Read The Case of the Haunted Haunted House Online
Authors: Lewis B. Montgomery
The Case of the Haunted Haunted House (4 page)
It was art day, and the art teacher let them work on their haunted house. They broke up into groups. Milo, Jazz, and Frida made a cardboard coffin lid that would fly open when anyone walked by. Other kids took on the tombstones and the giant spider.
Gordy's group was the most popular. He organized half of them to build a guillotine. The other half worked on a dummy with a head that flew off when the blade came down. To Gordy's dismay, the art teacher drew the line at fake blood spattering all over people who came through the haunted house.
Brooke refused to help, and went off to a desk to draw fashion designs. Emily B. tossed her ponytail and followed.
Emily S. stood watching Jazz and Milo, tapping her foot nervously. Just as she took a step toward them, Brooke hissed at her from the corner. Throwing the coffin one last glance, Emily S. turned to join her friends.
Jazz had karate after school, so Milo walked home alone. Waiting for him in the mailbox was an envelope. It said DM in the upper left-hand corner.
A lesson from Dash!
Cause and Effect
Why did the suspect cross the road?
(a) Why not?
(b) Who cares?
(c) To get to the other side, obviously.
If you answered (a) or (b), you are not thinking like a detective. To solve a case, you often need to look at
motive
âwhy people do the things they do. The motive is the cause. The crime is the effect. One leads to the other.
And if you answered (c)? Sorryâyou're still not thinking like a detective. Sure, people usually cross the road to get to the other side. But remember, the most obvious motive is not always the real one!
Once, in my early detecting days, I was called in to investigate strange noises coming from a sea cave at night. Local fishermen refused to go near the place. Shaking with fear, one of them whispered that the sounds were from an ancient monster rising from the bottom of the ocean.
Of course, world-famous private eye Dash Marlowe does not believe in sea monsters. So I asked myself, “What could cause someone to sneak into a dark, damp, chilly cave?”
I was sure I knew the answer. It must be the gang of smugglers I'd been tailing. I planned to capture them single-handedly, find their hidden loot, and win a huge reward.
At low tide, I went down to the cave. Cautiously, I crept inside. The darkness grew deeper and deeper, to pitch black. My flashlight flickered feebly.
Suddenly I heard a noise. I sprang!
A thump, another thump, a groanâand I had my prisoner. I shone the light into his face.
But it wasn't a smuggler. It was the fearful fisherman! He admitted that he had invented the “sea monster.” But what in the world was his motive?
When I questioned him, he told me he had done it to get out of fishing. He was tired of tuna. He was sick of salmon. And he'd had it up to here with halibut. What he really wanted was to get his village on the TV news. He hoped that would attract crowds of tourists, and then he could open up a fancy hotel.
We were lying in a puddle, so I let him go. As I slogged home, wet and shivering, I swore that next time I would think a little harder about motive.
Motive,
Milo thought. Who would have a reason to be in the empty learning cottage after dark? Not the custodian. Mr. Schiff hated it when after-school activities ran late. He said his cat got grumpy if he wasn't home by five.
Could someone be using the learning cottage for a criminal purpose? But what?
Milo turned back to Dash's lesson.
To find the motive, you need to think like your suspects. Put yourself in their shoes. (I nearly broke my neck doing this in The Case of the Roller-Skating Robber, but that's another story. . . .)
So, why did the suspect cross the road? If you want to be a world-famous private eye like me, Dash Marlowe, the answer is (d): I don't know yet, but I'm going to find out!
The lesson went on, with tips on how to get the truth from suspects. Dash said if you watched their body language, you could tell if they were nervousâwhich might mean they were hiding something.
There were lots of signs: looking away, fidgeting, arm-crossing, blinking, touching the mouth while talking, swallowing a lot. . . .
As soon as he finished his homework, Milo headed over to Jazz's house.
After she read the lesson, he said, “I can't think of any reason why someone would be in the learning cottage. Can you?”
Jazz shrugged. “Maybe Cody made the whole thing up.”
“Why would he do that?” Milo asked.
“To get attention?” Jazz said.
“Or maybeâ” Milo gulped. “Maybe there
is
a ghost.”
“Milo, be seriousâ” She broke off. “Hang on. That could be it.”
“You think the place is haunted?”
Yikes.
If even
Jazz
believed . . .
“Of course not!” she said. “But what if that's the motive?”
“I don't get it,” Milo said.
Jazz bounced on her toes. “What if someone
wants
the kids at school to think it's haunted? What if someone sneaked in at night dressed as a ghost? Fluttered around. Flashed a light.”
“But why?”
“A joke?” she said.
They looked at each other. Then Milo said what they were both thinking.
“Gordy!”
Of course! They should have thought of Gordy right away. It was just the kind of thing that he would do.
Jazz frowned. “But Gordy loves the haunted house. He wouldn't want Ms. Ali to shut it down.”
“Maybe he didn't think of that,” Milo said. When it came to jokes, Gordy never seemed to think. Period.
Still, everyone in the class knew that if Ms. Ali decided their haunted house was too scary, she might shut it down. And nobody would want that toâ
Suddenly a picture flashed into Milo's mind: an angry snake about to strike.
“Brooke!” he said. “She was mad about your idea getting chosen over hers. Maybe she wanted to get even.”
Flipping open her little purple notebook, Jazz wrote:
Jazz tapped her pen against her teeth and frowned. “There's someone else who wouldn't want our haunted house to do well.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Chris.”
