The Nutcracker Nibbles Christmas Case

By Jeanne Kern

Police Chief Julia Dunnigan tries to crack the toughest case of her career—and the closed heart of Lieutenant Phil Riley, who has resented that she walked in from another state and took the job he wanted.

• Language: Unknown
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781509237081

Jeanne Kern

Biography Jeanne Kern is a retired high school teacher who found her second- time-around and this time HEA when she met her husband on the internet. They love traveling the world together in their retirement and especially animal encounters, including walking with lions in Tanzania, patting a gray whale in the Baja, and feeding bananas to a rhino in Java. Rich runs an award-winning volleyball website, and Jeanne enjoys acting, on stage and in indie horror movies.

Book preview

The secretary called us in. Immediately, she said. There was no weapon to be found. So. A locked room death. Suicide the obvious solution, but there is no gun. Everyone has a witness to his or her whereabouts prior to the discovery of the body. And they all remained in the living room until we arrived. Or so they all say, she added, nodding at Officer Sykes. So. Where’s the gun?

She threw her arms up in temporary surrender. I don’t know about you, but my head hurts. It can’t be suicide because—no weapon. It can’t be murder because—locked room. So somebody or everybody knows something he’s not telling."

It’s always the wife. Like I said. Riley glared around the room, demanding confirmation.

Thank you, Lieutenant Riley. But we do have to have some proof.

The

Nutcracker Nibbles

Christmas Case

by

Jeanne Kern

Christmas Cookies

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

The Nutcracker Nibbles Christmas Case

COPYRIGHT © 2021 by Jeanne Kern

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Edition, 2021

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-3708-1

Christmas Cookies

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

to John Dickson Carr,

the king of the locked room mystery

Chief Julia Dunnigan and her team stared glumly at the murder board. Seven DMV photographs hung from pins, faces staring blankly into space. In the Victim space, the studio-created book jacket portrait of the deceased, Walt Sheridan, beamed benevolently down.

Walt Sheridan—everyone’s Grandpa. The beloved author of a family saga. Each new book an instant best-seller. Television series for years. And the world knew Walt Sheridan himself as the model for the family patriarch everyone wished were his own grandpa.

Now dead.

Dead in a locked room with no weapon.

It shoulda been a simple suicide, a bass voice muttered. Nobody looked to see who spoke. Nobody had to. Lieutenant Phil Riley was gruff, grumpy, and usually gloomy.

Yet there was something about him. Julia had felt it her first day on the job six months ago. He was far from handsome, but her one unhappy marriage had taught her that looks didn’t matter. Commitment. Staying the distance. The stability of age. That was important. And Phil Riley had obviously stayed the distance. Twenty-six years