Page 37 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)

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T he old man stepped out from the bushes, glaring at her. “What are you doing here?” Welford roared. Then he charged toward her, his fist curled, as if ready to strike her.

She stood her ground and stared at him. “Is that what you do?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, frozen at the question.

“I mean, do you scare people so they take off and run?”

“Don’t you mock me,” he cried out. “In my day… I was important.”

“Maybe,” she muttered. “Maybe not anymore.”

The stranger pointed a finger at Doreen. “Hey, hey, hey, stop. That’s enough.”

Doreen snorted. “Yeah,… please stop interrupting. Welford was just about to confess.”

“As if,” the stranger barked, staring at her.

“I don’t have anything to confess,” Welford declared.

“See?” the stranger barked.

Doreen shook her head. “ Right . You mean Gramps is doing it all by himself?”

At that, the stranger’s face flushed, turned all kinds of ugly, and he glared at her. “I don’t know who you are, what you are, or what you think you’re doing here,” he began in a very low tone, “but whatever accusations you think you’ll get away with, you won’t.”

It took Doreen a moment to decode all that and then nodded. “Is that what you think?”

“She’s dangerous. Get away from her,” the old man cried out, “and she’s not all there.”

Doreen smiled at him. “That’s how you’ve got everybody bamboozled, isn’t it, Welford?”

He frowned at her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe not, but I’m really close to figuring it out. You know what I think? I think you made an arrangement with Eli’s father to look after Eli—and potentially his sister—for money.”

He blinked at her, and a stillness came over him. “You don’t know anything. And, even if I did, what’s that got to do with anything?”

“You haven’t heard all I want to say. I don’t know how you managed it, but Canada was no longer paying for Eli’s care at Sky Manor.

How did you get the government to send that money to you?

I’m really curious to find out. I’m sure the government would like to know more about that too.

So, you worked your magic, and the father somehow directed the government money into your bank account for the care of Eli.

And then you decided that maybe you shouldn’t have to do all that work looking after Eli. ”

At that, the younger man interrupted, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t like where you’re going with this,” he snapped at her. “Don’t even think like that.”

“Oh, it’s far too late for that. This is how my mind works.

I couldn’t figure out what it would take to have somebody treat Eli so badly.

I mean, what kind of person would do something like that?

All Eli wanted was a chance at a life. That’s all he needed, just a normal life.

But here you guys are, putting Eli in an early grave, and not even a grave that anybody would know about.

No, no, no, that would be too easy. Instead, you were keeping all that government money, piling it away, and nobody would know the difference.

You didn’t want anybody to find out that the money for Eli’s care was not used for Eli, as he was dead almost thirty years ago, right?

So all that money you were spending for your own care.

I mean, it was one thing to take it while you could, but why do the work too?

It was so much easier to just kill Eli.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Welford cried out. “I didn’t kill Eli.”

Doreen stared at him. “I hope not,” she murmured. “I really do, because you’ll pay the price if you did.”

“I didn’t kill him,” he repeated. “It wasn’t my fault. He fell. He fell out of his wheelchair and into the bathtub. It wasn’t my fault, I swear.”

“So, you just shoved him in the ground like some garbage, like a dead plant? You shove it in the ground, and either it lives or dies?”

“You don’t understand anything. And I don’t know how Hope got there.”

“Oh, but I do. You couldn’t afford to let anybody know that Eli was gone.

You even buried his old X-ray in the grave with him.

Erased all signs of him in life. But you couldn’t afford to let anybody know what was happening—not the government and not the siblings’ father, if he’s still alive. You needed that money, didn’t you?”

The old man’s face worked several times, and his shoulders seemed to finally give up the ghost of protest. And he visibly sagged in place. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he muttered.

“I hear that time and time again from various people.” She pulled out her phone and sent a text to Mack.

Immediately the young man grabbed her phone and tossed it. “You don’t need that,” he grumbled. “No way you’re getting out of this.”

“Oh, right ,” she exclaimed, with a smile. “You must be on the same gravy train. You do know, at some point in time, people get too old to get government checks. And that time is coming, but you needed to get something else in place first.”

“Lady, all you speak is gibberish to me.”

“Not to him,” Doreen stated, as she pointed to the old man.

“Welford understands because the old man here is getting too old to keep up the pretense. He didn’t have much of a pretense anyway,” she declared.

Turning to the stranger, she added, “And neither do you. I mean, there’s no reason you can’t work, is there? ”

He stared at her. “You’re a little too nosy for your own good.” He stared down at the animals. “And what is with that dog?”

He was once again sniffing around the old man’s pant legs. Welford kicked at Mugs, but Mugs was wise enough to stay out of kicking distance. “I told you to keep him away from me,” he roared.

“Your wife told me that you’ve supposedly got a catheter bag in there, but I don’t think so. I’m not sure what Mugs is smelling except for a liar, cheater, murderer, and fraudster. I mean, he does have a good nose for that sort of thing.”

Welford glared at her. “You can’t prove nothing.”

“Oh, we couldn’t for sure before, but now we can. We absolutely can. I hate to say it, but the gig is up, guys. Did you really have to kill Meghan though?”

They stopped and stared.

She nodded. “I found the prescription pill bottle that your nephew”—and watched the acknowledgement slid into the old man’s gaze—“threw away. I didn’t even hear him in Meghan’s house. Presumably I interrupted him when I came barging in, yelling her name.”

The young man looked uneasily over at the old man.

“He threw the pill bottle in the bushes behind here.” Doreen pointed.

The old man shrugged. “He didn’t have nothing to do with anything.”

“The thing is, that pill bottle he threw has your name on it.”

He stared at her and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I gave Meghan the pills.”

“No, but what you did do was give her a bit of money to keep her quiet.”

His bottom lip curled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, I do.” Doreen continued. “Meghan was blackmailing you, making sure she got a piece of the action, and you guys were getting poorer and poorer. You were getting more broke as the cost of living went up. That government money was your income. That and your little bit from the Canada Pension Plan. I mean, you’ve been sitting here cheating the government for so many years, and you couldn’t even give Eli a decent burial.

He was a good man, and he just needed a little bit of time on this earth to make it an even better place. ”

The old man cried out, “You don’t know anything.”

“No, I don’t. In many ways, I certainly don’t,” she agreed. “Yet in some ways I already know way too much.”

“You’re right about that,” the nephew declared, staring at her. “I don’t know who you are, or who you think you are, but you can’t just come over here and start making up stuff.”

“Oh, but I know what you two did, so I can talk all I want,” she stated, with a nod in his direction.

“And obviously you were privy to the whole thing. I mean, you were getting your cut of the con too, right?… Do you even work, or do you just sit around and steal from people? Help your elderly relatives bury people in the park?”

He glared at her and took several steps forward. Mugs growled at him and then started barking like crazy. “Shut him up, or I’ll kick him and hurt him bad,” the nephew roared.

“You can try,” Doreen replied, “but I’ve got to tell you that they’ve really gotten a bad reputation around here.”

“What? Your pets are dangerous?” the nephew asked, with a snort. “You’ve got a cat on a freaking leash. And it’s not even on the leash right now. You just let it run loose? That’s disgusting.”

“Maybe.” She looked over at the old man. “What about your wife? Where is she now?”

“She’s in the house,” he said, staring at her, “and it’s none of your business.”

“Of course not. You really think I didn’t tell the cops where I was going?” His jaw worked, and she nodded. “The gig is up, and I told you that. And that big caregiver paycheck you’ve been getting all this time? Yeah, you won’t be getting that anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m dying anyway,” he grumbled.

“Oh, not a moment too soon, is that it? I mean, you took all the money for the care supposedly going to Eli, for him to have a life, and then you bury him out in the park.” Welford glared at her. “And you’ve been collecting that money for a very long time.”

His bottom jaw firmed up, and he added, “I don’t have to listen to you.”

“Maybe not, but what about Eli’s sister?” she asked.

“What about his sister? What about her?” he asked, staring at her.

“She was buried in the same grave.”

He stared at her, shook his head, and muttered, “That’s not possible.”

“Oh,… but it is. It absolutely is,” she stated. “I figured you must have been getting the checks for her care too.”

“No, no, I wasn’t,” he said, confused, “not at all.”

Just then the door opened, and his wife came out, glaring at Doreen. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

“Nope.” Doreen gave her a wry smile. “It’s an occupational hazard.”

“You’re just a nosy busybody.”