Retirement Plan (3 page)

The older she got, the more often total strangers took liberties with her first name. She moved her eyes to the right but could barely see him. “Who are you?”

The man said, “I’m Phil, the dayshift RN.”

Not even a doctor. “I feel like hell.”

“You have a broken clavicle and a cracked ulna.” He moved into her line of sight—just a goddamn kid—looking at a clipboard. “Doctor says we’ll have to wait and see about the neck injury.”

“Where’s the little bitch that hit me?” Sophie said.

“I—I don’t know.”

Lois chimed in. “She got a bump on the knee. Didn’t even come to the hospital.”

“That’s all?”

“Who knows,” Lois said. “Are you in pain?”

Sophie tried to nod, gave it up, and said, “Yeah.”

The nurse said, “You have pain medication ordered. I’ll bring it on my way back.  Just try to relax in the meantime.”

When Phil the nurse left the room, Sophie said to Lois, “Scoot down a little. I can barely see you.”

Lois shoved her chair closer and into a better position.

“Why can’t I move my head?”

“You have on a cervical collar.”

Sophie was quiet for a moment, trying to understand. Dismayed, she finally asked, “What am I going to do?”

Lois stroked her hand. “About what?”

“I haven’t been able to afford insurance on that car for twelve years.”

“The accident wasn’t your fault.”

“Do you think that matters? I’ll get a whopping ticket just for driving the car without insurance.”

Lois sighed. “The whole system’s stacked against us. I think Myrtle’s ex had the right idea—at least in theory.”

“I have a list of people I’d like to see gone, even if we didn’t make a profit. That kid with her cell phone is near the top,” Sophie said. “Hell, everyone thinks
someone
deserves to die. I say, find a person who wants another person dead enough to pay for it and oblige her for a modest price.”

“Good grief, Soph, murder’s a crime.”

“So is driving without insurance. We’re only talking about a matter of degree.”

Lois squeezed Sophie’s hand. “This will all work out. The important thing is to get you feeling better.”

The RN came back into the room, passed Sophie a paper cup containing a pill, and poured some water from the pitcher on the nightstand. Sophie tried to lean forward to drink, but winced. The RN said, “Easy now, honey. We’ll use a straw.”

When the nurse had gone, Sophie said, “Do I look like his honey?”

“He was just trying to be nice.”

“Don’t make excuses for him. I’m not in a generous mood. He sees me as a helpless old lady. He doesn’t know that I stood in front of a bunch of Catholic fifth-graders longer than he’s been alive. Most people aren’t tough enough to do that for one damn day.”

“I know.”

The room was quiet. After a while Sophie said, “What am I going to do without my car?”

“The girl’s insurance company will pay for your medical. We’ll worry about your traffic ticket when the time comes—maybe we could make payments. You just lean back and rest for now.”

“How is a body supposed to keep going when even a bottle of generic aspirin is a major expense?” Sophie was already getting groggy, but her anger had momentum. “I paid for car insurance all those years and never made a single claim.”

“I said this will work out.”

Sophie yawned. “I’ve earned a comfortable life. Young people think seventy-three is too old for women to expect comfort. That teen on the cell phone has a rude awakening in store for her.”

“Aw,” Lois said. “She has no idea what it’s like.”

Sophie’s eyelids were heavy. The last sound she heard was Lois saying, “We’ll be all right.”

*

A week later Sophie’s neck brace was still in place and her arm was in a sling.  She couldn’t dress herself, and she was still angry. The young woman who had crashed into her turned out to have third-rate insurance, and the adjuster was haggling over every penny. Of course, the company wouldn’t pay anything until all the bills were in, and all the bills wouldn’t be in until she was back on her feet.

Sophie was lying on the couch watching TV when Lois came in from the kitchen and said, “I’m going to hock the M-16. I only kept it around because it meant something to Matt.” Matt had been Lois’s grandson. She and Sophie had raised the boy after his mother abandoned him. He had been killed in Afghanistan just three years before.

“No. I won’t let you.”

“It’s the only thing we own that we don’t need.”

“No.” Sophie held her ground. “Let’s use it.”

“How?”

 “I’ve been sitting here,” Sophie said, “mad as hell. I’d really like to kill somebody—the damn insurance adjuster, for one. If I, an old-maid school teacher, want a person dead, I’m sure others with less refinement do too. If we were to provide that service, we could make some extra cash—untaxed income to make us more comfortable. We’d probably only need to do a job every six months or so.”

“You don’t know how to shoot.”

“We’re a team, aren’t we? I could be the brains—get the jobs and make the plans. All you’d have to do is show up and pull the trigger.”

Lois said, “You’re not serious.”

“I believe I am.”

“I don’t know—”

“Okay, then teach me how to shoot, and I’ll do the jobs alone. I’m sick of living from the third of one month to the next. I’m sick of wondering what’ll happen when we can’t pay the taxes on our home. I’m sick of going without the things I need.”

“What if we get caught?”

“Then, like Myrtle said, we won’t need to pay property taxes. We’ll have free medical care and three squares a day. Of course, appeals could take years. We might never see the inside of a prison.”   

“Don’t you think the M-16 is overkill?”

“Here’s what I like about it,” Sophie said. “There’s no way to trace it to us. That rifle’s never been used in a crime. You got it from the army-surplus store before there were FOID cards. Matt only fired it at hay bales. Anyway, who’ll suspect us of owning a weapon like that?”

Lois seemed to consider this. At length she whispered, for if they were really going to do it, they had to speak softly, “Tell me why you think we won’t get caught?”

Sophie was ready for this question. “We have no apparent motive to kill anybody. If anyone is suspected, it will be the person that hires us. So we won’t do killings for our friends. We need as much distance from our employers as possible.”

Chapter Two

Morgan Holiday sat in a large, sunny room with several elderly people, most in wheelchairs, and a few nurse’s aides. Unless it was near Thanksgiving or Christmas, not many other family members came. Her mother sat across the table from her, or at least the thing that had taken the form of her mother was there, staring at the raw vegetables on her plate.

“My children come to see me on Sundays,” her mother said. “You must come on Sundays and meet them.”

“Ma, I’m your daughter,” Morgan said for the third time that day. “This is Sunday. Remember, David only comes at Christmas.”

The thing that used to be Morgan’s mother picked up a celery stick and shook it at her. “Don’t you say that, you ugly girl. David was here yesterday, and he will come today. You wait and see.”

Morgan sighed. Sundays at the Prairie Flower Retirement Center were excruciating.  She tried to change the subject. “They have chocolate cake today. Would you like some?”

“I need to watch my figure. It wouldn’t hurt if you were more careful too. How do you expect to find a man who will have you when you outweigh half of them? You look like a heifer in those jeans.”

Morgan closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer.

A slim black woman in blue jeans that looked as if they’d been ironed came up to their table and said, “Are you two playing today?”

Morgan looked hopefully at her mother.  Often these days she didn’t want to play, and Morgan got a reprieve from an entire afternoon of verbal abuse.

“Belle,” Morgan’s mother said, gesturing toward her. “Have you met my sister, Ida?”

Belle Trees, the activity director, gave Morgan a knowing look. “Why, Mrs. Holiday, this is your daughter, Morgan.”

Her mother squinted at her and folded her arms across her chest. Turning to Belle, she said, “We’ll want the table by the window.”

Belle nodded. “I’ll get things set up.”

Morgan’s mother had taught her to play chess when she was five. Until then, she’d watched her parents and grandparents play. It was Aunt Ida who’d said, “The child is too young.”

Her mother had taken Morgan into her arms and told Ida that her daughter was a “smart girl.” And, magically, Morgan became one. Whenever things were hard for Morgan, she remembered her mother’s words.  She was a “smart girl,” so she could take honors math. The “smart girl” could graduate in the top tenth of her high-school class and go to night school while writing traffic tickets all day. At five years old, Morgan had learned the game quickly, and she played it most Sunday afternoons with her mother. Even now.

Belle was setting up the board when Morgan, holding her mother’s arm, entered the great room.

“Surprises me that she can still play chess,” Belle said. “It’s a game of memory and strategy.”

Like all the others, Belle spoke of Morgan’s mother as if she wasn’t there. Even if what she heard upset her, the Alzheimer’s had progressed so far she wouldn’t remember the affront a moment later. This time she didn’t respond. She had her eye on the table and the chess pieces.

Morgan helped her into a pink wingback chair and told Belle, “She’s known this game a lot longer than she’s known me.”

“Well, I believe it keeps her alive,” Belle said. “It may slow down the disease.”

Morgan nodded and smiled, then took the chair across from her mother. Now the real battle would begin.  

*

The Zachary Ingram job had come from Jessica Ryan, the daughter of an old friend. Before Sophie could place an ad in a couple of Mercenary Internet sites she’d chosen, Faith Ryan, who had taught second grade in the same parochial school as Sophie, died. She and Sophie had been friends, and when Faith adopted Jessica, Sophie had given the baby shower. Eventually Sophie met Lois, and Faith got a better job at a private girls’ school. They rarely saw each other in the years that followed.

Then the obituary appeared in the paper, and Sophie, who was still wearing a neck brace part of the time, went to Faith’s wake. There she introduced herself to Jessica, who was now forty. Interestingly, although Jessica was adopted, she resembled her mother in many ways.

A blanket of roses with a ribbon that said Beloved Mother covered part of the coffin. The only other flowers were in the small arrangement that Lois and Sophie had sent. Faith had been a plump, rosy-cheeked woman when Sophie knew her many years before. Now her head lay on a light-blue satin pillow, her gray hair thin and fuzzy. Her sunken cheeks were pink with too much makeup. Sophie turned to Jessica, who stood next to the casket, and embraced her.

Jessica said, “Thank you for coming, Miss Long.”

“Please. Call me Sophie.”

“Sophie,” Jessica repeated.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Jessica said. “In a way this was a relief. She’d lost so many of the things that pleased her. Most of her friends are dead.”

Sophie nodded. “I should have come to visit her. But, you know, we lost track.”

Jessica nodded, then looked toward the back of the room. Sophie turned, a little awkwardly because of the neck pain, and saw two old women slowly move toward them. The one in the wheelchair was stooped, so until she was closer, Sophie could see only the top of her head. The woman walking behind the wheelchair was heavyset and wore orthopedic shoes. Nuns, Sophie thought—either that or lesbians. These days they seemed to dress alike. Back when Sophie had taught at the Catholic school, nuns wore black robes and their hair was always covered.

“Sophie Long.” The old woman in the chair had said it.

Sophie looked closer and it took a moment. “Sister Anne.” Sophie turned to Jessica and said, “Sister Anne was the principal back when your mother and I taught at the same school.”

Jessica graciously took the old woman’s claw-like hand and thanked her for coming. The three of them approached the casket together while Sophie stayed seated. Jessica stood silently, her head bowed while the nuns prayed. This is where it ends, Sophie thought, alone in a funeral parlor.

By eight o’clock Sophie and Jessica were putting on their coats. Sophie said, “Would you like to come by our house for coffee?”

Jessica shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’d really love to, but I have to get up very early to pick up my cousin who’s flying in tomorrow.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Down the street at the Ramada.”

“There’s a little greasy spoon right across the street. How about it?”

“Well, maybe a cup of tea,” Jessica said.

A young woman, probably in her late forties, wearing a tight white uniform slightly yellowed around the collar and beneath the arms, slapped menus in front of them.

“Just two cups of tea,” Sophie said.

Jessica asked, “What kind of pie do you have?”

The waitress looked over her shoulder at a pie case that sat next to the coffee pots.  “Looks like apple and coconut.”

Jessica made a face.

“I got some fresh carrot cake,” the waitress offered.

Jessica looked at Sophie. “Will you have a slice of cake with me?”

“Carrot cake would be wonderful. At least I’ll be able to say I had my vegetables today.”

The waitress smiled, shoved her pencil behind her ear, and left. She’d probably heard the vegetable line five thousand times, yet she had smiled. Sophie decided to like her.

Teapots, cups and saucers, and two healthy slices of carrot cake in front of them, the waitress went to her place behind the counter and picked up a paperback novel, leaving them to talk.

They sipped their tea in silence. Finally Sophie said, “Will you live in the house or will you be selling it?”

Jessica shrugged. “The house is gone. We sold everything after Mom broke her hip a second time. I got her into a retirement home—the best one I could find.”