Blizzard Ball (5 page)
“Rough neighborhood,” Morty said, pushing his shirt cuff back and tapping the face of his watch. “So where you going with this?”
“I’ve got a forensic data analyst heading over to visit your Lottery office. Name’s Tyler, a tech mole, if there’s dirt he’ll find it.” Kirchner paused, brushed a hand over his short cropped hair, now more gray than black. “He’ll want to do one of those deep drilldowns on your organization. See if they can find a link between our money launderer and the big jackpot win. I told him to hold his horses, give me a chance to have a productive chat with you first, save on any potential embarrassing surprises.”
Morty sank back into the chair, loosened his tie. “I’m vaguely aware that the Cash and Dash was a high-volume lottery ticket vendor.”
“How high?” Kirchner clicked a ballpoint pen over a yellow legal pad.
“A lottery mill, churning tickets for God knows who or where. The convenience store operator was probably cashing those checks to fund lottery ticket purchases.”
“So you’re telling me the BlizzardBall Lottery was aware of lottery ticket sales from outstate or out-of-country buyers?” Kirchner drummed his pen on the pad. “Which I don’t have to remind you is a federal offense.”
“Don’t be busting my balls. I’m in full support of a crackdown.”
Morty leaned forward in his chair. “You know as well as I do that lotteries, along with offshore Internet gaming, have not been on the top of the enforcement hit list. Plus lottery tickets are bearer instruments. It’s damn difficult to link them to illegal acquisition.”
“I suggest you leave the investigative work to the BCA,” Kirchner said firmly, feeling challenged in his trade. “Where were you last night, after the lottery drawing?”
“Wait a minute, you’re out of bounds here, fella.” Morty shot to his feet in a huff. “I want to speak with your supervisor.”
“You’ll have to get in line on that count, but the question still stands.” Kirchner made no move to conceal his intuitive mistrust for the blustery lottery director. “Where were you last night,” he repeated.
“With friends. You can check it out.”
“I will.” Kirchner stood, signaling the end of the meeting. He pointed Morty toward the exit. “We’ll be paying close attention to anyone who redeems a ticket purchased from the Cash and Dash. I trust you’ll remain accessible.”
“Yeah, as accessible as a frozen fish.”
Morty ladled slush out of the watery hole with an ice skimmer to get a good look at his fathead minnow. He jiggled the bait, drawing the attention of a small school of fish. Fishing wasn’t much different from running the lottery, really. All you needed was an irresistible prize.
He’d been conscripted to be part of the governor’s entourage. Every year the governor and press corps descended on an economically depressed community to heighten awareness of the unique sport of ice fishing in hopes of generating winter recreational revenue.
Snowmobiles towing gear sleds transported the party ten miles onto the two-hundred-square-mile Lake Mille Lacs to a shanty fish camp. Eight fish houses, each the size of a prison cell and constructed of plywood and corrugated metal, were scattered within twenty yards of each other. Each house had a bunk bed, two folding chairs, a card table, a kerosene lamp, a propane gas stove, a roll of toilet paper, and a box of matches. Two holes in the wooden floor opened to the ice-augered water. Short tip-up rods paid out the fluorocarbon fishing line into the lake.
Morty and the governor shared a fish house. Members of the press occupied five houses and the outfitter and local mayor were camped in the other two. The only sign of life on this blank canvas of a morning was the milky smoke rising from the fish house stacks. The Fitger’s Beer thermometer nailed to the side of the fish house read three below zero. The pressure was on the governor to catch a photogenic walleye.
An expanding ice sheet groaned, sending a tremor under the fish house.
“Jesus,” Morty said. “This place scares the hell out me.” He grabbed at the bunk bed post for stability.
“Here, this will calm the nerves,” the governor said, sliding a Styrofoam cup across the table.
“What is it?” Morty took a sip.
“Vodka and Kahlua, also known as a White Russian. Sound familiar?” The governor chuckled.
“Only something a former pharmacist could concoct.” Morty accepted the governor’s cup, took a drink, and shed his jacket, feeling the internal combustion of the booze.
Morty, looking for a fresh start away from New York, had married the governor’s sister and moved to Minnesota three years ago. The governor was a pharmacist and freshman state representative when he first met the grizzled Manhattan numbers guy. Morty’s short-lived marriage ended in divorce but he sensed an opportunity with the young legislator. The crafty accountant encouraged his dimpled chin former brother-in-law to think big and take a shot at the governorship. Morty, the campaign manager, hatched a “no new taxes” plan that carried them to victory in the gubernatorial election. Morty asked for and was awarded the Lottery director job for his efforts.
“Perhaps I should have stayed in the drug business.” The governor pushed back his Minnesota Gopher stocking hat, releasing a cowlicky shock of blond hair. “I’m getting trashed in the public opinion polls. The jackpot run-up has turned every watchdog organization out there rabid. The Democrats claim the lottery’s a regressive tax on the poor. The Chamber of Commerce reports the lottery has siphoned off discretionary spending, and holiday retail sales are down. And as expected, the Republican family values constituents claim we’re moving down a path of moral debauchery.”
“Fuhgeddabout the fringe players,” Morty assured the governor in a voice right out of Brooklyn. “Our no-new-tax plan launched you from a drugstore jockey in southern Minnesota to the big house on Summit Avenue, and it’ll take you further.” Morty raked a farmer’s match against the wall of the fish house and torched a cigar. “This latest jackpot should net the state three hundred and fifty million after the fifty-percent prize and expense contribution. When we drop the money bag on the treasury and offer to maintain existing programs and hold the line on taxes, you won’t hear a peep. All we need is one or two big jackpots a year to keep the damper on taxes, and you’ll be on your way to Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“These big jackpots have to be statistical flukes, can’t be counted on.” The governor coughed and waved off the blue cigar smoke.
“Let me handle the games. We may have to add a few more balls and tweak the odds a little here and there.”
“The public’s not stupid. They’ll wise to the long odds.”
“Fifty million baby boomers are pouring over the senior citizen threshold. Seventy percent are financially ill-equipped to manage their post-retirement needs. When you’re grasping for a second chance, odds are off your radar. We can probably even raise the ticket prices and keep ’em coming.”
“You make the lottery sound like a religion.”
Morty lifted his face toward the fish house rafters. “Amen,” he said through the cigar wedged into the side of his mouth.
The governor thumbed a drip from the tip of his red nose. “Well, hopefully things will settle down now that we have a winner,” he said, turning his attention to the hole in the ice. “Has anyone come forward?”
“Not yet. We might have a little problem with our eventual winner,” Morty said, watching the governor deflate as though kicked in the gut. Morty didn’t blame him for feeling ill. The situation had his stomach knotted too. “I had a little meeting with the BCA I’ve been meaning to tell you about. The convenience store that issued the winning ticket is now a crime scene. On the night of the drawing, the store’s operator was found beat-up and knifed. He’s dead.”
“The BCA? Damn, what’s going on?” the governor asked in a pained voice.
“The BCA field agent, name’s Kirchner—he believes there’s a possible connection between lottery ticket sales and the convenience store operator’s death. He’s focused on any and all individuals attempting to redeem lottery tickets transacted through the convenience store. If you ask me, he’s barking up the wrong tree—probably just local idiots who botched the robbery of the store.”
“Damn, more bad press,” the governor said, jiggling his line.
Morty stood and kicked opened the fish house door. “Gotta see a man about a fish,” he said as he stepped outside to relieve himself. He squinted against the searing white light and nervously tested the ice. A lonely keening wind danced wispy snow across the lake. Air bubbles trapped in the ice stared up at him like the wide eyes of children frozen in terror. Morty hurried the zipping up of his business. He carefully walked out to the snowmobile tow-sled, checked to make sure he was alone, dug under the tarp, and retrieved a fat rolled newspaper.
He opened the door to the fish house, unwrapped the newsprint, and tossed a frozen fish on the floor, startling the governor. “Picked it up at Coastal Seafoods on the way up.” Morty gave a frozen grin. “Give it a dunk. I’ll go get the press guys for a photo so we can get the hell out of Siberia. I’ve got a lottery to clean up.”
Kirchner straddled the bar stool at the Cantina Caliente, a joint just down the street from the Cash and Dash. The Negra Modelo cerveza sat untouched. The smell of formaldehyde from the coroner’s examination had seeped into his sinuses and penetrated his taste buds. The Cash and Dash operator had been struck with a blunt instrument in the area of the head, but that blow had resulted in only a minor contusion. Multiple lacerations were found on the deceased’s hands and forearms, evidence of activity in the manner of someone fending off an attack. The fatal injury was attributed to a slash along the side of the neck that ripped open the carotid artery, resulting in Jamal Madhta’s bleeding to death.
Kirchner rubbed his eyes and tried to order his thoughts. The start of an investigation called for heavy lifting, and he wondered whether he still had it in him. A once-promising law enforcement professional, he had quickly risen from beat cop to detective with the Minneapolis Police Department. But after the death of his wife he was rudderless and entered a dark period steeped in depression and booze.
He had been robbed of the only thing he cared about by a carjacking thief who had wrenched his wife from the driver’s seat and tossed her into the path of an oncoming Cadillac Escalade.
The carjacker was never apprehended. For Kirchner the loss was a cut that would not heal. He vented his anger like a grim reaper, ripping through crime-ridden neighborhoods and cracking heads. He had lost patience for due process. A pimp whose balls got rattled sued for police brutality and produced a witness who had seen Kirchner drinking in a bar before the incident. After a hefty payout by the department, Kirchner was demoted, and he quit. He bounced around for a couple of years working for security companies and tried his hand as a private investigator. Nothing stuck. What was the point of a job, money, friends, shaving, exercising, paying bills, being pleasant, getting up alone, always alone. None of it would bring her back. One of the few friends he hadn’t pissed off hooked him up with the BCA. The measure of respect accorded him at the Agency was marginal. He was considered damaged goods.
Kirchner was old-school and preferred to work alone. He felt out of place with the BCA’s young breed of techno-cops who always shadowed him. But he hoped that what he lacked in stamina he made up for in efficiency. For all their reliance on forensic research, DNA, and data analytics, he knew in his gut that intuitive observation and dogged determination were at the core of good investigative work.
Kirchner had been assigned to the BCA cold case unit. Old cases for old guys. This was, typically, where the dinosaurs of law enforcement ended up, and in Kirchner’s case, an area where the BCA administration felt confident his penchant for vigilante justice would not be exercised. The agency threw him a couple of bones from unsolved cases that had been worked over for years, given up on, and deep-sixed. To the surprise of his supervisors, he had been credited with solving three murders. The work also allowed Kirchner to pursue the carjacker responsible for his wife’s death. Information on the suspect was sketchy. A man of medium build had tossed a brick through a downtown Minneapolis jewelry store window, snatched an eighteen-inch strand of Mikimoto pearls, and commandeered a car stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk. No prints were discovered. The suspect was believed to be wearing gloves. Kirchner’s wife’s car was found abandoned an hour later on St. Paul’s eastside. The only supporting descriptive evidence was provided by a witness who claimed the carjacker had a welted forehead blemish or ropy scar that was slightly visible underneath a ball cap and a mop of long hair.
The non-urgency of cold case work also made Kirchner readily available to be farmed out from time to time to special projects. When the FBI wanted a local law enforcement liaison to help work their suspected terrorist case, he got the assignment.
Jamal Madhta, the Cash and Dash operator, a Pakistani national, in the U.S. on a visa from Canada, had come to the FBI’s attention when he began cashing cashier’s checks drawn on a Canadian bank. The checks were for just under the $10,000 IRS reporting limit. It was estimated he’d cashed over a million dollars in checks over the past year. He was considered a potential terrorist threat. But with the Pakistani’s death and the discovery that the convenience store was a lottery mill, the FBI quickly vacated their interest. This left the cleanup to the BCA with Kirchner as point man, and the St. Paul Police, where its priority barely registered.
Kirchner nudged the beer closer and scratched at the label. “You sneaking up on that beer, amigo?” The bartender slid a bowl of Spanish peanuts in front of Kirchner.
Dressed in an open-collared oxford shirt, loose-fitting khakis, and a light jacket, Kirchner had the casual manner of a regular beer-bellied patron. However, those who took his appearance at face value and contested him physically were met with an iron bar wrapped in cotton. “Anybody come in here claiming to win the lottery?” Kirchner asked the bartender.