The Best Laid Plans

“Great. We can check local pawn shops and stores that carry this kind of thing,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “Sunshine Rest’s staff seems pretty clean. But Thornberry himself has a checkered job history. No one will say why. The corporate office implied he either makes it good here, or his career with them is finished.”

  “He did say Tim Wood was a complainer,” Bill remembered. “He might have thought Tim would take his complaints up the ladder.”

  “In general he had an attitude about Wood. I wonder.”

  Javier interrupted my musing. “There’s one bad apple. The maintenance worker with the gambling problem, Stan Suslak. Behind on his mortgage. Car repossessed. That kind of thing.”

  “I’ll talk to Beanie, see if Suslak’s out in the deep water,” I said. Juan García—Beanie—was a confidential informant who knew the local moneylenders, the ones who didn’t advertise on bus stop benches.

  Javier continued, “Crime scene report’s on your desk. I can tell you what’s in it. Nada.”

  Javier was right. Our investigators had thoroughly examined the room in the nursing facility and the apartment. No prints, no hairs, nothing.

  Bill and I spotted Thornberry and various staff members we’d interviewed moving through the cafeteria line. Lunch was a cold buffet until the kitchen could be fully operational. We joined Gloria Major at a big table where she sat alone, spooning yogurt over a bowl of fruit salad.

  “Hope you like sandwiches,” she said.

  “We already ate,” I said. “Place looks to be getting back in shape.” At least it was swept, and new glass filled the windows.

  She licked the spoon. “I’m moving back to my apartment tomorrow. Can’t say I’ll be sorry to say goodbye.”

  We’d invited several people to join us, and, one by one, they did. First Nurse Radke and the maintenance man, Stan Suslak.

  “Again, who did you say knew about Tim’s collection?” Bill asked.

  Before any of them could answer, Thornberry walked up, carrying his tray. “Everyone. It’s all he talked about.”

  “Afternoon.” My smile was probably about as welcoming as an alligator’s.

  He plunked into a chair and set his paper plate and cup of soda on the table.

  “Well, was anyone especially interested in it?” Bill asked.

  “Not me,” said Thornberry.

  Mr. Vance arrived, slow-rolling his mother’s wheelchair, her lunch tray semi-balanced in one hand. “Mind if we join you?”

  Since we invited you, no, we don’t mind.

  “Have a seat.” Bill leaned out of the way in case Mother’s lunch took a dive.

  “Thank you.” Vance said. “Mother, you remember Detective Yolanda and Detective Bill?”

  Not in a million years.

  I said, “I think around the table here are the people most interested in Tim’s collection, except for Mr. Thornberry, who frequently protested he wasn’t.”

  “What would I do with it? Look at it?” Thornberry asked.

  “Doth he protest too much?” Gloria asked and received a glare from the administrator.

  “Sell it,” Suslak said.

  He needs cash. No surprise that’s the first thing he thought of.

  Vance tried to smooth things over. “Me, I’m trying to get rid of stuff. Mother lived in our house forty-seven years. You wouldn’t believe—” He chuckled. “But, irregardless, Tim wasn’t selling.” He took the plastic wrap off a tuna sandwich, gave half to his mother, and started eating the other half.

  “You all found those old stories of Tim’s so interesting.” Gloria batted her eyelashes at the men across the table.

  “Lots of interesting people here, Gloria.” Vance smiled and patted Mother’s hand.

  “Tim did know a lot of people,” Gloria said.

  “Most of them dead,” Thornberry said. “I always wondered how many of his stories were actually true.”

  “All of them,” Nurse Radke said with confidence.

  Ah. A true believer.

  “Some, maybe.” Gloria shrugged. “But I wonder. Just like I wonder about ‘the collection.’ Did he try to make it seem like more than it was?” She speared a grape, looking thoughtful.

  “Absolutely not,” Vance said, spraying the table with bits of tuna fish. “It was full of one-of-a-kind treasures.”

  “Did you ever see it?” Bill asked casually.

  “No, of course not,” Vance said. “It’s locked up somewhere,”

  “In safe,” Suslak said. “He show it me when I fix AC in apartment.”

  “When was that?” I asked.

  “I dunno. May? When weather get warm.”

  He would have known where Tim kept it. And have easy access to a master key.

  “I saw it more recently,” Radke said. “I went with him to the apartment to pick up clothes and personal items. We spent about an hour going through it. Amazing.” Radke gave Thornberry a guilty glance. “He had some paperwork to finish, so I carried his suitcase back, and Gloria brought him over here a while later.”

  Ditto Radke. Knowledge and access.

  “I remember.” Gloria studied her perfect manicure. “I wheeled him all around the complex for a mini-excursion. Two weeks later I had my fall and we were neighbors again. In here.”

  Bill leaned back in his chair. I stirred my coffee.

  “What you don’t know,” Bill said, “is that the collection is gone.”

  “Stolen?” Suslak sounded outraged.

  “Can’t be.” Distress filled Radke’s voice.

  “Gone,” I said.

  “But where?” Vance whined.

  “On its way to Cooperstown,” Bill said. “Tim’s will was crystal clear about that. We opened the safe in front of his lawyer and a probate judge, and they authorized it.”

  “We retrieved the safe from the apartment, and that was that.” I brushed my hands together.

  “But it wasn’t in the apartment,” Vance said.

  “Tim’s apartment? No, it wasn’t there. It was in Gloria’s apartment. Remember, he was worried about theft? He had her move it to her place. Only someone who’d been in Tim’s apartment very recently would know it was missing. Mr. Vance, apparently that’s you.”

  Vance jumped up from the table, protesting, and glanced at his mother as if seeking a defense she could no longer provide. Another bite of sandwich occupied all her attention. Thornberry and Radke looked shocked. “Mr. Vance.”

  Suslak was surprised too. “She not move sixty-pound safe.”

  “Listen, Suslak,” Gloria said, “I know my way around a hand truck. You should see my videos.”

  I was glad Nurse Radke wasn’t the culprit. He seemed dedicated, unlike his boss. It would have been a pleasure to snap the handcuffs on Thornberry’s wrists, but it was Vance who had given himself away and soon burbled the truth.

  As Bill and I drove back to the station, following the squad car with Vance slumped in the back seat, I watched workmen hauling tree branches and armloads of shredded palm fronds to the curb. Over the whine of chain saws, I said, “You know, Thornberry was wrong.”

  “About what, specifically?”

  “He said the residents aren’t who they were. Tim with his predictions and Gloria with her acting—that’s exactly who they were.”

  Johanna Beate Stumpf

  Johanna Beate Stumpf is a German millennial, living and working in Norway. She is fairly new to fiction writing, but she did enough academic writing to earn a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Oslo. Johanna is a member of the Oslo Writers’ League. Find her at johannawritesstuff.wordpress.com.

  Thank You For Your Cooperation

  Johanna Beate Stumpf

  Marsha glanced at the timestamp in the corner of the screen. It was exactly eight twenty-two and forty seconds. The surveillance program switched the camera angle on the big screen. She let her eyes slide over the small screens to her right. Everything was quiet. There were very few people in the subway stations she was
monitoring; the morning rush of regular commuters was over and the tourists hadn’t yet woken up. The program automatically showed a new camera angle on the big screen. Eight twenty-two and fifty seconds.

  Marsha pressed a few buttons on her keyboard and the big screen switched to manual control. A few more buttons and the camera angle changed again. The screen was now filled with a wide view of the main entrance of Greenbrook Station. The time stamp read eight twenty-two and fifty-six seconds. Four seconds later a handsome middle-aged man carrying a red umbrella stepped into the frame.

  Punctual like clockwork. Marsha loved that about him. She blushed as she realized what she had been thinking. Love. Did she really love this man? She had never even spoken to him.

  The man with the red umbrella walked to his usual spot on the platform, turned, and waved directly at the camera. Marsha giggled like a schoolgirl.

  Six weeks ago the same man had walked onto her platform, the big red umbrella opened above his head. Marsha had pressed the button on her microphone and recited her usual lines. “The opening of umbrellas inside the station is not permitted. Please close your umbrella. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  The man had awkwardly closed his umbrella and waved apologetically to the camera. This was a bit unusual but at that point she had not paid special attention to the situation. The program had automatically switched to the camera of the next subway station.

  The man with the red umbrella had been reading a book when Greenbrook came up again on the big screen. The camera angle allowed her to see the cover. This time Marsha did a double take. The man with the red umbrella was reading the same book she’d been reading on her morning commute.

  The next train arrived and the man with the red umbrella closed the book. Once again he looked directly at the camera, as if he knew she was watching him in that very moment. He smiled a big smile, winked, and stepped on the train.

  Marsha had sat in front of her screens as if struck by lightning. Sometimes people waved at the cameras. Mostly children and teenagers. But no customer of the subway train services had ever winked at her. What was that supposed to mean?

  Since that day she had watched the man with the red umbrella every morning. He came onto the platform at exactly eight twenty-three and took the train at eight thirty-one. Marsha had come to look forward to those eight minutes every day. The man always carried his red umbrella and a book, walked up to the same spot, waved at the camera, and started reading. Each week he had a new book. Marsha began to order the same books online, reading in the evenings and on the weekends to keep up. It felt as if she was slowly getting to know him.

  Marsha was forced to admit that she had a crush on the man with the red umbrella. Still, she tried to convince herself that it wasn’t real. Unfortunately, that didn’t help much. Two weeks after their first encounter, Marsha was watching him intensely when a couple of teenagers began pushing each other around on the platform, coming dangerously close to the tracks. Marsha pressed her microphone button and recited the usual directive: “No fighting on the platform. Please stay behind the yellow line. Thank you for your cooperation.” When the teenagers started laughing, she realized that she had been moaning the last line, her mind and body still consumed with thoughts of the man with the red umbrella.

  The man with the red umbrella looked directly into the camera, smiled, and winked again. Marsha blushed and giggled in front of her screens, relieved that no one could see her. One day she would talk to him, she thought. One day. She just didn’t know how. Or when. But one day.

  The man with the red umbrella closed his book. It was eight thirty and forty-six seconds. The train was about to arrive at the platform. He turned to the camera, smiled and waved.

  And then he did something he had never done before. He touched his mouth with his left hand, pursed his lips, and blew over his palm in the direction of the camera.

  He blew her a kiss. Marsha hiccupped. A kiss. This had never happened before. Her stomach exploded in sparkles and butterflies. She couldn’t sit any longer and jumped up from her chair. This was a sign. The man with the red umbrella wanted to meet her, too. She was sure of it.

  The next morning, Marsha hung over the side of her bed, phone in hand. She’d read somewhere on the internet that if you were upside down, you sounded like you had a stuffy nose. She chose her supervisor’s number from her list of contacts. The phone rang, answered almost immediately.

  “Amanda?” she asked. “It’s Marsha. I’m sick, I can’t come in today.”

  Amanda’s answer was sympathetic. Marsha instantly felt guilty, but she couldn’t go back now.

  “Yes, I think it is better if I just stay in bed today,” she said, and coughed meekly.

  Marsha arrived at Greenbrook Station at five minutes past eight. She waited outside for fifteen minutes, afraid that if she loitered on the platform for too long she might draw the attention of her replacement.

  Inside, the platform looked different. It felt strange to be there in person, instead of having a bird’s eye view through the lenses of the cameras. Nevertheless, she soon found the man with the red umbrella’s usual spot.

  She waited. The eight twenty-one train came and people went on and off. The hands on the big clock on the wall moved slowly. Eight twenty-two and thirty seconds. Marsha suddenly felt an urge to use the bathroom. She ignored it. Forty seconds. She started fidgeting with her hair. Fifty seconds. Her eyes raced back and forth between the clock on the wall and the entrance. Eight twenty-three. Marsha held her breath.

  Nothing happened. No one entered. Then, after an eternity, someone stepped on the platform. Marsha made a step in the direction of the person before she realized that it was just a young mother carrying a toddler. Marsha looked at the clock again. Eight twenty-three and twenty seconds.

  The man with the red umbrella was late. Except the man with the red umbrella had never been late before. Had something happened to him? Was he sick? Marsha paced back and forth on the platform, waiting, scanning every person that entered. But the man with the red umbrella didn’t come. After an hour Marsha left the platform and went home, wondering, worrying. What had happened to the man with the red umbrella? Would he come back? Or had the kiss actually been a kiss-off?

  When Marsha entered her office the next day she found a note on her desk. “See Amanda ASAP,” it read. A black hole opened in Marsha’s stomach. Had Amanda found out that she hadn’t been sick yesterday? Had one of her colleagues seen her standing around at Greenbrook Station and reported her? Marsha shivered involuntarily. She threw a glance at the clock on the wall and another thought struck her. She had to be back in her office in twenty minutes or she would miss the man with the red umbrella. She dropped her bag and hurried to her supervisor’s office.

  “Marsha,” Amanda said. She sounded tired. “Sit down.”

  Marsha sat down on the chair opposite her supervisor’s desk.

  “Two days ago there was a break-in at Fourth Street Bank. It happened during the day, although they only discovered it after closing up.” Amanda looked at her expectantly. Marsha looked back blankly. Why had Amanda called her in to tell her about a bank break-in?

  “Do you know where Fourth Street Bank is?” Amanda asked.

  “No,” Marsha said, still unsure about where this conversation was headed.

  “Fourth Street Bank is directly next to Eastwick Station.”

  “Okay,” Marsha said. Eastwick Station was one of the subway stations she monitored. But she still didn’t understand what this had to do with her.

  “Your Eastwick Station,” Amanda stressed.

  “Yes, but…” Marsha trailed off. She didn’t know what to say. All she wanted to do was go back to her office to watch the man with the red umbrella.

  “Look at this,” Amanda continued, turning her screen to Marsha. “Our data analysts compiled these files yesterday.”

  Amanda clicked a button and a video started playing. It was a view of Eastwick Station, the same view Marsha watc
hed everyday. The platform was almost empty. Three men in hard hats entered, carrying big plastic boxes. The camera angle changed while the men moved quickly to the wall at one end of the platform. The camera was on the opposite end of the station, the men small figures in the distance. Two of them started doing something on the wall, while the third one set up barrier tape. The camera angle changed again. Now the men were in the corner of the screen, recorded by the camera directly above them. They took heavy machinery out of the plastic boxes and started using it on the wall.

  “What are they doing?” Marsha asked.

  “They are drilling a hole,” Amanda said, with a sigh.

  Marsha looked at her puzzled.

  “Why?”

  “Marsha,” Amanda said, jumping up. “They are drilling a hole to the safe of Fourth Street Bank, that’s what they are doing. They are preparing a bank robbery. ”

  Marsha shrank back as Amanda settled down in her seat.

  “They have been doing this every day for weeks,” Amanda said. “Have you never seen them before?”

  Marsha shook her head. Amanda sighed again.

  “Marsha, all of these files were recorded during your shift. How could you not see them?”

  Marsha stared at the screen as if seeing the platform for the first time. This had been recorded during her shift? How could that be? How could she have missed such an obvious misdemeanor? All the activities were in plain sight of the cameras. She should have seen this. How was it possible that she was seeing this for the first time today?

  The men in the hard hats had finished working and were packing the machines away. From another box they pulled a large plastic sheet. As they attached the sheet to the wall, the camera angle changed again. From the opposite side of the station, it became clear that the sheet had a life-sized picture of the wall printed on it. Onscreen it looked completely untouched.

  “Marsha,” Amanda leaned in and spoke softly now. “The police will be here in a moment to speak to you.”

  Marsha nodded numbly. Her eyes wandered over the screen trying to find something to hold on to. In the corner she found the timestamp. It showed eight thirty and forty-seven seconds. Marsha held her breath. The men on the screen jumped on the next train and disappeared. Eight thirty-one.