Perils and Plunder

by Ami Diane

  After sparing a glance behind her at the blur that was Spot, Ella tilted her head so her voice went into the vehicle. “Wink, slow down a little.”

  “What? You sure?”

  “Yes!”

  They would lose precious ground on the beast, but Ella would also have a means to defend them if the critter got any closer.

  Wink slowed. One of Flo’s hands flailed in the air like one of those inflatable tube men. The purse flew at Ella, hitting her in the face. She grabbed it before it bounced away.

  Sliding back into the car, she told Wink to put the pedal to the metal. Spot was only a row away. Her likening of the beast to the one in The Sandlot was wrong. He was far bigger than she’d imagined and certainly had not been exaggerated in her imagination.

  Ella’s hands clawed through the contents of the giant handbag, shoving aside a flask, a gas mask, and a grenade. She yanked out the gun she’d seen and pointed it out the window. She really didn’t want to hit Spot, not unless she had to, but she hoped to scare away the creature enough so Wink could stop before Flo became road kill.

  Leading ahead of the animal the way Flo had taught her, she pulled the trigger. Two apple trees in front of the creature instantly went up in flames. The heat hit her like a wave.

  At the break-neck speed they were traveling, the fire quickly ate the car’s dust.

  “You missed!” Flo hollered. Veins stood out on her neck, and sweat trickled down her forehead.

  “I wasn’t trying to hit it.” Ella scanned their surroundings. The apple trees were farther apart now, getting sparser, as they neared the edge of the orchard. “I don’t see him. I think that did it.”

  She didn’t think they’d lost him so much as gave him pause to collect himself before making a more cautious approach. Wink slammed on the breaks, causing Flo to fly through the air over the car and land on the hood, her legs and arms splayed out like a splattered bug.

  She glared at the two of them. A loud squealing sound came from her skin’s contact on the hood as she slowly slid off.

  “I really hate you two.”

  “Hurry!” Ella yelled.

  Flo scrambled faster than Ella had ever seen her move. Opening one of the back doors, she dove into the back seat.

  “She’s in,” Ella said in case it wasn’t obvious by the stream of profanities pouring from the backseat. “Go, go, go.”

  Wink hit the gas again, this time with less urgency. A moment later, the car slid as she took the sharp turn onto the main road.

  There was silence in the car, broken only by the sound of their heavy breathing.

  “Can I have my purse back now?”

  Ella dropped the strange gun back into the suitcase-turned-handbag and passed it back, glimpsing Flo’s hair. No longer was it a carefully combed bouffant as tall as the heavens, but a wind-whipped flat blowout that stuck straight back.

  “Your hair—”

  “What about it?” Flo snapped.

  Ella said nothing but reached back and grabbed a leaf from the mass. “Got it.”

  Turning back to the front, she stared out the windshield until her blood pressure was no longer in the stratosphere. “I have a question for you ladies… so, Spot… not a dog?”

  “Why would you think he was a dog?” Flo held a mirror up, attacking her mane with a comb.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because that’s the quintessential dog name.”

  “Isn’t that Fido?” Wink asked.

  Ella opened her mouth then closed it. “Fair enough. Here’s another question. What is Spot?” Her guess was somewhere between tiger and jaguar, but with demonic splicing in its genetic code.

  Wink shrugged. “Honestly, we’re not too sure. Some think he’s a tiger without stripes while others—I won’t say who, but I’m sure you can guess—think he’s a prehistoric creature that wandered across the border during one of our jumps.” Her gaze went pointedly to the rearview mirror.

  “Well,” Ella said, “prehistoric creatures aside, overall, I thought that went rather well.” Flo snorted behind her. “I mean, not well so much as productive. At least we know Six didn’t kill Darren.”

  She felt relieved at this fact, more than she cared to admit.

  Wink slowed the car as they reached town. “You’re right. That is good. But it begs the question: who did?”

  Who did, indeed. “We need to confirm cause of death.”

  “I’m betting Pauline’s written up her autopsy report by now,” Wink said.

  “Hopefully. It would certainly give more details than speculating that Darren died by a blown to the head, but how do we get that information?” Ella bit her tongue, realizing too late she should’ve kept her mouth shut.

  Flo tucked her mirror away, her tone changing to excitement. “Easy. We sneak into Pauline’s office.”

  “Of course your first suggestion is breaking and entering.” Ella clicked her tongue before saying, “Here’s a thought: I can ask Chapman. He’s not always forthcoming with information—”

  “Try never,” Flo cut in.

  “But,” Ella continued, drawing out the word and ignoring the crazy woman whose hair still looked like it had been caught in a Category Five hurricane, “it’s based on not wanting me involved than any professional code of ethics to the law. Sometimes, he divulges information to me. He likes me—well, tolerates me, anyway. I think I can get him to talk.”

  “And if you fail?”

  Ella spoke through gritted teeth. “Then, we go with your plan.”

  CHAPTER 22

  THE NEXT DAY, during a lull at the diner, Wink locked up for a bit, giving Horatio an extended break. The Keystone Investigators jostled up the sidewalk with Flo straggling far behind.

  The cool, dark interior of the sheriff’s office was a welcome reprieve from the mid-day sun. Ella slid deeper into the room, saying, “You know, you two didn’t have to join me.”

  “You kidding?” Flo grunted. “We need to be ready to deploy Operation Death.”

  Wink sighed. “I thought we agreed not to call it that?”

  “We did.” Ella stared at Chapman’s empty desk. “We did agree to that.”

  “You two did. But I didn’t” Flo pointed at the sheriff’s chair. “He ain’t here.”

  Ella clapped her on the back. “Very good observation. We’ll make an investigator out of you yet.”

  “Welp,” the old broad said, rubbing her palms together like she was trying to start a fire, “looks like Operation Death it is. Look alive, ladies.” She practically skipped her old bones—something Ella thought the woman incapable of—towards the front door before Ella stopped her.

  “Perhaps the autopsy report’s here? I mean, that’s how they do it in my time, anyway.”

  Flo’s face fell, and she drifted back.

  Wink’s shoes shuffled over the dusty hardwood floor as she pointed towards a file cabinet. “I’ll look in here. You two check his desk. I didn’t close the diner for an hour to leave empty-handed.”

  The minutes ticked by in relative silence as Ella and Flo made quick work of Chapman’s desk, largely because the spartan surface only held a lamp and scuff marks from his boots. Tugging one of the drawers out, Ella discovered the expected pens, paper, and paperclips, all appearing unused.

  A few rounds for the sheriff’s sidearm rolled around. Flo held one up to the light then pocketed it before Ella forced her to put it back.

  Ella’s nose itched from the dust and the musty scent that came with a building made entirely of aged brick. It felt strange to be in the space without Chapman.

  She was just about to close the drawer when she spotted the notebook she’d given him. A few of the pages appeared wrinkled. After hesitating, she scooped it up and flipped it open, surprised to find scribbles inside.

  “What’s that say?” Flo leaned over her before Ella dug a sharp elbow into the senior citizen’s ribs.

  “Mind not breathing on me?” Her words lacked their normal bite due to the fact that all
of her concentration was devoted to deciphering the scrawling letters. As she read, the corners of her mouth turned down. “Huh. It appears he followed up with the water treatment plant. Nobody called in sick on Friday, and Darren never came in.”

  “What’s that mean?” Flo had already grown disinterested with the notebook and had taken to chewing her nails.

  “It means Darren lied to his wife. The question is, why? What was he hiding?” Maybe there was some merit to the theory of his extracurricular actives involving women after all.

  “Any luck, Wink?” she called over.

  “It’s locked.”

  Flo’s face morphed into a How about that? expression. “The man’s learning.”

  “Something tells me this isn’t your first time poking around in here.” After returning the notebook, Ella joined Wink at the cabinet. “I’m afraid to ask, but, Flo, do you know how to pick a lock?”

  “‘Course I do. Don’t you?”

  Ella bit back a retort and motioned at the drawer. Air hissed out of the woman like a steam engine as she retrieved a paperclip from Chapman’s desk then huffed over to the file cabinet.

  “Any day now would be nice,” Ella said before jogging to the window to peer out. Dirt and grime covered the glass, reducing visibility to blurred shapes, but at least she would spot Chapman’s general outline before he came in.

  Behind her, Flo and Wink clucked and fought, and an overall metallic clinking filled the air. Finally, a loud click resounded. Ella spun on her heel.

  “Got it?”

  Wink’s eyes were wide, looking at something in Flo’s hand. The old tenant held up the silver locking mechanism with the straightened paperclip still sticking out.

  “These cheap lock cores are no good.”

  Ella swore and closed the distance between them, scooping up the lock core. After wrenching out the thin wire of paperclip, she shoved the core back into the hole on the drawer.

  “Maybe he won’t notice. Hurry. Who knows how much time we have.”

  They began rifling through drawers. Several minutes and paper cuts later, Ella located a file for “Alexander, Darren.” Unsurprisingly, it was rather anemic on information, holding only the autopsy report—the ink still smelling fresh—and the missing person’s report filed by Elizabeth.

  What surprised Ella was that Chapman had gone through this much trouble in the first place. Maybe the frontier man was adapting to this era, after all.

  “What’s it say?” Flo asked as both she and Wink shoved each other before settling into positions on either side of Ella.

  “It says you need breath mints.” Dropping it on the open drawer so they could all read, Ella scanned the contents of the double-sided page. It was like reading another language with Pauline’s shorthand, a language that Ella the linguist didn’t speak.

  Wink tapped a spot on the paper. “Looks like he died of blunt force trauma.”

  “Just like Harold implied. I wonder if he had any defensive wounds.” Ella raked her eyes over the rest of the document.

  “What difference would that make?” Flo asked.

  Wink answered for her. “It’d say whether or not he knew his attacker.”

  “Not if he was poisoned,” Flo rebutted.

  “I don’t see anything about poisoning, though.” Ella bit her lip. “Unless it’s too soon for a toxicology report.” Once again, she found herself wishing she could simply whip out her phone and perform a quick search engine query for how long it took to get forensic toxicology test results.

  Flipping over the paper, she found what she was searching for. An anatomically neutral drawing not unlike a Ken doll with arrows and scribbles indicating Darren’s injuries.

  She squinted, pulling the paper closer. “Huh. What’s this say?” She pointed at Pauline’s chicken scratch. It had an arrow leading to the drawing’s neck.

  Shoving her glasses into her copse of hair, Flo narrowed her eyes to slits, putting her nose a breath away from the paper. “Poster moth litigation.” Both Ella and Wink stared at her for so long the woman began to squirm. “What?”

  Wink shook her head. “I think it reads, ‘Post-mortem ligature marks’.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Interesting.” Ella tapped her chin, churning over this information.

  “You know what this means?” Wink asked.

  “I think it means there are ligature marks post-mortem.”

  Flo blinked at her. “So, no idea?”

  “No.” Ella considered the paper, quietly.

  She did know, actually, or at least, she had an inkling. The killer had wrapped something tightly around Alexander’s neck after he’d been killed. The question was, why? But a new thought was crowding out this question for center stage. Could it be…

  A shadow passed the window, tall, lanky, and wearing a derby hat.

  She jumped. “Chapman!”

  She shoved the paper into the file, not caring that it wrinkled. Then she did her best to slam the drawer as quietly as possible.

  Judging by the scampering noise behind her, Wink and Flo were already scurrying towards the desk. They sounded like a bunch of squirrels scrabbling across the floor. Turning, she leaped away from the cabinet as if it were on fire just as the door to the building opened.

  CHAPTER 23

  AS SHERIFF CHAPMAN strode in, Ella blurted loudly at the two women, “So, I said, ‘Two lips’. Get it? It sounds like tulips.” She laughed and slapped her leg at the punchline despite the fact that she’d not told the preceding joke. No one else laughed.

  Chapman’s eyes met hers first then drifted to the troublesome twosome at his desk, drawing Ella’s focus to them for the first time. Wink had somehow managed to stick her kitten heeled-shoes on top of the desk, mimicking Chapman’s usual posture, and was currently making hand gestures like she was practicing for some kind of shadow puppet Olympics.

  Flo was stooped over the desk, a knife in her hand, carving something in the surface. How the woman had managed to produce the blade so quickly was a question Ella intended to ask later.

  “Can I help you all?” The edge in his voice caused Flo’s head to snap up.

  Ella shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “We heard Darren Alexander was found dead.”

  Chapman slipped his hat off and laid it on the desk before dropping into his chair. “He was. Didn’t realize you lot were so close with him.”

  “Well, you know us. Concerned citizens and all that.” Ella waved her hand through the air flippantly. His steel-gray eyes flicked from her to her backdrop, and she realized that she was still standing suspiciously close to the cabinets.

  Casually, she looked back at the nearest—and only—decoration on the wall: an old sketch of a wanted poster. “You’re wrong, Flo. This looks nothing like Chapman.”

  The older woman glared at her in a way that told Ella her comeuppance would come later.

  “It’s Six,” Chapman drawled.

  Ella’s eyebrows shot up. “Six? This?” She pointed to be sure he wasn’t referring to anything else. That strange pattern in the brickwork, perhaps. “You sure?”

  “Positive. Drew it myself.”

  “Huh.” That certainly explained the disproportionate head and wonky shading. She scrutinized the poster again. “How about that. You should join us for painting class next time.”

  “Heard you lot got kicked out.”

  “Nah, Maria will warm to us, eventually. We’re just an acquired taste,” she said, borrowing Harold’s phrasing. “Especially, Flo. She’s like that rash you can’t get rid of, then you get so used to it, you sort of miss it when it finally leaves.”

  Flo called her several dirty names, ending in a growl.

  Chapman’s eyes slid closed, and he seemed to be mustering as much self-restraint as possible so as not to shoot them. His expression looked pained, causing Ella to feel a twinge of sympathy.

  “Is that all you ladies came by for?”

  “I guess we were just
hoping you’d tell us how Darren died.” Ella batted her eyelashes, twisting her features into innocence.

  “Pauline said it was blunt-force trauma.”

  Ella shot Flo a smug look at the fact that he’d told them. “Well, thank you. Anything else?”

  “No.”

  Ella frowned. “You sure?”

  “Yes. Now, no offense, but I’m busy.” He pulled the notebook from his desk drawer, cracked it open, and pinched about a third of the pages between his thumb and forefinger. “See these, here? These are all complaints from the last couple days alone, all involving that mudsill Six. On top of that, I gotta figure out who killed Mr. Alexander.”

  “Fair enough. We’ll get out of your hair.” Ella led the two women to the front door, throwing over her shoulder, “You really should consider hiring a deputy.”

  Outside, she squinted and let Wink take the lead down the band of gray concrete. When they reached the next block, her boss commented on her subdued demeanor.

  “What is it?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “About…?” Wink pressed.

  “Well, cookies for one. They’re never far from my thoughts, Wink.” She grew more somber. “But seriously, I’m thinking about those post-mortem marks around Darren’s neck.”

  Wink nodded, their feet slapping over the sidewalk for a few strides before she said, “You think it was him hanging from the mast, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. But what I’m getting hung up on—pardon the poor choice of words—is why? Why dress Darren up like Diego and hang him then move the body? What does that accomplish?”

  Wink shook her head, just as perplexed. Meanwhile, Flo became a distant speck behind them.

  Walking into the cool diner, more questions than answers swirled around in Ella’s thoughts.

  Three hours later, Ella hunkered over the lunch counter, counting coins. When she finished, she dropped them in the till. “Have a nice day, Mr. Perry.”

  The gentleman in front of her tipped his hat and strode out the door. Ella drummed her fingers on the surface of the counter, wondering what to do next. The place had emptied as the late afternoon lull had hit. All the counters had been wiped until they shone, and she’d cleaned the soda fountain twice already.