Puzzle Me a Murder

Book 0: Alice Pepper Lonely Hearts and Puzzle Club Mystery

by Roz Noonan

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Craft & Hobby Cozy Mysteries; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Empathetic to a fault, librarian Alice Pepper always had a natural talent for figuring out people and puzzles in the small Oregon town of West Hazel. But as a mystery permeates the quiet Pacific Northwestern community, murder is a challenge she’s not prepared to solve . . .

Down-on-her-luck Alice had hoped to retire before turning sixty-five, not struggle to keep her cozy home and dependable job. But even after divorce leaves her golden years a mess, the pieces always come together with a little help from her friends—a fun-loving crew who thrive on jigsaws over coffee, cocktails, and gossip. So, when it’s time to defend close confidant Ruby Milliner, she springs into action. Only, in this case, supporting Ruby means proving she didn’t murder her cheating husband!

Ruby never wanted to kill George, although anger can make a person say questionable—and incriminating—things. And scheming, deceitful George made a lot of people angry. A quick investigation reveals the man was blackmailing whoever he could for a quick payday, from his mistress to the most prominent residents in town . . .

Alice dives into a secret search to exonerate Ruby, fiercely committed to cracking the crime and patching up torn relationships along the way. Despite using her unassuming persona to fly under the radar, slimming down a massive suspect list and restoring peace to West Hazel is a real gamble. Because if successful, Alice will meet a vengeful killer whose game she doesn’t yet know how to play.

Release date: July 23, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

“Good morning.” Alice Pepper yawned as she entered the kitchen and flicked on the pendant light over the oak table. “I can see we’re going to pick up where we left off last night.”

Alice noticed that her friend was still smartly dressed in a black pantsuit with a gold-and-bronze-striped shirt that complemented her brown skin. Probably never made it to bed. Most likely she’d sat here through the night, dozing off and stewing over the betrayal.

And yet, Ruby looked fabulous. Her hair and makeup were impeccable, as always. Her lips were taupe colored with a subtle sheen, and a layer of gold eye shadow highlighted her chocolaty eyes. Even in desperate times, Ruby Milliner maintained her polished appearance.

Alice paused by the table. “Honey, you look fabulous, but I have to ask. Did you get any sleep at all?”

“I won’t rest until he’s breathed his last stinking breath.”

“That’s one way to work through it.”

“This is not a therapeutic exercise, Alice. I’m going to kill him. A slow, painful death, that’s the plan.” Ruby turned a puzzle piece in her hand as she stared blankly toward the mountains. “It’s not like I didn’t warn him. I told him I’d rip him apart if he ever messed around.”

“Coffee first.” Fastening her robe, Alice caught a fuzzy image of herself in the glass of the wide window. Her cap of gray hair sat flat against her skull, and her face seemed to be all angles—long nose, jutting cheekbones, pointed chin. Add a white kerchief to her jaw and a ball and chain to her six-foot-tall frame and she could have played the ghost of Jacob Marley.

Not that any woman looked her best on a few hours of sleep. Not her fault.

Last night Alice had planned for some solid sleep. Today was her meeting with the mayor, an important chance to plead her case. She’d been winding down around ten p.m. when Ruby had arrived in crisis mode.

Alice yawned. She was running on a half-empty tank, which was not a good look for a woman who was no longer on the sunny side of sixty. “No one should be up this early.”

“I never went to sleep,” Ruby muttered. That explained why her shiny black locks fell over her shoulders and curled gently at the ends. Or wait, was that a wig? With Ruby, she was rarely sure, unless she was sporting an elaborate hairstyle of twisted braids or sculpted colored hair. As owner of Ruby’s House of Wigs, she had hundreds of hairpieces at her disposal. Wigs that transformed her from diva to entrepreneur to hippie mama. Alice often envied Ruby for her variable looks.

“He robbed me of a good night’s sleep.” Ruby’s voice was slightly hoarse. Poor thing. “The thief!”

Alice headed to the counter that housed three methods of coffee-making. Coffeepot, Keurig, or Nespresso?

Definitely a Nespresso morning. Fast and strong.

“So what’s the best way to kill someone?” Ruby held up a puzzle piece, as if it held the answer.

Alice let out a weary breath as she filled the water well and started the brewing. “I don’t know. A ghost gun? Poison?”

“I hate guns. And poison won’t work. I’m too good a cook for anyone to believe I poisoned my husband.”

“Debatable,” Alice said under her breath, not wanting to engage. Murder was not the usual topic of conversation when Alice kept company with her friends in the kitchen nook that offered a view of the green Willamette Valley below and whitecapped mountains in the distance. Most days they used the table to assemble puzzles as they sipped coffee or iced tea or something stronger. Most days the gals enjoyed conversations meant to crack each other up.

But this morning, Ruby had only one thing on her mind.

“Although they seem to use poison a lot in mystery novels,” Ruby went on. “Or maybe I should go with something that involves suffering. He should have time to feel remorse.”

“Far be it from me to stop you from killing George. But the plotting will go better with caffeine involved.” Alice placed a steaming mug in front of Ruby. The coffee aroma began to work its magic as the second cup filled and Alice considered her day. Ruby needed her support, but there was no way she could miss this morning’s meeting with Mayor Tansley Grand. The town council had recently voted in a 10 percent cut to city services, and Alice was ready to fight for her library. Well, the library wasn’t actually hers. It was a public library; the most used library facility in the state of Oregon. A wonderful library, and Alice was determined to defend it with her last breath.

When Alice placed a spoon and sugar bowl in front of Ruby, the cell phone sitting there chimed a few times as messages popped onto the screen. “Look at that,” Alice said. “It’s probably George begging you to forgive him.”

Ruby frowned at the screen, then looked back at the puzzle piece in her hand. “Nope. He hasn’t responded since last night. Running scared, because he knows I don’t get mad. I get even.”

Tough talk for a woman who was on the board of West Hazel’s women’s shelter and a founder of the local animal rescue league. Alice took a deep sip of her espresso shot, loving every note of flavor. A second sip helped her realize that Ruby’s was a problem without a quick solution. “Look, honey, I’ve got a few minutes, and then I’ll need to scram for my meeting. But remember all that deep breathing from yoga? Good air in?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

“You just keep focusing on the puzzle. It’ll keep your mind off things. And I’ll be back this afternoon. Promise me you won’t make a move to kill George until I get back.”

Just then Violet breezed into the kitchen for her morning ginger shot. “Who’s killing whom?” she asked. “Oh, Ruby. I thought I heard voices. You’re here early.”

“I’ve been here all night, and I’ll tell you why.” As Ruby explained she’d caught her husband cheating, Violet grew tense, putting up her hands, as if to create a barrier. “I hear you, and I feel your pain. This must be difficult for you, and I’ll discuss your options later. However, in this moment I need to be surrounded by positive energy. Parent-teacher conferences today.”

“Of course. Don’t let me ruin your day.” Ruby picked up her cell, which was still chiming with messages.

Alice shot her sister a disapproving look. “A little empathy, please.”

“My heart is breaking,” Violet said, patting her chest lightly. “But I do have a school to run. So . . . off to work I go.”

It must be nice to let the pain of others roll off so easily, Alice thought as she watched her sister leave through the garage door. Maybe Violet was lucky to be so obtuse. Alice had always been cursed by compassion for lonely hearts. She wanted the folks around her to be happy, damn it.

“What’s with these people?” Ruby scowled at her phone. “I’ve got a bunch of texts from Imani. George’s assistant Nicole keeps asking me to call. And so does my neighbor Tiger. Whom I wouldn’t mind calling. Not the Tiger, but he’s just as hot. What the hell does he want this early in the morning? Everyone wants a call back, and the sun’s barely up.”

“That is strange,” Alice agreed. “Especially Imani.” Imani Jones was Ruby’s assistant at the wig company. “She knows you don’t take calls before ten.”

“Everyone’s crazy this morning.” Ruby planted the phone screen side down on the table and went back to trying puzzle pieces.

“Aren’t you going to call them back?”

“Eventually. For now, they’ll just have to understand that I’m taking a mental health day. An Ugh-my-husband-is-a-rotten-cheating-scoundrel Day. You can call the shots like that when you own the company.”

“You’re right.” Alice took a seat at the table and cupped her warm mug. “Take some time for yourself. And what have we here?” For the first time she glanced at the puzzle, not an image she recognized. “Did you bring this puzzle?” she asked Ruby.

“No. It was already sitting on the table. And it’s a weird one, right? A nice break from all those little white children picking flowers or ice skating in any-white-town, USA.”

Alice chuckled. “Oh, honey. We haven’t done one of those for a while. But this one is quite unusual. Part graffiti, part drawing of a maid sweeping stuff under a carpet. Actually, a carpet of graffiti.”

“I got it for you, Gran,” said a voice behind them. It was Alice’s granddaughter Taylor, a twenty-two-year-old hipster who was currently squatting in the basement. Tall and lithe with long coppery brown hair, Taylor reminded Alice of herself when she was young. Back in the seventies, Alice had marched with her mother in a huge antiwar protest on the streets of Manhattan. Peace, love, and rock ’n’ roll. Simpler times? When you’re freckled and fourteen, you view the world through a simpler lens.

“Do you like it, Gran?” Taylor asked as she crossed to the fridge.

“Well, thank you for the gift, dear.” Alice knew Taylor couldn’t afford it, being behind on her discounted rent. “It’s certainly unusual. Where’d you get it?”

“A thrift shop.” Taylor leaned into the fridge. “It’s a Banksy.”

“Oh, right, that graffiti artist,” said Alice.

Ruby tapped her chin with a shiny lacquered nail. “Never heard of him, but I kinda like it.”

Taylor emerged from the refrigerator with a pie plate half full of quiche. “Is this vegan?”

“It is not,” Alice said.

“Whatev.” Taylor found a fork and started eating.

Ruby squinted down at the nearly assembled puzzle. “Your Banksy is kind of gritty and rough, isn’t he?”

“That’s Banksy’s style. He’s big on messages that have social impact.”

“The message being clean your room?” Alice suggested.

“I think it’s more a statement on the way the Western world tries to sweep important issues under the carpet. Banksy created this piece in 2006 when AIDS was a crisis. I think he was saying that AIDS was everyone’s problem, though much of society tried to ignore it.” Taylor shot Alice a probing look. “You need to catch up on your pop art, Gran.”

“You’re right,” Alice agreed. “I’ll get on it today.” A good librarian stayed current. Always learning.

“Whoa, you guys did this puzzle pretty fast.” Taylor stood over them. “I dropped it here just a few hours ago, when I got home and found Ruby sleeping on the table.”

“I was meditating,” Ruby insisted. Alice wondered what the folks at the senior center would think about Banksy. She suspected Aunt Gildy would be delighted. Alice and her friends often traded puzzles with the senior center. It was a good way for everyone to save money, and it was such a pleasure to deal with Stone Donahue, the manager of the center. Nothing serious, of course, but light encounters with Stone always helped to get the heart pumping faster.

“So if you don’t mind me asking, why were you sleeping on the kitchen table last night?” asked Taylor.

“I offered her one of the guest rooms,” said Alice.

“I was working through some things.” Ruby’s doe eyes focused on Taylor. “My George did me dirty. I came home early from a business trip and caught him having an affair.”

“What?” Taylor gasped and took a seat at the table. “No! Tell me everything.”

As Ruby spun her tale of woe one more time, Alice got up to escape. Taylor was a good listener, and right now Ruby needed to keep venting.

“Will you ever forgive him?” Taylor asked.

“That man has only called me once since I caught him. One call! If that’s all he thinks of me, he doesn’t want forgiveness. He wants some pain, is what I think.”

Alice left them talking about vengeance and slipped off to her suite to shower and dress. That was the beauty of Alice’s house on the summit, or Alice’s Palace, as her ex had dubbed it when she’d held on to it in the divorce settlement. The old craftsman house on Sunset Hill had been extensively renovated to include a handful of en suite bedrooms in the 1990s. The previous owner, some tech prince who’d fled Silicon Valley for more affordable digs, had remodeled the place with a plan to bring his genius staff up to the Portland area and lodge them here. When those plans hadn’t worked out, Alice and Jeff had gotten a good deal on the house.

A good deal that recently had required a second mortgage. Money was tight, but Alice would give up food and water before she’d let this house go.

The dryer fluffed up her hair a bit too much, and now she resembled a fuzzy silver chick. She paused to adjust her light summer jacket over her long black dress. She had chosen the basic black dress with a geometric print jacket to convey just the right combination of professionalism and art appreciation for her meeting. Back in the kitchen she found Taylor and Ruby staring at Ruby’s ringing phone.

“The cops are calling Ruby,” Taylor reported, pointing to the caller ID.

“The police? West Hazel’s finest,” Alice said, proudly thinking of Taylor’s twin, Madison, who was a rookie cop. “Aren’t you going to answer?”

“I can’t talk to anyone right now.” Ruby handed the phone to Taylor. “You answer.”

“I’m good,” Taylor said, backing away.

Alice was losing patience. “Someone answer the phone.”

“Trust me, you don’t want me talking to the cops.” Taylor disappeared back down the basement stairs, leaving Alice to worry about her latest illegal antics. Of Alice’s twin yin-and-yang granddaughters, Taylor had a well-earned reputation as the hellion.

Fortunately, the ringing had stopped, and Ruby placed her phone back on the table. “Go away,” she told the phone as if it were a pesky insect. “If it’s so important, you can leave a message.”

Just then Alice’s cell rang, and she saw that it was a call from Taylor’s twin. “It’s Madison,” she told Ruby. A recent college graduate, Madison was a rookie cop with the West Hazel Police. Alice began the call with: “Honey, I can’t talk—”

“Is Ruby Milliner with you?”

“Yes, she’s here, dear.”

“I figured as much.” Madison sounded a bit cold. “Open your door, Gran.”

“You can come in, honey.”

“I’m here in an official capacity, so I think you need to let me in.”

With a dramatic sigh, Alice ended the call and opened the door to find Madison waiting on the porch in her dark uniform pants, Doc Martens boots, and crisp white shirt with departmental regalia—badges and patches and that cold weapon on the hip. Smart and low-key, this girl knew how to get a job done. Unlike her twin, who couldn’t hold on to a job. “It lifts my spirit to see you looking so smart in your uniform,” Alice told her. “Calm and dedicated. You are exactly what West Hazel needs.”

Madison grimaced as she moved past Alice. “She’s in the kitchen?”

“That’s right.” Alice followed behind, wondering why her granddaughter was so pale and stiff this morning. “Licking her wounds. I’m afraid she caught her husband fooling around with another woman last night.”

The news didn’t seem to penetrate Madison’s tight demeanor. “George?”

“That’s the lily-livered cheat,” Ruby said, lifting her coffee mug. “I was trying to surprise him, seeing as this weekend’s our anniversary. I left my beauty convention in Vegas a day early, thinking he’d be happy to see me. The show was supposed to end Tuesday, but I hopped a flight back to Portland last night, all buttered up for my baby. Turned out the surprise was on me when I walked in on some blond floozy chasing my husband through the house. My man, who was buck naked, by the way, except for some weird Renaissance mask.”

This seemed to stop Madison in her tracks. “This was last night?”

“Indeed, it was.”

“Did you recognize the woman?”

“I couldn’t see her face, on account of the mask she was wearing. Some sparkly thing with feathers and rhinestones. And I can’t be sure, but I think the blond hair was one of my wigs. And she may have been wearing one of my negligees, too!”

Madison absorbed the information with a careful breath. “This explains a few things.”

“Of course, Ruby was so distraught, she came straight here,” Alice explained. “It was late—ten or eleven, I think—and we talked for a while. I insisted she stay the night, though I don’t think she got any sleep.”

“I’m still fired up,” Ruby admitted. “At the moment I’m rounding the corner from sorrow to anger and starting down vengeance avenue. Thinking up ways to kill him. You know the song, “Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lover.”

Alice cocked her head to one side. “Not sure that’s how the song goes.”

“It’s not,” Madison said, “and you’re too late.”

Ruby slipped another puzzle piece into place. “Too late for what?”

“I’m sorry, Ruby, but I’ve been sent to notify you that your husband is dead.”

Alice was equally dubious, but then she noticed the taut strain on Madison’s face. That was not a mask of calm; Madison was trying to suppress her own freak-out.

“Our patrol officers found him on the bedroom floor,” Madison said quietly.

In the loaded pause that followed, Alice and Ruby stared at each other, doubt and dread heavy in the air. The silence was sliced by Ruby’s sorrowful wail.

“Oh, Ruby.” Alice went to her friend and slipped an arm over her shoulders. “Honey. I’m so, so sorry.”

Alice stayed by her friend as Ruby slipped from disbelief—“It couldn’t be him! ”—to shock. “Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!”

And then the questions began. “Are you sure he’s dead? I mean, is he not breathing at all? Maybe it’s not even him!”

“One of the paramedics was able to identify him. Turns out he’s on George’s bowling team. He’s really gone.”

Ruby took a bunch of napkins and pressed them to her face. “How did it happen?”

“He may have fallen off the exercise bike and hit his head, but that’s just one theory. The coroner will do an autopsy, of course.” Madison winced. “I might be telling you too much. I’ve never done this before. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re doing okay,” Alice reassured her. “It’s a terrible situation.”

“Where is he?” Ruby dashed away tears with the balled-up napkins. “I need to see him. Is he still at the house?”

“He should be.” Keeping her gaze trained on Ruby, Madison remained on task but sympathetic. “But I wouldn’t advise going over there. You don’t want to see—”

“I need to go to him!” Ruby was digging through her handbag, tossing aside a tissue pack, lipstick, a leather case for sunglasses. “Where are my keys? I can’t find my keys.”

“Ruby.” Madison touched her arm. “You’re in no shape to drive.”

“Then I’ll walk. I can walk. I’ll run.” Ruby’s house was only a few blocks away, but the image of her shocked, desperate friend rushing through the streets broke Alice’s heart.

“I’ll drive,” Alice said, grabbing her purse. When she turned to shepherd Ruby out, Taylor stood by the stairs, her round-eyed expression of shock revealing that she’d heard, too. “Are you coming with?”

Without a word, Taylor grabbed the tissue box from the desk and followed to the garage.

“This is not a good idea,” Madison called, hurrying after them.

No one answered because everyone understood. Even if it was too late, Ruby had to be there to see for herself the tangible signs of death. Without another word, Madison jumped into the backseat beside her sister.

As Alice started to back the car out of the garage, Ruby dabbed at her eyes with tissues and articulated the gazillion questions in the air. How did George die? A heart attack? A stroke? He wasn’t even sick. Yes, he was on beta-blockers and some kind of blood thinner medicine, but he’d never had any big issues. Had the stress of having his affair discovered proven to be too much for his heart? Or maybe he had died in the saddle with Blondie?

“Let’s not go there yet,” Alice said, turning the last corner onto Ruby’s street. Although the road was passable, it was littered with so many emergency vehicles that Alice had to park a few doors down. Their car inched past police cars, an ambulance, a firetruck, and a dark sedan with a cherry light on top. Ruby’s charming, cedar-shingled, two-story home with its wide, wooden sitting porch seemed to cower under the strain of strange visitors.

“What are all these people doing at my house?” Ruby asked.

“They’re here to process the crime scene and collect the . . . to take George away,” Madison answered.

“A crime scene? What crime?” Ruby railed. “I thought he fell off the damn exercise bike.”

“Just in case something nefarious happened,” Madison said. “I mean, it’s just a precaution.”

Ruby shook her head in disbelief as the other women huddled around her and ushered her toward the house.

A dusty black station wagon with blacked out windows had been backed into the driveway; its rear doors were open. At first Alice wondered what sort of tools the police might store in the dark recesses, and then it dawned on her that the open compartment was for a corpse.

It was the coroner’s wagon. This was real.

Looking quite official in her police uniform, Madison held her hands up to stop them at the front door. “Before you go in, you have to promise to stick near me, and don’t touch anything. This is an active crime scene.”

“I keep hearing about this crime no one can explain, and it’s pissing me off,” Ruby said. “What happened to my George?”

“It’s procedure. Since he appeared to die alone, we need to investigate to make sure he died of natural causes.”

“He died alone!” Ruby sobbed and plucked another tissue from the box in the crook of her arm.

Alice rubbed her friend’s back, wishing she could offer true solace. “Ruby, honey, do you want to wait a few minutes and pull yourself together?”

“Nope.” Ruby shook her head. “Let’s get this over with.”

Madison opened the door of the house Ruby had shared with George Byrd for the past few years and pointed the way. “Just stick with me, please.”

Ruby and Alice pressed toward Taylor, who was closest to the door. But as Taylor stepped over the threshold, she paused, looked up the staircase, and pressed her hands to her cheeks.

“I can’t do it.” Taylor backed out, bumping into Ruby.

“Whoa, girl.” Ruby braced herself against the doorjamb. “You’re about to knock the stuffing out of me.”

Alice placed a hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t go in there. I keep thinking of George. What if his spirit is lingering? Sometimes people linger. Sometimes they’re really pissed.” Taylor shivered in the summer sunlight. “It’s too creepy.”

“It’s just George,” Ruby said. “And from what they’re telling me, if he’s dead and gone, he’s not going to say boo to you now.”

Taylor crossed her arms. “I can’t. I just can’t do it.”

“So stay out here.” Madison led the way inside, muttering under her breath: “It doesn’t always have to be about you.”

“I can’t help how I feel,” Taylor protested.

“Of course, honey,” Alice said, guiding Ruby past Taylor. “You just wait here.”

“Okay,” Taylor said. “But I might wait across the street. Or down the block.”

As if a few yards would be a barrier to a rogue spirit? Alice didn’t understand the mystical world Violet and Taylor inhabited. Too many invisible elements, psychic portals, and porous veils to parallel worlds.

“Believe me, George the ghost would not venture too far from the couch and TV.” Ruby reached back to hand Taylor the tissue box. Then she smoothed the collar of her blouse and set her chin. “Let’s do this.”

“She’s so immature,” Madison muttered under her breath as Alice stepped into the front entryway. . .