by Ami Diane
“Ain’t none of your concern.”
He flicked the still burning butt at her. It bounced and landed in the path. He slid amongst the shadows until she heard his spurs echoing down the sidewalk.
Ella uncurled the death-grip she had on the doorknob and took a deep breath. She would not be bullied. She would not let people like him make her cower and cow to their will because of fear.
Stomping on his cigarette, she ground it into the stone, crushing it long after the ember had died.
CHAPTER 14
ELLA stumbled down the north wing hallway, her eyelids still heavy with sleep. Despite it being her one day to sleep in, her brain had woken her up at 7:00 am thinking about Stan’s murder and the unidentified skeleton.
As she turned the corner, she bumped into a tall figure with sweeping gray hair and goggles over his eyes. Atop his head sat a metal dome tin foil, reflecting the light sconces on the wall.
“Not you too, Edwin.”
He blinked at her from behind his goggles—swimming goggles by the looks of them. Behind him, Flo ran a strange device over the wall. Lights flashed and something whirred on top like a gadget straight from the Jetsons.
Her recent visit to the beauty parlor seemed to have spurred her into combing her hair even higher. They must’ve run out of tin foil, using it up on Edwin, because she only had a small sheet the size of a yarmulke on top.
Ella swung in the kitchen door, suddenly awake, saying over her shoulder, “I’m going to pretend like I didn’t see anything.”
“That’s right,” Flo called out as the door swung back. “Live in denial. That’s what they want!”
“Can’t hear you!”
Ella rubbed her temples and poured coffee. If it weren’t for the fact that the pot was fresh and would scald her throat, she’d have gulped it down already. The thought still lingered and tempted her.
It should be illegal to deal with Flo pre-caffeinated, she decided. She wondered how hard it was to propose that for a vote and add it to the town’s bylaws.
Pouring a second cup, she ducked her head and slipped past the Ghost Busters and headed to the inn’s library. She lazed about in the conservatory with Fluffy, sipping coffee, reading, and putting off making something for the potluck that night.
When her cup was dry, her chapter finished, and she couldn’t delay any longer, she finally gritted her teeth and went through Rose’s recipe book. Each one required at least an hour of prep, which she converted into Ella-time, multiplying by three.
Eventually, she settled on a classic: chocolate chip cookies. She scratched a pencil over paper and made a hurried list of ingredients then reluctantly exchanged her sweats for jeans and a sweatshirt.
Compared to the rainforest they had been in previously, the mornings were cool in Romania, the heat seeming to arrive mid-day like an unwanted relative. She found she needed to wear layers when roaming about town.
Primping her new hairdo only took a few minutes. To accentuate the new look, she smeared on lip stain and mascara.
Her hand slid down the banister as she bound down the grand staircase. Fluffy sprinted past her, his large tail swishing through the air and his soft sides swaying back and forth.
Rose swept about the entrance hall, scouring the front desk with a cleaning solution that smelled of lemons and vinegar. Her floral dress swished about her calves and her pin curls bounced across her cheeks.
Ella grabbed her jacket from the coat tree. “Oh, Rose, you wouldn’t happen to have some bicycle or rollerskating gear, would you? Like a helmet or elbow pads?”
“Are you planning on getting a bicycle? Good idea. It’s a great way to get around town.”
“Actually, that isn’t a bad idea, but no. It’s for the potluck.”
“Ah, I see.” Rose nodded sagely. The squeaking of the rag over the cherry wood surface paused, and her eyebrows pinched together. “I think Jimmy might have some old football gear in the basement, back from his high school days.”
Ella thanked her and headed for the door, trying to decide if her need for safety for tonight’s event was worth the risk of going back downstairs. She dreaded the next time she’d have to do laundry, braving the creepy basement.
When she opened the front door, Fluffy slipped past her, hopped down the steps, then looked back at her with his wide, green eyes expectantly.
She paused to make sure the garden was Six-free then followed the cat. When she reached the sidewalk, she did another scan before deeming it safe enough to proceed.
Her feet flew over the concrete at a brisk pace to combat the temperature, as well as burn calories in preparation for the feast she’d have in a few hours.
The diner windows were dark, and the closed sign hung askew in the door. It looked lonely and cold.
Fluffy padded behind her all the way to Stewart’s Market, stopping once to chomp on a dry leaf which Ella promptly snatched away.
The market was near the edge of the south end of town. Inside the bait and tackle store-turned-grocery store, she was greeted by a large wooden carving of a bear. Fluffy sniffed it, his whiskers twitching with disdain.
“Chester doesn’t seem so bad, now does he?” she intoned to him.
Grabbing an old shopping cart, she strolled down the aisles, constantly fighting the pull of a wonky wheel. She skipped past shelves and barrels full of fresh produce and headed straight to the back.
After filling the cart with nearly all of the ingredients from her list, Ella rounded the last aisle in search of chocolate chips. Her eyes scanned over bags of nuts and dried fruits and powdered sugar, but the only chocolate she found was a large block of dark chocolate that cost two weeks’ worth of wages at the diner.
With a sigh, she began the herculean task of getting the lame cart to the register—or what passed as a register. Ella was sure the thing was from before the turn of the century—the nineteenth century—and worked on gears and a prayer.
As she began unloading her items, Fluffy wove between her legs once before he caught the whiff of the cheese display a couple of yards away. His nose worked overtime as he pawed at a round of gouda.
“Mornin’.”
Ella straightened from trying to shoo the feline away from the dairy products. “Good morning, Mr. Benson. I’m sorry about this furball here. He followed me inside.”
“Call me Stewart.” The old store owner leaned out over the counter, one of his bushy eyebrows arching. “I see he knows his cheeses. Good nose there, sport.”
At the mention of the word “nose,” Ella couldn’t help but notice the storeowner’s slightly bent one. Instead of detracting from his looks, she found it rather added character and accentuated his lopsided smile, full of dimples and wrinkles.
He was no Harrison Ford or Sam Elliot or whatever men Wink’s age went for, but she could see his appeal. In the short time she’d been in Keystone, she’d never seen him in a foul mood or heard him raise his voice, yet he exuded a quiet confidence and strength.
Fishing under the counter, he pulled out a shriveled piece of meat. Ella wrinkled her nose.
“Fish jerky,” he said to her unvoiced question.
“Mm, no thanks. I’m trying to cut back.”
He grinned then made a twittering noise not unlike a squirrel.
“You’ve been hanging around Chester too much,” she said.
Fluffy’s ears twitched. His head swiveled towards the sound, and his tail swished through the air like a duster.
It only took a moment before he left the cheese display behind, leaped onto the counter, and bit the meat right out of Stewart’s outstretched hand. With a blur of fur, he disappeared down an aisle, the jerky dangling from his mouth.
“Thanks. Now he’ll want to come here all the time.”
Stewart mashed the number keys on the ancient register one at a time and at the pace of a snail. The machine coughed and sputtered in protest.
“Baking something?”
“That’s the plan. I’d hoped to m
ake chocolate chip cookies, but I can’t seem to find any chocolate chips.”
“Yeah, that brick is the last chocolate in town for sale. We can’t seem to get cacao to grow here. Don’t know when we’ll get chocolate again. It all depends on when the next volunteer runs for supplies, and it’s not high priority like some other items.”
“Some people would disagree. I’m not sure I want to live in a town without chocolate.”
One of his long fingers scratched his chin. “Well, I reckon someone’s got a bag or two stocked away somewhere.”
“Hey, wait a second. At my first town hall meeting, I had brownies. You can’t have brownies without chocolate.”
He leaned forward. “You sure it was chocolate?”
She opened her mouth to respond that, of course, she was sure then thought better of it. Her palate wasn’t the most refined. “Dear God, if that wasn’t chocolate, I’m not sure I want to know what I ate.”
“How’d those marshmallow things turn out?”
Ella rubbed the back of her neck. “Yep. Great.”
She stared at the ingredients he was stuffing into a cloth bag. “Think anyone will notice there are no chocolate chips in the chocolate chip cookies?”
“Depends. Are these for the potluck?”
“Yeah. I know it’s not as fancy as what others bring—didn’t Marjorie Smith bring foie gras? Also, I’m pretty sure I saw a sculpture made entirely from fondant last time.”
“So, long as it’s edible, the people here will eat anything.”
Ella’s face fell. “How edible are we talking? Like, peanut brittle or…?”
He chuckled, and she didn’t have the nerve to tell him it was a genuine question.
“Don’t worry about it. Sometimes, the more tried and trued foods are the best. Me, just give me a hotdog and a ball game, and I’m fit as a fiddle.”
“My man, you and I are cut from the same cloth.” Ella scrunched up her face, searching through her memory. “Let’s see… 1950s… baseball. Wasn’t Jackie Robinson’s career just beginning to turn hot?”
Stewart’s eyes widened, revealing sky blue eyes. “A woman after my own heart. I’m impressed.”
While they talked sports, he settled the flour into the shopping bag. He mashed a button on the prehistoric register. When it failed to spit out a total, he slammed a fist down. The numbers turned, and from somewhere deep inside came a death-rattling ding.
While Ella dug through her pockets, there came a sudden hiss followed by a scream from the aisle behind her. She spun around in time to see Fluffy barreling towards her. He whipped past her, and she felt a breeze hit her skin as he dove for cover in pumpkin display.
A second later, Dot shot out of the aisle, blonde hair fluttering like a cape behind her, eyes flashing. “Where is he? Where is that little monster?”
“What are you on about?” Stewart asked, stepping out from behind the register.
“Th-that sorry excuse for a cat bit me.” Her voice was shrill as she clawed at her sleeve and yanked it up.
“Did he now?” Ella said. When Dot wasn’t looking she smiled at the feline currently in hiding.
“I don’t see nothing,” the store owner said.
“How can you not see it? It’s bleeding.” She pointed a manicured nail at a patch of skin. It was slightly red as if rubbed too hard. Ella thought it looked more like the beginnings of a rash than anything else.
Stewart pulled his bifocals down from atop his gray hair. “Hm, still don’t see nothing.”
Dot’s throat elicited a growl, far too much like an animal. “You shouldn’t let that mangy thing in here. This isn’t a pet store, you know. I should sue you.”
She stomped off and shoved open the door, letting it slam shut behind her.
“Have a nice day!” Stewart called after her then smiled at Ella. “Where were we?”
While Ella finished paying, another shopper stepped up to the counter with a bottle of Bradford Farms milk. Ella averted her gaze, the memories of her incident with Mayor Bradford still too fresh.
“Don’t let Dot get to you,” the customer said to Mr. Benson. “I actually feel sorry for the woman. I heard she ran out of her medication a month into being stranded here.”
“What was she on medication for?” Ella asked as Stewart handed her her change.
“Not sure. But she’s unstable. When Lou told her how much her car was gonna cost to get it fixed, she threw a wrench at him.”
Ella’s head tilted. “To be fair, I think most people have that reaction when dealing with Lou.”
“True,” the stranger admitted.
Ella stepped out of the line, grabbing her grocery bag. Stewart handed her a strip of fish jerky, and she spent the next five minutes coaxing Fluffy out of his hiding spot.
When he emerged, she snatched him up and hefted him out of the store, parting with a finger wave at the owner.
CHAPTER 15
BACK in the inn’s kitchen, Ella pulled out all of the ingredients and stared at them, half hoping they’d start throwing themselves together in the mixing bowl without her assistance.
As if on cue, Rose breezed through the doorway, her eyes shining from behind her cat eye glasses.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
Ella pointed at the contents of the bag littering the counter with a look of betrayal and told her about the cookies.
“Why don’t you make a gelatin mold? I have a great recipe here somewhere.” Rose licked her fingers and began to thumb through her cookbooks.
“No, that’s okay,” Ella said, a little too quickly, then added, “I’d hate for all these ingredients to go to waste.”
The innkeeper’s affinity for gelatin molds was known all over Keystone. On their own, they weren’t so bad, taking Ella back to her grade school days of lunch trays and TV meals. But Rose took them to another level, adding food into them that had no business being anywhere near gelatin.
“Why not oatmeal raisin?”
“Would people eat that?”
“Oh, sure. Lots of people like it.”
Ella eyed her skeptically. “Do you have oatmeal and raisins?” Ella didn’t want to trek back to the store. She’d already pushed her luck not running into Six this morning.
Rose rummaged through several cupboards, her face falling a little more after each one. “Apparently not. Sorry, dear.”
Ella shrugged. “Cookies it is.”
“I wish I could help, but I’ve got to run. I’m volunteering in the greenhouses this week. I’ll see you tonight.”
After she floated out of the kitchen, Ella looked from the ingredients to the recipe and grimaced. There was no turning back now.
It didn’t take long for flour to cover the counter and Ella’s jeans. More made it outside of the mixing bowl than in, making it look like Christmas had come early and barged indoors.
In between measuring the vanilla and cracking eggs, she turned the volume knob up on what Rose had called a “Zenith Bakelite Tube Radio.” The local station only had shows once a week, put on by the local drama club. The rest of the time was filled with programmed music and dead air.
Occasionally, if the residents were really lucky, someone would volunteer an hour of their time, filling it with whatever fit their whim. It made for interesting listening, ranging anywhere from interviews to political diatribes to knitting—the last entertaining considering the lack of visual medium.
After Ella fished out a couple of shards of eggshells, she turned on the mixer and hummed to the tunes of Dean Martin, Judy Garland, and Tony Bennett. When she didn’t know the words, she threw in her own.
What would’ve taken Wink twenty minutes took Ella the better part of an hour, but eventually, she jammed two full cookie sheets into the oven, twisted the timer for ten minutes, then plopped onto a dining chair, exhausted. She didn’t know how Wink had the stamina to do this for several hours, especially just after dawn.
While she waited, Ella ran over her notes about the murde
r. Soon, the kitchen began to fill with the heavy aroma of cookies mixing with the melodious voice of Frank Sinatra.
Ella poured a generous helping of cream into a glass of iced coffee and settled at the table again, drinking in the moment and watching the sun’s reflection crawl over the lake before returning to her notes.
So far, the only suspect she’d typed in was Dot, but she struggled to come up with a plausible motive for the woman. If there’d been evidence that Stan was still living at home, then she could suppose Dot wanted him dead when he refused to leave Lilly for her. But Stan had left his wife.
Ella let out a sigh. Jessica Fletcher made it look so easy on TV.
The night before, Wink had told Ella that both the professor and Jonas were on the committee to save Twin Hills. Her thumb swept over the screen as she added their names to the list, putting a star next to the farmer. At the town hall meeting, he’d seemed the most upset and vocal about the expansion project.
She was just inventing a ruse in which to visit the farmer when her nostrils caught the scent of something burning.
Ella leaped from her chair as if the chair was on fire. She tore open the oven door, finding the source of the smell.
She began to reach for the sheet then remembered it probably wasn’t a great idea to grab hot metal unless she liked the idea of burnt flesh.
Clawing open several drawers, she located the oven mitts then dashed back to the oven. With a clunk, she dropped the sheet onto the stove coils and stared at her disaster. What should’ve been several rows of golden circles had become brownish-black coasters.
Ella attacked one with a spatula. Her bicep flexed, and she nearly broke the handle. Without warning, it popped off and flew across the room, hitting the large picture window so hard, she feared it cracked the glass.
So, instead of treats, she’d made weapons. Throwing cookies.
How was this possible? She’d followed the recipe. She’d set a timer. The only explanation could be that at some point in her life, she’d angered the baking gods—probably when she traded her Easy-Bake Oven for a week’s worth of lunches from Alina in the third grade.