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  PROLOGUE

  Certainty is often in the brain of the beholder. A prime example in history was the 1948 Presidential election featuring the Governor of New York and Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey. Dewey’s opponent was the incumbent President Harry S. Truman. Vice-President Truman had ascended to the Presidency only because of the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt three years earlier. The pundits and polls did not regard Truman as formidable, and besides the Democrats had ruled for many continuous decades. The odds-on favorite was Dewey.

  A staunch Republican big city paper was the Chicago Tribune. At the time of the election there had been an ongoing strike of the linotype operators who were necessary for the physical production of the paper. As a result the paper had to be produced by typewriter and then copied causing the publishing time to be several hours earlier than usual.

  The early results favored Dewey. Because of that early production deadline the editors of the Tribune did not wait for the results from the Eastern states and published what seemed to be a foregone conclusion. The headline read: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.

  Of course Truman won, and before the Tribune could correct its error, 150,000 copies of that headline had been circulated.

  Philadelphia detective, Todd Henson’s political science professor had constantly emphasized this gaffe as an example of no one really knowing anything about politics. Professor Bradford must have mentioned the example at least ten times during the semester course.

  At this very moment Todd’s mind was very far from Professor Bradford and the Chicago Tribune boner. He was on the Indiana Toll Road heading back to Philly after a most pleasant visit with his sister, Carrie.

  Carrie, three years older than Todd, was always better in everything. Grades, high-paying job, and constant dating. She was even a better athlete. At the moment she was a marketing analyst with a prestigious Chicago firm.

  Todd would have felt better about the whole thing if Carrie had been ego-maniacal and bragged about her accomplishments to his detriment. On the contrary Todd had never met a more humble human being who spent most of her time building him up.

  “Todd, I couldn’t do what you do day-in and day-out. You risk your life, and for what? Because you have a sense of justice and integrity. You all are not at all compensated for what you do, and now even because of some bad eggs on the police force, the public has turned against the cops.”

  Carrie meant those words as genuine praise, but hearing them made Todd feel bad. It almost made being a cop a dumb thing to do.

  These last three days Carrie was as nice as ever. However, Todd couldn’t help noticing her luxurious lakeshore condo and brand new Mercedes. His one-bedroom basement apartment in South Philly and the seven-year-old Honda he was currently driving didn’t quite compare. He knew he was making those comparisons himself, in his mind. At no time did Carrie give off any feeling of superiority. Also, Todd knew their parents had treated both of them equally. He was the one being an idiot, thinking about it at all.

  Enough of that thought. It was time to set his sights back to Philly. He had just solved a big time diamond heist before he left on his short vacation. He knew Chief Trimble would have a new crime ready for him when he got back.

  Oops, he hadn’t noticed that his gas was that low. It was even below the red line. He’d better take the next exit to find a station.

  That turn put him immediately into the countryside. He drove another six miles before he came to a small town. How small the town was could be reflected on the sign entering: Welcome to Calypso was printed in big bold letters on what looked like a sheet nailed to a post. Ah, there was a gas station just down that gravel road. Amid the weeds were two twenty-foot high lamp posts guarding twin pumps. He hoped the pumps were working because now his gas needle was way below the red line.

  Before he could emerge from his car, out of the nearby shack came a hefty man with bib overalls and no shirt. “I’ll pump it for you, sir,” he said. “Check the oil?”

  “Uh. . .sure.” Todd knew this kind of service had gone out of vogue twenty years ago. The gas also was also eighty cents cheaper than the prices he’d seen in Chicago.

  The man collected the money—cash of course—and began to walk away. Todd got curious. “Are you from around here originally?”

  The man turned. “Yep, lived here all my life. Willy’s the name.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but you could be close to fifty. Is there enough to do around here?”

  “I don’t think about something like that. A day happens; then another day. I get up in the morning, work here at the station sometimes; other times neighbors need some help with plowing or chores. Take the dog for a run, talk to a few people, and suddenly it’s dinner time. Sometimes we have dances and ice cream socials. Time passes.”

  To Todd it sounded like an incredibly boring life, but he didn’t want to say that. Since he was a cop he had to ask about people breaking the law. “Much crime in the area?”

  “None at all. We do have a sheriff, but people are pretty peaceful here. Sometimes a husband and wife get into it, but nothing too serious. Not married myself.”

  “Well, thanks for the gas. I’ll be getting back to the highway.”

  “Come back and see us sometimes.”

  As Todd drove away he was sure there was no chance of his ever coming back there. In fact, he began to think of it as a unique moment in time. He would never, ever, set foot in that gas station again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience

  Todd didn’t know it then, but his thought was going to be as wrong as, Dewey Defeats Truman.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Back in Philadelphia Chief Trimble wasted no time getting Todd back to work.

  He had hardly settled in when his rotund boss came up to his desk and said, “Henson, someone last night wanted to use up some bullets and pumped six of them into a homeless man down by the junkyard. Apparently he was sleeping in one of the car wrecks that were abandoned on the fringe of that salvage area. Someone looking for some used auto parts, saw the guy in the car and thought he was sleeping. We just got the call thirty minutes ago. If you hurry you might be able to beat the coroner there.”

  The Chief waddled back to his office. In the seven years that Todd had known Ebenezer Trimble, the Chief had constantly talked about the exercise regimen he had. At the gym at least three days a week, daily jogging every morning, and then participation in three full marathons a year. Todd has seen photos of the Chief running in those marathons. Despite all that activity, the Chief, as far as Todd could determine, had not lost one pound. He was just as heavy as when Todd had entered the precinct as a fledgling rookie. From Todd’s viewpoint all that exercise put the Chief closer to death than health. However, Trimble had never missed a day because of illness. The word around the office was that if the Chief ever got shot in the stomach, he wouldn’t know it for three days.

  Todd headed on the highway approaching the Walt Whitman Bridge, and then getting closer to the airport turned down toward the river. There were three salvage yards fairly close together on Passyunk Avenue, which was affectionately known as pass-the-junk avenue. Besides wrecked cars the salvage yards had fridges and wash machines, plus old tires and boxy computers and TV sets. They were graveyards with the inhabitants turning into rust instead of dust.

  Todd turned into the first one past 61st Street, Gianna Salvage. He could see coroner, Teddy Roscoe, standing by what was once a blue Pontiac. This one had no doors or windows, but probably the solid roof could protect from a storm. Yesterday was May 1st with some days reaching seventy. Todd didn’t know what the guy did in the dead of winter to keep himself from getting dead.

  Todd and Teddy greeted each other with a raised hand. “Looks like the guy’s been
dead five to six hours,” Roscoe said. “Mercifully the poor sap probably never knew what hit him. He was lying there in that back seat as you see him now. The gunman reached in and emptied the gun into him. To me it seems insane. Why kill this guy sleeping in a junked out car, and why so viciously? But I guess that’s your territory Henson. Good luck. The wagon’s coming to take the vic. to the morgue. His clothes are in tatters. You can check his pockets for I.D., but I don’t know if you’ll find any. With all those bullet holes, it was easy to determine the cause of death, but we’ll let the medical examiner make the final determination.”

  Part of the man’s face was missing. It was as if the shooter was trying to give the man no existence. Would someone randomly fire all those bullets into a harmless victim? If it was an intentional killer, it was even crazier.

  Nothing in the pants pockets, but rolled up in the one shirt pocket was a lottery ticket, purchased yesterday. So far there was no way to identify the victim, and even if Todd could find the store where the ticket was purchased it would be one of possibly thousands that store sold this week. The clerk was not going to remember who in particular had purchased that ticket. This ticket is not going to figure in this case. The ticket was not signed, so maybe this guy found in on the street, or stole it from somewhere. There seemed to be no way to be able to tell how that ticket got in this guy’s pocket. Todd decided he would keep the ticket.

  The drawing was that night. Earlier Todd had been at the morgue where the ME told him that DNA could be extracted, but it would take a couple of weeks for results. In the meanwhile the man seemed to have no unusual marks or tattoos that could be checked to determine his identity. Todd checked with missing persons, but no man of that age had been reported missing in the Philadelphia area in the last few weeks.

  That night in his basement apartment, Todd watched his small screen TV in amazement as the announcer rattled off all the numbers on that ticket, except the Powerball. It seemed that the homeless dead man had just won a million dollars!

  Todd kept staring at the TV for ten extra minutes, not believing what he had just seen. Possibly he had gotten some of the numbers wrong. He went to the Lottery website to check. The numbers were accurate.

  So what the heck to do now? He should have really turned in that ticket as evidence in the murder. It was part of the crime scene. However, now that he didn’t do it, if he should enter it in as evidence tomorrow, obviously keeping it himself for this period of time breaks the chain of evidence required to present that evidence in court. And really how important would a crumpled up Lottery ticket be in determining the killer? The homeless man certainly wasn’t killed for the ticket because no one could have known its value ahead of time, and also the killer didn’t take the ticket.

  Todd knew now he was making excuses for himself keeping the ticket. He told himself he would sleep on it, but try as he might he couldn’t get to sleep. Was he doing a criminal act by keeping the ticket? He got up and went back to the Lottery website. There was actually a discussion there about finding an unclaimed ticket, but those examples dealt with people who were still alive and had lost the ticket. The six bullet holes in the homeless man definitely made him ineligible to receive the ticket back.

  How about the relatives? So far this was a dead end for Todd because he didn’t even know who the homeless man was.

  Todd finally got a couple hours sleep, and the entire next day was distracted with that decision. Two of his police co-workers commented on him staring at the wall.

  After sitting at his desk for three hours finishing paperwork from the completion of that past robbery case, he made his decision. That paperwork should have taken only an hour; Todd knew he had to decide, or he would be useless in his job.

  The trip to Harrisburg took him two hours. Every minute on the way, Todd tried to talk himself out of what he was going to do. Was he going over to the other side of the law by doing this?

  Todd did not win the battle of talking himself out of his action. Thus, an hour later he was walking out of the Lottery Commission’s office, having officially claimed ownership of that ticket. He told the official behind the desk that he wished to remain anonymous with no publicity. The official agreed saying that the only thing the commission would do was announce that there had been one state million dollar winner. No name would be released.

  Todd was told that the name of the store selling the ticket would be publicized. They would receive a cash bonus for selling the winning ticket. Todd had forgotten about this part, but he went back to a previous thought he had when he found the ticket. Throughout the many days of ticket sales and countless customers buying, the clerk would not remember whom he sold a particular ticket to. If the homeless man had stayed alive and knew he had won and then was later identified by the Lottery Commission, given those circumstances a particular clerk could be able to say, yes, I sold it to that man. It was crucial that Todd remain the anonymous winner.

  The Lottery Commission official had told Todd that since he was taking the lump sum it would be less than a million, and then with taxes deducted, the final amount would be $718,000. He would receive the check within a month.

  Todd knew he had another decision after he received the money. If he tried to deposit the entire amount it would raise many banking eyebrows, and he would probably be investigated by the government. He would face that hurdle when he got there, but so far his thinking could be to deposit some of the money in three separate banks of less than $10,000 each so as to not trigger a government alert system. He felt he was already thinking like a crook.

  During his first cashing of the check, he would have to admit to the bank that he had won the Lottery since that was the state department who was issuing the check. He would ask the bank to keep that information secret, but there would then be someone else who knew that it was Todd who had cashed in that ticket. If he didn’t put the money in the bank was he merely going to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in his basement apartment? He didn’t realize all the problems of suddenly becoming a millionaire.

  The biggest problem he had mentally was that his conscience told him he didn’t deserve that money. But then who did? The way he had assuaged that conscience was to tell himself that he would use some of that money to find the killer of that homeless man Also, once that homeless man was identified, if that happened, Todd would see to it that people or institutions that were close to the man received some of the money. The biggest question Todd hadn’t resolved was should he keep some of the money as a finder’s fee? The next time he visited Carrie, it would be great to drive up to her lake shore condo in his Cadillac Escalade, or invite her to his own penthouse condo overlooking the river. If he did that, though, would that be stepping over the line? And for that matter, by signing that ticket and claiming it for himself, had he already blurred that line?

  CHAPTER TWO

  The next day Philadelphia newspapers and TV announced that there had been a million dollar winner in the Pa Lottery. Todd was relieved that the next line stated, The winner wishes to remain anonymous.

  Chief Trimble mentioned the event: “How about that million dollar winner? I wouldn’t know what to do with that amount of money.”

  “Neither would I,” replied Todd, just about speaking the truth.

  The Chief was not finished pontificating. “From what I hear, those winners have all sorts of trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Suddenly everyone becomes your friend. Also the scammers get their antennae up and want to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. I think it’s more of a curse rather than good fortune,”

  Todd was hopeful that the curse would not be following him.

  The store that sold the ticket received $10,000. It was a cigar store six blocks from City Hall. Todd took a drive there and talked to two of the clerks. Neither one had any distinct recollection of the person who bought the winning ticket. Thankfully their surveillance camera was broken. As Todd was about to leave one of the clerks said
, “Everyone goes nuts over this Lottery thing. Even the poorest people buy tickets. I remember a couple days ago some guy whose clothes had more holes than fabric bought a ticket. Even homeless people try to get in on it. Now there was a guy who should have won. He said it was his last two dollars. He could have used the money.”

  Even though Todd in no way would have been able to get that money to his murder victim, the clerk’s comments still made him feel bad. In Todd’s seven years as a cop, he never had a case he wanted to solve more, now mainly so he could give that money to some needy person connected to the victim.

  He asked the clerk if that homeless man had said anything or if the clerk noticed anything unusual about him. “The only odd thing,” the clerk said, “was that he didn’t seem like a laborer. His hands were smooth without callouses. He was well-spoken and actually didn’t seem to be bearing any poverty burden. He talked about the stock market as if he knew something about it. I could picture him much more in a business suit than the raggedy clothes he was wearing.”

  Todd was to find more of that kind of surprise as he got to know this so-called homeless man a lot better. It was not a busy month at the lab, and so the DNA sample was analyzed quicker than usual. Then almost immediately a match was found. This man by the name of Billy Jessup was not homeless at all.

  Billy, three months earlier had gotten into a bar fight. He then tried to fight the intervening police officer which got him an extra week in jail during which time he was fingerprinted and his DNA taken. When Todd was told all this, his first reaction to the address he was given was, “Does he live in a box on some street corner?”

  The response he was given was, “Look a little more closely at this address. It’s in Lower Merion Township, one of the wealthiest suburbs in the state.”

  And sure enough, the drive Todd took out to the address revealed a three-story mansion complete with pillars, balconies, and of course the swimming pool in back. The house itself had to be worth over a million, maybe even two.