Retirement Plan (27 page)

“I’ll get you some coffee.” Belle closed the door behind her.

Morgan’s anxiety was nearly unbearable. She’d forgotten Redick was there when he touched her shoulder and said, “Don’t cry.”

She looked at him angrily. “I’m not crying.” Fiery tears were stinging her eyes. “I’m just so fucking frustrated. How can they call me in and just stick me in here?”

Redick shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to me they can unless you let them.”

Morgan grabbed the edge of the desk and pushed herself to a standing position. Through the window and across the rolling back lawn she could see two evergreen trees decorated with Christmas lights, and beyond them was a frozen pond. The Prairie Flower Retirement Home was a beautiful place, but families probably appreciated that more than the residents.      

Redick scooted the chair from behind her and took her arm. He pressed a tissue into her hand, led her to the door, and held it open for her. Belle Trees was approaching with a tray that held two coffee cups. “Wait,” she called to them. “Mrs. Vaughn will be right here.”

Morgan faced her. “I can’t do that, Belle.” Then she walked back toward the lobby.

Two paramedics were at the front desk filling out papers when Morgan approached. She dried her eyes and dug out her identification. Flashing her badge she said, “What we got here?”

They looked at her uncertainly, then at the badge. Finally the older one said, “You guys Homicide?”

Morgan nodded.

“Who called you?”

“The administrator gave instructions for us to be called.”

 “Looks like a bad death to me, but you guys will have to investigate. I can’t get much out of them.”

“What do you mean?” Redick asked. “What kind of death?”

The younger one said, “Old lady froze to death.”

Morgan’s knees felt weak. She grabbed the counter for support and managed to ask, “How?”

The older paramedic pushed the bill of his navy ball cap back off his bald forehead. “Probably was an accident. They claim she escaped before—once got all the way across town. It was just too cold last night for a barefoot lady in her housecoat.”

“Three below,” the younger of the two said. “And with that wind…”

The older man handed Morgan a copy of his report. “You want to see her before we move her?”

“Where will you take her?” Redick asked.

“They’re contacting the family now. But if you say this is suspicious, we ain’t taking her anywhere until we’re told to.”

Suddenly there was a commotion around them. Belle Trees pointed the two homicide officers out to a red-faced woman whose name tag read Emily Vaughan. Apologetic and sympathetic expressions swam around Morgan’s head. “So sorry.” “Are you all right?” Morgan eyed four people, including the administrator, the DON, Belle Trees, and a large man in violet-colored scrubs, who was probably a nurse’s aide.

“I want to see my mother.”

Belle Trees was beside her. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Morgan shook her off. She noticed the paramedics backing away and Redick following them, talking to them.

Morgan gritted her teeth. “Is she in her room?”

Belle Trees shook her head.

“Take me to her.”

Then Redick was beside her. “Come on. I found out where she is.”

Chapter Nineteen

Lois emerged from the little truck into the dark alleyway, leaving Sophie behind with the motor running. She pulled her coat round her and crept between the buildings where the stench of the dumpsters pierced the stinging cold. The case that held the M-16 and tripod seemed heavier than usual. By the time she entered the warehouse through a rusty door that wouldn’t completely close, her feet throbbed from the cold. The inside of the huge building was dark as pitch and not much warmer than outside.

The hulking, square structure had been used by a local bank. A national bank had bought out the locally owned bank several years before and streamlined operations, laying off three hundred of the four hundred employees. Since then it had merged twice with larger corporations. Lois couldn’t even remember who the original owners were.  The front of the warehouse had been a garage, probably for parking messenger vans.

She swept her flashlight around the still, dark room. Rusted file cabinets and broken office furniture were randomly scattered in an area toward the rear. Four slabs of boxes that contained obsolete IBM cards were stacked against the back wall. Old forms littered an area where the floor was raised. Some forty years before, the bank’s computers had been on the first floor, with the systems staff in offices above. The computers as well as their support staff were long gone. The warehouse had been used for storage and eventually abandoned.

Lois located the dark stairway. Feeling her way, she slowly climbed four stories and was winded by the time she found a window opposite the back of Ben Curry’s apartment. Her beam of light swept the filthy corridor. The doorway to the abandoned fourth-floor break room stood ajar. She had her choice of two windows: one directly across from Curry’s kitchen window, and the second if she had to shoot at an angle. Lois could see a dim light in the window that she assumed was Curry’s bathroom—probably a night-light.

Her flashlight beam illuminated only enough of the large room for her to find an old wooden table, push it beneath a window, and set up the tripod. Lois mounted the weapon, then settled in and waited. One minute the cold warehouse was dark, and the next, yellow light filtered through the small paned windows. Through a telephoto lens, she lined up the rifle. She could see Curry’s little kitchen with long shadows. On a counter next to the stove, a red pinpoint of light shone from the coffeemaker. At six thirty, according to her watch, that light turned green.

From one of the dark corners, Lois heard something stir. She didn’t like the idea of sharing the room with vermin, but it was temporary. After she made this shot, she would walk out of the warehouse and retire the M-16. This would be their last winter in Illinois, and remembering that made the cold room and the creature in the corner tolerable. She would earn the ten-thousand-dollar bonus, which would give them just enough to buy the motor home.

Lois shone the flashlight beam across the room. Several empty boxes were stacked haphazardly in the corner, but nothing moved.

Four stories below, the alley behind the warehouse connected with the alley that ran alongside Curry’s building, where Sophie was waiting with the motor running.

The light came on in Curry’s apartment, and someone started moving about the kitchen. Lois put her eye to the sight and saw the orange glow of Curry’s cigarette, his receding reddish hairline, and the whiskers on his chin. Then she heard a strange sound, like a commercial vehicle backing up. She glanced down and saw nothing. What kind of truck would be out this time of morning?

She gazed through the sights again, this time ready to squeeze off the shot, but Curry had moved. He was across the room at the side window looking down. If Lois didn’t kill him today, she’d lose the extra ten thousand.

She lifted the M-16, tripod and all, and moved to the window a few feet to her right. Using the butt of the rifle, she broke the glass and saw him clearly again. She zeroed in on a spot behind his left ear and squeezed the trigger. The barrel exploded, then Curry fell forward and disappeared. At first she thought he’d simply fallen to the floor, then she saw the jagged edges of the broken window. It was the window that led to the fire escape. He could be lying out there for everyone to see. Damn.

Lois quickly dismantled the weapon and packed it in its case. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air as a freezing wind ripped through the broken window. Holding the stair rail in one hand and the rifle and tripod case in the other, she cautiously made her way downstairs and across the warehouse to the door through which she’d entered.

Her heart pounded as she moved along the edge of the building, treading carefully in the ice and snow, toward the spot where Sophie waited. As she rounded the corner she looked upward. The fire escape had pulled loose from the side of the building and was suspended awkwardly. Curry wasn’t there, but a garbage truck idled, motionlessly blocking Sophie and the little truck in.

Lois stepped back around the edge of the building. Sophie wasn’t visible.  The cab of their little truck appeared empty, although the windows were frosting up. Lois shivered and waited, listening to the grinding sound, then the loud crash as the dumpster was emptied into the big truck. It seemed forever before it pulled out of the alley and rattled eastward.

Lois waited, her back to the rough brick of the building, counting off an eternity of three minutes. She approached the little truck just as Sophie, who had been lying in the seat, rose.

Lois pulled the door open, tossed the rifle case behind the seat, then pulled herself up into the truck.

“You okay?” Lois asked.

Sophie nodded and pointed up toward the sagging, empty fire escape. “He fell from there.”

“Where’s the body? Did you see where it hit?”

Sophie nodded. “Right in the back of the truck. He’s headed for the town dump as we speak.”

“I should have checked on the trash pickup. I should have known they were coming this morning. This is what we get for rushing.”

Sophie patted Lois’s shoulder. “It’s our last job. We’ll hope our luck holds.”

Lois nodded. “Let’s hope.”

Sophie started the motor, wiped frost from the inside of the windshield with a mittened hand, and pulled out of the alley. The street lamps, decorated with silver Christmas bells, turned themselves off just as they rounded the corner.

*

The morning of Morgan’s mother’s death, she’d found her lying on the floor inside the employee break room. Someone had shoved a long table that contained a box of doughnuts up against the wall to make room for, first, the nurse, then the paramedics to work on Betty Holiday. Frozen snow and ice on her nightgown and robe were still thawing. Morgan could hear the paramedics rolling a gurney through the corridor behind her. She turned to Redick and said, “Can you keep that door closed? I’d like a moment.”

Redick nodded, then pulled the door shut and stood guard, talking to the paramedics. Morgan heard the men say something about another call, then the DON arguing, getting louder. Redick silenced them all with two words, “Bad death.” Then the commotion ceased and Morgan had her time alone.

It bothered her that she’d felt so detached. She had this mix of relief—no more insane Sundays—and anger. The Prairie Flower had been responsible for taking care of her mother; they sure charged enough to do it.

Added to those feelings was the objectivity of a homicide detective. She was glad that someone had covered her mother’s torso and head with a white sheet. With the heart stopped, the blood had pooled to a grotesque lividity. The telltale bruising showed scarlet and blue on the tops of her mother’s feet and shins. Morgan couldn’t bear to look at her face. She imagined it would be bruised, maybe bloody. Fixed lividity took over six hours under normal conditions, but the temperatures the night before were hardly normal. Morgan noted the yellowed frozen hands and feet.

Her mother had died slowly—facedown. Hell, she was barefoot and wore only a pink flannel nightgown and a long quilted robe—no hat, no gloves, no coat.  Had she tried to find her way back inside—had she come to the door and pounded? Only a few months ago, she’d made it all the way across town, to Morgan and to home. Maybe that’s where she’d been headed again.

Morgan lost track of time. Her black wool coat was thrown over the back of a chair and she sat on the floor propped against the wall with her knees drawn up. She thought about who she needed to call, then remembered her brother, who would have to fly across the country in the middle of a work week. As hard as it had been, she’d done what she could for her mother. David would have to live with all he hadn’t done. Maybe that wouldn’t bother him.

A tap at the door interrupted her thoughts. Redick looked in. “Do you want me to call CSI?”

“I don’t know.”

“We probably would if this were a stranger.”

Morgan’s voice was flat. “Get the uniform to do some interviews. Bring in the camera from the car and take some pictures before they move the body.”

“I’ll check the scene outside when you don’t need me here anymore.”

“Just a couple of minutes more.”

“Sure.” Redick closed the door.

Then Morgan looked at the sheet-draped body of the thing that used to be her mother and the tears came.

*

Saturday, after all the arrangements were made, David arrived, not for the wake, but at the last minute for the funeral. Not many other relatives were there—an aging aunt from Idaho accompanied by Morgan’s cousin, who was closer to David’s age than her own, and two second cousins from her father’s side of the family that she barely recognized. The rest of the visitors, including the pallbearers, were Morgan’s friends and neighbors. In David’s absence, Henry Zimmerman had been at Morgan’s side through all the hard stuff. A few old ladies from her mother’s reading group had brought over a sliced ham and homemade cookies and stayed long enough to offer some comfort and ask if they could help in any way. They sat behind her at the funeral.

Several retired policemen had attended her father’s funeral, which featured a rifle salute at the graveside. This funeral was different, but the number of mourners only mattered to the living.  Many of the men at her father’s funeral had since died, plus an old woman who had lived in a nursing home for six years didn’t have many close friends.

But Morgan was glad that this funeral was small and quiet. Because of the cold weather, it had been difficult to have the grave dug in the frozen ground. Henry took care of that—Morgan wasn’t sure how. He chased a local newspaper reporter, who’d learned about pending neglect charges, away from the house. At Morgan’s insistence, Henry took the place in the front row next to her.

David, who came in too late to protest, sat on her opposite side, creating a minor disruption as he took off his coat and settled in. Later, at the graveside, he started in on her about selling the house or buying out his half. Henry quickly pulled him aside and whispered to him while the cold wind whipped the canvas awning under which Morgan stood. Their voices rose. The old women whose grandson she’d babysat all those years ago, Lois Burnett and Sophie Long, stepped forward and filled the spaces that the two men had left on either side of her.