Traveling Town Cozy Mystery Box Set

by Ami Diane

  She pointed this out to Will.

  “Whoever wrote this is referencing kitchen tables and school and trash cans.”

  He shrugged. “They’re either very creative or not at all. Probably a kid.”

  That led to a slew of new questions for Ella—well, old ones that had never been answered. On several occasions, while dropping off her bi-monthly payments at the General Store, she’d asked Henry who had left the computer. According to him, it had been there ever since he’d started working in the store.

  “Hmm,” Will said, pulling her from her thoughts. “Look, here, how the author describes the goblin queen. She sounds like one of our reptile friends outside.”

  Ella scanned the paragraph and had to admit that it did. “Except a bit more anthropomorphic than ours.”

  Minutes of reading turned into an hour as they became enthralled with the adventures of the knight downtrodden life while under the reign of the goblin queen. The author had an overactive imagination, if not a bit violent and gory at times, but it made for entertaining reading, nonetheless.

  At some point, Rose popped in and asked Will if he planned on staying overnight in one of the guest rooms since it was getting dark. He declined, albeit reluctantly by his expression.

  “Maybe it would be best if you left the computer here until tomorrow,” Ella suggested. “Then we can move it when we have more time and aren’t strapped for daylight.”

  “You just want to read more stories.”

  She feigned a gasp. “William Watson Whitehall—”

  “Wrong guess yet again.”

  “—I’m only concerned for your safety. Having to lug all of this stuff from your car to your house is too dangerous with dinosaurs lurking about.”

  She absolutely planned on reading more.

  “Very well, but only if you promise not to read more without me.”

  She tutted but reluctantly agreed, walking him to the foyer. She waited until he drove off before locking the door. The rarely used bolt slid home. It wasn’t that she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t help envisioning reptiles with sharp teeth and the ability to open doors. Or humans who opened them for reptiles.

  As her feet whispered over the hardwood floors near the bottom of the staircase, a fluffy tail disappeared down the hall that led to the kitchen. Ella felt a twang of guilt about neglecting the large Maine coon cat the past few days, having been preoccupied with Wink’s campaign and Will’s present.

  She traipsed after Fluffy and caught up with him at the kitchen door. After swinging the door in, she poured Rose’s homemade cat food into the cat’s dish near the refrigerator then swept her hand through his long fur while he went to town on the food like she attacked a plate of nachos.

  That was another food she missed. Sure she could scrounge up tortilla chips from one of the locals and melt cheese on top, but it wouldn’t be the fake stuff, the kind she’d get at gas stations where the cheese had begun to congeal on top. Her tongue salivated.

  Shaking away the delicious memories, she continued to scratch Fluffy between his ears. Everyone else must have turned in for the night, something she planned on doing very soon.

  The sound of the ticking clock was drowned out by distant, muffled voices. Ella paused mid-stroke of the feline’s fur, earning a strong, indignant head-butt. Standing, she traced the voices to the top of the basement steps. The door, again, stood yawning open, a maw of darkness.

  From the sound of it, Flo and Wink were arguing. About what, she could only guess, but she had no intention of finding out. She about-turned, dreaming of her soft mattress when she caught the words “break-in.”

  She stopped.

  She retraced her steps and descended the basement steps, sighing. Not too long ago, she would go an entire week without stepping foot into the cold, dank darkness, when her need to do laundry required she do so.

  The hidden wall for Flo’s bunker was aside, the voices coming from the dim light beyond. Entering, Ella braced herself for whatever fresh hell the women were up to but found, with relief, that the only reptile was Chester in his T. rex costume sprawled out on the bar.

  The two older women’s arguing abruptly ceased at the sound of Ella’s footsteps, but as soon as they saw who it was, they resumed.

  “Since when did you get to be such a baby?” Wink was accusing Flo.

  “I ain’t scared to break in. I just happen to agree with Chapman on this one.”

  Ella and Wink gasped. Flo herself seemed taken aback by her own words, grimacing and smacking her lips together as if the sentence left a bitter taste.

  “Ladies,” Ella greeted them as she plopped onto the same stool she’d sat on before, side-eyeing Chester’s costume. “Whatcha talking about? Knitting? Baking? Quilting, perhaps?”

  Wink’s lips pressed into a thin line, and she fed Chester a treat.

  Leveling her thick glasses in Ella’s direction, Flo explained, “Dino-lover, here, wants to bust Peanut out of the slammer.”

  “Yeah, no. I’m in agreement with Flo on this one.” Ella realized what she’d just said and made the same smacking noises with her mouth she’d seen Flo do. “Do you see that, Wink? You’ve put me in a horrible position, agreeing with cotton candy head over here. That should tell you just how crazy of an idea it is.”

  “But Peanut’s so sad and restless, cooped up in that itty, bitty cell. He needs to roam free.”

  Ella threw her hands up. “I agree. Which is why you shouldn’t have captured him in the first place.”

  The diner owner didn’t seem to have a good retort and took to feeding Chester another treat.

  Ella continued, softening her voice. “If he did kill Mary—” she held up a finger, staving off Wink’s protest “—if there’s even a slim chance that he did, he shouldn’t be wandering about town. Or trapped in a basement.”

  Wink wiped her fingers down her blouse, drawing Chester forward in search of more treats. “I believe in the very bottom of my heart that Peanut didn’t maul that woman to death. I can’t prove it, but I know he’s innocent.” Her eyes glimmered under the dim speakeasy light. “Don’t you see? There’s a chance that an innocent animal will be…” she seemed to struggle for an appropriate word.

  “Dispatched,” Ella supplied.

  “Yes, dispatched for something he didn’t do. If there’s a possibility that he’s innocent, shouldn’t we do everything we can to prove it?”

  Ella sucked in a long, slow breath, closing her eyes. The woman had a point.

  “Flo?” Wink’s voice pleaded with her best friend.

  “Look, I’ve said my piece. But if you’re hellbent on breaking into the sheriff’s office, then you know I’m in. I can’t let you have all of the fun.”

  When Ella opened her eyes again, she found the lines in Wink’s face had softened into a weak smile.

  “El?” she asked.

  Words rolled around in Ella’s head as she carefully picked through them.

  “I’m not agreeing to break him out—yet. But I do think we should prove him guilty or innocent.”

  “How do we do that?” Flo asked.

  After drumming her fingers on the bar top, Ella finally said, “His bite marks. We get a sample and compare it to the victim, measuring his bite radius, teeth marks, etc.”

  The other two stared at her for longer than Ella felt necessary.

  Flo’s face scrunched in confusion. “Huh?”

  “No,” Wink said, “it makes sense. Getting the bite sample from Peanut will be easy.”

  “It will?” Ella asked.

  Wink nodded, sending a pink curl into her eyes. “But it’s the other part… comparing it to the body that’ll be tricky.”

  Flo straightened. “Wait, you sayin’ we got to break-in to the funeral home?”

  “Why the funeral home?” Ella looked from one to the other. “Wouldn’t the body be at the clinic in the morgue or something?”

  “Don’t you mean the hospital?” Wink asked.

 
“I refuse to call that place a hospital.”

  Hospitals were large, had more than a single hallway, and more than two doctors—one of whom was Pauline who doubled as the town coroner. No, the term “hospital” was generous for a glorified clinic smaller than the size of the inn that looked like a nightmare factory come to life.

  The few unfortunate times she’d had to visit had given her nightmares for days afterward. The dimly lit hallway was haunted by a surly nurse in an old-fashioned uniform complete with dress, apron, and cap, and an admission clerk in pinafores.

  Flo blinked behind her glasses. “Pauline does her post-mortem examinations at the funeral parlor.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” What did it say about the state of a healthcare facility when a funeral home wasn’t as grim of a prospect? “Is that normal?”

  “Before the town began jumping,” Wink explained, “as I understand it, the previous sheriff would bring in a medical examiner from one of the bigger towns. But once we were cut off from the outside world and had our first suspicious death, without proper access to a medical examiner, it became clear Pauline would need a place to…”

  “Cut people up,” Flo said.

  Ella cringed. “Thanks for that visual.”

  “Flo,” Wink admonished. “Anyway, she needed a place to perform autopsies because the hospital is, how do I say this? Limited in space.”

  “I think,” Ella said, “you mean a rural, backwater tetanus pool, but yes, I see your point.”

  “Anyway, they converted a small room at the funeral home for Pauline to conduct her examinations. The building already had a lot of the equipment needed. Refrigeration. Medical tools. There really wasn’t anywhere else.”

  The description that Wink gave made Ella feel uneasy again. And she had been looking forward to a less terrifying place than the hospital.

  “So, we just, what, sneak in to see the body with a sample of Peanut’s bite? One question: how are we going to get a sample? Because I’m telling you right now, I’m not going anywhere near that lizard’s teeth.”

  “This is your harebrained idea, Poodle Head.” Flo flipped her hand through the air at Ella but stopped short as one of her fingernails pulled her attention. After whipping an emery board from a pocket of her trousers, she attacked the nail, thereby exiting the conversation.

  Ella took that as her cue and yawned. “Let’s discuss our illicit plan later. Flo needs her beauty sleep and by the looks of it, it’ll be about a hundred years.”

  Pausing amid filing her nails, Flo stuck her middle finger in the air. Ella ignored it and forced Wink’s hand into a high five.

  Her bare skin peeled off the stool as she stood, causing her to wince.

  “Tomorrow, we exonerate a wrongly accused dinosaur by seeing a dead body at a funeral parlor. Does that sound about right?”

  Wink’s pink bob swayed as she nodded. “Should be interesting.”

  “Yes, what could possibly go wrong?”

  Chapter 10

  A PYRAMID OF saltshakers balanced on the lunch counter. Sticking her tongue out, Ella carefully placed the last one atop, completing the formation.

  Pumping her fists, she did a short Rocky Balboa jaunt around Grandma’s Kitchen before the clamor of the shakers toppling over interrupted her victory lap. Sighing, she began the tedious task of cleaning up.

  The kitchen door swung out. Wink balanced a pineapple upside-down cake in her hands.

  “Ready to try out a new recipe?”

  Ella covered her mouth to stave off a burp.

  “Not that I don’t love being your guinea pig—because I do—but I’m pretty full from that zucchini bread.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to eat the whole loaf.” Wink set the cake down and dished up a thick slice for Ella anyway.

  “Yes, I did. If there’s a whole loaf of bread sitting there, I’m going to eat it. We’ve been over this.”

  She stared at the piece of cake. “What is happening? First I’m agreeing with Flo, and now I’m refusing food? Is hell freezing over? Maybe I’ll check Sally’s home to see if it’s become an igloo.”

  “You leave that little girl alone. I think punching her’s enough.”

  Ella mumbled into her fork, “I’m never going to live that down.”

  For the next couple of minutes, she moaned the appropriate amount and lavished praises on the dessert. Then, she followed one up with a question.

  “When are you going to break down and close?” She gestured at the empty booths to emphasize her point.

  “When we leave for the funeral parlor.”

  They lapsed into a comfortable silence as they ate the pineapple upside-down cake. Ella’s eyes roamed over the knickknacks covering the wall to the soda fountain to the nearly empty trash can sitting on the black and white checkered floor. A crumpled-up note lay inside, written in a garish script on white paper.

  “What’s this?”

  Bending, she retrieved the note.

  “Nothing,” Wink said hastily.

  She made a grab for the scrap of paper, but Ella was quicker and stretched it out of reach.

  “‘Killers don’t deserve to be mayor,’” she read aloud. Why was someone accusing Wink of being a killer?

  It hit her like an apple on the head. Peanut.

  “It’s nothing.”

  Turning away, Wink busied herself by collecting their dishes. Her apron swung back and forth as she kicked through the swinging door and disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, the dishes made a ruckus in the sink, heard via the passthrough.

  Ella balled the note up and threw it back into the trash. Did people actually blame Wink for Mary’s death?

  Now, it was even more important that they prove the dinosaur’s innocence—if he was, in fact, guiltless. Part of her still questioned the allosaurus’s innocence, Wink’s gut feeling aside.

  Regardless, if Peanut was being wrongfully accused, they would get to the bottom of it.

  The smell of mothballs, death, and potpourri hit Ella like a toxic cloud of swamp gas. She breathed through her mouth but found it only mildly improved the situation. On top of the stench in the lobby of the funeral home rode a clinical, disinfectant odor.

  Wink and Flo jostled behind her.

  “A bit grim,” Flo said, taking in the room.

  Ella had to agree. Very little had been done by way of decorating, unless the plastic plant in the corner counted. The walls were an off-white, not in the intentional sense, but streaked with an aged look that said they hadn’t been washed in years.

  “Just think,” she whispered, the room demanding a soft voice, “you’ll be here in a few years. Or sooner if your track record is any indication.”

  “Ha,” Flo snapped, “keep saying stuff like that, and you’ll beat me here.”

  Ella opened her mouth, loading up a doozy of a quip, but a man entered from another door.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.” His voice was low and slow as if he were unaccustomed to using it.

  Ella didn’t like to paint people with a broad brush, but the man fit her expectation of an undertaker to a T, from his slight, stooping posture down to his black bolo tie. His papery skin clung to his skeleton like papier-mâché. Some time sampling Wink’s food would’ve done the man a world of good.

  “I’m Jensen. The director of this facility. What can I do for you?”

  He held out a wrinkled palm that made Ella feel like she was shaking the Crypt Keeper’s hand.

  She jabbed a thumb in Flo’s direction. “This one’s shopping for a coffin. Better make it quick, too, because I don’t think she’s long for this world, if you know what I mean.” She made a point of looking the kooky boarder up and down and adding, “She’s old. Very, very old.”

  “Never mind her, Jensen.” Flo shot Ella a dark look. “She ain’t right in the head. Now, what caskets do you got? I’m thinking eighteen gauge metal with a velvet interior. Gunmetal, if you got it. And big. I plan on being buried wit
h a lot of my… treasures.”

  Ella coughed and whispered out of the side of her mouth loudly at Wink, “And she thinks I’m not right in the head.”

  Jensen bent slightly at the waist in a genuflection. “Right this way, into the showroom. I think we have just the thing.”

  Ella lingered by the front door. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to stay here. This sort of stuff makes me…” She held her stomach and made gagging noises.

  “I better stay with her.” Wink made a show of feeling Ella’s forehead, her face affecting concern.

  Nodding, Jensen opened the door he’d come through, holding it out for Flo. “There’s water down the hall if you need it.”

  Ella thanked him and waited for the door to shut, leaving her alone with Wink. “Later, we need to have a chat with Flo about whatever the morbid mess this newfound obsession with coffins is.”

  “I wouldn’t say it’s new. I once found her camping out in a graveyard.” She led Ella right, down a hall that jutted off from the lobby. “I just can’t believe Jensen’s still alive. He was old when Flo and I were in high school.”

  “Wow, so he’s ancient.” Her boss shot her a withering look, but Ella double-downed on the wisecrack. “Maybe he found a way to use his embalming methods to preserve himself.”

  They ran into their first obstacle when they reached a locked door.

  “Let me guess. Pauline’s examination room is on the other side?”

  Ella tapped on the door just to be sure the doctor wasn’t in. Meanwhile, Wink searched up and down the corridor, her brows furrowed.

  “This is the only way in. I hadn’t thought of it being locked.”

  “I hate to say it, but we need Flo’s lock picking skills.”

  As with most of their plans, it was already derailed within the first few minutes.

  Chewing her lip, Wink peeked into her purse. “We need to hurry before this steak thaws.”

  Before arriving at the funeral home, she’d stopped by the sheriff’s office with a couple of frozen steaks for Peanut. After the allosaurus had bitten down on one, she’d placed it in her purse while he inhaled the other.