Ghosts In The Dust(Donald Harry Roberts) Ghosts In The Dust

It was late, too late to get into the library. I had tried all the internet searches and couldn’t find the one tiny bit of information I needed to solve a mystery. I guess it was too small an issue and too local. Moreover, the only other person that cared about this tiny bit of information had been raking grass from the bottom side for over a hundred years.

Why I could hear Gerry Monticor's voice in my head baffled me. Until that first nightmare witnessing a murder through his eyes I had never heard of him. I suppose it might have something to do with me buying and living in his house, the house where the murder was committed, a murder he was hanged for.
It was driving me to the brink of insanity. I had everything I needed to prove that Gerry was wrongly convicted, but it was all because of the nightmares and his voice explaining what happened.
Mostly he told me that the man he was accused of murdering was already dead when Gerry got home from work. “I had no idea who he was nor what he was doing in my house. I knew he had been murdered. That was obvious. The knife was still in his back. I had no idea who killed him, but that made no difference. I was kneeling over the body when the cops arrived. Someone had called in saying they had witnessed a murder at my residence and that the killer was still there. The problem was the call had gone in an hour before I got home.”
“I would have shrugged the whole thing off, not much concerned about a murder that happened a hundred plus years ago, but Gerry just wouldn’t let it go. Even when I was wide awake and at work he kept nagging at me. I tried to tell him there was nothing I could do, but the conversation was a one way deal. But finally Gerry told me something that might help. He said, “The clue to my innocence is in the library in that last article written about my trial in the local newspaper. It is about the testimony of the witness who saw the murder happen.”

It was late, too late to get into the library legally, but if I wanted the nightmare and the voice to get out of my head I had to find that issue of the newspaper and I had to do it before I went totally insane and that occasion felt like it was going to happen any second. So there I was, at midnight, in the midst of a nasty summer storm, crawling through a window into the basement of the library. I had no idea if there was a security system in place, but thought and hoped not since, ‘who would break into a small library in a small town at midnight, anytime of year’. Nobody, except a fool on the verge of insanity like me.

The basement was just a basement, dirt floor, stone foundation and home to a small furnace, a hot water tank and a load of junk. It felt creepy, especially with Gerry’s voice blabbering away in the back of my mind.
The stairs were rickety and every step creaked, groaned, or moaned as I climbed up, all thirteen of them. I tried not to hold on to the idea that thirteen was an evil number, but it persisted.
The door opened with a complaint as demonic as a screaming demon and I thought for sure it could be heard all over town, which of course was silly.
The door opened into an office come lunch room. It was there that things started to get weird. I felt someone, or something take me by the wrist and pull me toward the door that opened into the library.
Did I mention that the library was older than the murder I was investigating and that before it became a library it was a jail, replaced by something more modern, in its day.
The hand on my wrist guided me into the book shelf area and down the centre aisle to the very back. Stored in pigeon holes were hundreds of newspapers. Immediately I started looking for the one I needed to get Gerry out of my freeking head, my little penlight flicking from one to the next until I found the issue with the right date, March 15th, 1915.
I felt a burst of joy in my brain. I was Gerry. “Read it fool. Read it. If you read it you will know that I was innocent.”
I read the article. Gerry was right. The call made by the witness came an hour before the police arrived. The call was made by Melissa Brund. The dead man was Melissa’s come what may lover/fiancé consort and partner in crime.

“Why wasn’t this all brought up in court?” I asked out loud and damned near crapped my drawers when I got an out loud answer, though it had nothing to do with the murder or news article.
“Mr. Morton. What on earth are you doing creeping around my library at this time of night?”
I spun around expecting to see old Mrs. Carrinson, the librarian from my youth. It did not occur to me at that moment that she had been dead for twenty years. It simply occurred to me that I was caught.
And there she stood, a glowing dusty image in the glow of my pen light.
“Gerry won’t shut up. Gerry Monticor. He was hung in 1915 for a murder he didn’t commit. I have to prove he didn’t do it or he’ll keep at me until he drives me insane.”
“Oh dear me. That is terrible.” Mrs. Carrinson said, trying to sound sincere. “But I can not allow you to do that.”
Gerry cried out, “Melissa. Why did you lie?”
Mrs. Carrinson laughed like the evil thing she was.
“You fool. You idiot. We were there to steal from you. We knew all about the money you kept in the house, at least that is what Benny said. But after we broke into your house Benny told me it was all a lie. He just wanted to break in and I kept saying no, but when he said we would get rich I went for it.
I was angry, mad angry at him, so I found a knife in your kitchen and stabbed him to death. Then I went and called the police and told them I saw you murder Benny and said that you did it because you were jealous. I told them you planned the whole thing.”

Suddenly Gerry burst open with joy. “Free. Free at last. I can get out of this hell hole I’ve been stuck in because of your lies Melissa.” Then he was gone out of my head and the dusty, glowing image of Melissa Brund, Carrinson faded with a tormented scream.
“Hello Mr. Morton. What are you doing sleeping on the library floor?”
“I opened my eyes. Everything was normal. Gerry’s voice was silent and I had slept the whole night in the library as soundly as an infant.
“Mrs. Longley,” said I, “If I told the truth you would never believe it.”
She picked up the news paper and noted the article I had been reading.
“Actually Mr. Morton I would. It is about time my family curse was discovered. Now Shhhh. There’s no talking in the library."

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