A Very Woodsy Murder

Book 1: Golden Motel Mystery

by Ellen Byron

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Female Sleuths; Mystery; Animal Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

“Recovering TV sitcom writer Dee Stern leaves behind punchlines for peril in a delightful whodunnit set at a remote motel in rural California that mixes a perfect cocktail of gut-busting one-liners with heart-stopping suspense!” —Lee Hollis, Author of Death of a Clam Digger

New motel owner Dee Stern has checked out of the familiar comforts in the Studio City and checked in to the quaint village of Foundgold. Running a rustic getaway in the woods sure beats LA traffic—until murder ruins the peace and quiet . . .

Down-on-her-luck sitcom writer Dee Stern is flipping the script. Twice divorced and wasting her talents on an obnoxious kids’ show, the lifelong Angeleno embraces the urge to jump in her car and keep driving. It's a road trip with no destination—until she pulls into a mid-century motel filled with cobwebs and retro charm. Nestled in the shadow of a national park, it’s a time capsule of a place that, like her, could use some work. So, in the most impulsive move of her life, Dee teams up with best friend, Jeff Cornetta—who happens to be her first ex-husband—to transform the aging ranch into the Golden Motel-of-the-Mountains, a hiker’s oasis on the edge of the wilderness . . .

But Dee and Jeff soon realize there couldn’t be two people more unprepared for the hospitality business. There’s also the panic-inducing reality of prowling bears and a general store as the only shopping spot for miles. Living and working in the middle of nowhere takes some getting used to—especially when a disrespectful guest ends up murdered! Now, with the motel duo topping the suspect list, Dee must steer clear of a meddling park ranger, face her past in show biz, and determine if the killer is a local or tourist. Because as she quickly finds out, there are many things worse than a one-star review.

“Ellen Byron combines a witty and resourceful heroine with a dream, a shabby motel in a spectacular setting, a host of interesting characters, and a puzzling murder that hits a little too close to home in this delightfully quirky, clever, and laugh-out-loud mystery that delivers a hefty dose of nostalgic charm. Byron's A Very Woodsy Murder will leave readers clamoring for another visit to the Golden Motel.” —Darci Hannah, Author of Murder at the Blarney Bash

Release date: July 23, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Dee watched her best friend check out the potential gold mine across the narrow country road from them. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, which made her nervous. Patience was not Dee’s strong suit—and with the high stakes of her current situation, waiting for a response from Jeff was torture.

Jeff shifted position. Dee’s hopes rose. But . . . nothing. The only sound came from the rustling of leaves by a spring breeze and the caw of a hawk circling above them in a brilliant blue sky.

Unable to take it anymore, Dee gave up on patience. “Jeff, please. I really want to know what you think.”

More silence. Then . . . “It’s definitely cool,” he acknowledged. “And the setting is spectacular.”

He squinted. Dee couldn’t tell if it was to get a different perspective or the beginning of a frown.

“I get impulse buys,” he said. “I really do. That’s how I wound up with a case of anti-balding cream from a deal I saw on TV.” Jeff touched a hand to his tight copper curls. “Do you think it’s working?” he asked, hopeful but insecure.

“Yes,” Dee said. It wasn’t a complete lie. Jeff’s curly ginger hairline did seem to be receding at a slightly slower pace.

“Awesome,” he said, relieved. “Anyway, like I was saying, I do get impulse buys. But . . . a motel?”

“Not just any motel. This one.”

Dee made an expansive gesture toward the worn, yet charming, rustic mid-century lodging in front of them: the Golden Motel, the lone hostelry in the tiny village of Foundgold, California.

The motel was nestled amidst a grove of pine trees at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains and the southernmost tip of Gold Rush Country. Behind it loomed the incomparable beauty of Majestic National Park, whose entrance was a mere few miles up the winding two-lane road fronting the motel.

Built in the early 1940s, the property consisted of a quaint, single-story redwood lodge containing ten guest rooms. A one-bedroom apartment, which counted as living quarters for the motel owner, was attached to the small, low-slung lodge’s lobby and lounge. Ten cozy cabins, also of redwood, were scattered in the woods behind the lodge. A pool shaped like a gold nugget claimed the western edge of the property, but instead of water, decaying pine needles filled its bottom. A large neon sign sporting another gold nugget advertised the motel’s name in bright yellow. Or would have if some of its lights weren’t out.

“You really want to buy this place?” Jeff asked.

“Yes. It’s a motel that feels like a hug.”

He gave her a skeptical look and Dee hastened to explain.

“It gives off this really warm, cozy vibe.” She gazed at the Golden as two squirrels skittered up the giant ponderosa pine standing guard in the grass oval at the center of the motel’s graveled circular drive. “You know how miserable I’ve been lately.”

Jeff’s expression softened. “You’ve been through a lot.”

Dee responded with a grateful smile. “I only drove up to Majestic to get out of L.A. for a weekend. I wanted a simple, pretty place where I could think about how to get my life back on track.” She motioned to their surroundings. “I can’t believe I’ve lived in California my whole life and never been here. It’s so beautiful. And peaceful. You know my feeling of burnout?” Dee waved her hands in the air as if waving away bad spirits. “Gone.”

“Peaceful? That’s a switch. You always said you were a city girl and the country creeped you out with all the quiet and dark.”

“I know. I didn’t appreciate it until now.”

Jeff gestured to the motel. “How’d you find this place?”

“I drove in the north end of the park, but I drove out the south end. I rounded the bend and there it was. The For Sale sign was like a sign to me.” She tapped her chest. “It’s the one-eighty career change I’ve been looking for.”

“Career change or running away?” Jeff sounded dubious. “I’d hate to see you make a huge decision like this for the wrong reasons.”

Dee knew her friend’s concerns were well-intentioned. And not far off the mark. Her mother’s unexpected death, the end of her second marriage, a career downturn—it all added up to her very own “annus horribilis,” to quote the late queen of England.

“What about your job?” Jeff asked.

“This hiatus showed me I need to move on. Every time I think about going back to work when it’s over, I get a sick feeling here.” Dee formed two fists and placed them on her stomach. “Duh! is a kids’ sitcom, which I could live with. But it’s a bad one. The job is just as hard as when I worked on network and streaming shows, but the pay is half, the staff hates being there, and the writing is terrible. Even my own.”

The expression “what goes up must come down” was never more appropriate than when applied to a Hollywood career. Ever since breaking into television in her mid-twenties as a writer-producer, Dee had scored jobs on decent, workhorse sitcoms that garnered viewers, but not accolades. Without an award-winning hit credit to take to the bank, as she aged out of being the latest shiny object, job opportunities went from few to nonexistent. After a year of unemployment, the sole offer she’d received during the recent staffing season was from Duh!, a cheesy sitcom for kids about tween superheroes attending a middle school on New York’s Long Island.

“I was going to tough it out, I really was,” she continued. “Work my butt off to write and produce the best scripts I could. But then I found out that when I turn forty in December, I’m eligible for the union’s career longevity committee. And that pushed me over the edge.”

“Longevity sounds like it’s a good thing.”

Dee shook her head so emphatically that the ponytail corralling her thick chestnut hair whipped her in the face. She rubbed her cheek. “It’s not. It’s the opposite. It’s a euphemism for ‘too old to hire.’ ”

“How can writers be too old at forty?” Jeff wondered.

Dee shrugged. “It’s Hollywood. Everyone’s too old. I know a writer who made her six-year-old lie about mommy’s age on a kindergarten school project. Another friend knocked five years off her dad’s age in his obituary to make herself younger.”

Jeff looked appalled as he took this in. “Ouch. But being in tech, I guess I’m not one to talk. They started calling me ‘the old guy’ when I turned thirty.”

Dee put her hands on Jeff’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. Since he was almost a foot taller than her five-two height, this required neck-craning on her part. “That’s why I want you to make a lifestyle change with me. You’re always complaining about how expensive the Bay Area is and how you’re over being a systems analyst and want to do something more creative. If you come into business with me, you can do two creative things: We’ll work together to transform the Golden into a motel everyone wants to visit, and you can set up a business as a freelance web designer and app creator. You’ve wanted to do that for forever. Now you’ll have the time.”

Dee could see Jeff was conflicted, which she considered progress. He hesitated. “The thing is, we don’t know anything about the hospitality business. I don’t even make my own bed. I don’t know how, which is going to make it a little tough to make the beds for”—he silently counted the rooms in the motel—“ten guest rooms and however many cabins.”

“I’ve been watching videos by motel owners and signed up for some online classes. I’ll teach you what I learn. And once the Golden starts generating income, we’ll hire a room comfort specialist. I just made that up as a better name for housekeepers. Do you like it?”

“I do.”

“You see? We’ll be job creators. And hospitality innovators.”

Jeff gave a snort. “Innovators. Nice way of saying amateurs.”

“Yes. But we do have useful skill sets. You have your creative side, but you also have the tech talent to turn the Golden into a smart motel with a vintage feel but state-of-the-art everything. And if there’s one thing fifteen years of working in writers’ rooms has taught me, it’s how to deal with personalities, from nice to horrible. So I can manage guests. And we can brainstorm on marketing.”

Jeff pondered this. “What are the guest rooms like?”

Dee, excited, did a little bounce up and down, her sneakers leaving indents in the wet, mossy ground beneath her feet. “Wait until you see them. They’re totally mid-century woodsy time capsules.”

A pinecone dropped off the tree above them and beaned Jeff. “Ow!” He winced and rubbed his head.

“You’ll live. Come on.” Dee darted across the street. Jeff followed, massaging where the pinecone made contact.

The two traipsed through overgrown brush to the window of a guest room. A broken venetian blind hung askew, allowing a glimpse inside. The walls and ceiling were covered with knotty pine paneling. The centerpiece of the room was a double bed with a western-style carved and whitewashed oak headboard. Matching nightstands adorned each side of the bed, and a red-plaid quilt topped it. A desk of the same oak design claimed one corner of the room, while a club chair upholstered in forest green Naugahyde sat across from it. A rag rug covered a small section of the wood floor. Lamps with bases made of stacked horseshoes graced the desk and both nightstands.

“You’re right,” Jeff said, awed. “It’s like time just stopped in the forties or fifties. Whenever this place was built.”

“In 1941, over eighty years ago. People all over the country are buying mid-century motels like this and restoring them. I want to breathe life back into the Golden and make it a must-visit destination. And I want to do it with you.”

Jeff closed his eyes. He inhaled a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, scented by the omnipresent pine trees. Then his eyes popped open. “The bathrooms. Have you seen them? If the plumbing’s bad—”

“The plumbing’s good.”

“Are they dated?”

“Yes, but in a cool way. Cleaned up and with fresh linens, they’ll look great. Same with the bedrooms.”

Jeff stroked his chin stubble. “If it goes well,” he said, “we could expand. There are probably motels like this all over the state. The country.”

“Yes. Exactly.” Dee pressed her lips together to contain a swell of emotion, then released them. “I follow this social-media site called R.I.P. Mid-Century. It shows before-and-after photos of places like this, the ‘after’ being when they’ve been abandoned. It breaks my heart. I don’t want that to happen to the Golden. It needs us. And we need it.”

Jeff gave his head an amused shake. “You’ve always been a rescuer.”

He gazed at the Golden, brow furrowed. Once again, Dee waited.

“Okay,” Jeff finally said. “I’m in.”

Dee let out a happy shriek, startling the squirrels in the ponderosa pine, who chittered a scolding. “Yes! Whoo-hoo! I’ll call the selling agent. It’s a probate sale through the state, since the owner died without a will or heirs. I know they’ll be thrilled to unload it, so we can negotiate a good deal. Then we can go over every inch of the place and work up a list of the three R’s—Repair, Restore, Replace.”

Jeff gave her an affectionate grin. “Did you make that up too?”

“I did,” she said with pride.

A loud buzzing drew their attention to the motel neon sign. The letters G, E, and N sputtered, then completely burned out. “I guess we’ll soon be the proud owners of the OLD motel,” Jeff said, his tone wry.

“That will go on the list under Repairs.”

Jeff raised an eyebrow. “Why do I have the feeling we’re going to be looking at some very long lists?”

“Getting the Golden up and running will definitely be a challenge,” Dee admitted. “But with Team You and Me, I know we can work through every obstacle we come up against.”

“I like your optimism,” Jeff said. “Hopefully, my accountant will share it.”

He headed back to his car, careful to avoid low-hanging pinecones. Dee gave the guest room interior a parting glance. She was about to return to her own car when she heard what sounded like leaves crunching under footsteps.

Dee froze. Her heart thumped as she listened for sound again. It came, only slightly more distant, like it was moving away from her. She relaxed slightly. Probably an animal. Nothing to be scared of. I’m perfectly safe here in the country. Perfectly, perfectly safe.

But as she made a quick jog up to the road, she couldn’t shake the feeling she might be wrong about that.

With Jeff on board—although his accountant, not so much—Dee managed to quickly close the deal for the Golden, making them the proud possessors of twenty-two rusty old keys: twenty for the guest rooms and cabins, one for the main office and lobby, and one for the owner’s apartment, where Dee would reside. Jeff chose the one-bedroom cabin closest to the motel as his new home. Tiny as it was, it beat the single bedroom he’d been renting in a San Francisco home for a jaw-dropping amount of money.

Dee had rented out her Studio City condo fully furnished, so she welcomed the furniture that came with her new digs, all of which were in the same woodsy style as the guest rooms. Her living space was comprised of a bedroom and bathroom, down a short hall from the main room, a large open space housing the living, dining, and kitchen area. The ancient avocado stove looked like an accident waiting to happen, but proved functional. Even better, Foundgold served up unexpectedly strong Wi-Fi, which was coming in handy as she sat working on her laptop at the living room’s oak desk, researching the discouraging cost of repairing the neon sign, as well as the Golden’s pool.

The room was warm. Her tortoiseshell glasses began a slide down the damp bridge of her nose, and she pushed them back. She rested her feet on one of several ancient trunks filled with the late owner’s belongings, which had come with the property. Dee hoped a thorough search of the trunks would unearth historic relics she could sell on the internet to help fund the motel venture.

“I hate how much it’s going to cost to deal with the pool, but we don’t have a choice,” she said to Jeff, who was splayed out on the green Naugahyde sofa, working from his phone. “We have to make it a top priority. Aside from the fact it’s in terrible shape, the condition it’s in right now makes the Golden look abandoned. We could fix up every room in the motel and people would still drive right by.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Jeff said. “I crunched the numbers for what it would cost to get all the rooms ready to go and forget a big grand opening. With the cost of new mattresses, air conditioners, linens, mini fridges, and microwaves for each room, we’ll have to rehab and book them one by one. And do all the cleaning and maintenance ourselves for longer than we originally thought. We’ll still have to live off our savings for a couple of months, but it’s our only option.”

Dee nodded, swallowing her anxiety. She’d brought Jeff along for this ride and owed him a positive attitude. “Not a problem. And I’ll have more income from my tenant’s rent in a few weeks.”

“Uh-huh,” Jeff said, half-listening, focused on his phone. “Ooh, I like her.” He roused himself from the couch and padded over to Dee in his bare feet. “What do you think? Swipe left or right?”

Dee took his phone and glanced at the bleached blonde on Jeff’s screen pouting for the camera. “Duck-lips-enhanced-with-fillers selfie. Swipe left. You really do have questionable taste in women.”

“I married you, didn’t I?”

“Proving my point,” Dee said with a chortle. She and Jeff had met, instantly fallen in love, and impulsively married at the end of their senior year at UCLA. Three months into their ill-fated marriage, they were forced to admit it was an epic fail. But the short union had resulted in a lifelong friendship, for which they’d be forever grateful.

Dee handed the phone back to Jeff. “There’s no point in connecting with her anyway. Now that you’ve moved here, you’re geographically undesirable.”

“Argh.” Jeff plopped down on the couch, which emitted a flatulent creak. “Living here is going to seriously cramp my dating life. Where do we meet people?”

“Not in Foundgold, that’s for sure. The Welcome sign said the population was sixty-eight, and I think that’s optimistic. Maybe in Goldsgone? There’s way more going on there.”

“I don’t get it,” Jeff said. “You’d think it would be the reverse. That a place called Foundgold would be way more prosperous than a town with the depressing name of Goldsgone.”

“The lady at the general store explained it to me. Once miners found gold, they left. But the ones who didn’t find it wound up broke. They didn’t have the option of leaving, so they had to make their town a decent place to live. Then someone realized they could market the fact it looks pretty much exactly like it did a hundred and fifty years ago, and a tourist trap was born.” Dee snapped her laptop shut. “A trap I want to tap into for future guests.”

She rose to her feet and stretched. Her worn T-shirt, decorated with the logo from Thanks a Latte, a failed sitcom about baristas she’d worked on, popped out of her jeans and she tucked it back in. “Speaking of the general store, I’m going to head over there and pick up something for dinner.”

She removed a leash from the hook, where it hung by the front door, and motioned to a mutt, who’d been sleeping at her feet. Dee had happily adopted Nugget, the pet pup of the late motel owner, Jasper Gormley. Her furry new friend was a midsize mix of beagle and terrier, with a touch of basset hound, and a possible dose of Doberman. One ear folded over itself, while the other stuck straight up. A doggy smile or yawn revealed a broken canine tooth, leading Jeff to joke Nugget had incurred the damage in a bar fight. The dog’s age was anyone’s guess.

The mutt rose to his feet. Seeing the leash, he gave an appreciative bark and nuzzled Dee’s calf as she clipped the lead to his collar. She gave him an affectionate pet. “That’s my boy. You want anything besides dinner and a six-pack of IPA?” She addressed the question to Jeff.

He shook his head. “Be careful. There was another bear sighting.” He put down his phone. “Which reminds me, the one thing we do have to pony up for ASAP is security cameras, at least for here and my cabin and our first guest room. I’ll hunt some down on the internet I can install myself. The kind with a phone app that’ll alert us to any visitors of the ursine persuasion.”

Dee shuddered. She hadn’t given much thought to bears prior to purchasing the Golden and couldn’t say with confidence she would have gone through with the deal if she had. What’s that old saying? She tried to remember, and then it came to her: Hindsight is twenty-twenty vision.

She wondered if black bears had good eyesight. And if there was any way to decrease the appeal of her and Nugget as potential snacks.

Foundgold was a postcard-perfect collection of nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century homes nestled in the hills of a pine forest undulating upward from the winding two-lane road that led past the Golden. Like the motel, the homes were built from local redwood and ranged from log cabins to bungalows whose porches were made of stone scooped out of the countryside’s creek and streams, one of which meandered its lovely way north into the Sierras.

Williker’s All-in-One General Store stretched out along the road like an expanded wooden telescope. The building was a haphazard blend of additions in different architectural styles, each one representing the time period when it was added to the original building. A faded plaque marked the center section as dating back to the 1849 Gold Rush and was built of the same stone used on Foundgold homes.

Dee parked her Honda Civic, picked up a couple of reusable grocery bags resting on the passenger seat, and exited the car with Nugget. She and her furry friend strolled past the store’s two gas station pumps and up a ramp to the store’s entrance.

What began as a nineteenth-century one-room store catering to a gold miner’s needs had grown into an enterprise that earned the added appellation of “All-in-One.” But the original rustic space still retained its status as a general store. Items on the well-stocked old wooden shelves ran the gamut of essentials, showcasing everything from canned goods to paper goods. Freezer and refrigerator cases lining the walls offered such a wide range of local beers and wines it led Dee to assume imbibing was the primary form of entertainment for locals—and probably for tourists on their way to Majestic.

The store also featured. . .