The April Fools' Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  Jack called the police station. He has a very good relationship with the Oakwood police force. One or two of the cops have become good acquaintances and keep him posted when he needs to know something.

  But after he asked if he could see the file on the Platt accident, I was aware from the way he spoke that he had been turned down.

  “Could you tell me who was first on the scene?” he asked. He had a pen in his hand. “Uh-huh. Yeah, I see. Any detectives involved?” He wrote something and thanked whomever he was talking to.

  “Boy, they’re tight on this one.”

  “He won’t let you see the file?”

  “He gave me a song and dance about a child being involved. I don’t know if he was making it up as he went along or whether they’ve gotten the word from the commissioner—”

  “Or the mayor,” I suggested.

  “Yeah, right. It could be the mayor. Anyway, he gave me a couple of names and he’s probably on the phone right now telling these guys not to open their mouths to me.”

  “I don’t understand it. It was an accident that involved only one car, so there wasn’t any lawsuit. What could be the problem?”

  “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve ever asked to see a file. It’s possible they just don’t like letting anyone outside the department look at them. In the past, I’ve asked when an autopsy took place, what the results were, that kind of thing. So let’s see if I can find out what’s going on from the cop on the scene and the detective who followed up. You’ll be glad to know you already know the detective.” He gave me a grin.

  “I do?”

  “The one you got on with so well when that homicide happened last Mother’s Day.”

  “Oh that one.” I’d had my problems with Detective Joe Fox, but we ended up working together when I led him to a killer. “You talk to him, OK?”

  “Sure. Let me wait till tomorrow morning when everyone’s back at work. Including me.”

  On Monday morning I went out with Eddie after breakfast, getting back about ten-thirty. I decided that was late enough that Amelia Chester would be awake. I called her number and waited for many rings until she answered, her voice so weak I could barely hear her.

  “Mrs. Chester, this is Chris Bennett. We talked on Saturday.”

  “Chris. Yes.”

  She sounded really bad and I wondered if I should call her sister and tell her. “I just wanted to know how you’re feeling.”

  I heard her take a couple of breaths. “Not very good today.”

  “I’m sorry.” I felt terrible. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Let me get back into bed.”

  “I apologize. I didn’t know you were sleeping.”

  “I wasn’t.” She hung up.

  I knew as I put the phone down that there was no hope, either for her or for my desire to get the information that I needed. I sat thinking about this old, sick woman, alone in her apartment. Before I could think about what to do, the phone rang.

  I grabbed it, hoping it was Amelia. To my surprise, it was Winnie Platt.

  “Chris,” she said. “I have a favor to ask you.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “Could you come up here and help me practice my driving for half an hour?”

  “I’ll be there. Eddie is with me. Is that all right?”

  “I’d love to see him.”

  Eddie was happy to visit her. He liked the house and he liked her. I told him we would sit in her car while she practiced driving but I think that left him confused. Older people knew how to drive.

  When we got there, I transferred our child’s seat to the back of her car and got Eddie in it. Then I sat next to Winnie as she took the wheel.

  “It’s such a big car,” she said. “Will always liked them big but I didn’t. I feel like I’m the captain of a battleship.”

  “You’ll get over it. When you see how easily you can move it, you won’t think about the size.”

  She backed out of the driveway somewhat unsteadily, but it was a wide driveway and she stayed off the lawn. Then, to my surprise, she headed down the hill.

  “Oh, you’re going to Oakwood Avenue?” I said.

  “Yes, didn’t I tell you?”

  “Sorry. I thought you were just going to drive up and down the hill here.”

  “I did that with Toni. I want to try real traffic with you next to me before I go out alone.”

  “You’re doing fine,” I said.

  She got down to the bottom of the hill, stopped smoothly, put her turn signal on, and turned right. I knew we would pass the place where the accident had occurred, and maybe that was what she wanted to do, prove to herself that she could do it. She kept the speed down to twenty-five miles an hour, hardly touching the accelerator, although the limit was forty, and two cars passed her, the driver of one giving her a nasty look. It didn’t seem to faze her. She looked straight ahead, her hands gripping the wheel rather tightly.

  “You’re doing well, Winnie,” I said. “Absolutely fine.”

  “Thank you. Roger’s house is down that way.” She let go of the wheel for a second and pointed with her left hand. “Remember?”

  We kept going and at some point I realized we had passed the site of the accident. “Just fine,” I said.

  “It really comes back, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re a good driver, Winnie.”

  “Yes, I feel better now.” She kept going, and I wondered if she had a destination in mind or if she was just looking for a place to turn around, but it didn’t matter. I knew it was important for her to do this, and I had plenty of time.

  “I’m taking you both to lunch,” she said, her face relaxing into a smile.

  “Lunch!” Eddie said excitedly from the backseat.

  “Yes, Eddie, I’m taking you and your mommy to lunch. Do you like to eat in restaurants?”

  “I want pizza,” Eddie said ungraciously.

  “You’ll get something nice,” I assured him.

  “He’s very sweet,” she said generously. “We’ll have a nice lunch, Eddie.” She was much more at ease, and I realized she had risen to the challenge. It was the first time she had been behind the wheel at that place since the accident. She knew now that she could do it. I felt a great admiration for this woman. The worst possible thing had happened to her, something that surely haunted her awake and asleep, but she knew now she had overcome it enough to be independent once more.

  “Do you want to turn around and go in the other direction?” I asked her.

  “I don’t think so. I’ve done what I wanted to. You’ve heard about it, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even with Will driving, I always shut my eyes when we reached that place. But I knew if I was going to be able to get my own groceries and take my clothes to the cleaner, I had to overcome that.”

  “You did very well.”

  “Yes, I did well.” She smiled. “How’s the Oakwood Diner?” she asked. “I don’t know if Eddie can get what he wants there, but there’s lots of good food and they’ll wrap up what’s left so you can eat the leftovers at home.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “Do you need anything at Prince’s?” she asked, as though she had such control over her life that she could deviate from a plan with no untoward consequences.

  “Thanks, we’re fine. But if you want to stop for yourself—”

  “No. Toni saw to it that I have enough in the house to keep me going for a week at least. But I can go there anytime I want now.”

  She drove past Prince’s parking lot and Eddie pointed to it and called out its name. I guess he knew it so well because he sometimes got a cookie as a present when we shopped there.

  “You’re a smart boy, Eddie,” Winnie said. “We’re going to have lunch at the diner. Do you know the diner too?”

  “No,” he said. “What’s the diner?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I told Winnie that I didn’t take him out f
or lunch very often and she said good, it would be a new experience for him. She pulled into their parking lot and we all got out. Inside, they gave Eddie a booster seat and we sat opposite Winnie and went through the enormous menu.

  After we had ordered, Winnie said, “Toni told you about the will, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. She called Saturday night. I take it you didn’t know anything about the second one.”

  “I had no idea. It was such a shock, such a happy surprise, really. I had thought Roger would inherit nothing of Will’s money.”

  “I gather they didn’t get along very well.”

  “It was awful. This was my wonderful son, so bright and so mixed up. Will and I argued about how he treated Roger, but Will was a stubborn man. His son had to do what his father wanted him to do. It never seemed to make a difference that Roger did what he liked, was a happy man, had a wonderful family, and was successful at his work.

  “Toni, on the other hand, could do no wrong. Not that she ever did anything wrong; it’s just that Will forgave everything. When he wrote his will all those years ago and left everything to Toni after my death, I was heartsick.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “And then he changed the will and never told me.”

  Our food came and I got Eddie started, hoping he wouldn’t make a mess and knowing he probably would. Winnie had been right about the size of the portions. They were huge. Eddie and I would have lunch another time with our leftovers.

  “Did your husband’s relationship to Roger change in the last few years?” I asked. “After that second will was written?”

  “Not that I noticed. It’s as though he separated the money from his feelings. Although I have to say that by this time, Roger was the one that didn’t want a relationship with his father. He’d struggled for so long and lost, I think he just gave up.”

  “Have the police said anything about their investigation?” I asked.

  “Nothing. They’ve been to the house more times than I can count. They took a million pictures of the garage, then a lot more when we found the missing cane. They asked the same questions over and over. How did the cane get there? Who has a key to the house? Why did it take you so long to find it? It’s as if they’re waiting for someone to make a mistake and tell them what they’re hoping to hear. But there’s no mistake. Someone came and killed my husband and I don’t know who it was.”

  “If someone had taken the cane and shoved it through the opening in the basement window, how would he have gotten from the garage to that window?”

  “He would have had to go to the back of the house. He could have done it two ways, around the garage or across the front and then around the other side of the house.”

  “Where you were sitting that afternoon, would you have seen someone go across the back of the house?”

  “I’m sure I would have,” she said. “It’s all glass back there. You’ve seen it. How could anyone walk in front of those picture windows and sliding doors without my seeing him?”

  That, of course, was exactly my question. “But if he took a chance and went across the front of the house, then he could have pushed the cane into the basement without you seeing him.”

  “But the mailman could have seen him if he was driving by. Did anyone talk to the mailman?”

  “I did,” I said. “I don’t know if the police did.”

  “The police think my son did this,” Winnie said sadly. “He didn’t. He may not have gotten along with his father, but he’s not a killer. Why would he do such a thing? It isn’t logical.”

  I had felt the same way when I knew that Roger stood to inherit nothing. “Could Roger have known about the new will?” I asked softly.

  “If I didn’t know, nobody knew.” She said it with a note of defiance.

  “Did the same lawyer draw up both wills?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t look that way. There’s a business card clipped on the new will with a name I’ve never heard of. Maybe the other lawyer died.”

  Or Willard decided to start with a clean slate, hiring someone who didn’t know the history of his relationship with his son. I wanted to ask her if she knew about Willard’s first marriage, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I thought the chances of her knowing about it were fifty-fifty, but I didn’t want to be the one to let her know.

  She started talking to Eddie at that point, and I decided not to pursue any of the unanswered questions I still had. When we finished eating, we left with three doggie bags. On the way back, Winnie drove with more confidence, but still at a slow speed. I had the feeling she would work on that too.

  Eddie took a nap and Jack called while I was finishing up my papers for my class the next day.

  “OK, talked to Joe Fox. He remembers that accident investigation very well, mostly because there was a child involved. He said the boy was killed instantly.”

  “Was Winnie hurt very much?”

  “Cuts and bruises. But she was completely traumatized, could hardly talk. Joe said he really felt for her.”

  “Any chance there was another car involved?” I asked.

  “Not from what he said. He figures she was driving too fast for the condition of the road. She began to use the brake and the car went into a skid she couldn’t pull out of. He said the skid marks on the road were a real clincher. They helped him reconstruct the path of the car right into the tree. And by the way, no one ever told him not to discuss the case. He’s with the county so that doesn’t surprise me. And I heard about the cane.”

  “What about it?”

  “There are prints, or at least partials, all over it: Willard’s, Winnie’s—”

  “They took Winnie’s prints?”

  “They had to. You have to exclude prints when you’re looking for a killer’s. So they had hers. But finding her prints on the cane really doesn’t mean very much. She probably touched it when it was in her way. The top of the cane had been wiped fairly clean.”

  “So the killer thought about that. Do the police know there’s a housekeeper who comes to clean? She probably dusts the canes and polishes the metal tops.”

  “I gotta believe they know what they’re doing, Chris. Although they’re grudgingly grateful that you brought the cane up in the first place. Also the stuff about Platt’s legs. They’re pretty sure he walked just fine without a cane, that he carried one for effect. You call his first wife back today?”

  “I did.” I told him what had happened and that I felt she was very ill. “I don’t expect I’ll be talking to her again. I hope her sister knows how bad her condition is.”

  “So I guess that’s a secret that’ll stay with her. Look, what do you say I ask Joe Fox over for tonight? He sounded willing and he could bring the file on the accident.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll pick up something to munch on with coffee.”

  “Gee, we could have him over every night.”

  “We’d get fat as pigs.”

  “Well, I tried. By the way, I haven’t been able to get hold of the cop who was first on the scene at the accident, but I’m still trying.”

  I didn’t think he’d have much luck but I had an idea of my own.

  19

  It was a simple idea. Later in the afternoon, I took Eddie and went out to buy a cake that I could serve in the evening. On the way home I stopped at the corner of Oakwood and a street with a lot of houses. The accident had happened right near that corner. I pulled into the driveway of the house I thought was the closest to that spot and rang the doorbell. When the woman inside opened the door, I recognized her from church.

  “You’re Chris Brooks,” she said.

  “Yes, and this is my son, Eddie. I think you’re Carolyn.”

  “Yes, Carolyn Haney. Come on in.”

  She was about my age and had a couple of kids who came down to see who the visitor was. In a minute Eddie had been whisked away upstairs.

  “I wanted to ask you about the accident a few years ago in which the little boy was
killed.”

  “The Platt boy. I get a chill when I think of it. It happened right across the street. I heard the crash. You never forget a sound like that.”

  “So you were home.”

  “I was right here in the kitchen cooking dinner. I heard the sound but I had something on the stove and I couldn’t leave right away. When I could, I went to the dining room window and looked out. I couldn’t see anything from there so I went into the living room. It was dark out and the weather was terrible. I could sort of see the lights from the back of the car and then the doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Platt. She was almost hysterical, crying and saying, ‘Help me, help me. I need an ambulance.’ She said something about her grandson. I told her to come in but she said she couldn’t leave him and she went out again. I called the police and said there’d been an accident, and when I gave them the address, they said they knew about it and they were on their way. I heard the sirens after I hung up.”

  “So someone else called first.”

  “I don’t know who, but there are a lot of houses around here. Someone probably heard the crash and called right away.”

  “Did you go out to the car?”

  “Oh yes. I grabbed my coat and my keys and called upstairs to the kids to stay put. It was a terrible night, cold and snowy. I dashed over and got just a quick look at the boy. It was terrible.” Her eyes filled. “It’s hard to think about it,” she said. “He was just a child.”

  “Was anyone else there when you went out?”

  “People were stopping their cars, people were coming out of their houses. It was a real mess when the ambulance and police cars got there.”

  “Was the boy alive?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “What about Mrs. Platt? Was she hurt?”

  “Nothing that I could see. If you saw how the car hit the tree, you’d understand. The tree went right through the passenger side. He never had a chance. But the other side of the car didn’t look that bad. I’m sure the alignment was all off, but it was really just the passenger side that suffered.”