April Fools

by A. C. Mason

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said, rising from my seat.

  “Do you want company?” Lisa asked.

  “No, I just need to get some air.”

  Once outside I inhaled deeply and released my breath several times to calm down. The air felt humid and heavy, but anything was better than the negative energy in the atmosphere inside the funeral parlor.

  I strolled across the manicured grounds of one of the city’s oldest funeral homes and admired the ocean of pink and purple petunias. A tiny breeze came out of nowhere, short-lived, but more than welcome. Faint strains of music from Greg’s service floated out. The guilt flooding over me created the sensation of drowning. Here I was, possibly responsible for his death and I couldn’t even be in there to pay my respects.

  Whoever killed him must have been afraid he’d give me the information I needed to prove Steven’s innocence. But what did Greg know? And how would he have known anything about Anne’s murder? Lost in my analytic session, I stopped in front a large hedge of azaleas, mentally recalling the conversation we had in his office.

  Male voices coming from the back side of the bushes interrupted my recollections. I recognized them immediately—John Durand and Michael Benoit. Déjà vu from the party?

  “Trey’s idea was crazy. I knew all along it wouldn‘t work,” John said.

  Michael’s short laugh sounded like a bark. “That’s a joke. You were one of the main proponents. If I’m not mistaken you all but volunteered to do it yourself.”

  He was a proponent of what? I anxiously awaited John’s response.

  “Can you blame me? You sure didn’t protest very much about the arrangement.”

  “Listen, we can’t start arguing among ourselves. I’m sorry Anne is gone, but Steven is who the police are after. We all wanted him out of our lives, so everything is working fine for us. It’s like I told you years ago, nothing is going to come out about our deal. Our reputations are safe.”

  “What about your wife? Didn’t she barge in on one of our talks?”

  “Melanie knows only what I told her.”

  “Which is?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Not likely she’ll repeat that story,” Michael said. “Too scandalous.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  Naturally he picked that particular moment to lower his voice or turn his head because I couldn’t catch anything but a bunch of mumbling.

  John laughed. “What a hoot! Okay, you win. I should be happy about the way things turned out. Steven’s the one looking at trouble now. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person,” he added, his voice laced with sarcasm. “We’d better stop Trey from bringing attention to himself by hassling Susan. He’s a loose cannon and he’s getting worse by the day. It’s weird, even for him.”

  “I agree, but how…”

  Their voices trailed off so I figured they were headed back toward the funeral home. I waited until I saw them enter the building before I started walking. I didn’t know whether to cry or scream. Their mysterious conversation totally unnerved me. Could the whole group, even my cousin Melanie, be involved in Anne’s murder? Mel tried hard enough to blame Steven for the crime. And why would Michael mention Anne at all if there wasn’t a connection? No, they have to be referring to something else. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe my cousin would have any knowledge or connection to the murder of our good friend, plus be a party to throwing the blame on my brother. John indicated Trey’s involvement also. He certainly called attention to himself by trailing and harassing me.

  The casket was being carried to the waiting hearse when I approached the funeral home entrance. Six pall bearers, including John and Michael, struggled down the steps with the heavy coffin. A lump formed in my throat. Those two men possibly killed him, and yet, had the privilege of carrying him to his final resting place. They never mentioned Greg’s murder, but if they had anything to do with Anne’s death, they very well could be involved in his. I felt certain there was a connection.

  The rest of the mourners flowed out of the door and made their way to their respective vehicles for the procession to the cemetery. I joined Lisa in the parking lot.

  “I started to worry about you,” she said. “You were pretty upset.”

  “You shouldn’t have been concerned. I needed to clear my head. Are you headed for the cemetery?”

  “No, I’ve got to get back to the gallery. A man from my security service is scheduled to come by and evaluate my system.”

  “You haven’t had another break in, have you?” I asked, growing concerned.

  She avoided my gaze for a moment. “It’s simply a precaution. There hasn’t been any more trouble. My alarm system really needs updating.”

  “If I’m going to join the procession, I’d better get a move on,” I said, reaching in my purse for the car keys. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, I’ll hold you to it,” she called back and waved.

  Even though the outside temperature probably hadn’t reached seventy-five degrees yet, the sun shining through the windshield turned my car into a solar oven. I quickly flipped on the air conditioner, backed out into the driveway, and managed to get in line behind the last car in the funeral procession.

  I must have driven on auto pilot because before I realized it the procession arrived at the white wrought iron gates of the cemetery. The bumpy gravel road to the grave site jolted me even moving along at five miles an hour. Finally arriving at the spot where Greg would be buried, I turned off the engine and exited the car, following the crowd to the small covered pavilion set up for the family and other mourners.

  The pall bearers stood on each side of the casket, slowly lifted it from the stretcher, and walked toward the pavilion. With the coffin placed in position in front of several flower arrangements on stands, Greg’s sister, his mother, and older brother filed past and sat in the front row of chairs. The remaining attendees gathered under the canopy with much of the crowd overflowing past the last row of chairs onto the grass.

  A young Catholic deacon performed a short graveside service ending with The Lord’s Prayer. Many people expressed their sympathy to the family and started returning to their cars. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to them. Must be guilt rearing its ugly head again.

  I began walking back to my little Chevy. Someone called my name and I turned to see Mary Catherine with Amanda right behind her approaching me at a fast clip. What in the world did they want? This couldn’t be good. To top it all Melanie joined the group headed toward me. Am I going to get a piece of her mind as well? I half expected to get trounced by these women. Three against one wasn’t exactly fair.

  The first words out of Mary Catherine’s mouth made me want to slap her “How could you show your face here?” She spat out the question. “Because of you, Greg is dead.”

  “How did you come to such a conclusion?” I asked as calmly as possible under the circumstances.

  “You obviously set him up for your brother to kill him.” Her voice grated on my nerves like a fingernail over chalk board.

  “We know all about the police finding Steven’s gun and they confirmed it was the murder weapon,” Amanda chimed in. She actually shook her finger at me in admonishment. Or maybe she simply wanted to show off the large diamond ring on her index finger.

  My God, they sounded like a bunch of junior high girls ganging up on a classmate for some imagined disrespect. How could I have ever been associated with people like this?

  By this time our confrontation had attracted the spouses of all three women. I had to end this business right now before the situation really got out of control.

  “I hate to disappoint you, but my brother didn’t kill Greg. He happened to be in a meeting with his attorney at the time. So whoever did kill Greg and tried to frame Steven made a big mistake.”

  The look on all of their faces was priceless. I turned and left them standing there with dropped jaws.

  Nine

  Driving dow
n St. Charles, I contemplated the day’s events. The childish satisfaction I derived from dropping my bombshell on the group brought me down to their level, and more importantly, failed to produce any viable evidence. All I had were a bunch of theories and no way to prove them.

  A sudden urge forced me to turn onto the quiet side street where Anne and Steven once lived. I pulled up in the driveway of their former home, the place where she died. My brother had moved out several months after she died, but he left the house empty. At the time he told me he planned to sell the house, but he never got around to putting it on the market. A gardening service and a handyman kept the place in shape so it didn’t fall into disrepair.

  Both Jim and I agreed my brother suffered from a guilty conscience, but we held different ideas about the reason. I felt Steven’s guilt stemmed from his bedroom escapades, and the idea of his actions possibly causing Anne’s death, much like I felt about Greg’s murder.

  Without knowing what if anything a visit here would tell me, or if I could even enter the house without setting off alarms, I strode up the sidewalk and up the steps to the front door. Of course the house was locked, as it should be. The old yellow flower pot no longer sat next to the porch. So where was the key?

  The next question—did I really want to go inside and be slapped in the face by reliving the nightmare of discovering Anne’s body? Long moments later, I stood on tiptoes and peered through the glass cut-outs on the door.

  Only a small amount of furniture remained in place. Steven evidently moved the rest to the condo he now owned. Or else—he sold it all. I’d never been to his current place so for all I knew he could be sleeping on the floor.

  The sound of a vehicle pulling up in the driveway caught my attention. I turned to see a green Ford pick-up with a trailer carrying lawn care equipment hitched behind. The door of the vehicle displayed a white magnetic sign listing Dupre Lawn Care in black letters. Two men occupied the truck.

  A young man who appeared to be in his late teens exited from the driver’s side. “Nobody’s home,” he yelled to me. Except for his dirt and grass stained tee shirt, his attire could be considered right in style. He wore distressed jeans with a hole in each knee. Teens and twenty-somethings often paid huge amounts of money to buy a pair like his off the rack, but these probably weren’t purchased with the holes.

  I smiled, trying to appear harmless. “I know. This is my brother’s house,” I called back. “You wouldn’t happen to have a key, would you?” My fingers were crossed behind my back. Hopefully he wouldn’t decide to call the cops.

  He walked up the sidewalk and stood in front of me. “No, m’am. Even if I did, I couldn’t let you have it. If you’re who you say you are you should have your own key.”

  Good point. “I swung by here on my way back from a funeral and decided to check on the house, but I realized my key was in another purse.”

  By the look he shot me, he didn’t believe a word I said.

  The other man got out of the truck and wandered over. A much older guy with a full head of silver hair, he seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  “She says she’s the sister of Mr. LaGrange,” the teenager said with a sneer. “She wants to know if we have a key to the house.”

  The older man adjusted his eyeglasses and studied my face. “Susan LaGrange?”

  “Yes, that’s me, except I’m Susan Foret now.” I shot him a questioning look. “How do you know me?”

  “You probably don’t remember me because you were only about four or five years old when I worked for your family. I did all the gardening around the house.”

  I nodded my head and smiled, my mind reflecting on a particular incident. “I do remember you. Weren’t you the one who rescued me from the top of the big oak tree in our yard?”

  He laughed. “Yes indeed. Your mother was mighty upset. I believe she said something like, little girls weren’t supposed to climb trees.”

  “Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe you remember all those details.” His name finally came to me. “You’re Henry.”

  “Yes I am.”

  I stepped forward and extended my hand. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

  He wiped his hand on the leg of his khaki work pants before reaching for mine. “Indeed it has. This is my grandson, Jason.” He motioned toward the younger man.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  Jason only nodded, still not ready to accept my identification.

  “You asked about a key,” Henry said, leaning closer to me. “There is one under a mat by the back door.”

  “Great,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Gramps,” Jason exclaimed. “Dad is going to be pissed. You know what happened when those other people showed up here.”

  “What other people?” I asked. The pair ignored me.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take full responsibility if there’s a problem.” Henry flashed a stern look at his grandson. “I didn’t know those other people. I know her.”

  “What other people?” I repeated.

  “Last week a couple of folks, a man and a woman, came by here. They went around to the back and got the key from under the mat,” Henry explained. “When I questioned them, the man said he was a real estate agent and Mr. LaGrange had asked him to inspect the house so he could sell it. He didn’t introduce himself or the woman, but I know now he’s the guy who got himself killed the other day out in Met’ry.”

  “Greg St. Martin?” I shrieked.

  “I’m pretty sure. His picture was in the paper.”

  “So why did this cause trouble for you?” I grew more apprehensive by the moment.

  Jason spoke up. “Because after we let them go in, my dad talked to Mr. LaGrange and was told that this guy lied. Mr. LaGrange never authorized any such thing.”

  “What did the woman look like?”

  “Blond, expensive clothes,” Jason said and grinned. “Smokin’ hot body, too.”

  Henry glared at him.

  “Do you know if my brother came to the house afterwards to check on the place?”

  “How come you don’t know whether he came or not?” Jason asked, scowling.

  “Honestly, because my brother is not very forthcoming about a lot of things lately,” I shot back. “He isn’t taking care of himself or his business affairs.”

  “I apologize for his rudeness,” Henry said, then turned to the teenager. “Jason, go get the mower out of the truck.”

  His grandson reluctantly turned and stalked back to the truck.

  “Listen, I don’t want to cause you any trouble,” I said.

  “No, no,” Henry insisted. “There’s no problem. Go check out the house. Those other folks could’ve taken stuff out for all I know.”

  “If there’s any backlash from Steven on this, let me know and I’ll handle it.”

  Henry nodded and smiled. “Sure thing.”

  I knew he wouldn’t contact me, but if Steven discovered my illicit visit no doubt I’d hear from him. “Thanks again, Henry.” I came down the steps and started around the corner of the house toward the back door, my mind raging with questions. What business did Greg have in this house? And who was the woman with him? A blond could be anybody, including Greg’s receptionist or someone wearing a wig.

  As I pushed open the door, a more devastating question hit me. Could Steven have hired someone to kill Greg because he found something incriminating in the house? There were so many questions to which I couldn’t find the answers, but I knew a link between Greg, the blond woman, and Anne’s murder existed, and most likely Greg’s murder, too. And then there was the possible connection to the clique as suggested by the earlier conversation I overheard.

  Now, I just had to find those connections.

  Apparently Steven’s idea of care for the house didn’t extend to the interior. Dust at least a half inch thick covered the kitchen tiles and spread to the oak floors of the adjoining dining room; footprints zigzag
ged across them. One set appeared to belong to a man and the second pair possibly left by a woman wearing pumps with stiletto heels. Greg and his lady friend had covered every inch of the room, judging from the trails they left behind. They were apparently searching for something. More importantly, did they find it? I couldn’t imagine who the woman might be and the idea of not knowing drove me crazy. Plus, I hate to malign the dead, but my respect and trust for Greg flew out the window.

  I edged my way through the dining room toward the foyer, looking behind each piece of furniture along the way. Normally, shotgun style houses don’t have foyers or halls, but this one used to be a double and was remodeled into a single family home to allow for the small foyer area which flowed into a narrow center hall between the two groups of rooms.

  Recollections of the murder scene came back to me in a rush. The sight of Anne’s crumpled body lying on the floor and the metallic smell of blood assaulted my senses as if the event had reoccurred in front of me. My hand seemed to vibrate as it did when the door bumped against her body that night. It was a terrible mistake to come here. No, I’ve got to go forward. Shaking off my nightmarish memories, I steeled myself with silent affirmations. You can do this. You can do this.

  The police theorized the shooter hid midway down the dark hall and ambushed her when she entered the house. Staring at the spot, I tried to imagine her fear and what went through her mind during the last seconds of life. Did a person’s life really did flash before his or her eyes when they knew they were going to die. I shuddered to think about it. Had Anne seen and recognized her killer? If only she could give me a name.

  In desperation I even considered attempting a séance. I must be insane. Hey, wait a minute. Maybe a psychic could provide me with the information I need. Cops all over the country used them occasionally. The Quarter is full of people claiming to be clairvoyant. As crazy as it sounds, I just might give it a try. It couldn’t hurt. If the plan turned out to be a bust, all I will have lost is a few bucks and a little time. The time part of the equation worried me the most. I couldn’t afford to waste much more of that commodity.