Traveling Town Mystery Boxset

by Ami Diane

  Stepping off the terrace, she walked down the decline towards the lake. The crisp air bit at her cheeks, and not for the first time since arriving in Keystone did she miss her gym.

  Snow covered the trail, and she took a stab at where it was, her boots smooshing into grass half the time. Hitting a quick rhythm, she listened to the water lap against the shore as she sorted through her thoughts.

  The unidentified skeleton in the lake had had polio. Maybe the virus had been more common in the early days of Keystone, but why hadn’t someone filed a missing person report? A missing loved one and polio would help narrow down the identity considerably.

  Pulling out her phone, she updated her file, adding the details about the skeleton. When she got back, she would ask Rose if she knew of anyone missing who fit the description.

  Trekking by the docks, she spotted Will as he pushed off in his boat. She waved, but he didn’t see her. She squinted, eyeing the lump of scuba equipment in the boat.

  Her mouth turned down into a deep frown, and she pushed aside the pang in her chest over the fact that he hadn’t asked her to join him. It wasn’t a big deal. It’s not like they were diving partners.

  Still, it was dangerous to dive alone, and she couldn’t help but wonder if her lack of invitation had something to do with their propensity to encounter dead bodies while together. Maybe he thought she was bad luck.

  Shrugging it off, she picked up her pace over the non-existent trail. It took her nearly ten minutes to reach the End of Lake Drive.

  Stan’s house drew her in like a magnet. Looking around, she took a step up the drive then stopped. Behind her, Will’s boat was a dot on the water, and the promise she had made pulled her back to the sidewalk again. But that didn’t stop her from throwing suspicious glances over her shoulder at the neglected house and detached garage.

  In the park, the towering oak trees drooped with snow and ice. The frosted landscape looked barren without the travelers. Several patches of grass peeked out from the snow where the fires had been. Their charred remains and the surrounding trampled snow were all that was left of the Romani.

  Just beyond, the wind turbines turned their slow march. Even at this distance, she could make out the blades crawling at a snail’s pace. Much like her walk was feeling.

  Ella stopped in her tracks. Frowning, she looked from the farm back to the lake to the spot she’d seen Jonas fishing the morning after the storm. She recalled the worn path she’d found from his shop to the water. His bootprints had hardened in the mud, which was understandable given the rain they had had. But now that she thought back, they had been too deep, too smeared for a day after such rainfall. What if he’d gone out during the storm?

  Ella dismissed the idea almost immediately, realizing it was ridiculous. Fishermen didn’t go out at night, and certainly not in the middle of a storm.

  Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the farmer was hiding something. Her eyes traveled from the horizon back to the bare mud exposed from one of the Romani’s campfires. A worm crawled up and wriggled around. It wouldn’t be long before the ground froze, and the little guy burrowed deep underground.

  Ella tipped her head and watched the creature, a tight line forming on her face. This was where Jonas had stood. She recalled this section of dirt on her first run after the storm. It had been dug up. At the time, she’d thought it was due to the squirrels burying acorns.

  Puzzle pieces shifted around and fell into place, and a new thought burrowed its way through her mind, vying for attention. While questioning him, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the farmer knew more about that night than he had let on. And now, Ella was convinced that he did.

  With a start, she turned her walk into a run towards Main Street. Without going inside the inn, Ella hopped into her jeep and took off towards the wind farm.

  Ella slid to a stop in front of Jonas’s house. After knocking on the door, she impatiently danced on her feet, muttering, “Come on, come on.”

  After another bout of pounding on the oak door without result, she marched over to the shop beside the red barn. The smell of grease and tobacco hit her as she stepped inside.

  Jonas was bent over his disemboweled tractor. His head jerked up when he heard her come in.

  “Whatcha doing here? You ain’t welcome on my property.”

  “I just want to ask a couple more questions.”

  “Why? You ain’t the sheriff. I don’t have to tell you nothing.”

  “Look, I don’t think you killed Stan,” she said. He narrowed his eyes as if he didn’t believe her. “But I do think you saw something that night.”

  “I was in my house.” His gaze dropped to the wrench in his hands before he changed out the bit.

  “What bait do you use?”

  “Huh?”

  “What bait do you use to fish with?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Just humor me, please.”

  It took him a moment to answer. “Worms.”

  “And where do you get them?”

  “From here.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m a farmer, remember?” He let loose a wad of chewed tobacco. It landed with a splat that sent her stomach turning. “I plow these fields, well what’s left of ‘em. There’s more than enough in the dirt out there.”

  “True, but isn’t it easier, can’t you get more by the lake? Especially when it’s raining?”

  His ears turned pink, and he didn’t respond.

  “Look, Jonas. I’m not sure why you don’t want to say you were there that night. Maybe you think Chapman will suspect you had something to do with Stan’s death—I mean, you made it clear at the meeting how much you disliked him. However, not saying anything makes you look even more guilty and helps a murderer go free.”

  The farmer turned the rusted wrench over and over in his hands as if it were a Magic 8-Ball and would tell him what to do. The shop was growing darker by the minute, and Ella’s stomach rumbled.

  “Alright,” he said finally, “I was there that night. I was gettin’ worms.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ella shoved her ear forward. “You have worms?” She laughed then cleared her throat. “Heh, lousy joke. Sorry. Continue.”

  “Anyone ever tell you, you’re a bit off?” He circled a finger near his temple, implying she was crazy.

  “All the time.”

  “Anyhow, I just don’t want the sheriff knowing, ‘cause then he’ll start pokin’ around and see that—that I maybe come back with more fish than I’m supposed to.”

  “Ah. I see. Well, then it’s a good thing I’m not the sheriff. When you were out during the storm, was the boat out there?” she asked. He nodded. “What did you see?”

  “You ain’t gonna tell him I was out there are you?”

  Ella looked at the ground and rubbed her hand up her sleeve. She didn’t want to lie to him. “I’m not sure.”

  “Promise me you won’t, and I’ll tell you what I saw.”

  Ella looked back at him and nodded.

  He moved his massive shoulders up in a shrug. “I didn’t see much. It was too dark and rainin’ too hard, but I saw the boat move from the docks to the middle of the lake. Then they stopped and—”

  “They?”

  “Yeah, they. There were two people in the boat.”

  CHAPTER 26

  TWO PEOPLE. THERE had been two people in Will’s boat the night of the storm. Stan and the killer.

  Ella turned on her headlights as she drove back towards town. She needed to tell the sheriff. But what good would it do? It didn’t provide more evidence nor point a finger at who the second person was.

  As she turned onto Main Street, the hair on her arm stood up, and the sky began to light up like a reverse sunset. The town was preparing to jump.

  Her stomach knotted, the memory of their recent visitors still too fresh. She had been excited at the prospect of meeting new people, of traveling through history—and part of her st
ill was. However, now there was the added ethical dilemma.

  What if the next flash took them to the Holocaust or the Crusades? What if Adolf Hitler strolled through town or Abraham Lincoln? Would she really let the dictator responsible for the deaths of nearly six million Jewish victims walk or not save the President, knowing he’d be shot?

  A bright purple dome surrounded the town. Ella pulled over and jumped out of the car. She jogged through the field opposite Jonas’s property. The lightning-like lines became more frenzied and coalesced into a white-hot color.

  She aimed for the border where the dome met the snow a quarter of a mile away. Her thighs burned, and she gasped for air.

  Then, all around her, the dome flashed brighter than a hydrogen bomb. Shrieking, she shielded her hands over her face.

  The light fell away as if flipped by a switch. Slowly, she lowered her hands and blinked away the spots in her vision. When she could see again, she took in their new surroundings.

  Snow. Lots and lots of snow. Had they even jumped?

  She spun a fast circle. The Romanian hillside was gone. As she rounded on Twin Hills, she gasped. Large, craggy peeks rose towards the sky, dwarfing the hills.

  Keystone Village was at the base of a mountain range that rivaled the Swiss Alps—actually, it might very well be the Swiss Alps. Snow began to fall in thick flakes, obscuring the stunning view.

  Blinking, she remembered why she’d been running through the field in the first place. She jogged the rest of the way to where she’d seen the dome end, hoping by some miracle there’d be a line in the snow signifying the border.

  Ella crouched. The white fluff glittered in the new light in one unending landscape. Snow blended with snow, concealing any demarcation.

  She tried not to feel too discouraged. The terrains were just too similar. Maybe the next flash would make it more obvious.

  Next, she did what she had done nearly every jump since arriving in Keystone. She pulled out her phone and checked to see if it would connect to any satellites.

  The roaming ate through battery power while the cell searched for a tower to connect to. Two minutes later, the “no signal” symbol continued to taunt her.

  Kicking through the snow, her head down, she trudged back to her jeep and drove back to the inn. The sky was too gray to know what time it was in their new location, but for her, it was well past dinner.

  It had been a long day. Kicking off her boots, she went directly to the kitchen and dug through the refrigerator.

  Two people. The two words tumbled around in her mind as she dropped into a chair at the kitchen table with her ham and cheese sandwich.

  Lazy flakes fell outside the picture window as she looked out across the lake to the frosted cottages and glowing old-fashioned lampposts. It reminded her of a postcard, and she felt the tension leaving her shoulders.

  So, Stan had been alive when he was in the boat. All along, she’d harbored a suspicion that he’d drowned someplace else then had been placed in the boat.

  Her head began to ache. After washing her dishes, she set them on the rack then made her way up the stairs. She didn’t care what time it was, she was going to bed.

  Ella awoke early Wednesday morning. It turned out the time difference in their new location was negligible. A couple hours at most.

  She padded into a dark kitchen and prepped the coffee pot. When it was on the stove, she yawned and peered out the window into the darkness. A faint glow came from the horizon by the park. In the twilight, she could see at least two feet of powder had fallen during the night. If the village stayed in place another week, maybe she would get her white Christmas.

  The aroma of coffee filled the kitchen as it bubbled in the percolator. As she poured a cup, Rose came in, yawning, her hair still in curlers, finally proving she was human.

  Jimmy followed a minute later, scratching his belly over his silk pajamas, eyes half-closed. Ella sipped her coffee and munched on toast. Her eyes scanned Twin Hills, and she wondered how Wink was fairing with the weather change. The hills were at least eight hundred feet higher in elevation.

  “How many people live on the hills?” she asked.

  Jimmy shrugged, his eyelids still heavy.

  “How’s that?” Rose asked from the stove. It had taken only half a cup of coffee and a few minutes for her to transform into sunshine and rainbows.

  “Twin Hills. How many houses are up there?”

  “I’m not really certain. Twenty maybe?”

  Ella was surprised by the number. Driving up the winding road of the western hill, she hadn’t spotted many driveways. She supposed there were places tucked back in the trees and roads she’d missed. “I wonder how many of them are on Wink’s committee. Twenty houses give them a good number to begin with.”

  “You’re assuming they’re all against the new turbines,” Jimmy mumbled.

  Ella felt her eyebrows climb. “Wouldn’t they be?”

  “Not the ones with large enough properties. Take that blonde-haired woman for instance.” He scratched the shadow of stubble over his cheek, his eyes popping open. “Honey, what’s that gal’s name?”

  The sound of popping bacon nearly drowned out his voice. “What gal?”

  “That blonde gal that hung around Stan all the time. The one that looks like she’s always sucking on a lemon.”

  “Dot?” Ella offered.

  “Yeah, her.” Jimmy nodded vigorously. Then his eyes glazed over, and he settled back into his stupor.

  “I’m sorry. Are you saying that Dot lives on Twin Hills? Jimmy, stay with me.” Ella snapped her fingers in front of his face.

  “What?”

  She repeated the question.

  “Yeah. The east one. Or right, since our directions always change here. It’s why Stan was able to get signatures from half the people up there. I guess they trusted that if one of their own thought it was okay, then they did too.”

  “Where on earth did you hear a thing like that?” Rose had clued in to their conversation and stared at him, hands on her hips. “You’re not one to usually gossip Jimmy Allen Murray.”

  His eyes widened, suddenly alert again. “It’s what Sal said. I went in for a haircut yesterday, and all the guys were talking about it.”

  “Honestly,” Rose said, turning back to the sizzling bacon. “That barbershop is worse than hens in a henhouse. And you give me a bad time about my weekly bridge games.”

  Ella swallowed the last bite of toast and brushed the crumbs off her lap, thinking. What if Stan’s affair with Dot had been part of his plan for the electrical expansion? If so, and she had found out he was using her to garner support, that would be a motive Ella hadn’t considered yet.

  Had Dot’s love turned to rage? But why continue to support it now that he was gone?

  After breakfast, Ella arrived to work a couple minutes early. She stepped through the back door, shivering, and shook the snow off. Chester sat on top of the fridge in a ski outfit and hat, his gray ears sticking up through holes in the fabric.

  She fought the urge to find him adorable, somehow feeling if she did so, she was betraying Fluffy, Chester’s arch nemesis. A moment later, the squirrel made the decision easy by making angry noises at her then licking his nether regions.

  Ella scowled at him and retreated to the bathroom to change. Maybe it had been the second cup of coffee or the extra sleep, but she’d had the foresight to change into her uniform at work so as to avoid going through the snow in bare legs. Unlike Wink, she refused to wear pantyhose. It brought back vivid memories of her childhood, of dressing up and having to paint clear nail polish over the runs in her tights.

  During the morning, she floated through work, going through the motions, but her mind was occupied by too many other things: Jonas’s revelation that two people had been out on the boat, the fact that Dot lived on one of the Hills, and the map rolled up in a poster tube under her bed.

  During a lull, Ella told Wink they needed to have a quick meeting with Flo
and wondered if there was a way to get her there before sunset. Wink phoned the crazy lady and told her she’d just seen a ghost.

  A minute later, Flo burst through the front door, one shoe on, covered in snow, and a sagging, damp beehive hanging from her head. Ella would’ve laughed were it not for the cancerous ray of death pointed at her.

  She swore. “Flo! Put that away!” Thankfully, the diner was currently empty of customers.

  “Where is it? The apparition?”

  “Keep your panties on,” Wink said. “There was no ghost.”

  Flo’s mouth worked back and forth for several moments, registering Wink’s words. Finally, she dropped the weapon to her side.

  “Then, why the hell am I here?”

  “Ella called this meeting. She needs to update us about Stan.”

  “And she couldn’t have done it over the phone?”

  “N-no. Oh. I guess I could’ve.” Ella laughed. “How about that?”

  Flo’s nostrils flared, and she looked about ready to test her prototype on Ella.

  “But you look great,” Ella added, hoping some white lies would win her points. “I mean, for having run out the door, you look top notch. Honestly, I wish I could look that good having just rolled out of bed—you did just roll out of bed, right?”

  Flo huffed and walked over to the lunch counter. Every other step was silent as her bare foot hit the floor. The uneven height in her legs caused by wearing one shoe only added to the effect of making her look like she’d gotten into a bar brawl then nearly drowned in a rainstorm.

  Flo dropped to the stool, causing the cushion to sigh loudly. “Coffee.”

  Ella poured a cup. The moment it was within arm’s reach, Flo dumped a third of the contents from her flask into the dark liquid.

  “You want cream with that?”

  Flo glared. “Out with it. Tell us what you know.”

  Wink joined Flo, and together they sat on one side of the counter, staring at Ella. She rehashed her conversations with Jonas and Chapman.