James Conway - In Cold Blonde

“What things?”

“You’re about to find out. Wait here.” Ryan took a step toward the stage, then stopped and turned back to Anne. “Oh, by the way, Rick says hello.”

Anne’s face fell as Ryan walked away. Rick? Oh, no, what did Rick tell Ryan? The worst thing possible, Anne realized. The one thing she couldn’t afford for Ryan to know.

The truth.

Anne rushed forward, grabbed Ryan by the arm spinning him around, then pulled him close and said in a desperate whisper. “You can’t believe anything Rick says, he’s a pathological liar.”

“He told me Rogers, Middleton and Roberts has never represented a lottery winner. You told me you had. So, simple question, have you ever represented a lottery winner?”

Anne stared at Ryan, her mind racing, trying to figure out what to say, how to parse the awful truth. Finally, shaken, her voice barely above a whisper, Anne said, “No.”

“Rick told me you and he forged some mortgage papers. Did you?”

“Yes,” Anne said and then regrouped. “Okay, I might have had an agenda when I first went to see you in the bullpen, I admit it, but all that changed last night. I love you, Ryan. I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about the foundation. All I care about is you, I swear it.”

Ryan could hear the sincerity in her plea, and felt a twinge of sympathy. But his mind was made up. “Sorry, Beautiful, we’re done.”

Crushed, Anne watched Ryan step on stage.

Lucinda was standing with a couple of Lotto officials and a heavy-set man in a suit he must’ve bought about twenty pounds ago. Behind them on a display stand was a six-foot check made out to Ryan Magee for thirty-four million dollars.

“Detective Ryan,” Lucinda said shaking his hand. “I’m Lucinda McCarthy with the California Lottery, congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said.

“And this,” Lucinda said, indicating the heavy-set man, “is Farid Nouri, he owns the store where you bought your ticket.”

Ryan shook his hand. “And how much did you win?”

“Twenty-three thousand, five hundred dollars,” Farid said.

“The store gets .5% of the winning jackpot,” Lucinda said.

“Does he get a giant check, too?” Ryan joked.

“No,” Lucinda said, laughing. “Just the Lotto winner. So, would you like to get started?”

“Just another minute or two,” Ryan said, eyeing the crowd. The now familiar faces of the press looked up at him expectantly, as well as friends and colleagues from the LAPD including Hanrahan, Chen, Katz, his former mother-in-law, Liz, and a distressed looking Anne. But no Syd.

Syd was hurrying across the crowded lobby toward the front door when she noticed Tony Ramirez running toward the ballroom with a man in tow. The man was big, with an unremarkable face but a very distinctive wardrobe — greasy coveralls. They rushed past Syd and Syd’s jaw dropped when she saw the logo on the back of the coveralls, Valley Tow and Salvage.

Tony reached the ballroom door, whispered something to the tow truck driver, then Tony stepped inside while the tow truck driver remained in the hall.

Fascinated, Syd started back toward the ballroom.

On stage, Ryan saw Tony walk in. Tony gave Ryan a thumb up. Ryan turned to Lucinda. “Okay, let’s get started, but first I need to tell you something.” Ryan pulled Lucinda to the side of the stage and whispered furiously in her ear.

As Ryan huddled with Lucinda, Syd walked back into the ballroom and up to Ramirez.

“Hey, Tony,” Syd said.

“Hey, Syd,” he said, but his eyes never left Ryan.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?”

Now his eyes met hers. “You mean, you don’t know?”

“No.”

Tony barked out a laugh. “You’ve got one crazy partner, I’ll tell you that.”

On stage, Ryan turned to Tony and spotted Syd. A smile exploded on Ryan’s face. Then he turned back to Tony and nodded.

“Excuse me a second,” Tony said to Syd and then stuck his head outside the ballroom door. “Okay, buddy, you can go on up.”

The slightly baffled, though clearly excited man walked through the door and headed for the stage.

“Is that who I think it is?” Syd asked.

“The tow truck driver,” Tony said. “Ryan told me the whole story.”

“But, how did Ryan find him?”

“He got an idea at the crime scene last night when he saw the Lady in Red’s bloody fingerprints on the medicine bottles. It occurred to him that if the tow truck driver had any grease on his hands, there was a very good chance he left a print on the Lotto ticket.”

“That’s what you guys were talking about in the kitchen.”

Ramirez nodded. “He gave me the Lotto ticket and when I got to the office, I was able to bring up a print. Ran it through the computer, got a hit, Alan Moll. He had a commercial class C California driver’s license, which you need to operate a tow truck. I emailed his driver’s license picture to Ryan and he recognized him. So forty-five minutes ago I walked into Valley Tow and Salvage and changed Alan’s life forever.”

“So he did the right thing,” Syd said, surprised. “He gave up all that money…” And then Syd thought about Anne, did she know about this? Syd searched the crowd then found a surprised, stricken-looking Anne staring at the stage. She looked absolutely miserable. So she didn’t know; interesting, Syd thought. Very interesting.

On stage, there was a flurry of activity. Ryan shook Alan’s hand and introduced him to Lucinda, Farid and the others. Lucinda was on her cell phone in the middle of an agitated conversation with someone.

“Let me get this straight,” Alan said to Ryan. “You could have kept all this money and no one would have thought twice about it. But instead you decided to track me down? We’re talking millions, man!”

“I know,” Ryan said. “And it was tempting. But, ultimately, Alan, they weren’t my millions.”

“Okay,” Lucinda said, hanging up. “I’ve just talked to our legal department. Mr. Magee, if you are willing to sign an affidavit that you saw Mr. Moll drop the lottery ticket and that you have just now been able to track him down, then the jackpot will be awarded to him.”

“Great,” Ryan and Alan said together.

“But you better get back on that cell phone,” Alan said. “Because I want to give a finder’s fee to Detective Magee.” Alan turned to Ryan. “How’d ten percent sound?”

“That’s four point seven million dollars,” a surprised Lucinda said.

“Three point four after taxes,” Ryan said. “But Alan, there’s no need. What’s yours is yours.”

“Then let me do what I want with it. Take the money, please.”

Ryan looked into the grateful tow truck driver’s face and smiled. “Thank you, Alan.”

“No, you crazy fool. Thank you!” Alan said, and then he threw his arm around Ryan and hugged him.

The press had no idea what was happening yet, but the frenzied conversations on stage had certainly piqued everyone’s interest so all the cameras were rolling when Alan locked Ryan in a bear hug. Clips of that embrace would lead every news story that night and grace the front page of tomorrow’s L.A. Times with the headline: Honest Cop Stuns Crowd.

“We have to talk.”

After a raucous forty-five minutes of answering questions about finding the lottery ticket and the Lady in Red investigation, Ryan climbed off the stage and made a beeline for Syd. As the reporters now lobbed their questions at the dazed tow truck driver, Ryan grabbed Syd by the arm and steered her to a quiet corner of the hotel lobby.

“About last night,” Ryan said.

“You fucked that greedy bitch.”