Nantucket Red Tickets

by Steven Axelrod

  There was nothing for a computer genius to hack; it was done old-school, off-line, with a physical ticket no one on the island had the skill or the resources to counterfeit. If you were going to cheat the system, it had to be done in person, by hand. That meant that somewhere on the island some clerk in some store had palmed a ticket instead of throwing it in the collection bin. All that clerk had to do was get the purloined ticket to Lizza Coddington. After that, it was up to Lizza. If she could fake it successfully, and “pull” that ticket—obviously it had to be in her hand already—then whoever was standing in the crowd on Main Street holding its twin would collect the grand prize.

  I turned and headed back down the length of my office. A stiff wind rattled the icy rain against the windows, but it made the big room seem warmer. I could hear a phone ringing beyond my closed door, and the steady rush of the forced-air heating. No one would barge in on me now—my standing orders were “Don’t even knock when the door is closed, except for emergencies.” So, no distractions.

  I stalked the carpet and broke the caper down. Who had to be involved?

  Lizza, of course.

  And her ex-boyfriend Dave Prescott. But neither of them could have dreamed it up.

  So that meant Max Blum had to be part of it, also.

  Plus someone who worked at one of the stores.

  Someone at Ahab’s to expedite whatever they did to Alana’s dinner.

  And a final person, with no obvious connection to Lizza or the target store, to actually claim the prize on Christmas Eve.

  Many businesses on the island had installed security cameras in the last few years, and a surprising number of them trained at least some of their surveillance on their own workers. “Nine times out of ten, shoplifting is an inside job,” Jackson Blum had told me the year before, when I had turned down a request to monitor his video feed at the police station. I couldn’t spare the manpower—or the cloud storage space—to indulge his paranoid fantasies.

  But I knew he wasn’t alone.

  I sent Kyle Donnelly and a couple of uniforms around to start collecting digital tapes from those who used them and getting permission to download footage from the rest. That was the easy part. Going through the hours of insanely tedious video streams would be the real challenge, made even more frustrating by the likelihood that the single golden moment we were looking for might not have been captured at all, either because the clerk was too deft, the camera was pointed elsewhere, or the whole thing took place at one of the many retail outlets that had never installed cameras.

  As a detective bringing this quixotic search to my chief, I would have expected to be turned down flat, but I was the chief now, so I could do as I pleased. It was grueling work, with little prospect for success, but in a slow crime month I could afford to play the odds.

  So I did. And I had an ambitious patrol officer named Patty Stokes who jumped at the chance to do some real detective work, however menial.

  Meanwhile, there were people I wanted to see. And before that, meetings I had to attend. With the Selectmen, and with Lonnie Fraker. After his drug enforcement unit cleared out the Pressman house on Tuckernuck, and—based on some harebrained cold call source—the State Police had dug up most of Pressman’s yard, including every square damp, cobwebby inch under the front porch, looking for more drugs or plastic-wrapped bundles of cash, or both. I think someone just liked the idea of all those shiny, crewcut, gun-toting bully-boys crawling around in the dirt.

  I didn’t mind the idea myself, though I kept a scrupulous poker face as Lonnie described the futile excavations. The whole expedition was just so clueless, so mechanical and out of touch. Anyone who knew Pressman would know that he would never squirm around on his belly, pawing through the muck under his porch. That wasn’t his style.

  I didn’t say this, of course, and I was more than glad to let Lonnie take credit for the bust. He needed the gold stars on his chart. He was my landlord, now, along with his squabbling siblings. Lonnie was ambitious in his own way, but I had turned out to be a better fit for Nantucket. Lonnie had lived here all his life, but my lack of ambition suited the place. Urgent life goals seemed to stretch out to the horizon here, like the ocean at the South Shore, gilded with sunset. The island dismantled the sense of urgency. Everything could wait. Besides, the world beyond the Sound was so ugly, so dirty, so loud. The air was smoggy and the water tasted bad.

  Most of the kids who had roused themselves to shake off the procrastination bug did it because of their native talent and their need to impress that talent on the wider world. They were long gone—the boys who went off to study cello with YoYo Ma, or quantum physics at MIT, the girls who took their PhDs in Marine Biology to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, or went to Nashville with a suitcase full of songs and came back with a hot record and a Grammy nomination.

  They were rarities, outliers, and Lonnie wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t destined to make his mark on the world. He stuck around Nantucket—or was stuck here, more accurately—because he didn’t have the talent to leave. But he still wanted to rise. So I was glad to pitch in whenever I could, and help polish his resume. Looking good on paper might get him the promotion he craved.

  Turning from Lonnie, I had a list of possible suspects—persons of interest—in my own investigation. First up was Lizza Coddington. I didn’t want to alarm her mother, who no doubt hated Max Blum just for his last name and might not even be aware that Max and her daughter’s on-again-off-again romance was in full swing again.

  We agreed to meet at Gardner Farm, a Land Bank hiking trail off Hummock Pond Road. She arrived late at the little dirt parking area, driving a pale blue MINI Cooper convertible—a birthday present, no doubt.

  “Hey, Chief,” she said, climbing out of the car.

  “Let’s walk.”

  We started across the wide field toward the pitch pine forest. You could hear the low rumble of the surf beyond the houses at the south end of the property. We were less than half a mile from the ocean. “Does your mother have you on a strict allowance?” I began.

  “No. It—why would you ask that?”

  “So, spending money’s not an issue.”

  “No, I just said—”

  “So why rig the drawing, then? Just for fun?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I can see Max doing it for fun. So you’re doing it…for him?”

  “I haven’t done anything!”

  “Not yet. Though, technically, planning a crime counts as conspiracy, which is a Class A felony in the state of Massachusetts.”

  “I’m not planning any crimes!”

  “Do you know anyone who works at Ahab’s?”

  “What?”

  “The new fish restaurant in town. They were hiring part-time workers this fall.”

  “What about them?”

  I spoke slowly, as if she hadn’t understood. “I was wondering if any of your friends work there. I’ll find out anyway, when I talk to the staff later. But you could speed things up a little.”

  “I know lots of people who work in lots of restaurants.”

  “And at Ahab’s?”

  “No. Not that I can think of right now.”

  We walked along. “So you’re going to give me nothing.”

  “I have nothing to give. Seriously.”

  “Okay. Let me just clarify this for you. The only way to rig the drawing is with a group of people—someone to switch the ticket, someone to pick the right one out of the bin. That would be you. But whoever is holding the matching ticket, whoever actually steps up the Pacific National steps to claim the prize? That’s the weak link. If they have anything to do with you or Max…whether it’s family, friends, teammates, classmates…I will jam them into an interrogation room and get the truth out of them. It won’t be hard. They’ll fold like laundry.”

 
This got no response that I could see. She actually smiled. “Well, the odds are against that, Chief. I don’t even keep track of the tickets. I find them months later in, like, a coat pocket or my sock drawer or whatever. And I’ve never known anybody who won. I’ve never even known anybody who had more than three numbers in a row out of seven. So a pal of mine winning is, like, the last thing I’m worried about.”

  As I drove back to town, a couple of small wrong notes stuck in my head. Call me paranoid, or just bored, looking for crime where there was none, a big-city cynic with no real work to do, ginning up bogus conspiracies, but I had to wonder how many people knew off the top of their heads how many numbers were used on a Red Ticket—especially someone who thought the whole lottery was “stupid” and never bothered to keep any tickets of her own.

  Also, Lizza’s utter cool when I mentioned the suspicion that might fall on the winner suggested to me not that she was innocent, but the exact opposite—that she had the glitch covered. They had found someone to pick up the prize that no one would connect with her. But who? I needed a new direction if I was going to pursue this scam.

  Fortunately, one was waiting for me on my office desk.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Methomyl Blues

  When I walked into my office, on top of the morning pile of message slips hand-scribbled by Barnaby Toll, I saw this masterpiece of brevity:

  CALL DAVE CARMICHAEL

  So Dave had come through for me, as expected. I had his number on speed dial. He picked up and started talking without salutation, as if we had just been interrupted for a second or two. “Ever hear of methomyl?”

  “Is it some kind of meth?”

  “Nice try. It’s an RUI—restricted use insecticide. Registered for field, vegetable, and orchard crops. In small doses it can produce cramps, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, headache, diarrhea. Sound familiar?”

  I ticked off Alana’s symptoms in my head. “Very.”

  “The good news is—no long-term health effects after the stuff wears off. So it’s the perfect product for taking someone out temporarily without doing any long-term damage. Just what the doctor ordered. If your doctor happened to be Fu Manchu or Hannibal Lecter. Speaking of which, I’m amazed those guys never got sued for malpractice.”

  “I think the plaintiffs were too busy being skinned alive or eaten.”

  “Yeah, that shit slows you down. Anyway—all five victims had trace elements of methomyl in their blood and urine. So you’re good to go.”

  “Thanks, Dave.”

  “They’re painting the corner office this week. Any particular colors you like?”

  “You’re insane.”

  I got off the phone, ignored the rest of my messages, including three from Chief Selectman Dan Taylor, and drove back into town. The dinner rush would be starting soon at Ahab’s.

  Norman Quint, the owner and chef, was standing outside in the alley smoking a cigarette.

  I walked up to him and stuck out my hand. “Mr. Quint? Police Chief Kennis.”

  He shook it. “No need for introductions. I’ve been to Town Meeting. This about the food poisoning? We got a clean bill of health from Morgenstern.”

  “I heard. Good news.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s tough for a new restaurant in this town.”

  “Yeah…well. Straight Wharf and the Lobster Trap are closed for the season. And the Seagrille’s in the mid-island. So I get the walk-ins.”

  “Quint. You should have named the place after yourself. I mean—Quint’s our Ahab.”

  He grinned. “Tried that. Got tired of people saying ‘No shark on the menu?’ and ‘You’re gonna need a bigger store.’”

  He took another drag. The wind off the harbor kicked up and I wished I’d worn my coat. Quint seemed comfortable in his chef’s whites, no coat. He’d grown up here. After the better part of a decade as a washashore, I still felt my thin Los Angeles blood on these damp winter evenings.

  “So what’s up?” he asked.

  “We know what happened, Mr. Quint.”

  “Norman, please.”

  “Norman. There’s a pesticide called methomyl. Someone put it in your crabcakes.”

  “They poisoned my crabcakes?”

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s more than a crime, Chief. That’s a sacrilege.”

  “I’m sure.”

  We just stood there for a few seconds, chilled and outraged.

  “Damn. So who did it?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Do you have a list of everyone who was working the night it happened?”

  “I got a list and I got better than that. All of them except Trudy Vesco are working tonight.”

  “And Trudy?”

  “She’s the bartender, and I don’t serve food at the bar this time of year. She was strictly drinks, so she’s off the hook. Feel free to talk to any of the others. But, hey—try to make it quick. I got a business to run here.”

  I was quick, all right. I immediately eliminated two Ecuadoran bus boys, a Jamaican dishwasher, and the Brazilian sous chef. I didn’t see them running in Lizza Coddington’s crowd. Ditto the two older waitresses, sisters named Pam and Dorothy Glover.

  That left Ingrid Cole.

  She fit the profile perfectly: a high school girl with short brown hair and clear braces, plain and shy in her black dress and white apron, probably working to help her family make ends meet, longing to be part of Lizza’s cool-girl world.

  Helping out the NHS royalty would be a crime of aspiration for a girl like that—a rite of initiation.

  I found her in the back dining room, setting tables.

  “Take a break, Ingrid,” I said. “We need to talk.”

  “But Mr. Quint wants—”

  “Quint gave his permission. This is police business.”

  She set down a handful of cutlery. “Oh.”

  “I’ll try to be quick. I know you’re busy. Let me tell you what I know, and you can fill in the gaps.”

  “Uh—okay.”

  “Yesterday during the dinner rush you sprinkled some methomyl on a batch of crabcakes. You couldn’t be sure who was getting served which cake so you poisoned all of them to make sure that—”

  “It’s not poison! It just makes you sick for a little while.”

  That was progress. I took a breath and let her realize the implications of what she’d said. Then I pushed on. “A total of five people got sick, including Alana Trikilis, who was supposed to pick the Red Ticket for the drawing on Christmas Eve. That’s tomorrow. But Alana should be too sick to stand outside in the cold for a least a week. Which clears the way for Elizabeth Coddington, who put you up to this.”

  “It’s—she—I didn’t know about that.”

  “About what?”

  “About anything! Lizza just asked me to do it and so I did it. She promised no one would get hurt. And they didn’t! I mean—everyone’s going to be okay.”

  “But they didn’t know that when everything they’d eaten for the last three days was coming out of both ends simultaneously just as the headaches and the cramps began.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “It wasn’t much fun for them. I hope Lizza made it worth your while.”

  “Nobody paid me! It wasn’t—I’m not—”

  I held up a hand. “I’m not talking about money, Ingrid.”

  “Then I—what?”

  “I’m talking about the real currency. I bet you’re getting lots of likes and comments on your Instagram selfies lately. Probably even some shares. Those shares are huge.”

  She looked almost comically shocked. “How did you—?”

  “I have a daughter.”

  She looked down, studying the half set-up table and the white tablecloth. “Oh.”


  “It feels good to be popular,” I said. “It always has. Long before smartphones.”

  She glanced up ruefully. “But you couldn’t measure it with such…”

  “Precision?” I filled in for her. The word made her wince.

  She nodded. “Everyone knows exactly where they stand these days, Chief Kennis.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So…what’s going to happen to me?”

  “You’ll testify when the time comes and you’ll get a tongue-lashing from Judge Perlman and a year’s probation. You’re a minor so those records will be sealed.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “It’s your best option.”

  “But—it would just be my word against Lizza’s.”

  “If it were just the two of you. But I’m building a case and your testimony will be one small part of it.”

  “Omigod. I can’t believe this.”

  She started crying. I reached out to comfort her, saw her tense up and let my arm drop. I offered a grain of hope instead. “There’s another possibility. The victims may choose not to press charges. Your lawyer should investigate that. He’ll have the chamber of commerce on his side. And Quint will try to make things right without going to court.”

  “You really think so?

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you so much!” She threw her arms around me. I patted her shoulders like an awkward uncle.

  I had what I needed. She might not have to testify, but I could use the threat of her testimony as leverage with the others. First, I had to identify them all.

  I extricated myself from Ingrid’s embrace, left her wiping her eyes, thanked Quint on my way out the door and headed for Bartlett’s Farm. The methomyl had probably come from there, courtesy of the next conspirator, whoever that might be. Time to find out.

  My cell went off as I turned down Surfside Road. It was David Trezize looking for a quote on the food poisoning story. He already had his headline: “DEATH CRAB FOR CUTIE.”