Read Online Janet McNulty - Mellow Summers 07 - Two Ghosts Haunt a Grove by Janet McNulty - Free Book Online Page B

office.
    “Hey!” shouted the man at the front desk, “Hey, you can’t go in there like that!”
    Oh, yeah? Watch me. Ignoring the man completely, I burst through the door into the wing where the detectives were making a beeline for Detective Shorts. I stormed through the door to his office. The poor man must have been a bit startled by my sudden presence because he jumped a bit.
    “Miss Summers,” he greeted, warily.
    “Philip Kellmore was murdered!” I shouted. Instantly, people glanced our way.
    “Please calm down,” said Detective Shorts.
    “I will not calm down. Philip Kellmore was murdered!”
    Detective Shorts walked over to his door and shut it. It did little to block out my rampage. “Will you please sit down?”
    I took a seat.
    “Now, what makes you think he was murdered?” he asked, not in a patronizing way, but with a definite note of calm and insistence that I should follow.
    “Look,” I pulled out the copies of the wills I had made. “One of these was dated the day he died and it is very different from the other.”
    Detective Shorts took the two wills and studied them; his brows furrowed. “How did you come by these?”
    Suddenly, I clammed up. Breaking and entering is a crime. “I’d rather not say.”
    “No, but I can probably guess,” said Detective Shorts. “Though these are interesting bits of evidence, the coroner still insists it was a heart attack that killed Philip Kellmore.”
    “The coroner be damned,” I slammed my fist on the table.
    Detective Shorts jumped a bit at my outburst. He had never seen me so angry and even I was surprised by my fury.
    “There are ways to induce people into a heart attack. Philip Kellmore had a weak heart, right? How difficult would it be to give a man like that such a scare that he would have one?”
    “Like making him believe he saw a ghost?”
    “Exactly! He ran into the Candle Shoppe to see me insisting that he had seen Smiley’s Ghost. Now I don’t know if the ghost is real or not, but Mr. Kellmore believed in it and the legend. Then he died. And he died on the same day he was supposed to sign the updated will denying his son a portion of the Bourtonson property. It’s too coincidental for my taste.”
    “And mine,” muttered Detective Shorts, though I wasn’t supposed to hear it. “Miss Summers, I know you have helped us in the past with cases. Usually against my wishes, but I am begging you to stay out of this one.”
    “But—”
    “Mel,” Detective Shorts rarely used my nickname, and only when he was really concerned for my welfare, “I know you mean well. But this particular case is very dangerous. Kyle Kellmore is not a man to be trifled with.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He had a few run-ins with the law in his youth. I was just a uniformed officer then and on more than one occasion I had to bring him in. The man is known for violence and disregard for the law.”
    “So why isn’t he in jail?”
    “Most of the charges were dropped and he suddenly turned over a new leaf. Too sudden if you know what I mean. Besides that the whole family is weird. Stacy stays out in the woods near the Bourtonson place doing research or something.”
    Detective Shorts stopped speaking the moment he noticed my intense interest. He knew he had said too much. “Do not get any ideas.”
    “Well, you must open an investigation into Mr. Kellmore. I’m telling you he was murdered.”
    “On what evidence?” demanded Detective Shorts.
    “This!” I held up the wills.
    “Which you got by illegally searching Kyle Kellmore’s office.”
    “He invited me in there.”
    “Which he will deny and who do you think the courts will believe.”
    “We’ve got to do something.”
    “We? No. You are going home and I will arrest you if I catch you investigating this case.”
    “Well, what are you going to do about it?” I demanded.
    “Best if you don’t know.”
    I reached for the copies of the wills.
    “I’ll keep those,” Detective Shorts