by Glenn Ickler
I decided that the one exception to my no-tell promise would be Alan Jeffrey. I figured he had the right to know that he might be sharing the back end of a fire truck with a murderer. I called him at home and told him what I’d learned from Brownie.
“A Vulcan costume?” Al said. “Are you shittin’ me?”
“Have I ever?” I asked.
“Lots of times.”
“Well, this time I’m not. Brownie thinks one of the Vulcan Krewe might have killed Lee-Ann Nordquist. And we’ll be with the Vulcans all day tomorrow.”
“Why are we wasting a day with these clowns anyhow? It doesn’t sound like the kind of assignment we’d get from Don.”
“The stated purpose is to provide depth to our coverage of the Winter Carnival,” I said. “The Vulcans are trying to polish up their image, and Don pointed out that we do have a stake in the Carnival. I suspect he was reminded of this by somebody higher up the food chain.”
Our stake was a treasure hunt the paper sponsored every year. One of the guys in the advertising department hid a box containing the key to the treasure chest somewhere within the city limits and wrote a bunch of clues in verse. One of these clues would appear every day in the paper until some lucky soul found the box with the key and claimed the cash.
“Okay,” Al said. “Onward and upward for Vulcan and the Carnival.”
“And put on your long johns. It’s going to be colder than a penguin’s tail feathers tomorrow.”
“Does a penguin have tail feathers or is it like the kee-kee bird?”
“What the hell is a kee-kee bird?” I asked.
“You haven’t heard of the kee-kee bird? The kee-kee bird lives in the Arctic, has no feathers on its butt and sits on a cake of ice all day yelling, ‘Kee, kee, kee, kee-rist but it’s cold!’”
“Kee-rist, why did I ask? I’ll see your sorry butt at Vulcan headquarters first thing in the morning.”
The temperature had peaked at nine degrees below zero in late afternoon and was beginning its evening descent when I left the office almost twelve hours after my wakeup call from Don O’Rourke. The thermometer beside the back door of my apartment building was showing fourteen below when I arrived home. However, it was as warm as the Fourth of July inside my apartment, where I was greeted by Martha Todd and Sherlock Holmes.
Martha welcomed me with a hug and a lingering kiss. Sherlock met me with a “meow” and an invitation to scratch his furry belly.
Martha is the dark-haired, dark-eyed love of my life. She had moved in with me after completing a three-year working commitment with the attorney general in her mother’s native country, Cape Verde, in payment for a law school scholarship. She has skin the color of coffee with cream, a smile so white that it puts every toothpaste ad to shame and the most exquisitely proportioned ass of any woman alive. The world’s premiere sculptors could not design such an ass, and painters wouldn’t even try to replicate Martha’s ass because a flat image on canvas could not do justice to such three-dimensional perfection. To look upon such an ass is a privilege. To touch it was heaven on earth.
Sherlock is a fourteen-pound, short-haired, black-and-white neutered tomcat that adopted me several years ago when I made the mistake of feeding him at the back door. The three of us lived in my one-bedroom, ground-floor apartment in a two-story brick building that faces Grand Avenue.
“What a hellacious day you’ve had,” Martha said. “Sit down and tell me all about it while we eat.”
I sat across the small kitchen table from her, filled my plate with pasta, veggies, and salad, and proceeded to tell her everything. Well, almost everything. I decided that the item about one of the Vulcans with whom I’d be riding the next day possibly being a cold-blooded killer was better left unsaid. I’d had some uncomfortable moments with murderers in the past, and I saw no reason to start Martha’s worry wheels whirling.
Later, sitting in bed, we watched the ten o’clock news and saw film of Lee-Ann Nordquist’s rigid body being carried to the ambulance. Martha shivered at the sight and snuggled so close that she almost got inside my skin, a perfect example of how one person’s great loss can be another’s magnificent gain.
Despite the exhilarating contact with Martha’s naked body, I was half asleep by the time she flicked off the TV. “Want to try Number 58?” she asked.
“I don’t think I’m up to it,” I said. “Been too long a day.”
“Well, we definitely want you to be up when we go for Number 58,” she said. “Nighty night, lover.”
The forecast for Friday morning was a temperature of twenty-five below zero augmented by a blast from the northwest that again would produce a wind chill of minus forty. For once, damn it, the forecasters were right. Bundled once more in my warmest ski regalia, I forced the Civic’s unwilling engine to turn over, scraped most of the windshield and persuaded the wheels to break free from the ice encrusted surface of the parking lot.
Al and I were supposed to meet the Vulcan Krewe at 9:00 in the Vulcans’ Crowne Plaza Hotel headquarters. I decided to swing by the office first and found two women waiting at my desk when I arrived at 8:15. Both were wrapped in heavy, ankle-length coats, topped with bright-colored wool scarves and knit hats. At my invitation, they removed their hats, unwound their scarves and unbuttoned their coats.
The olive-skinned brunette introduced herself as Esperanza de LaTrille, and the blue-eyed, fair-skinned blonde with her nose and cheeks reddened by the cold said her name was Toni Erickson. “Kitty said you wanted to talk to some Kates who were friends with Lee-Ann Nordquist,” said Toni. “We were with her the night she was … the night she died.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said as I dug a reporter’s notebook out of the jumble on my desk. “Somebody else will be doing the follow story today because I’ve got another assignment but you can talk to me and I’ll pass your comments to the desk. First of all, I need the spelling of your name, Esperanza.”
“First or last?” she asked.
“Both.” She gave it to me and Toni offered the information that her first name was spelled with an “I” and that she was an “s-o-n” Erickson, not “s-e-n.”
“Your paper got it wrong last year when they wrote about Klondike Kate’s,” she said. “Called me ‘Tony Ericksen,’ with a ‘Y’ and an ‘E’ like I was a Danish guy instead of a nice Norwegian girl.”
“We’ll get it right this year,” I said. “Tell me about Lee-Ann and what the three of you did Wednesday night.”
“Lee-Ann is … was … one of the sweetest people you’d ever want to meet,” Toni said. “She loved to be with people and to party, but she loved her little girl more than anything. I can’t imagine how Sarajane is going to live without her mom.”
“Word is she’s with Lee-Ann’s parents,” I said. “Do you know if they’re the kind of grandparents who appreciate their grandkids?”
“Lee-Ann left Sarajane with her folks every time she needed a baby sitter,” Esperanza said. “So I’m guessing they’ll give her a good loving home. But mama and daughter had a special relationship, especially after Sarajane’s daddy was killed.”
That got my attention. “What happened to him?”
“Afghanistan war,” Toni said. “One of those goddamn roadside bombs.”
“If some families didn’t have bad luck they wouldn’t have any luck at all,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” Toni said. “Lee-Ann’s father lost a leg in Vietnam. Stepped on a goddamn mine.”
“Next you’ll tell me her mother lost an arm in some goddamn accident,” I said. “She didn’t, did she?”
Toni and Esperanza both shook their heads. “So tell me about Wednesday night,” I said.
They said the three of them got together about 8:30 and went to a party for the Queen of the Snows candidates in the Hotel St. Paul. They had a couple of drinks, danced a couple of dances with various men and had a good time.
When that party ended, they moved on to O’Halloran’s Bar, a few blocks away on Waba
sha Street, along with a couple of dozen other party-goers. Among them were some men in Vulcan costumes. The three Kates, all in costume, drank, joked and played a little friendly grab-ass with several men, including the Vulcans.
“Lee-Ann and one of the Vulcans talked for a while at a separate table,” Toni said. “Last I saw of her, she was going to the ladies’ room. She must have gone out the back door from there.”
“What about the Vulcan she was talking to?” I asked.
“Not sure,” said Esperanza. “I thought he was still there because I saw three of them at the bar but Toni thought she’d seen four Vulcans so maybe one was missing.”
“We just don’t know if a Vulcan went out of O’Halloran’s at the same time as Lee-Ann or not,” Toni said.
“You didn’t see them go out together?” I asked.
They both shook their heads and said, “No.” I silently wondered who had seen them leave together—who had reported this to Detective Curtis Brown.
I thanked the two Kates and they left. I quickly typed the notes from our conversation into the computer, being very careful not to connect Lee-Ann with any of the Vulcans, and shipped it to Don O’Rourke for dispersal to whatever reporter would be picking up the murder story while I was riding with the possible murderer.
“See you later,” I said to Don as I went past the desk on the way out.
“Look for some fresh angle on the Vulcans, will ya?” Don replied.
“No problem,” I said. There’d be an extremely fresh angle whenever Brownie’s suspicion could be revealed.
I met Al in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza. “Do you think one of these guys killed that woman?” he asked.
“No more than the cops do,” I said.
“Don’t ask them too many obvious questions, okay?” he said.
“Why? You afraid we might be next if the killer thinks we’re suspicious?”
“Those guys carry guns don’t they? A gun could go off accidentally on purpose.”
“Only Vulcan himself has a gun, and it’s not loaded. It shoots blanks.”
“My Scoutmaster always said that unloaded guns were the most dangerous.”
“So what do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Be prepared,” Al said.
We rode the elevator to the sixth floor, knocked on the door of room 666 and waited for someone in the gaudy red costume of the Vulcans to respond.
I was startled when the door opened and we were greeted by a broad-shouldered, thirty-something man about Al’s height dressed in a navy blue blazer, white shirt, black-and-red striped tie, and gray slacks. “Come in, gentlemen,” he said, with a smile that revealed a row of perfectly-even teeth that must have cost his parents a bundle for orthodontia. “I’m Ted Carlson, the Vulcans’ manager. I’m the one who schedules all their events. It was me you talked to when you set up your ride.”
I remembered the name. We shook hands and looked around. The red costumes I’d expected to greet us were scattered around the room, worn by men drinking coffee and filling up on calorie-laden pastries. There were eight of them, seven wearing red cloaks over shiny red running suits and one, the tallest and broadest of the bunch, clad in a black suit and sporting the same scarlet cloak as the others. All wore snug red hats that fit like helmets over their ears and foreheads. Every face but one was white, the exception being a young African-American.
The black-suited man put down his coffee cup and walked—swaggered, actually—over to us. He was an inch taller and fifty pounds heavier than me, and I’m a substantial six-foot-one, 190 pounds. The pearl handle of a pistol protruded from a holster on his belt. Huge black goggles covered the upper half of his face. The bottom half was obscured by a mustache and goatee drawn in black greasepaint.
“Welcome aboard,” he said in a deep growl. “I’m Vulcanus Rex, and you are now under my command. My first order is for both of you to get into costume double quick because we’re hauling ass in ten minutes.” He pointed toward two sets of red running suits, cloaks, and hats, and two pairs of black goggles, gloves, and boots, spread out on a bed.
I hadn’t expected this. “You want us to dress like Vulcans?” I asked.
“Damn right,” he said. “If you’re riding with us I want you looking like us, not like a couple of ski bums. That won’t kill you, will it?”
Chapter Five
Cooler than Cool
The first event we were scheduled to attend was a children’s snow sculpture contest in Como Park, an expanse of rolling, frozen hills about a ten-minute drive from downtown. Al and I, properly-garbed in red and black, were crammed into the back of the fire truck along with six red-suited Vulcans. The vehicle was the size of an overgrown pickup and the box had been cleared of whatever equipment was attached when it had been an operating ladder truck. I had read on the Vulcan Website that this four-wheeled piece of automotive antiquity was called The Royal Chariot. Great sense of humor, these Vulcans.
One red-suited member of the Krewe drove with one hand on the wheel, the other had the siren. The black-clad Vulcanus Rex rode shotgun, from where he occasionally aimed his pistol out the window toward the leaden sky and squeezed off a couple of rounds. Since no glass was shattered whenever we passed under one of the skyways that crossed most of St. Paul’s downtown streets at the second-story level, I assumed he was firing blanks.
The shivering Krewe member braced against the edge of the truck box on my left introduced himself as the Duke of Klinker.
“Glad to meet you, your dukeship. What’s your job?” I asked. I had read on the Website that the crew members all had fire-related names and specific tasks to perform.
“I’m the Fire King’s aide de camp and herder of the flock,” said the duke. “That means I make sure everyone is on board when the truck is ready to roll.”
“Speaking of that, I notice that the truck rattles like a coiled diamondback looking at a barefoot hiker. How old is it?”
“It’s a 1932 Luverne. Made in Luverne, Minnesota.”
“Did you say 1932?”
Klinker laughed. “Don’t worry. They’ve replaced almost every part in this old clunker but the frame. It won’t conk out and leave us standing out in the cold.”
“That’s very comforting,” I said. “It’s bad enough riding out in the cold.”
“You get used to it after a while. Everything gets sort of numb.”
“Isn’t everything getting numb the first stage of freezing to death?”
He laughed again. “Afraid you’ll wind up like that Klondike Kate they found yesterday?”
“I hope not. Did you know her very well?”
Klinker straightened up and took a side step away, banging against a fellow Vulcan, and shook his head. “No,” he said emphatically. “Never met her.”
Before I could ask another question, the vintage Luverne groaned to a stop in front of a row of small humans, who were bundled from head to toe like Inuits on an Arctic seal hunt. Each of them stood beside a creature molded from snow. The sculptures ranged from your standard backyard snowman to realistic replicas of Spongebob Squarepants and Batman with his cape spread for take-off.
“Everybody out,” yelled the Herder of the Flock, and we all jumped off the back of the truck. When my boots hit the blacktop, I was grateful to discover that I could still feel pain in my feet.
“Camera frozen solid yet?” I asked Al as he pulled his digital single lens reflex out of the bag slung over his shoulder.
“I should have one of those pocket hand warmers in my bag,” he said. He aimed the camera at one of the snow sculptures and pressed the shutter release. He was rewarded with a comforting click and the appearance of an image on the viewing screen. “Pixels are still pixeling at twenty below.”
“Cool,” I said.
“Cooler than a frozen daiquiri at the North Pole. What are we supposed to be doing with these runny-nosed little sculptors?” There were, in fact, frosty drops of moisture on many noses and upper lips.
“I
think Vulcan and the boys are going to pick the winners and smear some black V’s on their faces.”
“They better work fast while the grease is still smearable.”
“You better shoot fast while the shutter is still clickable.”
“And my clicking finger is still moveable,” Al said as he started walking toward a giggling mound of Gore-Tex who had identified herself as Meghan and was being decorated with a greasepaint “V” by Vulcanus Rex.
The Krewe moved swiftly and made quick decisions while Al took pictures. I stamped my feet to maintain circulation. When all the prize winners had been greased and given medals, we were ushered into a small warming house where some of the youngsters’ parents were drinking hot chocolate. Each of us was handed a cup of the steaming brown liquid, which we gulped down gratefully.
After disposing of our empty cups, Al and I collected the names of the kids he’d photographed and I asked one named Michael why he and the other kids weren’t in school. It was, after all, a Friday.
“The teachers are meeting with our moms and dads,” Michael said. “We got off yesterday and today both.”
When we finished quizzing the kids, Al took some shots of the Krewe members applying black marks to the cheeks of all consenting women. The rate of consent was 100 percent.
“How times have changed,” I said to the Duke of Klinker, recalling my mother’s stories about the “good old days,” when the Vulcans simply grabbed each woman and applied the mark with a kiss on the cheek. “The old way must have been a lot more fun.”
“Damned women’s lib,” he said. “Next thing you know they’ll be demanding to join our Krewe.”