This is an excerpt from a murder mystery that I have been developing over the last year. I anticipate that it will be ready for full publication in the spring of 2026. Let me know what you think!

That confounded musical hammering from above had started up again. Dottie sat directly below it in front of her own keyboard and fumed.

In truth, she hadn’t had any intention that day to actually play the piano; she had positioned herself on the bench so she could have a clear view out the window to the courtyard below. She didn’t need the soap operas on TV for her daily entertainment. From here she amused herself with the real life dramas starring a cast made up of her very own neighbors from the Bluffs. She could see that the Cartwrights had a new nanny. This must be the seventh so far since their child was born. Honestly, she thought. Can’t people take care of their own darn babies? She hated thinking about babies. Avoiding the topic had helped her come to terms with her own circumstances. But, she reasoned that if she and Ronald hadn’t been infertile – they never did discover which of the two of them was the cause  – she would have taken proper responsibility for the raising of her little one.

Some boys were racing around the paved pathways on their bikes, terrorizing a bunch of girls attempting to jump rope and causing them periodically to scatter, screaming. More raucous noise emanated from the playground in the farthest corner of the Bluffs property. She couldn’t tell if it was from playfulness or argument. Upbringing to blame, she thought. No manners, no respect, no safety. Her children, should she have had any, would never have behaved like that.

The drama from below had just begun to get intriguing, as she could see both Mrs. King and Mrs. Kelly heading toward the pool with their beach bags and high-heeled sandals, each trying to look like age fifty wasn’t  just around the corner. Dottie had seen Mrs. King with Mr. Kelly a few times and was certain that those encounters were not entirely innocent. But as soon as the two women crossed paths and began to have angry words with each other, the musical racket from above had begun, distracting her and derailing today’s installment of Peyton Place à la Horseshoe Bluffs.

It took her no more than a minute of this interruption to march over to her closet and arm herself for battle. Less carefully than usual – so swift and violent was her anger on this day – she mounted the bench with the broom and, teetering on the edge while yelling from her depths, struck the ceiling five times with such force that she almost knocked herself off.

And then miraculously, the playing stopped. Stunned at the effectiveness of her attack, she stood there in a daze for several long moments. Then, hearing a noise, she looked down and caught her breath in horror.

“What are you doing in here?”

These were Dottie’s last spoken words as she was brought down to the floor with a force she could not counter. And it was here that Ronald Newhouse found her when he came home hours later, her eyes wide open, her mouth agape, and three piano wires round her neck.