He said for a prize of this size, they would also require identity verification, a signed claim form, and in many cases, a brief waiting period for processing. If Derek hasn’t claimed it yet, we may have a window. How do we find out if he’s claimed it? I can make some inquiries. More importantly, Margaret, I need you to go back to Garfield’s pharmacy today.
I need you to speak with Mrs. Garfield directly and I need you to find out whether your purchase can be documented. Security footage, transaction records, anything that places you as the buyer of that specific ticket on that specific date, I nodded. I had already been thinking about Garfields and the signature on the ticket. I asked.
James looked at me carefully. That depends on what we find. If your name is already on it, our position is strong. If it isn’t, or if Dererick’s name has been added, then we’re in a more complex situation. But purchase documentation can be powerful independent evidence. Let’s get that first. I left his office at 11:15.
By 11:45, I was pushing open the glass door of Garfield’s pharmacy. Mrs. Garfield, Ununice, though I had never called her that, was behind the counter sorting a delivery of vitamins. She was a roundfaced woman in her late60s with bif focals on a beaded chain and a memory that I had always trusted more than most people’s entire personalities.
She looked up when I came in and her expression shifted immediately from professional welcome to something more personal. Margaret, she said, I’ve been thinking about you. That stopped me. You have? I said, sit down, she said. Let me get Ronnie to watch the counter. We sat in the small back office that smelled of cardboard and old receipts.
And Ununice Garfield told me something that changed the entire weight of the morning. She had been watching the lottery news. She had seen the announcement of the winning ticket, a local winner, Columbus area, numbers not yet confirmed to the public, but the prize amount already reported. And she had remembered me.
She had remembered my Thursday visit, my usual order, the particular set of numbers I had played for 11 years. She had gone back through the transaction records herself, not for any legal purpose, simply because she was the kind of woman who kept orderly records and trusted her own instincts.