by Ami Diane
“No, you’re not. Rose will kill you. Also, don’t you think that’s the first place Chapman will look?”
Flo sauntered ahead, the group finally walking at a pace where she could lead. “Poodle Head’s got a point.”
Ella, who was walking backward to keep Peanut in sight, jabbed a thumb over her shoulder.
“See? Flo agrees with me, even though I’m sure her reasoning has more to do with Peanut being in her Fortress of Solitude.”
“My what?” Flo piped up at her back.
Ella ignored the question and backpedaled faster as Peanut gained ground. “We really should’ve thought this part through before jailbreaking him.”
Another splat. Wink sighed. “It’ll just be for tonight until I can figure out what to do with him.”
“Here’s a thought: why not just let the wild dinosaur loose?”
“He’s too young. He doesn’t know how to feed himself.”
Ella’s eyes narrowed on the bit of meat dangling from Peanut’s ridiculously sharp teeth. “You sure about that?”
Flo spoke up from the front. “You never heard me say this, but Chapman had a point. The dragon knows where to get a free meal now. Even if we release him, I don’t we’ll be rid of him.”
“Really?” Wink’s voice lilted up with hope.
“That ain’t a good thing.”
They were a block away from the inn.
“Yep,” Flo continued, “only one thing to do to an animal with a taste for blood prowling human territory…”
She raised her gun, but Ella stopped her.
“Whoa, there, Annie Oakley. Let’s not dispatch Peanut until we’re sure he won’t leave town.”
Flo’s face fell, and she clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. “Fine. But if we have to, I wanna do the honors.”
Wink seethed. “Florence Henderson—”
Ella giggled and muttered, “Mrs. Brady.”
“—if you so much as look at Peanut sideways I’ll… I’ll tell Peter you’re the reason he had a poison oak rash for a month.”
“Who’s Peter?” Ella asked.
“No one.”
“One of her ex-husbands,” Wink replied, dropping another bloody hunk of beef. They were in front of the iron archway for the inn.
“Followup question, how do I get in touch with this Peter? I have oh so many questions. Is he open to interviews? Also,” Ella turned to Flo, “how did you give him a poison oak rash for a month?”
“I ground up the dried leaves and added them to his foot powder.”
Ella had another question loaded on her tongue, but Peanut’s triangular head suddenly bolted up. His snout turned in the direction of the park southeast of their location.
Nobody moved.
Then Ella heard it. Short bleating cries that reminded her of a time she’d come across a fawn that had been separated from its mother. Only, these cries were louder and had more of a throaty foghorn layer to them.
Peanut darted between the inn and Grandma’s Kitchen. Ella was inclined to just let him go, but Wink’s chasing after him forced her to reconsider.
“Peanut, no!”
“Wink, no!”
The dinosaur streaked away, faster than anything Ella had ever seen run on two legs. He was quickly lost in the haze surrounding the park. Wink hunched toward the ground while still running in an awkward-looking lope as she pointed out Peanut’s tracks in the soggy ground.
“Wink, come on. This may be for the best.”
But Ella’s words fell on deaf ears. Flo was nowhere in sight, the most likely explanation being that she’d simply not cared to follow.
Ella continued to chase Wink who followed Peanut’s tracks towards the Keystone Forest. She gasped for air, unaccustomed to full-out sprinting, and her clothes, which were already damp from the humidity, were quickly becoming soaked.
Ahead, Wink stopped short. Ella noticed but her shoes hit a patch of mud, and she slid a few feet past the woman. Wink’s eyes were the size of Rose’s best china, her mouth wide open.
Slowly, Ella turned.
The air rent with another of those pitiful animal bleats as a dinosaur much like a Tyrannosaurus rex emerged from the forest. It looked eerily similar too.
Ella spoke out of the side of her mouth. “Don’t. Move.”
Despite her warning to Wink, Ella’s whole body trembled. The crossbow clutched in her hand now seemed like a toy. Against such a large reptile, it would do no more than tickle and enrage the adult allosaurus. Could she reach for the slingshot unnoticed?
The dinosaur sniffed the air then lowered its head. At its feet, Peanut cried out in a miniaturized mimicry. If Ella hadn’t been terrified out of her wits and trying not to soil herself, she’d think it was cute.
The adult allosaurus turned and stomped into the forest, snapping tree limbs and toppling smaller trunks like dominoes. It carved a dark path before getting lost in the night and haze.
With a final cry, Peanut chased after the dinosaur.
Wink started, but Ella grabbed her before she ran off after the dino. Once the vibration of footfalls faded, she guided them back to the inn. Beside her, Wink sniffled and wiped away tears.
Back at the inn, Flo sat at the kitchen island, munching on a slice of bread, the I-SEC on the counter.
“Come on,” Ella said to her boss. “I’ll treat you to one of your slices of apple pie. On me. After I change my underwear, of course.”
Chapter 23
ELLA SLOUCHED ON the check-in desk in the entrance hall, careful not to dribble the over-easy egg Wink had cooked for her onto the antique, ornamental rug that probably cost as much as her student loans.
Beside her, Wink pressed the phone to her ear, her finger poised over the rotary. “Oh, I’m sorry Jenny. Do you mind if I use the line?”
A muffled, tinny voice came from the phone followed by an audible click.
“Jenny opened her beauty parlor today?” Ella asked, referring to Jenny’s Salon across the street.
“No, but she lives in the apartment adjacent it.”
While Wink dialed, Ella said, “You know, where I come from, we don’t have party lines. Everyone has their own dedicated line. Some have more than one.”
“Why on earth would you need more than one?”
Ella shrugged. “Business and personal?”
Wink spoke into the phone, greeting the person on the other end. Ella had learned that this dance of social etiquette took more time than she was accustomed to, so she settled in for boredom, chewing her eggs and hash browns.
Flo descended the grand staircase, smelling of more hairspray than usual. The increase in hair product probably kept her frizzy tower propped up in the humidity. Today, she sported pencil-thin brows in arches reminiscent of the 1920s.
She inclined her head at Wink. “Who’s she on the horn with?”
“Peter,” Ella answered nonchalantly.
She reveled in the apoplectic horror that crossed the senior citizen’s face and the choking sounds that followed.
“I’m just messing with you. She’s on the phone with the butcher, which I realize as I say that sounds like she’s on the phone with a mafia hitman, but I don’t know the man’s name.”
“So… not Peter?”
“Not unless he’s the butcher. Is he the butcher?”
“Not unless he changed his profession.”
“Which is…?” Ella held her breath, hoping to get her first clue to the identity of one of Flo’s many ex-husbands.
“I don’t recall. Actor? Accountant, maybe? Something that starts with an ‘A’.”
Before Ella could ask how the deuce the woman could forget, Wink glared at both of them and stuck her finger in her free ear to hear better. A moment later, she returned the phone to the cradle.
“Well?” Ella asked around a mouthful of hash browns.
“Well, you two were rude, but despite that, I got what we were looking for.”
Flo reached a knobby hand
towards Ella’s toast.
“Who ordered the lamb?” Ella slapped Flo’s hand away, drawing a hiss.
“A few people in the week leading up to Mary’s death. Greg Stevens, Gladys Faraday, Pauline, Sal, and some kid.”
Ella perked up at the last two. “Some kid? He didn’t remember who?”
“Said the kid hadn’t been in before.”
“Doesn’t everyone here know who everyone is?”
A divot formed between Wink’s brows. “We’re not that small of a town, but most folks know who most folks are, I suppose.”
“Probably doesn’t know the kid’s name ‘cause the man doesn’t get out much.” Flo slipped the last of Ella’s bread into her mouth, crust and all.
“What the—how did you get that?”
Flo shot her a bread-filled, toothy grin, spraying crumbs all over the cherry wood desk.
“You’re dead, Henderson.”
But Ella lacked the energy to follow-up on the threat. Her chin rested in her hands. “So, not only did Sal fight with his campaign manager just before the debate, accusing her of stealing, but he also ordered the same kind of meat found in the victim’s purse, the reason that she got attacked.”
Without being in front of her murder board, she had to recall her suspect list, but that wasn’t difficult. The top two names now had both the motive and means—or at least she thought they did.
“What kind of livestock does that rancher, Dirty-jeans Guy, have?”
“Oh, the whole gambit. Cattle. Pigs. Sheep.”
“Sheep. As in lamb?”
Flo snorted. “That’s usually what a baby sheep is, dummy.”
Ella waved her fork at the woman in what she hoped was a threatening gesture but ended up appearing as if she were conducting a choir.
She gave up and said, “Baby sheep aside, I think it’s time we talk to both Sal and that rancher.” She stabbed the fork into the remainder of her egg. “After breakfast, of course.”
“Feels weird coming in through the front door, huh?”
Ella pressed her nose to the outside of Sal’s barbershop window to peek through a crack in the blinds. Overhead, the barbershop pole creaked in its slow rotation. “I think he’s coming.”
Flo rapped on the glass portion of the door again, drumming out an annoying beat. From the dark hallway inside, one of the other doors Ella had assumed was a closet opened, and the mayoral candidate stepped out. His face was taught with a scowl and when he spotted the trio, it went downright sour. It seemed that he saved his salesman smile for his constituents.
“Can I help you?” The sheen on his helmet of hair caught the late morning light.
“We were wondering if we could come in for a chat,” Ella said. She flashed her best smile.
His eyes narrowed with suspicion and swept to the other two. Finally, he relented and let them in. Ella nearly choked again on the cloud of aftershave that must’ve been baked into the walls themselves.
“I’m a bit preoccupied cleaning upstairs. Someone threw a rock through my window the other night, and there’s still glass everywhere.” He paused, appraising them again. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Why would we?” Flo grunted.
“Because I figure it had to be one of Pearl’s voters.” He dipped his chin at Wink. “Someone who’s threatened by my chances of winning.”
“If you say so,” Flo muttered, earning a jab in her ribs courtesy of Wink.
Ella steered the conversation back on track. “Sorry to hear about your window. Want help? I’m pretty handy. I’ll have you know, back home, I hung all my pictures up myself.” She breathed on her fingernails before rubbing them over her shirt. “Yep, pretty good with a hammer.”
He blinked at her, and Flo and Wink turned to stare.
“No? Your loss.”
“If you stopped by to try to get me to withdraw from the race, you’re in for a disappointment.” He folded his arms.
“Actually,” Ella said, “we’re not here about the race—although, that would be nice of you to withdraw, now that you mention it.” At an exasperated look from Wink, she shook her head. “Right. The reason we’re here. We fell upon some, shall we say, interesting information that we were hoping you could confirm.”
Flo had shuffled off, whistling a sea shanty song of which Ella couldn’t remember the name, and had made herself at home in one of the barber chairs.
“Could you not?” Sal glared at the older woman as she began spinning the chair. To Ella and Wink, he said, “What sort of information?”
“The kind that accused Mary of stealing from your campaign money,” Wink supplied.
“Where the devil did you hear a thing like that?”
“So, it’s not true?” Ella said.
“It’s none of your business.” He began ushering them towards the door, but she stepped out of his reach.
“Can’t you tell us for old time’s sake?”
He divided a glower between her and Flo, who’d stop spinning and was now holding her stomach, her face a disturbing shade of green.
“Sal,” Wink began with the gentle tone she used for talking Ella into taking out the trash at the diner, “this has nothing to do with the election. We won’t tell a soul about the theft, honest. This is about finding Mary’s killer.”
“Killer? Didn’t a dinosaur get her?”
“With the help of a person,” Ella said, not wanting to explain the whole of it, as well as keep the details secret.
“Hmm. Isn’t that what that law dog is for: finding killers?”
“The same man you think isn’t fit for the badge?” she bit out.
He harrumphed. “Fair point.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Alright. Yes, Mary stole from me, but” he held up a menacing finger, “before you go getting any ideas, I had nothing to do with her death.”
Ella maintained a neutral expression while imagining pumping a fist in the air. The man had just confirmed a motive to kill Mary.
“It wasn’t enough to even press charges over,” he added.
Her internal celebration ceased.
For the first time since they’d stepped into the barbershop, his greasy smile emerged. “I don’t know about you, Pearl, but there’s hardly any campaign money to speak of. I’ll show you.”
Turning, he motioned them to follow him down the dark hallway. They crowded in the doorway to his office, leaving Flo in the front of the shop to contend with her motion sickness.
Sal nudged aside stacks of papers and a chart of the town with contour lines.
“Here.” He tossed a black ledger across the desk with an uncharacteristic chuckle. “She was in charge of funding. When I reviewed the numbers, I noticed discrepancies between recorded donations and what people told me they gave.”
Ella dragged the ledger closer and cracked the spine. Wink leaned in, and they poured over the mess. Names. Donations. It was Greek to Ella, who’d always found finances to be her Achilles’ heel.
“She stole a grand total of thirty dollars.” Sal’s chair creaked as he leaned back, a smug smile on his face. “Like I said, not even worth pressing charges.”
Disappointment pulled at Ella’s gut. Even if he was lying about the amount Mary stole, the total in donations was less than two hundred and fifty dollars. Even if Mary had stolen all of his campaign money, it still wasn’t enough over which to kill the woman.
However, wounded pride was a powerful motivator that could make even the most moral of individuals forget their scruples. Still… it was a stretch, a motive as thin as one-ply tissue, and she knew it.
Mentally, she moved him to the bottom of her suspect list, albeit, reluctantly.
“Will that be all?” If his tone hadn’t dismissed them, him standing and pointing at the door certainly did.
Wink smoothed out the front of her shirt. “We won’t take up any more of your time.” She nodded curtly and stepped out.
Ella lingered. “I have just one more
question.”
He raised an eyebrow, which she took as an invitation to continue.
“How did you know Chapman found the professor’s time device?”
Sal hadn’t mentioned her name nor Wink’s or Flo’s at the debate, which meant he might not know of their involvement.
“Does it matter how I found out? What’s important is that a man who’s supposed to have the citizens of this town’s best interest at heart withheld vital information. That’s what you should be concerned about, Ms. Barton. That man might very well hold the key to getting you home, and he didn’t tell you about it.”
Ella bit her tongue to keep from telling him just how wrong he was. The device didn’t work. They couldn’t return home—yet.
This shotgun approach, finding one facet of the truth without searching out all of the sides, was ruining a man’s career. Was this what she was like? Finding a shred of evidence and lambasting people before learning all of the facts?
He leaned forward. “And you should ask that suitor of yours why he didn’t tell you about it, either.”
From the front of the shop, Wink called Ella’s name, saying they needed to get home for some ginger ale because Flo was painting the sidewalk with her insides. Without another word, Ella walked away.
Chapter 24
SINCE SAL’S MOTIVE for killing Mary was weak, they moved down to the next suspect on Ella’s murder board. After a hearty meal of roast beef sandwiches and a cucumber salad that Wink forced Ella to eat, they piled into the diner owner’s blue Oldsmobile and puttered down Main Street.
Ella had called “shotgun” which had sent Flo in a tizzy about borrowing her weapons without asking. Ella had to educate the woman on what calling the word out meant. Then they argued about who got to ride in the passenger seat until a distant roar put an end to the discussion, and Ella dove into the back.
As they puttered down the road, Ella said, “I’ll be sorry when you’re not staying at the inn anymore, Wink.”
Her boss glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Because you’ll be on your own again for meals?”
“There’s only so much oatmeal a girl can eat.”
