Home for the Haunting(84)

Don’t tell. Or else.



“Monty, I’m pretty sure whoever sent you that note was human, not a ghost.” I thought back to the slogan of Ghost Hunting 101: Ghosts are people, too. Now I have to learn to be politically correct about ghosts, of all things. I rolled my eyes. “I mean, a currently viable human, as opposed to a dead one.”

He looked at me, uncomprehending. I tried again. “Ghosts don’t write notes.”

“What about spirit writing? What about the Ouija board?”

“Um, okay. True. But . . . Okay, I really don’t know whether it’s technically possible or not. But in this case, anyway, I don’t think the ghosts sent this note. It’s like a kidnap note. What is it referring to?”

“Maybe . . . something about the body?”

“Monty, tell me the truth. Were you involved in Linda’s death?”

“Not in so many words.”

“In what way, then?”

“I may have moved the body.”

“Are you kidding me?”

He shook his head glumly.

“You can’t mess with a murder scene! Where did you move her from, exactly?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it! She was down in my back bedroom, on the basement level. At first I thought she was hurt, so I went to help her. But then . . . I saw that she had, um, passed. But she was on my property, and you were on your way with a million volunteers, and I didn’t want it to be a problem. . . .” He trailed off. “I really didn’t mean . . . I was going to call the authorities; right after you all finished, I was going to call them. I just assumed she was a junkie who had wandered over from next door.”

“So you moved her from your basement floor down the hill to the shed.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“So, then, it’s true: You’re able to get around just fine. You don’t need the chair.”

Monty looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Are you kidding me?” I ranted. “How scummy do you have to be to cheat a community organization? All these volunteers who worked their butts off to make you a comfortable home, for no gain of their own but just to help . . .”

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Monty. “They feel so much better about themselves afterward. Really, I’m just presenting them with the opportunity to know they’ve done a good thing.”

“Oh, please. There are plenty of people in real need out there, Monty. These volunteers can feel good about their services to any one of them. As it is . . . if any of them find out, they’ll feel like idiots and become cynical about charity work. This is a seriously slimy thing to do.”

“Okay, okay. You’re right. It was wrong. But it has nothing to do with the body in the shed. And now I’m afraid if people find out about this, it will make me a suspect. If people think I’m capable of something like this, they might wonder about other things, too. It’s like that book by Camus.”

“You’re referencing literature now?”

“We’re big readers in my family,” said Monty, a defensive tone in his voice. “There’s nothing weird about it.”

I had trusted Monty despite my instincts, I realized, because all of his crammed bookshelves made me think he was different.

Which he was, I supposed. Different in the sense of being scum of the earth willing to rip off an organization that ran on a shoestring budget and the kindness of strangers. Which made me realize he was right: I wasn’t going to shout this to the rooftops, for fear of putting people off this sort of project altogether.

“So . . . what about Camus?” I asked, coming back to the rather esoteric subject at hand.

“You know that book, The Stranger. The main character is convicted of murder because people didn’t like the way he reacted to his mother’s death. People are very judgy.”

“Somehow I think scamming a charity organization isn’t quite at the level of Camus-like existentialism. But okay. I get what you’re saying. The police know you’re scum perpetrating a fraud, they’ll look at you more closely. But like I said, if you didn’t do anything, there would be no other evidence to indicate that you were involved.”

He didn’t answer. Maybe I was being judgy, but this guy was getting on my nerves.

“Let’s get you some medical attention,” said Graham, the voice of reason. “We can work all this other stuff out later. You think you can walk at all?”

“Nah, man, I’m disabled.”

“For heaven’s sake,” I said, annoyed. “Just get up and walk. Enough with the whole ruse.”