Murder Motel
Murder Motel
The Kellys 1
Nic Saint
Puss in Print Publications
Contents
Murder Motel
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
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Excerpt from Murder Retreat (Nora Steel Book 1)
About Nic
Also by Nic Saint
Murder Motel
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The Kellys are not your regular all-American family. Oh, on the surface they might look like your next-door neighbors: Tom Kelly, professor in economics, his wife Dee, art gallery owner, teenagers Maya and Scott, baby boy Jacob, and of course the family’s lovable Goldendoodle Ralph. All perfectly nice people. But for some reason the Kellys can’t stop bumping into dead bodies and getting mixed up in all kinds of murder and mayhem, and is it their fault they’ve got a knack for solving crime? After all, the family that sleuths together, stays together, right?
The Kellys, on their way back from Thanksgiving Break, are caught in the snowstorm to end all snowstorms. This is the big one, and they’re forced to stay the night at a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere. So when Ralph finds the body of a dead man buried under a foot of snow, they’re not that keen to get involved. Especially when the man turns out to be the famous Hot Gangster: the gang member who became a celebrity and a model because of his mugshot.
But with the motel on lockdown, and the police unable to get there because of the blizzard, it’s up to the Kellys to find out who murdered Hot Gangster, knowing full well that the killer is locked in there with them, watching their every move!
Murder Motel is the first book in the brand-new humorous cozy mystery series The Kellys.
Chapter 1
The car was moving along at a snail’s pace. The snow was coming down hard now, and the freeway had become practically impossible to navigate. Tom Kelly was still determined to soldier on, though, in spite of the warnings from his family. He’d promised Dee and the kids he’d get them to Cincinnati safe and sound and he’d be damned if he was going to fail them.
“Honey, you have to pull over,” his wife was saying, repeating the same mantra she’d stuck to for the past ten miles. “It’s not safe to be out in this weather!”
“Yeah, Dad, quit trying to act like you’re Liam Neeson in Taken 4: The Snow Apocalypse,” said his son Scott. At twelve, Scott rarely took his eyes off his iPhone, and the fact that he hadn’t even glimpsed at the thing since this deluge began was a testament to how bad the weather had become.
“Isn’t there a motel where we can stay until the storm blows over?” Maya asked. She was petting the Kellys’ Goldendoodle Ralph, who was howling like a wolf, his nose in the air.
“I think he needs to pee,” said Dee. “And as a matter of fact so do I.”
“We’ll pee when we get there,” said Tom, his face practically plastered to the windshield now, hunched over the wheel and praying he wouldn’t hit something.
“I’m not going to pee when I get there, Tom. I’m going to pee now,” his wife insisted.
It was just a trick to get him to pull over, he knew. They’d stopped less than an hour ago, and he hadn’t seen her drink anything so it was physically impossible for her bladder to be full already. The dog was another matter entirely. If he had to go, he had to go, and if he wasn’t able to keep it in, he’d let it out on the back seat of the car, which, since it was a rental, he didn’t advocate.
“All right, all right, all right,” he grumbled.
At forty-eight Tom Kelly, or Professor Kelly to his economics students back at the University of Washington, looked younger than his years, with his floppy brown hair, square chin and engaging smile. He wasn’t smiling now, though, more like trying to keep it together, his fingers gripping the wheel until they were white at the knuckles and fervently praying the weather gods would show them some much-needed clemency. “What does the weather forecast say?” he asked for the umpteenth time. “Scott?”
“Sorry, Dad,” Scott said. “No reception. Must be the storm.”
Which would explain why his son had suddenly lost interest in his precious phone.
“There!” said Dee, pointing to some to-him-invisible spot in the distance.
“There what?” he asked, struggling to remain calm and poised.
“Don’t you see the sign? There’s a motel up ahead.”
“How far?” asked Maya, nervously shuffling in her seat.
“No idea. Must be close, though, right? Otherwise why put up a sign?”
Tom quickly glanced back to the dog, who was still howling at regular intervals. “Maybe we should stop now? Give him a chance to lift his hind leg against a tree?”
“And freeze his tush off? No way, Dad,” said Maya, who was Ralph’s biggest fan. The feeling was mutual, because Ralph now shoved his wet nose into Maya’s neck, causing her to giggle. “Stop it, you big hairy goofball,” she said, playfully pushing the dog away.
At seventeen, Maya was the spitting image of her mother: willowy, blond and absolutely stunning, with her mother’s striking green, gold-flecked eyes.
“Dad? I got some bad news,” said Scott.
“What is it?” Tom asked. He thought he’d reached his quota of bad news for the day.
“Is it the baby?” asked Dee, panic making her voice squeaky. “Is something wrong with the baby?”
“Jacob’s fine,” said Scott, patting the baby carrier. “Sleeping like a log. Thing is, I gotta pee, too, Dad, and I don’t think I can hold it in until Cincinnati, wherever Cincinnati is.”
“I told you not to drink so much soda,” said his sister. “You’re like a camel when you see a can of soda.”
“I am not,” said Scott indignantly. “I was thirsty.”
“Then drink water. You know soda’s bad for you.”
“I don’t like water. Water’s got no taste. I hate it.”
“Sugar kills your brain cells. And you don’t have that many to begin with.”
“I’ve got plenty of brain cells. I can afford to lose a couple hundred.”
“Yeah, but can you afford to lose a couple million? I don’t think so.”
“Kids, not now,” said Dee. “Your father is trying to get us out of this mess.”
And their father was indeed trying to do just that. Unfortunately the storm and the snow were winning and he and the bright red rental Toyota Highlander was losing.
Just then, a huge sign announcing the presence of the Gateway Lodge Motel loomed up by the side of the road, momentarily visible through a gap in the drifting snow.
Making an executive decision, Tom steered the vehicle onto the off-ramp and in the direction of warmth, comfort and, hopefully, decent sanitary facilities for human and dog.
Others had decided on the same
tack, however, with an actual traffic jam as a consequence.
“Why don’t we just leave the car, Dad?” Scott suggested. “It’s just a rental anyway.”
Maya laughed. “That’s such a dumb thing to say.”
“Who are you calling dumb, bird-face?”
“You can’t just leave a rental car by the side of the road, pea-brain.”
“Kids,” said Dee, trying to inject a parental note of steel into her voice and failing.
“It’s a rental!” Scott said. “You simply call the rental company, tell them you had to dump the car because of force majeure and that’s it. They got LoJack installed on all the cars in their fleet anyway, so all they need to do is look up the car’s location, send a flatbed tow truck and that’s it.” He pointed a finger at his sister. “That’s what you pay insurance for.”
Maya was shaking her head. “You are such a dumbass.”
“No, it’s an actual fact. Look it up. I’m right, aren’t I? Dad?”
Tom, even though he was proud that Scott was aware of the word ‘force majeure,’ felt that he needed to set the record straight. “I’m afraid it’s not, Scott. Rental companies don’t like it when you simply dump their cars by the side of the road. It’s gonna cost us.”
“This isn’t one of your geeky movies, Scott,” said Maya, still laughing.
“Well, I need to pee so I’m getting out,” said Scott, and opened the door.
An icy gust of wind, along with a few shovels of snow, decided otherwise, and he quickly closed the door again, much to his sister’s amusement. He stuck out his tongue.
“Very mature, Scott,” she said. “Maybe we should get you one of Jacob’s diapers.”
Finally, the cars moved on, and quickly Tom managed to reach the motel parking lot. He directed the rental and its long-suffering passengers to the motel entrance, and parked as close as he could. When he finally cut the engine, the Kellys all blew out sighs of relief.
“We’re here,” Tom announced, quite unnecessarily, since by then the others were already climbing out of the car, leaving him the last one to leave the proverbial sinking ship.
Chapter 2
The traffic jam wasn’t confined to the freeway, the off-ramp, or even the parking lot. Inside the Gateway Lodge the situation was the same, with lots of people having had the exact same idea as the Kellys. The receptionist, a vivacious young woman with a blond bob and bright red lips, was working as fast as she could, but she had a pretty big crowd to contend with, and Dee had a sinking feeling it might take ages before their turn came.
Meanwhile, at least, the motel bathroom was available, even though there, too, a line had formed. Leaving Tom in charge of both Ralph’s leash and the baby carrier, Dee hurried off after her son and daughter, who clearly didn’t share her compunction to leave everything to their father.
Then again, when one had to go, one had to go.
She and Maya were next in line, while Scott had already disappeared inside the men’s restroom long before.
“What is it about men that makes them so much faster than us?” asked Dee as she darted nervous glances back at Tom, now cradling the baby in one arm while holding onto the dog’s leash with the other.
“Simple. It’s all down to biology and real estate,” said Maya.
She turned to her daughter. Maya’s long blond tresses were neatly tucked away inside a white knitted cap, and her face was flushed from the cold.
“Biology and real estate?” Dee asked. “What do you mean?”
“Men pee standing up, which means restroom designers can fit a lot more prime real estate into the same square footage as women’s restroom designers, since women need a stall, not a urinal.” She shrugged. “The solution most men would suggest is that women simply agree to pee standing up, using a pee funnel.” She scoffed. “Typical male thinking. Can you see women dragging a pee funnel around in their purse just in case they need it?”
Dee blinked. It was a topic she had never contemplated in depth.
“My solution? Do away with male and female restrooms, create single, big restrooms with only stalls and no urinals and voila! Problem solved.”
“Oh-kay,” said Dee carefully. She was still trying to figure out how they were going to reschedule their flight out of Cincinnati and how much this was going to cost, and pee funnels and bathroom architecture were not at the forefront of her mind right now.
Maya tapped her temple. “See? It takes a woman to think these things through and come up with practical solutions to a practical problem.”
“That’s great, honey,” said Dee. She’d taken out her phone and was trying to figure out if she had cell phone reception or Wi-Fi or both. Cell phone reception? Nope. Wi-Fi. Yes!
By the time it was finally Dee’s turn, Scott was already walking out of the bathroom, whistling a tune. Maybe her daughter was right, Dee thought briefly. Maybe public bathroom designers needed to take a leaf from Maya’s page and do some creative thinking.
But five minutes later she’d finally done her business, washed her hands, splashed some water onto her face, and had forgotten about the whole thing.
She joined her family, and saw that they’d already moved to second in line, the receptionist looking increasingly harried as more and more people poured into the motel.
“So. We need to decide what we’re going to do,” said Dee. “Stay the night or brave the storm.”
“Duh, Mom,” said Scott. “That’s a no-brainer. This storm is going to wipe us out.” He was gesturing at the plate-glass windows to the wintry scene outside. Scott was right. The weather had gotten even worse while they were in there, with snowdrifts up to a foot, and visibility so bad she couldn’t even see the rental, even though it was parked right outside.
“If we stay here we’re going to have to reschedule our flight,” she said.
“No need,” said Tom. He turned to the man waiting in line in front of them. He was an elderly florid-faced rotund man with a friendly smile. He was accompanied by an equally rotund woman of similar age and blessed with the same kindly features.
“Hi there,” said the man. “Jim Grive. And this is my wife Eden.”
“Hi,” said Eden, holding out a hand. “Flights out of Cincinnati are all cancelled due to the storm, I’m afraid.”
“How do you know?” asked Dee, surprised.
Eden pointed to a television mounted near the ceiling behind the reception desk. Even though it was muted, there was a news ticker running along the bottom of the screen, indicating, ‘BLIZZARD WARNING - ALL FLIGHTS OUT OF CINCINNATI AIRPORT CANCELLED.’
“Yeah, that should do it,” said Jim, staring up at the screen. “They’re saying it might take three days for the storm to blow over and the runways to be cleared.”
“What about other airports?” asked Dee.
“Pretty much the same,” said Eden. “Dayton’s closed, too, and so is Lexington. Same with Louisville, Indianapolis or Columbus. Besides, the roads are a bust, too.”
“Yeah, looks like we’re stuck out here in lovely…” Jim frowned. “I don’t even know where the heck we are.”
“Middletown,” said his wife, who was starting to display the qualities of a minor oracle. “Just forty miles from our destination. But at least we’re inside where it’s safe and warm.” She smiled at the baby carrier. “You’ve got a lovely family. How old is the baby?”
“Just eighteen months,” said Dee. She looked at her husband. “So we’re staying?”
“Seems like the only option. Like Eden just said, at least it’s safe and warm.”
Dee had expected groans of annoyance and frustration from Maya and Scott, but they were both surprisingly resigned. One look outside told her why this was: even a twelve-year-old couldn’t blame the incoming blizzard on his parents, grownups in general, or whoever else he usually shifted the blame for anything bad onto.
Looked like they were extending Thanksgiving Break with one final surprise stop in lovely Middletown. Not that they
would see a lot of the small town’s no doubt stunning scenery. At least there was a nice, big Christmas tree set up in a corner of the small lobby of the Gateway Lodge Motel. Its many-colored lights twinkled merrily, trying its absolute darndest to spread some of that festive cheer and joy in these bleak circumstances. It warmed Dee’s heart and suddenly made her feel like everything might just turn out fine after all.
Just then, a howl made them all look down at Ralph, who was looking up at them with his sad brown eyes. Oh, God, Dee thought. They’d totally forgotten about poor Ralph’s bathroom break!
Chapter 3
Scott was in hell. No doubt about it. Stuck in the middle of nowhere. Worse. Stuck with his parents and his sister in the middle of nowhere. Worse! Stuck in some crappy motel with his parents and his sister in the arse end of nowhere, like the Brits liked to say.
Aargh!
Why did they have to land themselves in the snowstorm to end all snowstorms? And why was he the one singled out to take Ralph out for a pee in this horrible weather?
Double aargh!
He stomped his feet, the collar of his winter jacket turned up, while he waited for the family Goldendoodle to do his business in the bushes that lined the motel parking lot.