7 Never Haunt a Historian by Edie Claire Page B

he was paranoid… you know, when you think everyone’s out to get you. But somebody was out to get him, else he wouldn’t have got murdered, would he? You think Mr. Pratt got murdered, too?”
    Leigh suppressed a scream. She picked up the full buckets and began walking in earnest. It was broad daylight. There were no such things as ghosts. Archie Pratt was not dead and certainly had not been murdered. She could not legally strangle Scotty O’Malley no matter how much he irritated her. Furthermore, she had a dog to water.
    “Are you scared of being murdered?” Scotty probed, following so close behind her that he clipped one of her heels. “I wouldn’t mind being murdered if it meant I could become a ghost. Then I could scare the—”
    “Language!” Leigh barked.
    Scotty snickered. He clipped her heel again. “I’d scare everybody. Just like the headless dude. But I’d be better at it. I wouldn’t just slink around empty buildings and stuff. I’d come after people. I’d show up right in their bedrooms… or their bathrooms!”
    Leigh reached the tool shed and set down the buckets with a slosh. “Don’t you have somewhere else you have to be?”
    He shrugged. “Not really. Is Allison around?”
    “No,” Thank God. “Where do you see these supposed ghosts?”
    Leigh’s jaws tightened. She hadn’t intended to ask that.
    Scotty cocked his head and rotated it around comically. “Like, everywhere back here. Tool shed. Garage. Behind the house. You name it, ghosts haunt it. Scared away all the other owners, didn’t you know? Or maybe they were murdered, too. I wouldn’t come out here at night if I were you!”
    No worries.
    “Later!” Without another word, much less any explanation, Scotty took off at a run. He reached the creek and halfway attempted to jump over, instead landing squarely in the middle of it. Leigh could hear him cackling with laughter as he splashed. “Maybe there’s a body in here right now!” he yelled cheerfully. “Yo, fish! Did you eat the head off?”
    Praying for forbearance, Leigh picked up the buckets once more and headed down the cellar steps. The kid was a loony. She should pay no attention to anything he said.
    They say he was paranoid… wanted to hide all his money…
    What had Archie really told Scotty? Could the happy-go-lucky teacher/insurance salesman himself have been searching for something the old man left behind?
    Leigh stopped at the bottom of the steps and set down the pails. She refilled the food bowl that was empty again already, smiled at the now-placid mother dog, and hardened her resolve. If there were any truth behind Scotty’s story, Archie’s best pal Lester Brown would know. And if it had anything to do with Archie’s mysterious disappearance, she was going to make darned sure the police knew it, too.

Chapter 6
    “Lester ain’t here,” the gravelly voice said curtly. “Adith’s knocked out on her meds and Emma’s down in the kitchen feeding the baby. What do you want?”
    The face of Pauline, Adith Rhodis’s roommate at the personal care home, was fixed into a disapproving frown, as it had been every time Leigh had ever seen her. According to Adith, the woman had started scowling the day prohibition was repealed, and hadn’t stopped since. While that seemed a stretch, even given Pauline’s impressive age of 97 years, Leigh could well imagine that Pauline’s sour disposition had begun well before her first social security check arrived. She was, quite simply, a “glass half empty” kind of gal.
    “I just wanted to ask Lester a question about the man who built Archie Pratt’s house,” Leigh responded. “It can wait. Unless you think Emma might know?”
    Pauline snorted. “Emma don’t care about that stuff. Harvey would, though. Lord knows he’s got nothing better to do.” She turned her back on Leigh and walked away with her cane, leaving the door open. Pauline was never without the bamboo cane, although its purpose was a mystery.