Traveling Town Mystery Boxset

by Ami Diane

  “Told you.” She smiled and left the door open to see if he wanted back in. When he gingerly took a couple of steps, she shrugged and slammed the door closed.

  Ella turned her attention to the substation and let out a disappointing “Huh.”

  “What?” Wink wrapped a knit shawl around her shoulders.

  “Nothing. It’s just, I expected more of a station. A building at the very least.”

  Behind the fence sat a small housing surrounded by metal frames, wires, power lines, metal structures, and other things she could only guess the names of, like Coily Tube Thingie and Important-Looking-Box. She spotted what might have been a large transformer but could very well have been an old-fashioned ice cream maker.

  Flo massaged her neck. “Been a while since I’ve been out here.”

  “Probably since they first installed it, right?” Ella said. “Around the time electricity was discovered?”

  Flo flipped Ella off before hiking up her slacks and forging a path through the thin layer of snow.

  Ella turned to Wink. “Now what? I don’t know what I’d expected, but I thought there’d be someone here we could ask questions.”

  “Well, we won’t learn nothing by standing ‘round letting our lady bits get cold.” She waved towards Flo’s receding back.

  “Ew,” Ella muttered.

  Wrapping her arms around her waist, she proceeded to trudge after Flo and Fluffy, following the older woman’s sensible-shoe footprints and the cat’s adorable toe bean ones.

  Oversized, fresh flakes began to fall from the gray sky. The trio plus feline stood in front of the chain link fence, staring at the top several inches overhead.

  Ella ran some back of the napkin calculations on her chances of success if she scaled the fence. They weren’t good. “I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure a fence means we’re supposed to keep out.”

  “Naw,” Flo said, shaking the metal, probably to test for a weakness. “That’s just to keep stupid people from getting hurt.”

  “Like us?” Ella rubbed the side of her face. “I guess it’s not like we’ve never trespassed before.” She paused. “Wait, should I be worried that within my first month of being around you two, I’ve already broken the law?”

  “That little gander onto Six’s property?” Wink said, roaming up and down the fence, searching for an entry point. “That doesn’t count. It was for the safety of the town.”

  “Sure, sure. With logic like that, who can argue?”

  Fluffy had lost interest and was currently pouncing at a random patch of snow, the white powder just past his paws.

  Wink had taken to circling the perimeter of the fence while Flo and Ella searched for a gap between the metal and the ground. The tallest spot they located was a mere three inches, and unless Ella was capable of turning to putty—or flubber—under wasn’t the way they were getting inside.

  “Welp,” Ella said, rubbing her hands together, “up and over, it is.”

  She stared at Flo.

  Flo stared back.

  “What?”

  Ella jerked her head at the fence. “I said, ‘up and over’.”

  “I heard. What do you want me to do about it?”

  Ella opened her mouth but stopped short. Getting a boost up from the old woman hadn’t worked out so well before.

  “Never mind.”

  Curling her fingers around the wire, she dug the tips of her shoes into the holes and began a cautious ascent. As she neared the top, her confidence grew.

  She swung a leg over, and that’s when her confidence came crashing to earth. As her other leg was rolling over the top of the chainlink to join the first, a part of the wire caught her jeans just over her left butt cheek.

  She pulled, but the material held fast. With another hard tug. The move threw her balance off which had the benefit of freeing her from the gate’s clutches. The downside, however, was that she heard a loud rip on her way to the ground.

  Ella landed hard on her back, the snow only cushioning the blow slightly. Something between a wheeze and a whimper escaped her lips, and she struggled to pull in a breath.

  “Ella!” Wink ran towards her.

  “I’m alright,” Ella managed to croak out. Slowly, she moved into a sitting position, the movement causing a few joints to crack and a muscle or two to let out a distinct creaking sound.

  Both Wink and Flo stood a foot away. On the same side of the fence.

  “Wh-how did you get in here?” She swiveled her head around. They’d mounted the fence faster than Spider Man. And given Flo’s lack of physical fitness, Ella found it impossible.

  Flo pointed across the way, at the back of the perimeter. “Through the gate.”

  Ella glared at Flo, then Wink, then Flo again. “There’s a gate?”

  Both of their shoulders rose in a shrug.

  “Where’d you think I was heading?” Wink asked.

  “I thought you were searching for a way in,” Ella sputtered, “note the emphasis on the word searching.” She looked back at Flo. “You knew?”

  Flo swept a hand up her beehive, a bored expression on her face. “Well, yeah. Been here before.”

  “And you didn’t say anything because…?”

  “Thought you were trying to get in some exercise.”

  “No. No, I was not.” Ella brushed the mud and dirt from her hands and held them out. “Help me up. You owe me a pair of jeans.”

  After they helped her to her feet, Wink told her it might be hard to find a pair in town and that she’d most likely have to patch them.

  Ella craned her head around, trying to inspect the damage, but found it hard to see her own backside without a mirror.

  “Is it bad?” She turned so they could see and felt a breeze on her rear that hadn’t been there before.

  “Not if you like showing off your unmentionables,” Wink said.

  Ella’s hand flew to the hole.

  “Pigeons?” Flo said.

  Ella lifted her chin. “Turkeys. It was Thanksgiving when I got stranded, remember?”

  As they trudged towards the center, Wink asked, “Is all the underwear in your time so…”

  “Ridiculous?” Flo said.

  “No, so—”

  But Flo wasn’t finished. “Scandalous? Cheap? Floozy-like?”

  “Hey,” Ella cut in, “these weren’t cheap.”

  The rumble of an engine cut off the conversation. The blanket of snow that now reached their ankles muffled the noise, but there was no mistaking the approach of a vehicle.

  All three heads turned and watched a dark speck on the lane grow. Ella shifted nervously on her feet. “Um, shouldn’t we be running? If this is Jonas—”

  “We got a right to be here,” Wink said.

  “You sure?”

  Wink didn’t respond, and creases formed at the corners of her mouth. “If that’s Jonas, we don’t want him finding us here.”

  “Call me crazy,” Ella said, “but maybe we should at least hightail it to the other side of the fence, the legal side.”

  That shook the other two from their stupor, and all three split for the gate. Ella found exiting the place much easier than her entrance, as well as less painful.

  The short jog already had Flo huffing like a steam engine, but she managed to gasp out, “Don’t worry. I can defend us.”

  In her hands was a device that looked like the love child between a rifle and a fishing pole. Something near the trigger emitted a high-pitched whine almost out of Ella’s hearing range and into dog whistle territory.

  “What the—where were you hiding that?” Ella scanned the old woman’s body, noting the absence of a purse. Even the beehive couldn’t have hidden Flo’s device. “Oh, sweet mercy. Please don’t tell me you had that up your slacks. You did, didn’t you?”

  “I think,” Wink said, “the more important question is, what is it?”

  “It’s my first inter-dimensional prototype gun. I call it the Ghost Blaster III.”

  “
What happened to one and two?” Ella asked, the words leaving her mouth before she had time to regret them.

  Flo fidgeted with the trigger pull and notably didn’t meet Ella’s gaze. “I had a couple of mishaps. It’s not a big deal.”

  Ella swore under her breath.

  “Anyway,” Flo said over Ella, “I figured, I like exotic weapons, and I like guns. But I got nothing to protect me from the great beyond. So, I’ve been working on something that’ll shoot in this dimension and several others.”

  “Yes, that is some fantastic thinking that in no way will burn this town to the ground. Now please don’t point that at me. I don’t want cancer.” Ella nudged the barrel of the lethal fishing pole aside.

  Wink dropped her voice as the approaching vehicle slowed. “We will discuss this later. And put that thing away!”

  Flo grumbled and dropped the weapon to her side. “You owe me. I been itching to test this blaster.”

  “At least we know why she was late,” Ella said to Wink.

  They gathered next to Ella’s jeep as a pickup pulled alongside them. Its tires crunched through the snow, and Ella let out a cloudy breath of relief when she noticed the driver wasn’t Jonas—not unless he’d aged forty years within a couple of days.

  The older gentleman swung out of his vehicle and tugged his hat down. His entire head was made up of earmuffs and white tufts of hair. Amongst the field of hair, extending from his head to his chin, was a small patch of skin where his eyes and a sharp hook for a nose sat.

  “Whatcha doing out here?”

  Wink stepped forward. “Afternoon, Bam.”

  Ella mouthed the word Bam at Flo with raised eyebrows.

  “We just wanted to show Ella, here, where we get our electricity from.”

  Ella took up her cue. “Yes, I’m new to Keystone and wasn’t sure how the wind farm worked, how it all hooked up to the power grid, and such.”

  He grunted and trudged over to the fence, eyeing it as if he expected to find it broken.

  “We were just looking around.” She hoped his eyesight was poor enough that he overlooked the three sets of footprints circling the fence or the sets inside the perimeter.

  He grunted again as he stooped his back over a section of chainlink that had been damaged at one time. His skin sagged off his forearms, full of veins and sunspots. “Whatcha want to look around here for?”

  After Wink repeated their lame lie, Ella asked, “Are you the… electrician foreman person here?” Three sets of eyes turned on her with varying degrees of confusion. “You know, the guy. That does the thing. With the electricity.”

  “Ben Franklin?” Flo asked, speaking up for the first time.

  “No, but thank you for contributing as always. Very helpful.”

  A smug smile spread over Flo’s face. “You’re welcome.”

  “That wasn’t—forget it.” Ella pointed at the substation and said to the old man, “Do you do that?”

  “Huh?” Bam pulled his earmuffs aside, revealing two raisin-like ears, complete with their own tufts of hair. “I’m the journeyman lineman if that’s what you’re asking.” He scratched at the veins in his right arm. “Listen, ladies. You all shouldn’t be out here. Ol’ Jonas called me, said someone was snooping ‘round, and doesn’t want you here. I think you should leave. Go on, now.” He made a shooing motion.

  Ella crossed her arms, taking offense to being herded like cattle. “Jonas called you?”

  She scanned the field for the dark dot that was the farmer’s house. Why hadn’t he just come out and told them himself?

  Wink motioned for her to head towards the jeep.

  “Yeah, okay.” Ella was slow opening the driver-side door. “Hey, I have a question. Has the town ever considered solar power?”

  “Huh? You mean use the sun?”

  Flo snorted softly. “That is what solar means, Bam.”

  His eyes squinted up through the falling snow as if searching for the great ball of gas through the clouds. “One of them folks from a new time came through here. Suggested the same thing. Trouble is, it uses cells and requires all these materials we don’t have for manufacturing.” The word manufacture had several extra syllables and was spoken like he had marbles in his mouth.

  Ella nodded. The answer came as no surprise to her. She called Fluffy over from his hunting ground. The cat’s ears twitched once before he bounded through the snow towards her.

  As she scooped him up and set him in the vehicle, Wink asked, “So, Bam, what’s your take on the new wind farm proposal? I’m collecting signatures to stop the plan from proceeding. Can I count on you?”

  “I ain’t opposed to putting them turbines on the hills, but I have enough work to do as it is without adding them to the mix. I’ll tell you what I was opposed to, though, was that greasy weasel heading it up.”

  “Stan? Why’s that?” Ella asked.

  “‘Cause he’s sneaky. Up to no good, if you ask me.”

  They waited for him to continue.

  His cheeks filled with color as he seemed to warm to the topic, and his hawk-like nose began to drip like a faucet from the chill. “You go to enough houses, read enough electricity meters, you get a feeling for people, understand?

  “In fact,” he continued, “I was reading the meters just now when Jonas called me raising cane about you lot being out here.”

  He tapped the passenger window on his pickup, and they drew closer to see what he was indicating. A clipboard sat on the seat with a list of addresses typed out. Beside each address was a corresponding number written in pencil, the handwriting in chicken scratch that would give a doctor a run for their money.

  A thought struck Ella, and she wondered why she hadn’t thought to check Stan’s meter. It would read that month’s power consumption, either corroborating Jonas’s accusation or proving him a dirty liar. Of course, that assumed Stan had only recently moved out of the house. If he and his wife had been estranged for some time, then the consumption would all be on his wife, Lilly.

  Wink and Flo chatted with the lineman, but Ella tuned them out, focusing instead on the list. The header for the right-hand column was labeled kWh, and the scores of numbers below averaged in the five hundred range.

  As her eyes scanned the scrawling pencil marks, one number leaped out at her. It was nearly triple the others. She looked across the row for the address and let out a small breath of air that was only noticed by Wink.

  Flo was in the middle of describing a haunting of a certain tree in the forest when Ella interrupted.

  “How many turbines does the town currently have?”

  Bam rubbed the back of his neck as his eyes darted around. “Why you wanna know?”

  “I was just curious. I know Stan wanted to add sixteen more, but I never heard how many the farm already has.”

  Why was he being shifty about it? Couldn’t she just count them herself? It wasn’t something that could be easily hidden.

  “And what is the town’s monthly consumption?”

  “About fifteen hundred megawatts.” The words spilled off his tongue quickly—too quickly, Ella thought.

  She nodded and tapped her finger against her chin. “I see, I see.”

  “You’ve no idea what that means, do you?” Flo asked.

  “Sure, I do. Don’t be absurd. It’s fifteen hundred mega—yeah, I have no idea.” She wondered if that was a high number for the size of the town.

  “Was Stan the biggest consumer?” Wink asked.

  Ella caught her bottom lip between her teeth and peeked at the clipboard again, hoping she’d made a mistake the first time.

  The large number she’d spotted the first time—the largest number in comparison to all the other numbers on the first page—didn’t belong to a residence on Lake Drive, Stan’s street, but rather, Centerwood. Wink lived on Centerwood, but Ella was unsure of the house number.

  “Can’t say,” the lineman said. Ella blinked at him, forgetting what they had been talking about.

&nbs
p; He began to shuffle around his pickup towards the driver-side door then paused. “But you wouldn’t be far from the truth if you guessed that.”

  The old man scratched over the white scruff covering his pointy chin. “Ah, you know what? I don’t care who knows. Never liked the scoundrel, and if you asked me, he got what he deserved. His house was the second highest consumer of the town with nearly a megawatt all to himself. What he needed all that power for, you got me.”

  CHAPTER 21

  ON THE DRIVE back, the car was mercifully silent, broken only by the scrape of the windshield wipers brushing aside thick flakes of snow.

  As Ella turned onto Main Street, she broke the spell. “Wink? Who lives at 1843 on Centerwood?”

  “The professor, why?”

  Ella’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, and she kept her eyes glued to the road. “No reason, really. The address caught my eye on the clipboard is all. He uses a fair amount of electricity.” More like he consumed enough for an entire office building.

  “Hm, must be for his work.”

  “Yes, his work in theoretical physics. Isn’t that supposed to be, I don’t know, theoretical? Like lots of Good Will Hunting stuff and writing on chalkboards or whatever? It’s not like he’s got a supercomputer in his basement for crunching equations or anything. At least, I don’t think so…”

  “I’ll be honest, I don’t understand half of what you just said.”

  “What else is new,” Flo mumbled in the backseat. Both Ella and Wink had insisted she sit in the back on their return trip, each for their own reasons.

  Ella ignored the jab, lost in her own thoughts. Why would both Stan and the professor need so much electricity? If the professor was using almost 1,500 kWh a month, then why was he against the expansion project?

  Once they reached town, Ella dropped Wink and Flo off at Stewart’s to pick up a few items for dinner before she parked in front of the inn.

  Inside, she found Rose in the kitchen, bustling behind the stove. The succulent aroma of a honey-baked ham permeated the air, and an upbeat ragtime tune floated out from the bakelite tube radio on the counter.