Traveling Town Cozy Mystery Box Set

by Ami Diane

  “Sure. How’s tricks?”

  “Fine.” Ella rested her elbows on the counter. “Wink wants me to dye my hair green. So, there’s that.”

  Will’s gaze traveled up as if trying to imagine her with a lawn on her head. Eventually, he gave up. “That’s all?” His blue-green eyes glinted, the color of sea foam in a storm.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why? What have you heard?”

  “I was in the General Store just now. Flo was asking for some rather curious items. Rope, pulleys, harnesses.” He picked up a spoon and stirred his coffee in languid motions, his eyes never leaving hers, like a cat on the prowl. “Spill the beans, El.”

  “This might be an instance where the less you know, the better. Plausible deniability and such. But just as a side question—totally unrelated—does Chapman require someone to post bail to get out of jail?” She scrunched up her face, pulling from the weedy recesses of her memory from the past couple of months. She’d never paid, nor did she remember Six ever having to post bail.

  “Just be safe. And check Flo’s purse before you do whatever it is you plan on doing.”

  “I always do. Well, when I can sneak a peek without her seeing. Did you know, once, Wink found a bottle of chloroform in there? Incidentally, it was right before a potluck.”

  “What was her plan?”

  “Who knows?”

  They both shook their heads, Will stirring his coffee and Ella tracing a scratch on the counter with her fingernail.

  “El?” Will looked up, worry striations across his forehead. “Are you and I alright?”

  She took in a slow breath. “Will, you and I will always be okay, even when we’re not. What we’re facing, it’s not what most couples face.” She took in a sharp breath, realizing she’d just referred to them as a couple, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed as evident by the flicker of emotion that crossed his face.

  “In your time, don’t other couples face such a dilemma?” he asked. “Does the man not get a job, thereby presenting them with the decision to either break up or for both of them to move to remain together?”

  “Sidestepping the completely sexist aspect of that question, I hadn’t considered it that way.” How had that never occurred to her? “Huh. I guess it is similar. Except in my time, the workforce is made up of both males and females, but I see your point.

  “But we’re not talking about relocating to another town or part of the country or, heck, even another part of the world, Will. If we ever jumped into either of our times, I see only three options: either that person stays and gives up the chance to return home—forever; both leave town; or one leaves, we break up, and never see each other again.”

  That was it, their obstacle, their mountain. Even if she could figure out how to stop or control the time jumping, the choice would still be the same.

  The light had faded from his eyes, his mouth set in a stern line. “Perhaps you are thinking on this too much. You are putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. Yes, those are our three options, and I don’t foresee them changing. But don’t you think, over time, our decision might shift? Maybe now, we’d choose the third, but after some time together, it might be one of the others.”

  “What you’re saying is, you want to cross that bridge when we get to it, right?”

  “If we get to it, yes.”

  Ella tapped her finger on her chin, considering this. She did tend to overanalyze things. It made for great sleuthing but for lousy relationships. All of this talk might be for naught. What if they dated, and it didn’t work out, anyway?

  “You know, I think we set some kind of record, using three idioms in natural conversation in less than a minute.”

  Ella and Wink strode down the sidewalk, the only sound between them was that of their chattering teeth and shoes squirting through the slush. Ella leaped a particularly large puddle that was the size of a small pond while Wink picked a careful path around it.

  As they passed the inn, Flo emerged through the fog like one of her ghosts. She joined them, the bright knit of her customized beanie towering over them.

  “We set on the plan?” Wink asked, shooting a dark glance in Flo’s direction.

  “Yes,” Flo replied in exasperation. Her breath came out in cloudy wisps, like a dragon with laryngitis who could only produce smoke instead of flames. “Ella gets to have all the fun while we flap our gums.”

  Ella said, “That’s right” at the same moment Wink responded, “Not at all.”

  Wink cleared her throat. “We’re a distraction so she can sneak into the back.”

  Ella slowed her steps to match Flo’s snail pace. Her arm draped over the older woman’s shoulders. “That’s right. Without the help of my little underlings, this plan would fail. There’s no such thing as a job too small. Only small people. Wait—no, that’s not right.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. What I mean is, where would the New England Patriots be without the water boy? Not winning Super Bowls, that’s for sure. Only, you’re more like the concessions stand guy, and I’m Tom Brady. But you get the picture.”

  Flo’s confused expression said she did not get the picture.

  Ella shrugged and dropped her arm as they crossed the street. What should’ve been a quick walk took twice as long, with both Ella and Wink hollering at Flo to hurry, with helpful phrases like “Move your dogs, Flo” and “An ant moves faster than you.”

  Ella checked her watch, increasing her pace. Wink had closed Grandma’s Kitchen early, sending Horatio home, so they could get to the Community Services Office before it closed.

  She swept past the General Store and reached the door first. It was a two-story brick building, nondescript, and looked more like a carryover from Frontier days.

  Wink arrived, dragging Flo by the arm. The latter’s face was flushed, and she spat like a feral cat.

  “There’s that sparkling personality.” Ella opened the door and stepped inside.

  The interior was very much how she’d expected it to appear based on the exterior. Red brick ran along all three walls. The back, exterior wall was blocked by a more modern wall of sheetrock or plaster which was supposed to house the filing room.

  Before them, a large desk barred them from further entry. There was a shuffling noise as a plump woman with cat-eye glasses and a beehive that rivaled Flo’s rose from behind the desk. Small eyes swiveled over the threesome, settling on Ella, the newcomer.

  “Ladies, what brings you by?” Her voice was friendly, soothing, and a touch husky like she smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

  “Hello, dear.” Wink’s smile was equally as disarming, which hopefully made up for Flo’s caveman grunt of a greeting. “Flo and I came by for a visit, and Ella here wanted to tag along. This is Ella, by the way.”

  Miss Johnson nodded in Ella’s direction. “How do you do?”

  Ella echoed the greeting. After a quick exchange of pleasantries and asking after the health of family members—relegated to Miss Johnson since the other two were without—Wink tilted forward and lowered her voice.

  “Are we alone?”

  Miss Johnson’s pupils dilated in her small eyes as she, too, leaned in. “Yes. Ms. Chilton knocked off early, and the mayor went across the street to cut someone’s hair. Why do you ask?” Her sultry voice tinged with the hunger of a gossiper about to get their fix.

  “Did you hear about Terrance and Olivia?”

  Ella feared the secretary’s beady eyes would pop out of her head.

  “No, what about them?”

  Wink’s voice dropped further, despite the fact that no one else was in the office. Ella elbowed Flo who stood aside, her arms crossed.

  Rolling her eyes, Flo dropped her hands to her side and shuffled forward, feigning interest in the conversation.

  For her part, Ella lingered, affecting an expression of attentiveness before growing bored a minute later. She made a show of staring at a painting that hung on the brick, tipping her head one way, then the other, trying to dete
rmine what the blob was supposed to be.

  Just as Wink’s story reached the part where Terrance caught Olivia necking another man, Ella interrupted.

  “Sorry, may I use your restroom?” She placed her hand over her stomach. “I’m on this juice cleanse, and, yikes, I can’t go more than a half-hour without paying the toll, if you know what I mean.” She winked, inwardly delighting in the woman’s horrified expression. She found upsetting the propriety of social convention in this town threw people off balance, and they quickly dismissed her.

  Sure enough, Miss Johnson thrust a finger in the general direction of the back, sparing a glance. “Through the filing room, near the back.” Then to Wink, “What happened next?”

  Ella bit back a smile and wove around the front desk to the back room. The doorway for the filing room was set off to one side, fortunately, hiding her from view if the secretary happened to turn around.

  The bathroom door stood in the far right corner while the rest of the space was filled with filing cabinets.

  “Jackpot,” she whispered.

  She closed the bathroom door first in case Miss Johnson was listening. It clicked shut with Ella still on the side with all of the files.

  Hurriedly, she strode over to the nearest window. It sat halfway up the wall, too low for a filing cabinet to be placed beneath it and perfect for their ingress point.

  Her mouth turned down. There wasn’t a lock on the window. In fact, this one didn’t appear to open at all. Single-paned, and no part of it slid up nor opened out.

  Cursing, she jogged to the other window and stopped short. Not only was it higher up with a tall cabinet below it, but it also happened to be directly in line with the open doorway.

  Ella ground her teeth and teetered towards the door, sliding it partially shut so as to block herself from view. As she did so, Wink’s gaze slid her way.

  Her boss’s voice rose, saying, “Speaking of whoopee, did I ever tell you about the time that band of Romans came down Main Street?”

  Ella cringed, not wanting to hear the rest of that story—ever. Using the cabinet handles as footholds, she climbed up the metal storage container and stretched out her hand. Several muscles along her right side strained with the effort, and something popped in her back that was sure to need iced later.

  Her fingers probed and found the latch for the window, and she let out a breath. Laughter floated in through the wide crack in the door. Good, Wink was keeping Miss Johnson occupied still.

  Ella pushed on the latch, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Really?” she hissed aloud.

  Climbing further up the cabinet, she nearly had a heart attack when the entire metal storage container tilted before quickly righting itself again. Apparently, this one wasn’t very full. She’d have to remember that when they entered later.

  “What’s taking you so long?”

  Ella jumped, banging her shin on a metal handle.

  “Flo! You scared the bejesus out of me! What are you doing back here?”

  “Seeing what’s taking so long.” Flo stuck her hands on her hips, tapping her foot and looking very much like an elementary school teacher Ella once had.

  “The latch is stuck. What was the reason you gave Miss Johnson for coming back here?”

  “To use the restroom.” One of Flo’s hands moved to her face so she could inspect her nails.

  “What? We can’t both be going to the bathroom.”

  “Who cares. She bought it.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there, then. Help me.”

  Flo set her lip. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Boost me up so I can get a better look at the latch.”

  Flo eyed her warily. “I ain’t pushing you up there.”

  “Flo, I need to get a better angle.”

  A new voice spoke from the doorway. “What’s going on?” Miss Johnson stood, hands on her hips much like Flo had, only her mouth hung open.

  Ella’s rear end and back were facing the secretary, blocking the view of what her hand was doing. With her fingers still on the latch, she gave it one last shove. The metal dug into her skin, but it finally gave with a soft click.

  While Ella had been doing this, she’d had her head craned around, staring at the secretary while she grappled for any plausible explanation.

  Meanwhile, Flo sneaked up behind Miss Johnson and held a stack of folders over the unsuspecting woman’s head. She made a motion like she was going to drop the lot, thereby knocking the woman out.

  Her throat closing, Ella dropped from the cabinet, doing her best to call off Flo without alerting Miss Johnson to the danger she was in.

  Shooting the woman one of her best smiles, Ella explained, “I saw a spider. It was ginormous. Seriously, this thing was the size of a small cat. Anyway, I thought I’d try to kill it.”

  Mistaking Ella’s trembling voice for fear of the arachnid, the secretary’s small eyes grew wide with horror, and she took a step back, nearly crashing into Flo. “Did you—did you kill it?”

  Ella dusted her hands together, sparing a withering glance in Flo’s direction. “Funny story. Turns out, it was just a big dust bunny. Go figure. Anyway, it’s been great catching up on old times.”

  “I just met you. I don’t even remember your name.”

  Ella let out a hollow laugh and placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder as they moved into the outer room, a disappointed Flo trailing behind them. “Don’t be silly, Betty.”

  “It’s Susan.”

  Her hand still on Susan’s shoulder, Ella grinned at her two friends, pointing her thumb in the secretary’s direction. “What’d I tell you? She’s a hoot. Classic Betty.”

  Miss Johnson’s nostrils flared, and her teased-up hair trembled. Ella’s hand dropped away.

  After stepping between them, Wink guided Ella and Flo by the elbows across the room.

  “What were you going to do?” Ella hissed at Flo when the secretary was out of earshot. “Knock her unconscious with that thin stack of files?”

  “It was all I could find. Next time, I’ll bring my chloroform—”

  “No, no knocking anyone out.”

  They’d reached the front door. Wink shoved them toward it and hollered over her shoulder at the seething Miss Johnson, “It was lovely to see you again, dear. I’ll be sure to bring by my meatloaf recipe sometime!”

  “Bye, Betty!” Ella called.

  Wink slapped her upside the back of the head as they burst into the evening chill outside.

  Chapter 15

  ELLA AWOKE TO someone shaking her. On her chest, Fluffy hissed at the intruder, then he sprang from where he’d been curled up, digging his claws into her skin as he did so.

  Flo’s silhouette hovered over the bed and said, “It’s time,” with as much gravitas as an undertaker.

  With bleary vision, Ella squinted at the time on her phone. It was three o’clock in the morning. Despite her anxiety over the mission, she’d managed to get a whopping three hours of sleep.

  Her bare feet hit the wooden floorboards, and she slipped across the room to her dresser. She’d gone to bed clad in her prowling around at night clothes, which concerned her that she had an actual outfit for such an occasion.

  After tugging on socks and kissing the large Maine Coon on the head, she and Flo stole down the stairs as quietly as they could manage—well, as quietly as Ella could manage.

  “You want to walk a little louder, Flo?” Ella hissed. “I’m not sure the dead have heard you yet.”

  “Just grab the flashlights and stick ‘em in the bag, will you?”

  Ella clenched her jaw, but she complied, stuffing the lights with their feeble juice into the backpack they’d hidden in the study earlier. The hope was to use them as little as possible, relying on the street lamps’ soft glows.

  When Ella met Flo in the foyer, a large, heavy-looking bag was draped over the older woman’s shoulder. Flo took one look at Ella toting the flashlights and the bag clinging to her side befo
re making Ella switch their burdens.

  Now weighed down with what might actually have been a kitchen sink, Ella grunted and opened the front door.

  Pools of light reflected off puddles of standing water along the sidewalk and road. They walked in silence, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. Something about the hour, the cold darkness, and the fog begged for silence.

  Ella’s stomach clenched into a tight ball. We’re simply going into a place of business after hours, she thought for the hundredth time. We’re helping out a friend.

  The only risky part of their trek was crossing the street. A few shops on Main Street had apartments above, and the chances of one of the occupants waking and spotting them were minimal.

  Still, Ella worried her lip as they searched for the darkest section to cross. A couple of times, she had to stop Flo from shooting out one of the lamps with a BB gun, insisting the cost of the repairs and lack of resources wasn’t worth it. Flo pouted, but eventually, they found a swath of darkness to cross.

  Once across the street, Ella let out a breath that turned into ghostly shapes of steam before her face. When they reached the block for the General Store and Community Services Office, Ella slid to a sudden stop, slush piling up in front of her shoes. A second later, Flo—all layers of clothing and mound of hair—slammed into her.

  “Whatcha stop for?”

  Ella clamped a hand over the woman’s puckered mouth. She tilted her head across the street.

  A dull light spilled from the sheriff’s office window. Inside, Chapman’s lithe frame moved behind the glass as he sat at his desk.

  Something slimy moved against Ella’s fingers, and she ripped her hand away. “Did you—did you just lick me?”

  Flo smirked.

  “Well, the joke’s on you,” Ella said, “because I didn’t wash my hands after going to the bathroom.” She had, of course, but she didn’t see the need to inform Flo of that fact.

  Glee quickly fled the woman’s face.

  “What’s he doing in there?” Ella wondered aloud, turning her attention back to the sheriff.