Tj Jensen Cozy Mystery Boxed Set 2: Books 6-10

by Kathi Daley

  “You know I’m excited to see you, but we have events at the resort going on all weekend. I’ll ask Bookman if he can pick you up.”

  “I can call him,” Kyle offered. “I know you have a lot on your plate right now.”

  “Okay, thanks. That would help. I have a meeting at the resort. I’ll call you back when I’m done and we can discuss the files. I really would like to get this wrapped up before Dad wakes up and realizes what’s going on. I want to be able to tell him that the person responsible for landing him in the hospital and killing one of his best friends is behind bars.”

  Chapter 5

  By the time I arrived at the resort, Grandpa was up from his nap and Rosalie had set up a meeting with Noah. She’d spoken to Grandpa and they’d decided that it would be best to discuss the situation with Noah and then let him meet with the department managers himself. I hadn’t gotten the chance to get to know Noah very well yet, but he seemed smart and capable, and Rosalie was confident he’d be able to carry out whatever decisions we made.

  “The resort has been advertising holiday events every day beginning with July first and running through the fourth,” Rosalie informed me. “The kickoff for the long weekend is the BBQ cook-off scheduled for tomorrow during the day, followed by a bands-on-the-beach concert in the evening. I feel we’re locked into both of them. The contestants for the cook-off are all lined up, as are the judges, with the exception of your father, who planned to serve in that capacity. I spoke to Noah earlier this morning and he didn’t see any problem with holding that event as planned. The bands we have scheduled are likewise ready and willing to perform.”

  “We do this same thing every year,” Grandpa confirmed. “I’m sure Noah and the managers can take care of the details in Mike’s absence.”

  “The only thing we’ll need to do for tomorrow, then, is to replace him as a judge for the cook-off and announcer for the bands,” Rosalie commented.

  I glanced at Grandpa. “How about it? You acted as judge for the cook-off for a lot of years.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do it. Let’s get Noah to announce the bands, though.”

  I looked at Rosalie. “What else did Dad have planned?”

  “There are various events and competitions for the visitors to participate in on Sunday, including a beach volleyball tournament, a sandcastle-building contest, and a sailboat race. Monday is focused on the finals for the bikini contest at the resort, and, of course, Tuesday is the fourth, with the parade, community picnic, kiddie carnival, and fireworks show in town.”

  “It all sounds doable to me.” I glanced at Grandpa. “Any input?”

  Grandpa shook his head. “No. I’ll pitch in where needed. The weekend is important to the resort. I wouldn’t want to let Mike down.”

  “Doc and Kyle will be home tomorrow and I know they’ll help, and Bookman and Jenna are always willing to pitch in if we need them.”

  “It’ll be good to have everyone home,” Rosalie said.

  I paused briefly and then changed the subject. “I haven’t thought to ask you about the veterinary hospital.” Rosalie had moved her practice out to the resort after she and Dad got engaged so she didn’t need to travel far should she have patients to attend to. Still, she was probably busy at this time of year and I doubted she had time to fill in at the resort. “Have you managed to cover everything? Is there anything we can do to help?”

  Rosalie looked pleased that I’d asked. “I’ve asked one of my old interns to come to Paradise Lake to help out for a few weeks. I’ll need to be on hand during the shot clinics and on call should there be any emergencies requiring surgery, but most of the day-to-day routine is being seen to.”

  “That’s good. What you do is important; I don’t want to see your patients suffer.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  Noah showed up just as Grandpa, Rosalie, and I had made our decisions, and Grandpa took the lead, filling him in on what we’d decided.

  “Let’s discuss the files one at a time,” I suggested later that afternoon as we sat in Roy’s kitchen. We had Kyle on speaker on Roy’s phone so I could have my phone free if Hunter needed to get ahold of me.

  “I found three files I believe deserve our attention,” Kyle informed us. “Most of the papers you sent were old and the corresponding notes were dated as well. While it’s possible one of the older trials is behind Judge Harper’s accident, I doubt it. These three seem to correspond to investigations currently being conducted by either the judge himself or local law enforcement.”

  “Okay, what do you have?” I asked.

  I could hear papers rustling in the background before Kyle answered. “The first is something the judge seemed to be investigating himself; it isn’t part of a current investigation by the sheriff’s office. It involves a forty-seven-year-old man named Steven Reinhold, who was accused of killing his wife, Jennifer, eight years ago. After a lengthy trial, the jury convicted Reinhold of first-degree murder, even though the evidence was mostly circumstantial. Judge Harper presided over the trial, and at the time he believed the man was guilty, but two months ago he met a woman named Clarissa Halloran. She lived in the same neighborhood as the Reinholds did, and she encouraged him to take another look at the case.”

  “Do we know why he agreed to do it?”

  “She felt that Steven had been set up. While she didn’t have proof of this assertion, she did make a compelling enough argument to cause Judge Harper to reconsider his previous opinion. There are a lot of notes to go through and I haven’t had the chance to really analyze things, but I think the case is worth our looking into. If Judge Harper had changed his mind and realized Reinhold was innocent, he might also have formed an opinion of who might have been the real murderer.”

  “Do the notes include any suspects?” I asked.

  “There are a lot of names and, like I said, I haven’t had a chance to follow up on any of them yet, but it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility that one of them might have also been guilty of killing a man who’d started to nose around. I’ll organize the list and we can start to narrow down the suspect field a bit when I get home.”

  “That sounds like we have two murders to solve,” I pointed out. “Judge Harper’s and Mrs. Reinhold’s.”

  Kyle paused and then answered, “I suppose that might be true if, after looking into things further, we come to believe Steven Reinhold really is innocent of killing his wife, as his neighbor believes.”

  “I have the contact information for the woman who approached Judge Harper in the first place,” Roy said. “I’ll see if I can meet with her and get some additional information. If nothing else, it’ll give us a starting point.”

  “Sounds good,” Kyle responded.

  I took out my list and added “Jennifer Reinhold’s killer, should Steven be innocent,” beneath Striker Bristow and Fred Deerborn in my notebook. “Okay. Who else do you have?” I asked Kyle.

  I heard Kyle setting one file aside and accessing another. “A thirty-two-year-old woman named Connie Blake who was accused of three bank robberies that occurred at various places around the lake five years ago. Judge Harper was sure she did it, but the prosecution was unable to come up with compelling enough evidence, so the jury acquitted her. There weren’t any additional bank robberies after the trial until four months ago when two banks—one in Indulgence and one in Serenity—were robbed. The MO was similar and Harper suspected Connie was up to her old tricks.”

  I glanced at Roy. “Can you get your hands on the current incident reports?”

  “Yeah, I can get them. I was the one to investigate the bank robbery in Serenity. The Serenity Community Bank was hit just prior to closing. At the time of the robbery there was only one teller on duty, along with the bank manager who was in his office. A single individual dressed in black jeans, a black hooded sweatshirt, and dark sunglasses entered the bank and handed
the teller a note demanding that she empty her cash drawer. The teller cooperated and the thief got away with just over three thousand dollars.”

  “I take it he or she was never caught?”

  “That’s correct. The bank manager was on the phone at the time and unaware of what had occurred until after the whole thing was over.”

  “Isn’t there usually a security guard in the bank?”

  “He’d left early, claiming he was feeling sick to his stomach. The robbery at the bank in Indulgence was similar, and we’re operating under the assumption that the same person robbed both banks.”

  “Did the bank robber pull a gun at any point?” I asked.

  “No. It was actually all very quiet. In fact, the bank robber never even spoke, just handed the note to the teller, who turned over the cash in the drawer.”

  “I wonder why the robber didn’t try for more money,” I mused.

  “He or she probably wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible,” Kyle speculated.

  “If Connie was guilty, and Judge Harper was looking into it, she would have a motive to want him out of the way,” I commented.

  Roy agreed, so I wrote her name in my notebook. “You said there were three cases that stood out?”

  “The third has to do with domestic abuse and was heard in family court, not by Judge Harper, but he made notes on it, so I decided to point it out. Two years ago Brad Turnball was convicted of beating his girlfriend’s four-year-old son, Tommy. He was sentenced to serve time in the state prison and was recently released due to good behavior and overcrowding. Just a month ago, Tommy showed up at school with a broken arm. His teacher didn’t buy his story of falling off his bike because he had bruises inconsistent with a fall and reported it to Child Protective Services. Someone from CPS went out to the house and found the boy’s mother had renewed her relationship with Turnball. After reviewing the previous case, Turnball was arrested and is in county lockup awaiting trial.”

  I hated cases in which children were victims and wanted Turnball put away for good this time, but I couldn’t see how he could have killed Judge Harper if he was in jail. I interrupted Kyle to say as much.

  “It seems Turnball is claiming he’s innocent. In fact, he told the arresting officer he was innocent the first time too. He claims it was the boy’s mother, Gloria White, who was beating Tommy and he was just the fall guy. On the surface, it seems Turnball is lying. There were no reports of the child being bruised or other evidence of beating while Turnball was in prison, yet as soon as he got out the bruises reappeared.”

  “It seems obvious the boyfriend is the bad guy,” I agreed.

  “But Judge Harper wasn’t convinced. He was actively looking into some old medical reports he’d found concerning the same woman and another child eight years ago.”

  “What happened to the other child?” I hated to even ask.

  “He was reported missing eleven months before Tommy was born. He was never found and is presumed dead.”

  I was horrified and had no idea how to respond.

  “Did the judge think the mother killed the boy reported missing?” Roy asked.

  “He suspected as much.”

  “Why haven’t I heard of that case?” Roy asked.

  “Ms. White lived in another state at the time her first son went missing. She currently lives in Indulgence, so the case wouldn’t necessarily be on your radar.”

  I hated everything about this case, but it seemed Judge Harper could have been on to something, so I added Gloria White’s name below Connie Blake’s and the others’.

  “We now have five viable suspects who all appear to have motives for wanting Judge Harper out of the way,” I commented. “What should we do next?”

  “Track them down, check their whereabouts on the night of the judge’s death, and eliminate them one at a time,” Roy said. “I’ll get started on it right away. Hopefully at the very least I’ll have the list whittled down to two or three possibilities by tomorrow.”

  “There’s one other angle I think we should look at,” Kyle said. “I realize Judge Harper has been retired for quite a while, but during his years on the bench he was responsible for sending a lot of people to prison. It occurred to me that at least a percentage of those individuals could hold a grudge. I think it might be worth our while to see if any of the convicts Harper sentenced have been released recently.”

  I glanced at Roy. “You suggested that as well when we spoke earlier.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look into the possibility that an ex-con has resurfaced, but I’ll see what I can find out,” Roy answered. “It seems someone with a grudge would act quickly, so I’ll see if I can get a list of everyone released from prison in the past couple of months.”

  “It looks like we have a couple of avenues to investigate.” I closed my notebook.

  “I’ve been thinking about Kate,” Roy said, referring to his new partner.

  “What about her?” I asked.

  “I’m going to have to keep her in the loop in terms of this investigation. She’ll eventually catch on if I don’t. I was thinking about introducing her to the two of you. I don’t necessarily need to tell her that we’re working together right away, but I think it would be a good idea to at least have you meet her.”

  “I’ll be home by midday tomorrow,” Kyle offered. “Maybe we can have dinner. Somewhere casual like Rob’s?”

  “Rob’s sounds good to me,” Roy agreed.

  “That would be all right,” I agreed, “but we have the concert on the beach tomorrow night, and I may need to be at the resort to help out. I’ll call to let you know once I get a feel for how things are going to play out. If nothing else, maybe you can invite her to the resort.”

  “Sounds even better. We’ll chat tomorrow.”

  Chapter 6

  “Thank you so much for all your help with the girls,” I said to Jenna later that evening as we shared a glass of wine at our favorite bar. “It was a good idea to have them stay at your house for a few days. I was stressed; they were stressed; it was a recipe for disaster.”

  “I was happy to help. Besides, Kristi and Kari have been miserable since you left for Gull Island. Having everyone back together in the same town again just feels right.”

  “Well, almost everyone is back,” I countered. “Once Kyle and Doc and the animals get home tomorrow it really will feel like things are falling into place. If my dad wakes up, that is. If he doesn’t…”

  Jenna placed her hand over mine. “He’s going to make it.”

  I tried to smile. “I know.”

  “Tell me about Kyle and the amazing kiss you didn’t want to talk about before.”

  I felt the heaviness in my heart lighten a bit. “It was pretty amazing. Although…” I frowned.

  “Although?” Jenna prompted.

  I looked across the table at my best friend. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I have to admit I find myself wondering if he felt the same way I did.”

  “Of course he did. He adores you. He has for a long time. I’m sure the kiss was as meaningful for him as it was for you.”

  “Maybe. Kyle and I have been friends for a long time. In that instant when we kissed on Sanctuary Island it felt like we had turned the corner and become something more. The kiss was one of the most magical moments of my life, but we never had the chance to talk about what, if anything, it meant.”

  “I agree the timing was unfortunate. If your dad hadn’t been in the accident and you hadn’t needed to run home, your relationship could have progressed normally. And having to leave things up in the air could leave you both feeling awkward when Kyle gets home.” Jenna looked me directly in the eye. “But it doesn’t have to stay that way unless you let it. Do you love Kyle?”

  “I think so. I mean, yes, of course I love Kyle, but I haven’t had the time to process e
verything, to decide whether I’m in love with him. In that moment, under the waterfall, as our hearts and lips met for the first time, I felt sure. But now…”

  “You’re overthinking things. You tend to do that when it comes to matters of the heart. Love isn’t something you have to dissect and analyze. It’s something that just is.”

  I sat back on my stool and looked away for a moment before returning Jenna’s gaze. “Have you ever wondered what might have happened if you hadn’t married Dennis? I mean, you did start dating in junior high.”

  “Never. I loved Dennis the minute I met him and I’ve loved him every minute since. Sure, we argue at times, and life can be stressful. But no matter what life brings our way, I know Dennis is the other half of my soul. He isn’t only someone I am attracted to and grateful for, but someone I know I couldn’t live without.” Jenna took my hand in hers. “Look, Tj, you’re my best friend and I love you. You’re a brave, giving person who I admire and trust with my life. But somewhere along the way you got the idea in your mind that love is something born and fostered. It’s not. If you really want to find love—the real kind that’s hard and messy, but also beautiful and life sustaining—you’re going to have to learn to open your heart and let it in.”

  “But what if Kyle is regretting the kiss? What if he isn’t in love with me?”

  “He gave up his life and followed you across the country. Trust me, he’s in love with you. The question is, are you in love with him?”

  I glanced down at my hand entwined with Jenna’s. Even when I’d been dating Hunter again, Kyle had been the one I’d run to when I really needed someone. He’d been there for me every minute of every day since I met him. He was not only a trusted friend but a true partner. But love? I thought about how my heart had raced when he’d kissed me. I remembered the feeling of homecoming I’d felt in his arms.

  I knew if I didn’t want to risk what I had with Kyle, I needed to figure out what this all meant sooner rather than later.