Whos in the Wall

Who's in the Wall?
Ursula McIntyre


At precisely 10:30 A.M. I got a call from a Mr. Machiano saying that while renovating a palace his men found the bones of what seamed to be a human body. When I got to the scene one of his men showed me to the corps. It had dirty, out-of-date clothes draped upon its remains with a piece a rope beside it. I asked Mr. Machiano how the body was discovered.
"My men were knocking down a wall and one of them found a skeleton with a motlry on, and that's when I called you."
I asked whom he bought the palace from.
"A man I would say in his early eighties, named Montresor."
I then left to learn about this person.. I found out that
he was living with a cousin right near his old home. I decided to stop
by and ask him a few questions hoping he would remember or know
something. After about an hour of getting "I do not know. What are you
talking about? Please leave." I realized this was a waste of time and
decided to go.
The next morning I called Mr. Machiano and asked him to meet me at the palace. As I approached the area where the body was found I began to feel a little queasy. I searched the ground around the body hoping to find some clues. I noticed the sparkle of metal pertruding from the ground. I picked it up and saw it was a gold and diamond ID bracelet with the name Montresor inscribed on it. I decided to do a little more research on this man. I went to the station and asked the secretary to show me the file on any person missing for more than 20 years. The list only had about five
people on it with a brief description. There was a man by the name of
Fortunato on it who has been missing for about 50 years. He was last
seen wearing a motley. I then put two and two together and after some
investigation, I found out that the remains were indeed Fortunato. Later
that afternoon I decided to visit Mrs. Fortunato. She took the news
pretty well, she had suspected he was dead.
"The last time I saw him was fifty years ago during carnival season."
I went back to Montresor's house and told him that next to Fortunato's body was a gold bracelet with his name on it. He still insisted he had had nothing to do with the murder and had no idea how his bracelet gotten near the body. "It must have fallen off and sunk into the mortar."
I told him that I could sense his nervousness and asked him if he was
okay, then I heard him mumble something. I asked, then told him to say it louder. I could not quite hear him.
"I killed him, and I don't even regret it. He was dirty man who worked at the local carnival. He found out that I was cheating on my wife and told me that if I didn't give him $50,000 he would tell her. He would have ruined my life so I ruined his instead. He got his $50,000, I stuffed his carcass in to the wall with a diamond and gold bracelet on his wrist with my name on it. He would always remember why and by whom he was killed then. What a perfect plan, what a perfect, prefect plan. My wife never found out. To make it even better, on that very wall I HUNG a picture my myself. I was hung in a picture, he was hung in a wall."
Montresor was convicted of 1st degree murder and sentenced to death. His final words were, " I'm an old man ready to die but are you a young woman ready to live with killing me? I could kill well and with pride. How about you?"