The Perfect-Perfect Plan

by Melanie Jones Brownrigg

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Douglas

  After guzzling the entire bottle of wine, I find myself in the Q3, sitting here staring at my reflection in the rearview mirror. The sweet smell of Angela lingers within the interior, along with a tangy odor of wet wipes from her cleaning my kids’ hands after ice cream.

  My finger finds the button and the garage door grinds up. And then I’m backing out.

  At the storage locker, I once again switch my car for the old Corolla. Then I head back across town to Mobility Bank, circling the block no less than a half dozen times. Finally, I pull into the alleyway behind the bank and sit there for a few moments, trying to let my nerves calm down.

  When I fail at curtailing my adrenaline, I shove open the door and tell myself to, “Just do it.” This is what I always say each time I have robbed a bank, or gone into someone’s house, or killed someone. Just do it. It makes the job sound so simple.

  Other than the time I heisted the gold bars, it has never been simple. There has never been a perfect-perfect plan. Truthfully, there hasn’t ever been a time when something hasn’t gone terribly wrong, and someone hasn’t ended up dead. These reminders do not help me relax.

  Shoving my hands in the plastic gloves, I stow a second pair in my pants pocket and pull my ski mask over my face in case the exterior camera is watching me. I drop my computer program in my jacket pocket and take along my trusty mag light, the Taser, and a few other of my implements. After a deep breath, I shove the door open and lever myself out of the old Corolla.

  With every step I take, my head swivels around in constant rotation and my breathing becomes harsher. Watching, looking, hunting, and trying to make sure I go undetected is a daunting task. This will be my last time. There will be no more fixes. From this day forward, Carol is on her own. I’m done with her. At this point, I just hope to take the kids and Angela and be gone.

  The bank is located within a business section of town, all of which are closed at this time of the night. The streets are mostly deserted except for the occasional car passing by and the periodic police patrol of the area. But as my luck would have it, when I reach the glass doors a car passes by and so I scurry over to the night-depository and bend forward like I am writing out a deposit slip.

  Over my shoulder, I watch as it disappears around a corner onto Belknap and then I proceed to the front door. The entrance key is already out and pointed, ready for insertion into the keyhole. With another glance around and not seeing anyone, I slide the key in and twist it to the left. The deadbolt clicks open, and I quickly step inside.

  A countdown on the security system begins immediately. Within a few seconds, I will have either eliminated the incessant beeping, or I will be running like a madman. While I am not completely familiar with this branch, all I need to do is follow the level of noise. This bank, like most all banks, includes staff protection and panic buttons. Luckily for me, when I travel down the hallway toward the bank offices, I spot a traditional digital security alarm system, much like one you’d have in your own home. It takes but a few seconds to use the small key to unlock the plastic cover and punch in the security code that I overheard Hannah giving to her coworker as well as the same information I found on her iCloud. When I push the last button, I am rewarded with the sound of silence. My heart relaxes somewhat, and I take in a deep breath, hoping to calm my frazzled nerves.

  Without delay, I get straight to work, taking a cursory look around the facility. The tellers’ computers at the counter are exposed to a wall of glass at the front of the bank. Looking up and down the hallway, the first door on the right has a plaque indicating it is Hannah’s office as the branch manager. Since it is tucked away from exterior view, and I have her office key, I opt for that direction.

  Shining my mag light around, I note her small office consists of the standard-issue mahogany-stained desk, two cheap looking client chairs, and a black metal file cabinet. The window blinds are tightly closed so I take off my ski mask, douse my hand-held light and switch on a small desk lamp. While I power up her computer, I note there are five framed pictures of her cat. My sweet Hannah needs to get a life.

  It is at this moment when I hear banging noises coming from the lobby. Suddenly I remember that I have not locked the bank door back. Damn. As many bank robberies as I have conducted over the last few years, you’d think I had this shit figured out. Then again, if I had, it would seem I wouldn’t have had to kill someone every time.

  Pushing back in Hannah’s rolling chair, I cautiously venture down the hallway, hugging tight to the wall. My heart beats fast in my chest and I am holding my breath. When I peek out into the lobby, I don’t see anyone, and everything looks the same. In a few giant strides, I cross to the door and flip the lock. Then I breathe out a sigh of relief.

  Two steps later, I hear the banging noise again and look up at the drive-thru window. Holy freaking shit. A car is at the window and someone is passing in night deposits. The driver looks up and sees me. At first there is a startled look on his face. Then he waves big and yells, “Douglas, what are you doing here at this hour of the night?”

  My heart lurches into my throat and I am completely paralyzed.

  “Douglas,” he calls again and waves even bigger.

  “Mr. Crenshaw,” I say with a forced smile on my face. Mr. Crenshaw owns a donut place on West 7th. Whenever early morning clients are coming to the office, I always stop by and pick up a dozen assorted pastries. “I might ask you the same question.” For him, this is probably his time to rise and shine. But I, on the other hand, shouldn’t be out at this hour of the night … let alone inside a closed bank.

  “I’m making my deposits. Then I’m going to make the donuts.” He gives me a big friendly smile, showing gaps between his long teeth. “Now what are you doing here?”

  Of course, he’s going to ask. He’s not about to let this go. I approach the pass-through to eliminate screaming my head off. “I’m doing an investment seminar in the morning for the bank trustees. They thought it would go smoother if I set everything up tonight.” I pull out my keys and jangle them in front of the window. “See, they gave me the keys and everything.”

  Mr. Crenshaw must die.

  “Listen, Mr. Crenshaw, it’s actually fortuitous that you happened along when you did. I have a giant projection machine in my car that I sure could use some assistance with. Do you think you could spare a moment to help me carry it in?”

  “Why sure thing, I’ll be glad to help,” he answers, giving me a big toothy grin.

  “I’ll come around,” I tell him. After unlocking the door, I step outside and lock it back. Then I go around to the side where Mr. Crenshaw is parked. “My car is parked in the rear. If you’ll just follow me back there, we’ll get it inside in no time.”

  “You ought to pull it up to the front door. It’ll make get’n it inside a lot easier.”

  “My car is parked right next to the back entrance. We’ll bring it in that way.” I size up the old fart. He’s frail, almost sickly looking. He shouldn’t be too much trouble. “It’ll be fine if you’d rather not help me. I’m sure I can manage it without you.”

  “Oh no, I just thought it might be easier. But if there’s a door back there, it’ll probably be better.”

  He works his toothpick legs at getting out of the car. He locks it behind him sending out a loud beep that has me cringing. After pocketing the keys, he follows me around to the back. As I get to the trunk, I fish around in my pocket. But instead of bringing out the fob to pop the trunk, I opt for the Taser. It is gripped in my hand before he even sees it coming. Then ZAP! I get him on the back of his neck.

  He gasps in surprise and begins puddling to the ground. “Why?” he says in a garbled voice, looking up at me.

  My eyes twitch in an unpleasant feeling when I pin him with my death glare. He blinks his eyes and swallows nervously, one of his hands stroking where my Taser stung him. My batteries must be old, or he’s one strong old coot. He manages t
o get up, staggering around and trying to make a break for his car.

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Crenshaw.” Grabbing him in a chokehold, I use my Taser on him once more. He yelps in pain. My hand clamps over his mouth, holding back his screams that I cannot allow to escape. It’s a shame that his willingness to help me has cost him his life. But sometimes the most gentlemanly of actions can result in evil people becoming ever so dangerous.

  He falls to the ground in a semi-conscious state. I use the opportunity to pop the trunk and grab a garbage bag. Placing it over Mr. Crenshaw’s head and holding it tight, I snuff out his last remaining breaths. He struggles against me. Kicking and clawing. My hold tightens on the bag while I wait him out.

  When he stops fighting, I let him slump to the cement and then dig his car keys from his pants. After backing his car around to where mine is parked, I raise his trunk. Thankfully, Mr. Crenshaw is not a big man. After hauling him inside his own trunk, I drive his vehicle over to the Trinity River Bridge and park it against the easement. My plan is to make it look like he committed suicide.

  After waiting for a damned Hyundai to pass, I rush to the trunk and haul him out. He comes to life with the bag over his head and begins fighting me again. I figure this is perfect. When he hits the river, he will ingest water and it will look even more like suicide.

  Lifting him completely off the ground, I carry him over to the edge of the bridge. Once he is positioned on the railing, I remove the bag and give him a gentle push. He lets out a scream on the way down and then SPLASH!

  After stuffing the bag in my jacket pocket, I check carefully to make sure I’m not missing anything. Seeing nothing obvious, I begin walking away, leaving his car there because it needs to be found at the crime scene. Then I jog back to the bank which is a good two miles away.

  My calves are screaming and I’m sweaty as hell by the time I return to the bank and, this time, I lock the damned front door. First, I go to the deposit window and pull out all of Mr. Crenshaw’s deposits. It needs to look like he never made it here. If an investigation ensues over his suicide, I don’t need it leading to any security cameras that have most likely captured me.

  Next, I head down the hall to Hannah’s office to start the hell all over. This shit is wearing me out and I swear to myself that this is it. This is the last time.

  After logging in with Hannah’s passcode, I bring up the bank’s financial records. I’m already aware that Carol’s trust is located at this bank. But it is incredibly hard for me to believe she isn’t skimming my money and secreting it somewhere. So, for every bank I have robbed, I have always begun by looking up her name to see if she has additional accounts. This time I am rewarded more than I ever dreamed.

  “Holy shit!” I exclaim when I pull up an account containing fifty million dollars. To my knowledge, she only received a million dollars from the trust each year. How is it possible that she has accumulated this amount of money? It blows my mind. I wonder how she did it. Is she too robbing banks? If she is, she’s got it figured out far better than me.

  I look to see if it might be part of her trust fund. Carol has never let me know much about her monies – and yes, I’m an investment broker and you’d think her money should be entrusted to me. In fairness, it was her parents who didn’t trust me and chose the funds to go through a bank trustee. In even more fairness, I killed them, so I guess they were right in not trusting me.

  Next, I check to see if this account might be the funds that she recently admitted to receiving for giving birth to the kids and she simply lied about the amount. But it’s not from their money because I find two separate accounts for each child, both having the original amount of five million deposited, just as Carol had indicated.

  But she’s sure as hell never mentioned anything about the fifty million. She has bled me dry all this time and I have risked my life and killed many for her. And not once has she said, don’t worry honey, I have lots of money.

  My original plan – you remember the perfect-perfect plan where Hannah never knew what hit her but ended up good and dead – was to wipe out old man Caldwell’s account, completely take everything. Don’t get wrapped up in who Mr. Caldwell is. You don’t know him, and I haven’t mentioned him before. But he’s an old codger I know who just has too much money for his own good. If this was going to be my last bank heist, it was going to be a mega one. So, my plan was to make it look like Hannah embezzled his money and went off to parts unknown. Instead, Hannah was going to end up dead. And I’d have enough money to start my life over completely … away from money-hungry Carol.

  But as things so often do, curveballs have been flung at me in every direction. With this new turn of events, I think my Hannah has escaped death. Fingers crossed. Because I really don’t want to kill her. I may not have to kill that yappy friend of hers either.

  That old plan is out the window and now I am implementing a whole new one. I tap into my wife’s hidden bank account and transfer every damned dime of it into an account in the Caymans – no, I decide to leave one dime.

  You may be wondering about this account. Well, years ago when Carol and I traveled down there on vacation, during one of her spa days (of which there were many), I thought it would be a hoot to set up an offshore account. Being an investment broker, I was a little nervous about setting it up in my own name – didn’t’ want it to look shady – so I set it up as a savings account in Carol’s name. Right now, I’m glad it’s still sitting there just waiting for this moment.

  Now here’s the fun part. Since the account only has Carol’s name on it, if this transaction is ever scrutinized, it will look as if Carol authorized it. In fact, I set the transaction up for happening last Friday. With the weekend in between, it will appear to be an electronic delay when the money hits tomorrow.

  And don’t worry. I will get the money in the long run because this account has a pay-on-death designation listing me as the right-of-survivor. Once Carol dies in a horrific accident (which will be soon, trust me), the money will come straight to me. In fact, I’ve been searching every bank for her hidden stash for a long damn time. I just never expected it to be so lucrative. But tonight, I finally hit the jackpot. And yes, I am only taking the syphoned fifty million and leaving her with the mega-millions in her trust. If you get too greedy, people will investigate. I am positive she hasn’t entrusted any of her lovers enough to leave them as beneficiaries in a will. Carol would never let go of the power or make herself vulnerable. And chances are, even if she has cut me out of the reciprocating wills that we did years ago, she has left her monies to our children. I am perfectly okay with them getting the funds. Without Carol’s spending habits weighing me down, the stashed gold, my secret account, and being the recipient of the fifty million dollars, it will give me a comfortable existence. And I do make a good living at my job.

  Once the transfer is complete, I turn off Hannah’s computer and leave everything as it was. Reversing out, I set the security alarm and leave, locking the door behind me. Driving back to the Trinity River Bridge, I hop out of my car and place Mr. Crenshaw’s stack of deposits neatly on his console, making it appear as if he never made it to the bank. Poor old man. I feel bad for him. Just as I always do.

  Switching the Corolla at the storage facility, I take the Q3 back home. Exhausted, I drag myself up the stairs and stumble to the bathroom. After taking a piss and undressing, I head for the bed.

  Carol rolls over as I crawl in. “Did you fix it?” the bitch asks.

  “I sure did,” I tell her. “I fixed it really good this time.”

  “Thank goodness,” she says in a relieved tone. Then she crawls out of bed and begins her day.

  If I hadn’t just stole fifty million dollars from her, I swear I’d kill her right this minute. For now, I’ll bide my time. But trust me, when this is all over, not only will she never know what hit her, she’ll be the one who is good and dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Joe Avery, Trustee

  Wh
en the dang phone rings in the middle of the night and wakes me from a deep sleep, I know it will be Carol Vanover before I even answer it.

  “What!” I bark in a sleepy, but harsh tone.

  “Joe, wake up. He’s on the move again. Get your ass up and go find out what he’s doing.”

  “Why don’t you go this time? He’s your husband.” The suggestion is a waste of my breath. Carol is the type of person who uses others to do everything for her. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if she had an ass-wiper on her staff.

  “Joe, either fully distribute the trust right now, or get out of bed. The choice is yours.”

  Her orders are clear. And from her inflection, I can well envision the pinch in her forehead and odds are good that her foot is tapping against the zillion-count thread sheet of her comfy bed.

  “Fine, I’m going,” I gripe, throwing back my cheap cotton linens.

  Not many people tell Carol Vanover “no,” and damned if I don’t fall into that category. She hangs up without wishing me good luck or telling me goodbye.

  Stumbling out of bed and into the bathroom, I take a pee and run some water over my face, attempting to flush the grit from my eyes. Back in the bedroom, I yank on my trousers and pop my head through a T-shirt, leaving my hair at crazy angles. Smoothing it out with my hand, I tread down the hallway and grab my wallet and keys from the kitchen counter and head out to the garage.

  Still half asleep, I slowly sag in behind the wheel of my gray Hyundai Venue. At this point, I can’t remember how many times I have tried to track down Douglas to see how he “fixes” it in the middle of the night. Carol knows it must be illegal and she wants the goods on him to send him off to prison. She’d love to divorce him, but Carol can’t bring herself to part with any community property. Everything is hers in her mind. And Carol requires a huge influx of cash to keep her in the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. She’s bounced around the idea of killing him for the insurance proceeds. But she’s afraid of getting caught or being linked to the crime, and ultimately fears spending the rest of her life in jail. A chuckle emits from my mouth at the vision of Carol in striped cotton prison garb instead of her expensive designer labels. I imagine her having to forego her fancy-schmancy meals and having to choke down some undiscernible grub. I picture her requesting a turn-down service for her bunk, and having to share the cell with Big Bertha, who beats the crap out of her on a daily regimen. I must admit, I don’t dislike any of those images.