The Perfect Plan

by Carina Taylor

  After a few tries, the car started, happy to have gas in the tank again. They pulled into the market parking lot, and Libby spotted Carl hanging out just inside the door. There was a bowl of water and food set next to him, and a little boy was busily scratching Carl's back. The dog was practically grinning.

  Marcie grabbed a cart and raced through the store like her coat was on fire.

  She explained to Libby, "Some days, I don't feel like getting stuck talking to people I know. You know what I mean?"

  Libby did know what Marcie meant. Marcie knew everyone in Colter, and everyone liked to talk with her. It made it difficult to get anything done in a timely fashion.

  But, as Libby found out, when Marcie wasn't in the mood to talk, she was in the mood to run anything and anyone over. She clipped the side of one person's cart, ran over Beth's foot, knocked over a display of canned pineapple, and accidentally added some kale to the cart. Libby was busy pretending like she didn't know Marcie when her phone vibrated.

  Evan: How is Grandma? She hasn't answered my texts.

  Libby tried to discreetly snap a picture of Marcie scooping armfuls of Top Ramen into the basket.

  She texted the picture to Evan.

  Libby: She's foraging for some wholesome food right now.

  Evan: She makes the best Top Ramen.

  Libby: I have no doubt. With the amount she consumes, she must have turned cooking it into a fine art.

  Evan: Don't eat her spicy Top Ramen - you won't be able to taste anything for a month.

  Libby: Maybe I should learn to cook. I might have a chance of surviving this summer if I do.

  Evan: I've eaten those cookies you baked. You're better off with Grandma’s spicy Top Ramen.

  Libby: So I mixed up the sugar and salt on accident. Big deal.

  "Come on, let's head back. I'm feeling inspired to write today. I'm in a murdering mood." Marcie was already carrying her bought and bagged groceries outside to the car by the time Libby put her phone back in her pocket.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MARCIE'S bad mood continued on the way home, and Libby was exposed to mutterings about murder and burying a body. Marcie made a note on the receipt about looking into a wood chipper. Whatever Helen had said to Marcie had put her in a terrible mood, and Libby hoped she and Vivian weren't on the receiving end of it.

  Marcie headed upstairs to write, which Libby counted as a blessing. Murder or write? Libby was glad she chose writing.

  Libby carried the bags into the kitchen and set them on the counter. Vivian was busy staring at a piece of paper on the kitchen table. Not surprising, considering about a hundred papers were floating around the kitchen. She could be looking at anything.

  "Hey, what're you up to?"

  Vivian let out a yelp and spun around. "Libby! Don't scare me like that."

  "Sorry."

  "No, it's okay. It's just ever since you told me Marcie's writing a mystery, I've been on edge. Are you sure you should stay here, Libby?" Her voice dropped down into a whisper.

  "You know who she is. I didn't tell you."

  "I finally made the connection. While you were at cribbage yesterday, Marcie and I had a long talk and I tried to not turn into a drooling fan."

  "She still likes you, so you must have hidden your inner fangirl pretty well."

  Vivian nodded. "You would have been proud of me. But back to this current book she's writing. What if. . . What if she decides she actually wants to kill somebody? I mean, she bought a house on a whim."

  Libby sat down at the table and pushed some of the papers out of the way so she could rest her arms on top. "I wonder the same thing. I guess I don't want to jump to the wrong conclusions, you know? Besides, if she's that far gone, I should do something about it instead of walk away. And, in her defense, she did mention the house auction to me before."

  "I know, but maybe you should call Evan and have him do something about his grandma. Or at least ask him to come see for himself."

  "He was just here last weekend, and she acted like a frail, normal senior citizen. He thinks I'm the crazy one." Libby dropped her head into her arms. Libby knew that Marcie only wanted to spend time with Evan, but it upset Libby that she was worrying Evan with her charades.

  "I'll call him," Vivian offered.

  "Worth a try. I mean, I like Marcie, and it's been anything but dull living with her, but I would also like to live to see my twenty-third birthday. And even if she doesn't actually murder someone, I might die from her driving or some other accident. Good grief, she almost killed me putting me in a wheelchair."

  "What? You didn't tell me about that." Vivian started puttering around the kitchen, wiping down dirty surfaces with a rag.

  "Yeah, well, I told you how I sprained my ankle. She didn't want me to walk on it, so she dragged out this ginormous wheelchair, and Evan drove it, with me sitting in it, to this retirement party they had at the senior center. Then, Evan left me stuck in the thing while he ran to the bathroom. Marcie went to save us a seat. And then while I'm sitting there in the hall, the chair starts to roll away. Fast. If it hadn't been for some nice guy stepping into the hall at the right time, I would have slammed into a wall and probably been stuck in that wheelchair for the rest of my life."

  Libby scooted a chair close to the built-in china hutch. She stood on it so she could reach her energy drink stash that she hid on top of it.

  "That sounds like it was Evan's fault."

  "Good point. Maybe Marcie's decided to hire a contract killer. It's like Mr. & Mrs. Smith all over again," Libby said as she hopped down and popped open the can.

  Vivian laughed. "Pretty sure Evan isn't trying to kill you. I think maybe she has more dementia than you think. Evan's probably right to be worried. Take a look at this."

  She slapped a piece of paper down in front of Libby. Part of it was typed, the bottom half was handwritten.

  In big, bold letters at the top, it said, "Possible Victims." It was a list of names with notes next to each one.

  Libby had known of the list, but the last time she had seen it, it hadn't been quite so specific.

  Next to Harvey's name was a note: Early morning, behind the hardware store. Obstacles: Bob - kill him too?

  Next to Helen's name, it had a footnote: Kill her in her own house - no one would notice her missing for a few days, the crazy old bat. Obstacles: She might kill me first.

  There were ten other options typed up, and at the very bottom, in scrawled handwriting: Libby and Vivian.

  There were no notes next to their names, just their names.

  Libby glanced at Vivian. "This is probably all hypothetical. I've known she had a list. But it's scarier to actually look at it."

  Vivian rolled her eyes. "This is Marcie we're talking about. I've read every interview she's ever done. I've read every book she's written. She doesn't do things halfway."

  Libby glanced at Vivian. Vivian didn't do anything halfway, either. Maybe that's why she enjoyed following Marcie's escapades. Libby got a flash of Marcie and Vivian planning a murder together, and it wasn't that big of a stretch of the imagination. It wouldn't be hard for Vivian to fall under Marcie's charming spell.

  "You wouldn't ever do something like this, would you?"

  Vivian stopped dusting the top of the fridge. "What? You mean murder someone? Come on, Libby. I know I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy-crazy. I might hire a band to come to the townhouse, but I wouldn't do something that would land me in prison for the rest of my life. I was tempted with Nathaniel, but I didn't."

  Libby muttered, "I was tempted to kill him too."

  Vivian nodded. "The difference between you and me and Marcie is that you and I would never kill someone. That lady upstairs has enough guts to go out and do it."

  "Maybe, maybe not."

  Vivian started rummaging around the cabinets until she found some cleaning spray, which she began to spritz liberally over the counters. "Libby, you've lived with her for well over a month now. You know her much better
than I do. I'm just telling you, based on what I've learned about her, it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn she had killed someone. It's part of her charm."

  Libby stared at Vivian as the girl cleaned anything she could get her hands on. She had never heard anyone describe murder as charming. It was starting to get scary how similar the two were. She had moved in with Vivian's eighty-year-old doppelgänger. How is that possible? Maybe she was destined to have a Vivian in her life.

  "Girls," Marcie called from somewhere else in the house.

  They both jumped. Vivian hid the bottle of spray behind her back, and Libby hurriedly dumped a bag of groceries on top of the papers and began spreading it out.

  Marcie rounded the corner into the kitchen. She had a pair of glasses on her nose, a set on her head, and a pair looped over her shirt pocket.

  "Girls, thank goodness I caught you before you go out."

  Libby looked at Vivian and had to bite her tongue. She didn't know where they would "go out" to in Colter, but it was nice of Marcie to think they would have a life.

  "I forgot, there is a package that Doris has been holding for me at the post office. Would you mind running down and picking it up? If you don't want to, I don't mind walking all the way down there." Marcie ended with a body-wracking cough.

  Vivian had snagged a mop — a mop that Libby didn't even know they had — and was furiously scrubbing at the floor. Libby stacked the yogurt cups on the table. "Sure, Marcie, we'll grab it."

  Marcie let out another equally unconvincing cough. "You're such a sweetheart."

  Libby tried her best to plaster an innocent look on her face when she asked, "Don't you think you should get that cough checked out? It appears at the strangest times."

  Marcie rolled her eyes at her and headed back out of the kitchen.

  "I'll schedule you a visit with the optometrist too!" Libby called after her.

  "Enough with the sass!" Marcie yelled back, but both girls heard her chuckle before she closed the upstairs door.

  Libby put away the groceries in every free space she could find then grabbed Marcie's post office box key. "I'll go grab that package if you have more phone calls to make," Libby said.

  Vivian leaned the mop she'd been using against the fridge door. "Nope, all done with family drama. I'm coming with you this time."

  "What do you suppose is in here?" Libby asked as she shook the package Doris had handed them. After putting away the rest of the groceries, Vivian and Libby walked down to the post office to pick up Marcie's long-awaited package.

  "Maybe new knitting needles?" Vivian tripped over the post office doorstep as they walked outside. Carl came trotting down the sidewalk and began trailing after them.

  "Don't even joke about that. She would happily kill someone with a knitting needle. Except, she likes to do things extravagantly." Libby tried to raise one eyebrow, but it only made her eye twitch uncontrollably. "When the time comes, it will probably involve a hand grenade."

  Vivian nodded. "You're right. It's probably a pack of dynamite or something."

  Libby stopped shaking the package. Whatever was in it, she probably shouldn't shake it nearly as much as she had been. Bad idea, especially considering the victim list they had been reading earlier.

  "Hey, look up Mark’s Man Supplies."

  "What's that?" Vivian asked.

  "It's the name on the return address of this package."

  "Is this tampering with United States mail?"

  "Nope, we're just two trusty postmen, making sure she receives the right package. Right?"

  "Right." Vivian pulled out her phone and began typing on it. Libby pulled her out of the way of two other pedestrians but wasn't quick enough to save her from the light pole.

  "Ouch!"

  "Typical."

  "Ah, my sympathetic friend." Vivian scowled at Libby as she rubbed the sore spot on her shoulder. "Mark's Man Supplies is a gun shop."

  "Ha, witty." Libby snorted. "Wait, gun shop?"

  "'Guns and more' is the all-inclusive slogan."

  "Let me see." Libby snatched the phone from her hands and began scrolling through the website. She heard a car honk right before Vivian grabbed her ponytail and jerked her backward.

  "Ouch! What was that for?"

  "You almost became road kill. Typical."

  "Very funny." Libby glanced both ways this time before crossing the street onto Maple.

  "So, we're carrying a gun?" Vivian asked.

  "I sure hope not. They have an entire outdoor line too. Camping gear, hiking stuff, fishing. You name it, they've got it. Hopefully, it's a tent."

  They both stopped and stared at the box.

  "Think it's big enough to be a tent?" Vivian asked.

  "Not a chance."

  They kept walking with their feet dragging against the concrete sidewalk. "Should we hide it?"

  "Don't you think she'd miss it?"

  "Well, you're the one who thinks she has dementia," Libby reminded her.

  "Darn. She'll miss it. She's not nearly as forgetful as I'd expect her to be."

  "I don't think Marcie is aging as fast as everyone thinks. I think she's lonely. I mean, she kept locking her keys in the car and asking Charlene and Evan to come and help her. I happen to know she keeps a spare taped to the underside of her car. It was an excuse to talk to them or see them. I wish I could help with that in some way, but I can't replace a family's love, you know?"

  Vivian's face was solemn when she replied, "Yeah, I do. It's hard to replace a family member’s love."

  "Aw crap, I'm sorry, Viv. I forgot to ask how it went when you called your parents this morning." Libby shifted the package to her other arm and debated about dropping it in someone's garbage can on the way back to Marcie's.

  "Well, it went exactly as I expected."

  Libby knew what that meant. It meant Vivian's parents tried to guilt her into doing what they wanted. Vivian had a tendency to want to keep everybody happy, and her parents took advantage of her kind nature.

  "So are you going back to work with them and Nathaniel?"

  "No, this time I'm standing firm. I'm going to move here and figure out what I'm doing in life."

  "Good. Even if you don't know exactly what you want to do in your life, you at least know what you don't want to do. You can cross that off of your possible jobs list."

  Vivian laughed. "You're the only one who makes lists like that."

  They stopped talking when they reached Marcie's front steps.

  The door swung open, and Marcie greeted them. She was wearing an old camouflage army jacket that was completely buttoned up to her neck except the button on her chest that had managed to break free. "You picked it up?"

  Libby held the package out to her but had a hard time releasing her grip on it. It wasn't like she wanted to help someone get killed. Maybe Vivian was right, and it was some camping gear instead of a weapon. With a final jerk, Marcie tugged the package from her hands.

  Marcie pulled a pocketknife from one of the fifty pockets on her jacket. She made short work of the package and pulled out a piece of metal. Libby couldn't tell exactly what it was. It looked like a car part. She hoped Marcie was learning how to become an auto mechanic, because Libby would be a proud supporter if that woman could revive her car.

  "What is it?" Vivian asked.

  "It's my AR-15 lower receiver."

  "That's great."

  "Yup, that's great," Libby chimed in. "What's it do?"

  Marcie looked at her as if she'd suggested that Top Ramen had been discontinued. "Come here. I'll show you."

  Vivian shrugged and followed Libby as they trudged into the house all the way to Marcie's bedroom. They watched as she began pulling things out of the closet and putting them together. She sat on the bed, assembling assorted pieces of metal. When she was finally done, she handed it to Libby.

  "But. . . but this is a gun," Libby sputtered.

  "Built it myself."

  "I've never held a gun before."<
br />
  "Well, now you have, and I'll be sure to teach you how to use it."

  Libby smiled. No one had ever offered to teach her how to shoot. She had friends in high school who would go to the shooting range with their dads or grandpas, but that was a rite of passage Libby had never had. Leanne had never handled guns, and therefore Libby had never learned either.

  "It's a lot heavier than I thought it would be. They make them look so light in movies."

  Marcie laughed. "That's because what you're holding is the real deal."

  Libby almost dropped the gun when she remembered why she should be worried. Marcie had just assembled a firearm. This wasn't a time to get the warm fuzzies because Marcie was willing to teach her to shoot. Right now was the time to stand firm and remind Marcie that killing people was wrong — even for literary's sake.

  "Now, Marcie—" Libby started.

  "No, don't hug it like that. Wrap a hand around the stock here and the barrel here." Marcie adjusted Libby's hands accordingly. "See? Nothing to it. It's a lot easier to balance the weight that way, and you're less likely to break your toe by dropping it."

  "When are we going shooting?"

  "Soon. I have to finish up some of my writing. I'm on that deadline, you know," Marcie complained.

  Libby briefly wondered how far she could make it if she grabbed the AR and ran. She figured if she hid it long enough, Marcie would forget about it and move on to a different novel. She glanced at Marcie and then the door. She would never make it. Marcie had that glint in her eye as though she could almost read Libby's mind.

  "Marcie, you have to promise me something before I hand you back this gun."

  "What's that, dear?"

  "Promise you won't kill anyone with this gun."

  "But-"

  The twinkle in Marcie's eye was too much. "Promise! Or I'm quitting and calling Charlene to tell her you need a different caregiver."

  "Alright, I promise I won't kill anyone with the gun. It's too loud anyway. I'd choose something with a silencer if I were going to kill someone with a gun."