by Anne McAneny
“Sure.”
“And sometimes you let me buy things on credit while Momma’s in the car?”
“Yeah.”
“And we usually pay up within a week or so, right?”
“I guess.” He seemed to be growing less comfortable, and Macy worried he might fold himself right into an origami swan, but she kept going.
“And since those tickets are still for sale, you’d sell Momma one if she were here.”
“But she ain’t.”
“Only because she’s laid up with a doozy of a headache.” Macy shook the aspirin bottle but stopped when she saw that the sound made Boyd grimace. “Momma told me just yesterday that she sure doesn’t want to miss out on a chance to win that jackpot. I mean, if anyone in this town could use that money, it’d be Momma and me, don’t you think?”
Boyd shrugged.
“Well, today’s situation is even better than Momma being here herself, because I can actually pay—without using credit.” Macy glanced around the store and gestured to its emptiness. “There’s nobody here but you and me, Boyd, and no one will ever know if Momma was in the parking lot or not.”
Boyd frowned and looked lost in Macy’s triple-negative plea.
“What I’m saying is, can you just sell me the ticket and we’ll pretend like Momma’s in the car waiting on me?”
He glanced toward the parking lot, and then back at Macy, perhaps expecting Melanie LeGrange to have materialized. Then he reached below the counter, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a lottery ticket. “Anybody asks, your momma bought this, y’hear?”
Macy beamed. “Thanks, Boyd. I knew you were cool.”
Boyd blushed a bit, but Macy didn’t notice. She was grabbing a pen from the yarn-covered can next to the register. The pen she selected was burgundy in color with white lettering that read: Richard Quail Realty and Development. She hesitated, hoping it wasn’t bad luck to let Quail the Whale’s ink darken the circles on her ticket.
“Hurry up now,” Boyd said, glancing toward the front door. “Don’t need no one seeing you.”
Macy quickly picked her numbers and slid the ticket to Boyd. He rang up her order and she paid, feeling like Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as she watched her money disappear into the register. Boyd made change, but before handing over the receipt, he copied her lottery numbers onto it. “Have your Momma sign the ticket, and don’t lose it. But just in case, I always write the numbers on the receipts.”
“Thanks, Boyd. Wish me luck.”
He stared at the register again, but as she exited, he gave a small wave. She took it as a positive sign—until she looked up and saw Quail the Whale pulling into the parking lot. Dang it all! She’d promised him a hand-delivered wad of rental cash, and here she was with nothing but a few dollars in her pocket, and Momma still without a job.
Quail pulled in two spots down from the front door. He was spitting into his cell phone as he talked, waving his free hand all over the place—probably yelling at somebody to cough up their rent or else. He definitely hadn’t noticed Macy yet, but there was no way for her to get to her bike without him spotting her. Then, another car pulled up and parked between her and Quail. The driver was that big-bosomed lady, DeVore the Whore, who acted like the answer to every man’s prayers. She exited her car and dashed into Boyd’s with only a quick, dismissive glance in Macy’s direction.
Macy wasted no time in crawling along the length of the woman’s car, hopping on her bike, and getting the heck out of there. As she rode home, the wind kicked up and whipped her hair in three directions at once, making her laugh out loud. Hoop would no doubt deem this a what-a-day, and he’d be right, too, because she had a chance in her pocket, a wish in her bag, and a big old heaping of hope in her heart.
Chapter 41
My phone rang at 7:00 a.m. I startled awake to find myself lying on my quilt, still dressed in last night’s memorial clothes. My laptop, two pens, and a notebook covered the bed, the latter having left a spiral zig-zag indent on my arm. Like a whiny boyfriend, the phone just kept ringing, so I slapped my hand around until I found it. Chad Ryker, said the Caller ID.
“Morning, Chad,” I said, trying to unstick my lips. I sat up and felt an urgent need for coffee. “Did I dream it or did we end on a really sour note last night?”
“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I mean, I’m not taking it all back, but wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything. My only excuse is that I’ve been living on like three hours of sleep a night.”
I got up and staggered to the kitchen. “Maybe we can talk stuff out again when all this settles down.”
“Agreed. Listen, I thought of something last night. Since we didn’t find anything in Boyd’s basement to indicate that a body was buried there, I figured Boyd might’ve, um . . .”
“Transferred the body?”
“If there was a body.”
“Okay, but if he whisked Hoop away in his car, we don’t have the car to—”
“Wrong.” He waited and tried to suck up a bit of glory through the phone line—which I selfishly withheld. “Boyd sold his old Chevy to Doc West’s daughter years ago. She moved to West Virginia, but she still has the car, believe it or not. The forensics lab there has agreed to—”
“Chad, allow me to be the bigger pessimist for once. What are the odds? You think nobody’s cleaned that car in twelve years? Replaced the floor mats? Had it detailed?”
“DNA sticks around, Chloe,” he said with anger-laced grit.
“I guess it’s worth a try, but—”
“Look, if there’s any chance I can prove Hoop Whitaker’s body was in that car, I’m going for it. I’m ending this thing once and for all.”
I frowned as hard as my coffee was percolating. “Jesus, Chad. For who?”
“For both of us. And for him. You know what, Chloe, I’m doing my job. Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that all you want from me?”
“Are we starting again?”
“No. Sorry. Hey, Strike was up most of the night. He tracked down Zeke Carver’s girlfriend around midnight—the one who polished Grace Elbee’s nails. Found her asleep in Grace’s car at a campground in Revel Park. He’s got her in custody now.”
I wanted desperately to win a round of Dammit, Be Nice, Chloe, but it just wasn’t in the cards today. “Tell him to make sure her bail is over a billion. Even Quail can’t swing that.”
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Yeah, by me.”
I smiled, and so, I think, did Chad.
“Gotta go,” he said.
“Hey, did Zeke’s girlfriend say anything useful? Like who hired them to take out Mrs. Elbee?”
“No, she clammed up real tight, plus she was high on something when Strike brought her in. But guess what?”
“What?”
“She was wearing those earrings she stole from Mrs. Elbee.”
“Priceless.”
“Not really. They were fakes.”
“Mrs. Elbee, ever frugal.”
We hung up. I desperately needed to put in a couple hours on my article, so I gathered my notes and threw them down on the kitchen table. When I opened my laptop, I realized how little work I’d done. With no impressive sentences coming to mind, I stared mindlessly at the first line of my document: 03-08-10-28-31-41—the winning lottery numbers. The more I stared, the more the numbers filled my head, and for the first time, I experienced something akin to a synesthetic thought.
Twelve digits, sixteen million dollars, four winners, one ticket seller, one murder, one fatal accident, two arrests, ninety-nine numbers for PowerPot players to play. The ninety-nine numbers took on a purple hue in my head while the winning numbers assumed a yellow shade. In the old articles I’d researched, the winning numbers were always listed in this ascending sequence, but had the Lucky Four chosen them that way? Seemed odd. Maybe the lottery officials had released them to the public in that order. And why
did I still not know how the winning numbers had been chosen? Would I ever find out? If they’d been meaningful to Grace Elbee, she sure wouldn’t be able to tell me.
I dug through my files to find a close-up of the winning ticket. There it was. Aha, the numbers had not been chosen sequentially, but rather as: 41-03-31-10-28-08. All below fifty. If they’d all been twelve or lower, I’d have guessed they revolved around hours on a clock. If they’d been 31 or lower, I’d have guessed dates, anniversaries, birthdays, but 41 was the outlier there.
And then, without any provocation from my conscious mind, the 41 split itself violently in two. Each digit grew huge and throbbed in my mind’s eye, changing from simple butter-yellow to blinding, sunburst-yellow.
Four. One.
Holy. Shit.
Chapter 42
I dialed the number again. Pacing. Frantic. Confused.
No answer.
“Come on!” I said aloud. “You just called me! Answer!”
Disconnect. Tap. Ring. Disconnect. Tap. Ring. Repeat. He finally answered. “Hey Chloe, can this wait? I’m kind of busy.”
“Chad, you’re not going to—”
I froze. What was I doing? I couldn’t tell Chad. Of all people, I couldn’t tell Chad. Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t tell anyone. At least not yet.
“Uh, sorry,” I said. “Not important.”
“Not important enough that you called me five times?”
“I’ll try you later. Bye.” I put my phone down, then sat at the kitchen table and contorted my body into a pretzel. Staring at my notes with laser-like focus, I waited for more answers to bubble up. Nothing, except the earlier answer that kept hammering at my skull from the inside out.
No doubt about it: the winning lottery ticket had belonged to Macy LeGrange. Wouldn’t hold up in court, but give me a jury of twelve, and they’d be convinced.
The 41 was Macy’s birthday—April 1st. The 03 and the 31 were her mother’s birthday—March 31st. Oh geez, that was today—and wow, Melanie LeGrange might have a heck of a present coming. The 10 and the 28 had to be Macy’s father’s birthday. Mrs. LeGrange had mentioned it was in late October, and I’d already confirmed it with a quick internet search on Darrell LeGrange Bail & Bond Services. The 08, I wasn’t sure, but the number on Macy’s volleyball jersey had been 8, and Hoop’s birthday had been the eighth of January. Either one would fit the bill.
I pounded my fist on the table. Oh, how I’d love to hear the Lucky Four try to explain this one away. Maybe Adeline DeVore could tell me her bullshit story again—how they’d all chipped in to buy the lottery ticket to help out poor Mrs. Elbee. Funny how Adeline had been able to remember a bear claw in Quail’s hand, but couldn’t recall how the numbers had been chosen. Liar!
If my suspicions were right, then the sheriff must have stolen the ticket initially because he was first on the scene after Macy’s accident. But that would be highly un-sheriff-like. And then, why involve Quail, Adeline DeVore, and Mrs. Elbee? It was as if severity, greed, desperation and nastiness had all gotten into bed together and birthed out ugliness and depravity. What the hell kind of kinky quartet were they, anyway?
I got up and poured another cup of coffee. Two so far, and I was just getting started. I sucked it down and poured another while leaning against the kitchen counter, my mind on overdrive, my jitters in turbo mode. Disgust and horror hovered around me like a personal thundercloud—and I had no idea how to shake it.
I imagined one way the scenario could have played out . . .
Macy would have been riding her bike the day of the lottery drawing, perhaps doing an errand for her mother. Maybe she knew her ticket was a winner by then; maybe she didn’t. People always forgot to check. She was pedaling along Old Pleasant Road, where few cars traveled, probably humming or singing, and Avis Whitaker would have cruised around the bend near the edge of the swamp, maybe coming off a long night of drinking. He got distracted by something—maybe a dragonfly thudding against his windshield—or maybe he fell asleep—who knew—but he never saw Macy.
The tip of his already-bent fender, courtesy of a drunken run-in with a fire hydrant, would have caught the edge of Macy’s pedal with just the right force and angle to send her soaring into the air, landing in the one position that, instead of causing a broken clavicle or sprained wrist, had snapped her neck and resulted in immediate death. Then Avis rammed himself into a tree and an irreversible coma. That much was certain.
What wasn’t so certain was the aftermath.
The sheriff, on routine patrols, or on his way to Boyd’s, would have spotted Macy’s body and seen Avis’s car. He’d have swerved to a stop and rushed over to feel for her pulse, knowing full well from the angle of her neck that his fingers would feel nothing but his own blood racing through his veins. He’d have rested his head in his hand, his mind disbelieving, his heart disconsolate. He’d have glared, then, at Avis Whitaker’s car with a rage so extreme that Avis would have considered himself lucky to be in a coma. The Caddy’s horn—probably still blaring. Smoke—still rising from under the hood. And a transmission transmitting only misery. What a scene for the sheriff to take in.
His thoughts would have drifted to Macy’s mother, the lovely and sorrowful Melanie LeGrange. How would he ever tell her about this?
And then, out of the corner of his eye, he’d have noticed the Power Pot ticket, perhaps peeking out of a bag or clutched in Macy’s hand. He’d have picked it up, glanced at the numbers. At first, he wouldn’t believe it . . . weren’t those the numbers he’d just heard on the radio, or seen in the paper? Even if he didn’t remember all of them, Macy’s ticket would have matched enough numbers to make a significant dent in Jacqueline’s medical bills.
Before talking himself out of it, he’d have pocketed the ticket while visions of Jacqueline’s kerchiefed head flooded his mind. We deserve it. Why not us? The cold thought would have arrived with guilt and mournfulness—but still, tinted with a tempting silver lining.
And then, for some reason, as events unfolded—maybe his hand was forced or he needed co-conspirators—he shared the wealth with three others. Did they also share the burden of guilt? It would seem so, given Grace Elbee’s mirror writings. Yes, all the winners were part and parcel to the deception. They’d stolen and profited from the dead, and they knew it.
My hands trembled so badly that I spilled coffee on the floor. I glanced around, my eyes unfocused, my mind a mish-mash of possibilities. Had Hoop been at the swamp? Had he witnessed Strike’s pilfering? No, if he’d been there, at his favorite swamp spot, he’d have tried to save Macy—or his father. Hell, he’d have tried to save both.
But what if Hoop had run to help Macy and Avis—before the sheriff arrived? And what if he’d decided that their only chance depended on him getting help? He didn’t own a cell phone. What would he have done?
I knew the answer. He’d have hopped on his bike and pedaled his heart out.
And where would he have gone? No houses in the vicinity. No passing cars. He’d have headed for the nearest phone . . . at Boyd’s General Store.
Oh no.
If Macy had already been to Boyd’s to confirm her winning ticket numbers . . . and if Boyd knew that she’d pedaled away with a winning ticket . . . and then Hoop had burst into Boyd’s shouting about Macy lying on the side of the road . . .
Had Boyd tricked Hoop into entering the basement, holding him captive until he could get his own greedy hands on the ticket? Had Boyd colluded with the sheriff, who later put duct tape on Hoop’s mouth to stifle his cries for help, his cries of mourning?
I spun around—literally—and grabbed my hair, ready to pull it out as I dropped to the floor in that lonely corner of my kitchen. Inside, I screamed. I screamed for Hoop’s pain. I screamed for the pain of the truth.
Five minutes later, I rose up and wiped the salty tears and misery from my face.
I could play guessing games all day. I needed facts and confirmation. I needed to go to the source.
Chapter 43
“You know what, Annika?” I said. “I don’t care where the sheriff is or what he’s doing. I need to speak to him now.”
As I leaned over the desk of ex-Miss Beulah County, I distracted myself from wrapping my fingers around her neck by counting the layers of make-up on her skin. I gave up after four.
“For the third time,” Annika whined, “it’s not like I’m hiding him under my desk. That would be gross. We got like a hundred cases going on and I honest-to-God don’t know where he is. Not my fault he ain’t answering his radio.”
“Is that really the only way to get in touch with him?”
“Like I’m supposed to take the blame because we got a dinosaur for a sheriff? You know, maybe you should work here for a week. It ain’t exactly sunshine and roses. Got Chad walking around with a broken heart for like a year now, and the new guys always quit after a month because the sheriff stomps around here like he ain’t a friggin’ millionaire.”
At the moment, I needed to compartmentalize, so I set aside her comment about Chad. “Does anyone here know where he might be?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Hey,” she said, dramatically changing her tone, “heard you’re with that new guy—the cute one from New Beulah. He got any brothers?”
I saw my angle and played it. “I can ask him . . . if you help me out. Might be fun. We could even double date.”
Bait cast. Fish hooked.
Annika cocked her head and thought hard. It looked painful. “Now that I think about it, I did hear the sheriff answer his phone this morning. He said, ‘Hi, Sarah’ or ‘Hi, Susie.’ Something like that.”
“Could it have been the Sarah that works for Richie Quail?”
“Oh, yeah, probably. She’s been calling Chad a lot, so maybe she was calling the sheriff to get a message to him or something. But then the sheriff said something about a dumb-ass hick and how he’d get right on it.”