by Ami Diane
Mrs. Tanner frowned at Ella but nudged the door aside. After following her into the dining room, Ella set the plate on an old, oak table.
Massaging her arms, she took in the space. The house was dark and cold, neglected and full of secrets.
“I saw you at the meeting,” Mrs. Tanner said. “You’re new here, aren’t you?” The question was more of a statement, unfriendly.
“You must’ve missed the meeting where Mayor Bradford introduced me. My name’s Ella.” Putting her hand out, she waited for the widow to return the gesture. It seemed several breaths before Mrs. Tanner shook it and quickly pulled away.
“Lilly.” Her lips pursed, and her gaze wandered to the door in a not-so-subtle hint for Ella to leave.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Yeah, well… it’s not really a surprise now, is it?”
One of Ella’s eyebrows rose. She shifted her weight on her sneakers, her eyes roving over the dark shelves behind Lilly. Dusty picture frames and a vase sat on one. Most of the photos were of the forest or of the lake.
There was only one of the couple together, standing at a barbecue, a wide space between them. Stan smiled at the camera, but Lilly’s expression was pinched as if she smelled something rotten, most likely Stan. Ella couldn’t help but notice the absence of a wedding photo.
“How long were you two married?”
“Too long.” The air became thick as Lilly stared daggers at Ella. A high-pitched sound whistled from the kitchen. “Excuse me. I have a kettle on.” She pointed at the front door, trying to usher Ella out of the house.
“Do you have a bathroom I could use?”
Lilly’s eyes darkened. “Can’t you hold it? It’s not like it’s that far to town.”
“It’s a bit of a walk back, and I drank an entire pot of coffee. Also—” she pointed at herself “—out of shape, remember?”
“Didn’t I see you running by my place this morning?”
“Heh, did you? Might’ve been me. Did you also see me walking?”
With a heavy sigh, Lilly’s bony finger stabbed at the bathroom door, then she disappeared into the kitchen.
Ella waited until she heard the widow shuffling around before she creeped down the hallway. The walls were bare, absent of photos or paint or basically anything cheery. It was as if Lilly had taken interior decorating inspiration from the inside of a prison.
A dark doorway stood at the end of the hall, and Ella peered into what appeared to be a bedroom. Gray light broke through a crack in the curtains, falling in a narrow rectangle onto the bed. The comforter was thrown back, revealing a tangle of sheets on one side, the other side perfectly preserved. Her heart went out to the widow.
Figuring she should keep up the full-bladder ruse, Ella slipped into the bathroom before Lilly came to see what was taking her so long. After drying her hands, she glanced back at the closed door then pried open the medicine cabinet.
The shelves inside were full of the usual toiletries: soaps, toothpaste, bandaids, and medicine. Her mouth turned down at the lone toothbrush, as well as the noted absence of a man’s razor.
Stan had sported a clean-shaven face both times she’d seen him—excluding when she’d seen his body. At the time, she’d been more focused on the fact that he wasn’t breathing and less on the state of his facial hair.
Closing the cabinet door, she poked around some more, finding a single washcloth and bath towel and a very moldy shower curtain. The absence of a second bathroom set could’ve been the result of Lilly doing laundry, much like her urge to clean the garage. But the presence of a shower curtain that had enough mold carpeting it to be a second bath mat suggested otherwise.
Another possible explanation surfaced, one that involved a blonde-haired woman with a clipboard.
Lilly pounded on the bathroom door, sending Ella into a frenzy. She let the shower curtain fall back into place and jumped towards the door.
“You done in there, yet?”
Ella tugged open the door. It scraped across the uneven floor before getting stuck. With a grunt, she heaved her body into the wood and managed to widen it enough for her to squeeze out.
She patted her stomach. “Wow, Wink’s banana bread is definitely more enjoyable on its way in than out, you know what I mean?”
Lilly’s turned-up nose suggested she knew exactly what Ella meant. With not-so-gentle hands, Lilly swept Ella towards the front door.
“Thanks for stopping by, Emma.”
“Ella.”
“Whatever.”
Ella had to remind herself that the woman had just lost her husband. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how was Stan doing with his signatures? Do you have any idea how much support he’d garnered?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, with you being his wife and all, I figured…” The front door loomed ahead. “What did you think of the expansion project?”
Lilly ripped open the door and shot Ella a frosty glare. “I couldn’t have cared less. What are you, the sheriff?”
Ella pulled in a slow breath. She was never going to get anywhere with Lilly, never going to get more answers, so why not plunge all the way into the icy waters?
“Where were you the night of the storm?”
Lilly’s pallid skin turned a dangerous pink. “Get out of my house,” she seethed, biting out each word.
The moment Ella’s sneakers touched the faded welcome mat, the door slammed behind her, sending a gust of stale air crawling over her skin.
“Welp, that could’ve gone better.”
Back at the diner, a late lunch rush had gathered as if half the town realized they were hungry at the same time.
Ella jumped from table to table, all the while the discovery that Stan hadn’t been sleeping at home rolled around in the back of her mind. She wondered if it was enough to tell the sheriff or if she needed more. If Stan had, in fact, been staying someplace else, she found it strange that she hadn’t heard about it yet.
When Ella had a moment to breathe, she pulled out her phone and added the blonde-haired woman to her memo, along with Stan’s probable change in address.
What she needed was to talk the details out with someone, throw out theories. She needed another coffee break with Flo and Wink, but since she was on unsure footing with one, she didn’t know when it could happen.
“Excuse me,” a woman with dark brown curls and a handsome face said, “can I get some coffee and a donut, please?” She settled on a stool at the lunch counter, moving with a lithe grace like leaves carried on a breeze.
“Cops and robbers, coming up.” Ella paused. “Or would that be a cop and robber?” She shook her head and went to a display case.
After she placed a maple-glazed donut in front of the woman, she poured coffee into a cup. The comforting aroma hung in the air and reminded Ella of late night study sessions and early morning classes.
“You’re Ella Barton, right?” The woman’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. There was something open about her face, inviting secrets.
Ella nodded, placing cream and sugar on the counter.
To her left at the cash register, a tall man in tattered flannel was attempting to pay Wink with a rainbow trout from the lake. The fish itself didn’t seem to be the problem, but rather the date in which it had been caught was causing both of them to raise their voices and a few customers to pinch their noses
“I was wondering if I could interview you for Keystone Corner?”
“How’s that?” Ella had forgotten about the woman in front of her.
“I write for Keystone Corner. It’s just me and one other writer. Just something to keep us sane between kids and husbands. Anyway, we like to do profiles on the new arrivals, and yours is long overdue.”
Her smile widened before she sipped from her cup. When she pulled the coffee away, not a trace of lipstick was left on the dishware, making Ella jealous.
“Yeah, no. I don’t think anyone wants to read about me.”
�
�On the contrary, my dear. You are especially of interest. You’re from the twenty-first century, our very first to stay in the village. I think I could fill a whole paper on you, not just a column, what it’s like in the future, what sort of history has taken place, and so on.”
Ella’s eyebrows pinched together, and she leaned into the counter, considering the proposal.
At the register, Wink had finally accepted the fish, and the flanneled man was just exiting the diner. The moment the door closed, Wink dropped the fish in the nearby trash. Ella grimaced and made a mental note to take out the garbage as soon as she had a chance.
The woman pulled Ella’s attention back. “What do you say?”
“You know, now that you mention it, other than a few random questions, not many people have asked me about my time period.” What questions she had gotten mostly came from Will, and they tended to focus on technology and gadgets.
The woman nodded, taking another long dip into her coffee. “Tends to happen around here. You’ll see soon enough. People are hungry for knowledge of the outside world but too scared to hear about it sometimes. It reminds them of what they’re missing. But,” she paused for emphasis and to swirl a bit of donut in her cup of sludge, “they do want to know, whether they admit it or not.”
Unsure of what else to say, Ella countered the woman’s insight with an eloquent, “People be crazy.”
She straightened and brushed away bits of lemon square that had stuck to her jeans at some point.
“Sorry, but I need to get back to work.” Her gaze shifted over the woman’s shoulder to an older couple waving their cloth napkins like white flags. They were either surrendering to a band of pirates or trying to get her attention.
“Just think about it.” The woman stood too.
“I didn’t catch your name?”
“Shelly Rossi.” Her grin spread over half her face.
Ella’s eyes popped open as the woman strolled around the lunch counter and let herself into the kitchen. Through the passthrough, Ella saw Shelly kiss her husband on the cheek. Horatio paused behind the stove long enough to return the gesture.
Ella felt her cheeks flush. Some detective she was. Horatio had mentioned a couple of times that his wife worked for the paper.
Grabbing her order pad, she pulled the pencil stuck in her messy bun and went back to work.
When the tables were clean and all but two customers were left, Ella leaned against the refrigerator and eyed the kitchen with a certain level of contempt. It looked like an entire cooking show crew had come and gone.
The lemon squares had been culled and put in the fridge, stuffed into every nook and cranny. The sickly sweet scent hung heavy in the air and made her stomach hurt. Lemons were now her least favorite fruit.
During the lull, Horatio invited her over to dinner Monday night, thinking it would be a good opportunity for her to get to know his wife and son better.
After she accepted, he slipped out back for his break, leaving Ella and Wink alone in the kitchen. They hadn’t spoken much since that morning, mostly because there hadn’t been a moment to do so. Now, in the empty room, the tension felt palpable.
“How’d it go dropping the squares off at Mrs. Tanner’s?”
Water sloshed inside a glass as Ella ran it under the faucet for a drink, grateful Wink had broken the ice first. “About as good as the Alamo went. She kicked me out. But right up until that point, I think she appreciated the gesture.”
Wink turned from putting away a cutting board. “She kicked you out?”
“Right after I asked her what she was doing the night of the storm.”
Wink’s mouth twitched. “You didn’t.”
“That’s not the best part.” Ella leaned her elbows on the island and lowered her voice. “I think he was on the outs with his wife, maybe even having an affair.” She described the little clues that had led her to this conclusion. Like a door had been opened, their friendship was back on track.
“We need to get Flo over here, fill her in.” Ella stood suddenly. “What is it Flo does all day, anyway?”
Wink dismissed the question with a wave. “Mostly chase men around town.”
“Romantically or with a gun in hand, like, ‘I’m going to kill you’ kind of chase?”
“Little bit of both, I suppose. Anyway, I’m seeing her soon. We’re going to the salon together.”
“Okay, now I just have more questions, but back to Stan.”
“Yes, he did seem like the hustling type. Can’t say as it would surprise me all that much.” Wink ran her fingers through her blue bob absently. “Men like that are never content. I dated a few in my youth before I saw the boy who had been in front of me the whole time. My Donald.”
Ella didn’t move for fear Wink wouldn’t continue. Mention of her late husband was as rare as Ella baking.
Wink sighed. “I’m really sorry about this morning. And for not trusting you. It was wrong of me.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve realized trust is something earned. I’m working on trusting others. Who am I to expect it doesn’t work both ways?”
“Still, I’d like to make it up to you.” Her eyes gleamed. “I have the perfect idea. You’re coming with us to the beauty parlor.”
“Oh no, Wink. That’s okay. There’s customers—”
Before Ella knew what was happening, Wink had pulled Horatio back inside and hustled Ella out the front door. Ella’s feet made scuff marks over the sidewalk as she resigned herself to her fate.
Half a block later, they crossed the street, stopping in front of Jenny’s Salon. Ella’s head tilted back as she stared up at the hand-painted sign. Her fingers traced a coffee stain on her shirt then brushed the frazzled mess of hair on top of her head. “Uh, what exactly did you have in mind?”
CHAPTER 13
“WIPE THAT FROWN off your face, missy. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” Wink nudged Ella towards the salon door.
“Nothing to worry about? I’m assuming this is the place responsible for Flo’s tower of hair and that mop on yours—okay, your hair is cool. But I’m not sure I want to go to any kind of parlor, beauty or otherwise, that Flo goes to.”
“I heard that,” Flo groused, shuffling up the walk behind them. Her chest heaved and clanked like an old carburetor. She turned to Wink and jabbed a thumb towards Ella. “Good thinking bringing this one along. Could do something about that tumbleweed up top.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Alright, you two.” Wink clapped her hands like she was herding toddlers. “Ella, you did say you wanted to fill Flo in on what you found out about Stan.”
“What’d she find out ‘bout Stan?”
“Yeah,” Ella said, “but we can’t talk in there.”
“What about Stan?” Flo said again, her voice getting louder.
“Then, we’ll just have to afterward.”
“You two see me, right? I didn’t become a ghost, right?” Flo punched Ella in the arm or, at least, gave her best attempt, but the impact was nothing more than a nudge.
“Hey—”
“Just checking.”
“Holy frail, old lady, you need to work out, Flo. Ever hear of lifting weights?”
Wink opened the door and hissed at them to get inside.
A sinking feeling settled in Ella’s gut. Over the years, beauticians claimed they knew what they were doing with her curly hair, but she’d left many a salon with hair that poofed out like she’d stuck her hand in an electrical socket. If this appointment went the way she suspected it might, she’d rather find the nearest outlet and test her theory.
Sometimes Ella forgot she was living in a town from the 1950s. Stepping over the threshold into the salon brought the fact back front and center again. Art deco walls and pink chairs and chemicals that singed her nose hairs slapped her senses simultaneously. Breathing through her nose, she blamed the popularity of permanents for the fact that she was probably losing brain cells with each breath.
“Still thinking about it. But I don’t want a bubble-gum color. I want bright, vibrant…” her face scrunched as she searched for the right adjective.
“Hot pink?” Ella suggested.
Jenny glanced over at her, the corners of her mouth turning down slightly. The frown deepened when she spotted Flo.
“That sounds interesting,” Wink said, oblivious to the looks. “Hot pink, you say?”
“I’m thinking as bright as a neon sign.”
Flo swore under her breath. “Just what she needs.”
Wink’s eyes glowed, and she whirled around to Jenny. “That’s what I want.”
One of Jenny’s eyebrows arched towards her hairline. “I’ll have to see what I can do.” She looked at Ella with an expression that said, thanks a lot.
Ella shot her finger guns and a wide grin. Making Jenny’s day even slightly worse already made the visit worthwhile.
“And whatever this one wants,” Wink jerked her head at Ella, “my treat.”
Before Ella could protest, Jenny spoke. “And you, Flo? I’m guessing the usual?”
“You bet your brown roots I want the usual.”
Jenny’s cheeks turned pink, and Ella coughed to cover a chuckle. Sometimes, she really loved the batty, old woman.
“Or,” Ella said pointedly to Flo, “you can try something new.” Her eyes flitted to the top of the beehive. “Something closer to the ground.”
“Why mess with perfection?”
“Really? Perfection? That’s what you’re calling that?”
While the two argued, they were escorted to their styling chairs. Ella’s breath hitched when Jenny grabbed a pair of scissors. She instantly regretted her cold behavior towards the woman, wondering if it was too late to make amends.