Blizzard Ball (19 page)

A crude scaffolding of pine boards and bricks held a collection of books. Kirchner ran his fingers along their spines. He thought about how much a person’s books revealed about them. He fanned the pages of Pride and Prejudice, The Dog Whisperer, and self-help books on overcoming fear of heights.

The closet contained several pieces of women’s clothing and a pile of shoes that looked like they’d been rummaged through. Kirchner dodged his reflection in the large mirror that hung over a three-drawer dresser. The drawers were pulled out and empty. He picked up the dresser by a corner and angled it away from the wall. Among the dust bunnies he found a tube of eyeliner, a birthday card, and a photo of a young Latin woman in a graduation gown standing next to a heavyset woman and a man who appeared to have only one arm. It was unmistakably the familiar looking woman who had busted the balls of the creep at the Eastside AA meeting. He pocketed the photo and dialed up Alita’s bank supervisor.

“I thought you were going to take care of my parking tickets!” Lasiandra bellowed. “Now I’m in a heap of trouble. Suckers want to pull my driver’s license.”

“You got something for me, Lasiandra?”

“What you mean?”

“You were going to notify me when Alita, your bank teller, returned to work so I could interview her.”

“Alita, she ain’t been back. She left town. You want her cell number?”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“Told me she was going to visit Albert somebody.”

“When you remember, call me if you want those parking tickets fixed.”

“Not fair,” Lasiandra complained, “you jacking me around like this.”

Kirchner closed out the call with Lasiandra and punched up Tyler. He gave him the location of the apartment and instructed him to get a search warrant, probable cause homicide, and bring in the mobile lab team. “Place looks like Helter Skelter. No telling how many people have been bludgeoned or killed in this apartment. Call Minnesota National Bank, get the employment photo of an Alita Torres and have it circulated along with a statewide arrest order. I also have a cell phone number. See what you can do with it. If you get a fix on her let me know.”

Kirchner pulled Alita’s graduation photo from his pocket, looked at the weathered couple next to the wide-eyed young girl with the big smile. There was something in the photo that seemed to haunt him, he felt certain of it, but he couldn’t get at it. The mortarboard on Alita’s head, cocked at an angle, suggested an independent attitude. He hoped this attitude would not result in a tragedy.

Alita drove into the parking lot of La Clinica on St. Paul’s Cesar Chavez Avenue. Through the windshield she watched a mother and her five children, bundled against the cold, inch their way like a lumpy centipede along the slippery sidewalk toward the clinic. She parked and rubbed her ribs, aching from the blow she had suffered in the apartment scuffle with Gisele. Breathing was difficult and painful. She feared a cracked rib, even a punctured lung. The clinic was free to those without medical coverage or the ability to pay. Her cell phone rang. It was the third time she’d been cranked in the last ten minutes—always from a blocked number with no one on the other end. She looked in the rear view mirror. Her face was drawn, with lines of stress.

Exiting the car, she worked her way through the icy parking lot into the clinic. Before allowing her to see a doctor, a clinician insisted on an HIV test and a birth control consult, and then turned her over to a social worker, who pressed her to file a domestic complaint and referred her to a battered women’s shelter. Finally, a peach-fuzz, carrot-top intern diagnosed her ribs as severely bruised, possibly cracked, ordered an x-ray, and directed her to a waiting area where, as the last patient of the day, she sat alone.

The waiting area was at the end of a long, shiny, tiled windowless corridor serving exam rooms, lab, pharmacy, and radiology.

Overhead, exposed fluorescent tubes ran the length of the ceiling like railroad tracks.

A staff person, followed by a strangely familiar man, approached and called her name: “Alita Torres.”

Alita nodded, tentatively.

“I’ll take it from here,” the man said with authority, waving the staffer away and adding, “This area is off limits until further notice.”

Alita studied the visitor, who clacked on hard candy and smelled of peppermint. “You’re from AA,” she said, making the connection and flashing back to the harassment incident. “Look, again, I’m sorry about what happened. That drunk deserved a kick in the balls and more.”

“This isn’t about AA. I’m with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’m a cop,” Kirchner said, picking up a chair and positioning it across from Alita.

She felt her stomach drop.

“I just came from your apartment. How badly are you injured?”

Alita reactively touched the base of her throat where her gold cross had cut into her neck during the fight. “How did you find me?” she asked, resisting the temptation to massage her ribs.

“Tracked you through your phone, something about cellular triangulation technology, but don’t ask me how it works.”

“I’m waiting for an x-ray,” she said, trying to fight back the tremor in her voice. “So what do you want?”

“I’d like to help you. You’ve got some rough days ahead.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alita said, twisting her mouth as though she had just bitten into a lemon.

“I’m aware,” Kirchner said, “that your relatives were involved in the Cash and Dash store operator’s murder and the heist of lottery tickets.”

“That’s a lie!” Alita snapped. “They did not kill the Pakistani!” Her voice turned shrill, reverberating down the clinic hallway.

“The bank where you work has you on tape transacting with the deceased convenience store operator,” Kirchner said, ignoring Alita’s denial. “You’re tied to the car where the stolen tickets were found, and your apartment is infected with incriminating evidence.” Kirchner paused, letting the accusation sink in. “I’d like to help you get this thing cleared up. Sometimes people make mistakes and things aren’t as they seem.”

Alita’s head pounded. She could see he was trying to figure out how to play her. Good cop, bad cop.

“You’re in over your head,” Kirchner pressed, turning up the heat. “This is bigger than the convenience store robbery and the lottery tickets you’re holding.”

“I don’t have any lottery tickets.”

“Yeah, I heard about your charity stunt, but the jackpot ticket remains at large.”

Alita closed her eyes, trying to make Kirchner and this nightmare go away.

Kirchner gently tapped her on the knee. “I sensed at the clubhouse you were a good woman, strong ’cause you had to be, but now is the time to put the AA serenity prayer into play. You’re not in control on this one.”

Alita thought about an escape.

“Turn over the remaining tickets, come clean before we head downtown, and I’ll make sure you’re treated right. No bright light interrogation, a good attorney from the get-go, and my recommendation for bail.”

Alita considered Kirchner’s offer. He had a reassuring presence and he seemed like an honest man. At AA she’d learned to see through the bullshit. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

The thought of coming clean about her cousins, the counterfeits, the Canadians, the whole mess, and being done with this madness held the promise of relief. But she felt with equal weight a distrust of the cops. All too often she had witnessed migrant family and friends believing false promises, only to end up in prison or forced to snitch out illegals. She had learned long ago to show no weakness. Weakness was an invitation to be taken advantage of, but maybe her resistance was working against her now. She was confused.

“Your supervisor at the bank says Albert is involved,” Kirchner said. “Your accomplices can’t protect you, and will likewise be prosecuted.”

Albert. Alita almost choked the name out loud. Lasiandra never did listen worth a damn, and now she’s got an alcoholic cop chasing his tail. Is everyone stark raving crazy?

“Yeah, Prince Albert?” Alita said, in the most sarcastic tone she could manage.

Tyler had located Alita at the clinic using cell phone tracking technology and alerted Kirchner. Kirchner saw the pre-arrest visit as an opportunity to build on a previous chance encounter, win her confidence and provide her a sense of guardianship.

But he’d blown it with Alita. He had dangled the unsubstantiated Albert accusation and got his head cut off. Not only did he fail to win her trust, he’d short-circuited an opportunity to mesh the puzzle pieces in the BlizzardBall lottery scheme.

He now sat across from her, silent, waiting, giving her the courtesy of allowing her to complete the x-ray process before formalizing the arrest and putting her through the booking gauntlet.

He caught himself looking into her dark, serious eyes. They were almost as black as her raven hair. He was close enough to see a vein slightly pulsing at her temple and beads of perspiration on her upper lip. Close enough to feel something within himself, a possesiveness that made him question his motive for handling the arrest on his own. He knew he was trespassing, looking for a clue to something lost or forgotten.

“Narcótico! Narcótico!” came a shout from down the corridor, followed by a scream for help from a female staffer. A gaunt man with a stubble beard and small bloodshot eyes had a forearm around the woman’s neck and a small black gun jammed deep into the nest of her frizzy hair do. He had the sinewy ashen look of a crackhead. Staffers scampered down the hall like rats abandoning a sinking ship, ducking into the exam rooms and out of harm’s way. The threatened woman was being pushed toward a room with a sign that read Pharmacia sticking out at a right angle above the door.

“Sonofabitch,” Kirchner swore under his breath, his attention now divided between Alita and the robbery happening practically under his nose. The only exit was past the pharmacy door. “Don’t move a muscle,” he said to Alita as the pair sat like spectators watching a one-act play. The gunman spotted Kirchner and Alita in the waiting area. Alita grabbed Kirchner’s hand and held it in a tight squeeze. Kirchner cocked his head and shrugged his shoulders in a none of my business gesture. The gunman pulled the woman into the pharmacy. Kirchner was sure someone had called 911 and all he had to do was sit tight.

A young man with a slight build, wearing a white lab coat and plastic name tag that identified him as J.J. Hoover, MD, appeared in the corridor with a fire extinguisher under his arm. He was headed toward the pharmacy door. The foolish plan was clear enough. The doc would attempt to blast the gunman with the contents of the container, hoping to distract, blind, and overpower him. “Shit for brains,” Kirchner muttered. The rescue attempt was destined for a bad ending.

Adrenaline surged through Kirchner, and with surprising speed he charged the doctor, knocking him to the floor, pushing him past the pharmacy threshold. The fire extinguisher discharged in the collision, spraying a dry white chemical mist that flocked Kirchner like a powdered donut. Sprawled on the floor, he felt the presence of the gunman. He snapped the Glock out of his shoulder holster. “Police, weapon down,” he shouted, frenetically sweeping the pistol in a wide arc. Rubbing at his chemically smeared and crusted eyes he found the blurry figure of the pharmacy robber standing over him. Uncertain as to the reality of the scene unfolding, he rapidly blinked trying to clear his vision. The gunman appeared to have the small black pistol leveled at his own head.

“Blow your brains out somewhere else.” Kirchner grasped his Glock with both hands. “Weapon down,” he repeated.

The gunman shoved the barrel of the gun into his mouth and bit down. He momentarily held a black stub between his teeth to show Kirchner before spitting the piece out at him.

“I know, put the weapon down,” the gunman said, letting out a deranged laugh. A drool of licorice dripped from the corner of his mouth. He tossed the candy gun aside and, in a practiced motion, dropped to his knees and onto his belly, passively awaiting arrest.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Kirchner sighed, suddenly aware of the sweat dripping off his forehead.

The St. Paul police arrived just as Kirchner, with his knee in the candy gunman’s back, snapped the man’s wrists into a pair of cuffs. “All yours,” he said, and went off to retrieve Alita. She was gone.

Zip Cooper was doing a dime in obscurity at Stillwater State Prison. He was a low-profile, small-time punk who believed in the concept of spontaneous wealth, mostly through criminal enterprise. In the same manner, he considered the lottery a path to sudden good fortune. With the money he earned working in the prison laundry he started out playing the case numbers on his convictions, on the assumption that there had to be a flip side to bad luck. But over time he took a more disciplined approach to the lottery and began tracking results reported from newspapers, TV, and library archives. He charted the unique numbers drawn and ranked them from hottest (most hits) to coldest (least hits). The resulting pick strategy paired numbers most frequently hit with those that had been out of favor for too long. Surprisingly, his method was modestly successful.

Every week he sent his number picks to his eighty-four–year-old mother, who dutifully bought the lottery tickets with Zip’s prison earnings according to the specific numbers he provided. Zip recorded every ticket and every win and loss and kept an accounting log that would have survived an audit.

Zip’s mother had lived on St. Paul’s eastside in the same house for the past fifty-two years. It was the only home Zip had known. His bedroom was off-limits to his mother. It was his touchstone to a life before crime, mayhem, and prison cells. Before his forehead was split open by a liquor store manager wielding a baseball bat who caught him stuffing a bottle of Jim Beam into his jacket. A wormy scar now stretched diagonally across his forehead to the tune of thirty-three stitches. To cover the poorly sutured laceration, he had taken to wearing his hair long. The style seemed to compliment his feminine facial features and a predisposition for wearing woman’s clothing, earrings, and mascara. But his attitude and prison muscled body was unmistakably masculine. Zip was one mean ass-kicker.