Traveling Town Cozy Mystery Box Set

by Ami Diane

  After a moment of scrutiny where the diner owner held the book up, eyes darting back and forth from the page to her new pet, she said, “No, you’re right. He’s an allosaurus.”

  Ella held up a hand. “I’m sorry, but can we go back to the bit about you naming him and discuss that?”

  “You don’t like the name Peanut?” Flo sniffed. “I came up with it.”

  “Yes, that’s my issue. It’s definitely his name.” Ella flinched when Peanut shuffled closer.

  “According to this,” Wink said, still reading, “he can get up to thirty-one feet long and thirty-nine feet high.” The pages whispered as she rifled back through the encyclopedia. “That’s smaller than a T. rex, but not by much.”

  “Wink,” Ella cautioned, “that’s the size of a two-story house. That’s huge. You’re not seriously considering keeping it, are you?”

  “Not it. Him.”

  The woman seemed confident about Peanut’s gender, and Ella wasn’t going to ask how she knew.

  “And why not keep him?”

  “Why not? Well, because he’s eating the furniture for one thing.”

  Wink gave a start and shooed Peanut away from the stool he’d been using as a teething toy. “Bad, Peanut.” Then to Ella, “I found him wandering near the lake, making these pitiful noises. I think the poor guy lost his family.” Reaching out, Wink patted Peanut’s head eliciting a noise that was half-growl, half-purr from the reptile. He snapped his jaws, and Wink jolted her hand away just in time.

  “It doesn’t matter where you found him. He’s not a green and purple dinosaur that’ll hug you and sing songs.”

  At both Wink and Flo’s confused expressions, she added with a dismissive wave, “Barney was a lovable dinosaur on a children’s show I watched growing up. Sang lots of songs, gave lots of hugs—perhaps too many. Now that I recall, I think the man who wore the costume turned out to be shady. Not like, in jail shady, but definitely the out there type you don’t want to be alone in a room with…

  “Where was I going with this? Oh, right. The point is, Wink, you’re going to be Peanut’s next meal if you don’t get him out of here—especially if Rose discovers him.”

  Wink reached out a tentative hand to pet the allosaurus before reeling it back in just as quickly. “Well, I can’t keep him at my place. I don’t have space, and I worry about Chester. Besides, it’s not as humid down here.”

  “Well, when you put it like that. Hey, I call first dibs on your wardrobe after your funeral.”

  Flo looked up long enough from filing her nails to take a sweeping gaze at Wink’s outfit before asking Ella, “Really?”

  “Well,” Ella said, shrugging. “My clothes are getting threadbare.” Just the other day, Flo had pointed out that she could see her pink underwear through the seat of her pants. Ella, of course, had played it off like that’s how all the women wore their clothes where she was from.

  Her visions of a new wardrobe full of velour tracksuits got derailed when Wink, grunting, dragged an ice chest out from the shadows.

  “Finally.” Ella rubbed her palms together like she was rolling dice at a Craps table in Vegas and chanted, “please be cheesecake, please be cheesecake.”

  Usually, the diner owner brought treats to their strategy meetings, which is what they were supposed to be doing, the whole reason she’d hunted them down in the first place.

  Visions of dancing slices of the New York-style dessert came crashing down as her boss produced a bloody chunk of meat.

  She recoiled. “Thanks, but I just ate.”

  “It’s not for you.”

  “What in the carnage is that?” Ella spared a sideways glance at Flo to gauge her reaction. The woman’s eyebrows climbed towards her swirling cloud of hair, suddenly interested at the prospect of carnage.

  Peanut’s disconcertingly large claws clicked over the concrete as he loped forward. His jaws snapped with anticipation, and Ella could swear a little saliva dribbled from his mouth.

  Wink barely managed to lob the heavy piece into the air before Peanut stretched out, his neck elongating, and snapped down on the grisly hunk of meat. Snarling—or a noise very near it—he dashed to into the shadows at the opposite end of the room. The ensuing noises that drifted out of the darkness were made of the unholy stuff that fueled Ella’s nightmares.

  She swore under her breath. “Oh, that’s horrifying.” All that occupied her thoughts now—as she listened to Peanut crunch on bone—was that that hunk of meat could’ve been one of them.

  “Isn’t he precious?” The wan light glittered in Wink’s eyes as she stared adoringly in Peanut’s direction.

  Ella whispered loudly out of the side of her mouth at Flo, “Please tell me you’re just as disturbed as I am?”

  Flo jabbed her nail file at the opposite end of the room. “Disturbed by that little thing? ‘Course not. On the other hand, I am disturbed by this one’s obsession with yet another weird pet.”

  An awkward lull in conversation followed, filled by Peanut gnawing on something crunchy. Ella laced her fingers together, hoping her voice could drown out the noise.

  “So, can we finally talk about why I came down here?”

  “What do you mean?” Wink tore her eyes away from her new pet long enough to frown at Ella.

  “It’s Sunday,” she reminded them, in case they’d gone senile, which was a very real possibility. “I thought we’d prep for tonight.”

  “Yeah,” Wink said, “we were just about to review Operation Potluck, and I was going to remind Flo why everyone will be eating my lasagna over hers.”

  Flo’s worn-out emery board clattered onto the bar, the woman’s eyes blazing. “Not once I add my special ingredient.”

  “Chapman said you couldn’t poison my food again.

  “What?” Ella said. “You poisoned the food?”

  Flo fluttered her hand. “That’s an exaggeration. And I didn’t mean for everyone to get sick. Just Thomas.”

  Wink added for Ella’s benefit, “One of her husbands.”

  Flo nodded. “Number five, I think. No, four?”

  Ella shook away the onslaught of followup questions vying for attention, largely, was poor Thomas still alive? “Look, forget the potluck—”

  “Blasphemy.”

  “You take that back.”

  “I just mean,” Ella began, backpedaling before they fed her to Peanut, “that we should prepare Wink for the mayoral debate, seeing as how it’s the last one and the first two didn’t go so well and because Election Day is this week.”

  “I thought she did swell,” Flo tossed out.

  “She called Sal a pig.”

  “And?” Flo retorted.

  Wink tutted and dismissed the concern with a wave. “I’m not worried. I practiced all last week.” Turning to Flo, she said, “I think you should help Ella on desserts this time. The two of you together can take on little Sally.”

  Pushing her thick glasses up, Flo nodded. “I do have a new immobilizing gun I’d like to try out.”

  Wink deliberated before asking, “Is it non-lethal?”

  After rolling her eyes, Flo said it was, although she seemed rather disappointed by this fact—a sentiment Ella shared when it came to Sally, the little hellion in pigtails.

  When her boss turned away, she lowered her voice so only Flo could hear. “Will it at least hurt?”

  The vicious grin on the fellow boarder’s face was all the answer she needed.

  “What are you getting Will for his birthday?” Wink asked, changing the subject abruptly as she rolled out their well-used layout of the church. With a thunk, she set a dusty saltshaker on top that had a peeling label with Ella’s name on it followed by a pepper shaker with Flo’s.

  “How’s that?”

  “His birthday. It’s soon.”

  Ella slid off her stool and stood. “How soon?”

  “This week—where are you going?”

  Walking swiftly, Ella was already halfway across the long room, cast
ing furtive glances at the dark end which had gone eerily silent. “I have to get his present before the General Store closes.”

  When she reached the threshold, Flo stopped her. “Forgetting something, Poodle Head?” She gestured at the wall. Dozens of empty gun racks covered it, but a few were taken up by a handful of weapons that Flo had left behind.

  “Ah, I almost forgot.” Ella dismissed the lightning mace that still lay on the floor immediately and considered the shotgun on the wall a moment, then considered her chances of injuring herself or someone else with it. Instead, she opted for an innocuous-looking device that reminded her of a slingshot. She tested the elastic band pull. “Do I just pick up random rocks as ammo?” Rocks slung at a dinosaur would probably do more than tickle it, but it was safer than her packing a gun—for everyone.

  “Don’t need projectiles. Simply pull, aim, and let go.”

  Nodding, Ella ducked out of the room. It wasn’t until she was bounding up the steps from the Basement of Doom that she realized Flo had failed to mention what the weapon did. Knowing the batty kook, it had to be some sort of spectral weapon disguised as a slingshot. So long as it gave her a fighting chance against any house-sized reptiles charging through Keystone, she didn’t care.

  Chapter 2

  ELLA DARTED DOWN the sidewalk, her head on a constant swivel. Overhead, a pterodactyl-looking dinosaur with a long tail cast a large, moving shadow over the street. Then, an actual pterodactyl arced higher, soaring in a different direction.

  The novelty of their new location had begun to wear off by the third day when her clothes had soaked through after five minutes of being outside in the muggy soup. Then, it had completely worn out when a vicious reptile the size of her jeep had charged down Main Street and attacked the townspeople.

  Now, as she charged down the sidewalk, the road was nearly deserted, looking every bit like a scene in a post-apocalyptic movie. A brave soul darted across the street a half a mile ahead as a heavy silence pressed against her ears.

  Ella did what most females who had been a teenager during the late 1990s would do when trying to scare off dinosaurs; she sang every Backstreet Boys song she could think of at the top of her lungs.

  Acting mayor and town barber Sal, along with Chapman, had requested that all businesses either temporarily close or operate limited hours as it was too dangerous for people to be out and about.

  Holding out Flo’s weaponized slingshot, she continued to jog up the sidewalk, belting out I Want It That Way. The first movement happened just outside the library as a woman exited the squat brick building beside the sheriff’s office.

  Ella stopped her off-key singing abruptly and slowed her pace.

  The woman wore a pink coat despite the oppressive heat, clashing with a red purse draped over her shoulder. She clutched a green book to her bosom and gave a start when she saw Ella. Her expression turned dismissive, and she scampered across the street towards the General Store, the same place Ella was heading.

  Turning back towards the library, she was gawking at a handmade sign in the window, stating the building would be closed the rest of the week, when she collided with a second person exiting the doorway.

  She winced and rubbed her nose which had taken the brunt of the impact. A man in dirt-stained pants and a day’s worth of stubble grunted, glowering above her.

  “I’m sorry—” The apology died on her tongue as he sidestepped past her and lumbered off down the alley.

  “Good talk.” She held up a hand in farewell.

  She peered through the library window to see if Gabby was inside. In place of her vivacious friend was her surly aunt. Well, that decided for her on whether or not to go inside. She’d just scrounge the library at the inn for a novel to get her through her downtime since she couldn’t run around the lake.

  A bell jangled somewhere overhead when she stepped into the General Store. She tucked the handle of Flo’s weapon into the elastic band at her waist and hesitated in the entryway. She considered hanging the slingshot on one of the dozen coat hooks peppering the wall like buckshot but thought it might look strange beside the demure coat and purse dangling from two hooks. She recognized both the garment and bag as belonging to the woman who’d just come out of the library.

  It was just as stifling inside the building as it was outside—perhaps more so. And the reprieve she’d hoped for went the way of the dinosaurs.

  Not for the first time since arriving in Keystone Village did she reminisce about air-conditioning as she mopped her brow. Behind the register sat a bored-looking young man with a splash of freckles and acne on his cheeks. He perked up when he spotted her.

  “Morning, Henry. I’m here to make my last payment.”

  “You’re early,” he said, picking at a scab on his face. “I wasn’t expecting you for another couple of weeks.”

  “Well, turns out, I need it sooner than I thought.”

  He punched buttons on the old fashioned register then pulled a lever that opened the till. “Whatcha need a broken television for, anyway?”

  She bit back a sigh as they’d had this conversation on more than one occasion. Every time she attempted to explain a computer to him, his eyes glazed over. “It’s not a television set.”

  Leaving it at that, she fished out a few wrinkled tens. The ink was faded, and the paper torn. She slid the worn-out tender across the glass display case between them.

  Another young man, roughly Henry’s age, emerged from an aisle packed with rusty shovels and animal traps. He shot Ella a pleasant smile and joined Henry behind the counter.

  “Nice to see a customer today,” he remarked before introducing himself as Brandon Kirkland.

  Ella rolled his last name around on her tongue. “Kirkland… Kirkland… doesn’t your mom own this store?”

  He nodded, his smile wavering.

  “I suppose it’s been pretty dead in here, huh?”

  Henry slid Ella’s money into the till and slammed the drawer. “People don’t wanna risk it.”

  “What about that woman who just came in?”

  “That was my mom,” Brandon explained, his eyes flicking towards the back.

  “Ah.” She made noises with her mouth to fill in the awkward pause. “Well, I wish they’d reschedule the debate tonight. I’m worried not many people will show.”

  Brandon leaned onto the counter. “You kidding? It’ll be as packed as it always is.”

  “You think so? Well, it’s nice to see the town take a political interest in—oh, wait. It’s because of the potluck, isn’t it?” Both boys nodded. “Right. Yeah, that makes more sense.”

  She waffled between judging the inhabitants for their messed-up priorities and feeling hypocritical because not even the threat of bus-sized predators could keep her from Allison’s homemade peach cobbler and Gerald’s BBQ sauce.

  While they had been talking, Mrs. Kirkland sauntered over from the back of the store with the same dour expression as she’d had outside the library. She still clung the same fat green book to her chest.

  Now that she wasn’t distracted, Ella surveyed the woman’s appearance. The store owner’s jeans rode high on her waist—had to be at least to her belly button—and her hair was cut into a mullet or a style very near it.

  Ella was strategizing a tactful way to ask which period the woman hailed from when Mrs. Kirkland rounded on her son.

  “Why are the windows still dirty? I told you to clean them yesterday.”

  “I don’t want to be outside with those things roaming around. I just saw one this morning eating Mr. Smith’s garden.”

  “Those ones won’t hurt you.” Her eyes flitted to Ella before returning to Brandon. “Whatever. Shine the suit of armor then. It’s looking tarnished.”

  Brandon’s jaw twitched, but he stomped off down an aisle all the same. As he passed Ella, she heard him grumbling profanities under his breath.

  Once he was out of sight, Mrs. Kirkland drummed sharp, claw-like nails on the glass display and sniffe
d. “Henry, this jewelry needs polished, and this glass cleaned.” Her tone was both icy and acerbic at the same time, a withering combination.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Kirkland approached an old rotary phone sitting on the counter but paused when her hand brushed it. Her back still to the poor boy, she spat, “And the next time the till’s not balanced, it won’t just come from your paycheck. I’ll have Chapman lock you up for stealing.”

  If it were possible for Henry to sink through the floor, Ella believed he would’ve at that moment. From his neck to his forehead, his skin turned a bright shade of red.

  He ducked his head. “I’m just going to help Ms. Barton here, then I’ll clean as you asked.”

  After setting her book beside the phone, Mary waved her hand flippantly, dismissing him, then she spun the dial with her finger.

  Henry slid around the side of the counter, not meeting Ella’s eyes. The Commodore 64 sat on the floor a few feet away. He began to pick up the monitor when she stopped him.

  “Were there any peripherals that went with it? Like a floppy drive…” She remembered who she was talking to. “Right. Was there a box about this big?” She used her hands to measure out the size. “Gray-ish, with a cord attached? Maybe some disks about the same dimensions but flatter?”

  Nearby, Mrs. Kirkland’s voice competed with Ella’s despite both of them talking softly. Ella lowered hers further so as not to be rude when what she actually wanted to do was sing another Backstreet Boys song, just to get under Mrs. Kirkland’s skin.

  “I think there was somethin’ like what you’re describing. Might be in the back.” He darted down an aisle to check.

  Ella watched his receding back, considering the young man. He appeared to be a breath out of high school, if that, and had never been anything but friendly and respectful. Therefore, Mrs. Kirkland’s comment about him skimming from the till threw her. Then again, the depths of hidden darkness in people’s hearts, the corners they kept from others, always surprised her.