12. Chasing a Ghost

Kevin was at the paper Tuesday afternoon, preparing for home.

On Tuesday and Thursday, the highlight of his day was watching June, Kai and Zee troop off the bus and trundle down the walkway toting all their school stuff.

Kevin had to wait solo on the front stoop now, the past few years having had Zee sitting beside him.

Zee, with almost a year of kindergarten under her belt, remained daily ecstatic to get on the school bus with her big sisters.

June, on the other hand, was sick and tired of sharing the bus with so many children and couldn’t wait to graduate to middle school, which had its own busing schedule.

As Kevin readied to leave, Chip rounded the corner where the coffee machine sat like a sentry to the newsroom and declared, “Lottery said somebody claimed the ticket! But Brillo’s gotta get an order from the judge before they give’m the name.”

Lori, seated at the desk across from Kevin’s, swiveled her chair as Chip hustled down the center of the newsroom between them.

“Pray tell, Chipster,” she said.

“Well he ain’t fuckin tellin me much more’n that.”

Chip sat at his desk next to Lori’s, slapped a reporter’s notebook down; swiveled to address her and Kevin.

“The DA expects an answer from the judge imminently, but the Lottery won’t budge till they get the warrant.

“Lottery told Brillo the claim was made last week and the claimant’s record was clean so the money was released yesterday.”

Lori said, “They can’t stop the transfer?”

“Money’s at the bank. That’s a whole other set of fuckin warrants.”

Kevin asked, “But they know who made the claim? The Lottery does?”

“Yeah man, of course. But Brillo’s bullshit because he still has nothing to physically tie Leslie to the winning ticket, which makes convincing the judge a lot more fuckin delicate.

“Thing is, whoever did claim the ticket? We have nothing to approve or disprove that he went into Mario’s.”

“And nothing to prove that Leslie did,” Kevin said.

“Right.”

Lori asked, “Could they bring in Mario as a witness?

“They could, but he gets hundreds of customers a day and they got nothing on camera. And then he has the fuckin clerks.

“Mario was right up front: no way he or anyone can stand in front of a judge and vouch that Leslie or anyone else played that specific ticket.

“The only thing we know is it was bought at his fuckin store.”

Kevin stood and stepped around the desk.

Lori and Chip knew his schedule.

“Sounds like they gotta get that name,” Lori said.

“They will. Imminently. But the Lottery's gotta stick to anonymity rules. Brillo needs the fuckin warrant.”

***

Home with the kids and Sara not due from the gym for another hour, Kevin wandered about the house.

Antsy.

Unable to sit still for more than a few minutes, he moved from room to room.

Sat in one of six matching chairs around the polished, ebony dining table with a crystal vase centerpiece; the centerpiece loaded with flowers and pheasant tail feathers and other plant stuff that Sara arranged to look beautiful.

Did some finger drumming.

Across from where he sat was an antique console covered with family pictures: Sara and Kevin’s most recent ancestors.

He looked fondly at the pictures for, like, the millionth time.

Gazed out the window at the GTO parked in the driveway and somewhere in his mind, Austin Powers shouted, “Yea baby!”

Kevin stood and tucked in the chair and moved into the kitchen; crossed to the sink to lean and gaze out the over-the-sink window where Sara had hung lavender curtains with the tassel thingies.

Pushed aside one of the curtains, avoiding the small and cute and prickly cactus on the sill.

Admired the squared line the dwarf pines cut between their property and the neighbor’s.

The solar panel settled symmetrically over the top of the above ground pool.

Length of the grass, mowed just a couple days ago.

Gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Looking good.

Kevin went back across the kitchen and through the dining room and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

Cocked his head and listened.

June and Kai were upstairs doing homework.

Zee, forbidden to disturb her older sisters during homework time, came slinking along behind him.

Wearing one of Kai’s old tinkerbell outfits, but with a pink t-shirt pulled over, Tink’s wings shoved underneath, giving her a humpbacked look.

Spying on her father, she ducked behind the dining room table.

(Mostly she had been hiding in plain sight, but hey, five-year-old invisibility rules.)

Kevin remained oblivious and circled the stairs.

Went past the front door and into the living room.

Paced to the fireplace with the sturdy mantle where Sara had placed his favorite Remingtons, bronze, foot-high replicas of Bronco Buster and Cheyenne.

Put his hands behind his back and spun at the fireplace and crossed back to the staircase pony wall, plastered with hanging pictures of the kids.

Four strides each way, back and forth in front of the curved, bay window.

Zee glided to the edge of the staircase.

Waited.

Perfectly timed Kevin’s pacing and darted swiftly across the living room and superman leaped onto the couch opposite the window.

Adjusted herself into a more ladylike, seated position.

Dangled emerald green, sparkly princess shoes over the edge of the cushion and folded her hands across her lap.

Watched her father, having decided he was a rather large and fascinating alien creature brought to her personal zoo for observation and hopefully, entertainment.

Pacing allowed Kevin to ponder.

Their logic was flawed.

A thief broke into the house in the middle of the day and Leslie returned home to stumble into a robbery in progress?

And then the thief found the ticket and recognized that it was a winner and killed her?

No.

Already dismissed.

A friend or a relative or a neighbor or whomever happened to see the ticket and recognized that it was a winner and killed her for it?

Doesn’t fit the crime scene.

Finally, concluding that Leslie Marionette told someone that she bought a winning ticket and in some convoluted word of mouth kind of thing she was killed for it?

Negative.

Leslie was killed sometime around noon on a Wednesday, supposedly, for a ticket that she bought on Monday; the ticket she bought on Monday matching the winning numbers drawn on Tuesday night.

Mario said that when Leslie came back that fateful Wednesday, she bought another ticket.

Manny said she always played the same numbers.

So who buys the same ticket the day after winning a million dollars?

Leslie returned to Mario’s like she always did, because she was a creature of habit: buy a bottle and a ticket.

If Leslie didn’t know that she’d won, nobody else could have known.

But the killer was there because he knew she had a winning ticket.

Nothing else made sense.

Kevin stopped in the middle of the living room in front of the bay window and said, “But such a thing is supposed to be impossible.”

Zee clapped her hands and exclaimed, “You are correct young man! Yes-siree-bob!”

Bounced off the couch, delighted the giant zoo creature could speak and sped out of the room.

Kevin watched with a bemused smile and pulled out his cell.

Time to talk to someone from the Lottery; like, maybe some of the guys who worked in operations.

And security.

But dealing with the lottery was like dealing with the government.

You don’t just walk in and start asking questions.

Unless you know somebody.

Listed amongst the favs in his cell, Kevin had a direct line to Jonny Marionette’s best boyhood buddy, the young Congressman, Vincent Comeau.

Vincent owed Kevin an entire career worth of favors.

***

During his tenure as Operations Supervisor, Marty McClain (MM) conducted the occasional tour of the control room, usually for the government or the latest hire at the Lottery.

Today was the first time for a member of the press.

In the middle of the afternoon, Carlton dropped by the control room and said, “Hey MM, I got somebody who needs a tour.”

Carlton was head of control room security and had interviewed Marty when he was hired.

“Got it,” Marty told him.

Savvy to have risen through the ranks to the position he held today and being African American, Carlton was cautious with what he said, but, feeling comfortable with MM, lowered his voice and added, “Wayne called me just a little while ago.

“Said hello and how are you doing and all that and then tells me that some newspaper guy wants a tour and to make it happen.”

Wayne was Wayne Pietro, Lottery Commissioner, head honcho of all things lottery.

Above him was only the government (the government that appointed him to the job in the first place).

Marty, seated in front of a workstation, looked up at Carlton, widening his eyes to show he understood.

“Wow. Okay I got it. When’s he gonna be here?”

“Soon, I think.”

“I’ll take care of him,” Marty promised.

***

Marty was soon agitated, that feeling arisen from having a comfortably boring afternoon ruined by unexpected meddling.

Finally got the call from downstairs and took the elevator to the main entrance where pretty and strawberry-haired Ellen introduced him to Kevin Dell from the Worthboro Chronicle.

Kevin, like Marty, was dressed in dockers, work shirt and tie.

The height of the newspaper guy was intimidating, but Marty relaxed when Kevin looked him in the eye and said, “Nice to meet you,” in a way that made it feel genuine.

Over the next half hour, Marty only grew more impressed.

Brought Kevin upstairs and used his badge to get into the control room and begin the standard tour.

“In real life,” he said, “This story lasts no more than 4.5 seconds.”

Kevin was a rapt audience as Marty explained how the life of a ticket began when a customer enters a retailer location and plays a game.

“The game, or wager,” he said, “Is made by means of a playslip or by word of mouth from customer to retailer.

“The retailer enters the wager into a point of sale lottery terminal, or POS.

“The POS sends the transaction across a wide area network, a network that today can include telephone lines, underground cables and satellites in geosynchronous orbit 320 miles above the earth.

“All transactions end up here, with us. Right over there, to be exact.”

Marty pointed across the control room at a bluish, semi-transparent divider behind which rectangular shapes loomed like the skyline of a city.

He motioned to follow.

Escorted Kevin past workstation tables, rolling desk chairs, printers, copiers, and a long desk lined with seven, composite notebooks, which he explained in a semi-joking tone, held the holy texts that contain the operations procedures for each day of the week.

Stopped next to the blue wall and said, “Transactions are processed here, by the central system.”

Kevin set a knuckle against the divider to feel the thermal conductivity.

“Acrylic?”

“I think so. It stays cold in there. Or feels it. No humidity, you know.”

Kevin nodded and Marty continued.

“So the central system processes the transaction and sends a copy to the backup system. The backup system is in a building that has a server room identical to this one, but on the other side of the state.

“After receiving confirmation that the backup system received the transaction, the central system sends a message to the POS that it’s okay to print the ticket.”

Kevin said, “All that in 4.5 seconds?”

Happy when someone remembered anything he said, Marty beamed  and said, “Usually less.”

Enthused, he added, “You know, the company that built our system and builds most lottery systems around the world is responsible for recording more transactions per day than all of the major credit card companies.”

“No kidding.”

“People like to gamble.”

“And all those transactions end up here?”

“For our lottery jurisdiction, yes.”

Kevin moved his hand in a vague way, to indicate what was outside the control room and asked, “Do the POS retailer terminals have secondary memory?”

“No. That actually wouldn’t be secure. Retailer terminals are simple machines, relatively.

“They take wagers and verify the game was played correctly and send encrypted information back and forth with the central system. And of course, print the ticket.”

“So no sales record of any kind on a POS?”

“They’re not capable of downloading anything other than software updates. Game updates and stuff like that.”

Kevin nodded towards the central system behind the blue wall. “IBM or DEC?”

“IBM. We switched to UNIX boxes a few years ago.”

“And so all transaction information is in there, on those machines?”

“Correct. And the backup system.”

“And nobody outside this building can talk to them?”

MM smiled. “No sir, we’re completely secure.”

Kevin gave a nod as though satisfied.

“So Marty, once a transaction is on the system internally here, could you look it up?”

“You mean can I look at retailer sales, and sales by game and stuff like that? Is that what you mean?”

“Could you find out if a particular number was played?”

Marty shook his head with emphasis. “Oh no, we can’t do that. But there are applications we use to track retailer sales. GUIs, you know. You can see actual transactions there.”

“Windows,” Kevin said, and motioned in a way he hoped would get Marty to continue.

“Yeah,” he said smiling again and happy he got stuck with this guy, after all.

A fellow geek.

Marty said, “Yeah, the windows apps are for the non-technical Lottery people. Keeping track of inventory. How well a store is selling one game versus another. That kinda stuff.”

Kevin asked, “Could you search through all the transactions at a particular store?”

“You can look at sales by store. By POS if a store has more than one terminal. And for each game. Using the GUIs you could do that kind of thing.”

Kevin nodded. “That’s interesting. Thanks.”

“You bet. So next in the life of a ticket comes the drawing.”

MM escorted Kevin out of the control room and back down the elevator to the main entrance, where he used his badge to get them into the admin area where Ellen sat.

MM and Kevin passed through a cluster of cubicles to the rear of the building and entered an enclosed room; empty, but for a machine that reminded Kevin of a giant gumball machine, with ping-pong looking balls with numbers, instead of balls of gum.

Across from the machine sat a professional video camera on a tripod.

MM asked, “Recognize that weird looking contraption?”

Kevin shook his head no.

“Channel 21,” Marty said. “During the Six O’Clock News, when it’s our rotation, they broadcast the Mega Mega drawing. Film it right here, in this room.”

He looked at Kevin, anticipating a reaction.

Kevin, who rarely watched TV, was not sure what Marty expected and tried, “Cool.”

“I know. But, whatever. There are two main types of machines that are used to select random combinations of numbers: gravity pick and air mix. We use an air mix machine, which is what you see here.”

“Gotcha.”

Marty moved closer to the machine and pursed his lips.

Looked serious.

“Trust plays a big part in the lottery business,” he said. “The most scrutinized part of any lottery process is the physical machines that pick the numbers.”

Kevin  nodded and said, “Why people like to see it on TV.”

“Right!”

Marty gestured at the machine.

“The balls remain visible during the mixing process. Gives the viewer confidence that it’s not being fixed.”

“Are those ping-pong balls?”

Marty laughed. “Yeah, high tech, I know. It uses ping-pong balls that are painted with numbers and calibrated for size and weight.

“The balls are released into the machine and air blows through the chamber to mix them.”

He pointed to a cylinder of clear plastic, “Once the valve is open, winning balls are blown into this tube for display.”

Kevin said, “So if someone was going to rig the system, it would have to be here.”

“Right! Which is why we do the drawings on live TV. Because once the numbers are selected? The only way to win is to have the ticket that matches the numbers that everybody sees picked on live TV.”

“Are there counterfeit tickets?”

“No. Impossible. There’s encrypted information on each ticket that can only be unlocked by the primary system upstairs.

“A ticket could in theory be a perfect replica in every other way, but there’s no way to match the encrypted info attached to each individual wager … We know it’s a fake.”

“So the only way to win is to have the winning ticket.”

“Or a copy of the ticket. Which is why you hear about the occasional ticket being lost. It sucks, but if you lose a ticket and haven’t made a copy, you’re shit out of luck. Nothing can be done.”

“So what next?”

Marty waved a hand vaguely toward the door and said, “Once the physical drawing takes place in this room, the numbers are written on a slip of paper, which is put into an envelope and brought upstairs to the control room, where the numbers are entered into the system.”

He finished with a wave toward the ceiling to indicate the floor above, where they just came from.

Kevin asked, “Who enters the numbers?”

“Usually an operator. And I’m almost always here with the operator, along with the two troopers, of course.”

“Troopers?”

“The Lottery pays the troopers to be here, to convey trust.”

Kevin had been writing in his notebook, but paused.

Raised the pen, as though an antenna had sprung.

“Hey Marty,” he said, as though thinking out loud.

“When a drawing is conducted, there’s an officer present where the numbers are selected here, and then another officer in the control room, when the numbers are entered into the system upstairs?”

Marty waited, as if expecting more, then answered, “Yes. The officer that is here accompanies the numbers upstairs, which are brought to one of my guys.

“Both officers and usually myself watch the numbers get put into the central system.”

Kevin, having recognized the unknown in the equation, felt a jolt of something.

Hoping to sound nonchalant, he said, “Well then I’m wondering who might’ve worked the night of a recent drawing?”

“Oh?”

“You think I could talk to one of your operators? For the sake of my story?”

MM, who was enjoying the back and forth, looked taken aback. “Well, I can answer any of your questions.”

Kevin smiled. “Marty, you’ve been invaluable. This is the best interview I’ve had in a long time. Your knowledge is impressive. But your life of a ticket story got me thinking.”

Kevin waved the pen in a vague way, trying to bide time and think.

He found outright lying impossible, so he went with something of a truth.

“We had a big winner in my town,” he said. “Worthboro.”

MM nodded, waiting for more.

“And so I’m writing a story on how this person always played certain numbers. You know, like people do?”

When Marty nodded, Kevin continued.

“And so then one night, those numbers are picked by a machine like this one, here, in this room.

“And then one of your operators entered those numbers into the system and then the numbers were announced in my newspaper, on the TV, and then everywhere.

“Making human connections is cool for the reader.”

Kevin forced a smile.

Marty grinned, saying, “That is a cool idea Kevin. I like it. That’d be Oscar Pinero. He’s like my second in command and typically works the second shift and does most of our drawings.”

“Does Oscar work tonight?”

Marty looked at his watch.

“Actually, he’s always here by now. He might even have ended up giving you this tour, but took tonight off. Said he had something important to do.”

“He’s a local guy?”

“Yeah, well, no, actually, come to think of it, he’s from your town.”

Kevin felt the jolt again.

“Oscar lives in Worthboro?”

“Yup.”

“And Pinero, you said? Oscar Pinero?”

Marty nodded.

Kevin made sure he had the spelling correct and was on his way back to Worthboro.

***

At the newsroom, Kevin learned what he could about Oscar Pinero, excitement rising another notch when he found an address in Worthboro.

Downtown street lamps had come to life when he headed west on Main.

Oscar Pinero lived in the rough and tumble west end of town, but in the one neighborhood that defied the overall trend.

A particularly nice set of streets, the locals called the Portuguese section.

Plenty of people who identified as Portuguese lived outside of the so-called Portuguese part of the westside, but Kevin understood the distinction.

Oscar lived in a singular neighborhood, due to the well-kept, grand old houses, and, well, pretty much everyone was Portuguese.

Oscar’s address was a large, gray american four-square with pear shutters.

An old Chestnut tree loomed over the front lawn; evergreens circled the front of the house, neatly trimmed to not interfere with the view from a deep front deck.

The half-moon driveway included a squared-off section with white-lined spaces for a half dozen cars in front of a large, almost barn-worthy shed, pear with gray trim; next to it, a pergola draped with young grape vines.

Just a few streets away, Kevin knew, the neighborhood was much different.

It was twilight when he parked the GTO at the curb and went around half the driveway; followed a cement path lined with hostas to the back of the house where a metal staircase rose back and forth for three flights.

Climbed to the top to find a small landing area lit by a single flood lamp, light also spilling through the door window.

Knocked.

Movement inside and the door swung inward.

A young lady.

Short (and not because of his height), wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

Curly dark hair with blond highlights.

Pleasant, round face, but pale, as though she was upset.

“Evening,” Kevin said. “I’m looking for Oscar Pinera.”

Carla stared up at Kevin, expressionless and said, “Not here.”

“My name is Kevin Dell. I’m from the Chronicle. The newspaper. Does Oscar Pinera live here?”

Carla shook her head.

Rolled her eyes.

Exhaled.

“I guess.”

Uneased by the ambivalence, Kevin said, “This is the listed address for Oscar Pinero. Is there another place that I should look for him? I was just at the lottery. He’s not there.”

Carla became visibly angry.

“You think you know Oscar? Do you? You think you know somebody, but you don’t. Not even when it’s right fuckin in front of you.”

The look on Kevin’s face clearly expressed he had no idea what she was talking about.

“I never met Oscar,” he said. “But it’s important that I talk to him. Do you expect Oscar back here soon?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

Though he towered over her, Kevin nervously took a step back.

Carla immediately shook her head, apologetic.

Appeared ready to cry.

Brought a hand up as though shielding her eyes from the sun and said, “Sorry mister. It’s been a bad day. I’m just … stressed, ya know.”

The hand fell and Carla had a dejected look.

Shook her head, obviously sad.

“Oscar lives here. Or he did. I mean, he still does. We just broke up.”

Kevin pursed his lips.

“My apology for interrupting at a bad time. Do you know where I can find him?”

“No.”

Debating whether to ask for Oscar’s cell and deciding against it, Kevin pulled out his wallet and offered Carla his business card.

“If you see Oscar, please tell him to call me. I’m from the newspaper. It’s important. It’s also a police matter.”

Carla’s demeanor quickly changed again.

Sadness and anger impacted by worry resulted in a bewildered mess.

Squinching her face in confusion, she pinched Kevin’s card between thumb and forefinger, but her hand remained hovering between them.

“Is Oscar in trouble?”

“I’m not a cop,” Kevin said. “I’m from the newspaper. I need to talk to him about something to do with the Lottery. It’s urgent, okay?”

Knowing his height was imposing, Kevin tilted his head and tried to smile.

Looked Carla in the eye.

Carla stared up at him, thinking.

Had the distinct thought that Kevin could be trusted and he kinda looked like Clint Eastwood, just not so macho.

Came to a conclusion and kept the business card, saying, “I’ll tell him.”

***

A couple hours later, Oscar returned home.

He had been driving around.

And around.

Visited his Mom and they had a good, long talk.

Melancholy, Oscar trudged up the metal stairs, heart heavy.

Found Carla sitting at the kitchen table, the same spot since Kevin left.

Sat across from her.

Carla and Oscar simultaneously reached to hold hands.

“I think I knew,” Carla said. “Or maybe now I feel like I should have.”

Oscar, feeling loathsome, answered, “I didn’t want to lose you. You’re my best friend. You always will be.”

They held hands and cried.

Carla needed space and left, saying that she was going to stay at her friend Kendra’s for the night.

Before leaving, she put Kevin’s card on the table and told Oscar about his visit and how serious the newspaper was.

Perplexed, Oscar said he would call.

Carla left and he remained seated at the kitchen table, looking at Kevin’s card.

The Chronicle?

Oscar shook his head.

Sorrow and exhilaration were a baffling mix.

There was guilt and shame and yet, a new, potentially happier life beckoned.

Too overwhelmed to deal with whatever the newspaper guy wanted until later, Oscar slid Kevin’s card into a pocket and pulled out his cell.

Dying to talk to Rico.