The April Fools' Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  After Eddie was off to bed, I started thinking about tomorrow’s breakfast and that’s when I discovered I was out of milk. At the same time, Jack asked if we had anything sweet to go with our coffee?

  It had been on my shopping list, which was totally forgotten after my discovery of Willard Platt’s “body.”

  “I’ll go and get something. I need milk anyway.”

  “I’ll go. You stay home.”

  I looked at him, assessing the situation. “I’ll feel better if I’m in a car and you’re home with Eddie.”

  “Chris, I really don’t think—”

  “We don’t know what’s going on, Jack. The parking lot at Prince’s is well-lighted. And I want you home.”

  “OK. Let me walk you out to the car.”

  That’s when I knew that what he was saying and what he was thinking were two different things. I backed out of the driveway and went up to Oakwood Avenue. Where we live, it’s a quiet, residential street, but farther along there are stores, including the supermarket I was aiming for. But not far from our street, I came to the road up to the nursery and the Platts’ house. On a sudden whim, I turned right.

  The nursery was closed for the night, a few lights on here and there to discourage unwanted visitors. I continued up the hill to the Platts’. There were lights on and yellow crime scene tape marking off the driveway and the garage. I sat for a moment, looking at the still house and grounds, wondering if Mrs. Platt had remained at home. After a couple of minutes, I made my U-turn and went back down the hill, turned onto Oakwood Avenue, and continued toward Prince’s.

  Oakwood Avenue is not well-lighted until you get into the center business area. At this point it was just one lane in each direction with a line down the center that alternately allowed this lane of traffic or that one to pass. Suddenly on my right I saw a dark figure walking just to the right of the road, hardly far enough away to be safe from a wide car or a truck. I slammed my brakes on, feeling the panic of having almost been involved in a terrible accident. The dark figure was just to my right and silhouetted in my headlight. I inched forward and wound down the window, remembering to put my emergency blinkers on so I would not get smacked from behind.

  The figure turned and looked at me. It was a woman, an older woman. She looked almost lost.

  “Can I help you?” I said. “Can I take you somewhere?”

  “I’m just going to my son’s house.”

  “Is it far?”

  “It’s just in the next town.”

  “The next town? Please get in. I’ll drive you.”

  She hesitated, perhaps wondering, as I had, if it was safe to get in the car of a stranger. I guess I didn’t look very forbidding as she pulled the door open and sat down beside me. “Thank you. That’s very nice of you.”

  “I’m Chris Brooks,” I said, using my married name, as in this milieu I would be known as Jack’s wife.

  “I’m Winnie Platt.”

  “Mrs. Platt!” I didn’t know what to say. “Are you—are you Willard Platt’s wife?”

  “For forty-eight years,” she said.

  “I heard what happened. I’m terribly sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where is your son’s house?” I asked, wondering why her son had not come to see her when he heard the news of his father’s death.

  “Just keep going. I’ll show you where to turn.”

  I pulled onto the road and drove toward the center of town. “It’s really dangerous to walk on Oakwood Avenue. Cars come by at forty miles an hour. You weren’t very visible.”

  “I don’t drive,” she said. “I used to, but I haven’t driven since the accident.”

  I let that be. “Are you all right, Mrs. Platt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I stop and get you something to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry. My daughter-in-law will have something if I need it.”

  I made a few turns at her direction and crossed over into the adjoining town. It had much the same character as Oakwood, and without a sign at the border, you wouldn’t know you had traded in one mayor and council for another, one police department for another, one volunteer fire department for one just like it.

  I had taken note of the mileage when I picked her up. Her little walk was over a mile and a half. I pulled into the driveway of a house larger and newer than ours. “Will you stay overnight?” I asked.

  “I don’t like to stay in other people’s houses. I just want to talk to my son. He’ll drive me home.”

  I got out of the car and went around to help her out. We walked to the front door together and she pushed the bell. A woman older than I opened the door and seemed stunned to see Mrs. Platt.

  “Winnie,” she said. Then she looked at me.

  “I’m Chris Brooks. I found your mother-in-law walking on the road to come here. I thought it would be safer for her to go in a car.”

  “Please come in. I’m so sorry to put you out. I thought my husband had gone to get her. Give me your coat, Winnie, and sit down. I’ll call Roger and see what’s keeping him.”

  “He should have come,” her mother-in-law said.

  “I couldn’t reach him.”

  Then you should have come, I thought. What is the matter with this family?

  The younger Mrs. Platt did not introduce herself or offer to take my coat, but I followed the older woman to the living room and sat down beside her on the sofa, setting my coat on a chair. Her daughter-in-law returned from the coat closet in the large front hall and sat on a chair facing us. It was a beautiful room, with a thick carpet and draperies that showed a professional touch.

  “Is your husband working?” I asked, wondering what could keep a man away when his father had been murdered.

  “No, he’s—well, yes, actually. He’s involved in a very important project. Winnie, would you like a cup of tea? Are there any phone calls I can make for you?”

  “I want to talk to Roger.” Mrs. Platt took her pocket-book, which she had set on the floor near her feet, put it on her lap and opened it. She rummaged in it for a moment, then closed it and put it back on the floor. She was a woman of about seventy, give or take a couple of years, wearing no makeup, and dressed in a shapeless black dress with large black buttons down the front. She looked grandmotherly, but not particularly healthy. Her skin was sallow and she looked worn. “Did you call him, Doris?”

  “Oh. No, I didn’t. I’m sorry; it slipped my mind. Let me give him a ring.” She jumped up as though she were happy to be leaving us, and disappeared. From another room I heard her voice.

  She came back and said, “He’s on his way. I got him in his car.”

  As I started to think that I was not needed here anymore, the daughter-in-law said, “Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Brooks?”

  “Thank you, I think I’ll be on my way.” I wrote my name and phone number for Winnie and gave it to her. “If you need a ride, please give me a call. I live quite near you. And if there’s anything else I can do.”

  “That’s very nice of you. Thank you for driving me.”

  I patted her back, took my coat, and went to the door.

  The younger Mrs. Platt followed me. “I appreciate your driving Winnie. She shouldn’t take long walks at night.”

  I had no idea how to respond, so I didn’t. I went out to my car and made my way back to Oakwood Avenue and completed my errand.

  “That is one seriously weird family,” I said to Jack when we were finally sitting in the family room sipping our coffee and eating the cake that I had picked up at Prince’s.

  “You’re telling me this woman’s son, the son of the murdered man, was working late on a Saturday night when he knew his father had just been killed and his mother was alone?”

  “That’s sort of what his wife said, but not exactly. When I asked if he was working, his wife said no and then changed her mind, as though I had given her the excuse she was looking for.”

  “Sounds like they should get
the medal for dysfunctional family of the year.”

  “Frankly, my head is spinning from all of this. Forget about the mix-up this afternoon when I thought he was dead but he wasn’t, don’t families come together when a member dies? Even if this son, Roger, didn’t get along with his father, he must have some feelings for his mother.”

  “I would think so,” said my husband, who got along well with both his parents and would have broken speed limits to get to them if they needed him.

  “And to walk on Oakwood Avenue at night. Jack, that’s just looking for trouble. Wait a minute. She said something intriguing that I didn’t follow up on. She said she didn’t drive. Then she said she used to drive, but not since the accident.”

  “I’ll ask at the police station tomorrow.” He took an envelope that was ready to be tossed and wrote on the back of it. If there was a record of an accident locally, he would find it.

  I started thinking that maybe I would drop in on the son and daughter-in-law the next afternoon and ask if there was anything I could do to help, and hope to pick up some sense of the relationships in the family. Then I had another idea. “Jack, when we finish our coffee, I think I’ll take a drive back to the younger Platts’ house. I’m a little concerned they may let Winnie walk home by herself.”

  “Come on.”

  “No, really. Neither one of those people went to get her or went to see her. Suppose she says she wants to walk and her son doesn’t want to be bothered?” I took my last bite of cake and sipped my coffee. My usual nighttime sleepiness had fled. I felt very awake and very interested.

  “Sometimes I wonder about you.”

  “Give me an hour,” I said. “After that, I’ll probably be glad to get home.”

  “Write down the address.”

  I checked it in the phone book and then wrote it down for him. He was clearing the cups and saucers as I put my coat on.

  A large dark-colored car stood in the Platts’ driveway. The living room lights were still on but I could see nothing through the curtains. I made a U-turn and parked a few houses back across the street, my car pointing in the direction from which I had come. If someone was going to drive Winnie Platt home, this was the way he would go. I didn’t park across the street from their house because I didn’t want to be noticed. Although it was dark and there were no streetlights, I knew that it was possible someone would look out a window or come home from a movie, see my car, and wonder what someone was doing there at that time of night. I would wonder the same thing on my block. In the suburbs people park in their garages or on driveways, and a car at the curb can be cause for concern. Our town has an ordinance against parking in the wee hours of the morning, which were still hours away, but I hoped no one would notice me.

  I was there about half an hour when I saw the interior light go on in the dark car. They must have come out a side door, because I was watching the front door and it hadn’t opened. I heard both doors slam shut and a moment later the car rolled down to the street and started toward Oakwood. I turned on my motor and went forward without my lights on till the Platt car turned at the corner. Then I turned my headlights on and took off after him.

  He followed exactly the route Winnie and I had taken. I could see them both in the front seat but they didn’t appear to be talking. I worried about Winnie spending this terrible night alone in that big house. She had said she’d been married for forty-eight years. I wondered if her husband had ever left her alone during that time.

  I kept well back on Oakwood Avenue and saw Roger’s turn signal point left to the road up the hill. I was quite close to home now myself but my hour hadn’t completely elapsed. I pulled over, getting the car off the road, and turned my lights and motor off. I had decided to follow Roger home, which meant I would have to make another U, but there was very little traffic.

  Five minutes after he turned up the hill, the big car came down it. I started my motor as he looked left and right and then, to my surprise, turned into Oakwood Avenue away from his home. I pulled back on the road after he passed me, got my lights on, and kept following. He drove farther and farther from his home, eventually entering the town on the far side of Oakwood. He went into the center of town, made a turn, then drove into the entrance of an apartment complex. I followed him carefully, wondering who he intended to visit at this late hour, and saw him pull into an open parking slot, turn off his lights, and get out of his car.

  He must be visiting someone, I thought. I turned my lights off but he seemed oblivious to me. He stopped under a bright lamp, put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. Then he walked to a door and let himself in.

  Whoever Roger Platt was spending the night with, it wasn’t his wife and family.

  “Maybe that’s where he works,” Jack said.

  “It’s not an office building, it’s an apartment complex. And it’s expensive, Jack. If he just needed a room with a desk and a computer, why would he rent an apartment with a bedroom and kitchen?”

  “Who knows? Maybe because he can afford it. Maybe it’s their vacation getaway.”

  “April Fool, right?”

  “Yeah. It sounds like these are very strange people. I feel sorry for that woman.”

  “Me too.” I got the local phone book and looked up Roger Platt. There was one listing, the big house I had driven Winnie to. “I wonder if his wife knows about this apartment.”

  “Well, she sure as hell knows he’s not coming home to her tonight.”

  “And he had no luggage with him. So he keeps clothes there.”

  “He may keep more than clothes there,” Jack said.

  “And no listed phone number. His wife said she reached him on his cell phone while he was driving to their house. Maybe that’s the only phone he has. She may not know where he is.”

  “But she knows he’s not with her.”

  “Very strange,” I said. “But I’m too tired to think about it. And tomorrow is April second, so anything I hear I can trust to be accurate.”

  “Wow, do you have a lot to learn.”

  5

  We picked up my cousin, Gene, on Sunday morning and took him to mass with us. Gene lives in a residence for retarded adults here in town, but for many years the home was in the town that the younger Platts lived in. We had decided to treat ourselves to an enormous buffet brunch at a hotel in that town. We had done it once or twice before, and thought Gene would appreciate it. For Jack and me it meant no more cooking or cleaning up for the rest of the day, a nice incentive after the great meal he had prepared the night before.

  Gene was ready when we got to Greenwillow, dressed in slacks, a nice shirt, and a blazer. He carried a knit shirt with him so he could change and be comfortable when we got home after the brunch, and we stowed that in the trunk.

  We got to church a little early. People were milling around outside, the first sunny Sunday we’d had in a long time. I said my hellos and listened to various conversations. They were all about the April Fools’ Day murder, and one person seemed to know that there had been a false alarm earlier in the day when it was thought Willard Platt was dead but it turned out he wasn’t. I was glad my name wasn’t mentioned.

  We went inside and found a pew with room for four, Jack taking the outside aisle seat as he usually did, in case Eddie became obstreperous, although I must say he had been behaving quite well lately.

  An hour later we piled into the car and drove to the hotel. It was a surprise for Gene, who was thrilled to pieces. After we were seated, I walked Gene around the buffet, showing him all the different foods, explaining that he could take whatever he wanted. It was his first buffet and he had a hard time believing that all of those wonderful-looking dishes were his for the taking. At one point he turned and spied the dessert table, his face lighting up. We walked over and he asked if he could have two desserts, and I said he could have two or maybe even three. He absolutely glowed.

  I think I enjoyed watching Eddie and Gene even more than I enjoyed the food. Gene was esp
ecially taken with the scope and amount of food, sure that this could not last. He tried a few new things, and even admitted to liking the smoked salmon, but for the most part he stuck with tried and true favorites. And when we were ready for dessert, he almost went wild.

  They had two huge containers of ice cream and all the fixings for sundaes. Eddie was satisfied with a scoop of vanilla and a taste of hot fudge, but Gene wanted everything they had, the whipped cream, the nuts, the sprinkles. He left most of it, although very reluctantly. But we promised we would come back for his birthday, and I think he started counting the days.

  Full to bursting, we drove home. Eddie tumbled into his bed, and even Gene nodded off on the sofa. Jack and I nearly giggled over it.

  “Worth the price,” he said. “I think this is a watershed day in Gene’s life.”

  “I’m glad. Sometimes it’s hard to think of what to do for him, but we’ve got the word now.”

  “Look, as long as everyone’s conked out, I think I’ll do some studying.”

  “Fine with me. I’m going to drive over to the younger Mrs. Platt’s and see what I can find out.”

  “See you later.”

  I had thought Jack’s days of studying were over when he passed the bar exam and became a lawyer, but he’s an ambitious person, and having achieved one goal, he decided to pursue another. He has been a detective sergeant for years and is now studying for the lieutenant’s exam, which tells me he’s still happy to be part of the NYPD, something I wasn’t sure of during the years he spent in law school. If he makes it—and I feel sure he will eventually—he’ll be put on the civil service promotion list and get appointed when his number is reached. It will mean greater prestige, perhaps a new assignment, and a larger income. As a father, Jack is now looking ahead to sending our son to college, not the way he went, going nights for years while on the job, but registering and sticking around one place for four years.