Death At Sequoia Woods

By Judy Earl and Robert Miller

Some people move to rural areas like the Gold Rush towns found in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada Mountains to have a more serene life. That stated goal changes for Ken Bastion and Elena Purillo when Anthony Hughes, a popular bartender at Sequoia Woods Country Club, is found dead. They team up to help solve the murder. Ken, a retired, single, San Francisco television news anchor, spends his days writing his memoirs and nights drinking beer at the country club. Dissatisfied with his life, he sees solving the murder as a way out of his depressing existence. Elena, a woman in a long, lifeless marriage, had an affair with Anthony and fell in love with him. She feels that finding the murderer would bring closure to her relationship with Anthony and jump-start the rebuilding of her marriage. The chapters alternate between Ken's and Elena's points of view. They eliminate the eight suspects through interviews and discussions. As part of the process, they eat lumpia and drink lots of local wine and beer. Finally, they reveal to the clueless rookie detective in charge of the case, the one person who had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Miller
• Release date: Sep 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005713171

Judy Earl

I grew up in a small farm town in the Salinas Valley of California and moved to San Jose at thirteen. After I graduated from high school, I attended UC Davis, then UC Berkeley where I received my bachelor’s degree in Social Welfare. Nine years later I earned a master’s degree in Social Work and worked as a social worker for 30 years. Much of my career was spent working with children and families. After retirement, I became a piano teacher and still practice this profession.I have almost finished writing my memoirs, but Murder at Sequoia Woods is my first published book. One of my hobbies is skiing and this book is set near one of my favorite resorts.Currently I live in Los Gatos, California with my husband, and my three cats.

Book preview

Death at Sequoia Woods

A Ken and Elena Mystery

Judy Earl and Robert Miller

Copyright 2020 Judith Earl and Robert Miller

All rights reserved

License Notes: This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors.

The Sequoia Woods Country Club is a beautiful place that serves the local community. It's a center for weddings, parties, golf, and live music. All the characters and situations in this story are completely fictional and products of our imagination. Any person or event at the country club that resembles items in the book is totally coincidental. Also, the towns and restaurants included in the book are real places. They're all located on California Highway 49 or Highway 4 that goes to Bear Valley, a cross country and Alpine ski resort. The recipes have been tested and they're delicious.

Table of Contents

Calaveras County

Chapter 1—Ken

Chapter 2—Elena

Chapter 3 -Ken

Chapter 4—Elena

Chapter 5 -Ken

Chapter 6—Elena

Chapter 7 -Ken

Chapter 8—Elena

Chapter 9 -Ken

Chapter 10—Elena

Chapter 11 -Ken

Chapter 12—Elena

Chapter 13 -Ken

Chapter 14—Elena

Chapter 15 -Ken

Elena and Ken's Favorite Recipes

Rick Podowski and The Hefty Trio

Mellow Out—Lessons Learned From Household Cats (preview)

About the Authors

Dear Reader,

Many people dream of escaping their problems by moving somewhere else. It's a tropical island for some people, and for others it’s a place full of adventure like Alaska. In Death at Sequoia Woods, the characters live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California where they are surrounded by thousands-of-years old trees, beautiful meadows, hiking trails, a golf course, and streams for fishing. Their new home is close to the Bear Valley Ski resort that offers downhill and cross-country skiing and snowboarding.

Indeed, their new home should be a paradise where everyone is happy and life is fulfilling, but the residents have brought their big city problems with them. Many drink too much, engage in petty fights, and some have extra-marital affairs. But they have brought bigger problems with them too. On a cold Monday morning in February, the barback at the Sequoia Woods Country Club found one of the bartenders lying face up behind the bar. He had been poisoned.

Ken, a retired television journalist, and Elena, a retired school nurse, have their own personal reasons to find the murderer, and they decide to work together to solve the case. The story is told in alternating chapters from Ken's point of view and then from Elena's. Many of the seven deadly sins are evident as the investigation of the murder progresses.

In addition to the mystery of who killed the philandering and dishonest bartender, we have included four of Elena and Ken's favorite recipes and the chapter titled Love is Overrated from Mellow Out—Lessons Learned From Household Cats.

Happy reading!

Judy Earl and Robert Miller

September 2020

Calaveras County

This novel takes place in four of the small gold rush towns in Calaveras County, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from San Jose or San Francisco. On January 24, 1848, gold was found at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, fifty miles from Sacramento. This discovery started the California Gold Rush and brought approximately 300,000 people to the state. Towns were created in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to provide services to the miners. Many of these towns are still in existence.

Arnold is located in the Stanislaus National Forest, the home of the giant sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Augustus P. Doud discovered a grove of these giants in the spring of 1852. The most massive tree he saw was the Discovery Tree, which is 280 feet tall, 25 feet in diameter at its base, and over 1,200 years old. In the 1860s Arnold was involved in the logging industry and there was a sawmill in the town that finally closed in 1962. The town was named for Bernice and Bob Arnold, who arrived in 1927 to build the Ebbetts Pass Inn and Restaurant. It was completed in 1939. Currently the town has only 3,843 residents, and almost half of the dwellings are vacation homes.

Angels Camp was made famous by Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. The town was founded by Henry Angell, a shopkeeper from Rhode Island, who started a trading post in 1848. At the height of the gold rush there were as many as 4,000 miners working the claims in Angels Camp. The area is also famous for its caverns. About 3,386 people live in this town.

Murphys was founded by John and Daniel Murphy, who were part of the first immigrant party to bring wagons across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Sutter's Fort in 1844. They were merchants, but when gold was discovered, they became prospectors and started several camps, the final one being where Murphys is located today. John made nearly two million dollars from gold by the end of 1849. He left the area and never returned. Today Murphys is known for its two dozen wineries, and tourists come from all over to visit the tasting rooms. The town has 2,213 residents.

San Andreas, named for St. Andrew, is the county seat for Calaveras County. Mexican gold miners settled here and by 1850 over 1,000 tents covered the hillsides. Black Bart, a famous highway robber, was tried in the courthouse. The place has a modern feel and contains the government offices, the courthouse, and a jail but the downtown remains historic. There are caverns nearby. Approximately 2,115 people reside in the town.

Chapter 1 — Ken

As I walked up the hill from my cabin, I noticed several police cars parked in front of the Sequoia Woods Country Club and a gathering crowd on the road near the main door. I hoped this was just an over-reaction to a break-in. God forbid one of my friends had a heart attack or a stroke. I waved to several people I knew in the crowd as I approached the uniformed officer at the door, a more efficient way to get to the bottom of what was going on than asking bystanders, a habit from my old life, I guess.

I'm sorry, sir. The club is closed, the slightly chubby young female deputy with the Calaveras Sheriff's Department stationed at the door told me. Her nametag said Deputy Terry, and for a brief moment I wondered if that was her first or last name.

Are you telling me I won't be able to order the breakfast special? I asked, trying to be humorous. I used to banter like this with the cops I ran into at crime scenes before I retired, a tendency that struck me now as being more than a little cynical. But after years of reporting on crime in San Francisco, maybe slightly macabre humor was also a defense mechanism.

This is a crime scene, sir. Deputy Terry's tone told me my joke had missed its mark. A murder scene.

Nobody gets murdered in the boonies. That's why I retired here.

Tell that to Anthony Hughes, the bartender. The deputy remained stone-faced. Just as soon as the coroner finishes his work, we will start interviewing all of the residents.

I don't understand, I said as the shock and then the gravity of the situation sunk in. Just last night I was talking and joking with Anthony at the bar.

Anthony Hughes had been a fixture here for the past year. All of the regulars knew him and liked him. As soon as he saw me coming through the door, he started to pour a beer. He knew what everyone wanted.

Step back, sir. We will interview you shortly, the deputy replied as she held the door open for a man in a suit. The guy didn't have a medical bag, and so I assumed he was a detective.

I thought about my job as a San Francisco TV news reporter and all of the crimes, including murders, that landed in our department. I'd reported on many of these homicides. I stroked my gray beard as I reminisced about some of my most famous scoops. There was the serial killer roaming the streets of San Francisco back in '68. Then there was the guy who shot the mayor and a gay politician a decade later because he wanted his job back. I also reported on a guy who mailed bombs to people because he wanted to protest in the name of ecology. This was different. I knew Anthony, and I liked him. Plus, I saw him almost every night at the country club bar.

The Sequoia Woods Country Club, a sprawling three-story wooden building is unobtrusive because of its location among the cedar pines and the white fir trees. It is built on a hill and the first floor contains the pro shop and the facilities to store and repair the golf carts. The second floor has a bar, a restaurant, a banquet room, and a deck that is an ideal music venue, all facing the first fairway. The banquet rooms are located on the third floor.

I joined the crowd that had gathered this frigid Monday morning on this trafficless pock-marked road. The only other human-made structures are cabins scattered around the area. Of course, there is the beautiful 18-hole golf course directly behind the clubhouse, and a parking lot across the road. But it's February, and the golf course is closed because of all the snow on the ground, and most people here are skiers at this time of year. The tourists come for the weekend and the only people left are those who own cabins in the area.

Since the slopes at Bear Valley don’t open until nine on weekdays, many of the regulars were on hand—news travels fast in this small community. As I joined the others, Deputy Terry walked over to the group and started to take names and phone numbers. The Purillos, a retired couple, were there. Evan a tall, dark-haired man in his late sixties was stoic, but Elena, a good looking, slender blonde woman of sixty-five who still turned heads, was in tears. Ralph Burrows, the barback who seldom showed emotion, was weeping. Jerry Borelli, a nightly patron of the bar, was in the crowd. Teresa Sonrisa, Anthony's thirty-something Latina fiancée, was also in tears.

The deputy announced that the detective would call each person when he was ready to do an interview. She then retreated to the country club bar.

How did he die? I said out of force of habit and not really addressing anyone in particular. Who found the body?

I found the body, Ralph said, his voice shaking ever so slightly. I came at 6:15 to unload our weekly order of food and vegetables from Stockton. After the truck driver and I finished, I drove to Arnold to get a coffee and a bagel and returned about 7:20. Anthony and I were supposed to meet at 7:30 to do our weekly cleaning of the bar area and replace the items sold over the weekend. The door was open, and so I figured Anthony was already here. When I walked in, I saw Anthony's body lying face up on the floor behind the bar. Next to it was his water bottle filled with orange juice and tequila.

It was common knowledge that his daily ritual included filling his water bottle with orange juice from the club's refrigerator and adding some top-shelf tequila. Then he was ready to go to work. I heard sobs coming from Teresa as Ralph spoke. The group looked numb and confused.

Did he have a heart attack? Elena asked after a few minutes. Were there signs of a struggle?

I don't think it was a heart attack, Ralph said. I heard a cop say he noticed the smell of almonds and that it might indicate cyanide.

That smell could mean he was poisoned, I replied. However, that smell could be other things too, like, well, almonds. Bars frequently have them, after all. Besides, why would anyone want to poison Anthony?