The April Fools' Day Murder (2 page)

I was doing some word processing for my friend Arnold Gold, the lawyer, and happily Eddie took a good nap after lunch. He had become occasionally irritable about naps lately, thinking he was missing something while he slept, and I knew these quiet afternoons would run their course in the next year or sooner. I was able to finish a major section of my work before I heard him stir, so I closed down my work and looked in his room. He had been sleeping in a bed since his third birthday, a metal rail protecting him on one side, the wall on the other.

“Want to go out?” I asked as I helped him out of the bed.

“OK.”

“I want to buy some peat pots for my seedlings,” I said. “Peep pots?” he asked, sounding confused. “Peat pots. They’re little pots for my tomato and pepper plants.”

“OK.”

He put his shoes on and I tied the laces. Then we bundled up and went out to the car. I drove to the nursery that was near the Platt house and picked up a bunch of peat pots and some good potting soil. I was a little ahead of myself, having just planted the seeds on St. Patrick’s Day. The delicate seedlings were barely up and hadn’t formed any true leaves yet, but I wanted the pots handy for when I needed them. Eddie behaved admirably, helping to carry some of the small packages I accumulated. The woman
who checked me out gave him a lollipop, so he was in a fine mood as we went out to the car.

The nursery was on a hill, starting near Oakwood Avenue at the bottom and going up the slope from there. They stocked some wonderful things, and I knew if I was ever left there with a lot of money, I would have no trouble spending it. I’d had my eye on a beautiful Japanese split-leaf maple that just dazzled me. The entrance to the nursery was at the highest point, where there was a kind of plateau on which the shop and the parking lot had been built. I drove out the exit lane and then, on a lark, turned up the hill instead of down. In a moment we were driving by the Platt house.

I slowed down to a stop. “Look at that big house, Eddie.”

He peered out the window. One house was just the same as all the others to him.

I drove up to the end of the road, turned in the little cul-de-sac, and started down. The plantings on the Platt property were striking, as were the trees. They showed more thought and care than we had used on our own piece of land. No one was about, and I sat for a moment, just looking, until Eddie called from the backseat. “I wanna go home.”

“OK, we’re on our way.”

I turned the heat up when we got home, and Eddie and I put the peat pots and soil in the broom closet. Then we inspected my seedlings. They didn’t look like much but they held a lot of promise, and that, I thought philosophically, was what life was all about.

2

On Saturday morning I awoke to find Jack’s side of the bed empty, which didn’t surprise me. He was a pretty early riser and he enjoyed giving Eddie breakfast on weekend mornings and then fixing something for the two of us.

I went downstairs and into the kitchen. No one was there. I looked into the large family room we built onto the back of the house, but no one was there either.

“Jack?” I called. “Eddie?”

No answer. No one was in the living room or dining room, so I went back upstairs and looked in Eddie’s room. It was empty. So was the room we used as a study. As I was inspecting those rooms, I thought I heard a sound and I called again, but there was no answer. I glanced in our bedroom but no one was there. Feeling as though there was something I was missing, I went downstairs again. This time, although no one was in the kitchen, there was a box on the table. It was tied with a large pink bow.

“Am I supposed to open this?” I asked the empty kitchen.

No answer.

“Then I will.”

I pulled off the ribbon, lifted the lid, and started feeling
my way through the tissue paper. I took out piece after piece, but found nothing. Finally, I pulled out the last piece on the bottom and there, written on the bottom of the box in thick red letters, were the words:
APRIL FOOL!

“Oh,” I said. “You guys are too much. Where are you?”

At that moment, my husband and my son dashed out of the family room shouting “April Fool” at the top of their lungs.

“You two are really something. Where have you been hiding?”

“We tricked you,” Eddie said, laughing gleefully. “You sure did. I wish I’d thought of tricking you too.”

“Admit it,” Jack said. “This is one area we excel in. Don’t even try to compete.”

I didn’t bother trying. I did a little thinking back to when I was a child and kind of remembered that my father had been a bit of a prankster. He had never given me a box empty except for tissue paper, but he had told me things that were unbelievable—which I almost believed since they came from my father—and then shouted the two magic words before I became too concerned. Although almost thirty years had passed since those days, it seemed I was still in the position of being the one surprised. Something to think about.

Jack and Eddie went out a little while later, as they often did on Saturdays, and I spent some time enjoying being home all by myself. There is something magical about being in a house alone. I love the silence, the feeling that no one has a claim on my attention and my time. I use those infrequent hours to good effect; I do the word processing for Arnold Gold, I read, I prepare for the course
I have been teaching at a local college. This morning I just tidied up, checked my seedlings, made sure my kitchen was stocked, and then sat down with the
Times
.

The guys were back by lunchtime, no surprise there, and Eddie decided to take a nap after he ate, having had a busy morning out with his father after playing a prank on his mother. I came downstairs after getting him into bed and found Jack working on the kitchen faucet, which had been dripping for the last week.

“I got a kit at the hardware store,” he said. “I think this’ll do it for a year or so.”

“That’s great. I thought I’d go back to the nursery and have a look at those Japanese split-leaf maples we talked about. I think they’re awfully expensive but—”

“Don’t write them off because of the price,” my husband, who knows me well, cautioned. “Every time you see one, you say how great they are. I think we have just the place out front to put one, and I’d like to have it. See if they’ll plant it for us. I don’t feel too competent doing that kind of thing.”

“OK. They have a bunch of them. I’ll be back when I’ve made up my mind.” And with that I took off.

I spent a very pleasant half hour or more, looking at various little trees, all of them still with bare branches. What Jack had said was true. I loved the curved shape of the branches and those spider leaves, especially the ones that turned red in the fall. And the front of the house would be perfect. They never grew very tall, instead spreading like an umbrella.

There were quite a number at the nursery, two of them very small, the others a little larger. Although the larger ones cost more, I decided it might be worth it to have a
more mature tree, one that had survived more winters. I finally picked out the perfect one and talked to one of the men about having it planted. It was fine with him, but he wanted to wait till the ground was a little softer. We concluded our deal and I went back for a last look at my new tree. The nursery man had tied on a red and yellow
SOLD
tag, and I had a happy feeling of ownership as I walked back to the car.

It was still early in the afternoon, and as I drove out of the nursery, on a whim I turned right to go up the hill. The sun was shining, I owned a red Japanese split-leaf maple, and I thought it would be nice to look around, especially from a height. I drove up the hill slowly, looking to my left as I reached the Platt house. The driveway was empty, the garage doors down. The mailbox at the end of the drive had a red flag up. As I went by the lawn I saw something not far from the shrubbery near the house. I stopped the car and looked, but the sun was in my eyes.

Something was lying on the grass, not moving. I felt a touch of anxiety. I turned off the motor, grabbed the key, and got out of the car. It wasn’t the kind of road where you had to check left and right before crossing; there were no cars above the nursery and no other houses after this one.

I ran across the lawn, feeling my anxiety turn to panic. Someone was lying there. I heard myself say “No” as I approached the still form. It was a man, probably Willard Platt, lying on his stomach. A cane lay out of reach of his right hand. But it was worse than that. The handle of a knife stuck out of the middle of his back. Someone had stabbed him to death.

3

For a moment I was frozen. I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what to do. I said, “Mr. Platt? Mr. Platt?”

The still form did not move. I ran to the door of the house and rang the bell and pounded on the door, calling, “Hello? Anyone home?”

It was as quiet inside as outside. I had to do something but my mind refused to function. I looked at the body one more time, then raced across the lawn to my car, started the motor, made a U-turn, and went down the hill. I was closer to my house than the police station so I drove home, my hands gripping the steering wheel. As I came to the end of the steep road, a van loaded with people turned into it, nearly colliding with me. My shoulders were shaking. I was muttering things to myself, that this could not be, it was not happening.

I stopped the car halfway up the driveway and dashed into the house calling, “Jack? Jack? Are you there?”

“I’m right here. What’s up?” He came around the corner toward me and we collided. “Calm down, Chris. What’s wrong?”

“There’s a body. Jack, Mr. Platt is dead. He’s been
stabbed. I just found him. He’s lying on the ground in front of his house. No one’s home. Call the police.”

He said something under his breath, marched me into the kitchen and sat me down in a chair. Then he poured some juice from a container in the refrigerator, set it down in front of me and ordered me to drink. When I had, he said, “OK, now tell me this again.”

I did, a little more slowly.

“You’re sure he’s dead?”

I nodded.

“With a knife in his back?”

“Yes. He was lying on his stomach. His cane was on the grass a foot or so away from the body.”

He took the phone and called 911. As I tried to calm myself, I heard him tell the police essentially what I had told him.

“OK, fine. Yeah. And let me know what’s up.” He hung up and sat beside me. “You OK?”

I nodded. I had my hand against my chest. I swallowed and wiped the moisture from my eyes. I wasn’t quite crying, but I wasn’t not crying either. “I can’t believe this,” I said finally.

“What were you doing at his house?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know.” I tried to recall what had taken me there. “I went to the nursery and bought us a Japanese maple. Then I decided to drive up the hill, just to see the view. It was so nice out.” I looked at him but his face gave away nothing. In the last seconds, he had become a cop. “I passed the Platt house and saw something lying on the grass. It was Willard Platt.”

“You got out of the car?”

“Yes. I crossed the road and went over to see what was
wrong. There was a knife sticking out of his back. His cane—” A shudder ran through me. “It was lying on the ground near his right hand. That’s all I remember. I banged on the door but no one was home. So I came here. Jack, I don’t believe this is happening.”

“I think I’ll drive over there and see what’s going on.”

I wanted to tell him to stay, but I let him go. My panic had subsided a little. Maybe a cup of tea would calm me down further.

Jack put his jacket on and came back to the kitchen. He put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. As he started for the door, the phone rang. I listened while he answered.

It was a strange conversation that made no sense to me, but when he hung up, he unzipped his jacket. “Willard Platt’s OK,” he said, taking the jacket off.

“What? Who just called?”

“One of the cops.”

“If Platt’s not dead, who did I just see at the Platts’ house?”

“It was Platt, but he wasn’t dead.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s apparently an annual treasure hunt going on. The drama club at the high school picked today for it since it’s Saturday and it’s April Fools’ Day.”

“That was an April Fools’ joke?”

“Sort of. One of their clues led them to the Platts’. They were supposed to find a weapon of murder.”

“But—”

“But it wasn’t a real knife. It was a stage prop. If you’d touched it—which I know you wouldn’t’ve—you would’ve seen that it was soft. It couldn’t hurt anyone.”

“The van,” I said.

“What?”

“A van turned into the Platts’ road as I got to the bottom of the hill. It must have been the drama students going up to their house.”

“Could be. The cop said the police got there as the kids were leaving.”

“I need a cup of tea.”

“Make two. I’m not going anywhere.”

I still didn’t feel entirely steady on my feet but I put some water on to boil and got a tin of tea out of the cabinet. It was a nice English tea that my friend Melanie’s mother had brought back from London for me. I stuck my nose in it for the aroma and somehow that calmed me down.

We sat at the kitchen table, sipping from our mugs. “I feel like a fool,” I said.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I thought Willard Platt was supposed to be an unpleasant person. What possessed him to lie down on the grass in the cold and pretend to be dead?”

“You got me. Maybe there’s a warm fuzzy side to him that I hadn’t heard about.”

“And why didn’t he have the decency to let me know he was OK?”

“That’s the cold hard side.”

“Thank God he’s all right. Jack, I hope you aren’t planning any more surprises for me today.”

“I promise, we did our thing this morning. If I’d known the way this day was going to turn out, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“I’m not blaming you. I just feel scared and confused. I never want anything like this to happen again.”