Traveling Town Cozy Mystery Box Set

by Ami Diane

  The Puritan dragged her microphone across the table, bringing it extra close. “I do not endanger others. I do not keep these beasts that roam the town for mine own pleasure.” She leveled daggers down the row of candidates at Wink.

  “Please explain,” Ukulele Joe said.

  “This morrow, I went to the butcher for salted pork and saw with mine own eyes Mrs. Winkel in the company of that pickthank.” Her hands hovered above her head, indicating Flo’s bouffant. “They ordered forty ounces of sirloin wherein I heard that pickthank spaketh to Mrs. Winkel. Do you know their intended purpose of such an extravagant order?”

  Nobody answered.

  “It is intended for one of those beasts.”

  Ella whispered to Will and Flo, “Does she not know the word dinosaur?”

  “Mrs. Winkel entertains one as others do dogs or cats,” Patience was saying.

  Conversation rose around the room. Ella inhaled sharply and swore under her breath. Keeping a dinosaur as a pet would jeopardize Wink’s chances of being elected.

  “Way to be discreet,” she muttered at Flo.

  On Stage, Wink rolled her eyes and hollered above the din, “Give it a rest, will you? He’s just a baby. He can’t hurt anyone.”

  Ella’s opinion differed on Peanut’s ability to harm anyone, but she kept that to herself.

  It took several minutes for Stew to steer the discussion back on topic. After that, the rest of the debate proceeded more or less how Ella had expected. Wink earned approving nods and a light golf clap at the promise that she wouldn’t raise taxes and a loud cheer when she said she wouldn’t push for a dry town.

  Ella held her breath each time Sal spoke, waiting for whatever bombshell Mary had passed along to the barber that was supposed to win him the election. Surely, he was going to reveal it at any moment.

  As the evening dragged on and the debate grew heated once again, with Patience calling everyone heathens, Ella relaxed in her seat. Perhaps Sal had decided not to use the ammo Mary had dug up.

  Soon, the proceedings moved on to the candidates’ closing statements. Ella’s stomach growled at the prospect of eating soon.

  As laid out prior, Stew called on the candidates in a random order according to the sophisticated method of drawing their names from a hat. Lou’s name was pulled first. He’d said the least so far, keeping his answers short and so far off-topic that it left most scratching their heads.

  True to form, he pulled a toothpick from the corner of his mouth, used it to scratch the shadow of stubble on his generously-sized neck, and said, “If ya pick me, I promise, ah, jobs for everyone… clean water…”

  Ella whispered to Will, “Wait, what’s wrong with our water?”

  “Nothing.” The inventor’s features were arranged in a frown as he stared at Lou.

  “…and, uh,” Lou continued to flounder, “free booze for all!”

  After that last statement, it took a while for Stew and Ukulele Joe to regain control of the room again.

  “Alright,” Stew said with a hiss of breath, appearing harassed. “Who’s next?”

  Beside him, Ukulele Joe pulled out the next name, bent to the microphone, and called on Patience. She used her closing statement, not to endear the townspeople to her, but to sling mud at the other candidates on stage, ending, of course, with Wink.

  “Time’s up, I’m afraid,” Stew said, cutting her off mid-sentence and not seeming in the least bit apologetic.

  Ukulele Joe pulled another scrap of paper and called out, “Pearl Winkel,” in a sing-song voice as if she was a contestant on a game show.

  Wink cleared her throat and proceeded to dazzle the crowd with the improvements she planned for the town if she were elected, including a renewable energy source—a term Ella had taught her.

  “I may not have political experience, but I have been the head of several committees as previously stated. I’m the best candidate for mayor because I know this community. I know its needs—your needs. This election isn’t just about keeping things the status quo but about change. It’s about improving our town.”

  At the word “change,” more than one person shifted in their seat.

  “Thank you, Wink—I mean, Pearl.” Stewart looked to the last candidate. “Sal?”

  The barber ran his hands down the front of his button-up shirt. Ella couldn’t help but lean forward and tense.

  “When the duty of mayor was unexpectedly placed on my shoulders, I’ll admit, I was scared. I thought, ‘Sal, do you really think you can fill such big shoes?’”

  Flo hissed out, “Did that buffoon forget Mayor Bradford killed his daughter?”

  Ella didn’t bother shushing the woman because it was a fair point.

  “I’ve learned a lot these past few months, and I think we can all agree that I’ve done a fine job keeping this town running. If elected, sure, I’ll improve the things that need improving, but it’s you fine folks who keep this town great. No town has been through as much as we have.

  “However,” he continued, “there’s a cancer I would excise.” He paused for dramatic effect, giving Ella ample time to whisper into Flo’s ear that excise meant to get rid of. The senior citizen’s elbow dug into Ella’s side in response.

  “That cancer,” Sal continued, “is Sheriff Chapman.” He threw an accusatory finger at the man who was still propped against the wall.

  To his credit, the sheriff didn’t so much as twitch.

  Sal’s voice rose in both tone and volume. “I have proof, undeniable proof, that that man right there is dirty. I know he’s an elected official, but mark my words, I’ll do everything in my power to oust him.”

  The church erupted. Several jumped to their feet, jeering, including, Ella’s entire row. Shoes were lobbed from different places like grenades, narrowly missing the barber and other candidates.

  There was the sporadic clapping and cheering by those, Ella noted after searching them out, who made the sheriff’s jail cell their weekend getaway.

  “What sort of proof?” someone shouted.

  Ignoring Stew’s calls for order, Sal gripped his microphone until his knuckles turned white. “I have proof that he’s lenient on murderers, to the point of letting them roam free in the town without serving any time. And,” he added, pausing dramatically again. “I’ve been informed that he knows not only how the town is jumping, but who is responsible.”

  The room fell into a deathly silence.

  Icy fingers gripped Ella’s chest, and she glanced, horrified, at Will and Flo.

  “So, the real questions are why hasn’t anyone been arrested and why hasn’t he stopped the jumps?”

  Chapter 4

  IT WASN’T UNTIL Stew created a feedback loop in the speaker system, causing everyone to cover their ears, before the room quieted enough for him to speak again.

  As he opened his mouth, the starter pistol went off, sending more than a few diving for cover. A man with a red face and a sheepish grin apologized.

  “This debate is now closed,” Stew said. “I’d like to remind everyone that accusations are just that, and to behave civilly. Speaking of, I think we all know what time it is—”

  “That’s right, folks,” Ukulele Joe interrupted, strumming his signature instrument which had materialized during the chaos. “Time for our bi-weekly potluck.”

  It took a while before the palpable tension eased and for the chairs to rearranged around foldout tables. Once they had, Sal took his usual place at the lectern, microphone in hand. Other than the sweat glistening over his face, there was no outward appearance that he’d just accused the only lawman in town of unlawful conduct. And even the sweat probably had more to do with the sauna that was the inside of the church than his slandering.

  Hands were used as fans to cool faces as the crowd shuffled into a haphazard wall near the island of tables.

  “Alright, folks,” Sal announced. “Let’s eat.”

  Ella plopped her plate down beside Will and gingerly touched her fat lip. “W
h-how did you get apple pie?” She stared longingly at his dessert and compared it to the shred of crust on her plate, the only bit she’d managed to nab before Lou had jostled her aside.

  “Traded Ruth for it.” The inventor winked, then he gestured at her lip. “Sally punch you?”

  “Pff, like she could reach, that little munchkin.” She attacked a blueberry cobbler with her fork. “No, this is Flo’s doing.”

  A new voice joined the conversation. “Maybe if you’d ducked when I told you to, you wouldn’t have gotten hit.” Flo dropped to a chair with much fanfare of grunting and sat so close to Will, their shoulders brushed. “Poodle Head tell you she hit a little girl?”

  Ella’s fork dropped with a loud clatter. “I didn’t hit her. I was reaching for a stack of cookies at the same time she stepped in front of me. Her face just happened to get in the way.” Her hand had lightly grazed the girl’s cheek, not even hard enough for the skin to turn red.

  Will’s eyes, the color of a blue-green sea, widened in her direction. “You hit a little girl?”

  “Sally’s not a little girl,” Ella retorted, and Will mouthed her next statement along with her, matching it word for word, having heard it dozens of times before. “She’s satan’s minion, spawned from the fiery lakes of hell.”

  Scowling at the inventor, she stabbed her fork into his apple pie and stole a bite as Wink sat down. Ella divvied up her bounty amongst Wink and Flo, then she took her share from each of their plates, saying, “Ladies, it’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

  A moment followed filled with the sounds of their chewing before Flo broke it. “Hey Wink, Poodle Head, here, punched Sally.”

  Wink eyed Ella over a forkful of lasagna.

  Ella hissed out a breath between her teeth. “It was an accident. Also, Flo hit me, but you don’t hear me complaining about it.” She gestured at her lip, wincing as she gingerly touched it.

  “And I told you, you shouldn’t have gotten in the way.”

  “Next time you yell ‘Geronimo!’ and dive at the cobbler, give me a warning so I can get out of the way.”

  “What’d Flo do this time?” Jimmy and Rose sat in the two remaining chairs. Scrutinizing her lip, he said, “that looks like it smarts.”

  “It does smart, Jimmy. Thank you.” Ella stuck her tongue out at Flo.

  “Too bad she doesn’t have smarts, to begin with,” Flo said.

  “What? That doesn’t even make sense. You need to work on your comebacks.”

  “El hit a little girl,” Will announced to the innkeepers.

  “Thanks, Will. Super helpful.” Ella slipped an ice cube between her gums and lip. She didn’t want to admit that she felt a little guilty over the incident, but less so about making Sally cry, who’d clearly overreacted on purpose.

  Eager to change the subject, she said she didn’t know Sal disliked Chapman then was forced to repeat the comment because no one had understood it through the icy water drooling from her lip.

  “I said, I didn’t know Sal had it in for Chapman. Seems sort of out of left field, no?”

  Rose chewed thoughtfully. “Actually, no. They had a big row way back, not sure what it was about.”

  Jimmy nodded. “But it’s been pretty quiet between them since.”

  Speaking of the man, Ella wondered where Sal had wandered off to. She scanned the crowd for him, craning her head every which way but didn’t see him.

  “He ducked out just after he announced the potlucks,” Will said, seeming to have read her mind.

  “After that bombshell he dropped? I wonder why.”

  Flo snorted, spraying lasagna shrapnel across the table. “Because he knows people will hound him about this so-called dirt he has on the sheriff, and they’ll find out he’s lying.”

  Ella wasn’t so sure about that. But it begged the bigger question: how had he known about the professor and his device?

  “I don’t think that’s the accusation people are focusing on.” Rose leaned in, her elbows uncharacteristically propped on the table. “Do you think it’s true? What he said about the sheriff knowing how the town jumps?”

  Jimmy was the only one to shake his head. The others had gone mute, and Ella studied her cobbler as if it held her horoscope.

  “Oh my goodness.” Rose sat back with a thud and looked around in admonishment. “It is true, isn’t it? And you all knew about it?”

  Ella picked at the cobbler, her appetite having gone the way of the dinosaurs within the last minute. After she, Flo, and Wink had broken into the professor’s basement and secret laboratory—or would it be more of a workshop? Whatever it was, after they’d discovered it, they had agreed, along with Chapman and Will, that it was best to keep the time device a secret for now since there was no way, at the moment, to stop it. News of it would travel faster than light, and the entire town would descend—or in the case of Dr. Kaufman’s home on the hill—ascend to the basement, making it harder to figure out how to stop the jumps.

  “We’ll tell you two everything later,” Ella said finally when no one else spoke up. She didn’t want to take any chances of being overheard.

  As they ate, surrounded by the upbeat strumming and off-key serenading of Ukulele Joe, the tension in the sanctuary still felt high. Maybe it was a lingering aura from the debate or maybe it was Sal’s subsequent accusation or maybe it was simply the threat of the creatures roaming around town. Whatever the cause, Ella felt it creep into her bones like that moment of pressure before a storm.

  Her mind went to Chapman who had also gone inexplicably absent, no doubt brooding in his office. What did Sal have on him? Certainly, it had something to do with Mary Kirkland and that phone call. But what transgression had the lawman committed?

  Ella was more than fond of the man; she genuinely liked him. Perhaps he was old school in his methods and had a loose interpretation of the law, but he was integrity exemplified. This town and that badge were all he had.

  A fierce protectiveness welled up inside of her, a need to find out what Sal had and to stop him before he hurt a good man. She would eat a bowl of vegetables before she let that stupid barber take down one of her friends.

  “You alight there, El?” Will asked, intruding on her dark thoughts. “You look like you’re gearing up for a fight. You’re not going back for seconds are you?” He inclined his head towards the dessert table.

  “No, just thinking about Sally,” she lied, unsure why it slipped out.

  Across the room at the double doors, Patience darted outside through a slit of bright light. Ella watched her until the last folds of her voluminous wool shift and layers of petticoats disappeared. Why in the First Thanksgiving was the councilwoman leaving early and unarmed?

  She shook off the question and continued eating. About ten minutes later, after she polished off the last of her plate, she sat back and copied Will’s posture. Thankfully, she’d kept her stretchy pants on for the occasion.

  It began as a rumble in the floor that grew to a thundering vibration that traveled up her legs. Dishes all over the church rattled.

  Popping up, Ella was about to yell that it was an earthquake and for everyone to duck under their tables when there came a deep, hair-raising roar outside.

  It was unlike any sound she’d ever heard, like a dozen chainsaws and peals of thunder fed into a loudspeaker system. Despite never having heard the sound before in real life, it was eerily similar to movies she’d watched.

  Her blood turned cold, and she felt the urge to find the nearest toilet. She wanted to flee, her mind racing with visions of a ginormous T. rex obliterating the church Godzilla style, but her feet wouldn’t cooperate. They were currently glued to the floor.

  The roar bellowed again. Closer.

  The intermittent tremble of the floor grew stronger. Her arms prickled with goosebumps.

  Screams erupted around the room as some tried to flee out the side doors before realizing the foolishness of going outside. Most hid under tables as she’d been about to su
ggest back when she thought the vibrations were from an earthquake. Ah, good times. If she could just rewind to that moment—

  The front doors burst in. One of the roaming sentries she’d seen out on the lawn when she and Rose had first arrived bent over, panting. He pointed a shaky finger in the direction of the street. “Ty-ty-tyran…” He couldn’t seem to spit out the rest of the dinosaur’s name. But a different name did manage to tumble out. “Six Shooter.”

  Chapter 5

  EVERY FIBER OF Ella’s being told her to curl up in a ball on the floor. Ignoring the adrenaline flooding her system and all logic that screamed at her to stop, she ran towards the front doors.

  Will called her name, then his footsteps thudded behind her. At the front windows, a few brave souls peeked out. Ella didn’t even bother to glance through the glass before she tore outside

  She vaulted the church steps and only looked up when her shoes slapped the sidewalk. The sight sent her skidding to a cold stop. Six stood in the middle of the street, his hands out near his holsters as if gearing up for a good, old-fashioned Wild West quick draw.

  But what caused her heart to stutter was the ginormous dinosaur lumbering down the street, headed straight for the outlaw. Its head rose above the two-story businesses that flanked Main Street. Cracking the pavement, each foot of the T. rex crashed down and showed off claws at least seven inches long.

  “Six!” His name came off her swollen lip as a trembling whisper.

  She edged closer, cleared her throat, and shouted his name, never taking her eyes off of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

  He glanced her way. “Get outta here, darlin’. This don’t concern you.”

  “What are you doing?” The dinosaur was now abreast of the town proper. Her feet carried her forward of their own accord. “Get back here! It’ll kill you!”

  He cricked his neck, fingers wiggling near his namesake. “Maybe.”