Traveling Town Cozy Mystery Box Set Read online

  Contents

  Phantoms and Phonographs

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Perils and Plunder

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Ghastly Glitch

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Series List

  TRAVELING TOWN MYSTERIES

  PHANTOMS

  AND

  PHONOGRAPHS

  AMI DIANE

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organization, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2019 Ami Diane

  All rights reserved.

  Printed and bound in USA. First Printing March 2019

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages

  (200 words or fewer) in a review.

  Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  Cover design by Ruda Studio. Images courtesy of Adobe Stock photos.

  V.05262019.2

  Copyright © 2019 Ami Diane

  All rights reserved.

  Chapter 1

  ELLA BARTON TURNED sideways and squeezed between a man decked out in a colonial waistcoat, breeches, and a cravat and another man donned in deerskin. After mumbling the appropriate apologies to the Ben Franklin and Davy Crockett duo, she tucked herself into the foyer and leaned against the grandfather clock as much for breathing space as to welcome any latecomers to the party.

  Keystone Inn brimmed with townspeople who brushed shoulders and milled about in the expansive entrance hall, greeting each other with hardy handshakes. Overhead, the chandelier glittered, gilding the bustling below as people flowed through doorways and halls.

  The innkeeper, Rose Murray, swept past Ella, looking particularly resplendent in a champagne and black-colored fringe flapper dress and a chestnut wig bouncing around her head. She spotted Ella in an equally fringed dress, only more champagne color than black and filled out in different places.

  “Do you have your cards?” Rose asked breathily, her cheeks flushed as she took in the packed hall. She didn’t wait for Ella’s response. “Can you believe how many people came? And on such short notice, too. When they announced the party at the town hall meeting, saying they needed a place to host the event in five days, I never thought we’d pull it off.”

  “You pulled it off.” Ella poked the flushed innkeeper. “And don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy planning it with so little notice.” Secretly, she suspected the last minute appeal for a proper venue to host the shindig had been half the draw for Rose. She was one of those people who thrived off planning, cleaning, and creating order from chaos.

  “Well, maybe just a little,” Rose admitted. She flashed Ella a dazzling grin and pushed up her cat-eye glasses. “How’s my wig?”

  “Crooked and fake. It’s perfect.”

  “Don’t forget your lines.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Five minutes. And stay in character.”

  “Always.” Ella’s tone came out breathy and high-pitched as she took on the vapid quality denoting the character card tucked away in her purse.

  At that moment, Rose was called away to the check-in desk-turned-bar for the night. Ella seized the moment to lean into the clock again and brush up on her character.

  Behind her, the front door opened, and a middle-aged pair emerged from the foggy night like ghosts. They sauntered in, leaving the door open.

  “They haven’t started yet, have they?” the woman asked Ella. Her skin puckered around her lips, accentuating hot pink lipstick.

  “Not yet.”

  “See, Harold?” The woman jammed an elbow into the side of the gentleman next to her—presumably Harold. He wore a zoot suit several sizes too big, which Ella supposed was intentional.

  “But they’re about to.” Ella dug her cellphone out of her purse. “It’s 5:55. Oh! Make a wish.”

  The woman’s mouth turned down like a fish. “Why?”

  “Because… it’s 5:55.” Ella swallowed and stared at their blank faces. “No? Suit yourself. Waste of a perfectly good wish if you ask me.” Shrugging, she turned aside and scanned the crowd.

  Harold grunted before escorting his wife into the flow of bodies, muttering about the keeping of time or some such nonsense.

  Shivering, Ella closed the door. “That’s okay. No need to keep the heat in. I got it.”

  “Who’re you talking to?”

  Ella jumped. “Cheddar crackers, Flo. Where did you come from?”

  Crazy Flo, the other boarder who lived at the inn with Ella, held a ham and cheese sandwich aloft in one hand, bits of lettuce falling to the floor like green snow. “From the kitchen. Gotta keep up my strength tonight.”

  Ella’s gaze traveled from the sandwich to the woman’s arms, where skin and fat hung like clothes on a hanger. “Yes, well… I don’t think we’re supposed to be eating yet. Also, I thought Rose asked you to change into a costume.”

  “No. She said to wear what I wore in the 1920s. This is what I wore.”

  “You wore potato sacks?”

  “It’s not a potato sack, Poodle Head.” As if the nickname reminded her of Ella’s hair, the woman glanced up at her hairdo. Ella was pleased when she didn’t follow up with any
more disparaging remarks and inwardly congratulated herself, feeling it had been worth the extra hour to tame her curls into a manageable bob reflective of the era.

  “Did they have trees for hair in the twenties?” Ella asked, nodding at the older woman’s bouffant.

  Flo was in the middle of giving Ella the bird, causing a woman nearby to purse her lips in dismay, when Wink joined them. Her typically genial expression was replaced with one of nerves as her eyes roved over the crowd.

  “I didn’t think there’d be so many.”

  The town hall meeting only five days prior had gone from boring to edge-of-her-seat when, after listening to the other candidates blather on, Wink had sprung from her chair and announced her candidacy.

  “Just remember,” Flo said, staring directly at Ella, “talk Wink up as much as you can.”

  “While playing the game, though, right? Because that’s why we’re here.”

  “No, the whole purpose of the party is for the consonants—”

  “Constituents,” Ella corrected.

  “—to get to know the mayoral candidates better. Make ‘em look good. The only reason Wink’s running,” Flo said, her voice turning exasperated as if this was her hundredth time explaining it to Ella, “is to beat that cotton-headed protestant b—”

  “Flo,” Wink warned, keeping her voice low, “people are listening.”

  Behind her thick glasses, Flo’s eyes rolled so hard there was no way it hadn’t broken a blood vessel. In a much too loud voice, she added, “I mean, yes, we’re here for a fun night, Poodle Head, interacting with our community, getting to know the voters better….”

  Ella winced and covered her ears. “Easy, woman. I think they get it.”

  “And reminding everyone,” Flo continued, ignoring Ella, “what a great leader and pillar in the community Wink is. Salt of the earth, this one is.”

  “Okay, hon.” Wink patted Flo’s thick shoulder. “That’s enough. We got a few hours yet. Spread it out.”

  Eager for a change of subject, Ella turned to Wink, appreciating the elegant way her boss had swept her hot pink hair back. “By the way, I finished the dossiers on the other candidates. Do you want me to bring them in to work tomorrow?”

  “Hmm?” Wink paused in her scanning of the sea of heads to arch a manicured eyebrow in Ella’s direction. “Oh that. No, don’t bother. We already know everything about them. We’ve lived here all our lives, remember?”

  Ella’s mouth fell open, and she called both Wink and Flo several unladylike names under her breath. “Then why the deuce did you have me make them? I spent hours and hours researching the other candidates, collating the data, interviewing neighbors and co-workers.”

  Flo snorted. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t. But I could have. That’s my point.”

  “You spent an hour at the beauty salon, listening to local gossip and asking questions.”

  Ella glanced down at her nails with a shrug. “Worth it.”

  After fending off the beautician who wanted to attack her hair, she’d found she rather enjoyed the experience, minus the brain cells lost from breathing in the fumes. A 1950s beauty parlor didn’t do much by way of aerating noxious chemicals.

  “I thought it would benefit you to know who we’re dealing with.” Wink patted Ella’s arm by way of apology.

  “Not me.” Flo adjusted the material of her dress, which still looked suspiciously like burlap, despite the woman’s protests to the contrary. “I wanted to punish you since you wouldn’t let me campaign properly at the town hall meeting.”

  “Because I wouldn’t let you try out your hypnotic stun gun on the crowd? Is that what you mean by ‘campaign properly’?” Ella used air quotes with the last two words.

  Flo’s chin wobbled as she opened her mouth, but before any words spilled out, the grandfather clock behind Ella struck six o’clock with a deep gong that vibrated her chest. She’d never stood this close to it when it had gone off. Plugging her ears, she waited for the last strike and the noise to abate before pulling out her fingers.

  “Show’s on,” murmured Wink.

  Rose’s voice lilted over the crowd as she clapped her dainty hands and climbed the stairs. A second later, a whistle rent the air, hushing the rustling of small talk and gossip. The crowd parted a fraction before Ella, and she spotted Rose’s husband, Jimmy, pulling his fingers from his lips.

  After climbing a few steps up the grand staircase, using the elevation as a stage, Rose cleared her throat, and a deep hush of anticipation fell over the partygoers. Behind her glasses, the innkeeper’s eyes shone with excitement, belying her tone when she spoke.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that there has been a murder.” She waited a moment for the whispers to rise and die like a breeze.

  “Was it Ella?” someone shouted, drawing a few chuckles and a hearty laugh from Flo. “Did she find the body?”

  Ella dodged her head until she located the source of the voice. “I’ve got my eyes on you, George,” she called out.

  An older gentleman with copper hair and matching beard grinned at her.

  Rose seemed undeterred by the interruption and leaned forward dramatically. “It’s the 1920s. The height of Prohibition.” Her hand flared through the air like a magician as she got into the role. “We’re in Chicago. Local gangsters have reached a disagreement about bootlegging turf. The local bosses’ dames are caught in the middle. No one knows who to trust. Spies run amok.

  “These two factions’ disputes have come to a head. In an attempt to settle their differences and lay claim on jurisdiction, the two bosses Danger Delgado and Mad Dog Nelson have agreed to meet at the local speakeasy.

  “Just as they’re making headway in their negotiations, Sam Savage is found dead in the bathroom with a knife in his throat.”

  Ella leaned close to Wink’s ear. “Who came up with these names? I’m Pretty Pauley.”

  “I’m just The Butcher. Danger Delgado’s enforcer.”

  “Lucky,” Flo said.

  Rose broke character slightly, explaining that the players were to ask questions only to those with blue armbands as they were the actors.

  “Welcome to the Keystone Gatsby Speakeasy, full of booze, mobsters, and murder,” Rose continued. “You must find the killer to win. Let the game begin!” She hoisted her hands in the air. She blinked. “Let the game begin!” Her hands froze in the air dramatically for several breaths. Dropping them, she cleared her throat and leveled a look in Ella’s direction.

  “Oh, right.” Ella spun and her hand hovered over the light switch. She cued Rose who shook her head.

  “Let the game begin!” the innkeeper thundered a final time like a washed-up actor directing a school play.

  Ella flickered the lights. The crowd shuffled around, the anticipation tangible. From a deep recess in the hall, probably from the study, ragtime music began to float over excited conversations.

  Ella wasn’t sure if she should wander or wait for someone to approach, so she settled on adjusting her armband to make it more prominent then listened to Flo and Wink strategize for the upcoming potluck, throwing in a helpful comment here or there, like, “that won’t work” or “no, smoke grenades, Flo. We’ve been over this.”

  It wasn’t long before they had a small crowd gathered around them.

  “Well,” Ella was saying in her faux, high-pitched voice, “as I was saying, I’d been dating ol’ Sam for nigh just a fortnight. He’d been acting awfully suspicious, like he knew someone was gunning for him.”

  After a few more questions that Ella’s character couldn’t really answer, the group dispersed, moving onto Jimmy over by the hallway.

  Flo gave Ella a once-over. “You know that’s not how we talked back then, right? Aren’t you a linguist?”

  “I do know that. Hey, you have your fun with guns, let me have mine.”

  With the next group that approached, a trio of giggling ladies who seemed to have alr
eady hit the bar, Wink turned on her Grandma Wink charm and had them laughing and swapping recipes in a few minutes. Meanwhile, Flo plied them with buttons that read, Vote Wink, The Others Stink and Wink’s Easy, that she dug out of her black hole of a purse.

  Ella frowned at the buttons, guessing the latter meant her boss was the easy choice, but the slogan certainly didn’t come across that way.

  As Flo zipped her purse up, Ella craned her head to peek inside, ever curious about what the woman carted around. In that one glimpse, she spotted a flask, handcuffs, rope, and something with blinking lights. Standard fare as far as Crazy Flo was concerned. The contents would’ve raised the hackles of any police officer from Ella’s time, probably suspecting the woman of being a serial killer or something, but Ella knew better. And fortunately, Sheriff Chapman tended to turn a blind eye to Flo’s more… eccentric ways.

  Ella scanned the crowd, searching for a particular face. She spotted Will a few feet away by the hallway that led to the parlor. The giggling trio of women had gathered around him, rapt in every word he was saying. He caught Ella’s eye and winked, sending her stomach soaring into her chest.

  “Quit ogling Will and grab me a drink, will ya?”

  Ella tore her eyes away from the inventor’s dimples to the much-less-attractive pinched expression on Flo’s face. “Get it yourself. And don’t tell me you weren’t ogling him either.”

  For a moment, the older woman stared wistfully at Will. The moment began to stretch out.

  Ella shifted uncomfortably. “You know, where I’m from, we have a word for women like you.”

  “Sexy?”

  “I really regret teaching you that word. No, cougar.”

  Flo’s mouth worked back and forth as she nodded. “I like it.”

  “Focus, you two. Look alive.” Wink smiled as a couple walked past. “We have to campaign. We can’t let her win.”

  Ella followed Wink’s gaze to a woman in Colonial attire hustling the bartender. Councilwoman Patience Chilton. Their reason for running.

  A shiver crawled up Ella’s spine. The bartender looked to be on his last nerve. Feeling sorry for him, she decided to come to his aid.