for Paul, whose theater sets the stage

for some of the actors.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts, for the bizarre real-life crime stories borrowed on the days that Mitch Mitchell reports from the police station. As Mitch keeps saying, You can’t make this stuff up. Thanks also to forensics expert D.P. Lyle, MD, for advice on toxic substances.

Table of Contents

Also by Glenn Ickler

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: A Square Meal

Chapter 2: Quizzed by the KGB

Chapter 3: Not So Fair

Chapter 4: The Hunt Begins

Chapter 5: Bar Buddies

Chapter 6: Looking for Vito

Chapter 7: Northern Exposure

Chapter 8: Stonewalls and Willows

Chapter 9: The Chief Problem

Chapter 10: Will Power

Chapter 11: New Lease on Life

Chapter 12: The Play’s the Thing

Chapter 13: Farewell to the Fair

Chapter 14: The Moving Finger Points

Chapter 15: Clueless in Falcon Heights

Chapter 16: Baring Up

Chapter 17: Means and Motive

Chapter 18: Narrowing the Search

Chapter 19: Take Your Choice

Chapter 20: A Fair Day

Chapter 21: Playing Hide-and-Seek

Chapter 22: Quick Turnabout

Chapter 23: Suspect on the Square

Chapter 24: Starting Over

Chapter 25: Manipulation

Chapter 26: Diplomacy

Chapter 27: City Hall Surprise

Chapter 28: Waiting Game

Chapter 29: A New Look

Chapter 30: Lining Up

Chapter 31: Starting Over

Chapter 32: The Setup

Chapter 33: The Walking Man

Chapter 34: Where’s Al

Chapter 35: A State of Chassis

Chapter 36: Cat Out of the Bag

Chapter 1: A Square Meal

Name something edible, anything remotely edible, and you’re likely to find it impaled on a stick at the Minne­sota State Fair.

There’s the usual ho-hum stuff you can get anywhere on a stick, such as hot dogs and ice cream and caramel apples. But beyond that, the State Fair choices include such delicacies as butterscotch cake on a stick (gooey and crumbly), dill pickles on a stick (both fresh and deep-fried) and Reuben sandwiches on a stick (messy—how do they keep the sauerkraut juice from running down your arm?).

The list goes on and on ad infinitum (and ad nauseam for some of the more adventurous diners who get on rides that whirl them in circles immediately after sticking it to themselves).

This is why I was surprised—yea, amazed—when Don O’Rourke sent Al and me to the Minnesota State Fair on a hot and humid Wednesday morning in late August to cover the introduction of a new food product on a stick. I simply could not imagine what pliable comestible was left to stab a stick into.

Don O’Rourke is city editor of the St. Paul Daily Dispatch. Al is Alan Jeffrey, the paper’s best photographer and my best friend. I’m Warren Mitchell, better known as Mitch, and I think of myself as the paper’s best reporter, whether anybody else does or not. In order for Don to send us on this assignment, he was either expecting the impaled goody to be very unusual, or he was anticipating an extremely slow news day. It being late August, I suspected the latter.

Both the temperature and the relative humidity had already reached 80 at 9:45 a.m. when we stepped out of the Daily Dispatch’s air-conditioned Ford Focus onto the sun-baked asphalt in the Giraffe Parking Lot at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. The unveiling of the new gustatory delight was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on the Heritage Square stage. We had arranged for a quick preview by Lorrie Gardner, the fair’s public relations director.

What do you suppose this new wonder on a stick is? Al asked.

Must be pretty special to rate an introductory dog-and-pony show, I said.

Maybe they’ve figured out a way to serve soup on a stick.

You can stick that idea where the sun don’t shine, I said.

It was only a four-minute walk to Heritage Square, but perspiration was dripping from my nose onto my light-brown moustache, and the armpits of my short-sleeved white shirt were soaked by the time we got there. I was glad I’d left my coat and tie draped over my desk chair in the newsroom.

Al had also stripped down for the weather, but a shoulder-slung camera bag left dark wet impressions everywhere it pressed against his light blue shirt. I saw him wiping moisture from his forehead and his dark-brown beard as we walked.

The fair wouldn’t open officially until the following day, but the grounds were bustling with vendors, exhibitors, and thrill-ride providers setting up for action.

At Heritage Square, which is an aging music stage located north of the Midway at the western end of the fairgrounds, about fifty people were standing around waiting to watch the intro­duction of the new stick-impaled wonder. Apparently they’d been drawn to the scene by the sight of people moving on the stage.

Beside the steps leading up to the stage, Lorrie Gardner was facing away from us, talking to a blonde television reporter named Trish Valentine, who always seemed to be reporting live from wherever Al and I were sent. We never complained about the competition because seeing Trish was always a pleasure. She had a heart-shaped face that looked darling on TV and a well-rounded figure that she displayed generously, especially on hot summer days. On this muggy morning, her sleeveless electric-pink blouse was open deep into her cleavage and her snug white skirt with its visible bikini panty line ended above mid-thigh.

Lorrie, a tall, slender brunette, looked patriotic in a red tank top that stopped half way down her back, a pair of blue shorts that barely covered the cheeky territory south of the border and white boots that came to mid-calf. Part of a tramp stamp that looked like the crown of a devil’s head peeked out over the top of her shorts. I wondered what her boss, who was a suit-and-tie guy all the way to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, would say about the appropriateness of this ensemble.

Oh, well, not my problem. I was busy enjoying the view.

Hi, Lorrie. Hi, Trish, I said. Lorrie turned toward us, gave us a come-hither wave with her right hand, and we fell in beside Trish. I scanned the small crowd and saw no other reporters. I wasn’t surprised. What could be newsworthy here?

Hope you guys are ready for an exciting presentation, Lorrie said. You won’t believe your eyes when you see it.

What is it? I asked. A whole roast pig on a stick?

Oh, good idea. I’ll have to write that one down for next year. With an apple in its mouth. Probably take both hands to hold it. But, no, it’s nothing that exotic. Well, it’s exotic in its own way. You’ll have a great time taking pictures, Al.

Knowing from past interviews that Lorrie could bubble on all morning without answering my question, I asked again, What is it?

Will I need a wide-angle lens, Al asked. This brought a snicker from Trish.

No, no, nothing like that, Lorrie said. Although it is a good size chunk of food for presentation on a stick. Probably bigger than any edible item on a stick we’re presently offering. Bigger than anything we’ve ever offered I’ll bet.

I’ll put you on a stick if you don’t stop babbling and tell us what it is, I said.

Ooh, you big old nasty man, Lorrie said with a twitch of her hips that indicated where she anticipated the stick might go. Okay, ready? Here it comes. Ta-dah!

She whipped three copies of a press release out of a folder she was holding in her left hand and passed them to us. It’s called Square Meal on a Stick.

Sure enough, it was. The illustration on the press release showed a substantial stick with a large cube-shaped block of something brown on the end.

It’s brown, Al said. What the hell is in it?

A square meal, Ellie said. In the center is a cube of filet mignon so tender it’ll melt in your mouth. Around that is a thick layer of mashed potato embedded with small bits of veggie, probably broccoli. The beautiful golden brown you’re seeing is from deep-frying the entire cube.

So you’re eating almost raw steak and deep-fried mashed potato skooshed with broccoli, I said. And you really think people will buy this?

People eat rare beef sandwiches and mashed potatoes all the time, she said. The only difference here is that the mashed potatoes are french-fried, which is another American favorite. Besides, it’s the State Fair. People here will buy any crazy thing you put on a stick—but please don’t put that in the paper.

You’re right about that, I said. Who dreamed up this particular crazy thing?

A very highly respected St. Paul restaurant owner, Lorrie said. None other than Vinnie Luciano, owner of King Vinnie’s Steakhouse. King Vinnie’s had been an institution on St. Paul’s lower West Side for thirty-some years. Vinnie Luciano’s shtick was to greet his customers wearing a gold crown, which sat above the gray fringe of hair on his balding head, and welcome them as his royal guests. Pictures of Vinnie wearing his crown with all of Minnesota’s big-name athletes and big shot politicians decorated the dining room walls. The Lions, the Jaycees and the Rotary Club all met at King Vinnie’s, and the annual Minnesota Twins fan appreciation dinner was held there.

Makes you wonder whether Vinnie’s starting to lose it, Al said. This thing looks as big as my daughter’s softball. His daughter was an ace pitcher for her high-school team.

That’s about right, Lorrie said. Only remember that it’s square. It’s a square meal being introduced at Heritage Square by Minnesota’s best known square dance caller, the one-and-only Scott Hall.

I can see the headline, I said. Everything’s on the square at the Minnesota State Fair.

Ooh, I like it, Lorrie said. Will it make page one?

Not for me to say, I said. You have to bribe somebody else for that.

Who needs bribin’? said a loud male voice behind me. I turned and found myself chin to heavy black eyebrows with King Vinnie Luciano, complete with glistening gold crown. At six-foot-one and 190 pounds, I was six inches taller but thirty pounds lighter than Vinnie, who had me on girth by a broad margin. Who needs bribin’? he asked again.

My city editor, I said. Lorrie wants to see a picture of your ungodly concoction on page one.

What do you mean ungodly? Vinnie said. This is a meal made in heaven.

I’ll leave that to the clergy, I said. As far as eating that thing, I’d have a hard time getting past saying grace.

Grace would love it, Vinnie said. It’s delicious. I must have ate thirty of ’em while we were goin’ through the test stage.

This triggered my grammarian reflex, and I was starting to say have eaten, not have ate, when Lorrie grabbed Vinnie’s arm and aimed him toward the stage.

The square dance caller, Scott Hall, was a tall, slender man in his early forties. His hair was dark brown and so was the neatly trimmed moustache that graced his upper lip. He was already on the stage, a statuesque figure dressed in full red-and-white western square dance regalia, complete with a red bolo tie and a white ten-gallon hat. I don’t know how he stayed cool but I didn’t see a drop of sweat on his grinning face.

Al hauled out his camera, I pulled a small notebook out of my shirt pocket, Trish Valentine’s cameraman appeared from somewhere behind us, and we all stood poised for the great media moment.

Lorrie took the microphone, waved to the minuscule media-moment audience and introduced Scott and Vinnie. Behind the trio at the mike, about a dozen men and women wearing every­thing from square dance outfits to sun tops and shorts were scattered about the stage like window dressing.

Lorrie explained the importance of the occasion and handed the microphone to Scott Hall, repeating what she’d said to me about a square meal being introduced by a square dance caller on the Heritage Square stage. This drew a polite ripple of laughter.

The caller took the mike, popped off a couple of one-liners with the word square in the punch line, which also drew a polite ripple of laughter, and announced that it was time to introduce the main character—King Vinnie Luciano’s fabulous new square meal.

Right on cue, Fairchild, the Minnesota State Fair’s official mascot, appeared at the foot of the stairs. Fairchild, a six-foot-tall happy-go-lucky gopher with an oversized plastic head had a perpetual buck-toothed grin painted on its face. He wore a green-and-white striped sport coat, a black bow tie and a green-and-white straw boater. Carrying the Square Meal on a Stick high in the air for all to see, Fairchild bounced up the stairs onto the stage and handed the stick to Scott Hall.

Scott’s smile faded to a look of surprise, probably at the size of the package, but he quickly regained his grinning composure. He thanked Fairchild, and Fairchild bowed, bouncing back down the stairs and disappearing through the crowd, which had now grown to maybe a hundred curious souls.

And now we come to the moment of truth, which is in the eating, Scott Hall said. It’s appropriate for me as a square dance caller to introduce this wonderful square morsel, but it’s the creator of this magnificent-looking concoction who should have the honor of taking the first bite. He passed the stick to Vinnie and stepped back to let Vinnie have the microphone.

Vinnie smiled his acceptance and thanked Scott in a thunderous voice. Vinnie raised the stick at arm’s length above his head and posed like an obese Statue of Liberty as he shouted, Here’s to square meals and square dancing. He waved the fried cube in circles before taking a substantial bite off the top and bowing, with arms spread, to the crowd.

As Vinnie chewed, the smile left his face. Tastes kind of bitter, he said in a low voice. A tiny crumb of potato poked out at the corner of his mouth.

Forcing the smile to return, Vinnie took another bite, chewed and swallowed. He frowned. Might be stale cooking oil, he said. This ain’t right. He shook his head and his eyes opened so wide that the whites were visible all the way around.

Vinnie opened his mouth to suck in some air and grasped his throat with his left hand. His legs wobbled and his knees buckled. He sat down hard on the stage, gasping. Can’t breathe, he said in a whisper. The Square Meal on a Stick fell from his right hand and landed in his lap.

Oh, god, a heart attack, Al whispered beside me.

Vinnie’s body began to jerk and twist. He flopped onto his back and the crown popped off his head and rolled to the edge of the stage. The convulsions grew more violent and went on for a moment before he arched his back, leaving only his heels and head touching the floor of the stage. This launched the Square Meal on a Stick into the air, where it performed a somersault before plopping onto the quivering belly of its stricken inventor.

As we all stared in silence, Vinnie’s convulsions continued for maybe another minute before his body went limp and he dropped flat on his back on the floor. Another twitch, then another, then nothing. Vinnie lay motionless with his partially-eaten concoction standing at a forty-five-degree angle on the down slope of the mound above his belt. There wasn’t a whisper of sound from the mouths of the onlookers watching this bizarre performance.

Scott Hall was the first to find his tongue. Is there a doctor in the crowd? he shouted into the mike. Please, is there a doctor anywhere around?

Here, said a female voice in the back of the crowd. A middle-aged woman with flaming red hair began pushing her way toward the stage as dozens of stunned people started to babble about what they’d just seen.

The doctor climbed the stairs and knelt beside the fallen restaurateur. She stared into Vinnie’s open eyes as her hand went to his throat to feel for a pulse.

On the ground around the stage, dozens of cell phones appeared. Some of their owners were taking pictures, others were texting, tweeting and punching in numbers.

I hollered at Lorrie to call 911, and she said she’d already done so. Al was clicking off pictures and the Channel 4 cameraman had moved to the edge of the stage to film the action close up.

The doctor rose to her feet and turned to Scott Hall, who still held the microphone. When she spoke softly to Hall, her voice was carried by the sound system. This man is dead, she said. There’s nothing I can do.

With that, all hell broke loose in the crowd as some people pushed their way closer to see the body and others pushed away in fear and revulsion. The onlookers onstage began leaping off the edge and the musicians grabbed their instruments and bailed out over the side. I heard a siren in the distance heralding the approach of an ambulance. It would be King Vinnie Luciano’s transportation to the morgue.

Chapter 2: Quizzed by the KGB

I got pix of everything, Al said. From Scott Hall’s introduction all the way to the priest from the audience giving Vinnie his last rites."

Just what I’ve always wanted to see in the paper, Lorrie Gardner said. It’s a PR person’s dream to have a celebrity die in a spectacular manner on camera in the middle of your event.

It won’t hurt the fair attendance, I said. It might even bring in a few more people. You know—the ghouls who want to see the spot where the body fell.

Yuk, said Lorrie. Don’t need them.

The three of us were sitting on a park bench not far from the Heritage Square stage. We’d been instructed to wait there until one of the officers investigating Vinnie’s sensational demise could question us. Trish Valentine and her cameraman had managed to fade away after shooting the arrival of the police.

Although most Minnesotans think of the State Fairgrounds as being located in St. Paul, it actually lies in the adjoining suburb of Falcon Heights. This meant that the investigation was being led by a Falcon Heights detective, not any of the people I had worked with for years in the St. Paul Police Department. I was wondering if information about this investigation would be more difficult to extricate from a stranger.

Al had e-mailed his pix to the photo editor, but I needed to get to the office and get started writing the story. I was consider­ing making an end run to the car when a tall, straight-backed young woman wearing a dark blue pantsuit jumped off the stage and strode toward us. We all rose and went to meet her.

Good morning, the woman said. I’m Detective Barnes of the Falcon Heights PD. I’m leading the investigation of what took place here. I guessed her age at thirty-five and her height at close to six feet. Her steely cold eyes were matched by her military stance as we took turns shaking her hand. We each gave our quick version of Vinnie’s final moments and Al showed the detective some photos of the dying man.

Jesus, Detective Barnes said when she saw the picture of Vinnie’s body arched on the floor with only the head and heels touching. Looks like classic strychnine poisoning to me.

Those are the classic symptoms of strychnine? I asked.

Oh, shit, you’re a reporter aren’t you? she said. Forget it. Nothing I’ve said here is official.

I can look up the classic symptoms, I said.

You’re free to do that. I’m not saying another word except that I need to talk to all of you one at a time at the station.

Can it wait until after I’ve written my story? I asked.

Assuming you can write it in less than four hours, Barnes said. I want to see you by three o’clock.

Can do, I said. Oh, by the way, do you have a first name?

I go by my initials, she said. K.G. Barnes.

I wrote that down. Nice initials for an investigator, I said. KGB.

And don’t you forget it, said Detective K.G. Barnes. Three o’clock. My office. Is there anybody else from the media that I should talk to?

I tattled on Trish Valentine. KGB wrote down the name, thanked me and went back to the stage where EMTs were, with some difficulty, stuffing Vinnie Luciano’s bulky body into a black plastic bag. Al took some shots of the bundle being loaded into the ambulance and we were about to leave when I thought of something important.

Wait here a minute, I said. I’ll be right back. As I started walking toward my target, a yellow-and-brown booth with a sign that said Pronto Pups, I heard Al shout, Get me one, too.

I had been going to the Minnesota State Fair since I was ten years old and I had never left the fairgrounds without at least one Pronto Pup in my belly. This was the one food on a stick that was special to me. It’s a hotdog dipped in a tasty cornmeal batter, deep fried to the precise second of golden perfection in hot fat seasoned by time, and brushed with a golden splash of mustard. It was, for want of a better cliché under the current circumstances, a treat to die for.

My fiancée, Martha