by Dale Mayer
“You can want all you like,” Midge said. “The fact that you refuse to give me a receipt means you’re not getting it.”
Colton stiffened beside her. “Of course the station will give you a receipt for that ticket. And they will be responsible for the seventy-five million, should they lose it.”
She snorted. “All he wants to do is give me a bullet,” she explained.
At that, the detective just stared at her. “You can’t possibly think I’ll try to kill you?”
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on,” she snapped. “But right now, I find it very hard to trust you.”
She stood, with Taylor and Colton at her side, and said, “Let’s head to the station, shall we? I’m sure your supervisor won’t have any problem giving me a receipt for this ticket.”
Taylor had to admire her gumption. While Colton disbursed the others with him to return to base, Taylor led her out to the vehicle and said, “You hold that ticket close.”
“I’ve got it,” she said, fatigue evident in her voice. “I just can’t believe this is all over money.”
With his voice low, Taylor said, “It’s one of the biggest reasons people hurt each other. In this case it’s a lot of money, but I’ve seen terrible crimes committed for far less.”
“But there were five of us,” she said. “That’s fifteen million each. And I get that we lose half to taxes and all, but still, seven and a half million? That’s far more money than I’ve ever even imagined having.”
“Would you have been happy with that?”
She laughed. “Absolutely. I’d have counted my blessings and tried to figure out an alternate plan for the rest of my life. That is plenty for someone to change their whole life with.”
“How does it make you feel to realize that now only four people split the prize?”
“Well, don’t ask me to do the math,” she said. “So it’s not enough to go buy anything in the world, thank God. It’s not enough to do anything but enjoy my life. If I handle it wisely and invest it properly, I can enjoy a long and happy life without having to stress over making ends meet,” she said. “Beyond that, I certainly don’t want anybody else killed to increase the pot. I’m happy enough to have my portion and don’t need or want anybody else’s.”
“The question is,” Colton said, “do the others feel the same way? Or have they already set plans in motion to make sure the pot keeps growing?”
“What happens in a case like that?” Midge wondered out loud. “Do the remaining winners still get the rest of the lottery winnings? And the person who was doing all the killing? Does he still get his portion?”
Taylor shook his head. “Once he goes to jail, I think he forfeits his winnings.”
“I don’t know,” she said, “and that’s really not a court case I want to go to. We bought these tickets to dream about a chance for a brighter future. The last thing I want is to have no future at all.”
Down at the station, she handed over the original ticket and received a receipt. As soon as the officers there understood what was going on, the ticket was placed in the safe.
Then Taylor turned to her and asked, “Now what?”
“I want to track down my coworkers,” she said in a low whisper.
Colton, standing beside her, nodded. “That should have been done from the beginning.”
“According to the detective, they’ve been trying.”
Colton’s lip curled, and she shrugged. “I have no clue. But I suggest we make inquiries ourselves.”
They stepped out of the station, and Taylor looked at Colton. “Two vehicles?”
Colton nodded. “Yeah, I think, in this case, it’s probably best. Troy has gone to Terri’s house to take a look. If anything looks off, he’ll call. I’ll follow you at a distance.”
Taylor studied his face for a long moment. “You know something I don’t know?”
“My instincts are screaming at me.”
Taylor snorted. “Mine too. But we’re getting there,” he said, “and pretty quickly, I’ll bet.”
Colton nodded. “Yeah. Crunch time. Keep an eye out.”
Taylor nudged Midge out of the station and back to his vehicle. When they hopped in, he asked, “Do you know where any of your coworkers live?”
“No, but I’m sure your buddies do,” she said. “Let’s just drive. I have a terrible feeling about all this.”
Taylor chuckled. Just then the phone rang. It was Troy.
“Nothing at Terri’s place. We’re heading to Lockview Street. That’s apparently where Bart lives.”
“We’ll meet you there,” Taylor said. As he drove, weaving his way through the traffic, he watched Colton pull in a few vehicles behind him. Just far enough back to not be obvious and close enough to keep an eye on them.
“What do you think will happen to my job?”
“The staff records department can’t be shut down for long,” he said. “I’m sure right now the brass is trying to determine the best way forward. Your department might get absorbed by another with management in place, but they will still need staff to handle it.”
“In theory, four of us still work there with the boss. Just nobody is showing up, and now we can’t,” she said.
He glanced at her, hearing her depressed tone. “Stay positive now,” he said. “Colton was serious when he said this is likely to be crunch time.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’ll likely get to the bottom of all this today.”
She brightened. “Do you think so?”
“Now that we know what the motive is, yes.”
They pulled up in front of a series of condos and hopped out. “I wonder why he doesn’t live on base?” Midge asked.
“A lot of people don’t like living on base. Also, a lot of government housing is off-base, and that’s another option. But this appears to be private property.” They walked up to the front door and contacted the super. No answer there. They pushed Bart’s buzzer and waited for him to answer. Nothing. As they stood here, somebody came out of the building. Taylor held the door open for them, and Midge said, “Thank you,” then ducked inside, letting the others in behind her.
“That’s the problem with this kind of security,” Colton complained. “It’s way too easy for someone to get into these places.”
“But it wasn’t that easy,” she said. “We still had to wait for somebody to come out.”
Bart lived on the third floor. By the time they stepped out of the elevator and walked to his door, they still had no answers from anybody else as to what was going on. Midge knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer, but there was nothing. She glanced up at the men and frowned. Then she knocked harder. Still no answer.
Taylor and Colton exchanged hard looks. Colton stepped forward and in front of her. Taylor brushed her back ever-so-slightly, and then suddenly the door popped open.
“Did he leave it unlocked?” she asked.
“No,” Taylor whispered, and, with a nod toward Colton, he opened it.
With Taylor keeping Midge in the hallway, Colton stepped inside and called out, “Hello? Anyone at home?” He did a quick trip through, while they waited. When he came back, he shook his head and said, “Nobody home.”
Taylor could feel the fear and panic drain away from her.
“Oh, thank God,” she said. “I was petrified you would say he was in there, dead.”
Locking the door, they retraced their steps to the car. “So that’s two of three, still missing,” Taylor said. “Another lives about five minutes from here in a rented townhouse.”
“That’s Debbie, right?” Midge said.
“Yes.”
They drove there, and, following the instructions to the right number, they knocked on the front door. Again there was no answer. This time Midge stepped back and looked at Taylor with an eyebrow up. He just shrugged, and Colton moved to the door.
“So, he does that better than you or what?”
&n
bsp; Colton chuckled. “Hell no, he’s as good as I am.”
“Actually, he needs to practice,” Taylor said, chuckling. “So we’re just helping out.”
And the door opened. Colton stepped inside and called out, “Hello? Anybody home? Hello?” Once more, he walked through the bottom floor as the others waited. He came back through, shrugged and pointed to the upstairs. Taking the stairs two at a time, he came back down almost as fast.
She expected him to step outside, saying it was all clear, but he didn’t.
Instead, he looked at Taylor. “Call in a team. Looks like she’s dead.”
Chapter 14
“Seriously?” Midge cried out. “That can’t be true. I had to go into work because she was sick,” she said, turning to Taylor. “Why did somebody not do a welfare check?”
“We’ll have to check with the cops for that,” Taylor said. He held up his hand as Detective Butler answered the phone, his voice a little stiff from the confrontation earlier.
“We’ve been checking on the other coworkers,” Taylor said. “You guys do your job really good. We’re over at Debbie’s place right now. She’s dead,” he said, “so you need to bring a team in now.”
The detective made a strangled exclamation and said, “I’ll be there in ten.”
As Taylor terminated the call, Midge looked at him and said, “He can’t be here in ten. It took us twenty.”
“It’s just a phrase,” he said soothingly. He pointed to the big swing set. “You might as well sit down. We’re not going anywhere soon.”
She raised her hands in frustration. “I thought you said Troy was coming too?” she said, looking over at Colton.
He nodded. “He’s meeting us here. He already checked out Terri’s place.”
“Alone?” she asked, her voice turning to a squeak. “That doesn’t sound very smart.”
“He’s a big guy, and he’s well-trained,” Colton said. “Besides, you’re the one in danger. So we needed to have an extra man with you.”
“I still don’t get it,” she said. “That’s another one down.” Her mind went to the lottery ticket, and she winced. “So now only three of us are alive to claim the ticket. And, no, I’m not trying to divvy up the lottery pot in my head. But I’m worried because of Bart and Terri.”
“Exactly,” Taylor said, and just then his phone rang. It was Troy.
“I’ve just run around the building. No sign of them. You’ve got Colton there. I’m doing another pass around the neighborhood. See if I find anything.”
She listened to the conversation and understood Troy would meet them here. She looked at Taylor and said, “So, two are still missing.”
“Correct. Let me ask you something. Are those two in a relationship?”
She stared at him blankly. “I don’t think so, but I have no way of knowing for sure.”
“Do you think either of them have any relationship with Jenny, the disgruntled ex-employee?”
“I thought you guys had given up on her with the new lottery-ticket theory,” she asked suspiciously. “Or do you just treat everybody like they’re suspects?”
“To a certain extent, we treat everybody as if they’re suspects,” Taylor said. “Unfortunately, when it comes to cases like this, they often are.”
“As far as I know, there are no relationships, but again I don’t have any way to confirm or deny it.”
He nodded. They sat here in silence, waiting for the cops to arrive. Midge groaned when Troy pulled up first. “Do the cops ever do anything in a timely manner?”
“They’re doing the best they can,” Taylor said. “They have a lot of red tape, and Butler has to get a team together. Just because he could get here faster doesn’t mean the coroner and the forensic team can.”
“Does the forensic team come from the military or do they bring in outside people?”
“I imagine they start with their own team. But, if it gets to be too big or too much, they’ll go outside for help.”
“Well, this makes five murders now,” Midge said, watching the cops arrive. “If they haven’t solved it in the first twenty-four hours, it seems like they need to get some help in.”
“Thanks for the advice,” the detective said, his voice hard. “If I could be sure you weren’t contributing to the body count, I would feel better.”
“I have witnesses here,” she said, “I didn’t even go in the house.”
“Who went in and found her?”
Taylor said, “Colton did.”
The detective and Colton exchanged hard looks. “Where is she?”
“Top right bedroom,” he said. “Looks like a bullet in the head.”
“Which would follow the same pattern we’ve already seen,” Taylor said. “We checked Bart’s place, but no one was there. And Troy went over to Terri’s place. Nobody was home there either.”
“Which brought up the question that they are potentially missing together,” Taylor said smoothly. “You did say that a male contacted the lottery corporation about the winning ticket, right?”
The detective nodded. “And that could be your missing Bart.”
“It could be.” Just then Taylor’s phone rang. He put it on Speaker.
“We found Terri’s vehicle,” Mason said. “It’s in a parking lot in an alleyway behind a store.”
“That’s a good start,” Taylor said in relief. “Maybe from there we can find her.”
“Don’t need to,” Mason said. “We found her. With a bullet in the forehead.”
Midge stared at Taylor. “The next time you have bad-news phone calls like that,” she said faintly, “don’t bother putting them on Speaker on my account. I’d just like this whole nightmare to go away. Terri didn’t do anything to anybody. There was no reason for her to be killed.”
“She either knew too much,” Taylor said, “or she was involved, and they decided to cut the numbers down even more.”
“So what about Bart?”
“No sign of him yet, but we’re still looking. But, the longer this goes on without him showing up, the more suspicion gets thrown on him,” Butler said.
The others all nodded.
“So now you’re wondering if he’s in this alone,” Midge said to Taylor.
“He might be,” Taylor said. “But he could also have a girlfriend. Do you know anything about that?”
“He hasn’t had one that I’ve known about for a long time,” she said. “He went out with Jenny a while ago, but I don’t know how serious it was. They were quite friendly though.”
“So did Jenny and Terri have anything to do with each other?” Colton asked.
“I don’t know,” Midge said.
Taylor added, “But we need to find out. And fast.”
“You mean, before somebody comes after me?” asked Midge.
“The fact is, you are one of the only remaining members of that entire office,” the detective said coolly. “With your name and proof of that, you get a portion or all of the ticket.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t have anything to do with that damn ticket.”
“Well, it sounds like the rest of the office did, and at least some of them knew it was a winner. Now they are slowly taking out everybody else in the group.”
“No,” she said. “What about Gary?”
“We don’t know his connection yet,” Taylor said. “It’s quite possible your boss cut him in for a piece of the pie.”
“If that would piss off anybody, it would have been Bart,” Midge said. “He’s got a hell of a temper. But none of that has anything to do with the fact that Gary Sims was killed in my bed. There’s no logical reason for that.”
“Except you were supposed to be home that day,” Taylor reminded her. “And I can see that they might have tried to make it look like a love affair gone wrong. They’d kill you, and then make it look like you’d killed him. Like a murder-suicide or something.”
She stared at him. “And that just might have worked, if I’d been there.�
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“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Nobody would have even known you’d had a part in the ticket at all.” Taylor turned to the detective. “I presume you have an all-points bulletin out on Bart?”
“We do now,” he said. “But that still doesn’t explain the old couple.”
“Actually, it does,” Troy replied. “They were Gary Sims’s aunt and uncle. Not a relationship that’s well-known as he was adopted. They are his birth mother’s family and were close.”
“So Mr. Shorts cut them in for tickets too?” Midge asked. “This was an office pot. What was he doing bringing everybody else into play?”
“We don’t know if he did cut them in. It’s possible he told them about the win though, and that might have messed up someone else’s plans,” Colton said mildly. “Maybe Shorts really wanted to help out the old couple.”
“Or,” Taylor said, “Shorts never got the fifty bucks from the Parkinses and had no intention of cutting them into the tickets.”
Midge rubbed her forehead. “They were old already. In ill health. It’s not fair that somebody cut them down like that. They deserved to enjoy their last few years on earth.”
“Agreed,” Taylor said, and all the men nodded in agreement. “But, when it comes to money, nobody plays by the rules.”
“I can’t believe Bart would be like that,” Midge said. “I mean, I know he had a temper and all but …”
“What is he like?” Taylor asked.
“One hundred percent into everything,” she said with a laugh. “If we were making a change in the office, he wanted to change everything. If the boss wanted to change out desks, the next thing he knew, they’d changed out the carpets, chairs, computers and everything else. The whole place got revamped. That was Bart pushing it. Very passionate, very dedicated.”
“Did he like his job?”
“I don’t think any of us liked our jobs,” she said. “Not exactly the kind of job to like, you know? But he was good at it. He’d show up and do his job, and he’d leave. He was always joking, laughing, and he was a dreamer. And he dreamed big. He wanted to sail around the world. He wanted to have a sailboat and just take off. He already had a name for it too. Baldie. After a dog he loved and lost.” She shrugged and laughed. “We used to tease him about it all the time.”
