The Winner (22 page)

Then he abruptly stopped and stared at one page, his smile disappearing. The page represented the list of twelve consecutive lottery winners from exactly ten years ago. It couldn’t be possible. There must be some mistake. Donovan picked up the phone and made a call to the research service he had engaged to do the study. No, there was no mistake, he was told. Bankruptcy filings were matters of public record.

Donovan slowly hung up the phone and stared again at the page. Herman Rudy, Bobbie Jo Reynolds, LuAnn Tyler, the list went on and on, twelve winners in a row. Not one of them had declared personal bankruptcy. Not one. Every twelve-month period for the lottery except this one had resulted in nine bankruptcies.

Most reporters of Thomas Donovan’s caliber lived or died by two intangibles: perseverance and instincts. Donovan’s instinct was that the story he might be onto right now would make his other angle seem about as exciting as an article on pruning.

He had some sources to check and he wanted to do them in more privacy than the crowded newsroom allowed. He threw the file in his battered briefcase and quickly left the office. In non–rush hour traffic he reached his small apartment in Virginia in twenty minutes. Twice divorced with no children, Donovan led a life focused solely on his work. He had a relationship slowly percolating with Alicia Crane, a well-known Washington socialite from a wealthy family, which had once been politically well connected. He had never been fully comfortable moving in these circles; however, Alicia was supportive and devoted to him, and truth be known, flitting around the edges of her luxurious existence wasn’t so bad.

He settled into his home office and picked up the phone. There was a definite way to obtain information on people, particularly rich people, no matter how guarded their lives. He dialed the number of a longtime source at the Internal Revenue Service. Donovan gave that person the names of the twelve consecutive lottery winners who had not declared bankruptcy. Two hours later he got a call back. As he listened, Donovan checked off the names on his lists. He asked a few more questions, thanked his friend, hung up, and looked down at his list. All of the names were crossed off except for one. Eleven of the lottery winners had duly filed their tax returns each year, his source had reported. That was as far as his source would go, however. He would tell Donovan no specifics except to add that the income reported on all of the eleven tax returns was enormous. While the question still intrigued Donovan as to how all of them had avoided bankruptcy and apparently done very well over the last ten years, another more puzzling question had emerged.

He stared down at the name of the sole lottery winner that wasn’t crossed off. According to his source, this person had not filed any tax returns, at least under her own name. In fact this person had outright disappeared. Donovan had a vague recollection of the reason why. Two murders, her boyfriend in rural Georgia and another man. Drugs had been involved. The story had not interested him all that much ten years ago. He would not have recalled it at all except that the woman had disappeared just after winning a hundred million dollars and the money had disappeared with her. Now his curiosity was much greater as he eyed that particular name on his list: “LuAnn Tyler.” She must have switched identities on her run from the murder charge. With her lottery winnings she could easily have invented a new life for herself.

Donovan smiled for an instant as it suddenly occurred to him that he might have a way of discovering LuAnn Tyler’s new identity. And maybe a lot more. At least he could try.

The next day Donovan telephoned the sheriff in Rikersville, Georgia, LuAnn’s hometown. Roy Waymer had died five years ago. Ironically, the current sheriff was Billy Harvey, Duane’s uncle. Harvey was very talkative with Donovan when the subject of LuAnn came up.

“She got Duane killed,” he said angrily. “She got him involved in those drugs sure as I’m talking to you. The Harvey family ain’t got much, but we got our pride.”

“Have you heard from her in any way over the last ten years?” Donovan asked.

Billy Harvey paused for a lengthy moment. “Well, she sent down some money.”

“Money?”

“To Duane’s folks. They didn’t ask for it, I can tell you that.”

“Did they keep it?”

“Well, they’re on in years and poorer’n dirt. You don’t just turn your back on that kind of money.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars. If that doesn’t show LuAnn’s guilty conscience, I don’t know what would.”

Donovan whistled under his breath. “Did you try to trace the money?”

“I wasn’t sheriff then, but Roy Waymer did. He even had some local FBI boys over to help, but they never turned up a durn thing. She’s helped some other people round here too, but we could never get a handle on her whereabouts from them either. Like she was a damned ghost or something.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, you ever talk to her, you tell her that the Harvey family ain’t forgot, not even after all these years. That murder warrant is still outstanding. We get her back to Georgia, she’ll be spending some nice quality time with us. I’m talking twenty to life. No statute of limitations on murder. Am I right?”

“I’ll let her know, Sheriff, thanks. Oh, I’m wondering if you could send me a copy of the file on the case. The autopsy reports, investigative notes, forensics, the works?”

“You really think you can find her after all this time?”

“I’ve been doing this kind of stuff for thirty years and I’m pretty good at it. I’m sure going to try.”

“Well, then I’ll send it up to you, Mr. Donovan.”

Donovan gave Harvey the
Trib
’s FedEx number and address, hung up, and wrote down some notes. Tyler had a new name, that was for certain. In order even to begin to track her down, he had to find out what that name was.

He spent the next week exploring every crevice of LuAnn’s life. He got copies of her parents’ death notices from the
Rikersville Gazette.
Obituaries were full of interesting items: birthplaces, relatives, and other items that could conceivably lead him to some valuable information. Her mother had been born in Charlottesville, Virginia. Donovan talked to the relatives listed in the obituary, at least the few who were alive, but received few useful facts. LuAnn had never tried to contact them.

Next, Donovan dug up as many facts as he could on LuAnn’s last day in the country. Donovan had conversations with personnel from the NYPD and the FBI field office in New York. Sheriff Waymer had seen her on TV and immediately notified the police in New York that LuAnn was wanted in Georgia in connection with a double murder and drug trafficking. They, in turn, had put a blanket over the bus and train stations, and the airports. In a city of seven million, that was the best they could do; they couldn’t exactly put up roadblocks. However, there hadn’t been one sign of the woman. That had greatly puzzled the FBI. According to the agent Donovan talked to who was somewhat familiar with the file, the Bureau wanted to know how a twenty-year-old woman with a seventh-grade education from rural Georgia, carrying a baby no less, had waltzed right through their net. An elaborate disguise and cover documents were out of the question, or so they thought. The police had thrown out their net barely a half hour after she had appeared on national television. No one was that fast. And all the money had disappeared as well. At the time, some at the FBI had wondered whether she had had help. But that lead had never been followed up as other crises of more national importance had swallowed up the Bureau’s time and manpower. They had officially concluded that LuAnn Tyler had not left the country, but had simply driven out of New York or taken the subway to a suburb and then lost herself somewhere in the country or perhaps Canada. The NYPD had reported its failure to Sheriff Waymer and that had been the end of it. Until now. Now, Donovan was greatly intrigued. His gut told him that LuAnn Tyler had left the country. Somehow she had gotten past the law. If she had gotten on a plane, then he had something to work with.

He could narrow the list down in any event. He had a certain day to work with, even a block of hours on that day. Donovan would begin with the premise that LuAnn Tyler had fled the country. He would focus on international flights departing from JFK during that time frame, ten years ago. If the records at JFK turned up nothing, he would focus on LaGuardia and then Newark International Airport. At least it was a start. There were far fewer international flights than domestic. If he had to start checking domestic flights, he concluded he would have to try another angle. There were simply too many. As he was about to start this process a package arrived from Sheriff Harvey.

Donovan munched on a sandwich at his cubicle while he looked through the files. The autopsy photos were understandably gruesome; however, they didn’t faze the veteran reporter. He had seen far worse in his career. After an hour of reading he laid the file aside and made some notes. From the looks of it, he believed LuAnn Tyler to be innocent of the charges for which Harvey wanted to arrest her. He had done some independent digging of his own into Rikersville, Georgia. By virtually all accounts, Duane Harvey was a lazy good-for-nothing with no greater ambition than to spend his life drinking beer, chasing women, and adding nothing whatsoever of value to mankind. LuAnn Tyler, on the other hand, had been described to him by several persons who had known her as hardworking, honest, and a loving, caring mother to her little girl. Orphaned as a teenager, she seemed to have done as well as she could under the circumstances. Donovan had seen photos of her, had even managed to dig up a videotape of the press conference announcing her as the lottery winner ten years ago. She was a looker all right, but there was something behind that beauty. She hadn’t scraped by all those years on her physical assets alone.

Donovan finished his sandwich and took a sip of his coffee. Duane Harvey had been cut up badly. The other man, Otis Burns, had also died from knife wounds to his upper torso. There had been serious but nonfatal head trauma also present, and the clear signs of a struggle. LuAnn’s fingerprints had been found on the broken phone receiver and also all over the trailer. No surprise since she happened to live there. There had been one witness account of seeing her in Otis Burns’s car that morning. Despite Sheriff Harvey’s protests to the contrary, Donovan’s research led him to believe that Duane was the drug dealer in the family and had been caught skimming. Burns was probably his supplier. The man had a lengthy rap sheet in neighboring Gwinnett County, all drug related. Burns had probably come to settle the score. Whether LuAnn Tyler knew of Duane’s drug dealing was anybody’s guess. She had worked at the truck stop up until the time she had bought her lottery ticket and disappeared only to resurface, however briefly, in New York City. So if she had known of Duane’s sideline, she hadn’t reaped any discernible benefits from it. Whether she had been in the trailer that morning and had had anything to do with either man’s death was also unclear. Donovan really didn’t care one way or another. He had no reason to sympathize with Duane Harvey or Otis Burns. At this point he didn’t know what he felt about LuAnn Tyler. He did know that he wanted to find her. He wanted that very much.

J
ackson sat in a chair in the darkened living room of a luxurious apartment in a prewar building overlooking Central Park. His eyes were closed, his hands neatly folded in his lap. Approaching forty years of age he was still lean and wiry in build. His actual facial features were androgynous, although the years had etched fine lines around his eyes and mouth. His short hair was cut stylishly, his clothing was quietly expensive. His eyes, however, were clearly his most distinctive feature, which he had to disguise very carefully when he was working. He rose and moved slowly through the amply proportioned apartment. The furnishings were eclectic: English, French, and Spanish antiques mixed liberally with Oriental art and sculpture.

He entered an area of his apartment reminiscent of a Broadway star’s dressing room. It was his makeup room and workshop. Special recessed lighting covered the ceiling. Multiple mirrors with their own special nonheating bulbs ringed the room. Two padded reclining leather chairs sat in front of two of the largest mirrors. The chairs had casters which allowed them to be rolled about the room. Innumerable photos were neatly pinned to cork bulletin boards on the walls. Jackson was an avid photographer, and many of his subjects were the basis for most of the identities he had created over the years. Both full wigs and hairpieces, neatly separated into toupees and falls, lined one wall, each hanging on special cotton-covered wire. Customized wall cabinets housed dozens of latex caps and other body pieces along with acrylic teeth, caps, and molds, and other synthetic materials and putties. One massive storage unit contained absorbent cotton, acetone, spirit gum, powders, body makeup; large, medium, and small brushes with bristles of varying rigidity; cake makeup, modeling clay, collodion to make scars and pock marks; crepe hair to make beards, mustaches, and even eyebrows; Derma wax to alter the face, creme makeup, gelatin, makeup palettes; netting, toupee tape, sponges, ventilating needles to knot hair into net or gauze for beards and wigs; and hundreds of other devices, materials, and substances designed solely to reshape one’s appearance. There were three racks of clothing of all descriptions and several full-length mirrors to test the effect of any disguise. In a specially built case with multiple drawers were over fifty complete sets of identification documents that would allow Jackson to travel the world as a man or a woman.

Jackson smiled as he noted various articles in the room. This was where he was most comfortable. Creating his numerous roles was the one constant pleasure in his life. Acting out the part, however, ran a close second as his favorite endeavor. He sat down at the table and ran his hand along its top. He stared into a mirror. Unlike anyone else looking into a mirror, Jackson didn’t see his reflection staring back at him. Instead, he saw a blank countenance, one to be manipulated, carved, painted, covered, and massaged into someone else. Although he was perfectly content with his intellect and personality, why be limited to one physical identity one’s whole life, he thought, when there was so much more out there to experience? Go anywhere, do anything. He had told that to all twelve of his lottery winners. His baby ducklings all in a row. And they had all bought it, completely and absolutely, for he had been dead right.