Death of a Dumb Bunny Read online

  Braced with coffee, carbs and Alex’s enthusiasm for the upcoming ritual, I had felt almost glad to put on my Easter costume and face the blustery day. Alex was dressed up too, but just in a tapestry vest, faux fur bunny ears and nose. All the assistant bunnies who would be hiding eggs wore them as a badge of office. He looked cute. And funny. It took an effort but I didn’t giggle even when Apollo and Aphrodite stalked him from the back of the sofa, trying to swat his big brown ears. I did take a picture though so I could giggle in private later.

  The last thing I did before popping on my giant bonnet and loading crates of dyed eggs into the car was to set the table for dinner. I had no reason to think that I wouldn’t be back in plenty of time to do this later. Perhaps I was just delaying the inevitable by laying out Grandma Boston’s damask cloth and my red dishes, but I felt better once it was done. Like making a sign against the evil eye.

  We finally arrived at the meadow a little before ten. As Mom had predicted, there were more Easter baskets than bonnets on display that year, and they came in some exotic shapes and sizes. I noticed one in particular carried by the out of town woman I had seen at the inn on Friday. It was a pannier, a kind of long basket that they use on donkeys to carry firewood or flowers. It looked bottom-heavy, given the fact there were only silk peonies poking out of the top and they couldn’t have added much to the weight. A basket like that would be useless at the egg hunt, since the drop would crush the eggs, but I gave her credit for finding something so striking for the parade.

  Thaddeus Rabbit was there, though not being as talkative as usual. In fact, I didn’t hear him say a word. I thought I heard him sniffing and wondered if he had a cold. At least the bunny suit would keep him warm and his germs contained. The sun was still out but the breeze was in the north and carried both chill and a promise of rain. We didn’t need an influenza epidemic among the kids.

  Just before we took up positions for the parade, I noticed Mr. and Mrs. Andrews. This was their first Easter in Hope Falls. I was pleased that I had guessed right. The woman in the grocery store was Principal Andrew’s wife. Her stare was every bit as fixed as it had been in the market and a quick scan of the crowd across the street revealed Nadine Watts wearing hooker bunny. She had to be freezing in her skintight bodysuit and bunny tail.

  I felt a rare flash of annoyance. One learns to live with neighbor’s habits and idiosyncrasies when residing in a small town. But this was crazy. When were elections? Surely the home-wrecker would be voted off the board next time. If Marnie Andrews didn’t beat her head in with a wine bottle before then. Certainly if I found Nadine dead, tail-up in the bushes, I would have a prime suspect.

  I caught Mr. Jackman’s eye then glanced pointedly from Mrs. Andrews to Nadine Watts. He shook his head in disgust but moved closer to the councilwoman in case a scene erupted.

  Thankfully, the parade is always short, really just a chance to promenade bonnets by the judging stands while the ukulele band played, so we got through it in about fifteen minutes. Then it was on to the important events— the egg hunts. A look at the darkening sky convinced me that we weren’t starting a minute too soon.

  I had hunted in the meadow as a child along with Althea and our cousin, Todd. After the first year, I had only done it to please Mother. There is nothing clever about finding brightly colored eggs dropped onto grass. And the other kids, especially Todd, were awfully pushy.

  Dad, bless him, had sensed my disappointment in the egg hunt and had taken to drawing maps and leaving elaborate clues so that I had to really hunt for my Easter basket. We kept up this tradition long after I had figured out that a bunny rabbit couldn’t possibly climb up our elm tree and break into our car and leave my basket in the trunk.

  The little kids are the cutest and most fun to watch. They aren’t greedy and every egg found is a complete surprise. Most want to stop right then and eat them. Parents also keep their gladiatorial instincts under control since they are walking with the very small children and not sitting above the fray as they are when the older kids are hunting.

  The later contests are much more rough and tumble, with parents standing on the rim of the quarry, shouting down instructions at their offspring in the wood-rimmed meadow in a manner more appropriate to a little league game. Or a boxing match. For the last group of kids, the real pit-fighters for whom winning eggs is worth ridicule by their more sophisticated peers, I was happy to take shelter behind one of the horse-drawn wagons and sip a cup of weak tea, waiting in relative quiet while the youth of Hope Falls engaged in Easter combat.

  I knew the hunt was over when the screaming stopped and the mass migration to the old barn started. Blue and I were slow to catch up with Mom and Aunt Dot, and I was happy to let Alex take Blue with him while he escorted his parents to the outbuilding where the flower judging was taking place. Easter is great and I love it, but a little bit of the merry, egg-munching crowds goes a long way with me, and I was in no hurry to hear the groans of disappointment if Mom didn’t win either the bonnet or the hyacinth competition.

  My phone rang as I passed the hay shed. This was startling because I hadn’t bothered to shut it off. I couldn’t imagine who would be calling me. Everyone I knew was at the egg hunt. It took me a moment to find my phone in my belt-bag and then walk to where I could hear clearly.

  “Boston, you know the entrance to the old marble quarry?” The Chief asked as soon as the line stopped crackling.

  Goosebumps came at the sound of The Chief’s voice.

  “Yes. It’s in the woods by the meadow on the north side.”

  “Get down here right away. We’ve had a murder.”

  * * *

  “I’m sorry to call you away from the festivities, Boston,” Randy Wallace said, eyeing my bonnet. “But I wanted you to look at this area before we moved the body.”

  The Chief sounded unhappy. Frankly, there was no other way to sound. The Easter Bunny was dead, lying face down in a meadow, his body skewered by a whole quiver of arrows, which was a strong visual definition of the term ‘overkill’. Beside him was a white, faux fur rabbit head— either removed to check for signs of life or else dislodged when he fell— and his willow basket, still upright and half filled with carrots. This I stared at with surprise and trepidation. Thaddeus Brookes only handed out healthy Easter treats, organically grown in his own garden. That wasn’t what was in the basket.

  “Chief,” I said, setting my ridiculous bonnet aside on a convenient stone. “We need to lift him up so I can see his face.”

  “Why?” The Chief was appalled, though he hid it almost at once.

  “Because I don’t think this is Thaddeus.”

  “What?” But The Chief was carefully lifting the corpse so I could kneel and look at his face. It stained my Easter dress with mud, but this was no time to be fussy.

  “It’s not Thaddeus, though there is a strong resemblance. This is no one I know. We have an imposter Easter Bunny.” This was not, of course, our largest problem. But the fact might be very important. After all, if we had mistaken this man for Thaddeus Brookes until this moment, had his killer done so as well?

  Or was the killer smarter and better informed than we were? Had this stranger been his target?

  “How did you know?” The Chief asked, taking out a handkerchief and rubbing his hands, though he was already wearing rubber gloves. “I thought it was Thaddeus. We all did.”

  “The carrots.” The Chief looked blank. “They’re from the store. Uniform size. Cleaned. No tops. Thaddeus always leaves on the tops. I should have spotted it sooner.”

  Thaddeus Rabbit had also been uncharacteristically quiet.

  The medical team arrived. They had come by a back road and the ambulance was covered in dirt. We were screened by a dense hedge of brambles and everyone was either in the old barn looking at flowers or else heading home to slave over their hams and lambs, but we were being discrete. Word would get out about this soon enough but we didn’t want any children seeing a dead Easter Bunny. />
  “I think we’d better find Thaddeus so he can explain who this is. I’m going to phone Dad and Alex and head out to T Farms.” Althea and Dale would see that Mom and Alex’s parents got home. Alex could also give Mr. Jackman a key so he could get in to our place and start Easter dinner. Even if Alex and I missed it, the others could enjoy the ham and scalloped potatoes and bread pudding made with sausage and lovely Gruyere cheese.

  “Any sign of trouble— any— and you call for back-up. Take no risks, Chloe.” He only called me Chloe when he was worried.

  “You got it.”

  “I should send someone with you.” It wasn’t like The Chief to be dithery. This murder had shaken him.

  “Don’t be silly. You need everyone here, and Dad and Alex are cops— at least they were. We can handle it.” I looked at the body again, frowning because something— beyond the obvious— was wrong.

  “Boston, you’re thinking something else— what?”

  I looked at Lawrence Bryce who had processed the scene. We were working under bad conditions what with the wind kicking up and the rain starting to fall. I could see that Lawrence had bagged a green beer bottle and some cigarette butts. They’d be checked for prints and DNA but I had real doubts that our archer had sat around having a beer and smoke while waiting for the Easter Bunny to show. Of course, I might be wrong. Maybe that was exactly what he had done. It would be handy if he had.

  Though beyond the range of the official egg hunt, there had also been dozens of tramping feet through there that day, kids and ‘helpful’ parents looking for stray eggs. There probably wouldn’t be any useful forensic evidence from the scene. It would all come down to the arrows and I was betting they were printless. Even the dumbest criminal knew to wear gloves.

  Still, there was one shoe print in the soft earth that was bothering me. There might be something else as well. I hated to waste the time, but I needed to walk the scene.

  I looked at Bryce.

  “Lawrence, get a picture of this print.” It was a cowboy boot. A man’s with a split heel. Cowboy boots aren’t rare, but they were a lot less common than athletic shoes, or the dress shoes many of the men were wearing because they had come directly from church.

  I walked around carefully, aware of The Chief’s intent gaze. I found another strange print about twenty feet away. There was a broken egg nearby, a green one, trod upon by a careless foot that didn’t see it in the patch of grass. A sharp heel had punched right through it. The damaged egg wasn’t going to waste though. Already the ants were moving in to claim it. Not something that would usually bother me, the sight made my stomach roll. I hoped nothing had gotten to our unknown bunny.

  “This is out of place. Our replacement bunny must not have known that we don’t hide eggs out this far. Was he lured by his killer? Or did someone else drop it— maybe someone who saw the body and panicked? Lawrence, this print too.” It was a woman’s shoe with an unusually pointed toe and spike heel. Again, not that rare in a general way, but local women would not wear spike heels into the meadow which was strewn with rocks and gopher holes here near the woods. And a tourist would have to be very determined to venture out this far among the mud and broken stones. An egg-hungry child might persist through the mud, but an adult? I didn’t think so.

  “Why?” The Chief asked curiously. He wasn’t challenging me, just seeking information about why these prints were important and the others weren’t.

  I tried to think how to answer without using the word ‘intuition’.

  “No one local did this.” I hadn’t known that I was going to say this, but it was true. Some things are inviolable, like the Hope Falls Easter Bunny. Thaddeus Rabbit was a beloved tradition of our town. Thaddeus III had taken over the job from his father Thaddeus Junior, who had inherited his position from Thaddeus Senior, who was known for bringing in root vegetables and boiled eggs to the foresters of Hope Falls who were snowed in at a logging camp during the long winter of 1902— not dressed as a rabbit, but he had arrived on Easter Sunday and was believed to have saved their lives or at least their sanity. The current Thaddeus was also a civic hero who supported causes like the food-bank and the community garden. All of us had grown up knowing him and loving him. “I don’t think anyone from Hope Falls would attack the Easter Bunny— our Easter Bunny. It would be sacrilege. The crime doesn’t fit. These shoe prints don’t fit the scene either. Or the town. I think they belong to an outsider.”

  I really wanted this to be true.

  Bryce nodded as he leaned over the track with his camera. “I can’t see it being anyone local either. Thaddeus is respected and even loved by everyone I know. The only person who ever took a dislike to him was his ex-wife and they split a decade ago. Seems kind of a long time to wait for revenge.”

  “Okay.” The Chief accepted our judgment. We had the hometown advantage and he knew to use it. The Chief had adapted fast to life in Hope Falls and he had great instincts, but he was also an outsider and deferred to our greater familiarity with the town and its customs.

  The wife. I vaguely remembered the ex-wife and gold-digger is the word that came to mind, though I reminded myself not to be judgmental. After all I had married a man with more money than I had who came from a family at least one income bracket above my own. I knew that wasn’t why I married him— Alex is lovely and because he is also sweet he appeals to almost anyone with a womb. And usually he gets the text and subtext of female conversation. What could be better in a husband? But it was possible that not everyone would understand this. Maybe some people were thinking that I had ‘done well’ for myself.

  So, maybe not a gold-digger. She was high-maintenance though, I remembered that much. Shirley— no, Shelly— had always worn false eyelashes so heavily mascaraed they looked like sutures holding her eyelids open. It looked odd with her bleached hair and heavy, almost goth make-up. Her clothes had never quite fit in with either life in town or on the farm. She wore spiked heels and lots of white wool pants that had to be dry-cleaned. In particular I recalled a pair of thigh-high silver boots. They impressed me enough that I went home and wrapped my legs in tinfoil so I could look like I was from outer-space too.

  Though I had never questioned it as a kid, I wondered now where Thaddeus had found her. She was a strange choice. Personally, I don’t understand people who seek out emotional jumbles to wade in, but some people do seek troubled waters— and find them, more is the pity. I didn’t recall the details of their romance and subsequent parting, but Mom would remember. I’d call her later and ask for the story.

  Also, they had had no children. There was no Thaddeus or Thadette IV to carry on the tradition. There had been some civic worry about this.

  “I wondered who inherits Thad’s farm and money with the wife out of the picture,” I asked myself softly, but Randy and Lawrence were both paying attention and nodded. We were all thinking the same thing. Was the heir someone who liked hunting maybe? Thaddeus was a private man, but we were going to have to be nosy anyway. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  If Thaddeus wasn’t feeling talkative— for whatever reason— David Cooper is the Brookes family lawyer. David and I aren’t close, but his secretary— who loathes David as much as I do— is a good friend. I could talk to her, if worse came to worse, and get details through a backdoor.

  But first things first. I needed to be sure that Thaddeus was alive. And that he wasn’t the shooter. I couldn’t imagine Thaddeus Brookes being so angry that he would shoot an imposter rabbit, but it needed to be checked. Even if it was more of just going through the motions.

  “I’ve got to get moving. Thaddeus could be in trouble if the murderer figures out that he got the wrong guy,” I said, taking out my phone. Alex was on speed-dial. Though I was tempted to let the rain do its worst to Mom’s hat, I took my enormous bonnet with me.

  Alex wasn’t going to like this news one bit. He always wants to protect me from ugliness and danger, and I love him for it. I was just going to have to work on making
him understand that I feel the same way about him, my family and my town. And sometimes, I was the best person to investigate.

  “Boston, you think we’ll find the murder weapon? After all, there is a risk in being seen with it. He might have ditched it in the woods.” Lawrence waited for my answer.

  “Greater risk in leaving it behind. I think you might have to register hunting bows, at least in this county,” I said, turning slowly with my phone, trying for a signal. The walls of the quarry were blocking me. “Keep looking, but I don’t think you’ll find it. Someone smuggled it in without being seen. I’m betting they smuggled it back out the same way. You could try searching Easter baskets, bonnets and hoop skirts, but I am betting our murderer and the weapon is long gone. The crowd was already breaking up when I came down here.”

  Normally, a bow and arrows would be noticed at a social gathering, but not in that throng. As I had said, any of the hoop skirts could have concealed a weapon— many of the hats too. And there were lots of large Easter baskets around. There were also a lot of tourists, strangers acting strangely, at least by our standards. They would resent being searched, especially without explanation— which The Chief wouldn’t want to give in front of the children. And almost everyone had on some kind of costume, even if it was only bunny ears and noses. It made even people you knew hard to identify. Basically, it would be impossible to place everyone, even if we had an exact time of death. I didn’t envy the officers doing the grunt work on this one.

  “I can’t tell if this was a killing frenzy or if our shooter was just a bad shot,” The Chief said.

  “Why a bow and arrow, and not a gun?” countered Bryce.

  “Because it’s quiet and works well at a distance, especially if you have a scope. You could stay under cover in the woods and wait for a good shot at the target. Espcially if you had lured him out here with some excuse like taking pictures for the newspaper,” I said, walking off to search for a signal for my phone. “Never mind looking for a hunting bow. Start looking for someone with dirty cowboy boots or four inch spiked heels covered in mud and green eggshell.”