Traveling Town Mystery Boxset

by Ami Diane

  “I found some jewelweed in the inn’s conservatory,” she blurted out then winced at how ridiculous she sounded now that she heard it aloud. “There are several clippings missing. I noticed it when I went to get some for myself.” She showed him her poison oak rash.

  “Ain’t nothing special about that.” His gaze drifted across the road, seeming to grow bored with the conversation. “Lots a folks use it for skin ailments.”

  “Well, Kay had a poison oak rash, remember?”

  He squared his face on her again, and his chest heaved with a big, impatient breath. “Miss Barton, I’m failing to see what this has to do with anything.”

  “What if the jewelweed is what poisoned her?”

  “She would’ve had to ingest it.”

  “Okay. So, maybe someone smashed it up and put it in her food or drink.”

  “Or maybe Kay took the jewelweed that’s missing from the inn and used it on her rash.”

  “Maybe. But it’s at least worth looking into, right? And Rose was the one that took the clippings.”

  He tipped his head, seeming to consider this.

  Ella chewed her lip, wondering how best to broach the next bit of information. She didn’t want to throw Jimmy under the bus, so subtly was key.

  “Did you know Jimmy was having an affair with Kay?”

  Sheriff Chapman’s eyes snapped back to her. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Six.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Well, maybe. Yeah.”

  The sheriff continued to study her, searching her thoughts.

  “Look,” Ella said, “I’ve only been here a few days, but even I know Six has fewer scruples than I have hairs on my chin.”

  His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch.

  “Which is to say, none,” she added, feeling that point hadn’t been clear.

  “Hm.”

  “What was my point? Oh yeah. Point is, he said he saw the two of them sneaking off into the woods. He had no reason to lie about it. I can usually tell when people are lying. I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

  “Aren’t you friends with Wink and Flo?”

  “I stand corrected. Usually, I’m a good judge of character.” Ella rocked back and forth on her feet. The conversation wasn’t going as smoothly as she’d hoped. “Also, Kay had tree sap on her shoes the day she died, remember?”

  His eyebrows crawled higher still.

  “Then again, that could’ve been because Kay found Six’s still…”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Really? Huh, I thought for sure I had.”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “No, you failed to mention it.”

  Ella clicked tongue against her teeth. “Well, that’s awkward. My bad.”

  The sheriff stood quietly for a while as his fingers continued to work over his mustache. She could almost see the cogs turning in his head. Jimmy and Kay were having an affair. Jimmy’s wife cut the jewelweed. But Kay had found Six’s still.

  “It’s all just a bunch of jawing, though. Just gossip and speculation. I need evidence,” he said, more to himself than to her. He looked back at the small department building. “But I’ll be having another chat with that barker back there about more than just his illegal, backwoods operation. And it won’t be a friendly one.”

  Ella wasn’t sure what a barker was but knew it was a barb against Jesse, in which case, she liked the term. “Don’t forget, he also tried to kill me.”

  “Miss Barton, I appreciate you bringing all this to my attention. But in case you forget, this is my investigation. I know you’re new, so I’ll give you leeway. But from here on out, stay out of this. Focus on settling in and leave murderers to me.”

  He brushed the brim of his hat and strolled back to his office. Ella watched the door close with a bang.

  After glancing at her watch, she headed back to the inn. She worked her hair into a high bun and instantly felt ten degrees cooler. She blew a loose strand away from her face and admired the disaster in the mirror.

  “Maybe I should go see this Jenny,” she muttered at her reflection. It had been a while since she’d had her hair cut. A new town, a new hairdo might help turn her situation into a fresh start.

  If she were being honest, she hadn’t left much behind in Oregon. A string of lousy boyfriends—none too serious—and a rocky relationship with her parents. They’d go through spells of getting along, followed by blowouts and not speaking for months. They’d just so happen to be going through a good bout during Thanksgiving.

  Still, the idea of seeing none of them again or not being able to continue her research reignited the flame that she would return someday. She had to. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to that life forever.

  Sighing, Ella gave up on her hair and pushed away from the mirror. She still had forty-five minutes before dinner with Wink. She figured it would take twenty minutes to reach the top of Twin Hills—a good part of it uphill. She was tempted to drive there but wanted the exercise since she planned on indulging at Wink’s.

  One thing was certain, she didn’t want to be around the inn in case Sheriff Chapman stopped by to see the plant in the conservatory or to question the Murrays. Guilt was gnawing a hole through her stomach enough as it was.

  Ella reconsidered and decided to leave for Wink’s early, not only to avoid a possibly uncomfortable situation, but also to help Wink if she needed it.

  She departed the inn and hiked up Main Street. Despite the heat radiating from the concrete, she wondered if she shouldn’t have changed out of her shorts before leaving. Once the sun dipped behind the hills, the cool, evening air would blow over the lake, and the temperature would drop. It was going to be a chilly walk home.

  When Ella reached the edge of town, the sidewalk became a gravel shoulder, and she pressed on, past the point Will had picked her up on her way to the greenhouses. Everything appeared different at this pace, and she noticed scenery she’d overlooked while going thirty in Will’s pickup.

  Just before the road began to climb, large fields stretched out on her left for several acres before running into a massive orchard that nearly swallowed the dunes on the horizon.

  A white fence ran the perimeter of the nearest field, and a dairy sat in the center. Several hundred cattle—both Herefords and Holsteins—roamed around, their jaws working back and forth as they chewed their cud.

  Soon, the unpleasant odor of manure filled her nostrils, and she took care to breathe through her mouth until she passed the field.

  A large white house sat near the road, and Ella assumed the owner of the dairy lived there. Splashes of color lined the abode in flower beds full of Gerber daisies, geraniums, and something that reminded her of a white sea anemone.

  She noticed that part of the white fencing around the yard was missing, replaced with four by six-inch boards of grayed wood. The repair appeared recent.

  The steep hike up Twin Hills was as exhausting as she’d anticipated. The dirt road meandered up the hill in a corkscrew pattern that had her huffing and puffing within minutes. As she neared the top, she was convinced that not only had she burned off the calories from all the sweets she’d consumed since arriving in Keystone, but from her Thanksgiving meal and maybe even all the Halloween candy she’d bought to “give out to the children” but ended up gorging on herself.

  Wink’s house rested at the very top of the left hill, a blurry speck of blue glimpsed between evergreens. Ella paused by another house, taller than it was wide, complete with stamp-sized yard, to catch her breath for the tenth time.

  While she swallowed air, the professor popped out onto the porch, the screen door slamming shut behind him. He looked in Ella’s direction, and she waved, unsure if he was actually looking at her or not. With an abrupt turn, he bolted back into his house.

  Ella dropped her hand and hollered to the empty air, “Good to see you too, professor!”

&
nbsp; Will wasn’t kidding about the man’s social skills. Some people just liked their privacy. Of course, it stood to reason that anyone who lived on a hill, away from a small town, preferred more privacy than most.

  Which left Ella wondering why Wink lived at the top. The older woman seemed to relish other’s company, so it seemed odd she would live apart from them.

  But Ella had learned people were not always what they appeared to be. Sometimes, a person would project themselves opposite of the flaw they sought to cover up. People insecure about their height wore taller shoes or someone who had grown up poor might hoard money and put on a wealthy front. Whatever the compensation, it could be traced back to an insecurity.

  Wiping beads of sweat from her forehead, she collapsed onto Wink’s porch steps, looking with longing at the door. A moment later, a shadowy figure stood on the other side of the screen. Wink shoved the door open.

  “My goodness, you okay?”

  “Fine. Hill,” Ella gasped and pointed at the offending landscape as if Wink weren’t aware that she lived on a hill that seemed more mountain with each stab of pain in Ella’s side.

  “My stars, child. You need more exercise.”

  “You need to move to a new house.”

  Wink disappeared and came back with a glass of water, ice tinkling against the sides. Ella sucked down the cool liquid.

  “You do that hike every day?”

  Grandma Wink shrugged. “Most days. Sometimes I drive if we’re in a snowy climate or the weather’s too hot.”

  “We’re in a freaking desert.”

  “I know. I drove.”

  Ella made loud, pointed slurping noises with the last sips of water and handed the empty glass back to Wink. Now that she didn’t feel like a potential heart attack victim, she climbed to her feet and admired the view.

  The vista stole her words away. Keystone Village was an oasis in a vast desert. A sharp line of green grass and cream colored sand marked the town’s boundary of what jumped through spacetime and what stayed behind.

  She let out a low whistle. “You can see everything from up here.”

  “I know.” Pride was evident in Wink’s voice. “I’ve seen the ancient pyramids from my window, hiked Greenland’s glaciers, wandered the ruins of Angkor Wat, swam the Mediterranean, and walked the Great Wall of China. I’ve seen it all, and I’ve never stopped being in awe of it.”

  A deep ache grew in Ella’s chest. A wanderlust she’d long ignored began to awaken. If she remained long enough in Keystone, what wonders might she see?

  Ella traced the demarcation between town and desert with her gaze, rotating a full three hundred and sixty degrees. She stopped. There was something strange about the delineation.

  Shielding her face from the sun, she studied the landscape again and realized what it was with a jolt. It was so apparent, she wondered how she’d missed it before.

  “Wink, you ever notice how the town’s border forms a perfect circle?”

  “Strange, huh? One of the many mysteries about Keystone.”

  There was something else nagging in the back of Ella’s mind, something she couldn’t put her finger on.

  After appreciating the view until they could no longer tolerate the heat, Ella followed the older woman inside. The house was bright, an old colonial style painted in vivid, vibrant colors that matched the owner’s personality. Light poured in from many windows, washing over knickknacks and comfy chairs.

  The smell wafting in from the kitchen was heavenly and promised to make up for all of the calories she’d just burned hiking up the hill. A ray of golden light fell on Wink’s couch, and Ella felt she could curl up and nap for hours. The whole place was cozy, made for peace and warm memories.

  In the kitchen, Wink directed Ella to a cupboard full of dishes. Ella set the dining room table then helped bring in several trays of food. By the fifth platter, she began to wonder if they weren’t having a Thanksgiving meal.

  “Are you expecting more company?”

  A coy smile played at Wink’s lips. “I may have invited a guest. Speaking of, we need another place setting.”

  Ella narrowed her eyes. “Who?”

  Wink ducked back into the kitchen.

  “Who did you invite, Wink?” Ella had a sneaking suspicion she knew who it was and glanced at her reflection a couple of times to be sure she didn’t have perspiration rings anywhere on her clothing.

  However, when Wink returned cradling a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes and chives, Ella quickly forgot about their mystery guest.

  While they ate, Grandma Wink regaled Ella with tales of travel from all the different locations the town had flashed to and of the various animals and people who had passed through the village.

  “I know it’s hard being so rude, but really, we’re doing them a favor,” she explained. “We don’t want them getting stuck here.”

  Ella understood that now.

  “I saw your hang glider outside. Do you fly often?”

  “When the wind’s right.”

  Ella tore open a homemade biscuit that both flaked and felt like butter in her hands. “The wind would never be right for me. You couldn’t pay me to hang from one of those.”

  “Oh?” Wink’s eyes glinted.

  “That wasn’t a challenge.”

  “Sure, dear.”

  “No, really. You’d have to drug me.”

  “Okay.”

  Ella eyed her new friend over her glass of tea and sipped slowly. Then, she glanced at the amber liquid in her cup and made a mental note to be suspicious of any food or beverage Wink offered her in the future.

  She set the glass aside and opted for a thick fillet of lemon dill rainbow trout. “Do you worry about landing outside the town limits?”

  “It’s only happened a couple of times, and thankfully, I was able to foot it back quickly.”

  Digging into her trout, Ella changed the subject to Wink’s diner.

  “Sheriff says I can open back up tomorrow morning,” Wink said.

  “That’s great.” Ella looked over the expanse of food. “And not just because I’ll have another place to eat besides raiding Rose’s fridge every day.”

  Wink’s smile faltered as she slathered butter and honey onto her biscuit. “It just won’t be the same without my Kayline there. And I’m not sure Horatio and I can run the place by ourselves. You’d be surprised at how busy we get in such a small town. Most folks get tired of prepping and cooking at home. And secretly, it’s the best spot to gather a bit of gossip.”

  She took a bite and continued. “As it is, I’m going to have to be there all day now. Might have to close a few hours early just to give myself a break.”

  Ella’s hand paused in front of her mouth, a fork ladened with fish hovering in the air. “Maybe I can help out until you find someone. I worked as a waitress, and by ‘worked’ I mean I broke dishes and scraped gum off tables for a year between high school and college.” After that ringing endorsement, she felt the need to add, “I’d be an extra set of hands.”

  “You make it sound so enticing,” Wink said. Ella knew she was being sarcastic, but what she couldn’t tell was whether or not Wink was considering the offer.

  “Hard to resist, I know.” She waited with baited breath.

  “Well, why on earth didn’t I think of that?” Wink dropped her biscuit as she stared at Ella. “I’m looking for help, and you’re looking for work. It’s perfect.” She beamed across the Caprese salad. “You’re hot.”

  “Nope. Only works to describe appearances.”

  Wink’s face fell. “Oh dear. I told my butcher the way he cut my steaks was hot. No wonder he was confused.”

  Ella choked on a bite of biscuit. “Actually, that works. But…” She shook her head. “Know what? Doesn’t matter.”

  If Wink kept insisting on using the word, Ella would explain the more nuanced meaning to it later.

  “Maybe I should work at the diner on a trial basis, first. I don’t want you to feel obli
gated to keep me if I’m not working out. It’s been years since my short stint serving tables. On an unrelated note, is there an acceptable number of dishes I can break before you fire me?”

  “I’m sure you’ll be perfect.”

  The screen door squealed open then slapped shut. “Perfect for what?” someone asked.

  Ella recognized Will’s smooth, deep voice without turning around. She shot daggers at Wink, who opened her eyes innocently before she beckoned the inventor to the table.

  Slipping into the chair across from Ella, he glanced back and forth between their expressions, and his ears turned pink. “Wink didn’t tell you I was joining you, did she?”

  “Nope.” Ella kept her eyes fixated on Wink, who became far too intrigued with searching for a bone in her rainbow trout.

  “Will comes over for dinner a couple times a week. It’s not unusual. It ain’t right for a person to not get three square meals a day.” She grabbed his plate without asking and shoveled a mountain of mashed potatoes onto it.

  “I eat fine,” he protested, but when she set the plate in front of him, he dug in with gusto. Soon, gravy ran down his chin and flakes of biscuit sprinkled over his shirt like dandruff.

  Ella gaped at him. “You sure you get enough to eat at home?”

  He blinked then looked down at the mess he’d created. After swallowing a rather large bite, he dabbed at his mouth with a cloth napkin and cleared his throat.

  “I just get so focused on my work sometimes I forget to take a break.” He shot Wink a look before returning his blue eyes back to Ella. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the memorial.”

  Because you were distracted by a pretty blonde. The moment she thought that, her cheeks flushed. What did she care?

  “I appreciate you coming to the service.”

  Ella nodded, her mouth too full of string beans to respond properly.

  “Ella’s going to be working in the diner,” Wink said.

  “That so?”

  When Ella finally managed to swallow the vegetable, she said, “I think she’ll regret having me the moment the fire engine shows up.” She paused. “Wait, do we have a fire department?”