Home for the Haunting(83)

“First I’d like to speak with Monty. Do you think he really could be a crook?”

“Anybody could be a crook. Especially in your orbit, I’ve noticed. But even if he’s ripping off everybody doesn’t mean he murdered Linda. What would have driven him to something like that?”

I shrugged. “Annette keeps telling me murder is usually committed for stupid reasons. Maybe she saw him out of the chair, and he panicked that she’d tell.”

“And he feared that Neighbors Together would shun him? That doesn’t seem like much of a motive. On the other hand, disability-insurance fraud might have been enough of a threat. But then why leave the body there, where it wasn’t much of a stretch that you all would find it?”

I thought of Monty shouting from the porch that we were cleaning out the wrong shed.

“Again, all I can think of is stupidity. Or arrogance. Or both.”

We parked in front of the Murder House and mounted Monty’s steps. I looked at the just-completed ramp, and my heart sank at the idea that Monty might have been taking advantage of the kindness of all those volunteers. Of course, the possibility that he might have been involved in Linda’s death was pretty awful, too, but there was something so . . . conniving and dispiriting about pulling a scam on a charity.

There was no answer to our knock. I called out; still nothing. He had to be home; he was always home. But then, that was back before the ramp, and when I thought he couldn’t leave his house unassisted. If he was able to get around, I supposed he could go out when he wanted.

I peeked in through the front window, where the drapes were drawn and the light was on. I could just barely see through a crack in the curtains.

Monty was out of his chair.

But he wasn’t walking. He was lying on the floor, covered in blood.





Chapter Twenty-one




The door to the kitchen was still swinging, as though someone had just run through it.

While I called 911, Graham ran down the steps and out the back, hoping to intercept the attacker.

The front door was unlocked, so I rushed in to kneel by Monty, phone still to my ear.

Blood streamed from a head wound, but he was conscious.

“Monty! The paramedics are on their way.”

“No, cancel the call,” said Monty. “Seriously, I’m okay. Someone came up behind me and hit me. It’s a bleeder, but I’ve had worse. Then you knocked—I think you may have saved my life.”

“They didn’t say anything?”

He shook his head, then cringed. I was still on the line to the 911 operator, who fed me instructions.

“Try to lay still. You might have a concussion.” I ran into the kitchen and got a hand towel, which I told him to press gently to his wound to stanch the flow of blood. Head wounds always bleed a lot, but by and large our skulls can take a beating. Luckily for Monty. This was no little tap on the noggin.

“He says he doesn’t need the ambulance,” I told the operator. “He’s up and talking and making sense. We’ll take him to the hospital.”

I heard someone at the back door and looked up to see Graham, panting. In answer to my unspoken question, he shook his head.

“He ran into the neighbor’s yard, and I lost him. How’s Monty?”

“I’ve had worse,” said Monty.

“Did you see who it was?” we asked in unison, Graham asking Monty while I asked Graham.

“Nah, man,” groaned Monty. “He coldcocked me. I was reading Wuthering Heights, and someone came in here and coldcocked me from behind.”

“Did you see anything?” I asked Graham.

“I’m not sure . . . but whoever I was chasing had a walker and a three-legged cat.”

I gaped at him. He laughed and shook his head. “No, unfortunately, I couldn’t see anything more than a shadow slipping past the old shed. By the time I got down there, there was nothing. No one.”

Monty’s eyes grew huge. “Maybe it was one of the ghosts!”

“It wasn’t one of the ghosts,” I said. “Be serious.”

“They’ve been threatening me . . .”

“What are you talking about?”

“The ghosts have been, like, threatening me. They sent me notes. You don’t believe me?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think they work that way.”

He pointed to a volume labeled Notable Quotables and asked me to take it down off the shelf and look inside. There was a square cut out of the pages, the perfect hiding place. And in it were two folded pieces of paper.

“The blue one,” said Monty.

The note was written on sky blue parchment and made up of letters cut from a magazine, kidnap-style. The letters spelled out: