by Ami Diane
Ella backed into a support beam. Her shoes squished in the gelatinous blood still on the ground, but she only half registered this as a portion of the brick wall moved, sliding sideways with another series of mechanical squeals as it slid behind the stationary section of wall, revealing a dark entryway.
It came to an abrupt stop, and everything stilled. The needle found the inside of the record, and the music ended, leaving Ella alone in the near pitch black, the only sound issuing from her chest.
She swallowed, her throat dry, and she forced herself to calm down before she passed out. Secret doorways or not, this was her favorite pair of pajamas, and she didn’t want to get Charle’s blood on them.
When she found she could move without trembling, she cautiously approached the black doorway. Slowly, she slid the beam from her flashlight to the curtain of darkness and stepped through.
“Holy crap,” she whispered.
Chapter 9
ELLA STOOD IN a long room, the ends of which were nearly lost in the feeble light. Racks of guns from floor to ceiling ran the entire length of both walls, stretching into the distance. The sheer quantity and variety were enough to make an arms dealer drool.
She hadn’t realized her mouth had been open, sucking in stale, musty air, until she tasted the dust and metal on her tongue. Snapping her jaw shut, she stepped deeper into the room.
Her beam swept an arc from her left all the way to her right where it became lost in vague shapes. The room was rectangular, running perpendicular to the length of both the mansion and Main Street. If she had to guess, she was standing at the very north end of the foundation, with the library and parlor directly above her and the room stretching from the front of the inn to the back.
Thoughts tumbled around, trying to coalesce into something solid, but she was still taken aback by her surroundings. Rifles, shotguns, swords, and even a couple of rocket launchers rested on racks mounted to the brick wall. Below the racks, displayed on shelves, were rows and rows of handguns. Off to her left, she spotted several military-style ammo boxes, along with a few cardboard ones like those found in stores.
Several weapons were less recognizable. As she moved along a display, the designs became more exotic, with strangely-shaped barrels and diodes that probably lit up when turned on. One, she could swear, was a leaf blower; it had been retrofitted, with spare parts attached to the sides and several tubes snaking out the top like tentacles.
Next came grenade-looking devices—if grenades were painted bright colors and bedazzled with glitter and jewels. She winced at these, having had first-hand experience with one of them.
Halfway across the room sat a marine cannon as large as herself. “What the Long John Silver,” Ella muttered, staring at the cannonball resting on the floor. The whole apparatus looked like it had come directly from a pirate ship.
Ella paused. Had that crazy woman pilfered this from that wrecked ship? More importantly, how had she brought it across town and down into the basement?
Her voice came out hoarse, and she couldn’t help but form a satisfied smile. “I did it. I finally found her stash.”
The sound of her muffled steps whispered underfoot as she approached a collection of explosives. One, about the size of her fist and innocent in appearance, glinted in the light and beckoned her forth. She picked it up with reverence. As she did, bits of fuchsia-colored powder fell away. It looked so benign.
It beeped.
Before she could drop the device, before her brain could even process the noise, a small aerosol canister popped out of the top and exploded. Fuchsia powder burst out in a three hundred sixty degree radius like someone clapping chalk erasers in front of her face.
Ella coughed and dropped the grenade, sure the inside of her lungs now looked like a rave. When she’d cleared enough of the powder from her eyes to make out shapes again, she discovered she stood in the epicenter of a fuchsia world. The bright powder coated every square inch of surface in a ten-foot radius.
She shook powder out of her hair as best as she could, lamenting her Star Wars pajamas, then moved on to digging it out of her ears. She really hoped this stuff wasn’t toxic. Knowing Flo, Ella probably had anthrax in her system and didn’t have long to live.
Something shuffled behind her, and Ella froze, her throat seizing. The room instantly flooded with light. She blinked and spun, her hand shielding her from the harsh glare above.
“You weren’t supposed to see this.”
Ella’s eyes were still adjusting, but she recognized that voice. Her hand fell away and revealed Flo standing in the doorway. The false wall still rested aside, and the older woman’s hand hovered on the light switch.
“Ah,” Ella said when she spotted the switch. She clicked off her flashlight then stepped forward, trying to blot out the mass of color behind her, but it was as useless as an ant trying to block a giant. Also, her face probably looked like a Halloween mask. “Would’ve been nice to know that switch was there. It would’ve been far less scary. Speaking of scary” —she swept a hand around the vast collection of arms—“what’s going on here?”
Flo’s forehead wrinkled. She wore no makeup and—more importantly—no glasses. Ella wasn’t sure what her eyesight was like but maybe the powder bomb would go amiss.
“It’s my gun collection.”
“Yes, obviously. But there’s so many.”
“Yes.”
“Like, a lot.”
“I know.”
“Like, you could take over a small country with this kind of firepower.”
Flo sighed, sweeping her eyes over the collection with an expression not unlike that of a mother looking upon her child. “The thought’s crossed my mind.”
Ella wasn’t sure if that was intended to be a joke, so she let out an awkward chuckle that quickly died in her throat when she caught the firm set in the woman’s jaw. “More importantly—and please feel free to answer—where did you get all of this? Did you bribe a member of a cartel or something?”
“You ain’t too far from the truth.” Flo moved deeper into the room and gestured to a row of crusty stools along a portion of the wall Ella had overlooked. Upon closer inspection, the stools stood in front of a bar. Its surface was covered in dust and guns and a sprinkling of fuchsia.
Flo moved aside an antique pistol on the high counter in order to lean an elbow onto the cherrywood, leaving behind the ghost of a gun-shaped imprint. “In the panic of the first year after we started jumping, we flashed someplace—south I think. All I know is, it was hotter as all get-out. A couple of trucks come rolling through, and men with long guns pointed their weapons out the windows at us. Most people ran indoors, hoping they’d roll on through.
“Well, they made it just past the turnoff for Twin Springs before the town flashed again. These gangsters hopped out, trying to figure out what’d just happened. Well, wouldn’t you know it, but we’d flashed to the Old West.”
Ella had been leaning forward, drinking in every word. “Chapman and Six?”
Flo nodded. “They came barreling into town, shooting at each other like they’re wont to do. Well, the arms dealers or militia or whatever they were, didn’t know what the heck was going on. So, they started shooting at Chapman and Six.”
“What happened?” Ella had witnessed a frontier-style shootout between those two and could imagine the hail of bullets flying.
Flo shrugged. “Chapman and Six turned to the newcomers and returned fire. Just might be the first—and only—time I saw them be on the same side.”
Ella leaned back, skeptical. “Don’t tell me that two men with revolvers scared them away.”
“‘Course not. Chapman and Six ran. The men gave chase, abandoning the two vehicles. So, I did what any red-blooded person does when presented with such a prize.”
“You didn’t”
She nodded firmly. “Darn tooting I did. Hopped right in, drove one truck around the greenhouses into the cover of the forest then hiked back and did the same with t
he second.”
“But what happened to the dealers or militia?”
“We flashed again right after that. The story I eventually got was that Chapman and Six had fled around the northwest—”
“Near the pirate ship?”
“Well, where it is now, yeah. But it wasn’t aground back then. Anyway, they fled that way, turning east towards the greenhouses, unbeknownst to them, they were still inside Keystone’s town limits. Best guess from the footprints left behind is the men were on the other side when we jumped a third time.”
Ella leaned back, picturing the scene. “So, somewhere in the 1850s is a gang of dangerous men from a different time.” She flipped through her limited knowledge of American history, wondering if they’d become one of the infamous gangs of legend. “Once Chapman settled in, he never wondered what happened to the vehicles?”
Flo’s eyes fell to the bartop. “Well, he may have asked around, and I may have alluded to seeing a couple of gangsters drive the vehicles north across the border before we flashed that third time.”
This didn’t surprise Ella. What did surprise her was that Chapman hadn’t put two and two together, knowing Flo had an assortment of weapons and that there had been two, heavily armed vehicles in town at one time.
Or maybe he had. She got the impression he knew more than he let on about a great many things. Perhaps he was only waiting for Flo to show her cards. Had Ella just forced her hand?
Unsure of how to handle it now that she knew Flo’s secret, Ella puffed out her cheeks and surveyed the room with feigned admiration. “Well, it looks nice. I really like what you’ve done with the place. I mean, it could use some paint, maybe a picture or two, but it’s cozy in a sort of mass-murder-crime-lord kind of way…,” she trailed off.
“Is that why you put a pink circle in my bunker? You were trying to spruce it up?”
Ella wiped her hands down her pajama bottoms, leaving behind hot pink streaks. “Noticed that, did you? It’s not toxic, is it?”
“Naw.”
Ella let out a breath. “That’s a relief.”
“‘Course, you’ll be on the toilet for an hour or so.”
They stared at each other, then Flo wheezed, laughing and slapping her leg.
“Heh, that’s hilarious.” Ella swallowed. “The thing is, I can’t tell if you’re serious.” Flo never answered.
Since the tenant was being uncharacteristically forthcoming with information, Ella pressed her luck. She pointed across the way at a cumbersome weapon that looked like a stereo with a radio tube growing out the side. “What’s that?”
“One of the experimental weapons I’ve been working on. Can’t get the trigger pull quite right; I was hoping Will could have a look. I’ve been developing it for non-carbon based life forms.”
“Sure, sure. Like one does.”
“You’ll thank me when the aliens arrive.”
Ella couldn’t help the sigh that came out of her mouth. And just like that, the woman was back to being Crazy Flo—not that the entire armory they sat in was the mark of a sane person.
“How long did it take you to build this place?”
“Hmm? No, this wasn’t me. The previous owner built it in the twenties, during Prohibition. It used to be a speakeasy.” Her eyes lifted and stared off into the distance for so long Ella became concerned.
She waved her hand in front of her friend’s face, snapping her fingers. “Hey, you still with me? This is no time to be having a stroke.”
A dreamy smile spread across Flo’s face. “I was just remembering the good ol’ days.”
“I take it you came here often.”
“I did. Was dating one of the bootleggers who ran through here.”
“Of course, you were. Did you know the term ‘bootlegger’ originated during the Civil War when soldiers concealed liquor in their boots so they could sneak them into army camps?”
Flo stared, unblinking, at Ella.
“What?” Ella shrugged, shaking more fuchsia powder from her shoulders. “I’m a linguist. Sue me. Anyway, you dated a bootlegger. Go on.”
“He sure could kiss.”
“Don’t go on.” Ella had no interest in hearing about Flo’s love life, mostly because that conversation would take the rest of the night—and run into next month.
This new information gave her a different lens with which to view the room. A previous owner had run a speakeasy out of the inn’s basement. She wondered if Rose and Jimmy knew the manor’s history when they bought the house.
“You realize, don’t you, that this is probably where Charles’s killer hid the night of the murder?”
“I don’t see how. Nobody knows it’s here but me. Even if they did, they couldn’t have known how to get in.”
“I figured it out.”
“Hmm, good point. And if you could figure it out, anybody could.”
“Hey—”
“Maybe even a child.”
“Okay. You really want to go there?”
Some of the spark had returned to the older woman’s eyes. She slid off the stool and tottered behind the bar, no easy feat considering she had to climb over a crate full of small rockets.
“What’ll it be?”
“Huh?”
“You want a drink?”
“Seriously?” Ella tried to peer over the side. “Wait, what am I saying? Of course, you have liquor back there. I’m fine thanks.”
She was still stuck on the very obvious fact that this had to be where the killer had hidden. All along, she’d assumed the murderer had shot Charles and immediately sprinted up the stairs. But maybe the bad guy had hidden in here, waiting for the inn to empty before they made their escape. It would’ve been easy to hide in the secret room until their query arrived, sneak out, and shoot the victim. It explained how Charles had been shot in the back. It also explained something else.
“Flo?”
The older woman looked up from her glass of amber liquid, the smell alone enough to curl Ella’s nose hairs. Smudges of fingerprints in dust covered the glass’s surface.
“Good God, woman. When was the last time you cleaned that thing?” Ella shook her head, forcing herself to focus. “Doesn’t matter. What I was going to say is, the murder weapon, is this where you kept it?”
Flo licked her lips. “I suppose there ain’t no use denying it now. Yes. I kept it right over there.” She pointed a gnarled finger towards the entryway. “I can show you if you like.”
“No, that’s okay.” She wasn’t sure what that would accomplish. “But don’t you see? The very fact that the murder weapon had been taken from here proves that someone else knows your secret.”
Flo’s Adam’s apple bobbed as she swallowed the high-proof alcohol, the lines in her face deepening.
Good. She should be worried.
But it wasn’t enough. The sheriff needed to know about this room, too. The challenge would be convincing Flo to come clean with Chapman.
Chapter 10
ELLA SET HER coffee on the café table in the conservatory. Granite-colored light poured in through the wall of windows, revealing the ever-present mist shrouding the town.
Despite the weather outside, the room felt humid and warm. The stove a few feet away burned a hot fire. Most of the plants had gone dormant, and she missed the fragrant aroma that accompanied her morning coffee.
She alternated between bites of Wink’s homemade banana bread and turning the page in the encyclopedia she was reading. The inn’s library wasn’t as robust as the Keystone Library and didn’t have much by way of content about Prohibition and speakeasies, which meant she’d have to take a trip later to search out what she needed.
Not that it would help with the investigation, but with a town like Keystone, she felt it necessary—and fun—to brush up on her history, which had always been her weakest subject in school.
She blinked tired eyes as she sipped on her second or third cup of coffee. She’d already lost count, which didn’t bode well for t
he proceeding day.
Her ink—and now pink-stained—fingers flipped another page. Most of the powder had washed away, but it stubbornly remained inside creases, under her fingernails, in her ears, and—oddly enough—between her teeth.
After her discovery last night, a perplexing thought had taken root. How had the assailant known about the hidden room?
Flo swore up and down that most of those who’d visited the gin joint had either died off or moved on, but Ella felt that confidence rather shortsighted. Short of having the old woman make a list of every person she’d seen patronage the place, there was no way to be certain that another soul in town didn’t know about it.
Which brought Ella back to the dry text in the encyclopedia. She doubted she’d gain much from reading the musty pages, but it was a place to start.
It turned out when Prohibition took effect in 1920, many legal saloons were forced to shut down. However, as with most things, crime found a way. Speakeasies—named so for the softly spoken password to enter so as not to attract attention from any nearby cop—cropped up across the country. Soon, they became prevalent, and those who couldn’t get liquor from a druggist for medical reasons or a clergyman for religious reasons, either sought out the illicit gin joints or found a bootlegger.
The rise of the speakeasies also brought about the desegregation of men and woman drinking together. And it didn’t take long for bootlegging to become a boon for organized crime.
Ella yawned and skimmed. Further down the thin page, it was purported that Al Capone made an estimated $60 million a year from the 10,000 speakeasies he controlled.
Slowly, she closed the encyclopedia. She had picked the wrong line of work; sometimes it paid to not have scruples. Of course, if that were always the case, Six would be a billionaire.
After breakfast, she ran upstairs and changed into her waitress uniform. The fabric was woven from the scent of hamburgers and fries and freshly baked bread no matter how many times she washed it—which wasn’t all that often if she were being honest. And now that she had discovered a body in the basement of horrors, along with a hidden room, she doubted she’d be venturing to do laundry any time soon.
