The Lottery Winner

by Mary Higgins Clark

How was she going to prove it? Alvirah made a list of where to start. She wanted to talk to the movers who had cleared out Roxie’s apartment. Tim had told Nelly that he’d kept the lottery ticket in a safedeposit box in a bank around the corner from Christopher Street. She wanted to find it and see when he took out the box and whose name was on it. Finally she wanted to talk to the superintendent of the building where Roxie and Tim had their little love nest.

  Yet even as her brain busily worked away, it was with an overriding sense that she was spinning wheels. The fact remained that it would be almost impossible to prove that Roxie had guided Nelly’s hand.

  At nine o’clock she called Charley Evans at the Globe, and explained her needs. At ten he called back. Stalwart Van company had picked up the contents of Roxie and Tim’s apartment, he reported. The three guys assigned to the job were working on East Fiftieth Street today. The Greenwich Savings Bank on West Fourth had a safedeposit box in the name of Timothy Monahan. He rented it last year and closed it out three weeks ago. “They’re willing to talk to you.”

  Alvirah wrote swiftly, said, “Charley, you’re a doll,” then hung up and turned to Willy. “Come on, honey.”

  Their first stop was at East Fiftieth Street, where the Stalwart Van movers were dismantling an apartment. They hung around the van until the three returned, struggling under the weight of a nine-foot breakfront.

  Alvirah waited until they hoisted it into the cavelike back of the truck, then introduced herself. “I won’t take a minute of your time, but it’s important I ask a few questions.” Willy opened his wallet and displayed three twenty-dollar bills.

  They cheerfully explained that Tim hadn’t been in the apartment when they got there. In fact, when he did come back just before ten, they could tell he wasn’t expected. Roxie had yelled, “I told you to get a haircut. You look like a slob.”

  The burly mover chuckled. “Then he said something about having an appointment at ten that he didn’t think she’d like, and she said, ‘What appointment, to fix yourself a drink?’ ”

  “We were on the way out the door and the guy yelled for us to come back and get his recliner and the wife told us to just get going,” the smallest mover, the one who had carried the heaviest part of the breakfront, volunteered.

  “And in court it wouldn’t prove anything,” Willy reminded Alvirah an hour later when they left the Greenwich Savings Bank, having confirmed that Tim Monahan rented the safe-deposit box a year ago, the morning after the disputed winning ticket was drawn, and visited it only once, the day he gave it up three weeks ago. That day he’d been accompanied by a flashy-looking woman. The clerk identified Roxie’s picture. “That’s the one.”

  “He went into the vault and gave up that safedeposit box half an hour before they showed up at the clerk’s office to turn in the ticket,” Alvirah said, every inch of her throbbing with frustration.

  “I know they did,” Willy agreed, “but—”

  “But legally it doesn’t prove anything. Oh, Willy, it may not do any good, but let’s try to get a look at the apartment they lived in.”

  They turned the corner and were treated to a crowd of spectators pressing against stanchions as they watched Tom Cruise catch up with a fleeing Demi Moore and spin her around.

  “Nelly said they were filming a scene here the other day,” Alvirah commented. “Well, we’ve got better things to do than gawk.”

  She was at the door of 101 Christopher Street when a familiar voice yelled, “Aunt Alvirah.”

  She and Willy spun around as a thin young man with half-glasses on the end of his nose expertly made his way to them.

  “Brian, as I live and breathe.”

  Brian was the son of Willy’s deceased sister, Madaline. Now a successful playwright, to Willy and Alvirah he was the son they never had.

  “I thought you were in London,” Alvirah said as she hugged him.

  “I thought you were in Greece. I just got back, and they wanted some additional dialogue. I wrote the screenplay for this epic.” He nodded to the cameras down the street. “Look, I’ve got to get back over there. I’ll catch you later.”

  An overhead camera anchored to a van was being positioned down the block. Subconsciously Alvirah made note of it as she rang the superintendent’s bell at 101.

  Ten minutes later she and Willy were being shown the three-bedroom apartment where the late Tim Monahan had breathed his last. “You’re in luck,” the superintendent informed them. “Roxie just called yesterday to say she didn’t want the apartment anymore, so nobody knows it’s available. And you’re the kind of tenants the management wants,” he added virtuously as he thought of Alvirah’s check for a thousand dollars nestled in his hip pocket.

  “You mean she wasn’t going to give it up when she moved to Florida?”

  “No. She said it might be needed, but she’d switched it to Tim’s name.”

  The late Tim Monahan’s battered recliner caught the morning sun. The rest of the room was empty. The remains of the chalk marks on the floor the police had made to indicate where Tim’s body had lain were still visible.

  A shadow passed over the chair. Startled, Alvirah turned and was treated to the sight of the Mirage Films van with the camera passing outside. “That’s it,” she said.

  * * *

  The next morning, Nelly Monahan sat on a chair in her room in Lenox Hill Hospital, waiting to be discharged. On her lap she had a lined pad on which she was making notes of everything she had to do before she went to prison. A saddened Dennis O’Shea had told her that the district attorney would only let her plead guilty to a lesser offense if she would accept fifteen years in prison without the possibility of parole.

  “It’s only justice,” she’d told him quietly. “I must pay for what I did.” Then when he took her hand, she’d winced. Her wrist was sore, probably because Roxie had tried so hard to wrestle the gun from her, and there was a scrape on her index finger from where she’d scratched it trying to turn on the recorder in the pin.

  Then Dennis said he thought they should go to trial and he’d represent her, but she said it wouldn’t be right for her to get off. She had taken a life.

  “Give up apartment,” Nelly wrote now. “Turn off phone.”

  She looked up. A smartly dressed Alvirah was at the door. “You look nice, Alvirah,” she said admiringly. “Do you know what color the prison uniforms are? It’s funny. Last night I was just lying awake thinking about things like that.”

  “Don’t worry about prison uniforms,” Alvirah told her. “It ain’t over till it’s over. Now I’m going to take you home in a taxi, and I called Dennis and said you are not, repeat, not going near the district attorney’s office or signing anything until I put my plan in action, starting with interviewing the heartbroken widow of the late Tim Monahan.”

  * * *

  Roxie Marsh Monahan debated about what to wear for her meeting with Alvirah Meehan. It was exciting to think of having a whole article written about her in the Globe. She’d loved the story in the Post but was sorry she hadn’t had her hair done Monday the way she’d planned. It had looked a little stringy in the picture of her watching Tim’s body being carried out. But on the other hand, she’d been crying hysterically, so maybe it was better that her hair was going every which way. Kind of rounded out the effect.

  She glanced around. The junior suite in the Omni Park Hotel was very attractive. She’d rented it the day of the shooting. The district attorney’s office had asked her to stay in New York for a short time while all the facts of the case were settled. They’d told her that Nelly was undoubtedly going to cop a plea, so there wouldn’t be any trial.

  Roxie decided that in a way she’d miss New York, but she loved golf and in Florida could play it every day without worrying about rattling dishes for some dreary party. Catering was hell. God, she didn’t think she’d ever cook so much as a string bean for herself again.

  She smiled. She’d been wrapped in a warm glow of anticipation ever since that dumb b
unny Tim had handed her the ticket just as they went into the lottery office. Actually, Tim wasn’t so dumb. That first night when he’d showed her the winning ticket she’d offered to hold it for him. No way, he’d told her. He wanted to make sure that they were really compatible.

  She’d been stuck with having to look at that dopey face every day, listen to him snore at night, see him plopped in that shabby recliner with a beer in his hand, act happy when he slobbered all over her with clumsy kisses. She’d earned every nickel of two hundred thousand or so bucks less taxes she had coming in each year for the next twenty years.

  She held up the two black suits she’d bought in Annie Sez yesterday. One had gold buttons. The other, sequin lapels. Gold buttons it would be. The sequins looked a little too festive. Roxie dressed, put on her customary bangles and turquoise rings. She knew she didn’t look fifty-three. She knew that with her blond hair and snazzy figure, she was still very attractive. And now she could afford to stay that way.

  It all added up to catching a really interesting guy.

  Thank you, Tim Monahan. Thank you, Nelly Monahan. Incredible the way I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, Roxie exulted. Her one blunder had been to tell Tim the truth when he saw that the movers were leaving and his recliner was still squatting in the living room. She should have bluffed it out somehow. She certainly would have kept her mouth shut if she’d known that Nelly Monahan would ring the doorbell seconds after she told Tim to jump in the lake, that he wasn’t going with her. As Roxie reshaped her lips, the phone rang. Alvirah Meehan was in the lobby.

  * * *

  “Our angle is to talk about how the winning lottery ticket has led to such tragedy for you,” Alvirah sympathized as she sat opposite Roxie a few minutes later.

  Roxie dabbed at her eyes. “I’m sorry I ever found it in my makeup drawer. I came across it under a box of Q-tips and I’d just read an article about how a lot of people don’t realize they have a winning ticket and never know they might have been millionaires and the number to call was listed, so I laughed and I said to Tim, ‘Wouldn’t it be a gasser if this was a lucky ticket?’ ”

  Alvirah turned slightly so that the recorder in her sunburst pin wouldn’t miss a word. “And what did he say?”

  “Oh, that silly darling said, ‘Don’t waste the phone call unless it’s an eight hundred number.’ ” Roxie squeezed tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry now I did.”

  “You’d rather be catering, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Roxie sobbed. “Yes.”

  Alvirah never used vulgar language, but a familiar vulgarity almost escaped her lips. Instead, through gritted teeth, she managed to say, “I have just a few more questions and then our photographer wants to take some pictures.”

  Roxie’s sobs ended abruptly. “Let me check my makeup.”

  Mel Levine, the top photographer from the Globe, had his marching orders: Get good closeups of her hands.

  * * *

  Willy’s oldest living sibling, Sister Cordelia, did not like to be left out of anything. Knowing that Alvirah was involved with Nelly Monahan, the woman who had shot her ex-husband in the presence of his second wife, made Cordelia decide to pay an unannounced visit to Central Park South.

  Accompanied by Sister Maeve Marie, a young policewoman turned novice, Cordelia had arrived at the apartment and was ensconced in the wing chair in the living room when Alvirah arrived home. Since the chair was upholstered in handsome crimson velvet and Cordelia still wore an ankle-length habit and short veil, Alvirah had the immediate and familiar thought that if a woman pope were ever elected, she would look like Cordelia.

  “Cordelia just dropped by,” Willy explained, his right eyebrow lifted. That was a signal he hadn’t brought Cordelia up to date on their plans.

  “I hope it’s not an inconvenience, Alvirah,” Sister Maeve Marie apologized. “Sister Superior felt you might need our help.” Maeve had the slender, disciplined body of an athlete. Her face, dominated by wide gray eyes, was strikingly handsome. Like Willy’s, her expression was saying, “Sorry, Alvirah, but you know Cordelia.”

  “So what’s going on?” Cordelia asked, getting straight to the point.

  Alvirah knew there was absolutely no other choice than to tell her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She sank down on the couch, wishing she’d had time for a peaceful cup of tea with Willy before the visit. “We have to get Nelly off. It’s my fault that she went to see Tim, and J can’t let her spend the rest of her life in prison.”

  Cordelia nodded. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Something you may not like. Brian wrote a screenplay for Mirage Films.”

  “I know that. I hope he can trust them not to put a lot of smut in it. What’s that got to do with Nelly Monahan, poor soul?”

  “The day of the shooting, Mirage was filming a scene right outside the building where Roxie and Tim Monahan lived. We’re going to try to make Roxie believe that the camera caught her twisting Nelly’s hand and pointing the gun at Tim.”

  “You’re going to fake it?” Cordelia exploded.

  “Exactly. Brian got the producer to agree to cooperate. Mel, the Globe photographer, took a lot of pictures of Roxie today. Besides that, we have pictures of her when Tim’s body was being carried out. We’ve got to find a model who in a blurry long shot resembles Roxie. We’ll dress her in the same kind of striped pantsuit Roxie was wearing and do a close-up of her grabbing Nelly’s hand. I still have to talk Nelly into this, but I’ll manage it.”

  Willy gave her an encouraging nod and continued the explanation. “Cordelia, we’ve already put a deposit on the apartment. The only furniture in the room was Tim’s recliner, and it’s still there. The chalk marks where the body was lying are visible. I’ll take Tim’s part. I mean I’ll stretch out on the floor by the recliner. Nelly said Tim was wearing a gray sweat suit and moccasins.”

  Sister Maeve Marie’s eyes were snapping with excitement. “When I was a cop we called that ‘testalying.’ I love it.”

  Willy looked at Cordelia. He knew Alvirah had every intention of carrying out her scheme. Even so, it would help if Cordelia wouldn’t try to throw a monkey wrench in the plans. Alvirah was worried enough about having set up the scheme that got Nelly in so much trouble. When Cordelia didn’t approve of a course of action, she had an uncanny way of convincing you it was destined for failure.

  Cordelia frowned momentarily, then her brow cleared. “God writes straight in crooked lines,” she said. “When are we going to film?”

  Alvirah felt a wave of relief. “As soon as possible. We’ve got to find an actress who can impersonate Roxie.” As she spoke she was looking at Sister Maeve Marie. Like Roxie, Maeve was tall and had a good figure. Like Roxie, her hands were well shaped with long fingers.

  “I’m very glad you two came,” she said heartily.

  * * *

  Two days later they were ready to close the trap. In the Christopher Street apartment where Tim Monahan had gone to his Maker, Brian was directing the action.

  “Uncle Willy, just lie down there. We had to erase the chalk marks, but we penciled in the outline.”

  Obediently Willy stretched out by the recliner.

  Brian and the cameraman stepped outside, and Brian peered through the lens, then consulted the picture of the dead Tim that the editor at the Globe had managed to get copied by bribing an aide in the medical examiner’s office.

  “You don’t look fat enough,” Brian decreed.

  “Good news,” Willy mumbled.

  The problem was solved when Brian took off his sweater and stuffed it under Willy’s sweatshirt.

  Nelly was standing in the corner. She was wearing the blue suit and print blouse she’d worn when she visited Tim and Roxie. In her purse she was carrying a gun that looked just like the one that she had taken from the boys the other day.

  Only four days ago, she thought. It doesn’t seem possible. She peeked over at Dennis O’Shea, who gave her
an encouraging smile. Then she glanced at Sister Maeve, who looked unnervingly like Roxie. She had on a blond wig and an exact copy of the striped suit Roxie had been wearing when she became the widow Monahan. An outsized turquoise ring reached the knuckle of her index finger. Acrylic blood-red fingernails accentuated her long fingers, and wrinkles and liver spots had been painted on the backs of her hands. Just like Roxie, Nelly thought with a touch of satisfaction as she glanced down at her own smooth skin.

  Sister Cordelia was watching the proceedings with her arms folded. She reminded Nelly of the nuns she’d had in parochial school.

  Brian asked if she was ready. When she nodded that she was, he said, “Then go to the door, Nelly. Try to do everything just as you did it the other day.”

  She looked at Willy. “Then you can’t be dead yet.”

  As he struggled to his feet, she went to the door. “Roxie let me in,” she explained. “Tim was sitting in his chair. I could tell he was very upset, but I thought it was at me or maybe even because I had told him about being terminal. Anyhow, I just walked past Roxie and went over to him and just blurted out that I wanted the truth before I died . . . ”

  “Do it,” Brian ordered. “Maeve, you go to the door.”

  Nelly had rehearsed the speech she made to Tim so much that it wasn’t hard to stand over the recliner and deliver it again. It wasn’t hard to superimpose Tim’s face over Willy’s. But Willy looked concerned.

  “You should start smiling,” she instructed. “It was very mean of you, and you shouldn’t have smiled when I told you I was dying.”

  Oh my God, Alvirah thought. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.

  “But then I forgave you because right away you admitted that you’d switched the ticket.” Nelly opened her purse. “And I almost fainted because I remembered I didn’t have the sunburst pin on and I opened my purse and started fumbling in it like this and Roxie saw the gun.” She paused. “Wait a minute. Roxie was yelling at Tim to shut up, but when she opened the door for me, she had just said something else to him.”

  “It’s not important,” Brian said quickly. “We’re not doing audio.”