by Ami Diane
Chapter 22
ELLA SAT IN the kitchen at the inn, an ice bag held against the side of her head. Once the adrenaline had worn off, she felt like an entire parade of monkeys was banging drums in her skull.
Despite Wink’s forgiveness, she still felt guilty. Before, her withholding of information had stemmed from a lack of trust. Now, however, she trusted these people more than anything. They were her family. And because of that, she was protective over them. At what point would she stop making stupid mistakes?
She took a bite of Rose’s lasagna, letting her eyes slide shut for a moment as much from pain as to savor the dish. The innkeeper zoomed into the kitchen at that moment, all swooping skirts, pin-curled hair, and lips the color of crushed roses.
“You sure you don’t want to go, dear?” Rose tugged on a pair of leather gloves that coordinated with her purse as she scrutinized Ella from behind her cat-eye glasses.
“Go to a town hall meeting in a room stuffed with a hundred different perfumes and fired-up egos? I’m sure. I’m going to take a bottle of aspirin and lie down. Maybe even sneak a nip from the stash of booze in Flo’s closet, you know, the one she claims she doesn’t have.”
“Speaking of booze,” Rose said as Flo wandered in, “Mr. Costello is stopping by to finally pick up his alcohol from the party now that the sheriff has cleared the scene. Will you help him?”
After Ella agreed she would, the innkeeper gave a satisfied nod and edged towards the door, motioning for Flo to follow.
However, the old woman hovered over Ella’s dish of food before stabbing at it with her own fork—where and how she’d gotten a utensil so quickly, Ella could only guess.
Flo spared a glance from the dish to look at Rose. “Why can’t we keep those crates, huh? We paid for ‘em.”
“We didn’t pay for anything.” Ella jousted away Flo’s fork and said to Rose, “But the woman does have a point. The candidates paid for them, why don’t they get to keep them?”
“And do what with them?” Rose prodded the door open, waiting. “Most of them don’t drink or if they do, not much—with the exception of Lou, naturally. Therefore, Lucky bought the stock back.” She slid her eyes towards Flo. “I hope you didn’t take too much after the party. He was keeping a pretty tight inventory.”
“‘Course not. What do you take me for?”
Both Rose and Ella answered at the same time.
“A booze hound.”
“An alcoholic.”
“Well, I never…” Flo trailed off, ending the sentence with a shrug.
After shoving a triumphant bite of lasagna into her mouth, she stuck her nose in the air and shuffled through the open doorway, her clomping steps fading away.
Ella pointed a fork at Rose. “Will you tell me how the twins’ property dispute turns out?”
“Sure, dear. I hope they don’t try to choke each other like last time.” With that, she slipped into the hallway.
After the sound of their distant voices in the foyer faded, Ella was left with a heavy silence. The ice in her bag sloshed together as she shifted around. She’d never been all alone in the big mansion. It was too quiet.
She considered turning on the tube radio sitting next to the stove but chose the music on her phone instead, grateful for the songs she’d downloaded before getting stranded. By now, she knew every lyric, every note, but the music took her home—if only for a moment.
After scraping the last of the sauce from her plate, the dish rattled in the sink as she washed it. Her mind drifted to her suspect list and the evidence discovered thus far, but her brain felt fuzzy, like cogs turning in molasses. Maybe she should’ve taken Chapman up on his offer to have Pauline check her out.
Concussions aside, she had retread these thoughts so many times, she could no longer get a clear view of everything.
Once she’d set the dish in the drying rack, she slid her phone into her pocket, glancing at the time on the screen as she did. How about that? Rose, Jimmy, and Flo would actually be arriving at the meeting early for once—unless Flo had decided to walk at the pace of a geriatric snail-like she was wont to do.
Music flowed from Ella’s sweatshirt pocket and followed her through the hallway, phantom notes painting the walls. Her clothes still smelled of smoke courtesy of Pyro Patience.
Once Ella had reached the inn, she’d forgone a change of clothes for food and ice. Her more basic needs of a raging headache and a gnawing stomach had been a higher priority at the time than offending nasal cavities.
As she passed through the entrance hall, the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed the hour. Ella frowned as she dug out her phone. The clock was about five minutes quicker than her mobile. The technology in her device wasn’t infallible, especially without a satellite to link up to, but she did think it more reliable than the ancient clock.
She’d inform the innkeepers about it when they returned. It was probably a simple fix of winding some doodad, but she didn’t know the first thing about antique clocks. Her partially melted, soot-covered shoe hit the bottom step of the grand staircase and froze.
The clock was five minutes fast.
How many people at the party had used that timepiece for reference of the night’s events? So much of Charles’s death hinged upon the precision of time, where others were at certain moments. But if the clock was off… her mind reeled with this implication.
The front door opened, causing her to start, and a voice called out. “Hello, anybody here?”
Lucky, all red hair and broad shoulders stepped into the foyer. His gaze landed on Ella who stood only a few feet away, and his posture stiffened.
“You.”
“Me. I live here, so you can’t kick me out.”
He grunted and strode past her, one of his shoulders bouncing off hers and forcing her to reel to maintain balance.
“Well, won’t you just come on in,” she said to his retreating back as she clicked the door shut.
She fell into step several paces behind him, taking a circuitous route around Fluffy who’d chosen the middle of the floor for a nap as was encoded in his feline DNA.
When the bartender reached the hallway, he paused and glimpsed her over his shoulder. “Whatcha doing?”
“Rose asked me to help.”
“I can handle it myself.”
“No doubt. But if I help, you can leave that much sooner, which, pardon my assumption, I think is something we both want.”
“You just don’t trust me unattended, do you?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, I hadn’t considered that, but now that you mention it….”
His face burned like embers, and he proceeded to stomp down the hallway. Since he made no further objections, she continued to follow but increased the distance between them enough that a hurricane could’ve cut through. His heavy footfalls nearly drowned hers out as they made their way down the steps into the dank basement.
The open door at the top shone anemic light down in a rectangle that brushed the edges of the crates. The bar owner studied the top crate, and his mouth moved with silent calculations.
Ella left him to his counting in search of the pull string for the light bulb, catching more cobwebs than air.
With her arms in front of her still searching for the string, she glanced back at the bartender. “I bet you’ll be glad to have all that back, huh?”
“Sure will. Some of this stuff ain’t easy to acquire.”
“I’m just glad the sheriff cleared the scene and had someone else clean up the mess.” Her eyes fell to the discolored stain on the concrete. The scent of bleach still rode on the air.
Lucky was staring at the same spot too. Almost imperceptibly, his eyes darted to the phonograph and secret door.
Ella’s heart stuttered in her chest, and her arms froze in the air. Like a lightning storm, flashes of conversation flitted through her memory, and everything fell into place.
Her veins turned to ice.
She dropped her hands, giving up
on finding the light pull, and she faced him. “You know about the speakeasy, don’t you?”
The lid on the crate clattered to the floor with a deafening sound in the thick air. His face tilted up from where he’d been bending over the bottles, his features lost in shadows.
He didn’t respond.
She snapped her fingers when another realization struck. “That’s why you looked familiar when I met you.”
She edged towards the stairs, causing his face to turn into the light from the hallway above to keep her in view. Studying him, she peeled away the years and imagined him as a child.
“That picture in the hallway by the study… that’s you and Bugsy Schultz, the previous owner of the inn and the person who started the speakeasy, isn’t it?” Her eyes widened as another memory surfaced. “Jump stiddy. You used that term the night of the party.”
She recalled coming across the phrase during her late night research session at the library. It had been a popular name for her drink amongst speakeasy goers at the time.
Lucky straightened, crossing his arms. “And? So, I went to the speakeasy from time to time. So did dozens of others in this town, doll.”
She backed away until her heel bumped into the bottom step. “Why did you kill Charles?”
“What makes you think I killed him?”
She ignored his question. “Was it because he wanted to burn down the Half Penny? I agree it’s a bit extreme, but that’s no reason to kill someone.” She fumbled backward up one stair. “I mean, call me a traditionalist, but if you’re going to murder someone, it should be for something more serious. Like, they killed your dog or drank the last of the coffee or something like that.”
Lucky’s skin had turned to that dangerous shade of red she’d seen when he’d kicked Six out of the bar.
He roared at her. “Don’t you ever shut up?!”
He lunged for her, but she was now three steps up and out of range.
Turning, she sprinted up the wooden stairs. His feet thundered up the bottom steps, reverberating through the wood.
Pouring on the heat, she skipped a step at a time, her thighs burning. The doorway stood like a bright beacon, drawing larger by the second.
Two things happened simultaneously. The board under her right shoe snapped, and her foot fell through. And Lucky’s hand encircled the other foot.
She tumbled forward, her shins and hands breaking most of the fall onto the upper steps. Pain shot up her legs, and several splinters broke through the skin on her palms.
Ella cried out. She kicked with the leg in Lucky’s hand, but his grip held fast.
With a jerk, he wrenched her back. The leg that had broken through the step dangled in the air underneath the open staircase. If he pulled her back any further, she’d do the splits. It had been years since her gymnastics days—at least twenty—and she was pretty sure limberness wasn’t like riding a bike.
With her hands curled around the board in front of her, she pulled forward enough to pull her foot back up through the broken wood. Sharp edges shredded her already-ruined jeans.
As sudden as one of Flo’s grenades, Ella donkey-kicked Lucky in the face with her free foot.
The cartilage in his nose snapped. Blood dribbled from his nostrils and down his chin like syrup. Stunned, his grip loosened, and she yanked out her other foot.
Now completely free, Ella scrambled up the steps, leaving the cursing bartender behind. She had a few choice words of her own, though. When she reached the safety of the doorway, she yelled into the abyss at Lucky who was scrabbling over the broken stair.
“Your drinks taste like stinky socks!”
She plunged down the hallway and slid around the corner, barreling into the wall as she did.
The sound of the bar owner diving through the basement doorway shook the floor.
“Get back here!”
“Sure thing,” Ella yelled as she increased her speed.
She slid around the last corner, bursting into the entrance hall and vaulting over a still-snoozing Fluffy.
She made it to the middle of the expansive arena before she heard Lucky slid into the room behind her. Fluffy cried out with the kind of meow that sounded like he’d been hurt, causing Ella’s heart to seize.
She spun, glimpsing fur before the cat took refuge behind the check-in desk.
“What did you do to him?” she screamed.
They stood, glowering at each other like an old western showdown. Only, neither of them were armed—not unless she counted sarcasm as a weapon.
Her teeth ground together, and she called out for the cat. His luminous eyes appeared from the side of the desk, and he seemed to be alright.
Without taking her eyes off the murderous bootlegger, she took mental stock of her surroundings for a weapon of any kind.
About four yards away was the umbrella stand next to the coat tree in the foyer. However, much closer was a vase filled with daffodils.
Ella jockeyed right with quick movements and scooped up the antique Japanese vase. Ornate, painted flowers wound up the sides. She was sure the object was a couple of centuries old and probably cost an entire year’s worth of wages at the diner—including tips.
Water sloshed over the side as she held it aloft. “Don’t come any closer!” She called for the cat again, hoping to get him out of harm’s way before she made a run for the front door.
Ignoring her warning, Lucky took a lumbering step while slowly unbuttoning the cuffs of his sleeves and rolling them up.
Ella had no choice but to defend herself. Grabbing a few stems, she lobbed the flowers at him. As far as the aerodynamics of flowers are concerned, daffodils, she discovered, did not fly well.
The happy, yellow blooms splat about halfway between Ella and her pursuer. Lucky stared at them in confusion.
“Huh. Well, that was anticlimactic.” Ella threw another flower, but it had the same effect.
If she threw the valuable vase, Rose would kill her, and she rather liked her chances up against the burly bartender than June Cleaver’s twin.
With a roar, Lucky dove towards her. Ella skipped backward and threw the ornamental vase, water and all. “I’m sorry, Rose!”
It shattered at Lucky’s feet and did little to impede his steamroll towards her.
Ella spun and sprinted for the umbrella stand. As her hand wound around a wooden handle, Lucky caught the hood of her sweatshirt and yanked her back.
Gagging, she did her best to turn, but his grip on her clothing only allowed her a partial rotation. Reaching across her body, she swung the umbrella—a pink polka dot one—and bludgeoned his shoulder.
He released her, and she stumbled forward. Once she’d regained her balance, she turned and immediately dropped into a batter’s stance, holding the rain implement like a baseball bat.
“I’ll have you know, I batted .175 on my softball team.”
“That’s an awful batting average. Really, a toddler could do better.” He edged forward, eyeing the weapon, his forearm muscles rippling.
“It was second best on our team.”
He stopped, blinking.
“We had a horrible team,” she explained.
Lucky coiled his legs like a spring, ready to pounce again. Ella tightened her grip on the umbrella, ready to swing for a home run.
As he began to jump forward, a blur of fur flew through the air and landed on his back.
Lucky released a shrill, unmanly scream. He spun circles, yelling and dancing something not dissimilar to the jitterbug.
Ella glimpsed a tail swishing back and forth during one of Lucky’s twirls. Fluffy’s claws sank deeper into the man’s flesh, and blood began staining his shirt.
With the behemoth bartender distracted and with no other means to subdue him, she took a swing at the side of his head, careful not to hit the cat.
The effect was immediate. He stopped prancing and dropped like a tree. On the way down, Fluffy leaped from the man’s back and dashed behind Ella.
&
nbsp; The floor shook.
Ella waited in silence, watching the prone figure, her umbrella-turned-weapon poised to strike.
“You dead?” She nudged his shoe.
After a moment, his chest rose and fell, and she let the umbrella fall from her grip. She winced a little, knowing how bad his headache would be when he awoke.
“Good job, buddy.” Fluffy curled around her legs then sat and licked his paws, seeming to be unharmed from the whole ordeal. “Up top, my man.”
She bent, grabbed one of his paws, and gave it a high five. At least someone in this town wouldn’t leave her hanging.
Just then, the front door opened. Will’s silhouette stood out against a gray, foggy backdrop.
“Ella?”
She froze, rooted in her half crouch, her hand still on Fluffy’s paw with Lucky’s prone body behind them.
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
“It looks like you and a cat knocked Lucky unconscious.”
She tilted her head. “I stand corrected. It’s exactly what it looks like.”
Chapter 23
ROSE SET A hot cup of decaf coffee on the kitchen table in front of Ella. Steam rose in lazy swirls as Ella breathed in the aroma before taking a sip.
It was late Sunday night. After Chapman had hauled Lucky off to the jail cell, he’d returned about the same time the others had come back from the town hall meeting.
After she settled the cup back onto the wooden surface, she looked up to find six people staring back at her—four of whom were seated at the table with her and two on stools at the island.
Ella averted her gaze to the canary yellow paint, wishing she could’ve been a fly on the wall when Flo had “accidentally” set the kitchen on fire.
“Miss Barton?” Chapman’s deep voice rose from the island. “Anytime now.”
“We’re growing old here,” Flo chimed in.
“Which means,” Will said, “you’ll turn to dust soon because you were already old to begin with.”
Flo shot him a dark look which quickly crumbled into the standard batting of her eyelashes at him.
“I really should be talking to her alone,” Chapman said.
