7 Never Haunt a Historian by Edie Claire

stammered, “I mean, you could, but it wouldn’t amount to anything and I wouldn’t want to distract anyone from finding Arch, you know?”
    “Finding Archie is everyone’s top priority, I’m sure,” Leigh replied. “Lester, you really don’t look well. Maybe you should take a break? Get something to drink?”
    “Yeah, I… maybe I’ll do that. And if you—” his next words were broken off with an “oomph” as a furry black missile burst around the corner of the shed and propelled two paws squarely into his belly. “Wiley, you demon, get down!” he chastised, albeit not without scratching the dog’s ears in the process. “Crazy hound,” he muttered. “Got too much energy. Hates being locked up. But I can’t let him roam around all day with Arch gone. If anything happened to this mutt…”
    His thought trailed off into a spasm of coughing.
    “Go home, Lester,” Leigh ordered. “You can control operations from there just as well, can’t you?”
    Lester didn’t even try to answer. Still coughing, he nodded, waved her a goodbye, patted his thigh to collect Wiley, and shuffled off toward the creek bridge that led to his own backyard.
    Leigh watched him with a frown. That Lester knew all about the supposed treasure map, and might in fact have been the one who dropped it, was a given. What was far less clear was why he refused to admit it. She was certain that he was genuinely concerned about Archie. Did he really not believe there could be a connection?
    She turned with her empty pail and headed toward the spigot at the farmhouse. At least her curiosity was assuaged with regard to Archie’s criminal past. People had done crazier things for love, and the man had long since paid his debt to society. What could he possibly have to gain by faking his own disappearance? He had never been married, and his blood relatives were apparently few and far between. If he was attempting fraud on a life insurance policy, who would be the beneficiary? That person would have to be in on it with him, and unless the policy were huge, he couldn’t come out that much ahead after leaving behind the farm, his truck, and all his belongings. Never mind that a huge policy benefitting anyone other than an heir would be a giant red flag from the get-go. Archie might have proven himself somewhat gullible in the past, but he was not stupid.
    The police had it wrong.
    Which did not make her feel any less creeped out to be standing beneath the window of his abandoned house surrounded by Civil War soldiers.
    “What happened to the drywall?”
    The man’s voice traveled easily from inside Archie’s living room through the single-pane glass and out to Leigh’s ear.
    “Adding more insulation, maybe?” another voice speculated.
    Leigh recalled how Archie’s living room walls had been open to the studs in several places. She had thought it odd as well.
    “Nah,” the first voice responded. “Nothing new put in here in a long time. He just tore out the wall and never put it back.” There was a moment’s pause. “No electrical. Didn’t access nothing. He doesn’t even have cable. Weird.”
    “Maybe it had a hole in it.”
    “And over here, too? And look—more in the bedroom. Maybe if it was your house. Bet you knock a few holes in the drywall every Saturday night, huh?”
    “Somebody else’s walls, maybe,” the second man responded with humor. “But Arch isn’t the kind of guy you run into in anger management, you know? Some punk could stick a gun in his ribs, and he probably still wouldn’t deck him.”
    “Nah, he wouldn’t. Sweet talk him out of the gun, maybe!”
    The men shared a chuckle.
    “Damn, this place looks terrible. What the hell was he up to, you think?”
    “Looks like he was hunting for his Great Aunt Millie’s diamonds or some crazy thing, doesn’t it? Like he thought something was hid in the walls.”
    Leigh sucked in a breath.
    “Man tearing up his own house?” the second man replied. “I