A Killing Fair

by Glenn Ickler

  Al met me at the door. “Is this a get-out-of-jail-free card for that Garcia character?” he said.

  “Trish Valentine reporting live is going to find out for us,” I said. “Thanks to my big mouth, she’ll be first with breaking news.”

  In the car on the way back to the office I called the Falcon Heights Police Department on my cell phone. I wasn’t about to wait for Trish Valentine reporting live to find out about Frankie Garcia’s potential freedom. The duty sergeant answered and informed me that Chief Tubb was not taking any calls from the media. “She says to tell you she believes she said everything that needs to be said at the press conference,” he said.

  “How about Detective Barnes?” I said. “May I speak to her?”

  “She’s not available neither,” he said. “Have a good day.” He hung up before I could correct his “neither” with “either.”

  Well, at least Trish wouldn’t have it in her breaking news.

  “Stonewalled again?” Al said as I shut off the phone and shouted an expletive.

  “I’ve been stonewalled so much I’ve got rocks in my head.”

  * * *

  Thursday morning found me once again standing behind Trish Valentine. This time we were in the courtroom, waiting for Mathew (AKA Grubby) Grimes’s arraignment. “No luck asking Chief Tubb about Frankie, huh?” I said.

  “My contact at the jail says they’re letting him out, but I can’t get anybody to go on the record,” Trish said. “When it happens I’ll get it first.”

  When Grimes was brought in wearing the usual orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg shackles, a man in a dark suit stepped up beside him. “Your honor, I am Daniel Ballew, Mr. Grimes’s court-appointed attorney.”

  “Is Mr. Grimes not in a financial position to hire an attorney?” said Judge Anthony T. Thomas.

  “That is so, your honor,” Ballew said.

  “Given the serious nature of the charge against Mr. Grimes, it would seem that he should have the best possible represen­tation. Do you have any prior experience of this nature, Mr. Ballew?”

  Ballew’s face turned a light shade of red. He pursed his lips and stood a little straighter. “I do, your honor. I have successfully defended a person charged with manslaughter.”

  “Very well. Let us continue,” said the judge.

  The clerk read the charges, which were theft of material valued at more than $200, aggravated assault and accessory to murder. Grubby Grimes pleaded not guilty to all three.

  After bail was set and Grubby was led away, reporters and photographers blocked the front steps, surrounded the two attorneys and bombarded them with questions.

  As usual, Trish was first. “Mr. Brigham, is Francisco Garcia being released.”

  “Mr. Garcia will be released on reduced bail, amount to be determined, later today,” said Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Andrew Brigham, who had appeared for the people.

  “Has Mr. Grimes admitted delivering the food that killed Vinnie Luciano?” I asked.

  “Mr. Grimes admits delivering the item but denies knowledge of its contents.”

  “Has Mr. Grimes identified any other suspects?” I asked.

  “Mr. Grimes claims not to know the identity of any other suspects,” Brigham said. “We have surveillance film of a man who looks very much like Mr. Grimes meeting a man wearing a ski mask at night in a parking lot but the masked man is not identifiable.”

  “Does he look anything like Louie Luciano?” the reporter from Minneapolis asked.

  “I can’t comment on that,” Brigham said.

  “Where’s the parking lot?” Channel Seven’s reporter asked.

  “I can’t comment on that either.”

  “Has he given you information in exchange for a plea bargain down from murder-one to accessory?” I asked.

  “We have reached an agreement with Mr. Grimes and his attorney on the charge.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “It’s all I’m going to say.” He spotted a crack in the circle of reporters and, like a slippery Vikings running back, he slid through the narrow opening and accelerated toward his BMW in the parking lot.

  Our attention turned to the defense attorney.

  “Just what is your agreement with the prosecution?” Trish asked.

  “I’ve been asked not to discuss the details at this time,” said Daniel Ballew.

  “Who asked you not to do that?” I asked.

  “The court.”

  “Judge Thomas?” In court, the judge had seemed unaware of Ballew’s existence, much less a plea agreement.

  “Well, not exactly,” Ballew said. “The prosecution, actually.”

  “So the prosecution is keeping the plea bargain a secret,” said the Minneapolis reporter.

  “You could say that,” Ballew said.

  “I will say that,” said the reporter.

  “We all will,” I said. “And we’ll challenge it.”

  “You have the right to do that.”

  “Yes, we do. So what’s the defense of your client going to be? Temporary poverty?”

  “As the prosecutor told you, my client had no knowledge that the material on the stick was lethal,” Ballew said. “He fully believed he was being paid to deliver an item of food to the man on the platform.”

  “Lucky he didn’t sample it along the way,” Trish said.

  “Yes, it is fortunate that my client is a thoroughly honest man.” This brought a chorus of laughter, during which Ballew ducked through the same opening the prosecutor had used and turned on the jets toward the parking lot.

  “I’ve got the perfect headline for my story,” I said to Al on the way to our car. “Square meal killer gets square deal.”

  “Meanwhile, we’re back to square one on who hired Mr. Grubby,” Al said.

  “My guess is that it wasn’t Louie Luciano.”

  “So who are you squaring up on next?”

  “My money is now squarely on cousin Vito.”

  Chapter 24: Starting Over

  It’s one thing to suspect a man of murder and quite another to prove his guilt, as was demonstrated the next morning by the subject of one of my sure-thing accusations.

  Because Friday was this week’s day off, I was eating a leisurely breakfast at home when Don O’Rourke called. “You had a visitor here this morning,” he said. “I’d suggest staying indoors today.”

  “Anybody I know?” I said.

  “Fellow by the name of Louie Luciano. Says he got out of jail this morning, and he’s got a present for you that he needs to deliver in person.”

  “He promised to give me a broken skull if he got out.”

  “He’s big enough and pissed off enough to provide one. I tried to cool him down and get an interview on his release but he barreled off looking for you. Like I said, you’d be smart to stay off the street today.”

  “You didn’t tell him where I live?”

  “I was tempted, the way you embarrassed the paper by all but convicting him in your story, but I didn’t want to be an accessory to murder like your new friend Grubby Grimes.” Don said.

  “You’re all heart,” I said. “I’ll try to return the favor by producing the real killer.”

  “Maybe you should let the cops do that. They seem to be a step ahead of you on this one.”

  That hurt. “As a presidential candidate once said, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We’ll see who’s ahead when the final arrest is made.”

  “As I remember it, that candidate came in a distant second in his race, so you’d better pick up your step the rest of your race. Another fiasco like this one and you’ll spend the rest of your career writing weather reports and the garden news.” My ear drum reverberated from the force with which he put the phone down. Don rarely dis
played his displeasure with such vehemence. I suspected he had heard from the publisher.

  Great. Now I had an unsolved murder to write about, a venge­ful former suspect to dodge and an unhappy boss to win back. I picked up the cup of hot coffee I’d set down when I an­swered the phone and took a sip. It had cooled to room temperature.

  I almost gagged as I swallowed the lukewarm liquid. I put the cup into the microwave and hit the one-minute button. While the machine was exciting the coffee molecules and sending them to a higher temperature I booted up my laptop. When the microwave went “ding,” I took out the coffee and opened the folder on the Vinnie Luciano murder. I always copy the files from important ongoing stories into my laptop, both as backup and for use away from my desk.

  Okay, it was my day off, and I should be enjoying myself. But I’d been warned to stay off the street, so what was I going to do cooped up at home? Watch daytime TV? I’d rather have Louie Luciano break my skull than sit through Family Feud. Might as well use the time to read through the case file and see where the review would lead me.

  It led me back to Vito Luciano, the inheritor of King Vinnie’s Steakhouse. Vito had denied being at the fair the day of the murder, but he hadn’t offered any information as to where he was and who, if anyone, could vouch for his location. He had also denied having had recent contact with the chemist who was his partner in the horse doping case, but the denial hadn’t convinced me.

  I had not asked to talk to the chemist when I located him at 3M. Maybe now was the time. But how could I do it? What would be my excuse for calling? And what would I say? How about, “Hi, Dr. Lymanski, did you give Vito Luciano a package of strychnine?” No, somehow that didn’t seem to be a viable opening line.

  I needed to know more about Dr. Philip Lymanski before I called. So I did what any grizzled veteran reporter would do. I Googled him.

  There were more than two dozen hits, going all the way back to newspaper reports of the horse doping charge and dismissal of same. I started with those and worked my way forward through a string of postings from scientific publications. These included both articles about his work and articles written by him. I got the impression he was widely known in the field of chemistry for his research and his writing.

  The most recent posting was only a week old. It was from a biweekly chemical journal with national circulation. I actually let out a whoop when I read it.

  Dr. Lymanski was scheduled to receive an award for a recent research discovery at an upcoming conference at the University of Minnesota. This award was to be presented at a dinner on October 1, just eight days in the future. The article also gave a brief description of Dr. Lymanski’s procedure and the results. Although I got an “A” in chemistry way back in my freshman year of college, I didn’t understand a word.

  No matter. This was the perfect opening. I would call the honored chemist for a story about his award, and somehow work my way into a question about his current relationship with Vito Luciano. I would call him now.

  I found the phone number in my file. I punched it in and was transferred to Dr. Lymanski’s extension. It was answered by the same woman as before and I asked to speak to Dr. Lymanski.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Dr. Lymanski is not available.”

  “Will he be available later today?” I said.

  “No, sir. Dr. Lymanski is attending a conference in Michigan.”

  Good grief, did this man have a conference every weekend? “When will he be back in his office?”

  “I expect him on Monday. May I take a message?”

  I gave her my name and number and told her why I was calling him.

  “In all honesty, I doubt he’ll return your call,” she said. “He never speaks to the non-scientific press.”

  “Not even his local paper?”

  “Especially his local paper. He’s afraid of being misquoted or misinterpreted. He’s had some difficulty in the past.”

  “Does this go back to the incident at the race track?”

  “I think I’ve said enough,” she said. “I’ll give him your message but I doubt you’ll hear from him.”

  “If I don’t, I’ll call back,” I said.

  “Good luck, Mr. Mitchell. Have a nice day.”

  * * *

  I was almost out the door of my apartment Saturday morning when the phone rang and I was told that Augie Augustine had called in sick. This time the caller was Eddie Gambrell, who took over as city editor on Saturday. Eddie did not sound as sympathetic toward the ailing police reporter as Don O’Rourke, but I kept my thoughts about Augie to myself and went to the police station.

  “You’re turning into a regular here,” the desk sergeant said as I walked in.

  “Augie seems to have a chronic problem,” I said.

  “Augie’s problem comes in a bottle. The paper should send him up to Hazelden for some rehab.”

  “The paper can’t send him unless he’s willing to go.”

  “Pretty soon he’s going to be sick on more than just weekends if he doesn’t get some help. Then maybe the paper will find a way to persuade him.”

  “I’m familiar with the process,” I said. “I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Then you know what I’m talking about,” the sergeant said. “Augie’s fucking up his career.”

  I expressed my agreement and went to check the overnight reports. The best one involved a man who called police because a woman locked him out of his own apartment, but punched an officer shortly after the two-man squad arrived. The report said the caller became “visibly upset” while the officers were discussing how to resolve the situation.

  “He clenched his fists and charged at us,” the reporting officer wrote. “We grabbed him as he threw a punch.” The punch hit one officer in the face. The same officer’s motorcycle boots were ruined in the ensuing scuffle as both officers wrestled the man to the floor where he continued to struggle and kick. As I’ve said before, you can’t make this stuff up.

  I wrote that story and half a dozen additional shorts, e-mailed them to the city desk and sat back to think about what I would say on Monday. I absolutely had to talk to Dr. Philip Lymanski, no matter how he felt about the non-scientific press. My problem was twofold: how to persuade him to do the interview and how to slip in a question about Vito Luciano.

  * * *

  Don O’Rourke agreed that I should talk to Dr. Philip Lymanski when I broached the subject Monday morning. Seeing no need to remind Don of the connection between Dr. Lymanski and Vito Luciano, I pitched the interview solely as a story about a local chemist’s winning of a prestigious award.

  However, Don’s memory for names and events was infallible. “Isn’t Lymanski the chemist mixed up in a horse doping charge a few years ago?” he said.

  “He is,” I said. “The charge was dropped.”

  “Wasn’t Vito Luciano the other guy charged?”

  “He was.”

  “Is there any chance your interest in Lymanski goes beyond the scientific award story at hand?”

  “Vito told me there hasn’t been any contact between them since then. I might try to verify that, but I’ll wait until the end of the interview.”

  “Don’t get us into any more trouble,” Don said. “Louie Luciano was raving about a libel suit while he was cussing you out last Friday.”

  As Dr. Lymanski’s secretary had predicted, he did not call me that morning. I waited until 2:30 p.m. to call his office again. The secretary said she had given him my message, but it was in a pile with many others.

  “May I speak to him now?” I asked.

  “He’s on another line,” she said. “And he hates to be inter­rupted.”

  “I’m willing to hold.”

  “Okay, but I’ll cut you off if he hasn’t picked up in ten minutes.”

  Just a
fter the nine-minute mark a male voice said, “Dr. Lymanski.”

  “Hello, doctor,” I said. “This is Warren Mitchell from the Daily Dispatch. We’d like to do a story about the prestigious award you’re receiving Saturday.”

  “Why the sudden interest in me?”

  “You’re receiving a very newsworthy honor.”

  There was a moment of silence before he said, “I’ve seen your byline. Don’t you do mainly crime stories?”

  “I’m an investigative reporter. I do a wide variety of stories.”

  “How’d you get picked to call me about this one?”

  “I guess I’m the only one here who ever took chemistry in college.”

  “So you’re familiar with chemical terms?”

  “More than most reporters,” I said. This wasn’t a lie. Every­thing is relative and I was reasonably certain that nobody else in the newsroom knew more about chemistry than I did.

  “How’d you find out about the award?”

  I told him I’d read about it in the scientific journal.

  “You read that paper?”

  “I check a lot of publications for news about prominent local people.”

  Another silence. Then he said, “Do you want to do this on the phone?”

  “I’d rather talk to you in person if possible.” I hoped I wasn’t stretching my luck.

  Yet another silence. “Be at my office at 7:30 tomorrow morning. I’ll give you half an hour before I start my work day.”

  I almost whooped again. “Would it be all right to bring a photographer?” I asked and held my breath.

  “Be sure you’re both on time,” Dr. Lymanski said. “Now good afternoon to you.”

  I really did whoop as soon as the phone was out of my hand.

  Corinne Ramey jumped four inches off her chair. “Did you finally score with that stonewall cop?” she asked when she came back down.

  “No, but I have a date with a nationally-known chemist,” I said.

  “I hope the chemistry is good.”