Read Online Small Plates by Katherine Hall Page - Free Book Online

go to waste. “Why on earth would I want to go back to work?” she’d said. “I’ve worked all my life. Now it’s my time.” She sounded like a television commercial: “Now It’s My Time.” It was after the third repetition of the phrase that he decided to kill her.
    It felt good to have a goal. He was happier than he’d been in many years. He was glad now that they hadn’t had a family. He wouldn’t have been able to deprive children of a mother or grandchildren of a grandmother. And their own families posed no problems. Both his and her parents had died years ago. Mr. Carter was an only child, and Mabel had an older sister living in Canada. The two had never been close and Mabel didn’t even know whether the woman was still alive. So there would be no relatives to question the sudden death of a beloved family member.
    It would have to be a perfect crime. That went without saying. He would immediately be the prime suspect. It’s always the husband. He’d read enough mysteries and true crime books to know that. Well, maybe not always, but usually. There was no point in going through with it if he wasn’t going to be able to reap the benefits of being a widower. Much as he disliked living with Mabel, it was preferable to prison. He knew there was a risk, but oh, the rewards!
    After the food and the calls tapered off, he saw himself joining one of those grief support groups, basking in the pathos of others like himself. He would go on Elderhostels to Tuscany and Prague—places he had only read about. Places Mabel had never cared to visit. “If you want greasy Italian food, you can get all you want in the North End. Besides, you have to bring your own water and toilet paper. Who needs that?” He would date attractive women with beautifully coifed silver hair. Women who wore scent and took the trouble to apply flawless makeup. He would get subscription tickets for the symphony. His own seats. He would nod to those around him, careful not to be too familiar. He would maintain his aura, his dignity. They would nod back, commenting to one another in low voices about the well-dressed elderly gentleman, retired businessman no doubt—or perhaps an academic. After the concert, he and his lady friend—he liked the sound of that—would have supper at the Brasserie Jo, cosmopolitan places, and when he took her home, she would invite him in for coffee. She’d offer decaf, but he’d smile and say he could handle the real thing. She’d laugh and he would kiss her. He could close his eyes even now and feel the warmth and softness of her skin on his lips. They would go to bed and she would protest that her body was not what it had been when she was young. He would whisper that if anything she must be more beautiful. They would make love. And sleep long and dreamlessly, waking in each other’s arms. She would not blow her nose. She would not say they were too old for such nonsense. She would not laugh at Mr. Carter’s naked body nor comment that his skin seemed to have grown too large for his bones. She would not move into the guest room and call it hers.
    Mr. Carter didn’t own a gun or a weapon of any kind, although Mabel kept her clippers and some of her other garden tools razor sharp. But he couldn’t shoot her—the police would see through the “I thought she was a burglar” story in a flash—nor could he fake her suicide. There was the whole problem of powder burns. They’d have to be on her hand, not his, and he didn’t think he could get Mabel to hold a gun and pull the trigger. Possibly he could drug her and then, using gloves, put the weapon in her hand and maneuver her finger to fire the shot. This might just do the trick, but the gun would of course be traced back to him. He’d have to buy one at a gun shop or from a pawnbroker, since he didn’t have any street connections. He supposed