The April Fools' Day Murder Read Online Free PDF

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. Icould 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