Lottery 1
The phone rang in Lou Artou’s office. The voice at the other end explained how Barrett’s house was for sale and cleaned out. “You can make an appointment with the realtor if you wanna come check it out.” the voice explained before Lou hung up on it.
“Moved out, huh.” Lou tossed the phone on the desk and looked outside the window. His grandchildren played in the backyard under close supervision. His entire compound was fortified with high brick walls and urban soldiers. Barrett also had a family, and his was not so fortified.
“Miggs!” Lou barked out loud enough to be heard. “Get Aston in here!”
After a while a thin, pale man walked through the door into Lou’s office. He looked at his boss with all seriousness through monolid eyes.
“William Barrett has a wife and two kids.” Lou stated.
“Christine Barrett took the kids to her mother’s house three weeks ago.” Aston replied.
“Is she still there?”
“So far as I know, she has no reason to leave.” Aston was unsure if his boss was having delusions. “She has fourteen dollars in her checking her account. Where else is going to go? The bank foreclosed on the house”
Lou began thinking hard, the bank foreclosed. So maybe he didn’t hit it big, still skipping out is skipping out… And you don’t do that to Lou Artou. “Find out what happened.”
Aston nodded and walked out of the room.
“Welcome to Paradise Travels.” A plump woman extended out her hand to Lucy. “We spoke on the phone about the all inclusive world cruise?”
“Yes.” Lucy sat across from the desk and waited to hear what the travel agent had for her.
“I did a little digging, and I put together several packages you might enjoy.” The woman set out brochures for different countries on her desk. “Personally I would take the first one. Out of port from New York to England. Ireland to Norway, Sweden, Finland. Russia then Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany. Then France, Spain, the cruise ending in Italy. First class air flight to Australia. Then it’s off to India, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. That cruise ends in New Zealand. Then it’s first class air to Venezuela, back on a ship to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Equador, Mexico, and finally back home to California.”
“You left out Canada.” Lucy was disappointed.
“I can add in a Canada package for the precursor of the journey.” the woman typed in a few things. “The total comes out, for two, around sixty thousand each. You will be traveling for an estimate of five hundred and twenty days.”
“That’s over a year.” Lucy looked at all the places.
“The world is big place if you really want to see it.” the woman implied Lucy was not serious about her travel arrangements. “The second package..” the woman began to speak as if disappointed in her client.
“No,” Lucy stopped her. “I’ll take the first.”
The travel agent smiled and began typing up everything needed for the arrangements.
Shaniqua scoured every source she had for information on William Barrett. After fourteen hours of endless searching, and order in chinese food, she finally found something. A small video of a man taking his life on a street corner. A man whose name was William Barrett.
Shaniqua smiled as she watched the video over and over. Whoever that dark haired woman was, she was the last person to see Mr Barrett alive. And it was quite possible he had given her his ticket.
She spent the rest of the evening writing up her story and getting the permissions she needed to run the video. When the ten o’clock news came on, Shaniqua was ready for it.
“The question on everyone’s minds lately is who just walked off with a half billion dollars from the tri-state lottery. Sources show that the actual winner of this prize was a man named William Barrett.” Barrett’s driver’s license picture came up in the top right of the screen. “However further investigation came up with this disturbing video of William Barrett’s last few minutes caught gruesomely on camera.” The video now played in place of the picture.
The frame paused on a clear shot of a woman’s back.
“Who is this woman standing with her back to the camera? Does she have some kind of information about the winning lottery ticket? Was she the one who cashed in a half billion dollars?” The picture of Barrett returned to the screen. “What kind of human being would cash in on someone else’s suicide?” Shaniqua posed the question to the viewing public as if shame would help flush them out. The camera cut off and returned to the main anchors. The polite banter followed, then the sports segment began.
Shaniqua had done her part, now all she had to do was wait. Wait for her anonymous tipster to call with the whereabouts of the dark haired female.