Free A Carnival of Killing by Glenn Ickler Page B

relationship was such a big secret was because the guy was married.”
    “Did you know she was pregnant?”
    “No. I don’t think anybody did.”
    “Not even the boyfriend?”
    “Who knows? Maybe she told him and he decided to kill her.”
    “That’s possible,” I said. “It wouldn’t be the first time a married man knocked off a knocked-up mistress.”
    “That’s a pretty crude way of putting it,” Hillary said.
    “I’m noted for being crude. It goes with the job. Do you know anything else at all about this guy?”
    “No, I don’t think so. Sorry.”
    “That’s okay. You’ve given me a little something I didn’t have before.”
    We exchanged goodbyes, and I put down the phone.
    “Man, who was that?” asked Bob Anderson, the reporter at the desk beside mine. “Was she talking through a megaphone?”
    “She doesn’t need one,” I said. “She’s one of the Klondike Kates.” Bob, who had pursued the story of Lee-Ann’s murder while I was riding with the Vulcans on Friday, nodded in understanding.
    I added what Hillary had told me to my Lee-Ann Nordquist computer file and was thinking about calling it a day when the phone rang again.
    “It’s Hillary,” said the booming voice. “I just thought of something else.”
    “I’m all ears,” I said, holding the phone an inch away from the left one.
    “I’m pretty sure the secret boyfriend was a Vulcan.”
     
     

Chapter Ten
    Monday Musings
     
    On Monday nights I usually went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting a few blocks from my apartment building. After each meeting, I had a ginger ale in a Grand Avenue establishment called Herbie’s Bar & Grill with a fellow alcoholic named Jayne Halvorson. We both found it therapeutic to sit drinking in a bar without ordering alcohol.
    Martha had no problem with these après meeting tête-à-têtes because Jayne had neither the time for nor the interest in becoming a romantic rival. She’s about ten years older than I am, and was supporting and raising two teenage daughters all alone because her uncontrollable drinking prompted her husband to disappear before she gave herself to AA. She was always a great listener and sometimes a sage adviser.
    On this particular Monday, I needed to vent about the Lee-Ann Nordquist murder.
    “So, what do you know so far?” Jayne asked.
    “I know that two other Klondike Kates were with Lee-Ann at O’Halloran’s, and one of them says she saw three Vulcans there and the other one is sure she saw four. I know the Krewe names of three men who were in O’Halloran’s that night, but the carnival brass won’t release their real names until after the carnival ends.
    “A witness that the cops won’t identify saw Lee-Ann go out the back door with a Vulcan. She was leaning heavily on him, which could either have been because she was drunk, which she definitely was, or dead, which I think she probably was. Her hat and coat were left inside O’Halloran’s, which tells me that she most likely was killed inside the building.
    “She was three months pregnant, but nobody, including her two best friends, knew she was pregnant or knows who the father might be. Another one of her friends told me that Lee-Ann was seeing a man who is possibly married and is probably a Vulcan. This guy could be the prime suspect if the cops can find out who he is. But even Brownie isn’t telling me anything I can print, so where do I go from here when my city editor hollers for a story tomorrow morning?”
    “Seems to me you need to talk to those three Vulcans that you know were in O’Halloran’s,” Jayne said.
    “Wish me luck with that. The whole Krewe moved away from me like an Amish family shunning a backslider when I started asking what they’d seen that night. If I knew the real names of those three turkeys, I could camp on their doorsteps, but I’m S-O-L on that until after Saturday night’s big battle with Boreas. Plus, I promised Brownie I wouldn’t wreck the carnival by writing