Traveling Town Cozy Mystery Box Set by Ami Diane

Author:Ami Diane [Diane, Ami]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-20T22:00:00+00:00

“What the hell is this?” Frank stared at the disaster on the plate sitting before him.

A disassembled burger stared up. Well, not really a burger so much as a charred piece of meat roughly in the shape of a patty but more closely resembling a meatball. A hunk of dirty lettuce was strewn to the side, along with some pickles, a puddle of ketchup, and olives just for the heck of it.

Ella blinked innocently at him. “I’m sorry. Is that not what you asked for?”

Frank’s mouth opened and closed a few times in silent words before he finally asked, “Where’s the bun?”

She snapped her fingers. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

The kitchen door swung in as she retrieved two slices of homemade bread. As she slapped them on his plate, he had apparently gathered enough courage to cut a slice of hamburger away. It was nearly black through and through.

She eyed it, not sure even she would eat the briquette. The man’s tongue slid out like a snake, testing it. He quickly gagged and dropped his fork, the meat along with it. His hands groped along the counter until he was slurping water from his cup like a man lost in the desert.

“Oh, yeah. I may have put too much salt on it. And hot sauce. That’s normally what goes in one, right?”

She genuinely didn’t know. And just for flavoring, she’d gotten a little creative and had added jalapeño juice from the jar in the fridge. Maybe it was the two art classes that had gotten her creative juices pumping, but she was beginning to understand why Wink, Horatio, Flo, and Rose liked to cook and bake.

Frank crossed himself, rasping, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

He chugged down the rest of his water, pushed the plate away, then waddled back to his section of floor where his tools lay strewn about.

“Wait? You’re done?” Ella frowned, looking from him to the plate. Surely, it couldn’t be that bad.

Holding the meal up, she sniffed it then recoiled. It smelled like the inside of a tamale cooked in the fires of hell.

Coughing, she dropped the plate with a clatter to the countertop just as a customer walked in. Amid the tears rapidly forming in her eyes, she made out a blurry figure with hair the height of the Empire State Building.

“Perfect timing, Flo. This hamburger’s unclaimed.”

Flo’s skin was paler than usual. She glanced at the barely edible contents on the plate before leveling Ella with an intense gaze.

“Wink here?”

Ella shook her head, taking in the crazy woman’s pinched expression and the way her eyes darted around. “What is it?”

Flo opened her mouth then spotted the installer hunched over the floor. “I was—wow, Frank, you ever hear of underpants?”

Ella waved a hand in the air. “It’s a lost cause. At some point, you grow immune to it. Although, I have considered sticking a fork in my eyes numerous times.”

Frank glared at them, snatched up a small roller, and began rolling it across the new vinyl flooring haphazardly, part of the time beating it aggressively like a drum.

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